UN URGED TO FIND NEW WAY TO FIGHT DRUG USE

VIENNA -- Critics of a US-led global crackdown on illicit drugs declared
the policy a failure yesterday, calling it ''the war that America cannot
win'' and urging a United Nations commission to consider other approaches.

Activists, think tanks, and nongovernmental organizations asked the UN
Commission on Narcotic Drugs to examine what they called a disturbing lack
of progress in midway through a campaign to curb drug cultivation,
trafficking, and consumption by 2008.

Their harsh assessment was made as delegates from 116 countries met in
Vienna to review the ambitious antidrug effort, launched by the UN General
Assembly in 1998 and loosely modeled on the US ''war on drugs.''

''This strategy has failed,'' the European Drug Policy Fund said in a
statement. ''Far from making progress toward the goal of a `drug-free world
by 2008,' drug consumption is on the rise in both industrial and developing
countries, as are drug-related crime and other social ill effects.''

Consensus is building in Europe ''that after years of continuous setbacks
and with billions of dollars spent on destroying crops and putting people
in jail, it is now time to look at more promising alternatives,'' the
statement said.

The Open Society Institute, a foundation started by financier George Soros,
said the UN's strict drug control treaties undermine efforts to prevent the
spread of AIDS because they discourage countries from introducing effective
public health measures.

It pointed to Russia and Ukraine, two countries it said have paid more
attention to cracking down on traffickers than on the health consequences
of intravenous drug use and now have some of the world's fastest-growing
rates of HIV infection.

AIDS cases also are rising rapidly in Iran and Pakistan and across Central
Asia where, the OSI said, authorities are cracking down on drug cultivation
and trafficking at the expense of treatment and prevention programs.

Kasia Malinowska-Sempruch, an OSI drug abuse specialist, said: ''Locking up
users in prisons is not a solution. It only serves to drive users
underground, making them less likely to seek out what few services do exist
for them.'' Despite the criticism, it appeared unlikely that this week's
conference will steer the United Nations away from its goals of ridding the
world of as much drug use and crime as possible over the next five years.
The conference is organized by the Vienna-based UN Office on Drugs and Crime.

Hassela Nordic Network, a Swedish organization, presented the UN agency
Monday with 1.3 million signatures collected from people in 48 countries
supporting the antidrug campaign.

The campaign's goals remain elusive, UN drug agency chief Antonio Maria
Costa conceded in a report. Although heroin and cocaine abuse have
stabilized or declined in some countries, the use of marijuana and illicit
synthetic drugs such as amphetamines, methamphetamines, and ecstasy is
growing in others, the report said.

''It appears that drug markets are expanding, colonizing new countries, and
introducing new substances,'' the International Antiprohibitionist League said.