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By Mike Trickey

NEW ‘WAR ON DRUGS’ HAS FAMILIAR RING

Clinton Pledges $2 Billion As UN Launches Heavily Criticized Effort

UNITED NATIONS—Representatives from more than 150 countries have come together for a three-day special conference again declaring an international war on drugs, but the message has changed little from the "just say no" mantra of Ronald Reagan’s White House.

The UN convened a similar conference in 1990, in which the ‘90s were declared the Decade Against Drugs and which pledged to rid the planet of illicit drugs by 1995.

This time, with the level of drug production and profits at an all-time high, the goal is to unite disjointed national efforts and eradicate drugs by 2008.

"The problem is great in scope and consequence, eroding the foundation of democracies, corrupting the integrity of market economies and menacing the lives, hopes and future of families on every continent," said U.S. President Bill Clinton in the opening address.

"But our nations have shown, through individual and collective effort, that we can turn this evil tide."

Others are not so sure.

More than 1,000 people, prominent in their own countries or globally, signed a petition calling on the UN to re-examine what they call a failed course of action and embark on a new direction of drug control efforts.

Clinton defended of the effectiveness of the U.S. policy of law enforcement, prosecution and incarceration, noting that Americans are spending 37 per cent less on drugs than they were a decade ago.

However, Dr. Diane Riley of the Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy, says Clinton is just playing with numbers.

"Of course Americans are spending less on drugs," she said, after a session of a non-governmental organization meeting being held opposite the official UN conference.

"The price of drugs has gone down."

That drug prices are sharply down from a decade ago is an indication that the traditional U.S. approach is failing. If the amount of drugs available were being significantly reduced, supply-and-demand economics would dictate the street price should be climbing.

However, Mathea Falco, president of the non-profit research institute Drug Strategies and a former assistant secretary of state for international narcotics matters, says that is not the case.
(Ed. note: Falco wanted to be Clinton’s Drug Czar but was passed over because of suspicion that she has deviationist tendencies, i.e. not being sufficiently prohibitionist. She strongly opposes the legalization of marijuana, but she does criticize some aspects of prohibition, which makes her pro-drug and anti-child to the more fanatical.)

She says the retail price of heroin has dropped by more than half since 1981 while its purity is three times what it was then. As well, the THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) content of high-grade marijuana is more than 10 times what it was in the early 1970s while prices, which climbed through the last part of the 1980s, have dropped back to the level of the lower-grade grass sold in the early ‘80s.
(Ed. note: It is amazing to see a so-called expert citing these figures. In 1975 there was marijuana that tested a THC content of 14%. Does this mean that "high-grade marijuana" today has 140% THC?)
U.S. officials, though declaring themselves "enormously proud" of their pursuit of international drug criminals and Clinton’s statement that next year’s federal budget will include a record $17 billion US for the fight— about two-thirds on enforcement and prosecution—admit some changes are needed.

Clinton announced a new five-year, $2-billion media campaign aimed at discouraging young people from drug use will be launched next month and he admitted the flaws in the traditional U.S. argument that it had a problem with drug users while other countries had a problem of drug producers.

However, his administration is adamant there will be no relaxation of drug laws.

"There is no such thing as a soft drug and there is no such thing as a drug that is illegal that is not dangerous," said Health Secretary Donna Shalala. "New research on marijuana, in particular, makes that very clear."

She and U.S. drug "czar" Barry McCaffrey dismissed petition signatories as members of the "intellectual, literary and academic community" engaging in pseudo-science.