DRUG SUMMIT GLOBAL WAR BEING FOUGHT THE WRONG WAY, US TOLD

As a three-day international drugs summit gets under way at the United
Nations, it seems there is agreement on just one thing - drugs are a
problem all over the world.

But it is also being claimed that attempts to cure it are actually making
things worse.

On the day that the United States President, Mr Bill Clinton, spoke at the
UN, he found the policies of his Administration under attack - partly by a
policy and research institute backed by the billionaire financier Mr George
Soros.

And the UN, which is hosting the summit, a special session of the General
Assembly, has been criticised for its drugs policies by a high-profile
gathering including Nobel Prize winners and even a former secretary-general
of the UN, Mr Javier Perez de Cuellar.

"Drugs are every nation's problem, and every nation must act to fight
them," Mr Clinton said. "Together, we must extend the long arm of the law,
and the hand of compassion, to match the global reach of this problem."

Replying, the director of Mr Soros's Lindesmith Centre in New York, Mr
Ethan Nadelmann, said: "We are deeply disappointed that the President
recommitted the UN and the US to a drug war that is more militarised and
which will ultimately be more futile."

On the day the summit began, a two-page open letter addressed to the UN
Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, and signed by 500 people had appeared in
The New York Times. It was headed: "We believe the global war on drugs is
now causing more harm than drug abuse itself."

The letter, co-ordinated by the Lindesmith Centre, said existing "drug war"
politics "impede public health efforts to stem the spread of HIV, hepatitis
and other infectious diseases. Human rights are violated, environmental
assaults perpetrated and prisons inundated with hundreds of thousands of
drug law violators."

The 22 Australian signatories included former State premiers Neville Wran,
John Cain, Joan Kirner and Sir Rupert Hamer, former Olympic gold medallists
Kevin Berry and John Konrads, journalist Ita Buttrose and Professor of
Immunology at the University of NSW, Ron Penny.

Australia is being represented at the 150-country summit by the Foreign
Minister, Mr Downer.