BUSH'S DRUG CZAR DINOSAUR IS NO BARNEY

You would think that a man with George W. Bush's, er, familiarity with
illegal substances might be sympathetic to calling a cease-fire in
America's $50-billion-a-year drug war.

But, in Bush's parlance, that would be a "misunderstandimation" of the
president.

The man who still refuses to discuss exactly how much cocaine he snorted in
the 1970s is drawing fire for his nomination of "do-drugs, do-time"
extremist John P. Walters to serve as the nation's drug czar.

"Walters is another white male from the conservative Washington, D.C.,
think tank crowd who supports the 'shoot-first-ask-questions-later'
approach to the drug war," says Keith Stroup, director of the National
Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws.

A Heritage Foundation acolyte, Walters quit a Clinton administration drug
policy gig to protest moves to spend more money on drug treatment - as
opposed to the get-tough, incarceration strategy he favored. In a Senate
Judiciary Committee hearing, he dismissed calls for a greater emphasis on
prevention and treatment as "this ineffectual policy - the latest
manifestation of the liberals' commitment to a therapeutic state in which
government serves as the agent of personal rehabilitation."

How does Walters propose to win the war on drugs? For one thing, he's a big
fan of stepping up U.S. drug war interventions to assist the Colombian and
Peruvian armed forces in the difficult work of shooting down American
missionary planes. While thinking Republicans, such as former U.S. Rep. Tom
Campbell of California, warn that Colombia is Latin American for "Vietnam,"
Walters has no fears about getting the United States entangled in the civil
warfare of distant lands. Indeed, with a tip of the hat to Gen. William
Westmoreland, Robert McNamara and other like-minded individuals, he says:
"Foreign programs are cheap and effective."

Walters does not limit his interventionist impulses to so-called "foreign
programs." He wants to insert the tentacles of the federal drug war
apparatus even deeper into the grass roots. For instance, he says he will
battle state efforts to exempt users of medical marijuana from criminal
prosecution. Walters doesn't buy the scientific research that says
marijuana eases the pain and symptoms of people suffering from cancer,
glaucoma and other serious ailments.

Walters has lots of problems with scientific research.

He calls complaints that drug law enforcement tactics disproportionally
penalize minorities one of "the greatest urban myths of our time" and
dismisses as "utter fantasy" the claim that jails are packed with drug
users who need treatment - despite Bureau of Justice Statistics data that
25 percent of America's 2 million prisoners were locked up for drug offenses.

Just how far out are Walters' drug war fantasies? Even Gen. Barry
McCaffrey, the Clinton administration drug czar who was no softy on
crime-and-punishment matters, has warned that the views of his likely
successor are too extreme.

"Instead of finding a 'compassionate conservative' to lead our anti-drug
efforts," argues Stroup, "President Bush has selected a man whose views are
regarded as harsh and extreme, even among drug warriors."