CLINTON CALLS FOR GLOBAL WAR ON DRUGS

Stops short of promising funds for 10-year UN campaign

UNITED NATIONS - President Clinton yesterday conceded the limits of US
power in fighting drugs, and endorsed a 10-year, multibillion-dollar UN
antinarcotics program.

But he stopped short of giving the UN more money until it comes up with a
more detailed plan of action. ''No nation is so large and powerful that it
can conquer drugs alone."

"None is too small to make a difference,'' Clinton said at a gathering of
150 world leaders at the opening of a UN meeting on illicit drugs. ''All
share a responsibility to take up the battle. Therefore, we will stand as
one against this threat to our security and our future.''

The three-day summit presented an opportunity for the United Nations to
take center stage in the drug war. But it dealt a temporary blow to the
UN's top drug official, Pino Arlacchi, who is seeking as much as $5 billion
in financing over the next decade to destroy the world's production of
cocaine, heroin, and marijuana. Senior US officials say Arlacchi's plan has
merit, particularly in combating drug cultivation in Afghanistan and Burma,
where more than 80 percent of the world's opium is produced and US
influence is limited.

But they remain leery of pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into
counter-narcotic programs in corrupt and repressive nations where the lines
between the governments and the drug cartels are often fuzzy.

''In principle we are supportive of his plan,'' said one senior US
official. ''But the US shares the view with other governments and observers
that more details are needed.''

In his address before the UN General Assembly yesterday, Clinton also
pledged to raise $2 billion in public and private money to fund an antidrug
media campaign targeted at children in the United States. And he appealed
to world leaders to join with the United States in the drug war and end
years of quarreling over whether rich consumers or producers in poor
nations are to blame for the worldwide drug abuse.

''Pointing fingers is distracting,'' Clinton said. ''It does not dismantle
a single cartel, help a single addict, prevent a single child from trying -
and perhaps dying - from heroin.

Besides, the lines between countries that are supply countries, demand
countries and transit countries are increasingly blurred.

"Drugs are every nation's problem.'' Still, the United States came under
heavy criticism from Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo. Zedillo is fuming
over a secret US sting operation that captured more than 50 suspected drug
launderers - most of them Mexicans - and handed up indictments against a
number of leading Mexican banks. The undercover sting, dubbed Operation
Casablanca, was carried out in Mexico without the knowledge of the Mexican
government.

''We must all respect the sovereignty of each nation so that no one can
become the judge of others and no one feels entitled to violate other
countries' laws for the sake of enforcing its own,'' Zedillo said in a
transparent reference to the US operation.

A UN survey of global narcotics production found that drug use is up in the
past decade to more than 200 million people. Illegal production of opium
poppies, used to make heroin, has tripled since 1985. Cultivation of coca,
for cocaine, has doubled.

Arlachi's plan, currently under discussion in New York, contains six major
goals: To significantly reduce global cultivation of illicit drugs through
intensified law enforcement and crop substitution programs. To regulate
the sale of chemical ingredients used in the production of illegal
narcotics by the year 2008. To set a five-year date for eliminating
amphetamine abuse. To streamline extradition procedures and reform courts
by the year 2003. To strengthen laws to combat money laundering. To fund
drug-treatment programs and promote national antidrug education campaigns.

Checked-by: (Joel W. Johnson)