WHITE HOUSE DRUG CZAR ANNOUNCES RETIREMENT

Washington -- White House drug policy adviser Barry McCaffrey, the career
soldier who has managed America's fight against drugs for nearly five
years, announced his resignation yesterday. A political appointee, he will
step aside Jan. 6, two weeks before a new president takes office.

The retired Army general will leave an office whose budget and staff have
grown dramatically since he took the job March 1, 1996, and whose political
profile has grown accordingly.

McCaffrey, former head of the Army's Southern Command, will hand over a
drug policy that devotes attention to treatment and prevention

- --including nearly $1 billion in a five-year ad campaign directed at
teenagers -- as well as the more traditional tools of interdiction and arrest.

The federal budget for treatment has grown 35 percent, to more than $3
billion, since 1996, McCaffrey said; prevention and education funds have
grown 52 percent. McCaffrey's office is responsible for $500 million
annually, compared with $35 million five years ago, he said.

Asked yesterday whether he understands the drug problem differently now
than when he was directing interdiction efforts from Panama, McCaffrey
said, "Clearly."

"I think I'm far more confident than I was before. I understand this is not
a city problem. Poor people, black people, brown people

- --it's a problem that affects every part of our society," McCaffrey said.
"The second thing I understand is there are a lot of people who know what
they're talking about."

McCaffrey intends to write a book about some of those people, from
scientists to former addicts. He is considering two offers to teach courses
on national security, including one from West Point. He said he wants to
stay involved in hemispheric affairs.

An estimated 14.8 million Americans older than 11 were users of illegal
drugs last year, compared with 12.8 million in 1995, according to a
Department of Health and Human Services annual survey. Among adolescents,
whose drug use has declined in the past two years, the narcotic of choice
was often marijuana.