CLINTON CALLS FOR GLOBAL WAR ON DRUGS

Stops short of promising funds for 10-year UN campaign

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's
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.