As a nation we now have nearly half a million people behind bars on drug charges, more than the total prison population in all of Western Europe. And the burden of this explosion in incarceration falls disproportionately on black and Latino communities.

Deaths attributable to marijuana are very rare. In fact, deaths from all illegal drugs combined, including cocaine and heroin, are fewer than 20,000 annually. By contrast, more than 450,000 Americans die each year from tobacco or alcohol use (not counting drunk driving fatalities). Should we outlaw liquor and cigarettes? Ask anyone who remembers our nation's disastrous experiment with alcohol prohibition.

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PARIS - Not much has been said about the impact elsewhere in South America of Plan Colombia, the U.S. program for semi military intervention in Colombia.

The Washington debate has been about whether sending $1.3 billion in mostly military aid to Colombia - helicopters, arms and military training programs - will produce any drop in the amount of drugs available on the U.S. market and whether American soldiers might be drawn into the fighting between the Colombian Army and rebel groups that control regions where the raw drugs are produced.

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Relations between France and Monaco, the tiny country on its southern coast, plunged to their lowest ebb in 38 years yesterday.

The French government threatened to tear up all its political, economic and administrative agreements with Monaco, unless it took steps to control the influx of "dirty'' money from drug-trafficking and organised crime.

The threat, although based on real international concerns about Monaco's involvement in money-laundering, creates a bizarre state of affairs. Monaco is largely administered by French officials.

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PARIS -- One of the last survivors of the notorious French Connection drug-trafficking era, Francis "the Belgian" Vanverberghe, was shot dead in a Paris betting shop yesterday, police said.

Vanverberghe, 54, was hit several times at close range by a gunman, who escaped on the back of an accomplice's motorbike. A bystander in the shop, in Paris's smart Eighth Arrondissement, was injured in the attack.

Jailed for 12 years in 1977 for belonging to the French Connection drug gang based in the southern port of Marseille, Vanverberghe was considered one of the Mediterranean city's last underworld godfathers. The gang inspired the 1971 Oscar-winning film "The French Connection" starring Gene Hackman.

[end]

WASHINGTON - President Bill Clinton bought $1.3 billion worth of political cover the other day by giving final authorization to a controversial anti-drug aid package for Colombia. He will visit, ever so briefly, that South American country on Wednesday to check on his investment.

Mr. Clinton hauls in a bargain, since the money is not his. He buys protection for the Democrats against silly charges of being soft on drugs and throws in a presidential stopover for a few hours in a place that is every security agent's nightmare.

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PARIS, Aug 5 (Reuters) - French customs have found 1.5 tonnes (3,307 lbs) of cannabis resin in a truck waiting to cross to Britain through the Channel tunnel, a judicial source said on Saturday.

The cannabis, which came from Morocco, has an estimated street value of 50 million francs ($7 million).

It was hidden among a consignment of kitchen knives and discovered on July 28 as customs officers carried out random checks on lorries arriving at the Coquelles terminal to join a train bound for Britain.

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Congress has granted the Clinton administration the $1.3 billion it sought to help Colombia fight drug cultivation and trafficking. But before final passage of the legislation, congressional conferees stripped away some of the important human rights and environmental safeguards added by the Senate. Without these restrictions on the use of U.S. aid, the United States could find itself drawn into the long war between the Colombian government and leftist guerrillas, a war that neither side can expect to win by military means.

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Principality Condemned As A 'Non-Cooperative Territory'

The French parliament's Information Mission on Financial Crime and Money Laundering in Europe last week published an explosive report on Monaco. The report, The Principality Of Monaco And Money Laundering: a territory that turns a blind eye under French protection, will mark a milestone in relations between the two states.

France's protection of Monaco must now surely be called into question. It goes back to the Treaty of Péronne, signed in 1641 by Louis XIII and Honoré II, and is based on a series of bilateral agreements.

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Jack Lang, the French education minister and star of Lionel Jospin's cabinet, faced calls to resign yesterday after he suggested that cannabis should be tolerated and backed steps to ensure that only good quality ecstasy was sold in dance clubs.

Politicians and parents' groups were appalled at the idea of a senior minister undermining the state's legal and educational drive against drug use.

Philippe de Villiers, co-leader of the conservative Rassemblement pour la France, said Mr Lang's remarks were mind-boggling and called for the minister's "immediate departure". During his nine years as culture minister under the late President Mitterrand, the Parisian socialist Mr Lang courted popularity and controversy with actions that included promoting gay rights and giving state support to techno-music.

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Regarding "Kentucky Swaps Moonshine for Marijuana" (American Topics, May 17):

Is it any surprise that poverty-stricken Kentuckians are growing pot? Marijuana laws create financial incentives that make an easily grown weed literally worth its weight in gold. Marijuana prohibition is no more effective than alcohol prohibition was at preventing use. And, Re Prohibition in the early 1900s, the societal harm caused by the unintended consequences is tremendous.

The manner in which drug laws finance organized crime receives a great deal of press coverage, yet it is the threat these laws pose to children that necessitates marijuana legalization, While a liquor store will refuse to sell alcohol to a minor to avoid losing its license, a drug dealer will sell to anyone with cash.

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SPAIN has become Europe's ''primary clearing house,'' for drugs, with Spaniards themselves largely responsible for letting international criminal organisations infest the country, according to the Geopolitical Drug Watch, a non profit organisation that monitors drug trafficking.

In a 248 page report, the Paris based organisation said that Spain has emerged as a ''gigantic drug bazaar'' where criminal groups trade goods and services.

The Geopolitical Drug Watch, or OGD, cited alleged corruption among elected officials, police, the judiciary - and even chemistry professors. It cited, for example, police officers and judicial officials in Galicia, in northern Spain, acting as informants for drug traffickers.

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PARIS, (AFP) - Drugs traffickers are thriving on economic globalisation which makes money-laundering increasingly easy, the Paris-based Geopolitical Drugs Watch (GDW) said in a 1998-1999 report published Thursday.

"Around 350 to 400 billion dollars of drugs money was reintegrated into the global economy over the last year," according to the report, which said the staggering figures were a result of opening financial borders and increased privatisation.

Laundering is rife in Africa, where bartering is a way of life and people swap goods for money bypassing banks, according to the report.

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The Dark Side Of Globalisation

By linking scarcity to price, the universal gospel of liberal thought teaches that exploiting scarcity is the fountain of all wealth.

It follows that the foundation of any righteous economy is the market players' ability to get hold of the scarce commodities that will make them rich. But what is scarce in a world where the development of new technologies makes distance a thing of the past and "niches" of scarcity in the tightest nooks and crannies accessible for exploitation?

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LOS ANGELES - Recently, General Barry McCaffrey, the U.S. drug-policy chief, was invited to Southern California for a debate. He said all he had time to do was give a speech and answer a few questions.

My question was: Many people in California feel that the federal government is closed-minded, even arrogant, in dealing with medical marijuana. The voters here approved Proposition 215 by a wide margin, allowing sick people to use marijuana as medicine if it was recommended to them by a doctor, and similar measures have passed in four other states and the District -of Columbia. Will you now do what you can to cause the U.S. government to allow the will of the voters in these states to prevail?

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PARIS - The Clinton administration has put before Congress an "emergency" $1.6 billion program to expand military assistance to the Colombian army and security forces fighting both an insurrection and the drug trade.

Administration officials say this program will be part of what will "probably be a huge effort, lasting for years," whose objective is "to strengthen Colombian institutions and help the government reach a peace" with the leftist guerrilla groups and right-wing paramilitary forces responsible for years of chaotic violence in Colombia.

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More than 2,000 ravers recently took over the "saloon" of a derelict Wild West theme park in Fleurines, near Paris. They danced till dawn to the ear-splitting sound of hardcore techno that races along at more than 200 beats per minute. A generator dimly lit the DJs' consoles and a bar, where cans of beer and Coca-Cola were selling for about $1.50. The dancers' average age was around 25. Less than a quarter of them were women. The atmosphere was unaggressive and convivial.

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In Marseille, France, some vending machines dispense neither soda nor candy but free sterile needles for drug users. In Vancouver, British Columbia, a stack of colorful coupons sits next to the register at a local drugstore, offering 10 percent off on condoms.

The two endeavors aim to block the spread of infectious diseases, especially AIDS, by making preventive tools available to people who might be reluctant to seek them out in clinics or doctors' offices. And two studies in the December issue of The American Journal of Public Health suggest that they are working.

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WESTPORT, Dec 02 (Reuters Health) - More than one fifth of injection drug users surveyed in Marseille, France, use vending machines as their primary source of syringes.

"By reaching a different-in particular, a younger-group of injection drug users, syringe vending machines can further the prevention of HIV and other blood-borne infections," Dr. Yolande Obadia, of Institut Paoli Calmettes, in Marseille, and multinational colleagues say in the December issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

Vending machines, which accept used syringes and dispense sterile ones in return, were introduced in Marseilles in 1996. The team surveyed injection drug users who obtained syringes from vending machines, pharmacies, and needle exchange programs. Of the 343 users identified, 21.3% reported using vending machines as their primary source of syringes.

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"I don't see why a great power, even the greatest in the world, shouldn't be criticised by an organisation like Amnesty International, even if the United States is certainly not the most blameworthy country as far as human rights are concerned," says Herve Bourges, president of France's broadcasting watchdog, the Conseil Superieur de l'Audiovisuel (CSA).

He was reacting to the decision by the Bureau de Verification de la Publicite (BVP), a body made up of advertisers and broadcasters, which monitors advertising standards, to ban a video put out by the French section of Amnesty International.

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The social cost to France of the consumption of alcohol, tobacco and illegal drugs is more than pounds 21bn a year, according to an official study published yesterday.

The received view that the French were able to control their drinking habits is untrue, the report indicates.

"Consumption is exceptionally high and the final bill is extremely heavy," it says. "There is a collective misunderstanding of the dangers of alcohol in a country where a regular intake is perceived as a protection against heart problems."

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