Title 22Foreign Relations and IntercourseRelease 119-73

§262p–4a Loan programs to reduce economic dependence on illicit narcotics

Title 22 › Chapter CHAPTER 7— - INTERNATIONAL BUREAUS, CONGRESSES, ETC. › § 262p–4a

Last updated Apr 6, 2026|Official source

Summary

Requires the Secretary of the Treasury to tell the U.S. Executive Directors at the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the Inter-American Development Bank to begin talks with other board members and push for loan programs and policies that help people stop depending on drug growing or trafficking for income. Examples include replacing drug crops, building roads to open markets for legal goods, funding projects that create jobs, giving farming help, and making region-specific development plans. It also tells those U.S. Directors to ask the banks to coordinate with other international and bilateral aid programs with the same goal. Congress made six findings behind this: drugs threaten Americans; the U.S. must cut foreign production and imports; international banks can help; eradication needs economic alternatives; demand must be reduced; and banks should fund alternative economic opportunities in producer and trafficking countries.

Full Legal Text

Title 22, §262p–4a

Foreign Relations and Intercourse — Source: USLM XML via OLRC

(a)The Congress finds that—
(1)the illicit narcotics epidemic currently afflicting the United States represents a direct threat to the well-being of every United States citizen;
(2)every effective means must be pursued to reduce the foreign production and subsequent importation into the United States of illicit narcotics;
(3)the multilateral development banks can play an integral role in efforts to control the production of illicit narcotics;
(4)producer country narcotics eradication programs will not be effective unless such programs provide an economic alternative to the production of narcotics;
(5)efforts to address the illicit narcotics epidemic through production control are doomed to failure unless greater effort is applied to curb use of and demand for illicit narcotics; and
(6)the appropriate role for the multilateral development banks in the “War Against Drugs” is through coordinating and financing alternative economic opportunities in producer and trafficking countries.
(b)The Secretary of the Treasury shall instruct the United States Executive Director of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the United States Executive Director of the Inter-American Development Bank to initiate discussions with other executive directors of such institutions and to advocate and support the creation, within such institutions, of specific country lending programs and policies (including crop substitution, creation of roads conducive to the expansion of markets for licit goods, other infrastructure development measures such as development projects generating employment, agricultural extension assistance, and region-specific development plans) which are particularly oriented to reducing or eliminating the economic dependence of regions of borrowing countries known to be areas in which illicit narcotics are produced or trafficked, on such production and trafficking.
(c)In addition, the Secretary of the Treasury should instruct the United States Executive Director of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the United States Executive Director of the Inter-American Development Bank to encourage such institutions to provide coordination among other multilateral and bilateral assistance programs designed to reduce the economic dependence of regions of borrowing countries known to be areas in which illicit narcotics are produced or trafficked, on such production and trafficking.

Legislative History

Notes & Related Subsidiaries

Editorial Notes

Codification section 1606 of Pub. L. 95–118 is based on section 6 of H.R. 4645, One Hundredth Congress, as reported Sept. 28, 1988, and enacted into law by Pub. L. 100–461.

Prior Provisions

A prior section 1606 of Pub. L. 95–118 was renumbered section 1622 and is classified to section 262p–5 of this title.

Statutory Notes and Related Subsidiaries

Definitions The definitions in section 262p–5 of this title apply to this section.

Reference

Citations & Metadata

Citation

22 U.S.C. § 262p–4a

Title 22Foreign Relations and Intercourse

Last Updated

Apr 6, 2026

Release point: 119-73