The Aldebaran Treaty (A landmark is made)

by John Gray

During the last few days covering the 1st to the 3rd May a group of people gathered for a Summit meeting on board the Aldebaran, an old sailing ship docked at the small port of Hoorn, in Holland. (Hoorn is fairly close to Amsterdam.) The purpose of this Summit was twofold: firstly to establish the existence of the International Coalition Against Prohibition (ICAP), and secondly, to plan for the 1st International Conference Against Prohibition intended to take place either in mid autumn or early next year.

We are pleased to announce that the Memorandum and Articles for ICAP were successfully agreed and signed by an international body of subscribers and the document will now move forward to Companies House (UK) where ICAP will be registered as a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee. This has been significant agreement between national representatives, many of whom had never met before, and which will also be known from now on as The Aldebaran Treaty.

Planning for the International Conference will also go ahead although there is an enormous amount of careful and painstaking work necessary to be undertaken.

As representatives of European and transatlantic nations and organisations we are now bound in solidarity against smoking bans and the so many other damaging prohibitions that are lucrative and fashionable in today's world of scientific fraud and political stupidity where adults are treated as children and freedom of choice is under threat. Furthermore, although all our strategies and objectives have not been fully agreed, as much of this will be decided at the coming International Conference, we now have the vehicle with which to co-operate nation with nation and this co-operation has already started. Also, as a result of the Summit, one of the participants - well known British publican and freedom fighter Nick Hogan - has already been invited to Brussels by a British MEP in order to lobby and network.

Countries represented by the signatories of ICAP's governing document include: England, Scotland, Wales, Germany, Holland, Denmark, Italy, America and Canada.

Organisations represented at the Summit were:

Freedom to Choose (UK)
Freedom to Choose (Scotland)
Forces International
Forces Italy
Forces Holland
Forces Germany
Dary (Denmark)
The Danish Smokers' Party
The Party Against Nannyism (Holland)
Smokers' Interest (Holland)
The Association of Dutch Coffee Shops
The Hungarian Association of Smokers' Societies

We are on the march and will not stop now!