CHOOSING THE NEW DRUG CZAR: THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY

The next U.S. drug czar won't be a general and will probably take his
orders from a host of Bush Cabinet members, including Attorney General John
Ashcroft and Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson. That's
the expectation of Kevin B. Zeese, president of Common Sense for Drug
Policy, a Washington-based drug policy reform organization.

"In fact, President Bush has reduced the importance of the drug czar by
making it a sub-Cabinet-level job. Drug-policy power will in the hands of
the attorney general and the secretary of health and human services," said
Zeese, whose group is affiliated with the George Soros-backed Lindesmith
Center-Drug Policy Foundation in New York.

Rick Romley, a Maricopa County, Ariz. attorney, is being considered to head
the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), The Arizona Republic
reported. Romley has testified before Congress several times on Maricopa
County's diversion program. It lifts drug charges for users who complete
court-ordered treatment.

A drug czar candidate like Romley encourages drug policy reform advocates.
But Zeese isn't too encouraged by some of the rumored candidates, who
include James B. McDonough, director of the Florida Office of Drug Control.

"I expect he would be very much a McCaffrey type and we'd see a zero
tolerance to drugs," said Zeese, referring to the retired Air Force general
who stepped down early in January after five years as drug czar.

"McDonough-who's been campaigning for the drug-czar job and wants it
most-might even be more conservative than McCaffrey. So, I don't think he'd
make a very effective drug czar," added Zeese. Previously, from 1996-99,
McDonough was director of strategy for ONDCP.

Other rumored candidates for the drug-czar job include former Rep. Bill
McCollum (R-Fla.), a conservative whom the House considered its foremost
authority on crime; Boise Mayor H. Brent Coles, a Republican moderate who
heads the U.S. Conference of Mayors. And a distant rumor has it that
Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating (R), whom President Bush had considered for
attorney general, but whose acceptance of about $250,000 in personal cash
gifts from financier Jack Dreyfus over the years-and Keating's modest
efforts to help Dreyfus promote a mood-altering drug for use in
prisons-made him too risky a choice for attorney general.

While a conservative drug czar would work well with Ashcroft, he might be
at odds with Secretary of State Colin Powell and HHS Secretary Thompson.
And drug policy reform advocates are very worried about Ashcroft, who they
say is a drug war hawk.

"He's about as extreme [on drugs] as you can get," Zeese said. "He has a
horrible record on drug policy."

Ashcroft, who supported the Clinton administration's $1.3-billion effort to
fight drugs in Colombia, will be probably at odds with Powell, and even
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, on "Plan Colombia."

"Every test of the Powell Doctrine is failed by the Colombian drug effort.
Donald Rumsfeld in his confirmation hearing came out against it. And
Powell, when the Mexican foreign minister was in Washington, raised some
valid and especially strong doubts about it," Zeese said.

During his confirmation hearings, Ashcroft said that he was not going to be
a legislator but an enforcer of the law, Zeese added. "The reality is that
the Department of Justice does legislate-they do more bill-writing than
anyone else, as far as criminal justice goes," he noted. "The DOJ wrote
most of the drug laws in the '80s, but I don't know why the senators [at
Ashcroft's confirmation hearings] didn't want to admit that."

Ashcroft, Zeese charged, "will not enforce laws that he disagrees with: He
will undermine those laws."

Thompson, on the other hand, "is quite interesting," Zeese said. While
Thompson was governor of Wisconsin, the state government funded
needle-exchange programs. "There might be an important Ashcroft-Thompson
battle, because Ashcroft was one of the leaders trying to stop
needle-exchange funding in the Senate," he said. "Certainly, with Arlen
Specter heading up HHS appropriations in the Senate-and Specter supports
needle exchange and pushed the Clinton administration on the issue-I could
see Thompson as having no choice but make needle exchange an issue. So that
gives me some hope."

An interview CNN taped a few days before Bush's inauguration also gives
drug reform advocates some hope. In that "Inside Politics" interview with
CNN's senior correspondent Candy Crowley, Bush endorsed treatment and
ending mandatory minimum sentences for first-time drug offenders. Bush said
he knows that "a lot of people are coming to the realization that maybe
long, minimum sentences for the first-time users may not be the best way to
occupy jail space and/or heal people from their disease. And I'm willing to
look at that."

He went on to say: "My point to you on drug use is that one of the things
we've got to do a better job of in our society is helping people cure
themselves of an illness. Addiction to alcohol or drugs is an illness. And
we haven't done a very good job, thus far, of curing people from that
illness. An it's one of the reasons why I believe so strongly in
faith-based programs to help people first change their lives, which would
then change their habits."

Bush also spoke of this opposition to the disparity between sentencing for
crack vs. powder cocaine, saying flatly, "that ought to be addressed by
making sure the powder-cocaine and the crack-cocaine penalties are the
same. I don't believe that we ought to be discriminatory. I mean, I think
we ought to be sending a clear signal." The U.S. Sentencing Commission has
often in the past called for the current 100-to-1 ratio be reduced
significantly, Common Sense for Drug Policy pointed out.

"Clinton said the same thing at the end of his administration, and Bush is
saying it at the beginning," Zeese said, adding gleefully, "I mean, that's
the whole reform agenda in Washington, D.C."