A DRUG CHIEF WHO KNOWS THE MISSION

My doctor told me my health would probably be better, and my disposition
definitely, if I wrote good-news columns instead of harping on the torture
and church burnings of the Chinese communists, slavery in the Sudan, Yasser
Arafat and Saddam Hussein, Bill Clinton's perfidy in breaking his promises
to fight for human rights, Americans who put profit above country in
foreign trade topics like that.

So this column is about drug addiction, the plague that cripples millions
of Americans and their victims. All Americans sea to sea should rejoice at
the news I am giving them. Well all except those few with obese wallets who
are busily trying to sabotage the war against drugs, the people who are on
their pro-drug payrolls and those who swallow their propaganda for creeping
legalization.

The news is that President Bush has finally chosen a new chief of the White
House anti-drug office John P. Walters, a former deputy director for drug
policy under Bill Bennett, the first and most passionate of what used to be
called drug czars. The federal government and the press no longer consider
that title politically correct, nor the term drug war but I do consider
them very correct.

Mr. Walters understands fully that winning the war means putting money and
personnel, lots of both, into law enforcement, interdiction of illegal
narcotics and therapy not one, but a three-legged stool. We two do share a
bias: against Americans being fed the sugar candy that law enforcement is
not all that important or effective. Weakening law enforcement is no less
dangerous than eliminating therapy for those who need it, or teaching
foreign farmers not to grow drug crops, and the arrest of Americans who do.

Even before the announcement of his appointment, shots are being taken at
him in Washington too tough a guy, his nonadmirers say. Somehow toughness
in the anti-drug war, by therapists or enforcements that crack down on
addicts and pushers, does not break my heart. Without the compulsion of the
law,therapists know, most addicts would evade the treatment that could help
them.

And without experts like Mr. Walters and the fine outgoing anti-drug chief
Barry McCaffrey, a retired general,, the pro-drug people and organizations
would get away with using the weapons even more important than the money of
their sponsors the lies and distortions they throw at the public.

Gen. McCaffrey went after one of the propaganda peddlers on Tim Russert's
"Meet the Press"; I treasure the transcript. The man is one Gary Johnson,
the Republican governor of New Mexico. He is known outside New Mexico only
because of his being an eager supporter of legalization of heroin and
marijuana, and a user (former, of course) of cocaine. One by one, the
general exposed Mr. Johnson's "errors" and then issued a putdown I fully
intend to steal in future columns: "Everybody is entitled to their own
opinions. . . . You are not entitled to your own facts."

Now, doctor, I have a dilemma. Here I am congratulating the new drug czar
and the outgoing one, the anti-drug specialists in law enforcement and
therapy, but not specifically the president.

The reason is that he has disappointed the hopes of so many people who
believed he would give the country what it needs most to fight the drug war
presidential leadership, the feeling that this new president would throw
himself into a crusade against drugs, not just do his bureaucratic duty of
appointing an anti-drug chief. He did not.

During the campaign, Mr. Bush barely spoke of the importance of fighting
drugs. It took him three months in office to decide on the person he
wanted, although there are a number of well-known and fully qualified
people. Some of the president's supporters say Mr. Clinton took the same
amount of time; Mr. Clinton is not my role model. Some ducked the
appointment because the president is seriously considering withdrawing the
job's Cabinet-rank status.

That status gave the drug czar participation in a large range of financial
and social problems connected to drug-fighting and put him within the inner
power loop.

Why Mr. Bush would downgrade the position nobody can or will tell me except
in mumble-jumble that means nothing except embarrassment. It is not so much
the new anti-drug chief who would lose status and respect as the president.
Mr. Bush can win the anti-drug leadership still, but it has to be done
quickly, clearly and continuously and by him, not only surrogates. It does
not seem too much to ask a president to lead one of the most important
struggles America faces. That is my last jolly thought for today, doctor or
no doctor.

A.M. Rosenthal, the former executive editor of the New York Times, is a
nationally syndicated columnist.