Colombian officials approach group on conference

NEW YORK, April 30 (Reuter) Officials from the Colombian city of Medellin
approached a nonprofit policy group in March about helping to organise a
conference of Latin American cities on new ways to fight illegal drugs, the
group said on Wednesday.

A spokesman for the Drug Policy Foundation, which has members in the United
States and other countries, said preliminary planning was underway for the
conference. The meeting would focus on ``harm reduction'' or programmes that
seek to reduce the damage caused by illegal drugs to users and society at
large.

The Foundation is the recipient of a $5.5 million grant over three years from
the Soros Fund Management of Hungarianborn billionaire investor George
Soros.

On April 28, Reuters quoted an erroneous article in Colombia's leading weekly
news magazine Semana as saying that Soros would host a meeting of academics
and officials from cities around the world calling for the legalisation of
drugs.

Soros does not support the legalisation of drugs.

The financier said he backs a ``middle ground between the extremes of
legalisation and the war on drugs'' through the socalled ``harm reduction''
methods.

Examples of ``harm reduction'' were needleexchange programmes and programmes
that gave addicts access to medical