U.S. DRUG CZAR SCOFFS AT DUTCH POLICY, SEEKS HELP

VIENNA, July 14 (Reuters) - A top U.S. policy official refused on Tuesday
to back down from an attack on tolerant Dutch drug laws but at the same
time called for closer transatlantic cooperation to reduce drugs demand.

``The chances of me believing that legalising marijuana is going to help
the reduction of drug abuse are remote,'' General Barry McCaffrey, the
White House drugs policy chief, told a news conference at the United
Nations in Vienna.

McCaffrey, who was in Austria as part of a seven-country European tour, on
Monday said tolerant drug laws were responsible for much higher rates of
murder and other crime in the Netherlands than in the United States.

He will visit the Netherlands later this week. McCaffrey told the Vienna
news conference he was in Europe to take part in a ``frank exchange of
views amongst friends'' and to promote transatlantic cooperation in the
fight against drug use.

The Netherlands, a front-runner in drugs tolerance, recently started giving
free heroin to hard-core addicts through a health ministry project in a
pilot programme.

While McCaffrey said the United States believed social disapproval was the
primary deterrent against drug use, he acknowledged that different
countries had formulated their policies on the basis of their own
experiences.

Europe and the U.S. needed to exchange information on drugs demand and
supply, he said.

``It's impossible for any single nation to protect its population,'' he
said. ``The heart and soul of the multinational effort must be demand
reduction.''

The government of the Netherlands has already rebuked McCaffrey for
comments on a U.S. television show where he called Dutch policy a
``disaster.'' It said this was unhelpful and called into question the
source of the facts and figures he was quoting.

Checked-by: (Joel W. Johnson)