June 8, 1998
PRESS BRIEFING BY U.S. NATIONAL DRUG POLICY DIRECTOR GENERAL BARRY MCCAFFREY, SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICE DONNA SHALALA, ATTORNEY GENERAL JANET RENO, AND SPECIAL ENVOY TO THE AMERICAS MACK MCLARTY
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
(New York, New York)
______________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release June 8, 1998
PRESS BRIEFING BY
U.S. NATIONAL DRUG POLICY DIRECTOR GENERAL BARRY MCCAFFREY,
SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICE DONNA SHALALA,
ATTORNEY GENERAL JANET RENO,
AND SPECIAL ENVOY TO THE AMERICAS MACK MCLARTY
The United Nations
New York, New York
11:25 A.M. EDT
GENERAL MCCAFFREY: Let me, if I may, briefly make some
opening comments and begin by -- I'm Barry McCaffrey, the U.S. National Drug
Policy Director; and am joined by the Attorney General Janet Reno, and
Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala, and Mr. Mack McLarty,
who has been our Special Envoy for Latin American issues -- underscore the
participation of the U.S. national delegation this morning of Secretary Dick
Riley, who is our Secretary of Education. It was an important statement for
the President not only to give this address, but also to be joined by the
senior officials of his government who work on the U.S. national drug
strategy.
Very briefly, let me comment on the President's remarks.
First of all, it was our purpose to underscore that there was a year's hard
work behind the three days of this absolutely enormously important gathering
of 150 nations and more than 30 heads of government. And that hard work was
in many ways put together not only by the active intervention of Mexican
leadership and others, but also by Mr. Arlacchi of the UNDCP, as you know,
based in Vienna. It is a viewpoint of many of us, to include President
Clinton and our government, that he bring to bear on this subject a renewed
sense of energy and vision which we think can produce some enormous good in
the years to come.
The President tried to make several fundamental statements;
first, that there is a commonality in the problem shared in the world
community, that it's no longer appropriate to talk in terms of producer
nations, transit and consumer, but to recognize that there are some 200
million addicts in the world community. And in addition, we have been quick
to underscore in the United States that we are now a drug producing nation,
and
we're seeing the rise of methamphetamines and chemically-produced
drugs as part of that new threat on the drug issue in the United
States.
Secondly, the President made the point that this was
an issue that had to be addressed through community of action.
And we began that process at Santiago, Chile, a few months back,
when at the second Summit of the Americas we had 34
democratically-elected heads of government in the region come
together and commit to a process, using the Organization of
American States as the mechanism, to cooperation on the
north-south access. So it's a question of community.
Third, the President committed ourselves to stand
behind the leadership of the U.N. in an attempt to fundamentally
change the nature of the drug threat to all of us. We believe it
is possible -- this is not a war that has been fought and lost,
this is the beginning of an international effort which has seen
enormous beginning success in Thailand, in Pakistan, in Peru, and
now we're beginning to see movement in Bolivia. We believe it is
possible to very drastically slash the production of these
illegal drugs, and, even more importantly, to reduce drug demand.
And certainly Thailand is a model to many of us to also reduce
the demand coefficient. The United States, as the President
mentioned, has also successfully reduced, for example, cocaine
consumption by more than 70 percent in the last decade.
And, finally, I think all of us believe that the
notion of cooperation is going to be fundamental to what we're
trying to achieve, and cooperation not just in the obvious areas
of intelligence sharing, of cooperation in interdiction, of
detection and monitoring, but in the more important ways of
sharing evidence and judicial extradition of those who are wanted
in one country for violating the law of another, and most
importantly, of cooperation on demand reduction. And I would
underscore that Mexico and the United States, since we have a
very special relationship, have begun that process of having very
close contacts, using Secretary Shalala and others to reduce and
to share information on demand reduction.
Finally, the President announced that -- when you
hear the number it's rather dramatic -- that he is now asking for
continued bipartisan support from the U.S. Congress for a $2
billion, 5-year campaign to speak to our own children and to
their adult mentors about the destructive impact of drugs. And
that will go nationwide in July, and you will see on television,
radio, the Internet, print media, billboards, sponsorship
programs, public-private partnerships, one of the most
sophisticated efforts, guided in large part by a Partnership for
a Drug Free America group, Mr. Jim Burke and others, which we
hope will provide another important element to the reduction of
drug use in the United States.
On that note, if you can, let me introduce the first
of the three most important people in my life, Secretary Shalala,
the Attorney General and Secretary Dick Riley.
Madam Attorney General.
Q What about your wife?
GENERAL MCCAFFREY: Well, she didn't make the cut
today -- I'm sorry. (Laughter.)
ATTORNEY GENERAL RENO: We defer to her.
Today is a very important day, for we have seen the
nations of the world come together to focus on how they,
together, can fight drugs. No nation can wage this battle alone
and we all need to be allies.
I have long said that our efforts against drugs must
be long-range and they must be comprehensive if we are to deal
with the violence, the suffering, and the problems associated
with drugs. We must vigorously enforce our drug laws and go
after those organizations that flood our streets with drugs, with
violence. We must do so by disrupting and dismantling their
operations.
Secondly, we must also teach our young people that
using drugs is a dangerous road to nowhere, and we must enhance
prevention programs in every way possible.
Finally, we must continue the common sense treatment
programs that are so successful in cutting down on the demand.
If there is no demand, there is no drug business. And we must
work together to ensure that those who go to prison for using
drugs, or who abuse drugs, have the treatment that will enable
them to come back to the community when they are released from
prison with a chance of success.
These are all important steps that can work and are
working, but they must be carried out comprehensively and
together by us all. No nation can sit on the sidelines; by
working together, all our nations can help make our communities
safer places in which to live.
SECRETARY SHALALA: Thank you, General McCaffrey.
One of the themes today is that all the senior
members of the President's Cabinet see themselves as part of the
international drug control and prevention efforts. Last month,
at the World Health meetings, Dr. Gro Brundtland, the new
Director General of WHO, called for more global cooperation on
global health problems. And we certainly see drug abuse as a
global health problem and are committed to gathering our
resources and our will and our efforts to fight drug abuse
together. And that's why our antidrug strategy includes sharing
with other nations our most effective ways for curbing drug abuse
and addiction.
We've held prevention training courses all over the
world, including Bangladesh and Thailand and Peru and Colombia
and Japan and many of the nations in Europe, as well as Central
and South America. We've also shared our drug research findings.
For instance, under our bilateral health agreement, our research
scientists are collaborating with Russian scientists on addiction
treatment. And our guide to preventing drug use among children
and teens has been translated into a number of languages,
including Spanish.
And several nations, including Mexico and Turkey,
have launched their own high school drug use epidemiology
studies, based on our monitoring the future study. In other
words, our underlying research is being used around the world as
models, as nations put their own surveillance systems in place
and culturally sensitive translations of some of the strategies
that we've used and the materials that we've used.
The initiatives that the President announced today,
the virtual university and the international drug fellowship
program, we believe will reinforce these international efforts in
prevention and in research.
We've got a very good story to tell the world about
fighting drug use. It's no accident that it's dropped here in
the past decade. It took a lot of leadership, but more
importantly, it took consistency and our willingness to be nimble
and to change programs, to change materials, to change
strategies, as we will demonstrate this summer, as we learned new
things.
But our children are still vulnerable, and the
President has challenged us to cut the rate of drug use on the
demand side in half within 10 years. And to reach that target,
we've asked Congress for the largest antidrug budget in history
-- $17 billion, including $6 billion to fight drug demand with
very strong media campaigns and very solid prevention, research,
and treatment programs.
There is no silver bullet, as General McCaffrey has
consistently pointed out. It takes a full-court press, a complex
set of prevention and research and treatment programs to really
have an impact, and a particular focus on young people.
As we harness global cooperation, we're also asking
Congress to step up and pass the President's budget, to pass his
antidrug budget, which will have not only an enormous impact on
our own country, but will help our international efforts, which
are considerable.
MR. MCLARTY: This global approach the President
outlined today, as did President Zedillo and other speakers will
as well, I think has as one of its critical foundational pieces
the Summit of the Americas process that began in Miami, and as
General McCaffrey referred to, a multilateral approach and
alliance, indeed, was agreed upon at the Santiago Summit.
The progress that has been made in terms of that
cooperation, the President noted in his remarks, in
Bolivia and Peru, where we see substantial crop eradication, as
well as Mexico. And I think has changed some of the basic
patterns of not only the narco traffickers' distribution routes,
but also the more fundamental aspects of their business. And I
think that we are making real progress in that regard. But it is
clearly not only a supply, but a demand effort, indeed.
I think the President's assessment that progress,
real progress, which General McCaffrey, Secretary Shalala and
General Reno have spoken to, should not be confused with the
complete success in this very sustained effort that is absolutely
critical.
And I think, finally, the line has not only blurred
in terms of demand and supply, which we see certainly in this
hemisphere, but also in terms of foreign and domestic issues, but
in terms of security and economic issues as well. Clearly, the
effort we are making against narco traffickers is absolutely
critical in terms of building stable and prosperous economies
throughout our hemisphere.
It will indeed take a community of action. I will
have the opportunity to meet with a number of heads of state from
Latin America who are here, in our common effort against the
narco traffickers. And the United Nations is certainly the
proper place to move forward in a critical endeavor in the coming
months and years.
Q The President said today we must and we can
deprive traffickers of their dirty money that strengthens the
drug trade. Apparently, that's what Operation Casablanca tried
to do. But was it worth it, given what appears to be the damage
it has created between the United States and Mexico?
GENERAL MCCAFFREY: Well, first of all, let me begin
with a fundamental understanding that the U.S. probably spends
$57 billion a year on illegal drugs. So I remind people, the
United States does not have the world's addict population, we
have too much money. So the money out of Western Europe and the
United States, to some extent, fuels this international crime
threat. And that crime threat -- Secretary Rubin has provided
brilliant leadership over the last three years to find common
laws, particularly in this hemisphere, to combat money laundering
and asset seizure. There's been enormous progress.
Now, secondly, let me just underscore our enormous
pride in the dedication of U.S. law enforcement -- in the
Department of Treasury and Justice -- in aggressively pursuing
international crime. The problem is not Colombia or Panama or
the Cayman Islands or Peru or the United States. The problem is
international crime that is corrosive to the democratic
institution of all these countries.
Now, I'm also persuaded, as are the rest of the
President's team, that we have to do this in partnership with our
neighbors and with absolute respect and deference for their own
sovereign institutions.
There's probably some room here for -- I think the
Attorney General may wish to speak to it, but there's some room
here for us to look through how we can even more effectively
coordinate these in the future.
Q -- damage done by Casablanca -- according to
Mexican authorities.
GENERAL MCCAFFREY: I think there is a common belief
on the part of both these Presidents, Zedillo and Clinton, that
one of the dominant threats to our democratic institutions and
our families is the drug issue. And so there's no question but
that this threatens both populations and requires a mutually
respectful partnership to confront it.
Q They're asking the General if he will take
agents and extradite them to Mexico. Is that proper?
Q On behalf of the United States Correspondents
Association, we welcome you here, ladies and gentlemen, to this
briefing. The first question, as it should have been, is -- as
you've been watching television lately, you've been seeing some
active lobbying going on which purports that the drug strategy of
the United States is a failure, to put it bluntly. It seems to
be backed by a good number of influential people, from this
context, probably the most surprising one is Perez de Cuellar,
the former Secretary General here. Is that likely to have any
impact on the American strategy?
GENERAL MCCAFFREY: We're listening very carefully
to the viewpoints of a very diverse community and we have great
respect for the insights of some of the people that are
represented in that ad. We've tried to share as widely as we can
that the administration's strategy does take into account a
fairly comprehensive approach that is based fundamentally on the
reduction of drug demand. So I think in many cases, this is a
1990s reaction to a 1950s perception.
Having said that, in addition, I think there are
probably mixed agendas out of some in this debate. I think we
are -- certainly Secretary Shalala and I, and Secretary Riley
believe that the heart and soul of the U.S. strategy is watch our
budgets, the 1999 budget. And if you go back three years ago, it
has a 33-percent increase in drug prevention funding. There is a
dramatic increase in drug treatment funding. And now we're
linking it to the criminal justice system.
Let me, if I can, defer to the Attorney General and
Secretary Shalala, to talk to about just the nature of our own
approach.
ATTORNEY GENERAL RENO: I think in the last several
years we have focused on a balanced approach that includes
prevention, education, treatment and enforcement. For example,
in enforcement we have shown significant results with drug courts
which use a carrot and stick approach of cooperate with us in
treatment or face a more serious sanction each step of the way.
And I think balanced approaches like this, provision for
treatment, thoughtful follow-up with after-care are making a
significant difference.
SECRETARY SHALALA: There are no substitutes for the
initial prevention strategies -- and that is parents and teachers
and the institutions in our society at the community level
sending a consistent message to young people and reinforcing that
message and helping young people go through that transition
through to adolescence drug free. And there's no silver bullet
for this and there's not a chance that we're going to give up and
throw up our hands and walk away from what we think is a
fundamental public health issue.
GENERAL MCCAFFREY: And one which, I might add,
we're actually doing in the 15-year context quite well at. We're
dissatisfied with it. We think -- in 1979, 14 percent of the
population was regularly using drugs. Now it's 6 percent. But
it's still historically unacceptably high. And so the President
has committed us to a long-term approach to grind it down by more
than half. And we are persuaded we can do that.
Q I have a question for the Attorney General.
The foundation that Mr. Sorros, George Sorros backs is in favor
of legalizing drugs. I'd like your attitude on that. And I have
a question for Secretary Shalala, if the U.N. is to be a focal
point for this war on drugs worldwide, shouldn't the U.S. pay its
dues of $1.6 billion to the organization?
ATTORNEY GENERAL RENO: I'm opposed to the
legalization of drugs because I have seen so many instances in
which people who were abusers were motivated into treatment by
the threat of sanction. And I think the balanced approach that
includes vigorous enforcement and focus on traffickers and
appropriate sanctions against users, coupled with treatment can
have a dramatic impact.
SECRETARY SHALALA: In particular, we believe that
public health issues ought to be based on science. And there is
clear evidence that marijuana is dangerous to our health and,
therefore, we ought not to be making public policies,
particularly in this area, that do not reflect the danger of
those drugs -- no matter what those drugs are. There is no such
thing
as a soft drug, and there is no such thing as a drug that is
illegal that is not dangerous. And the new research on marijuana
in particular makes that very clear.
Q The program laid out by Mr. Arlacchi includes
an important element, the idea of inducing countries that are
drug producers to go into crop substitution that would eliminate
their production of narcotics. There have been reports in recent
days that the United States government is unwilling to contribute
funds to the carrying out of this program in certain countries,
particularly Afghanistan and Myranmar. Could you shed some light
on this and tell us if that is correct or not?
GENERAL MCCAFFREY: Let me begin by saying that the
plan is not on the table yet. Mr. Arlacchi's evolving thinking
on the elimination of coke and opium production in the coming
decade is not yet in the form of a plan that's on the table --
never mind with an attendant cost estimate package to go with it.
So much of this is sort of presumptuous thinking.
Now, the second assertion many of us would make is
that it is not clear to me that resources will bulldoze the
solution. We've had dramatic successes in Peru with somewhat
modest help from the international community. The most important
ingredient at stake was Peruvian political will and the
reintroduction of civil law and civil police into the growing
areas of the Huallaga Valley, along with alternative economic
development that the United States has sustained.
Now, we also understand that there are problems in
both Burma, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, where the U.S. has a
principal foreign policy goal of this support for democratization
and human rights and the status of women in society in the case
of the Taliban in Afghanistan. How we will sort out those other
extremely important democratic principles is not yet clear.
But it is clear to all of us that drug production in
Burma is an enormous threat to the People's Republic of China, to
Vietnam, to Cambodia, to Thailand, to Japan, and to the United
States. So we've tried to make the case -- this is not a
consumer nation versus producer nation. This is a regional
problem in which Pakistan, as an example, has more than we think
-- possibly, 3 million addicts to heroine. So it's a problem for
regional community solutions, not just funding for alternative
economic development.
Q This is a question for the Attorney General. I
wish you'd get on to the Operation Casablanca again. The Mexican
President's speech had a tinge of bitterness about governments
acting on their own and not respecting the sovereignty of others,
and I was wondering, if you had Operation Casablanca to do over
again, how would you do it over?
ATTORNEY GENERAL RENO: One doesn't engage in what
ifs. But what one does is look to what the issues are. And
clearly, the mutual problem that both nations face is what do we
do about drugs and money laundering. And we will continue to
focus every effort on that. We will also continue to work with
the government of Mexico in every way possible. My colleague,
Jorge Madrazo, the Attorney General of Mexico, has been a superb
partner in this effort and we will continue those efforts.
In any investigation, there may be problems that
arise, but we always work through those for the ultimate goal of
real impact on drug trafficking and money laundering which
threaten the people of both nations.
Q Attorney General Reno, we have heard how
important it is for information sharing and international
cooperation. The United States decided not to inform Mexican
officials about the Operation Casablanca, arguing that you feared
that by doing so agents could be in danger. My question is the
following: Telling President Zedillo and Mexican officials like
Jorge Madrazo, the Attorney General, would have increased the
danger for your agents?
ATTORNEY GENERAL RENO: In some investigations the
circumstances are such that great care has got to be taken and
it's very closely held. In this instance, the investigators
determined that it must be very closely held, even with respect
to officials in this nation, in order to ensure the safety of the
individual. Again, it is not a matter of disrespect, it is a
matter of trying to do -- conduct an investigation, to focus on
money laundering, to focus on those who launder the money and
launder the misery, while at the same time, protecting the lives
of the agents involved.
Q General, with all due respect, last week Mr.
Arlacchi did give us a dollar figure for the cost of his
proposals. He said it would be about a half-billion dollars a
year for the next 10 years, and if you factor in existing money
it could come down to about quarter of a billion. Is that within
the area that the U.S. could participate in if you do determine
the programs are worthy of funding? And how likely is it that
you would be able to get that money from Congress?
GENERAL MCCAFFREY: Again, I think it's premature to
speculate on a funding package to go along with Mr. Arlacchi's
visionary thinking, which we are absolutely supportive of. So
what we're doing this week, these three days, is building
political consensus to look at the problem as one that effects us
all, threatens us all and requires a sense of partnership.
Now, I think there will be a discussion down the
line of the mechanisms we might use. There is already, as you're
aware, U.N. money going into both Afghanistan and Burma, and
there is some good coming out of this. Mr. Arlacchi's last visit
there resulted in probably a two-ton destruction of opium gum.
But we're at the beginning stages of this.
The only thing I would also ask you to consider by
way of analogy is that the cost to the world community of living
with this scourge is so enormous that it's not clear to me the
resources required to address the problem will dominate the
debate. In the United States we assert we lose $110 billion a
year, direct cost to our society, from drug abuse by six percent
of our population. And we've put on the table a $17 billion
package to confront this issue.
But in the long run we don't believe money will
continue to grow in the coming years of the counterdrug effort.
We actually think this will work; drug abuse will go down, we
will spend less money on the national strategy. And I think Mr.
Arlacchi's leadership may well lead us to similar conclusions in
the international arena.
Q To go back to the issue of Burma, I was
wondering if there is a new thinking in the administration as to
how to deal with the problem of crop eradication in Burma. It
has not been a success. The government is not being particularly
cooperative. There is a U.N. program for eradication -- the
extent of the problem there. Other than saying that it is a
regional problem, is there any new ideas and strategies within
the U.S. administration to deal with that?
And, two, the Burmese government has refused to
extradite Kuhn Sah to the United States, nor has it brought Kuhn
Sah to trial for his involvement in the drug empire there. What
is the U.S. planning to do about that?
GENERAL MCCAFFREY: Well, Burma is a very special
case. Many of you are aware of the numbers. We believe they've
produced some 60 percent nearly of the world's supply of heroin
and it's become a massive threat to their regional partners. If
anyone is directly a threat it's the Vietnamese, the Chinese, the
Thai and their other partners.
And I have also suggested, in the international
community we have lost sight of the fact that if you look at
comparative levels of suffering, the hill people of the Burmese
nations have suffered more injury from opium production than
anyone else. It's been enormously destructive of their own way
of life, and it's just a terrible tragedy.
Now, what we do about it is not clear. There is
without question a regional sense of concern and growing
cooperation to confront the issue. We are aware that the Chinese
are actively involved in this dialogue. We do have a modest U.S.
presence in Burma that is trying to monitor the situation, and we
remain supportive of U.N. efforts with rather modest programs
also, which are in Burma. But I would agree, there has not been
any real progress in lowering the rates of drug production, nor
are we satisfied with the democratic issue or the human rights
issue. So it's a dilemma for us to address. I hope you ask Mr.
Abe Rosenthal at some point.
MR. TOIV: Last question here.
Q Can you answer the extradition question of Kuhn
Sah?
GENERAL McCAFFREY: I don't know that we've even
answered that.
ATTORNEY GENERAL RENO: What is important,
generally, is that we develop procedures for bringing people to
justice so that there is no safe place to hide. And that's the
reason it's important that we meet here today to learn how we can
improve our extradition efforts, what we can do to build trust
that can make sure that drug traffickers know there is no safe
place to hide.
Q This is to the General or anybody else. I
think that most people who are in the antidrug or count ourselves
in the antidrug community, whether it is journalistic or law
enforcement or therapy, believe that the pro-drug, which is for
the drug legalization community in America, is getting more and
more powerful, not necessarily among the general public, but
certainly in the intellectual and academic community as this ad
and many other ads will show. They're making headway in it and
they give the -- they never put forward a plan, obviously,
because they don't have one. But they're making it more and more
success in getting people to believe that the drug war has ended
-- we don't even want to call it a "drug war" anymore, but let
that go -- has ended in failure and that the community, that the
people within the intellectual, literary, academic communities --
are moving towards some form of legalization either by referenda
or whatever.
What is it you think that the United States
government or anybody else can do to arouse the literary and the
intellectual and academic communities to support the antidrug
movement far more than they do now?
GENERAL McCAFFREY: Well, first of all, I share your
concern. I am very disturbed by it. The foreign affairs article
was something we've tried to refute and had some difficulty in
getting our own ideas in print.
Having said that, let me -- to some extent, it's the
mouse that roared. If you look at the polling data of the
American people, there is not s shred of support for drug
legalization. That will not happen in the United States, no
matter how you word the question. That's why we're seeing very
subtle nuanced, indirect approaches to drug legalization -- the
medical marijuana issue, hemp as a solution to the nation's
textile problems, whatever.
So I'm a little bit skeptical. And, in addition,
when I go to the editorial boards, the most creative people in
America, in television and the new media -- when we visited
Hollywood, we find a great wealth of support for a non-drugged,
non-stoned America. So I was very upbeat.
Let me, if I can, defer to my colleagues.
ATTORNEY GENERAL RENO: My message to them is that's
the wrong way to go. The best way to go is to join with General
McCaffrey, Secretary Shalala and others in developing a balanced
approach that focuses indeed on enforcement, focuses on the major
traffickers, but recognizes that many people are in prison today
because they had a combination of use and some street dealing.
Those people are coming out to the community sooner rather than
later. Let's make sure we get them treatment while they're in
prison and after-care when they're out so that they can come back
with a chance of success. Let's make sure we develop
comprehensive intervention programs.
A drug court started in Miami in 1989; there are no
over 200 across the country, and they are having an impact, again
through some evaluations and research that show it, not just
speculation. Again, we need to focus, as the President has
focused, for these next years, on prevention programs that work.
If we provide that balance and if we focus on comprehensive
community efforts that give our young people a chance to grow
with a positive future, I think we can make a difference. And
the academic world has been right there with us. We need to
bring some others along.
SECRETARY SHALALA: I agree with Janet. I think
that it's a kind of pseudo-intellectualism, because there's no
scientific base to their conclusions. These drugs are harmful
and there's no way they could make the case that they're not
harmful or that they won't lead to the worst kind of public
health effects. And just because they have enough money to make
it fashionable, it doesn't mean that they're right. And we
believe that they're fundamentally wrong and that, more
importantly, that there's no scientific basis for suggesting that
the legalization of drugs would, in fact, improve the public
health.
GENERAL MCCAFFREY: A viewpoint that we are joined
in by Harvard University, University of Michigan, Johns Hopkins,
UCLA, Pennsylvania Medical College -- this is an awfully
widespread academic support for what we're trying to achieve.
I think that's probably about the last question.
Thank you.
END 12:00 P.M. EDT