The director for strategic planning of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, James McDonough said in Santo Domingo that U.S. authorities recognize that consumption of drugs within the U.S. must be reduced so that efforts to combat drug trafficking can be more effective. McDonough’s visit precedes that of General Barry McCaffrey, chief of the DEA, who has scheduled a visit to Santo Domingo on 28 May. McDonough said that McCaffrey will focus on prevention and rehabilitation during his visit. He explained that the US government will invest US$195 million in advertising campaigns reaching out to children, teenagers, young adults, adults and Hispanics in this fiscal year. In a Worldnet conference televised from the United States Information Service offices in Santo Domingo, McDonough explained that US stats show that drug consumption has dropped 30% in the past years. He attributed this to an increase in budgets used to prevent the use of drugs in young Americans. U.S. and Dominican governments are participating in a major program, Frontier Lance, to patrol coastal waters in order to reduce the number of South American drug traffickers using Dominican waters to reach Puerto Rico. From Puerto Rico the drug contraband is passed on to territorial U.S. McDonough estimated that 25% of the cocaine that reaches the US from South America passes through the DR.
