by General Manuel Antonio Noriega

October 1973

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Speech in Vienna, Austria

by General Manuel Antonio Noriega

October 1973

Speaking before the International Conference on Narcotic Drugs, held in Vienna, Austria on October 8-12, 1973. Lt. Col. Manuel Antonio Noriega, then head of the National Guard's G-2, outlined his view of the philosophy and doctrine required in the battle against narcotics. Excerpts follow:

Intoxication is a form of collective and individual sui­cide, that in our time has acquired an increasingly cata­strophic character.

Humanity has had a painful exis­tence over the millennia. Hunger, plagues, wars, have decimated cities and natural disasters have plunged whole civili­zations into the deep. But never have we seen disasters like those that confront us in our times.

As hunger, the plague, war, and death are the first four horsemen, drugs could well be the fifth horseman of the apocalypse foretold by the prophet. The characteristics of this tragedy produced by the use and abuse of drugs are its universality and its recent fabulous increase.

Today, no area in the world is immune to the damage done by the abuse of drugs. Such is the universality of the problem. The fact that the users tend to get younger by the day, demonstrates the nature of the problem.