BUSH SAYS THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION WAGED A LACKLUSTER WAR ON ILLEGAL DRUGS MARION, Ill., Oct. 6 - Gov. George W. Bush today accused the Clinton administration of fighting illicit drugs "without urgency, without energy and without success" and proposed $2.7 billion in new grants in the next five years to combat narcotics and provide drug treatment. For the third consecutive day, Mr. Bush tailored his campaign to focus on ways to help parents protect their children from influences outside the home. This time his focus was not Hollywood entertainment or sexually graphic and violent Internet sites, but illicit drugs. "The job of protecting our children falls to us - as parents," Mr. Bush said this morning in an address to several hundred supporters in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. "Yet we want to know that our government is on our side. We want to live in a society that supports our values and upholds our authority. We need allies, not adversaries. Schools that form character. A decent public culture. And leaders who set a good example." After his speech, Mr. Bush flew to Illinois, en route to Florida, where the campaign has become highly competitive. He was greeted here by a crowd chanting, "No more Gore." A warm-up speaker, State Representative Lee Daniels, attacked the character of President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, saying, "We are sick and tired of the lies and the immorality and the exaggeration." Mr. Bush pushed his $1.3 trillion, 10-year tax-cut proposal, dismissing Mr. Gore's criticisms in the first presidential debate that the plan would give too much to the wealthy. "He loves pitting people against people," he told the cheering crowd. "You can't lead the nation by dividing people into groups." And repeating his debate dismissal of Mr. Gore's statistics, he said, "No fuzzy math." But the centerpiece of his day was his stand against drugs. Mr. Bush vowed, if elected, to set a goal of a "drug-free society." He said that the nation needed to fight the spread of drugs "for one great moral reason. Over time, drugs rob men and women and children of their dignity and character. They are the enemies of innocence and hope and ambition." He accused the Clinton administration of downgrading the battle against drugs, and drew a distinction between what happened in the 1980's under the administrations of President Reagan and his own father, and what occurred in the 1990's. "From 1979 to 1992, our nation confronted drug abuse successfully," he said. "Teen drug use declined each and every year. It was one of the best public policy successes of the 1980's. "All that began to change seven and a half years ago," he continued. "From 1992 to 1997, teen drug abuse increased each and every year. Heroin use doubled. The age at which people began using that drug dropped from 27 in 1988 to 18 in 1997." Mr. Bush acknowledged that teenage drug use had leveled off in recent years - - the Clinton administration said that teenage drug use had dropped over that period - but he called drug policy "one of the worst public policy failures of the 90's." He said that one of Mr. Clinton's first acts when he entered office was to cut the staff of the White House drug office from 146 to 25 people - "about half the size of the White House public relations operation." He had kind words for Mr. Clinton's drug czar, retired Gen. Barry R.McCaffrey, but said, "There is no substitute for presidential leadership." Robert Weiner, the spokesman for General McCaffrey, said Mr. Bush was using "ancient numbers." Mr. Weiner said that Mr. Clinton cut the drug office staff to 25 when he took office, as a part of a pledge to reduce the White House staff, but that he had since turned around, and the office now has 154 staff members. Mr. Weiner said that teenagers' drug use had not just leveled off but declined, and cited a Department of Health and Human Services' survey, which recorded a 21 percent drop in drug use by teenagers from 1997 through the end of 1999. The Gore campaign charged in a statement that "using Washington-fuzzy math, Bush tried to create the false impression that under Clinton- Gore the budget on the war on drugs had been slashed." To fight drugs, Mr. Bush proposed a series of grants, including $25 million for nonprofit groups that teach parents drug prevention, $25 million to groups that help small businesses fight drug use in the workplace, $350 million for community antidrug coalitions, and $100 million to expand a federal school antidrug program. He also promised to hire more border enforcement agents and said he would require prison inmates to take regular drug tests. Mr. Bush also said he would seek to reduce cultivation of coca in Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador and opium in Southwest Asia by spending $165 million over five years for alternative crop development in the regions.
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