HARDLINE DRUG CZAR APPOINTED BY BUSH

President George Bush tried to reinvigorate America's controversial war on
drugs' yesterday by appointing a hardliner to the position of drug czar',
defying critics' claims that imprisonment and military action are failing
to stop the spread of narcotics.

The new drug czar, John Walters, was the deputy head of drug policy in
George Bush Sr's administration, and has long been a firm advocate of
mandatory prison sentences for drug users.

Acceptance of drug use is simply not an option for this administration,'
the president said during the announcement of Mr Walters' nomination. John
Walters and I believe the only humane and compassionate response to drug
use is a moral refusal to accept it. We emphatically disagree with those
who favour drug legalisation.'

Mr Walters will oversee a budget of Dollars 19bn ( pounds 13.4bn) for
programmes ranging from coca crop eradication in Colombia to public
information broadcasts warning of the dangers of drug use.

His nomination, subject to congressional approval, comes at a time of
growing criticism of orthodox drug policy.

The zero-tolerance' approach has been largely responsible for the US prison
population increasing by 70% during the past decade, to nearly 2m, more
than a quarter of whom are in jail for drug charges.

The average federal sentence for a drug offence in 1997 was 78 months, more
than twice the average sentence for manslaughter.

The issue is also racially charged; analyses of sentences around the
country showed that 54% of black defendants convicted for drug offences
were sent to prison, compared to 34% of white defendants.

Before his nomination, Mr Walters ridiculed as urban myths' concerns that
drug sentences were too harsh and too targeted on blacks. And in a March
article in the conservative Weekly Standard magazine, he argued that
coerced drug treatment works at least as well as voluntary treatment'.

If it weren't for the ideology associated with treatment - addiction is a
disease, not a pattern of behaviour for which people can be held
responsible - law enforcement and punishment would be natural partners of
the treatment providers.'

The drug czar nominee is also a firm supporter of the US-funded, mainly
military campaign against the cocaine trade in Colombia, and the policy of
shooting down suspected drug traffickers' planes - a policy which led to
the killing of a US missionary and her daughter last month.

Mr Walters' nomination has predictably caused concern among some observers.

Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of The Lindesmith Centre drug policy
foundation, said yesterday: Walters stands for the proposition that drug
policy has nothing to do with facts, science or public health It's all
about punishment to him.'