GLOBAL CAMPAIGNERS AGAINST DRUGS

There is a place in the global drugs picture that is always Dublin. Thanks
to the former Taoiseach, Mr Charles Haughey, the EU body responsible for
encouraging countries which produce illegal drugs to stop production is
called the Dublin Group. There are local Dublin Groups worldwide.

Like its originator, the Dublin Group thinks big. In June it plans to
present a resolution to the UN Council meeting on drugs aimed at
eradicating the illicit growing of poppies and coca within 10 years.

"It is a vision that would attract world leaders, raise public interest and
consciousness, and strengthen the political will of the states," the US
delegation said last month.

Established under the 1990 Irish EU presidency, the Dublin Group is again
under Irish management, chaired by Mr Dermot Cole, Assistant Secretary of
Department of Justice.

The members include all the EU and Scandinavian countries, the US, Canada,
Japan and Australia. Last year Ireland contributed £150,000 to the UN Drugs
Control Programme (UNDCP), its first contribution to the fund.

The group is an information-sharing, rather than a funding, body, for
projects in areas where opium poppies and the coca plant are grown and the
chemicals to synthesise other drugs are produced.

"We speak in terms of alternative development, rather than crop
substitution," Mr Cole said. "Non-drugs crops are more bulky and less
lucrative, so there must be development aid to build roads and rail
networks to get reasonable products out of the areas where they're being
grown."

In its last report the group noted that a UNDCP initiative in India to
control the diversion of legitimately-grown opium provoked a strike by
30,000 farmers.

"In response, 22,000 new licences were issued by the government. In
consequence, opium production will increase considerably in 1998." Last
year some 850 tonnes of opium are believed to have been diverted from
legitimate growers in India into the drugs black market.

Mr Cole will chair the central group for the next two years. Its aim is to
try and get countries to agree to work on the same anti-drugs policies.

"One of the successes of the Dublin Group has been that countries that
might have been complacent, who say it's only flowing through the country,
have realised that sooner or later their whole banking system becomes
compromised and they have a domestic drug problem on their hands."

One such area has been the Caribbean, a major transshipment point, and
money-laundering centre for the US and Europe.

Eastern Europe, and especially Poland, has become a major source of
synthetic drugs, including ecstasy. "There are a lot of unemployed
scientists in these countries," Mr Cole added. The group also advises
customs on the profiles of drugs and drug components that should be stopped
at borders. It is sensitive and difficult.

Next week the group will meet informally in Vienna to formulate proposals
for the June UN Council meeting.

Mr Cole expects the group will agree on the political resolution: to
eradicate the illegal production of raw materials for heroin and cocaine.