The speech of Mauro Patti, President of ERNA, at CND Chair’s Special Event to commemorate the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking and to launch the 2024 UNODC World Drug Report

Thank you chair,
Esteemed delegates,
on behalf of the Villa Maraini Foundation, part of the VNGOC, I am honored to
address this special event for the World Drug Day.
Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals requires significant improvements,
particularly in providing access to treatment and enhancing the continuum of care.
This involves integrating fair, ethical, and person-centered therapy from initial
contact on the streets to full recovery.
Our mission is to promote the humanitarian approach worldwide, advocating for its
implementation in health, prevention, and criminal justice — such as deflection,
diversion, and alternatives to incarceration — to meet international commitments.
We do it globally throught the Rome Consensus 2.0 alliance, a collaboration between
the Red Cross and Red Crescent, professionals, NGOs, human rights activists, and
academia. Our goal is to ensure that individuals in need of treatment are reached
where they are, connected with health and recovery services, and provided with
ethical and compassionate care. This strategy not only enhances the well-being of
affected individuals and their communities but also reduces crime rate, overdose
deaths and saves public funding too.
Villa Maraini is the rehabilitation center established by Massimo Barra in Rome in
1976, recognized as the Red Cross/Red Crescent training center on Substance Abuse,
has been at the forefront of this humanitarian approach since the 1970s. We
pioneered the early intervention of overdose cases on the streets in the early 1990s
thanks to the former drug users by saving more than 3.000 people from overdose just
in the city of  Rome, and have consistently promoted harm reduction as the first step
in the continuum of care.