DRUG CZAR STILL FEARS OLYMPIC DOPING

WASHINGTON -- U.S. drug czar Barry McCaffrey, who has announced his
upcoming resignation, says the Olympics made a great start this year
in fighting drug abuse, but there's a long way to go before the 2002
Games in Salt Lake City.

"We owe athletes in America a drug-free competitive environment," he
told the Deseret News. "It's well begun, but there is a lot of work"
to come.

McCaffrey spoke at a press conference Tuesday to discuss his decision
to retire Jan. 6 as head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy
and to discuss some areas of remaining concern.

Among them, he said, is that officials have developed tests to detect
only some, not all, of the modern drugs and techniques used by some
athletes to cheat -- "not the human growth hormone, not insulin, not
blood packing."

He said that at the Sydney Olympics, "Australians did a superb job of
putting together an incorruptible, first-rate drug testing regime." It
caught numerous athletes cheating and forced some to give back medals.

McCaffrey said world anti-drug officials plan to meet in Oslo, Norway,
Nov. 15-17 to review possible next steps for the testing of athletes.

"We've got to look at the lessons learned and see how far we can
ratchet this thing prior to Salt Lake," he said.

McCaffrey has argued loudly internationally that doping by Olympic
athletes posed a greater threat to the integrity of the Games than did
the Salt Lake bribery scandal and the worry it created about corruption.

He said he decided to battle doping because it was pushing youths to
drug abuse and because former Olympians told him the problem was
spiraling out of control.

"A decade ago, second-rate athletes started using doping in sports to
cheat and win," McCaffrey said Olympians told him. "And in the past
few years, we've gotten into the situation where first-rate athletes
believe widely that if they don't get involved in doping, they'll
probably lose."

He added, "So, we owe athletes, it seems to us, a responsibility to
level the playing field."

McCaffrey, working with Australian and Canadian leaders, helped
establish a worldwide anti-doping agency to test athletes.

He said a similar U.S. agency was formed, and a change in attitudes
has attracted money and other resources needed to truly combat doping
in the upcoming 2002 Olympics.

"We're thankful we've got a superb person in Mitt Romney out in the
Salt Lake Olympic committee. He's got more than $7 million in
bipartisan support out of Congress now for anti-doping measures in the
United States," McCaffrey said.

McCaffrey announced this week he will leave his post Jan. 6. And he
says he does not want to serve in a new administration, no matter who
wins. He said he hopes that announcement will help others view his
drug strategies as not politically motivated but based on sound science.

He plans to teach college and to write a book. He has been the drug
czar since 1996.