Yanis Varoufakis, the secretary of MeRA25 and former SYRIZA finance minister, is being referred to trial for “serious” drug-related offenses: for saying in a podcast that he made use of drugs 30 years ago.
MeRa25, the party Varoufakis founded, denounced in a statement on Wednesday, “another episode in the course of fascistization of the functioning of the Justice System and at the same time further proof of its absolute manipulation by the government and especially the far-right wing of New Democracy”.
It was beginning of January, when Varoufakis spoke on a podcast of a Greek influencer.
He made some personal revelations saying, among others, that at the age f 28, he made use of “ecstacy” once, while he was in Australia in 1989. He noted that the substance that seemed and seems to him most “pleasant” was cannabis.
His statements became known to a broader public after a prosecutor launched an investigation against him for the advertising of “incitement to and advertising the use of drugs.”
According to MeRa25, the trial of the defendant Yanis Varoufakis has been set for December 16, 2026, and the offenses he is charged with are “the provocation and advertising of narcotic substances, under Article 24 of Law 4139/2013.”
PS Fact was and remain: the whole issue is ri-di-cou-lous
The Greek legal system is a well-known joke, internationally. Nothing in it works properly, most of the judges and public prosecutors are ignorant of law, and the corruption and political interference are what you might expect from a very poor Third World country. Under the current government it has actually worsened: look at Tempe.
Everything to do with drugs is “ri-di-cou-lous”. Up to the 1920s hard drugs could be bought legally in pharmacies in countries like the USA and the UK. There was a demand for drugs and there was a legal market servicing that demand. Today there is still a demand but no legal market to service it so it is serviced illegally. We know from the experience of prohibition in the USA that when there is a demand and no legal market then the illegal market grows into a massive problem that you cannot solve.
I think taking drugs is stupid but we are all stupid to some extent. For many years I took nicotine and I still take alcohol – both are drugs.
I agree with you all 100% What good could ever come out of this ?
Those in Greek politics and the inbred judicial system know no shame. Prosecuting someone who spoke about using drugs decades ago? Seriously? Greece could be such a wonderful place if it wasn’t the idiotic, inept, inbred, nepotistic, and yes ridiculous political / judicial system. Oh well.