EXITING DRUG CZAR FOUGHT THE WAR ON DRUGS TO NO END OR REASON

Having announced he will leave office in January, White House Drug Czar
Gen. Barry McCaffrey is patting himself on the back as he heads for the
exit. Says McCaffrey. "I'm enormously proud of what we've done."

Those who have watched his four-year reign can't help but wonder: What
would make him so proud? Richard Nixon was proud of bombing Cambodia, but
the results were much the same - a lot of death and ruin for not much
societal gain.

The drug war today is as hopelessly unwinnable and deeply destructive as it
was when the White House Office of National Drug Control was created in 1988.

Despite having locked up nearly a half-million citizens for drug- related
crimes -- a sevenfold increase since 1980 -- illegal drugs are still cheap
and easy to come by. The federal government now spends $18- billion
annually to fight this war, compared to $1.65-billion in 1982. Yet even
with spending twice as much on interdiction and enforcement as we spend on
treatment and prevention, our borders are still a giant sieve and drug use
has not appreciably fallen.

During his tenure, McCaffrey talked a good game about getting at the demand
side. He denounced the highly punitive Rockefeller drug laws in New York
and spoke of drug addiction as a cancer in need of treatment. But his
rhetoric and his actions have been as different as Dr. Strangelove and Mr.
Hyde.

We still spend an overwhelming proportion of our drug-fighting money on
trying to control supply, which has meant militarizing domestic police,
sacrificing civil liberties for "the cause" and intervening in the internal
affairs of nations that are source countries or money- laundering havens.

In one of McCaffrey's worst moves, he recently pushed Congress to send
$1.3-billion in mostly military aid to Colombia in order to back up the
governments fight against leftist rebels and right-wing paramilitary death
squads that are funding their civil conflict with drug profits. The
quagmire has all the markings of another Vietnam and, will ultimately be
equally senseless. Drug profits are so astronomical that there is always a
balloon effect:

When coca production is suppressed in one country, drug traffickers simply
move to another.

In recent weeks, McCaffrey's treatment-hugging rhetoric was put to the test
and failed. California's Proposition 36 mandated treatment rather than
prison for non-violent first- and second-time drug offenders. McCaffrey
predictably opposed the measure, yet 61 percent of the electorate
disagreed, saying they have had enough of jailing people with an addiction
problem.

But where his actions are most unforgivable is his willingness to sacrifice
the health and even the lives of thousands of Americans by averting his
eyes to the truth.

McCaffrey blocked funding of needle exchange programs when even Donna
Shalala, Secretary of Health and Human Services, said they
work. In 1998 Shalala said: "A meticulous scientific review has now proven
that needle exchange programs can reduce the transmission of HIV and save
lives without losing ground in the battle against illegal drugs." McCaffrey
was unmoved despite evidence that more than 75 percent of U.S. babies with
HIV got that way due to injection drug-use by a parent.

Then there's McCaffrey's near-hysterical response, to the potential
medicinal benefits of marijuana. Eight states have now passed voter
initiatives approving medical marijuana and a recent Institute of Medicine,
report commissioned by McCaffrey said the drug shows signs of being helpful
for a host of medical conditions, including offering some relief to
chemotherapy patients and AIDS sufferers.

McCaffrey has pretty much ignored the study's findings and continues to use
his power to keep seriously ill patients from getting a treatment that can
reduce their suffering. In 1996 he even threatened to go after doctors'
prescription-writing licenses if they recommend marijuana to patients. A
lawsuit filed on free-speech grounds finally beat him back.

And speaking of free speech, McCaffrey used his office to surreptitiously
insert anti-drug messages into popular television programs such as Beverly
Hills, 90210 and E.R. As away to avoid having to give expensive air time
free for anti-drug public service announcements, some networks agreed to
make McCaffrey a script supervisor. When the scheme was uncovered,
McCaffrey couldn't understand the backlash over his cultural control
program and suggested expanding it to the movies.

McCaffrey says he's leaving to write a book and possibly go back to
college-level teaching. For those of us looking for a leader with the
courage to act sensibly toward the nation's drug problem, we won't be sorry
to see this old soldier fade away.