The US war against drugs on the western hemisphere is a failure, a group of US leaders and experts said on November 3.

The focus should be on reducing the consumption of drugs, the group said in a letter to the Western Hemisphere Drug Policy Leadership Conference.

The three-day conference, co-sponsored by the US Office of National Drug Control Policy and the Organization of American States, were attended by anti-drug officials from the US and Latin American countries.

The letter, signed by politicians, judges, religious leaders and others, demanded US federal anti-drug Czar Barry McCaffrey, a senior State Department official, to admit the US war on drugs in Latin America and the US has failed.

"The escalation of a militarized drug war in Colombia and elsewhere in the Americas threatens regional stability...and has put US arms and money into the hands of corrupt officials and military... units involved in human rights abuses," it said.

Three former Latin presidents _ Belisario Betancur of Colombia, Violeta Chamorro of Nicaragua and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Oscar Arias of Costa Rica, signed on the letter.

"As you meet to develop hemispheric drug strategy, it is time to admit that after two decades, the US war on drugs _ both in Latin American and in the United States _ is a failure," the letter said.

It added that despite spending tens of billions of dollars for raids on drug labs, crop eradication and arrests and imprisonment at home, illicit drugs are cheaper, more potent and more easily available in the US than two decades ago.

The letter urged the officials at the conference to consider policies that will focus more on reducing consumption, expanding drug treatment programs, and promoting economic development to decrease the reliance on drug income among people who produce it.

The US is the country which consumes largest amount of different illegal drugs in the world.