WAR ON DRUGS? DOMINICAN PRESIDENT SAYS ESCALATE, NOT LEGALIZE

Escalate?

Santo Domingo. - President Leonel Fernandez announced yesterday that
the Police and the Armed Forces will be equipped with the tools
needed to control drug trafficking.

The Head of State, interviewed in New York as part of his 13 day
tour, also said he opposes the legalization of drugs, since in his
view it would be to succumb to the "terrible threat the drug
trafficking phenomenon represents for everybody."

He said the issue's solution must be a combined effort since
legalization will never be an option to rid one of the most serious
threats to world security, because it brings with it many other evils
to society.

Fernandez said that's the reason he has insisted on it and proposed a
Summit of the region's most affected countries to US president Barack
Obama, because the solutions must be assumed together.