Drugs and Human Rights

I would like to thank you for the privilege and honor of speaking to you today. Most of all, I thank God for this opportunity. I speak out of experience today.

As a teenager, I couldn’t stand the temptation of the narcotic store, the so-called coffee shop, around the corner of my Amsterdam high school. Soon enough, I got involved in drug trafficking and distribution. As a righteous result of these criminal activities, I spent a couple of years in a foreign prison. I saw death and destruction there. The danger of drugs became real to me as I saw what happened in the lives of other inmates. Many were seeking help, but none was available. Then and there, a deep concern for these people whose lives were destroyed started to grow. They needed the help that Victory Outreach could provide.

I represent those nameless faces that are entangled in the daily battle and grip of drug addiction and devastation of their very lives. Because of that concern and burden, my husband and I are in the city of Rotterdam, The Netherlands, but it could be any city where this pain exists. It is in there where we reach out to the drug addicts and their families and to a society that feels the devastating affects of crime and drug use. As a result of this concern, our efforts are beginning to see results, not only in our city, but it is happening in many other cities as well.

The organization we are part of has established over 500 similar sites throughout the world. In the short time of our existence during the past 30 years, we have seen tens of thousands of former drug addicts. And by the way, I include myself and husband as evidence of what a solution to the epidemic that exists in the inner cities of our world.

We believe that there is hope for all drug addicts. We must stop the proliferation of drugs, but we must also provide hope for drug addicts and their families.

The Stockholm Resolution suggests five measures that could work -- not could work, but do work! They are already working. For it is exactly many of those proposed measures that Victory Outreach has successfully employed for the past 30 years.

· Strengthening the role of the family in resisting drugs;

· Preventive programs in schools, colleges and workplaces;

· Developing methods leading to earlier detection and taking constructive measures;

· Rehabilitating advanced addicts; and,

· Supporting research and evaluation.

These as well as other dynamics are at work within people’s lives bringing a positive hope and possibility not only for the drug addict and their families, but for those of us who work, live and raise our own families in the city where we live and serve. We realize that not one organization has the capability to wage this war alone. As President Clinton stated in his address to the 20^th Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly:

“We all share the responsibility to take up the battle. Therefore, we will stand as one against this threat to our security and future.”

In our Mission statement we, Victory Outreach, work cooperatively with others of mutual purpose in accomplishing the task before us: a drug-free world. We must all recognize as President Clinton stated that, “This is ultimately a struggle for human freedom”. Therefore, every experiment to provide free drugs for addicts is a violation of human rights, a shame for Europe and an absolute atrocity of social legislation.

As President Jacques Chirac states in his address to the 20^th Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly,

“The language they need to hear is not only that of crime prevention; they need to hear the language of human attention. They need to be shepherded, guided, accepted. They need to find a way to change their lives, enter society, forge new social and emotional ties.”

As declared by the Ministers of Justice and Health of the European Union,

“Drug addicts are rather ill people in need of an appropriate treatment.”

Well then, is it right to treat people with the very substance that made them fall ill? Addicts are human persons just like everybody else. Because they use drugs doesn’t mean that they are criminals. They are trapped in their drug abuse unable to be freed, unless helped not with drugs as a temporary solution, but completely freed from drugs, a final solution to their addiction.

History has proven that the free provision of drugs does not work. Other European countries which experimented with free drugs on medical prescription had these same results: rapid increase of violence and criminal activity, addicts and their families losing hope to ever be free and the increase in drug abuse among young people!

Europe is standing for crucial decisions. Therefore I’d like to ask you to take a firm stand against the demands for legalization and false reduction theories.

Because of our shared concern for the hurting and neglected people of the inner cities of this world, the health of our communities, the stability of our societies and the future of our young people, we cannot allow ourselves to get distracted by sideline discussions. Strong leadership and clear direction is needed most at this very moment.

Victory Outreach works and has been working in agreement with the Stockholm Resolution even before this resolution existed. The principles laid down and the measures suggested in it have proven themselves over the past 30 years. Therefore, the direction is clear: strong leadership means giving of oneself wholeheartedly to bringing into practice this Resolution and giving full support to every organization that works according to these principles and measures. Together we can meet this challenge: A drug-free Europe -- A drug-free World.

Mrs. X. Mendeszoon

Victory Outreach Rotterdam

Postbus 25079

3000 CN Rotterdam, Netherlands

Phone +31 10 466 5905

Fax +31 10 243 9249

E-mail Victory.Outreach.Rotterdam@wxs.nl