§ 1. The first meeting of experts from the Six countries of the Common Market and the United Kingdom dealing with drug addiction, was held in Paris at the Ministry of the Interior on Thursday, 4th November.
45W§ 2. This meeting flowed from the appeal launched last August by the President of the French Republic to the five heads of Government of the Common Market and to the Prime Minister of Great Britain, who immediately showed their lively desire to undertake joint action against drugs.
§ 3. The object of this meeting was, therefore, to examine practical methods for combating both drug addiction and the international narcotics traffic.
§ 4. Belgium, the Federal German Republic, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom were represented at this meeting by senior civil servants and experts drawn from the different government departments which collaborate in each country in the antidrug campaign: public health, education, interior, justice, foreign affairs, youth and sport, finance.
§ 5. The meeting began with introductory explanations by French experts about the different aspects of action undertaken in France against the spread of drug addiction and towards the repression of the national and international drug traffic.
§ 6. There was then a wide exchange of views in which the representatives of all the countries attending the meeting took part. The experts reached a common agreement to submit to their respective governments proposals working in a positive manner towards co-operation by the seven countries in the fight against drug addiction and drug trafficking. Among these proposals figures the setting up of four technical committees corresponding to each of the main fields of action: health, education and information, the repression of drug traffic, and the harmonisation of legislation.
§ 7. A detailed time-table was also drawn up. It envisages that the four committees should hold their first meeting before the end of the year in Paris, and another in the course of January, 1972. Their initial conclusions will then be examined at the beginning of February next at a plenary meeting of the seven countries, to which an observer from the European Communities Commission will be invited.
§ 8. If this work programme is agreed by the Governments concerned, proposals for common action could be submitted in March, 1972 to the competent Ministers of the seven countries who have agreed to unite their efforts to fight more effectively the social scurge of drugs.