UN DRUG CHIEF: NEW CHAPTER OPENS IN CAMPAIGN AGAINST DRUGS

UNITED NATIONS (AP) The United Nations urged member states Thursday to begin
work as soon as possible on key elements of a U.N. plan for combating drugs,
including cutting demand by 50 percent and reducing supplies over the next
10 years.

The goals were contained in a 31-page plan adopted Wednesday night at the
conclusion of the U.N. drug summit. It called on governments to work
together to curb trafficking, reduce demand, improve judicial cooperation,
combat money laundering and reduce the cultivation of narcotic crops.

"It's time for the member states who have supported our initiative and have
expressed the will to enter into this new phase ... to sit down and discuss
how we're going to do this very ambitious program," Sandro Tucci, spokesman
for the U.N. Drug Control Office, said Thursday.

Despite their approval, delegates from the conference's 150 countries were
divided about how to wage the campaign.

Leaders of drug-producing countries in Latin America and Asia said the
United States and other consumer nations must reduce demand.

President Bill Clinton, who addressed the conference Monday, announced a $2
billion media campaign against drugs. But he refused to endorse one of the
pillars of the U.N. program: financial incentives to persuade Third World
farmers to quit growing narcotic crops.

U.N. officials estimate the program will cost more than $250 million
annually for 10 years.

Asked about prospects for American funding for the crop-substitution
portion, Tucci noted that the U.N. plan includes a pledge by the conference
participants to provide the financial resources necessary to implement its
goals.

"We will follow up this by sitting down with all the governments (including
the United States) who have endorsed this plan," he added.

The conference also underscored the broad differences among nations on the
best approach to curbing the worldwide drug epidemic.

Singapore defended its policy of mandatory executions for drug traffickers.
The Netherlands and Switzerland, meanwhile, argued their approaches the
Netherlands tolerates the use of "soft drugs" like marijuana and Switzerland
prescribes heroin to addicts are the best way to curb drug-related crime.

Swiss Vice President Ruth Dreifuss said Switzerland's controversial program
to prescribe heroin to hard-core addicts had enabled authorities to "reach
high-dependent drug addicts who had tried other forms of therapy but without
success."

Some private drug research organizations said the United Nations was
focusing too much attention on law-enforcement programs, such as tracing and
confiscating drug profits.

"Like the drug war itself, the U.N. drug summit was a failure," said Dr.
Ethan Nadelmann, director of the Lindesmith Center, a private drug policy
research institute.

"Rather than producing the intended unity, the drug summit exposed deep
divisions ... between drug-war zealots who advocate spending on a failed
policy and the reformers who want new approaches."

Checked-by: Melodi Cornett