From: [c--ri--w] at [hbbs.mcs.com] (clarinews)
Newsgroups: alt.drugs
Subject: War on Drugs a Failure, Says Colombian Law Official
Date: 25 Mar 94 15:24:25 CST

	 BOGOTA (Reuter) - The worldwide war on drugs has failed and
is unlikely to succeed until rich countries consider legalizing
narcotics to destroy traffickers' power, Colombia's
Prosecutor-General Gustavo De Greiff said Monday.
	 De Greiff, speaking at a news conference organized by the
United Nations to present its annual narcotics report, said
moves by some European and U.S. cities to decriminalize drug
consumption while still pushing production and trafficking
actually helps the drug traders.
	 That strategy gives traffickers ``the best of both worlds --
a useless fight against production and trafficking and a secure
market for consumption.'' He did not mention specific cities.
	 ``I consider the fight against drugs a failure,'' De Greiff
said. ``More emphasis has been put on fighting production and
trafficking and very little on consumption ... I do not favor
legalization for the sake of legalization, but I have insinuated
that it is one of the best ways to close the market to drugs
traffickers and stop them making their obscene profits.''
	 De Greiff spoke as the U.N. International Narcotics Control
Board (INCB) released its annual report and strongly reiterated
its opposition to any form of drug legalization.
	 ``We're against any legalization of drugs,'' Gottfried
Machata of the INCB told a news conference at the agency's
Vienna headquarters.
	 The board's report showed that despite the police shooting
of Medellin cartel boss Pablo Escobar last December, cocaine
manufacture and trafficking from Colombia, the world's top
producer, were still expanding.
	 Rene Saa-Vidal, head of the INCB in Colombia, said
production of all drugs there rose over the past year.
	 ``Colombia is now disputing (with Bolivia) the position as
the second biggest producer of coca leaf ... production has gone
up froxMQ
recent figures show a rise in the output of marijuana.''
	 De Greiff seized on the figures to argue that legalization
was the only way to destroy the drug trade.
	 Referring to the killing of Escobar, the earlier shooting of
one of his top lieutenants, Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha, and the
capture and extradition to the U.S. of drug kingpin Carlos
Lehder, he said:
	 ``What has happened to the drug market? Nothing! .... There
is still demand, drugs are still available and the number of
addicts has not fallen.''
	 De Greiff quoted Drug Enforcement Administration officers in
California as saying that justice authorities throughout the
world only managed to seize $800 million of an estimated $40 to
$60 billion a year in drug profits.
	 ``Unfortunately if you look at the results of the fight, it
is pretty discouraging,'' he added.
	 The United Nations report said Colombia's drug cartels,
which control more than 70 percent of the world cocaine trade,
were spreading activity to other Latin American countries.
	 ``Venezuela ... has become an important transit country;
from there the traffickers send tons of cocaine by boat to
Europe and in airplanes and small shipments to the United
States,'' the report said.
	 ``Argentina, Brazil and Chile are also becoming ever more
important transit countries for shipments of illicit drugs
destined not only for North America and Europe but also Asia and
Africa.''
	 The review also said the drug menace had broken national
boundaries to become a global business penetrating ``the spheres
of international politics and world economics.''
	 There was clear evidence that drug cartels were increasingly
cooperating to outrun controls and maximize profits, the study
said.