Welcome and thank you for coming to this 11th Remembrance Ceremony for those who lose their lives to illicit drugs. Welcome parents, family members, friends and other community members who have come to support. I am Brian McConnell, President of Families and Friends for Drug Law Reform.

Today we will be addressed by:

·        Tony Trimingham

·        Senator Lynne Allison

·        Bishop Pat Power

Welcome also to:

·        our musicians Canberra Union Voices

Opening address

I would like to start by reading a message from friends from the Association of parents and Friends for Accepting Drug Treatment from Germany:

   Association of Parents and Friends for Accepting Drug Treatment,  Wuppertal, 14.10.2006

To our Australian Friends   
“Families and Friends for Drug Law Reform”

Dear Mothers, Fathers, Brothers and Sisters and Friends

Today our thoughts are with you in distant Australia! We are remembering with you the victims of a continuing repressive drug policy. If it has been possible for us in Germany – in contrast to your country – to introduce important changes (drug consumption rooms, needle and syringe programs, expanded drug substitution) then that is the way for you too. We still hope that within this year heroin prescription will be regulated by law for the care of addicted people.

 Let us continue to fight together for a drug policy that no longer marginalises, discriminates and criminalises and that, in the final resort, also prevents the suffering and death of our children, our relations and our friends.

 We demand that our elected representatives do not take the American path of the “war on drugs” but rather a humane acceptance-oriented drugs and addiction policy. 

In the thoughts and words of our Australian sister Heather Brook: 

“While there is life there is hope – that should be our first and final destination in drug policy – that hope for life should be given while we work to stop the dependency.”

We remain  
With best wishes 
Jurgen Heimchen, Chairman, Heidrun Behle, Board Member

And if I may be permitted a political comment:  In this week, anti-poverty week, it is a great shame that our nation has not made the connection between poverty and problematic drug use and has put a lesser value on the lives, and the circumstances of the lives of these people and it does not invest in the social and health infrastructure that is necessary to save their lives.

Today is the eleventh time we gather again under this beautiful tree and by this rock to remember those we loved who have gone because of their involvement with illicit drugs.

The locust tree (Robinia pseudoacacia) under which we are gathered was chosen because of its particular associations for the family of one of our members whose brother died in 1996. The tree then was bare. Its thorns stood out against the winter sky. But spring has brought new growth and white blossoms.

The bareness of winter has once again come to an end and today we see the new growth of spring, the blossoms and the fragrance that forms part of this memorial, we will spend a little time together as we remember the worth and value of those who have needlessly died.