On the European Front

On leave for a couple of months from the American drug wars, visiting the drug policy, research and treatment networks in Great Britain, France, The Netherlands and Germany. Often I was hot on the heels of delegations of the US Drug Enforcement Agency and Willam Bennett's crew who are waging an aggressive campaign to persuade NATO partners to shift their priorities from the war against communism to the war against drugs. And with some success too. Mitterrand in France and Kohl in West Germany have both made public statements supporting the US position. In Italy, Craxi has put together a tough drug law mandating strict penalties for possession for even minute quantities of drugs for personal use a marked shift in Italian policy which heretofore exempted personal use from prosecution. But it is the British political leadership that has jumped into the US camp with the greatest zeal despite the fact that this approach contradicts most of current British practice on drugs and AIDS, e.g., the ACMD reports and their wide