[Presidential Decision Directives - PDD]

      PDD #44 embodies our international heroin strategy and was released
      in November, 1995. Major tenants include:

           Boost international awareness and strengthen international
           cooperation against heroin traffickers. Use diplomatic and public
           channels to focus international awareness on the growing heroin
           threat and pursue closer cooperative relationships on a regional
           and bilateral basis with key heroin source and transit countries. 

           Confront Burma and Afghanistan, the sources of most of the
           world heroin supply. Progress in international heroin control is
           dependant upon these two countries reducing opium production.
           Working through other countries and groups will be needed to
           address opium cultivation and production in Burma without
           undermining U.S. interests in advancing democracy and human
           rights. We must continue to support the efforts of Mexican and
           Colombian law enforcement and counterdrug military forces to
           eradicate opium poppy and to control heroin trafficking. 

           Implement coordinated international law enforcement efforts
           aimed at disrupting and destroying heroin trafficking
           organizations. Increase efforts to bring international law
           enforcement to bear against principal heroin trafficking
           organizations through coordinated regional initiatives in East
           Asia, Southwest Asia, and Latin America, like the work being
           done through existing interagency groups. 

           Aggressively use the certification process to promote effective
           host-nation anti-drug activities. We have a long way to go. Major
           heroin producing and trafficking nations like Burma, Afghanistan,
           Colombia, Nigeria, Syria and Iran have been decertified by
           President Clinton. We will continue to use every available forum
           to send a clear, unambiguous message to other countries that fail
           to cooperate with international heroin control efforts that we are
           serious about the heroin problem. 

           Focus on those countries and regions that pose the most direct
           heroin threat to the U.S. We should focus primarily on regions,
           countries, routes and organizations that are linked to the U.S.
           market. We should continue to cooperate closely with European
           and other law enforcement and intelligence organizations in a
           cooperative international effort. 

           Assist source and transit nations in developing comprehensive
           narcotics policies. 

      Our primary strategy (as described above) is to engage and promote
      international cooperation that will unify threatened nations around the
      globe against heroin traffickers. Over the long-term, we must work
      with major producing countries, whenever possible without undermining
      other important U.S. interests of advancing democracy and human
      rights, to limit cultivation and production while continuing to attack
      criminal organizations involved in bringing this drug to the U.S. We
      must aggressively use the certification process to promote cooperation
      and focus on those countries that pose a direct threat to the U.S. Our
      heroin strategy relies largely on international cooperation and
      coordinated domestic law-enforcement efforts, drug treatment for
      chronic drug users, and prevention efforts aimed at new users.

     ... international heroincontrol is a major foreign policy objective
     and that we are to develop programs that complement domestic efforts and
     blunt the potential impact of the international trade on our interests. 

     For starters, it directs us to: 

     1) Work through diplomatic and public channels to boost international awareness
     of the growing heroin threat; 

     2) Promote the United Nations Drug Control Program and regional financial
     institution involvement; 

     3) Bring law enforcement efforts to bear against the principal organizations
     that are involved in heroin production, processing, distribution, and transit; and 

     4) Address the underground banking systems that finance trafficker operations. 

     In addition, it mandates more aggressive use of the certification process.