DRUG CZAR FAULTS CANADA'S POLICIES

Official Visits Seattle on National Tour to Tout Anti-Drug Effort

SEATTLE -- Winning the war on drugs will require better coordination
of prevention, law enforcement, treatment and other services for
addicts, the White House's drug czar said Thursday.

"There are people working every day to save lives in prevention,
treatment and public safety. ... They feel that their work is not as
effective as it would be because it's not linked to the other parts of
the community that have a contribution to make," John Walters,
director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy said.

"They're treating people, they're trying to get people into recovery,
but they're not as tied to people that are going to help provide
housing and jobs and education to make sure the recovery has the best
prospect of succeeding," Walters said. "What we're trying to do is not
just run good individual programs at the federal level. We're trying
to make sure those programs are making a difference."

Walters said the Canadian government needs to crack down harder on
prosecuting drug crimes.

"Political leadership in Canada has failed to take steps to
significantly reduce the threat, particularly from high-potency
marijuana," Walters said. "What they do with their domestic policy is
obviously their business," he went on to say. "We respect their
sovereignty. ... But when that business harms Americans, that's our
job, to protect Americans."

Seattle was Walters' sixth stop in a 25-city national tour promoting
the government's anti-drug campaign. Much of the nation's $11.5
billion drug control budget is doled out to cities and states for
programs ranging from education to enforcement.

Walters said he knows what needs to be done to curb drug use and he
says he's going to make it happen.

"We're not going to say that we've tried to just give money and good
speeches about this," he said. "We know how to prevent drug use. We
know the importance of preventing drug use. We know that if you do not
begin using illegal drugs, alcohol and cigarettes when you're a
teenager, the number who go on to use is extremely small, and the
number of those that go on to use and have a problem is even smaller."

Walters criticized Initiative 75, a measure Tuesday's ballot in
Seattle, that would make marijuana possession the lowest
law-enforcement priority in the city. He dismissed the notion that
marijuana creates less serious problems than cocaine, heroin and
methamphetamine.

"What people do not understand today is that of the roughly 7 million
people age 12 and above who need treatment in this country because of
their dependence or abuse of illegal drugs, 60 percent are dependent
on marijuana," Walters said. "It is more a factor in producing
treatment need than any other illegal drug."