BUSH OFFERS $2.8 BILLION ANTI-DRUG PLAN

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa, Oct. 6 - George W. Bush this morning launched a harsh critique of the Clinton administration's drug policy and offered his own plan to pour $2.8 billion over five years into improving and creating new drug prevention and treatment programs.

In a speech at the Jane Boyd Family Resource Center here, Bush reeled off a litany of statistics showing that drug use has skyrocketed in the past 7 1/2 years. Among other things, he said teen drug abuse has increased each year and heroin use has doubled. In addition, he said, the percentage of high school seniors who smoke marijuana every day is at its highest level in 20 years, while daily use of marijuana by eighth-graders has increased by 700 percent.

Bush put the blame squarely at the feet of the Clinton administration, saying that its "drug abuse policy has been pursued without urgency, without energy and without success. One of Mr. Clinton's first acts as president was to slash the staff of the drug office by 80 percent. The number of workers there went from 146 to 25; in other words about half the size of the White House PR operation. That says something about priorities."

Bush laid out nearly 20 proposals to attack the problem. He said he would encourage drug free communities by pouring $350 million into doubling the size of a program called Face It Together, which is a national effort fostering community coalitions to fight drugs. He also proposed $25 million for nonprofit organizations working to educate and train parents in drug prevention. And he proposed increasing federal funding of drug treatment programs for teenagers by $1 billion.
"There is no substitute for presidential leadership," Bush said. "More than any other person in America, the president can set a tone, deliver a message, lead a cause. This is a cause I will lead."

Bush has focused this week on his theme of giving parents the tools they need to raise children. He has said that the government can do more to help parents fight negative cultural influences and teach values to their children. This week, campaigning through the Midwest, he has criticized the entertainment industry for some of its violent or sexual material aimed at children and focused on a school program that filters out pornographic and violent material when children use the Internet.

Later, Bush will travel on to Marion, Ill., and then to Tampa, Fla., for events today and tomorrow before heading back to Austin.

Bush also continued his three-day stand-off with the media. Until about a month ago, he gave nearly daily press conferences, but since then has kept his distance in efforts to keep the focus on his daily themes.

White House Drug Control Policy Office spokesman Bob Weiner accused Bush of using "ancient" numbers and said that among the first things Barry McCaffrey did upon taking control of the office in 1995 was boost the number of staff to a current total of 154, higher than when Clinton took office.

Weiner also said the drug policy office budget increased from $16 billion in 1995 to $19.8 billion this year and chided Bush for ignoring two recent surveys showing a decline in teen drug use. "There has been a dramatic drop thanks to a team effort among parents, teachers, ministers, law enforcement officers and the media in conjunction with the national drug control strategy," he said. Washington Post staff writer Ben White contributed to this report.