José López Orozco
Mayor of Lugo, Spain
 WELCOME MESSAGE FROM THE MAYOR OF LUGO
Lugo is a two-thousand year old Roman city, proud of the walls that still surround it – a world heritage site since 2000. Bathed by the Miño River, Lugo is a designated biosphere reserve. Its extraordinary wealth of landscape is only compounded upon getting to know its people. Certainly they are its greatest treasure.
Lugo is located in the Iberian Peninsula’s northwestern region, very close to Portugal, on a branch of the Camino de Santiago (road to Santiago), a “cultural itinerary” linking us to Europe since time immemorial. Lugo’s history of migration has made it very close in spirit to the Americas.
As indicated by the governmental delegate of the National Anti-drug Plan, Lugo is a member of the executive committee of the initiative Improving Drug Treatment and Rehabilitation: European, Latin American and Caribbean Cities in Partnership, a project managed by the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD), the technical entity on drugs of the Organization of American States (OAS).
For me, as mayor of the city of Lugo, it is a true honor to be part of a comprehensive initiative that seeks, along with other countries, to join forces, and to consolidate networks at the national, regional, and municipal levels in the drug dependency treatment and, of course, prevention areas.
We commit ourselves to raise awareness and to train and inform those in charge of public policy so that they understand that prevention and treatment should be a priority of their efforts.
We alone – each municipality, autonomous region, and nation – can enable all such objectives to be achieved, with the abiding support of families, educational systems, and every organization seeking to build a better society.Their successes and failures serve as guidance for us in addressing each situation, each social reality.
Lugo is heavily committed to serve as the site for the presentation of the conclusions of that major effort. In our city the dream from which the EU-LAC initiative arose will become a reality. Here we will mark the completion of the first phase of an effort in solidarity that has shown that teamwork can build a better world.
As we travel this road, we pursue many objectives, one to be marked in Lugo in April 2010. That will be a year of high importance for the city, since we will celebrate the tenth anniversary of the declaration of our walls as a world heritage site, so your presence in our city will be even more welcomed. We wish to share with you our intangible wealth and all the reasons for the pride we take in being citizens of Lugo.
Accordingly, your participation is fundamental. We count on you in Lugo to perpetuate the dream of a better world of stronger partnership – a world made richer.
José López Orozco
Mayor of Lugo
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