U.N. TALKS ARE WELCOME AS HARBINGER OF WORLD UNITY AGAINST DRUGS

By Barry McCaffrey Director, White House Office of National Drug Control

Policy

We look forward to the Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly as the start of serious, large-scale efforts against addictive and toxic drugs that threaten our children and our entire planet.

The four million Americans who are chronically addicted to illegal drugs cause enormous damage to themselves and the rest of society. We estimate that drug abuse costs the United States more than $110,000 million a year, causes approximately a third of all crime, and results in 1.5 million arrests a year.
(Ed. note: Over 600,000 of those arrests are for marijuana. The estimates of the costs of "drug abuse" are mostly non-sense, but by far the largest component is from legal drugs, alcohol and tobacco.)

No nation can afford the social hemorrhaging caused by drug abuse. Illegal drug trafficking overwhelms governments and public institutions in many countries. Too many people view participation in any facet of the drug trade as a legitimate form of economic activity. Among nations that condemn drugs, all too often cooperation is lacking as different countries try to get the drug trade to go elsewhere.

The Western hemisphere’s success in addressing the cocaine scourge underscores the promise of cooperation. Cocaine is a simple chemical derived from coca leaves grown in the Andes mountains of South America. The United States has reduced casual cocaine use by 70 percent in the past thirteen years. In South America, regional interdiction has changed the economics of the illegal cocaine trade and allowed alternative development and eradication projects in Peru to reduce cultivation by 42 percent in the past two years.

Peru is no longer the leading producer of coca. That dubious distinction now belongs to Colombia, a country in the throes of a violent civil struggle. Total coca production declined by approximately one hundred metric tons in 1997. Since 1993, hemispheric interdiction activities have yielded coca seizures that average about 270 metric tons annually. Nevertheless, three hundred or more metric tons of the drug are still smuggled into our nation every year. Demand reduction must be an integral part of coca-control efforts.

The U.S. success in reducing drug use shows that a concerted effort can make a difference. Overall drug use in the United States declined dramatically over the past two decades. In 1979, more than twenty-five million Americans used illicit drugs on a casual (defined as monthly) basis. Today, about thirteen million Americans (6.1 percent of our population) use drugs—a 50 percent reduction.
(Ed. note: Insofar as there is any validity to these numbers, most of the decrease was in casual marijuana use. Taking 1979 as a base allows McCaffrey to ignore the crack cocaine epidemic that came in the middle. A dubious success.)
The U.S. National Drug Control Strategy aims to reduce drug-use rates by 50 percent in the coming decade. This will result in the lowest levels of use recorded in the past thirty years. Our Strategy defines reduction in demand as the main focus of drug-control efforts. Prevention of drug, alcohol, and tobacco use among children and adolescents is our most important goal. The Strategy also recognizes that no single approach can solve the drug-abuse problem.

Rather, drug prevention, education, and treatment must be complemented by supply reduction abroad, interdiction on the borders, and strong law enforcement within the United States. The Strategy ties public policy to a scientific, research-based body of knowledge. This Strategy is also supported by a performance measurement system that includes short, medium, and long-term targets for each of our five strategic goals. The measurement system allows for periodic review of successful initiatives and adjustments to the Strategy as conditions change.

The problem of drug abuse, like illness or warfare, will not go away in the foreseeable future. The so-called "war on drugs" is a poor metaphor because it creates the expectation of a speedy victory and a specific end to a campaign. Furthermore, we do not wage battles against our own children, spouses, colleagues, and neighbors. Like education, efforts against drug abuse must be on-going in every generation. By way of example, we do not close schools, claiming we lost the "war on ignorance," because history, science, and math must be taught year after year.

(Ed. note: Neither do we arrest people who are illiterate, nor do we revoke the probation of people who fail math tests. If the general does not want to call it a "war," then when will the violence cease? This is war without end against the very people that the general says that we do not battle, "our own children, spouses, colleagues, and neighbors." Who are these people filling up our prisons?)