AFTER GENERAL MCCAFFREY

After five years as the nation's drug czar, Gen. Barry McCaffrey
leaves with a mixed record.

The White House Director of National Drug Control Policy got it right
in several important areas. He increased spending for prevention and
treatment programs, though they still get much less than
interdiction; criticized mandatory minimum sentences for people who
commit drug-related crimes; supported drug courts and encouraged
treatment rather than prison for addicts; and urged insurers to cover
treatment for substance abuse and mental illness as they do for other
illnesses. This month, President Clinton ordered that such coverage
be offered to the 9 million federal workers, which will affect other
insurers.

On the question of whether penalties should be harsher for possessing
or selling crack cocaine than for powder cocaine, Gen. McCaffrey
correctly broke with Attorney General Janet Reno. They are forms of
the same drug and should be treated the same. Ms. Reno supported the
status quo, which results in more African-Americans than whites being
imprisoned for offenses involving the cheaper crack.

On the negative side, Gen. McCaffrey opposed state efforts to make
marijuana legal for medical purposes, calling it a "deliberate,
well-thought-out strategy by drug legalization forces." In 1997, he
threatened physicians with loss of their federal license to prescribe
drugs if they recommended marijuana to relieve seriously-ill people's
suffering. He opposed clean-needle programs for addicts to prevent
the spread of AIDS.

Gen. McCaffrey also supported sending $1.3 billion in U.S. aid, much
of it military, to Colombia, which is trying to smash the drug
operations that fuel the country's civil war and provide most of the
cocaine and heroin Americans buy. A military man can be expected to
believe in military options. But without demand, how profitable would
the drug trade be?

Before President Clinton put him in charge of U.S. drug policy, Gen.
McCaffrey spent 31 years in the Army and became its most highly
decorated general. Yet he found addiction a new and scary adversary,
saying, "I doubt I've ever seen in combat the misery I've encountered
watching what drug abuse does to people," he said. The antidote?
Effective treatment.

He's right. The abuse of drugs -- whether alcohol, nicotine,
marijuana, amphetamines, heroin or cocaine -- is a public-health
problem. In choosing the next drug czar, President-elect Bush should
look to the public-health system for a leader who will attack the
problem on that battlefield.