Minutes of the 2011 General Assembly

Toulcuv Dur, Prague, Czech Republic- June 24th, 25th and 26th, 2011.

Several changes took place in 2010. While we continued to organize public and lobby events in support of an open debate on drug policies at UN and EU level, the projects on national and thematic level (such as the Cannabis Social Club “Trekt uw Plant” in Belgium and the Society for Abolition of Cannabis Prohibition in the Netherlands) played an increasing role in Encod’s activities.

Herewith we ask all Encod members who wish to be involved in the steering of the organisation to present their candidature for the new Steering Committee before 15 June.

We should try to break the argument that the opponent is using at the moment. UNODC is using the health argument a lot, but prohibition is actually harming more then curing. Criminal negligence is what UN is doing, they know policies are not working and are aware of collateral damage and still they promote them. Prohibition violates the rights of society as well. Arguments that refer to economics can be used to support that. Also objective arguments would convince a larger part of society and get more sympathizers to the cause.

1. Drug prohibition should be recognized as a violation of human rights. Drug use entails real health risks. These risks are of a nature that requires a "soft paternalistic" legal regulatory approach. Prohibition is an unjust and unnecessarily hard approach, which leaves drug regulation to the mobs.

2. The international drug conventions never had any scientific basis. Their central assumption is that prohibition will significantly diminish drug use and the trade in "controlled" substances.