Pubdate: Wed, 16 Apr 2003 Source: Olympian, The (WA) Copyright: 2003, The Olympian Contact: http://www.theolympian.com/forms/lettrfrm.shtml Website: http://www.theolympian.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/319 Author: Associated Press CRITICS ATTACK WAR ON DRUGS BEFORE U.N. VIENNA, Austria -(AP)- Critics of a U.S.-led global crackdown on illicit drugs declared the policy a failure Tuesday, calling it "the war that America cannot win" and urging a United Nations commission to consider other approaches to the problem. Activists, think tanks and non-governmental organizations asked the U.N. Commission on Narcotic Drugs to examine what they called a disturbing lack of progress midway through a global campaign to curb drug cultivation, trafficking and consumption by 2008. Their harsh assessment came as delegates from 116 countries met in Vienna to review the ambitious anti-drug effort, launched by the U.N. General Assembly in 1998 and loosely modeled after the United States' "war on drugs." "This strategy has failed," the European Drug Policy Fund said in a statement. "Far from making progress toward the goal of a 'drug-free world by 2008,' drug consumption is in effect on the rise in both industrial and developing countries, as are drug-related crime and other social ill-effects." - --- MAP posted-by: Doc-Hawk