BUSH CALLS ON AMERICANS TO QUIT DRUGS BECAUSE THEY FUND TERROR

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Citing narcotics trafficking as a source of funding
for terrorism, President George W. Bush urged Americans on Friday to quit
using illegal drugs.

"It's so important for Americans to know that the traffic in drugs finances
the work of terror, sustaining terrorists, that terrorists use drug profits
to fund their cells to commit acts of murder," Bush said. "If you quit
drugs, you join the fight against terror in America."

U.S. officials have accused Saudi-born Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida
network for terrorist attacks against the United States on Sept. 11. U.S.
officials also say illicit drug profits have supported Afghanistan's
deposed Taliban rulers, who hosted bin Laden and the al-Qaida network.

The U.S.-led war in Afghanistan has forced the Taliban to flee, and an
interim coalition government is ready to take power on Dec. 22. The United
States is keen to get rid of opium stockpiles in Afghanistan and to stop
farmers from planting more poppies.

Earlier this month, an official at the federal Drug Enforcement
Administration said, "The Taliban were a drug trafficking government."

But the official, Steven Casteel, also said the U.S.-backed northern
alliance has been heavily involved in the drug trade.

Bush charged that the administration of former President Bill Clinton had
failed to build on what he called the successes in the war on drugs under
previous, Republican presidents, including his father, George Bush.

"From the mid-'80s to the early '90s, drug use amongst high school seniors
was reduced each and every year, progress was steady and, over time,
dramatic," he told a conference of community activists. "Yet, recently,
we've lost ground in this important battle."

Bush said the latest data showed that the percentage of 12th-graders using
an illegal drug in the month before the survey rose to 25 percent in 2000
from less than 15 percent in 1992.

But Bob Weiner, a spokesman for the drug enforcement office in the Clinton
administration, called Bush's statistics "ancient numbers," and he urged
the new administration to reach out to both parties instead of pointing
fingers.

"It does a disservice to all those who worked very hard to say that when a
Democrat came in, everything was bad," he said. "It was an untrue statement."