 The protests outside were great because it focused attention on the real people. I don't think a lot of the delegates inside have thought about the people that are involved in the words that they're throwing around. And to see people with an alternative point of view and to see messages that weren't the messages they were hearing on the inside was really positive and powerful. One of the most disappointing things at this event or this conference meeting is hearing the stupidity and ignorance of some of these people that are speaking for the civilians in their countries. They don't know what they're talking about. The event that reunites us these two days as well as next week is of double historic significance to all of those involved in the fight against illicit drugs. In particular, the group is deeply concerned about the continuous increase in the consumption of illicit drugs and the deviation for illicit uses of psychotropic substances. We must renew our political commitment to the global fight against drugs. In this historical gathering, let us all remember that if we do not respond jointly and consistently to the drug problem, the drug problem will end up knocking at everybody's door. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Madam, for your statement. The next speaker on my list is... The diplomats are out of touch. They have no contact with people who use drugs, with people in recovery and their families. They are more interested in putting forward their country's statement, which often has no bearing on reality where people are ill and need support. We are searching for government delegates to ask them, what do they think about the meeting? Can I have a few questions? No, no, no. Can I have a question? A few questions? No, I have no time. Excuse me. Okay. I'm not sure whether I have time. Thank you. But the only one is I'm not sure who is allowed to give any kind of a question. Thank you. Good luck. Sir, excuse me. No? We have a few questions for you. How do you consider the past 10 years of the global drug control system? Well, I should say that it has some very good plus points. It has, may not be 100% achievement, but at least 60% achievement. We are on the good track? Definitely, yes. We are on the good track. But thank you very much. Thank you. Have a nice conference. The fact that harm reduction is missing from this conference, it's very frustrating because it's the main progress made these last 10 years. Do people know about this conference in Cyprus? No, not especially. Media writes about it? We read about it. I think over time the change in the administration in the US and the change in direction is going to make a big difference for UN policies. I think, unfortunately, that the timing of this meeting was wrong. If it had been in a year or even six or eight months, it would have had a different result than what we have now. The US delegation has been friendly to US NGOs. This is quite a change from the past eight years. When the review of the UNGAS process, the UNGAS 98 process, began to be discussed back in 2006, 2005, 2006, the EU decided that it wanted a proper evaluation before we would accept a new declaration in 2008, 2009. Insofar as the evidence and the data suggests things have changed, but things haven't really improved very much since 1998. Is there any evidence that policy can make a difference? And here we concluded that there's very little to suggest that tougher enforcement can reduce drug use. And the way that's supposed to happen is primarily that you make drugs more expensive and less available, and there's simply no evidence, indeed quite to the contrary, drug prices in the West have generally been declining, declining quite sharply. Prevention is a fine idea, and some day no doubt we will work out how to do it, but that's some time off. It's clear that many programs that are being implemented in schools are fundamentally flawed and they're badly implemented, and so prevention doesn't seem to play a major role in drugs at the moment. The one program area where there's sort of evidence that it makes a difference is treatment. But it's important to notice what treatment does. Treatment can reduce the amount that drug users use, it doesn't cut down on the number of drug users. The only way to seriously affect the supply and demand for drugs is to raise the conditions that people are living in, to give people, to remove poverty, to empower people in society, to give people a purpose in their lives. Those are all things that will help people find a different relationship with drug taking. We also have to ask is it really an objective to stop human beings taking mind-altering substances? Just down the corridor we have a special room set aside for delegates that allows them to smoke cigarettes in a room that protects the rest of the conference from the harms associated with smoking. So already this conference is recognising the need for harm reduction in its own behaviour. What we need to work towards is helping them understand that we should all be applying those policies all around the world. So yeah, we need to move forward. The goals, the targets, the aspirations from the old political declaration have been repeated and there had been months of negotiation saying we need to be more honest. We haven't met these targets and in fact we've ignored the fact that drug use and drug harm is increasing in developing countries. So you can't talk about containment, you can't say we've been successful. And so to repeat those targets and those aspirations is foolish. Any government and any authority likes to claim success for its policies and it is difficult, I know from my experience, to openly acknowledge failure. Your political enemies will always make capital out of it. So this was such a clear situation that the 10-year objectives had not been met. Any statesman-like organisation would be expected to acknowledge this clearly and review the range of strategies available to respond. What the CND did primarily is tried to pretend there was some success when there was none to report and tried to say that if we carry on doing the same things then further successes around the corner. This is not responsible policy-making in my view. The final declaration is like the emperor's new clothes, it's an illusion. We say within 10 years we will eradicate drug-taking. We are really on the way to sorting out the drug problems. In reality the drug problems get worse, they affect more people, they do more harm. Maybe the vision should be more along the lines of peace. You couched what we've done for drugs in terms of a war, a war against criminals, a war against plants, a war against people, a war against people who use drugs, maybe we should think in terms of the peace vision.