Vienna UN event was a fascinating lesson of the International Drug Policy real politics and an understanding of the dynamics of power of the "war on Drugs", our relative strength (or weakness) and current positions among NGO’s and world’s governments on drug issues.

First I wish to thank our Austrian friends who helped organise the demonstration (small but important), and the Press conference, to the Rototom folks who helped with the music truck, the Italian delegation who showed up in force and to all those who helped in the event.

I was very afraid of the results of the endeavor of organizing side events and the demonstration but it was not at all a bad experience. We will probably make a workshop in Italy on how not to organize a mass event but as a matter of fact nobody died and the italian delegation seems to be starting to work on reasonable things....

We had people from different realities and the planned events of Cannapisa and Million Marijuana March on one side and the Rototom Process could force prohibition on the bank of the accused ones in the course of may finishing with the trial on Filippo Giunta because of the intriguing relationship reggae as crime ( induction to drug use)

Well, to sum up my feelings, I think that globally the "legalisation front have gained in power of credibility" as the very old receipes are too big too be taken seriously.

Officially no one dare to say it, but the Global Commission on Drug Policy report has made its effect, and the current dynamic in South and Central America give more power to the trend for reform at country or regional levels.

Like Drug Reporter (see link below) analysed it : after 100 years of US worldwide leadership, now the new imperialistic antidrug kingpin is Russia (remember that in 1961 at the shape of nuclear crisis US and USSR were totally friends with French and other to implement the current non-scientific drug narcotics schedule).

Then I went to a session on the “Rights of the Child to Be Protected from Illicit Drugs”. This meeting strongly resembled a session at last year’s CND which was held only among the NGOs. I wrote about this in a mail about two weeks ago, that the ‘drugfree people’ believe that the Convention on the Rights of Children, CRC, can be their decisive tool to prevent legalisation, and to force the UN to keep strictly to a world without drugs. They already had some success in that because the word drugfree was used approvingly by a few speakers. I tried to spoil that by saying (again) that children had so easy access to drugs because of the existence of a huge black market, which is created by prohibition, and they came back at me with remarks such as: ‘Children get their first cigarettes and alcohol from parents and friends, so legalization clearly does not stop children from using.’ I think this line of argument will not serve our drugfree opponents much, except in that they may be successful in other demands connected to young people. For instance, higher punishments for parents who use in the presence of their children.

With the slogan ’Drug Peace Festival’ the critics of current drug policies based on three UN Conventions will unite during the forthcoming annual meeting of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs.