Clinton Unveils $2 Billion Blitz Against Drugs

June 09, 1998 - Chicago Tribune - tribletter@aol.com

UNITED NATIONS -- In the war on drugs, it's usually poppy-growing peasants, machine-gun-toting drug lords and money-laundering bankers who get most of the heat.

But if President Bill Clinton and the United Nations have their way, ordinary Americans will be hearing a lot more about the pernicious effects of illegal drugs. The president on Monday unveiled a five-year, $2 billion anti-drug media blitz as the U.S. contribution to a new UN program to combat worldwide drug trafficking.

Clinton's pledge to pump up public pronouncements against illegal drugs opened a three-day, UN-sponsored conference that for the first time is putting the spotlight on the high-income, drug-consuming countries of the world. Usually at these gatherings, it is the drug-producing countries of Latin America and Asia that get most of the attention.

But an over-reliance on drug interdiction strategies has come under fire from developing countries in recent years. Such strategies, they say, fail to eliminate the ultimate cause of the worldwide drug problem: the drug abuser.

``Demand reduction creates a balanced approach,'' UN Secretary General Kofi Annan told the conference. ``It creates for the first time a responsibility for nations where consumption is a problem as well as where production is a problem.''

Most consumers of illegal drugs reside in the advanced, industrialized nations of North America and Western Europe. It is their demand -- though it is reported to be shrinking -- that fuels the worldwide drug trade.

Drug use is down in the U.S., according to official statistics, but Americans still spend an estimated $57 billion every year on illegal drugs. The number of drug users in the U.S. between 1979 and 1996 fell from an estimated 25.4 million to 13.0 million, a 49 percent decline. Cocaine usage has plummeted 70 percent to 1.7 million people in the same period, according to official studies.

The focus on drug-consuming nations comes after months of controversy surrounding existing U.S.-sponsored anti-drug programs, which are running a $16 billion-a-year tab. The Clinton administration has proposed pushing it to $17.1 billion next year.

Last month's indictment and arrest of more than 150 Mexican and U.S. bankers and business leaders was criticized by Mexican authorities, who were not notified until the day of the arrests about the three-year undercover operation.

Clinton attempted to smooth the flap by admitting that angry debates between drug-supplying and drug-consuming nations had not advanced the fight against drugs. ``Pointing fingers won't dismantle a single cartel, help a single addict or prevent a single kid from trying heroin,'' he said. ``The lines between supply, demand and transit countries are increasingly blurred.''

In addition to the anti-drug advertising campaign, Clinton said the U.S. would give an additional 20 countries aid in tracking the laundering of drug profits. He also unveiled an international drug fellowship program, in which law enforcement officials from around the world will visit the U.S. to work with its drug enforcement agencies.

The total UN program that is expected to be adopted later this week was hammered out in Vienna last March. It calls for a 10-year anti-drug program under the auspices of a new UN Drug Control Program. The program will be run by Italian sociologist-turned-crime-syndicate-fighter Pino Arlacchi, who is credited with locking up more than 200 Mafiosi in his own country.

Arlacchi wants $5 billion for the program, which aims to ``achieve significant and measurable results in demand reduction by the year 2008.'' As outlined in the final declaration, the program encourages countries to emphasize treatment, education, aftercare, rehabilitation and social reintegration for their drug abusers, ``either as an alternative to conviction or punishment or in addition to punishment.''

But like the U.S. program, the UN program still places a heavy emphasis on traditional interdiction efforts, with special attention given to amphetamines. The report estimated that 30 million people worldwide abuse such drugs, making them the fastest-growing category of illegal drugs. That compares to 8 million heroin addicts, 13 million cocaine abusers and 140 million marijuana abusers.

Delegates to the conference, which drew representatives from 150 nations as well as 30 world leaders, were greeted by a two-page open letter in the New York Times attacking the new UN program. It was signed by dozens of former Latin American mayors, police chiefs and federal judges as well as financier George Soros, who provides support for groups opposed to drug wars based on interdiction and criminalization.

``The bottom line is that (the UN program) is the same old policies,'' said Ethan Nadelmann, director of the Lindesmith Center, the drug policy research institute that coordinated the letter-signing campaign. ``People have been trying to reduce demand for many, many years and the treatment they come up with is putting people behind bars.''

The group supports alternative approaches such as legalization and methadone treatment for addicts.

Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala, who attended Monday's session, lashed out at opponents of U.S. drug policy. ``It's pseudo-intellectualism,'' she said. ``There is no scientific evidence that these drugs aren't harmful and don't lead to deleterious social effects.''

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