usinfo.state.gov Washington File 12 February 2003

(Priorities stress prevention, recovery programs, disruption of drug markets) (1140)

The White House Office on National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) rolled out the Bush administration's plan for countering drug trafficking and substance abuse February 12. The top priorities identified in an ONDCP press release are stopping substance abuse before it starts, healing the nation's drug abusers and disrupting the profit flow in drug trafficking.

The goal of disrupting the market is based on the belief that drug traffickers will get out of the business if governments can make it very difficult for them to earn profits. In another statement released by ONDCP, Director John Walters said, "We must make drugs scarce, expensive, and of unreliable quality. Reducing the availability of dangerous substances will keep our children healthy and complement our efforts to reduce the demand for drugs. We look forward to working with our international partners and domestic law enforcement agencies to eliminate the misery for which the illegal drug industry is responsible."

The Bush administration is proposing $731 million in funding for the Andean Counterdrug Initiative to be applied in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Peru and Venezuela.

The $11,700 million budget identified by the Bush administration for implementation of the National Drug Control Strategy also increases funding for the Drug Free Communities Support Program and recovery programs for drug abusers.

The National Drug Control Strategy is available at www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov

Following is the text of the ONDCP press release:

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White House Office on National Drug Control Policy February 12, 2003

THE NATIONAL DRUG CONTROL STRATEGY

One year ago today, the President's new Strategy announced the ambitious goals of reducing drug use by 10 percent over two years, and 25 percent over five years. Today, ONDCP Director John Walters will unveil the President's new National Drug Control Strategy for 2003, which reports initial progress toward meeting those goals, highlighted by reductions in drug use among young people that are on track for meeting the Strategy's two-year objectives. The Strategy also announces Recovery Now, a new initiative funded with $600 million over three years that will expand access to substance abuse treatment while at the same time driving accountability into the treatment system.

Background on the National Drug Control Strategy: The Strategy proposes a fiscal year 2004 budget of $11.7 billion for drug control. That budget will serve the Strategy's three core priorities:

-- Stopping drug use before it starts -- Healing America's drug users -- Disrupting the market

-- Stopping Drug Use Before It Starts: Consolidating the initial reductions in drug use by young people will require action by all Americans through education and community engagement. In homes, schools, places of worship, the workplace, and civic and social organizations, Americans must set norms that reaffirm the values of responsibility and good citizenship while dismissing the notion that drug use is consistent with individual freedom. Our children especially must learn from an early age that avoiding drug use is a lifelong responsibility.

-- The Strategy ties national leadership with community-level action to help recreate the formula that helped America succeed against drugs in the past. The President's budget backs up this goal with a $10 million increase in funding for the expanded Drug-Free Communities Support Program, along with providing $5 million for a new Parents Drug Corps.

-- The Strategy proposes that tools such as student drug testing be available in communities where parents and educators deem them appropriate, and funds them with $8 million in fiscal year 2004.

-- Healing America's Drug Users: Despite our substantial drug prevention efforts, some 16 million Americans still use drugs on a monthly basis, and roughly six million meet the clinical criteria for needing drug treatment. Yet the overwhelming majority of users in need of drug treatment fail to recognize their need. Priority II of the Strategy emphasizes the crucial need for family, friends, and people with shared experiences to intercede with and support those fighting to overcome substance abuse. Drug users also need the support of institutions and the people who run them-employers, law enforcement agencies, faith communities, and health care providers, among others-to help them recognize their drug use and direct those who need it into drug treatment.

-- Overall, for 2004, the Administration proposes $3.6 billion for drug treatment, an increase of 8.2 percent over 2003.

-- The fiscal year 2004 request includes new funding of $200 million ($600 million over three years) for Recovery Now, a program to provide drug treatment to individuals otherwise unable to obtain access to services. People in need of treatment, no matter where they are-emergency rooms, health clinics, the criminal justice system, schools, or the faith community-will receive an evidence-based assessment of their treatment need and will be issued vouchers for the cost of providing that treatment.

-- Disrupting the Market: Priority III of the Strategy, Disrupting the Market, seeks to capitalize on the engagement of producer and transit countries like Colombia and Mexico in order to address the drug trade as a business-one that faces numerous and often overlooked obstacles that may be used as pressure points. The drug trade is not an unstoppable force of nature but rather a profit-making enterprise where costs and rewards exist in an equilibrium that can be disrupted. Every action that makes the drug trade more costly and less profitable is a step toward "breaking" the market. As the Strategy explains, drug traffickers are in business to make money. We intend to deny them that revenue.

-- To help secure our borders, the President's budget includes $2.1 billion for drug interdiction, an increase of 7.3 percent from 2003. Internationally, the Bush Administration will continue to target the supply of illegal drugs in the source countries.

-- The Administration is requesting $731 million in dedicated funds in 2004 for the Andean Counterdrug Initiative to be applied in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Peru, and Venezuela.

-- To ensure unity of effort, the Strategy advocates the use of a single list identifying high-level targets (the Consolidated Priority Organization Targeting list) among the various agencies involved in domestic drug law enforcement.

Progress Toward Two- and Five-Year Goals: Only the first year of the two-year goal period has elapsed, yet already the goal of reducing current use by 10 percent among 8th, 10th, and 12th graders, as measured by the Monitoring the Future survey, is well on the way to being met (with reductions of 11.1, 8.4, and 1.2 percent respectively). Adjustments to the measuring baseline for the goals have been prompted by discontinuities in the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (NHSDA). As a result, the goal of reducing drug use among adults will still be measured by the NHSDA, but the baseline has been reset to the 2002 survey, which is not released until mid-year 2003.

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www.upi.com By Larry Birns and Matthew Ward A UPI Outside View commentary From the International Desk Published 2/12/2003 4:22 PM

WASHINGTON, Jan. 2 (UPI) -- As well known for its venality as its commitment to democracy, Venezuela's middle class long tolerated the corruptocracies alternately fielded by the country's two main and equally tainted political parties. This sector is now staging a crippling strike against populist President Hugo Chávez, aimed not so much at reforming his government, but at bringing it down.

The opposition's latest tactic concentrates on a constitutional provision that, in fact, was drafted under Chávez, allowing Venezuelans to refuse to recognize any "authority that contradicts democratic values, principles and guarantees or impairs human rights."

But under Chávez, human rights violations have been relatively limited compared to what they were in Argentina, Chile and Brazil, and few democratic values have been "impaired." Rather, it has been the opposition's end-justifies-the-means philosophy and its importuning the army to carry out its "mission" to overthrow Chávez, which threatens Venezuela's democratic fundamentals, as well as its oil industry.

Unquestionably, Chávez has been irritating, insulting, infuriating and confrontational. However, it can be argued he has adhered to democratic ground rules at least as faithfully as those opposed to his rule, and his failings are as much a matter of style as substance.

The president may now be turning the corner in his fight for survival if he can mobilize sufficient fuel and food to satisfy the nation's minimal needs. However, if he is ousted -- which is entirely possible -- a far greater blow would be landed on Venezuela's democratic capabilities than on Chávez's personal destiny. If overthrown, Chávez will be revered eternally by the poor as a leader who, though often ineffectively, fought in their name, and not for individual benefit -- another Simon Bolivar.

For the Venezuelan opposition, its anti-Chávez battering ram all too often has been propelled by mendacious arguments defending meretricious goals. It has featured specious ad hoc interpretations of the constitution and hysterical justifications for what essentially has often been its outrageous behavior.

The opposition has distorted as often as it has invented. Its current mission is to asphyxiate the economy by freezing oil output, which is Venezuela's lifeline.

This strategy includes refusing to honor the Supreme Court's decision ordering a temporary discontinuation of the nation's debilitating oil strike, in contrast to Chávez's compliance when the court ruled that control of the Caracas police be returned to the Caracas Mayor Alfredo Pena's authority, who is one of Chávez's political enemies.

The most recent standoff between Chávez and the opposition resulted from the latter's decision, when convenient, to join Chávez in frustrating negotiations sponsored by the Organization of American States, while condemning the president and being the main stumbling block.

The opposition presented no program, except hatred of Chávez; it only barely was able to contain the craven personal ambition of a number of its highest leaders, including Carlos Fernandez and Carlos Ortega, who see themselves as presidential.

With the crucial help of Venezuela's mainly yellow press, opposition figures distribute sometimes false and always inflammatory interpretations of events.

Therefore, it is not only the government that is jeopardizing the lives of Venezuelans by staging frenzied confrontations with militants on the other side; rather, it is the opposition that sedulously promotes class warfare as much as any group, with its slogans, chants and banners.

The opposition's leadership fears the implementation of legislation featuring a modest land reform program in which fallow or excessive holdings could be transferred to small farmers.

Currently, 41 percent of the country's arable land is controlled by less than 5 percent of the population and, according to the U.N. Economic Commission for Latin America, Venezuela has one of the hemisphere's highest concentrations of wealth in the fewest hands. Its demographics indicate that about 65 percent of the population lives near or below the poverty line. From this segment comes Chávez's main support base, unlettered loyalists who will not easily return to past injustices or relinquish newly obtained benefits -- for example, free meals for their school children.

The opposition accuses Chávez of consorting with terrorists, meaning that, like all of his predecessors, he has met with heads of other nations in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to discuss the oil cartel's pricing and production. Anti-Chavistas are on par with Miami's Cuban exile community in their virulent anti-Castro demonology. Some of the more compromised leaders of Venezuela's business and labor sectors are on weak moral ground when they threaten to indict Chávez for corruption even though he, unlike some of themselves, has no record of defrauding the public.

If there is to be a solution to Venezuela's present governance crisis, it must arise from the constitution, and not be imposed only from the street or a resort to arms. One of the opposition's major sources for its lapses in credibility is its calculated naiveté and its illogicality. It stages a political strike against the oil industry and then bemoans the fact that Chávez has the nerve to try to restore production by bringing in foreign or unlicensed substitute workers to produce and transport oil. It wails over the possibility of an environmental disaster or some costly accident due to relatively untrained replacement personnel, but doesn't face up to the fact that the dangers directly flow from anti-Chavista strategy.

The opposition also chronically lashes out at such basic institutions as the "Chávez-controlled" Supreme Court, and then, in passing, cites the court's numerous anti-Chávez rulings that have damaged the president's standing. The same love/hate relationship exists with the constitution. The opposition sees no problem with its contrasting selective indignation or muscular praise -- all very well, but this is not the typology of democratic practice.

All told, the opposition's current scenario poses a serious threat to Venezuela's organic institutions. Any non-constitutional solution will fatefully undermine the country's prospects for domestic peace and its precious tradition of political civility, while opening itself up to bitter infighting among the now united, but predictably soon to be divided victors, even if Chávez decides to step down. Of course, don't forget the constitutional role of Jose Vicente Rangel, the nation's vice president, who would automatically replace the president if called upon to do so.

There may be a way out for patriotic Venezuelans. The opposition could wait until next August, when the very constitution it selectively touts provides for a binding referendum midway through a presidential term on the incumbency's continued tenure. But what happens if Chávez wins such a ballot? This will almost guarantee that the middle class, as it did in Colombia, will turn to vigilantism against the perceived leftist devils, and the epoch of death squads will be inaugurated. Or, the legislature could call for presidential elections earlier than 2006, even prior to next August. But, if the opposition is to triumph, it must do so lawfully and through the amendment process, and not through political chicanery or economic extortion.

As for Chávez, his friends must make him realize that he is partially to blame for failing his nation and his revolution. His excesses, indiscretions and immaturity have helped to make enemies out of former friends, and have jeopardized the enactment of the positive vision he had for a better, more democratic Venezuela.

It may not be too late, but from this moment onward, Chavez must temper his conduct with a wisdom and perspective he has thus far failed to exhibit. To begin with, he must come to believe that thousands of the people who have taken to the streets to demonstrate against his rule are worthy Venezuelans, capable of being assets rather than merely fulminating foes.

Give these people a chance. Settling matters by scorching Venezuela's basic institutions recalls the disastrous consequences for President Salvador Allende's Chile in 1973. There, imprudent Christian Democrats solicited the military to rid the country of its constitutional president in order to bring on their own anticipated rule, but instead they got 17 years of brutal repression. There is always a danger of history repeating itself.

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(Larry Birns is the director of the Washington-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs. Matthew Ward is a Research Fellow at COHA. Outside View commentaries are written for UPI by outside writers on subjects of public interest.)

www.forbes.com Reuters, 02.12.03, 12:57 PM ET

JOSE, Venezuela, Feb 12 (Reuters) - U.S. oil major ExxonMobil Corp (nyse: XOM - news - people) will load a cargo of synthetic crude between Feb. 19-21 from its strike-hit Cerro Negro syncrude project in Venezuela, an official from the country's state oil company PDVSA said on Wednesday. The lifting of the 520,000 barrel cargo apparently marks the first loading of crude from a Venezuelan port by a major international oil firm since early in a two-month strike by foes of President Hugo Chavez. Foreign companies had held off in loading at Venezuelan ports due to potential insurance risks that could be incurred by uncertified staff hired by the government to break the strike. Jose Port loading manager Rubin Rodriguez said that the vessel, Therassia, would load, but that Exxon Mobil would conduct a final audit of the port on Feb. 16. Chavez has used troops and replacement crews to try and restart the oil sector of the world's No. 5 petroleum exporter. But he and the striking workers give conflicting accounts of his success. He says crude production is nearing 2 million barrels per day, but strike leaders said on Wednesday output was at 1.398 million barrels per day. Opposition leaders started the strike on Dec. 2 to press Chavez to accept elections, but lifted the shutdown after two months as many businesses reopened. Chavez has fired more than 11,000 oil workers in a crackdown. But they are maintaining their protest.