(Note: Main points only slightly edited. Direct speech given in quotes. pd)

CANNABIS: 500.000 CONSUMERS

Experts consider prosecution 'senseless Sisyphus Labour'

Vienna - The Vienna stadium holds 60,000 people. If you filled it four
times over, you would have the number of those who have tried cannabis in
Vienna. "To pupnish 15% of the population is a seseless, Sisyphus task for
police and the justice department," said the Vienna drug policy
coordinator, Peter Hacker; "Such consumption should not lead to prosecution
under the drug laws. "That is the policy that we have followed since the
neginning of the 90s."

When Vienna was confronted with a growing heroin scene, due to the booming
market in drugs from east Europe, they had to make crucial changes in their
drug policy, he said.

In the fight against the hard drug trade, therapy and preventive measures
were given precedence over prosecution. Since then, the number of drug
related mortalities continues to fall. This year is only half last year's
figure.

"When it is known that prosecution does not follow immediately and
automatically, the people come forward more freely and it's easier to get
them into therapy," opined Hacker. "In so far as Cannabis is concerned," he
said, "we have pursued a reasonable, practical policy. All we lack now is
the legal basis for it."

According to reports, 500,000 Vienna residents regularly consume cannabis.
21% of young people have tried it.

Increasingly, such figures and facts are giving rise to discussions which
Josef Ackerl hopes will lead to a Europe wide leagalisation of cannabis.

DER STANDARD 1998

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski