ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, September 30, 1996 TAG: 9609300115
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
HAVING DISCOVERED that about 15 Americans believe his promise to cut taxes by 15 percent while balancing the budget and leaving Medicare and Social Security untouched, Dole has been seeking other issues with which to attack President Clinton's lead in the polls.
The "liberal, liberal, liberal Clinton" mantra may not do the trick, given the president's flexible centrism and the disdain with which he is regarded by his party's dwindling liberal wing.
OK, how about drug abuse? Is Clinton responsible for that?
In fact, illegal drug use overall has declined. According to the latest National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, 12.8 million Americans used illegal drugs at least once a month last year, compared with 23.3 million a decade earlier.
Nevertheless, drug use remains a huge problem, particularly in America's cities. And it is recently up among teens. That's especially worrisome.
Dole's problem is in trying to pin the blame on the president. This is a stretch, notwithstanding Clinton's incomprehensibly inane remarks about "inhaling," quoted on MTV and repeated in the Republican's television commercials.
First, while Clinton did initially cut George Bush's drug-policy staff, it had been a hotbed of patronage. The staff has since been restored to its original size. It is odd, in any case, for a conservative to judge the efficacy of an effort by the number of Washington bureaucrats it employs.
Second, the war on drugs - despite its continuous failure - has hardly been abandoned. Since Clinton took office, the Drug Enforcement Agency's budget has grown by a third. Prosecutions are rising, too: About 48,000 drug dealers now languish in federal prisons.
Third, Dole himself voted against the establishment of a drug czar when it first came up. And the GOP-controlled Congress, with Dole as Senate majority leader, slashed $275 million from drug prevention and treatment programs that were in Clinton's budget.
More to the point, Dole as a senator endorsed the same anti-drug strategies that Presidents Reagan, Bush and now Clinton have embraced. The core of the drug problem, as it relates to crime, is addiction - against which neither harsh mandatory sentences nor massive interdiction efforts are successful.
Dole is right that the nation needs better leadership from the White House. But Clinton has been, if anything, too much the drug warrior, too little the champion of prevention and treatment. He has been for reasons of crass political protection against just the sort of assault he's now receiving from the Republicans.
Politicians could be talking candidly about drug policy. They, to paraphrase Dole, just don't do it.
LENGTH: Medium: 54 lines KEYWORDS: POLITICS PRESIDENTby CNB