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It so happened that the annual meeting of the cities of the Elide network of local authorities for an innovative policy on drugs, held in Milan last Friday, took place just after the announcement of the next government conference on addictions by Undersecretary Alfredo Mantovano. The chances that an ideological kermesse under the banner of the war on drugs will take place in Rome on November 7-8 are not low: much will depend on how much Palazzo Chigi really wants to involve the world of operators, researchers and associations, as well as local administrations. There are no signs that he wants to do so, while everything suggests that he will try to “scientifically” ennoble the conclusion that the undersecretary himself had already reached in the preface to the report to Parliament in 2024: “the denunciation of the failure of renunciatory policies, which can be summarized in the formula of harm reduction”.
Mantovano’s thought is exactly the opposite of that of the local authorities of the Elide network, convinced instead that harm reduction is an initiative policy that is aimed both at protecting the health of people who use drugs, and at rationally managing the critical issues represented by the open scenes of consumption in cities, respecting the rights of all and avoiding stigmatization. The starting condition is to consider the use of legal and illegal substances a complex social phenomenon that should not be reduced to illness or deviance, but should be governed socially with pragmatism and a strong anchoring to the constitutional value of the dignity of the person.
The Milanese meeting, intense and well attended, served to reflect on models of “urban security” that limit repressive action, which often leads exclusively to the dispersion of drug dealing and consumption scenes, preferring a democratic and integrated protagonism of all the actors involved – health and social workers, local police, people who use drugs – with the necessary participation of the most active and aware citizens. The administrations must be able to be the impetus and coordination of everything that in the “difficult” neighborhoods can be put at the service of experiments in coexistence and mediation, in the name of a “right to the city” that must not exclude anyone, valorizing that street work that aims to guarantee access to services by the most marginalized population.
Among the actions that would have great potential for effectiveness there would be the implementation of Safe Consumption Rooms, a consolidated reality outside our borders but that the existing regulatory limits still block in our country, despite the Drug Consumption Rooms being included by European organizations among the most important harm reduction interventions. For this reason, the challenge is to demonstrate that it can be done even with current legislation: a task that the Technical-Scientific Committee on the Rooms of Consumption, established at last year’s Elide meeting in Naples, is undertaking, which illustrated the progress of its careful research.
On June 26, the cities of Elide will once again make their voices heard in a coordinated manner, together with all the social and third sector entities that accompany them, from the CNCA to the Forum Droghe, from the CGIL to Itardd, from ItanPud to the groups that operate in the various territories. In the meantime, the profile of the government conference will have been defined and, consequently, the role that administrations and civil society will have. Either within the official conference, or in an alternative conference where all the intelligences that do not want to continue on the failed prohibitionist and repressive path will be called together.
The final statement of the Elide Network on fuoriluogo.it
