Budapest resigns from ECAD

After 15 years of wasting money on a prohibitionist network, city leaders realized it is time to resign

Read more here: http://drogriporter.hu/en/ecadbpEN

The municipal government of Budapest admitted that it has been paying thousands of Euros every year since 1998 as a membership fee for a Stockholm-based prohibitionist organization, the European Cities Against Drugs (ECAD) – reported the Hungarian online newsportal, [origo]. Andrea Szolnoki, the head of the Health and Social Policy Committee of Budapest said the membership fee was raised by ECAD to 10.000 Euros this year, so they decided to submit a proposal to the City Council to resign from the network. She said the membership did not prove useful for the city, the only gain of the membership was to receive a monthly newsletters and the possibility to attend ECAD’s conferences. However, the representatives of the municipality had to cover their own tavel and accommodation costs at these events. Budapest became a member of ECAD in 1994 and it paid 5000 Pounds for the membership in 1998 and 8000 Euros in 2005. To the question of why the city leaders did not resign earlier if the membership was so useless, she said “they did not realize it” before. The City Council will soon vote about the proposal to resign the membership.


Peter Sarosi
Drug Policy Program Director
Hungarian Civil Liberties Union
Tel.: +36 1 279 2236
www.drugreporter.net