WAR ON DRUGS CALLED MORE HARM THAN GOOD

UNITED NATIONS -- A drug reform institute financed by the billionaire
philanthropist
George Soros has amassed signatures of hundreds of prominent people
around the world on a letter asserting that the global war on drugs is
causing more harm than drug abuse itself.

The signers include the former U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de
Cuellar, the former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz, the Nobel
peace laureate Oscar Arias of Costa Rica, the former CBS television
anchorman Walter Cronkite, two former U.S. senators, Alan Cranston and
Claiborne Pell, and the South African human rights activist Helen
Suzman. The signers also include Soros, who has spent millions of
dollars trying to change the way Americans think about illegal drugs.
In the past, he helped finance referendums in California and Arizona
in support of medicinal use of marijuana and programs that distribute
clean needles to those who take illegal drugs by injection.

The move was timed to coincide with the U.N. General Assembly's
special session on combating drug abuse.

The letter was organized by the Lindesmith Center in New York, which
advocates more liberal drug policies. It is addressed to
Secretary-General Kofi Annan, whose spokesman said Monday that he had
yet to receive it. The letter also ran as a two-page advertisement in
The New York Times. It says in part: "Persisting in our current
policies will only result in more abuse, more empowerment of drug
markets and criminals and more disease and suffering. Too often those
who call for open debate, rigorous analysis of current policies, and
serious consideration of alternatives are accused of 'surrendering.'
But the true surrender is when fear and inertia combine to shut off
debate, suppress critical analysis, and dismiss all alternatives to
current policies."

The letter proposes no clear alternatives beyond asking Annan to take
the lead in "stimulating a frank and honest evaluation of global drug
control efforts." Soros said in a telephone interview that he did not
contribute directly to the cost of the Times advertisement but that
the Lindesmith Institute, which he bankrolls, did.

"I was happy to sign it," he said in a telephone interview. "Firstly,
it expresses my views and secondly, I hope it will foster an open
discussion, which is very difficult. By having so many distinguished
people sign on, it should make people want to discuss whether our
policies are counterproductive or not."

While he was not responsible for the campaign, he added, "I'm happy
that it happened." The Lindesmith Center's president, Ethan Nadlemann,
was not reticent about taking credit for coordinating the letter,
which he said drew roughly 600 signatures from around the world.

"This was my initiative," Nadlemann said. "George agreed to help, and
sent out some letters in his name."

"If we had another week," he said, "the number of names would have
been off the charts."

The language was deliberately broad to attract the largest number of
people, he said, prompting some to complain that it was not strong
enough. "I think that when people look back on the U.N. drugs summit
in 1998, it is not going to be because of the platitudes," Nadlemann
said. "It will be a moment at which the truly international movement
for drug reform had begun." Annan's spokesman, Fred Eckhard, responded
in a statement, "The secretary-general invites anybody who has any
suggestions, proposals or ideas which could help improve the
international community's response to this problem to come forward."

But the letter did not seem to sway participants at the General
Assembly's special session. Gen. Barry McCaffrey, the Clinton
administration's director of national drug policy, called the letter

"a 1950s perception" of the struggle against drugs.

Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala said, "There's no
chance that we're going to throw up our hands and walk away from what
we think is a predominantly public health issue."

Checked-by: (trikydik)