OAS TO PRESENT DRUG REPORT WASHINGTON (AP) - Western Hemisphere nations next week will judge their own strengths and weaknesses in fighting drugs under an Organization of American States analysis that some hope eventually could ease a source of tensions in U.S-Mexican relations. Thirty-four experts will present an OAS commission with the results of the organization's first country-by-country drug study of the Americas, known as the Multilateral Evaluation Mechanism, or MEM. Some U.S. and Latin American officials hope the MEM eventually will replace the U.S. drug certification system, under which this country annually judges other nations on their cooperation in fighting drugs. Those seen as not doing enough could face sanctions. The process has infuriated Mexico and other nations, who view it as condescending, an assault on their sovereignty and hypocritical, considering that the United States is the leading consumer of illegal drugs. ``If the MEM gets the credibility that we think it will, it will weaken the (need for) the unilateral certification,'' said Claude Heller, the Mexican ambassador to the OAS. Among the main U.S. advocates of MEM is Barry McCaffrey, head of the White House drug policy office. ``It will become increasingly apparent to the most thoughtful policy people in the administration of the hemisphere that our national interests are better served by this evaluation mechanism than by the former system of a series of binational confrontations,'' McCaffrey said in an interview. But the certification process could not be changed without Congress' approval, and some lawmakers are skeptical about the multilateral system. ``I welcome any effort to make countries, including the United States, take the need for a counter-drug policy seriously, but I'm concerned about the Multilateral Evaluation Mechanism because it looks like it could be a gimmick to water down accountability, and nobody needs that,'' said Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control. Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., said certification is merely a form of assuring that beneficiaries of U.S. financial support are helping fight drugs. ``Would I let an international organization or another state decide whether a country should get financial aid, trade benefits or international assistance from the United States? When you think about it, the idea is almost farcical. No way,'' said Mica, chairman of the House Government Reform subcommittee on criminal justice, drug policy and human resources. Officially, the MEM system is unrelated to certification. At a 1998 summit, hemispheric leaders asked the OAS to create a system for judging progress on a wide range of drug issues and to improve cooperation. The OAS set up a panel of experts - one from each active member state - to examine data provided by the countries. Those experts have prepared a draft report for each country, plus a hemispheric report, that will be presented to the OAS's Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission. The commission will spend the coming week reviewing and possibly modifying the reports. The hemispheric report likely will be released Friday; individual country reports aren't expected to be released until January. All the reports will be submitted to hemispheric leaders at their next summit April 20-22 in Quebec, Canada. Alberto Scavarelli of Uruguay, who chairs the experts' panel, said the MEM's importance is that it allows countries to work together to fight drugs in an atmosphere of mutual respect. He said the United States will have to make up its own mind on the usefulness of the MEM, but he hopes it eventually will render the certification system unnecessary. ``I believe that we are going to get to a point in the short term - or no later than the medium term - when it's going to unnecessary for a country to have its own mechanism because it's part of a group effort,'' Scavarelli said.
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