Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, May 4, 1993 TAG: 9305040021
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder/Tribune
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Presidents Reagan and Bush concentrated on keeping drugs out of the country by using the military, attacking drugs at their source and sealing U.S. borders. But Clinton officials say those efforts, including a Bush plan to dry up drug production in South America, have largely failed.
"We will continue to work with other nations who have shown the political will to fight illegal drugs. . . . But it's time we turned our attention home and built a strategy to make the neighborhoods of America safer and more drug-free," Clinton said Wednesday.
Clinton said his program is "basic - more officers, more education, more treatment."
The U.S. military, which plays a large role in disrupting coca production in the Andes, will be phased out of the drug war, according to administration officials.
By cutting Bush's $2.2 billion effort to eradicate cocaine, marijuana and heroin produced in the Andean nations, Clinton officials say they are heeding the advice of Latin American leaders.
"The Latins have always said that the problem is drug use in the States, that we need to reduce demand," a White House official said.
"We're receptive to that argument. We can and should do more. It's going to be treated a lot less as a problem of world [drug] flow and more as a domestic matter."
Last week's appointment of Lee Brown to head the nation's drug-control program, White House officials say, is a concrete indication that the drug war will be waged mainly at home.
A centerpiece will be more police on city streets, a tactic Brown has long advocated as head of the police in Atlanta, Houston and New York.
"I come here today with the firm, firm belief that illegal drugs must be controlled in America," Brown said Wednesday after being named director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, or "drug czar."
Interviews with administration officials indicate that the emerging policy will focus on treatment of addicts - including a "treatment-on-demand" provision - education and increased local law enforcement efforts.
White House officials say they are optimistic that the emphasis on treatment in particular will yield good results.
"We will have treatment on demand when the health plan is unveiled," a Clinton aide said. "It's going to be expensive, yeah. But it will also have a big impact on abuse and, in the long term, will save money."
Brown will preside over an office whose staff has been reduced from 146 positions to 25.
A Clinton aide says the cut was justified. "It had become a bloated shop, filled with political appointments," the official said.
The president has also made the drug czar a Cabinet member.
by CNB