'DRUG CERTIFICATION' PROGRAM LETS THE U.S. ESCAPE BLAME

Is it time to shift from sticks to carrots in the "war on drugs".

One of the bluntest tools in the U.S. arsenal has been the 15-year-old
program that "certifies" drug-producing and trafficking countries as
cooperating in antidrug efforts. Those that don't make the grade lose
foreign aid.

But even those countries that earn Uncle Sam's stamp of approval find the
whole process insulting. Mexican President Vicente Fox, whose new
administration has begun cracking down on drug production and official
corruption, calls it "an affront, a sham that should be denounced and
canceled."

Other critics say it's hypocritical for the United States to take a
holier-than-thou attitude when nearly 15 million Americans use illegal
drugs, spending $63 billion a year to support their habit.

"The drug certification process . . . allows the U.S. government to place
the blame abroad without taking a serious look at the failure of efforts to
reduce the demand for illicit drugs in the United States," says Gina
Amatangelo of the Washington Office on Latin America, a private research
and advocacy group.

All in all, it's a complicated issue in which many nations and
institutions, as well as virtually all social groups, bear some degree of
responsibility -- as the current film "Traffic" makes plain. Which is why
the focus on drug certification is likely to provoke a broader debate over
U.S. drug policy -- particularly in Latin America, that part of the world
that seems to interest President Bush the most.

Bush has indicated interest in changing the certification program. There
are at least four proposals in the Senate -- backed by conservative
Republicans as well as liberal Democrats -- that would suspend if not
eliminate it altogether. Even former drug czar Barry McCaffrey says it's
time to end the decertification process. There's growing interest in moving
from a unilateral certification system to a multilateral process of regular
reporting conducted by the 34-nation Organization of American States (OAS).

The latest State Department report shows some signs of progress in
eradicating drug-growing and stemming trafficking. Yet the flow of illegal
drugs into the U.S. continues, symbolized by the recently discovered tunnel
from Mexico to Arizona that was stuffed with $6 million in cocaine.

Just a few days ago, Coast Guard officials seized a boat (a rusty fishing
vessel called the Forever My Friend) headed from Mexico to California with
nearly nine tons of cocaine hidden beneath a load of fish -- the
fourth-largest seizure in U.S. maritime history. In just six days recently,
the Coast Guard intercepted nearly 29,000 pounds of cocaine -- as much as
it had captured in all of 1996.

In all, the State Department estimates, worldwide drug trafficking
generates $400 billion in revenues each year. In the years since the drug
certification program began in 1986, federal spending on drug control has
grown from $3 billion a year to nearly $19 billion.

While countries such as Peru and Bolivia have cut sharply into cocaine
production in recent years, critics say the effort has not come without
cost, particularly in the area of human rights.

For example, the Washington Office on Latin America reports that "the
anti-narcotics police forces that the U.S. has created in Bolivia brazenly
intimidate, abuse and torture peasants -- while carrying out (coca)
eradication campaigns."

The latest U.S. drug certification report lists 24 "major illicit
drug-producing and drug-transit countries." Of these, two --Afghanistan and
Burma (the largest producers of opium poppies) -- were "decertified."
Cambodia and Haiti were also decertified, but they received waivers on
grounds that cutting off foreign aid would harm U.S. interests.

The other 20 "major" drug producing and trafficking countries (including
Mexico and Colombia) were found to have "cooperated fully with the United
States or . . . taken adequate steps on their own to achieve full
compliance" with the United Nations 1988 Drug Convention.

(The United States is not without blame. The certification report lists it
as a "major" source of precursor chemicals used in narcotics production and
also as a "major" money-laundering country.)
Moving from a unilateral certification regime to one that does not feature
the United States as international drug cop would be a controversial move.

"We believe that most governments will be more responsive to constructive
criticism offered by a community of nations after an objective and
collaborative process, than to requirements imposed by a subjective,
unilateral process accompanied by the threat of sanctions for
noncompliance," Rand Beers, assistant secretary of State for international
narcotics and law enforcement, told a Senate panel last week.

But that makes some supporters of certification suspicious. Sen. Charles
Grassley, R-Iowa, has said that having the OAS oversee drug compliance
"looks like it could be a gimmick to water down accountability."

Grassley would focus the U.S. program on those countries with the worst
drug records, doing away with an annual list that seems insulting to allies
in the drug war like Mexico.

"We can improve the process, keep accountability," he says, "but still
remove some of the elements that have given everyone so much heartburn."