 Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends, Madam President, Mr. Minister, Excellencies. First of all, I'm very happy to be here in Vilnius in Lithuania again. I tell you, I visited this country many times, I participated in many events, but frankly speaking, such an energetic event here in Vilnius is fantastic and I'm very glad that finally I'm not only on the political events but in such social events what I appreciate very much and I'm happy to be with you and to discuss the most, the very important questions of human service and policies for people who use drugs. I'm very pleased that this conference is taking place in our region, it means Central and Eastern Europe, a region shaped by our recent history of transition from the previous democratic political system to democratic institutions and processes. Lithuania, like Poland, was one of the first countries in this region to introduce needle and syringe exchange and substitution programs. We also live in the doorstep of countries in which the HIV epidemic continues to be a dramatic problem among injecting drugs users, especially I'm speaking about Russia and Ukraine. It is fair to say that accomplishments in this region in addressing drug-related HIV are less consistent than in other European countries. But it is important to highlight some progress. Poland is in the process of scaling up substitution treatment in prisons. Moldova was one of the first European countries to introduce needle exchange in the penitentiary system. Drug users in Ukraine are benefitting from AIDS medication. The Czech Republic now makes medical cannabis available. All this, yes please, if you want to applaud us, this decision is absolutely correct. All this may be too few. We all need to work to make sure that evidence-based interventions available in the West, such as supervised injecting facilities, are available across this part of Europe as well, along with the criminalization of personal possession of drugs. I tell you, Kasia in her very moving speech mentioned that because of some very personal experiences, she understood that she has capacity to change. I would like to tell you that even the president has sometimes capacity to change. And I tell you a very personal story. As some of you may know during my presidency, with the advice of various groups, including drug treatment providers and parents, I signed a law to criminalize personal possession of drugs. A decade later, I know that it was a mistake. We assumed that giving the criminal justice system the power to arrest, prosecute and jail people caught with any amount of drugs would improve the effectiveness of the police in bringing to justice persons responsible for supplying illicit drugs. We also expected that the possibility of being put behind bars would deter people from abusing illegal drugs. In effect, drug users became invisible in Poland. We removed them from the Central Railway Station, which used to be a drug scene, into places that are difficult to reach with harm reduction and emergency services. And we engaged the resources of the Polish criminal justice system to arrest a lot of people, the vast majority of whom were not drug dealers, but rather people having small amounts of drugs for personal use. According to the Polish Institute for Public Affairs, the number of arrests for drug possession rose from 3,000 in the year 2000 to 30,000, I repeat 30,000 in the year 2008. More than a half of these arrests were of people aged 24 and younger. I worry about these people who are beginning their life and career path with a criminal record, especially now when unemployment for young people is such a huge problem in Europe. To make matters more complicated, we know now in Poland that our punitive law did nothing to deter people from using drugs, although we spent huge amounts of money on arresting and prosecuting young people code with small amount of marijuana. Poland is now one of the leaders in drug consumption Europe in recognition of that. Poland has made small steps towards reforming our drug policy, and we will do more, in my view, the criminalization is the way to proceed. Thank you. Indeed, at about the time I signed the law criminalizing drug possession in Poland, on the other end of Europe, Portugal, went in the opposite direction and decriminalized possession of all drugs, moving such offenses from the hands of law enforcement into the domain of public health services where they belong. Since then, Portugal has served as a powerful example of now national drug policy can work to everyone's benefit. People who use drugs receive the support they need and the police can keep their attention off major crimes. I decided to join the Global Commission of Drug Policy and proudly hosted its meeting in Warsaw in the fall of the last year after having an opportunity to review this data on arrest for personal possession. And I believe that making such evidence-based arguments is important to engage others in this discussion. I understand that many of you are researchers. I want you to know that your efforts to provide rigorous evidence for this debate are very valuable. The kind of evidence that many of you generate or collect has helped pursued me and the need to new policies and I know it is convincing other leaders too. Some European countries have gone quite far in basing their drug policies and programs on hard evidence from the health and social sciences. I salute my colleague attending this conference, former Swiss President Ruth Grafus, who led her country at the time when HIV was a visible and enormous threat. Switzerland was one of the first countries in the world to bring important harm reduction measures to scale and to study the impact of them at each step. At very turn, scientific evidence helped to convince government officials and all levels about the entire Swiss population of the importance of measures such as supervised injection facilities and carefully regulated perception of heroin for people who weren't able to succeed in other kinds of treatment. Switzerland quickly brought drug-related HIV under control though these measures. In this region, we may be especially inspired, in our region, we can be especially inspired by the experience of the Czech Republic. The Czech authorities were able to completely avert an AIDS epidemic among people who inject drugs by making harm reduction services available from a very early time. The Czech government also invested in a careful study of the impact of criminalization of minor drug offenses and they concluded that the best policy was to stick with the law that would encourage the police to focus their efforts on major drug trafficking, not on minor infractions. We might also look to an example right across the Baltic Sea, from where we are now, in the city of Copenhagen, Denmark. There is a pragmatic way to see the authorities are taking a page from the Swiss experience and investing in heroin maintenance service and supervised injection facilities to address the needs of people who inject drugs. In this period, when fiscal austerity is a constant pressure for political leaders, we also have to think about whether policies are cost-effective. It is doubtful that the resources spent on policing and prosecuting minor drug offenses are good investments. Now may be a perfect moment to rethink those expenditures. At the same time, it is crucially important that the austerity measures do not become an excuse not to invest in harm reduction services or evidence-based drug treatment which have proven themselves to be both effective and cost-effective. Dear friends, today at the time of economic crisis, social disparities and increasingly visible and the idea of solidarity is especially important now. A quarter of a century ago, the principle of solidarity and human rights changed this region. They should continue to be our inspiration as we think about drug use and drug users today. Dear friends, allow me to say some words in Russian also because I see that a lot of participants are from Russian-speaking countries and I think it is very important that you take part in such a conference. And I know perfectly well how it is difficult for you to do it. What efforts do you need and what reactions can you meet? But I would like to tell you that you can be proud of your activities because what has changed, thanks to you in recent years, and I think that if together with the international community, together with various international organizations, including those who are engaged in the organization of our public conference today, you will continue your efforts, I will say even more, it is not only efforts, it is, as the Lithuanian Minister said, a struggle. You will continue your struggle, it will be successful, it will help people, it will help your people, it will help your country, it will also help create values, humanity, human rights, tolerance and everything that will create the best future for you, your families, your friends, your people, your country and all of us in the world. I wish you this and I think that you have already done a lot for this, but you still need to strive, and we as an international community support you completely, not only in your work, but in your struggle. All the best.