FEINSTEIN DERIDES CAMPBELL'S DRUG PLAN She Defends Interdiction Against Challenger's Idea To Press For Rehabilitation A recuperating incumbent U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, on the re-election campaign trail in earnest this week, yesterday dismissed as ``bizarre'' the proposals by Republican challenger Rep. Tom Campbell that local governments be allowed to distribute drugs to addicts as part of a rehabilitation project. ``Anybody who thinks you can rehabilitate somebody addicted to narcotics by giving them narcotics, they might as well be living on another planet,'' Feinstein, D-Calif., told The Chronicle e ditorial board. Feinstein defended efforts to cut off the supply of drugs to the United States by attacking the problem at the source -- spending $1.3 billion on military aid to Colombia to fight narco-terrorists who are seeking to overthrow that nation's government. Campbell, R-Campbell, has said that the American war on drugs is a failure and that all the money spent on attacking the supply ought to go into reducing the demand by rehabilitating addicts in locally controlled programs. The sending of military aid to Colombia smacks of a Vietnam-like involvement, Campbell said. But Feinstein said it is in the nation's interest to aid the Colombian government in battling the drug industry in that nation. ``I think that democracy could fall. I think it could go narco-terrorist in a big way. I think that will impact the whole region. This is our hemisphere. It will penetrate here,'' Feinstein said. ``I think the people that deal in narcotics are the worst people in the world. I'm going to stand against them wherever I have a chance to,'' she said. The answer is to attack the problem at the supply side, but also to encourage the expansion of successful programs with a track record of rehabilitating addicts, she said. There also is a place for the government to lead by example and rhetoric, Feinstein said. ``You know, everybody made fun of Nancy Reagan with `Just Say No to Drugs.' Guess what? Drug use among kids went down,'' Feinstein said. Feinstein attended the editorial board meeting in a wheelchair, her left leg held in a stretched-out position. Having had surgery for a fall early last month, Feinstein said she is a week away from being able to walk without crutches and that she expects to maintain a full schedule of campaign activities in the final weeks before the Nov. 7 election. But she refused an offer yesterday by Campbell to debate drug policy on a statewide radio broadcast he is planning. ``I'm not in the business of running his campaign,'' she said. ``He can run his campaign any way he wants to. He doesn't need me to do it. He thinks he does.'' Feinstein laid out for editors her list of accomplishments in the past six years, including a ban on assault weapons, passage of the California Desert Protection Act, a bill to clean up the waters of Lake Tahoe, and the brokering of an agreement to preserve 7,500 acres of old-growth redwoods in the Headwaters Forest. She said she is proud of Democratic efforts to maintain the economic prosperity of the past eight years, including her casting of a key vote for the 1993 Budget Reconciliation Act. In another term, Feinstein said she would push for a constitutional amendment that delineates specific rights of crime victims, including the right to court-ordered restitution and notice of the pending release of their attackers. She said she supports spending the bulk of the federal budget surplus on paying off the national debt, and also providing a $500 billion tax cut targeted to those in the lower income levels who need it the most.
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