03 December 1998
(But says "tremendous challenge" remains) (820) By Eric Green USIA Staff Writer WASHINGTON -- The United States and Mexico are working together, "fairly effectively," against stopping illicit drug trafficking, but a "tremendous challenge" remains to put drug traffickers out of business, says Barry McCaffrey, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. Interviewed December 3 on the C-Span television and radio program, "Washington Journal," McCaffrey said with 260 million people crossing the U.S.-Mexican border each year in cars, trucks, rail cars and other means of transport, it is very hard to detect who is shipping drugs into the United States. In reality, he said, with so many people crossing every day, "we almost have no border between the two countries." McCaffrey said President Clinton and Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo have been "very supportive of one another" in trying to put a stop to drug trafficking. The United States, he said, has been helping Mexican law enforcement institutions resist the "corruption and violence" which occurs in Mexico as it tries to cope with stopping drug trafficking. "We're working with (Mexico) fairly effectively but it's a tremendous challenge, particularly in terms of corruption of law enforcement agencies," McCaffrey said. He added that Mexico's Attorney General, Jose-Ignacio Madrazo, is well aware of the problem, and U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency agents are working in Mexico as trainers and partners. In addition, McCaffrey said, the United States is cooperating "very effectively" with Mexico's Navy, and "we have a decent Customs interchange." "I think we're making progress," McCaffrey said, "but this is a 15-year work- in-progress." However, the United States, he said, also must share in the blame for the drug problem, in that it sometimes has "selective hypocrisy on this issue." Millions of dollars, he said, are spent in the United States "pulling drugs" in from Mexico. McCaffrey said he is gratified that U.S. lawmakers have finally come to realize there is no single answer for how to stop the influx of illegal drugs and how to get people to stop using them. "Everybody would like to say the answer is go work on drugs in Bolivia, or the answer is legalize them and only take care of your wounded, or have drug treatment programs, and that's your only approach. But I think there is a growing acceptance right now you have got to do all" of these things. What is needed, he said, is a balanced policy that combines education about drugs and treatment for drug abusers with law enforcement policies to stop illegal drug use. McCaffrey said he is aware that other countries, particularly the Netherlands and Switzerland, have different policies than the United States concerning policing the use of illicit drugs. Regarding the Netherlands, McCaffrey said, "we don't agree with the kind of public legal hypocrisy that the Dutch have adopted in which marijuana and the production of hashish is against the law." But yet, he added, the government tolerates drug use in 1,000 so-called "coffee houses," and also tolerates the growing of marijuana. In 1976, the Dutch government revised many aspects of its drug policy. While not legalizing marijuana, it adopted what was called an "expediency principle," which directed police and prosecutors to ignore retail sale to adults as long as the circumstances of the sale do not constitute a public nuisance. "So you have the police" in the Netherlands trying to seize illegal drugs, "and yet tolerating its sale. We think that's unhealthy," McCaffrey said. But in the United States, McCaffrey said, "many of us are uncomfortable with the idea of more psycho-active drugs being available -- we're opposed to it. That's just a viewpoint we couldn't express more strongly." McCaffrey struck a hard line against those calling for the legalization of marijuana. In the United States, "thankfully we passed a transportation law" whereby nine million transportation workers are subject to drug tests so that "when you get on a plane or train or see an 18-wheeler truck you can be reasonably assured that the drivers or the crews are not using marijuana." He added that advocates for legalizing marijuana for medicinal purposes are using a "clever" and "nuanced side approach" to legalizing the product, "rather than take on the subject (of legalization) directly." McCaffrey said the scientific opinions of the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on marijuana ought to be used as the basis for deciding what is a therapeutic agent for sick people. In his opinion, McCaffrey said, using marijuana for medicinal purposes "is a lot of nonsense and just an attempt to get around a rather widespread viewpoint on the part of patients, employers, and health professionals that we don't want a lot of drugs around America."