cannabisnews.com: Axworthy to Launch New Anti-Drug Dialogue!





Axworthy to Launch New Anti-Drug Dialogue!
Posted by FoM on January 07, 1999 at 18:33:21 PT

Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy will announce tomorrow in Kingston, Jamaica, the launching of a new drug dialogue and strategy which will focus on the human security side of drugs and drug-trafficking instead of the more traditional policing and interdiction emphasis. 
A new approach to dealing with the hemispheric drug problem will be the focal point of Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy's first international trip of the new year. Before departing today for Cuba on the first leg of his four-country, five-day tour of Caribbean nations, Mr. Axworthy described illicit drugs as the "quintessential" human-security challenge. "It is a problem that affects us all, from the street children whose lives are destroyed by sniffing glue day after day, to the citizens whose taxes are raised to pay for policing of trafficking routes and states whose delicate relations are made even more complicated by the international politics of illicit drugs." Mr. Axworthy will ask the other 33 foreign ministers from the Americas to focus on five human security perspectives to be discussed at a dialogue on drugs in Canada in March and at the Organization of American States foreign ministers' summit in Guatemala in June. The five points are: - Governance: how police and judicial bodies' ability to enforce drug laws can be enhanced while protecting human rights; and what can be taken to stop corruption and the political influence of drug-related criminal organizations. - Small arms and firearms: co-operative efforts to promote ratification of the Inter-American Firearms Convention and development of complementary global instruments and strengthening domestic institutions responsible for implementing them. - Development and trade: seeking methods of supporting development of legal alternatives to illicit drug crops and enhancing the market for those crops. Problems in that area were underscored by the arrest this week of a Canadian Paul Thomas Wayles in Nicaragua who was charged with growing marijuana in an officially approved hemp plantation. Canadian ambassador Denis Thibault met with Nicaraguan authorities Tuesday to discuss the charges which were laid after Canadian Hemp-Agro invested several hundred thousand dollars into a Nicaraguan-approved project to grow industrial hemp. - Education and health: establishing greater international co-operation to promote preventative and curative approaches to drug abuse. - Public engagement: encouraging initiatives and involving the public in a dialogue about drug policy options. Mr. Axworthy says the list is not meant to be exhaustive, nor is it meant to displace the central role of the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD) which is putting together a multilateral evaluation mechanism to examine what individual countries are doing to fight narco-trafficking and how effective they have been. 
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