CONCERN OVER DRUG LEGALIZATION

UNITED NATIONS, (June 9) IPS - The United States admits it is concerned --
but not alarmed -- by the growing new demand for the legalization of drugs
in the country.

"We are very disturbed by the trend," Gen. Barry McCaffrey, director of the
Office of National Drug Control Policy, said and added that, if polling data
was considered, there was "not a shred of support" for legalization.

McCaffrey, however, dismissed as insignificant the increased support for
legalization within the intellectual and academic communities. "It is a case
of the mouse that roared," he told reporters here today.

Since there was no widespread support for legalization, pro-drug elements in
the U.S. are trying "subtle and nuanced approaches" to the question of drug
legalization, he said.

Donna Shalala, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, said there was a
kind of "pseudo-intellectualism" in the current campaign to legalize drugs
but "there is no scientific base to their conclusions."

"These drugs are harmful, and there is now way that they can made the case
that they are not harmful, or that they won't lead to the worst kind of
public health effects," she said.

Shalala said the U.S. government believed that public health issues ought to
be based on science, and there was clear evidence that marijuana was
dangerous. "Public policies that did not reflect the danger of drugs should
not be made. There was no such thing as a soft drug," she added.

U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno said she was totally opposed to the
legalization of drugs "because I have seen so many instances in which people
who were abusers were motivated into treatment by the threat of sanctions."
"I think the balanced approach that includes vigorous enforcement and focus
on traffickers and appropriate sanctions against users coupled with
treatment can have a dramatic impact."

All three U.S. officials are in New York for the U.N.'s three-day Special
Session on the World Drug Problem. The meeting, attended by more than 30
world leaders, ends tomorrow.

Ethan Nadelmann, of the New York-based Lindesmith Center, a drug research
institute, said that President Bill Clinton has recommitted the United
Nations and the United States to a drug war "that is more militarised and
which will ultimately be more futile."

"President Clinton should concede the obvious: After decades of relying on
failed ideas like interdiction and training foreign armies, prices are down,
drug use is up, more governments are corrupted and more ecosystems are in
jeopardy. Increasing spending on failed policies of the past won't achieve a
better result in the future," Nadelmann said.

Last week, in a run-up to the Special Session, the New York Academy of
Medicine hosted the first international conference on heroin maintenance. It
was the first U.S. data presentation from a three-year Swiss study that
prescribed heroin maintenance for more than 1,100 long-term addicts.

The Swiss National Project on the Medically Controlled Prescription of
Narcotics reported that participants in the study - in which addicts
received heroin under medical supervision - experienced a 60 percent
decrease in criminal offenses and a marked decline in the use of other
illegal drugs.

The Academy said that the Swiss trials have generated growing international
attention. Similar trials are now underway or under consideration in the
Netherlands, the UK, Australia, Germany, Spain, Austria and Canada.

"Research and experiences with heroin maintenance abroad have important
implications for the United States where heroin abuse is once again on the
rise," the Academy said.

The Academy also argues that medical prescription of narcotics is a widely
accepted form of addiction treatment. Several narcotics are currently
prescribed as one component of treatment for addiction to an illicit drug.

According to the Academcy, morphine maintenance clinics operated in the U.S.
from 1918 to 1923, and governments licensed opium outlets in Asia until the
mid-1900s to provide restricted legal access to the same drugs that addicts
previously obtained by other means. The British government reportedly
allowed physicians to prescribe heroin, morphine and cocaine as a form of
addiction treatment from the 1920s until the 1960s.

At a press conference Monday, Pino Arlacchi, head of the U.N. Office for
Drug Control and Crime Prevention, said that not a single member state had
advocated legalization as a solution to the world's drug problem.

"Drugs were very profitable, but it would be naive to think that the
legalization of narcotic drugs and the subsequent removal of profits from
such trade would put organized crime out of business," he said.

On the other hand, Arlacchi said, there was currently a unanimous political
commitment on the part of member states to devise new strategies for demand
reduction, elimination of money laundering and the substantial reduction of
illicit drugs. "The next step would be to discuss concretely how the
resources should be gathered and used," he noted.

Meanwhile, several non-governmental organization (NGOs), which have urged
the United Nations to give up its global drug war, has accused the world
body of shutting them out of the current discussions.

"The United Nations kept off the program virtually all the citizen's groups
and experts who wanted to speak," the New York Times said in an editorial
today. "There is no discussion of some interesting new ideas such as harm
reduction, which focuses on programs like needle exchanges and methodone
that cut the damage drugs do."

The Times said that like previous U.N. drug conferences, the current Special
Session "seems designed primarily to recycle unrealistic pledges and
celebrate dubious programs."

Checked-by: Melodi Cornett