Pubdate: Tue, 20 Oct 2015
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2015 The New York Times Company
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Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Donald G. Mcneil Jr.

UNITED NATIONS ADVOCATING LEGALIZATION OF DRUGS? NOT SO.

The United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime said Monday that an 
"unfortunate misunderstanding" had led to the impression that it 
would advocate the legalization of all drugs for personal use.

A briefing paper to be presented at a conference in Kuala Lumpur, 
Malaysia, by the head of the agency's H.I.V. division was sent last 
week to a few journalists by conference organizers and misrepresented 
as a major policy change. But the paper had never been cleared by the 
agency's executive director, the agency said, and was meant to 
describe only how legalization was permitted under existing 
international drug-control treaties and how it would benefit the 
fight against AIDS.

Richard Branson, the airline and music industry pioneer who is an 
advocate of legalization, released the paper on his blog on Monday, 
saying the agency was being pressured to suppress it. In fact, an 
agency spokesman said, a question about the paper posed to the White 
House Office of National Drug Policy by The New York Times last week 
had been passed to the agency, alerting officials that the paper was 
being presented as more important than it really was.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom