Walters on world tour

Drug czar John Walters is on a little overseas trip on your tax dollar conducting a bad-will tour at the meeting of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. The UN Council had agreed that needle exchange programs for third world countries made complete sense as a tactic to stem the epidemic of HIV and AIDS. The US doesn't see it that way and is insisting the international body adopt prohibition standards applied so futilely within the US. Walters offers some real corkers here.

Walters said drug use itself -- not a lack of needle exchanges or other programs for drug users, such as safe injection sites -- is "behind the danger" of HIV and other bloodborne diseases. Continued drug use is a fundamental cause of the dangers we face from bloodborne diseases."

However, Walters added that the "points of agreement" between himself and Costa in the fight against illegal drug use "far outweighed the differences," according to AFP/Yahoo! News. "[T]he single greatest way of preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS through drug users is taking those addicted and get them to recover."

Translate that ONDCPspeak to: throw them all in jail and let them rot until they die of it. Ironically false statement of the week however, goes to this remark Walters made in response to the question of whether the US was unduly using its influence as major contributor to the fund when after a meeting between our State Department and Director of the UN agency Antonio Costa in 2004, Costa issued new guidelines omitting any mention of needle exchange in the Committee's documents.

Walters on Monday at a news conference said that he does not view the ongoing "candid debate" about drug policy as "pressure," according to the Associated Press. "Those who suggest that candor is a kind of intimidation I think want to silence debate and discussion."

He stole that from us you know.