Global drug strategy failing, critics say
William J. Kole
Associated Press
Apr. 16, 2003 12:00 AM

VIENNA - Critics of a U.S.-led global crackdown on illicit drugs declared Tuesday that the policy is a failure, 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.

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.