Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, May 16, 1993                   TAG: 9305160112
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder/Tribune
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

IS COUNTRY LOSING ITS WILL TO FIGHT WAR ON DRUGS?

The $38.5 billion spent to fight drugs over the past four years has hardly made a dent in drug-related crime, and much of the public appears to be giving up hope. While 63 percent of Americans cited illegal drugs as the nation's No. 1 concern in 1989, that's now down to 6 percent, after the economy, taxes, health care and other issues, according to Gallup polls.

Interest has even waned in Congress, where the House voted in April to scrap its Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control.

President Clinton seemed to be headed in a similar direction when he cut to 25 from 146 the staff positions in the office of the "drug czar" - although he said he would promote the czar to Cabinet rank.

Late in April, when he nominated former New York Police Commissioner Lee Brown to the post, Clinton promised "an exceptionally focused and carefully executed anti-drug policy from the national government."

Clinton recommended a 7 percent increase in the drug war budget for 1994, to more than $13 billion.

If confirmed by the Senate, Brown will replace former Florida Gov. Bob Martinez, the Republican who left office in January amid criticism that he had let re-election politics interfere with policy.

Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., said President Bush made the Office of National Drug Control Policy "just a place for political rejects." He also criticized Clinton for taking so long to nominate Brown, but he said he'll support Brown "100 percent."

While Bush and Martinez claimed successes over the past four years, including a decline in casual use of cocaine, Rangel and other critics said they sidestepped the greatest challenge: targeting hard-core drug addicts who commit violent crimes.

As evidence of that epidemic, an April report by the Senate Judiciary Committee cited steady increases in murders and other violent crimes, along with greater numbers of overdoses and similar drug-related emergency-room admissions. Also, the street-level price of cocaine and heroin has dropped and their purity has improved - even as police seizures of drugs continued to rise in the last few years.

During his campaign, Clinton promised to move toward "treatment on demand" for addicts.

That cheered drug-policy experts who long questioned Bush's strategy of spending nearly twice as much money on supply reduction - interdiction of drugs crossing American borders, plus federal agents and prosecutors - as on demand reduction - education and treatment.

Clinton's proposed budget would increase treatment funds next year by 7 percent and education funds by 17 percent. But the overall ratio of spending remains close to Bush-era spending patterns: 64 percent for law enforcement vs. 36 percent for prevention and treatment.

One key supporter of more funding for treatment, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Joseph Biden, D-Del., has called for more money for local police.

Biden complained that Washington politicians have focused on "symbols over substantive criminal-justice measures, [and that] diverted attention away from the real work needed to fight the war on drugs."

Attorney General Janet Reno has promised to review minimum-mandatory prison sentences for drug offenders, which have left prisons overcrowded, and the emphasis on offshore interdiction.

"I think we should all commit ourselves to a thoughtful, nonpolitical, low-key approach for what we can do about drugs," Reno said at a recent drug-policy conference.

A General Accounting Office study released in mid-May said interagency squabbling has resulted in costly duplication of intelligence gathering. There are 19 counter-narcotics intelligence centers with one more, a national headquarters, scheduled to open this summer.

Although Brown is a cop, drug-treatment advocates believe he also will take a wider view.

"As the former police commissioner for New York and Houston, Lee Brown must know that law enforcement can only succeed when paired equally with prevention and treatment," said Jerry Spicer, chairman and president of the Hazelden addiction treatment foundation.

Jim Copple, director of the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America, noted that Brown is a pioneer in "community policing," which puts cops back on the streets to walk a beat and get to know residents and business owners - as well as drug dealers.