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
medalists 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.

Checked-by: (trikydik)