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
.