SANTO DOMINGO. – Dominican Republic’s equivalent to a drugs czar yesterday slammed Washington for its “persistent obstruction” that limits his country’s initiatives and efforts “to resist and defeat” drug trafficking’s aggression by sea and air.

Marino Vinicio Castillo (Vincho), Cabinet minister and the Presidency’s narcotics adviser, said the United States authorities know the number of flights with drugs that occur every week in the Dominican Republic.

He said the current problem destroys the collective calm, affecting entire families and noted that since his previous term in office president Leonel Fernandez has fought against drugs with determination.

Castillo spoke in the launching of the National Strategic Drug Plan, where its objectives and measures stressing the damages narcotics cause were detailed, and the integration of Government agencies and private institutions with that purpose.

The official also criticized the alleged permissibility of ex president Hipólito Mejía’s administration (2000-2004) with drug trafficking and Washington’s supposed indifference against that behavior, for the presence of Dominican troops in Iraq. He said that participation “produced more deaths for us from the addiction of our youth than the U.S. casualties in the war."

He warned that the amount of drugs now entering can lead the country to the condition of a Failed State, since it’s not in “mere transit,” as much of it is consumed in this nation.