“The only way to fight drug trafficking and its disastrous consequences on the economy and security“of Amsterdam”it is the sale of cocaine and ecstasy in pharmacies or through a medical-health channel”. This is the shock proposal that comes from the mayor of Amsterdam, Femke Halsema.
During an interview the first citizen, 57 years old, in office since 2018, framed the problem of the fight against drug trafficking which sees Amsterdam and the Netherlands as international crossroads, complaining about the lack of a “more pragmatic or economic and not just a moralist” on drugs.
“I think some drugs are dangerous and I also think it is wise to reduce their use. But I also note – he specified – that the way we do it doesn't help. We need to think about better ways to regulate them“.
Pharmacies: “Dutch mayor's idea is original but wrong”
“The mayor of Amsterdam's proposal” on the sale of drugs in pharmacies “is at least original but above all wrong”. This is what he tells Adnkronos Salute Roberto Tobia, secretary of national Federfarma. “And not everything that comes from Europe is correct. Pharmacies do other things, for example with therapeutic cannabis they deal with pain therapies to alleviate the suffering of patients with very serious pathologies.”
“There are around a hundred pharmacies capable of processing therapeutic cannabis for pain therapy – explains Tobia -. But in recent years the regulations for distribution have changed. In 2017 the businesses dealing with this sector were able to administer therapeutic cannabis through the reimbursement system with the NHS. In 2018 the legislation changed and only some therapeutic indications were chosen, from Multiple Sclerosis to spinal cord injuries, however – warns Tobia – relating to the availability of the subject before. Every year the request is around 2,900 kilos, the military chemical plant in Florence also takes care of the import, just to return to the topic – he continues – every year there remains a 'gap' between that that arrives and the requests, which we managed to comply with thanks to the authorization of the Ministry of Health which turned to other countries such as Canada, are not enough.”
The XXIII National Relief Day is celebrated on May 26th, pharmacies “are actively participating and are ready to do our part, to provide support to fill this gap and collaborate – concludes Tobia – in helping patients who need therapeutic cannabis “.
Gatti: “Enough ads, but the approach must be changed”
“Today we have rules relating to the use of drugs that were passed in times past, in a world different from the current one” comments Riccardo Gatti, medical specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapist, to Adnkronos Salute. “Countries find themselves with measures that perhaps don't even achieve the effect they wanted to achieve at the beginning, so they try in some way – some more, some less – to change them. But my feeling is that they often remain on an abstract level I hear statements made that could be good for a talk or for a social network.”
In the case of the proposal of the mayor of Amsterdam “I imagine there is a precise thought behind it, but it is clear that it is difficult to interpret from a media summary. Am I sceptical? Yes, because at the moment this does not yet appear to be a concrete proposal, but a statement of principle”, comments Riccardo Gatti, medical specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapist, to Adnkronos Salute.
The expert, who has been working for years on the topic of psychoactive substances, addictions and the dynamics that lead to consumption, currently coordinates the technical table on addictions of the Lombardy Region. And he analyzes the current situation in a quick tour of the world: “In the USA some states have legalized cannabis, others have not. In Canada someone has decriminalized everything, then perhaps now they are going back a bit. Germany is trying a very cautious path of legalizing cannabis, Spain had done something similar. In Holland the possession of small quantities of cannabis is tolerated, but the fact that it is tolerated does not mean that it is legal, even if they are doing experiments. In short, everyone is wondering: Is what we have done so far good for the objectives we want to achieve or not. The first problem is obviously what the objectives are: they range from fighting organized crime to protecting people who use substances, but perhaps it is not easy to achieve everything at the same time. “, he reasons.
Even on this latest proposal that has come under the spotlight, Gatti continues, “I would get down to the concrete, because then we have to decide with which rules a principle is realized. Can I go into the pharmacy and buy a kilo of cocaine? Who will be able to do it? The doctors, with everything they have to do, should they even start giving cocaine? And, again: is it something that is intended for therapeutic purposes?”. The mayor of Amsterdam talks about fighting drug trafficking and safety. “I – reflects the Italian expert – believe that the geopolitical scenarios have changed in recent years. The question of drugs has also changed: new substances and new substances, including synthetic ones, will always arrive. The position of saying that we make them available can be quite impossible. It would therefore be necessary for technicians and politicians, in the most secular way possible, by declaring the objectives they want to achieve, to try to think about the rules that exist now and in the citizens' interest to see what kind of changes are feasible make statements of principle that seem conclusive, but are not”.
Following Halsema's statements, Gatti's reasoning continues, “we are talking about a medical health channel. But the health sector makes us think of a cure, of a therapeutic path. At the limit we can arrive at a reasoning of harm reduction – observes Gatti – I therefore wonder”, in the context of the proposal in question, “what doctors have to do with it. And I also wonder, in part, what the pharmacist would do. If the objective is to put criminal organizations in difficulty, this must be carefully evaluated. Because I doubt that narcos will stop being narcos because cocaine is sold in pharmacies. Maybe they start doing something else, putting something else on the market. So the matter is more complex than you might imagine.”
Always wanting to think about a concrete implementation of the proposal, Gatti imagines: “I'm a doctor, one of my patients comes to me and tells me: I consume a certain amount of coke every day. What do I do? I tell him that it's fine, but to be careful, and does it end there? What should my role as a healthcare professional be?”. Different, for Gatti, “is the experimentation that is being done in Switzerland, with the controlled distribution of heroin: in a situation in which people cannot be treated in any other way, we try to reduce the damage a little. The therapists' sense is to try to bring the situation towards greater stability, but the method chosen by Switzerland can be applied for a small number of people, it is certainly not the fight against organized crime”.
“I – insists the expert – am a little tired, not so much of the fact that there are opposing positions on the drug problem which range from strongly prohibitionist to strongly pro-legalisation. From the point of view of an operator who has dealt with his whole life of people who have problems with drugs, I'm tired of seeing statements that are put in a 'glamorous' way and few concrete proposals that discuss how to then implement what is proposed. The most concrete things that I have seen have actually at most concerned cannabis, in some states and in a different way, or on the other side of very limited experiments. I would really like – he concludes – if even in our country we were able to get around a table to think, while keeping in mind that this is a problem. a discussion that needs to be done at least at a European level. I would like us to think about taking away for a moment the preclusions, the ideals, and talking about what the objectives are, how we pursue them and what we do consequently in the interests of the citizens. I still don't see this.”
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