CRITICS SAY NO TO U.S. ANTI-DRUG CAMPAIGN

VIENNA, Austria -- Critics of a U.S.-led global crackdown on illicit drugs
declared the policy a failure Tuesday, calling it "the war that America
cannot win" and urging a United Nations commission to consider other
approaches to the problem.

Activists, think tanks and non-governmental organizations asked the U.N.
Commission on Narcotic Drugs to examine what they called a disturbing lack
of progress midway through a global campaign to curb drug cultivation,
trafficking and consumption by 2008.

Their harsh assessment came as delegates from 116 countries met in Vienna
to review the ambitious anti-drug effort, launched by the U.N. General
Assembly in 1998 and loosely modeled after the United States' "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 in effect 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," it said.

The Open Society Institute, a private foundation started by financier
George Soros, said the U.N.'s strict drug control treaties are undermining
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.

"In countries that are experiencing a rapid increase of drug use, the
reflex reaction is to become tougher on drug users," said Kasia
Malinowska-Sempruch, an OSI drug abuse expert.

"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, this week's conference -- organized by the
Vienna-based U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime -- appeared unlikely to 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.

Hassela Nordic Network, a Swedish organization, presented the U.N. agency
Monday with 1.3 million signatures collected from people in 48 countries
supporting the ongoing anti-drug campaign.

However, the campaign's goals remain elusive, U.N. drug agency chief
Antonio Maria Costa conceded in a report issued ahead of the conference.

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.

Raymond Kendall, a retired director of Interpol with the European Drug
Policy Fund's delegation, is among many in Vienna questioning the point of
sticking with interdiction-based efforts. The Paris-based group said it was
the war that America cannot win.

We cannot legalize our way out of the problem and we cannot arrest our way
out of the problem, Kendall said. We must pursue those solutions that have
proved effective, and try to improve the situation in small steps that are
also acceptable to society as a whole.