DATE=2/9/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=MCCAFFREY - MEXICO (L)
NUMBER=2-258991
BYLINE=GREG FLAKUS
DATELINE=MEXICO CITY
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: The director of the U-S Office of National Drug
Control Policy, General Barry McCaffrey, says the
United States is doing its part to reduce the demand
for illegal narcotics. General McCaffrey is in Mexico
City, meeting with his counterparts and learning more
about Mexican efforts to stop drug smuggling. V-O-A's
Greg Flakus reports from the Mexican capital.
TEXT: Speaking at a Mexico City college (Colegio de
Mexico) Wednesday, General McCaffrey addressed the
concern that has often been expressed here and in
other parts of Latin America that the United States is
not doing enough to curb demand for drugs. He says
that prevention programs are working in the United
States, and that just in the past year there has been
a 13-percent drop in drug abuse.
General McCaffrey says the reduction in drug use has
also led to an overall drop in crime.
/// FIRST MCCAFFREY ACT ///
In the United States, we have had literally a
50-percent drop in drug-related murders in under
ten years, a huge drop, a third in the overall
murder rate, (and) dramatic drops in general
crime.
/// END ACT ///
But General McCaffrey admitted that the United States
has not done enough to provide treatment for the more
than four million people who are chronically addicted
to drugs. He says two-thirds of people undergoing
treatment under strict conditions in model programs
substantially change their drug-taking behavior. But,
he says, the chemical changes made in the brains of
addicts make it difficult for them to completely break
their habits. He says more emphasis needs to be put
on the medical and social aspects of the problem, and
less on the law enforcement effort, which he says is
erroneously referred to as "a war on drugs."
/// SECOND MCCAFFREY ACT ///
I think we have a bad metaphor. When we decided
we would put a man on the moon in ten years, we
did not declare war on the moon. We found more
appropriate metaphors. What we are now trying
to substitute is the metaphor of cancer
affecting community life.
/// END ACT ///
General McCaffrey says people in the United States
spend 57-billion dollars on narcotics each year and
that this flood of money fosters corruption on both
sides of the border. He says U-S federal prisons
alone hold more than 100 thousand prisoners convicted
of drug-related crimes. These include, he says, some
federal officials and law enforcement agents who took
bribes from criminal organizations.
As for Mexican cooperation in the effort to stop drug
smuggling, General McCaffrey says Mexican officials
know it is in their country's best interest to prevent
criminal organizations from destabilizing the nation.
/// OPT ///
The top U-S drug fighter says the two nations are
bound together by more than just this one problem, and
it is one that they must address together.
/// THIRD MCCAFFREY ACT ///
There is almost no border between the two
nations. Our cultures are interpenetrated with
each other. The Mexican influence on food, on
music, on our American life is profound. How
could we not act in partnership on the drug
issue as well as economic matters, political
matters, cultural matters-- waste water
management in border cities? We have very
little option but to reach out in a respectful,
deliberate manner to confront the drug issue.
/// END ACT ///
/// END OPT ///
On Thursday, General McCaffrey will visit Mexico's
southern border region to see firsthand the
enforcement efforts Mexican federal police and
military units are making to stem the flow of drugs
coming up from Central America. General McCaffrey
says more than 50-percent of the cocaine entering the
United States each year comes through what he calls
the Mexican corridor. (Signed).
NEB/GF/gm
09-Feb-2000 14:39 PM EDT (09-Feb-2000 1939 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
|
Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list
|
|
|
