U.S.-DRUGS: Nothing new in U.S. war on drugs, says researcher

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

NEW YORK, Feb 25 1995 (IPS) - The Bill Clinton administration may be downplaying the military rhetoric of the past decade’s ‘war on drugs’, but not much has changed, according to a U.S. research body.

“The Clinton administration talks the talk better than the (George) Bush administration, but it walks the same walk,” argued Rob Stewart of the non-governmental Drug Policy Foundation. “There’s nothing radically new, or even progressive” about its policies.

Former President George Bush once boasted, “My message to the drug lords is this: your day is over.” But Clinton says trade, not guns, will carry out his mission.

The administration this week threatened to hit other countries that produce drugs with trade sanctions.

Lee Brown, director of the National Drug Control Policy office, has threatened that several nations that have not cooperated with Washington’s drug policies may be certified as drug-producing centres or transshipment points next week.

“We will carry out the certification process for those countries who do not do what they should do” to fight drug trafficking, Brown said, adding that countries that do not meet Washington’s demands would be announced Mar 1.

But Stewart argues that, as in the past, Washington expects other countries to fight their own drug lords.

The latest drug policy budget, he noted, cuts armed interdiction activity almost in half, to 1.2 billion dollars, but efforts to cut the supply and flow of drugs into the United States still outpace attempts to curtail U.S. demand for drugs.

Stewart’s Foundation notes that in the current budget, supply- side drug prevention still takes up 65 percent, while such demand reduction activities as drug treatment accounts for 35 percent of all expenditures.

“It’s still the sense of military tactics” that pervades Washington’s drug policy, Stewart charged.

If Clinton does not certify that U.S. interests supersede the importance of the drug war, those nations would then under a 1988 law lose all trade with the United States except for commerce involving some humanitarian goods or anti-drug items. Washington would also block World Bank and other loans to such nations.

“It’s a form of blackmail,” Stewart argued.

In recent days, Colombia and Bolivia have become prime targets of sanctions threats, with cocaine trafficking still heavy in both countries.

But neither may actually lose trade privileges. The only states that currently face sanctions as drug producers — Nigeria, Syria, Iraq and Burma — all have had minimal U.S. ties recently because of other political reasons.

Brown said of Colombia’s government, “They should use the same willpower they used to capture (deceased drug lord) Pablo Escobar and dismantle the Medellin cartel and do the same thing to the Cali cartel.”

Stewart contends that Washington’s dismay with Bogota stems not simply from its ineffectiveness at stopping Cali’s thriving cocaine trade, but because it blocked U.S. attempts to build an anti-drug military base at Cali.

“The country complained when it became clear this was a military base, and strictly drug-related,” Stewart said.

Despite a few successes — notably Colombia’s crushing of the Medellin cartel and 1992 killing of Escobar — most nations have been loath to be seen as fighting their own people simply on behalf of the United States. Colombian President Ernesto Samper quashed the planned Cali base to avoid such a stigma.

The U.c. public is equally unimpressed with the drug wars. Recent polls here suggest that some three-quarters of the U.S. public feel that the United States lost the ‘war’ and that Washington’s drug policy has failed.

The Clinton administration accordingly has placed a greater accent on drug prevention, education and treatment. But even there, it has admitted failures.

Brown himself conceded that, although U.S. drug use has declined slightly, the number of hard-core drug users has remained the same, while drug use among the young has begun to increase again.

“Young people are using more drugs,” he said. “They do not see the danger in drug use.”

Stewart warned that such language — enhanced in recent days by Republicans in the U.S. Congress — may presage a new rhetorical war on drugs, even despite the meagre results of the past few rounds.