– Nothing has been decided yet. The Labor Party’s national meeting has a historic opportunity to join the most important social policy reform in modern history, says Guri Melby to Dagbladet.
The Liberal leader is now moving out and begging the Labor Party national assembly to support the government’s drug reform.
There will also be no drug reform without decriminalization, the government parties have made clear.
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Melby: – Unique chance
According to Dagbladet’s sources, the supporters of the drug reform in the Labor Party are now faced with the choice between “going down with the flag at the top” in a match vote or signing up to a compromise that has no decriminalization.
The Liberal Party’s big victory in government thus seems to be coming to an end.
– In the red-green government, the Labor Party, the Socialist People’s Party and the Socialist People’s Party abused the opportunity to improve Norwegian drug policy. They put the good recommendations from the Thorvald Stoltenberg committee in a drawer. I ask the Labor Party not to choose wrong again. We now have a unique chance with the current political situation in the Storting to get through a reform that will help people who are struggling. I fear that a possible government with the Center Party will go in the opposite direction, says Melby.
If the Labor Party does not form a majority for a drug reform this spring, it may be a long time before the next opportunity. The Center Party is strongly opposed to a softening of drug policy and will have a lot of power in a possible new majority over the next four years.
– Where’s Støre?
Jonas Gahr Støre has so far not flagged views in the case and refused today to go out with his views before the national meeting which begins on Thursday.
– Labor can now show that they work for “ordinary people”, and that it is not just empty phrases and rhetoric. If Jonas Gahr Støre supports this reform, he should make it clear by leading the way. Where is Støre? Melby asks.
It is unusual for party leaders to get involved in ongoing internal processes in other parties, but Melby makes an exception when it comes to drug policy precisely because it can be a historic opportunity that breaks.
The Liberal Party had the victory “in the box” as long as the Progress Party was in government and was bound by the Granavolden platform. But when the FRP left government, the whole reform was at stake.
In turn, the Center Party and the Green Party said no to the reform and everything now depends on the Labor Party. SV supports the reform, but is not large enough to form a majority with the governing parties.
No drug agreement in the Labor Party
– Just feel sad
Left-wing profile Carl-Erik Grimstad in the health and care committee in the Storting believes that the Labor Party is not recognizable if they say no to the reform.
– I know the Labor Party as a party that in all social policy reforms has been on the right side of history. That series they are now in the process of smoking. They have taken too lightly the enormous support the reform has from those who need it most: Youth and the drug addicts who sit at the very bottom of the table, says Grimstad, and continues:
– I just feel sad about the way the Labor Party is now turning its back on the young generation. It is completely inconceivable to me that a party with that history and the proud tradition from Thorvald and Ninni Stoltenberg can turn its back on this. I am terribly sorry on behalf of those who have now for two years rejoiced that there were prospects for a climate change in drug policy.
Several in the Labor Party talk about finding “a third way” in drug policy where they say no to the current penal regime and the government’s decriminalization. The goal is to help the heaviest users, but retain the possibility of punishment for younger users of illegal drugs.
The governing parties believe that there is no legal way to discriminate in this way.
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