NO MORE FINGER-POINTING

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee did the right thing when it voted
unanimously last week to suspend for three years the "drug certification"
process.

That's the policy, enacted back in 1986 during the height of "just say no"
drug-war fervor, by which Washington rates countries according to their
cooperation with US antinarcotics efforts. It has become a persistent
irritant in hemispheric relations. The three-year trial suspension should
lead to a permanent end to the policy.

Mexico, in particular, chafed under the yearly prospect of being castigated
for noncooperation. Now Mexico may be the reason why the certification
program may be phased out.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Jesse Helms (R) of North
Carolina, is usually not too concerned about complaints from other
countries. He is, however, attentive to Mexico's new, free-market, pro-US
president, Vicente Fox. And Mr. Fox, no less than his predecessors, thinks
drug certification has been a diplomatic disaster. He, like many Latin
American critics, has argued that the US often appeared to be pointing the
finger of blame for narcotics everywhere but at itself, with its huge and
continuing demand for illicit drugs.

The committee's bill would still authorize the president to designate the
worst offenders among drug-producing and -transporting countries, and apply
sanctions. The emphasis, however, would be on international antinarcotics
agreements, not unilateral US judgments. Certainly, Congress should back
this step toward better teamwork in fighting drugs.