REPORT: U.S. DRUG WAR FOUGHT IN REGIONAL BATTLES

WASHINGTON--With cocaine use waning, authorities waged the war on
drugs this year with strategies tailored to the regional
battlegrounds: marijuana in the Appalachian states, methamphetamine in
the Rocky Mountains, cocaine in South Florida.

"There is no longer any one drug that consumes America as cocaine did
in the 1980s," said Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, director of the White
House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

"We need to be ready to defend against emerging threats of a wide
variety by region, as well as increasingly sophisticated changes in
the operations of drug traffickers," he said.

McCaffrey's prepared remarks accompanied his annual report on drug
threats and strategies, to be released today.

It outlines the government's war on drugs in 26 "High Intensity Drug
Trafficking Areas," where drug manufacturing and sales flourish and
where federal, state and local law enforcement agencies cooperate.
More than $191 million was spent on the effort in fiscal 2000, up from
nearly $187 million the previous year.

The report said California's central valleys are a favorite for
methamphetamine labs, which are proliferating at an "alarming" rate.
The region's two international airports, hundreds of private airstrips
and interstate highways make it a clearinghouse for movement of all
types of drugs.