Bolivian president calls U.S.-led war on drugs as failure

The United States has failed to lead the war on drug trafficking, Bolivian President Evo Morales said Wednesday.

That is the message Morales plans to deliver to the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on the global drug scourge, which began Tuesday and runs through Thursday in New York, the daily La Razon reported.

"In my speech, we will show how the fight against drug trafficking has failed," he was quoted as saying on the tarmac minutes before flying first to Venezuela and then to New York, where he is scheduled to address the UN meeting.

Washington's anti-drug policy serves "its purely geopolitical interests," he said, adding that he will campaign for the adoption of a more comprehensive Bolivian-style policy.

Morales said he "will also show how our regionalized and nationalized policy against drug trafficking has been accepted around the world, by the United Nations (and) by the European Union."

The president has often complained that the U.S. drug strategy, with emphasis on military tactics, was meant "to justify the invasion of other countries."

In 2008, Bolivia expelled the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency after finding the agency's officials were involved in activities of opposition groups in the South American country, and introduce its own strategy to curb the illicit drug trade. Endi