Newsgroups: talk.politics.drugs
From: [catalyst remailer] at [netcom.com]
Subject: UN considers legalization :-) !
Date: Wed, 13 Apr 1994 19:08:58 -0700

         VIENNA (Reuter) - United Nations experts began seeking a new
strategy Wednesday in their losing battle against the booming
world trade in illegal drugs.
         The 10-day meeting at U.N. headquarters in Vienna could lead
to a switch in emphasis from law enforcement targeted against
suppliers to more powerful health and education campaigns aimed
at whittling away demand for illicit drugs.
         Some Western countries, though far from the majority, also
believe legalization could offer a partial solution.
         The 53-member Commission on Narcotic Drugs, the principal
U.N. policy-making body on drug control, said it had called the
Vienna meeting to re-evaluate strategy at the request of the
General Assembly.
         ``The Commission is placing special emphasis on demand
reduction strategies,'' it said in a press release.
         In General Assembly sessions last year, ``speaker after
speaker stressed the magnitude and global nature of the drug
problem and called for a re-assessment,'' the Commission said.
         But ideas differ sharply over what is the best strategy.
         The Vienna gathering, scheduled to conclude April 22,
intends to examine the strengths and weaknesses of the current
strategy and create a new approach.
         In an interview with a French newspaper Wednesday, the
secretary-general of the world police organization Interpol said
police were losing the drug battle worldwide.
         Raymond Kendall told Le Figaro that Europe was ``flooded
with drugs.'' Profits from the estimated $350 billion annual
trade made any kind of corruption possible, he said.
         In a February report, the U.N. Narcotics Control Board said
the drug business had gone global and was penetrating ``the
spheres of international politics and world economics.''
         Drug cartels were forming multinational networks, trading
and using each other's trafficking routes and resources to
outrun international control efforts, it added.
         But countries engaged in the war against drugs remain bogged
down in finger-pointing arguments over who is to blame --
Western society for producing a huge drugs market or Third World
countries for supplying it.
         U.N. strategy has so far preserved a careful balance between
a ``health model'' seeking reduce the appetite for drugs and a
``law enforcement model'' which would shut down suppliers.
         ``This may now be at a turning point,'' one U.N. source said
Wednesday. While the highly controversial issue of legalizing
narcotics was not on the agenda in Vienna, it was very much
present in the background, sheficking and
very little on consumption.''
         Interpol's Kendall echoed that sentiment, saying police were
overwhelmed. ``We must do everything to cut consumption and
demand,'' he urged. ``Repressing is not enough.''