| | |  Americas & Beyond 
New U.S. Drug Strategy Still Heavy on Enforcement
 Matthew O. Berger - Inter Press Service
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May 12, 2010
 |  | Few Americans - and even fewer Latin Americans - would consider the decades-long 'drug war' to have been a success, and people across the Americas are eager for more effective and humane approaches.
- John Walsh |  | | |
Washington - Along with an expanded focus on domestic prevention and treatment, the U.S. will make a renewed effort to disrupt the flow of narcotics into its borders and weapons and money out of them, according to the White House's long-anticipated National Drug Control Strategy released Tuesday.
"This strategy calls for a balanced approach to confronting the complex challenge of drug use and its consequences," said President Barack Obama. "By boosting community-based prevention, expanding treatment, strengthening law enforcement, and working collaboratively with our global partners, we will reduce drug use and the great damage it causes in our communities."
The strategy is the culmination of a series of efforts undertaken by the Obama administration's rethinking of the largely ineffective or even counterproductive drug-related measures of past administrations. But some say there is still a long way to go.
"Time will tell whether the Obama administration's promising new rhetoric focused on drugs as a public health challenge will be matched by durable shifts in policy," said John Walsh, senior associate for drug policy at the Washington Office on Latin America, "but the deliberate decision to turn down the drug war propaganda is important in itself."
Administration officials have renounced the term "war on drugs" since last May.
"Calling it a war really limits your resources," the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, Gil Kerlikowske, told reporters Tuesday. "Looking at this as both a public safety problem and a public health problem seems to make a lot of sense."
Kerlikowske said the policy should "reduce our drug use at home…and the consequences of illicit drug trafficking and abuse".
"The Obama administration is strongly committed to pursuing a balanced strategy," he said.
The first signs that this administration's drug strategy might deviate from that of past administrations came over a year ago, when U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made the unprecedented public acknowledgement of the U.S.'s role in the fuelling drug violence in Mexico and elsewhere.
"We know very well that the drug traffickers are motivated by the demand for illegal drugs in the United States and that they are armed by the transport of weapons from the United States," she said in a March 2009 visit to the U.S.'s southern neighbour.
The strategy released Tuesday continues to recognise this U.S. role in international drug trafficking. It also aims to deepen partnerships with the countries affected by that trafficking.
"The United States is one of the world's most lucrative markets for illegal drugs. It is in our interest to work collaboratively with international partners to reduce the global drug trade," it says.
Those collaborations will include joint law enforcement operations to disrupt the flow of drugs and money, help in building stronger institutions in partner countries, and the promotion of alternative livelihoods for coca and opium farmers. The new policy also aims to expand support for international prevention and treatment initiatives.
In terms of reducing demand within the U.S. it would, among other initiatives, reduce by 15 percent the rate of youth drug use, the number of chronic drug users and the incidence of drug-induced deaths within the next five years.
Kerlikowske said his office tried to have as many different voices as possible involved, including those of various countries. He said this input is "reflected in the final strategy".
"Every nation is dealing with increasing numbers of people using illicit drugs," he said, noting that Colombian President Álvaro Uribe has told him that Colombia is not just a producer but a consumer of drugs.
Kerlikowske hopes this new drug strategy "can provide assistance to our international partners as they respond to the drug problem". He cited the opening of Mexico's first drug court last year in Monterrey as an example of a "productive relationship" as well as the vast body of research on drug-related issues done in the U.S., saying "we have those kinds of tools to give to other countries".
But critics pointed to what the announcement of the strategy left out - that the drug control budget proposal continues to include much more money for overseas and domestic enforcement than for reducing demand for drugs.
Citing his analysis that the percentages of money allotted to each are about the same as they were under the George W. Bush administration, Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, says that "there's little doubt that this administration seriously wants to distance itself from the rhetoric of the drug war, but its new plan makes clear that it is still addicted to the reality of the drug war."
WOLA and Nadelmann both point out that these budget numbers gloss over the costs of prosecuting and incarcerating people for drug-related crimes.
"Few Americans - and even fewer Latin Americans - would consider the decades-long 'drug war' to have been a success, and people across the Americas are eager for more effective and humane approaches," said Walsh.
He hopes policies along that line follow the administration's new rhetoric.
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