ILLEGAL DRUG USE IN US REMAINS 'RAMPANT'

General Barry McCaffrey, US drug czar, yesterday pointed out advances
made in the controversial "war on drugs" during the Clinton years but
acknowledged that illegal drug use was still rampant.

In his final report on anti-drug efforts over the past eight years, Mr
McCaffrey cited a 21 per cent drop in teenage drug use over two years
and a steep decline in drug-related crime.

Federal funding for prevention programmes has increased by 55 per cent
since 1996, and the number of drug courts mandating supervised drug
treatment for non-violent offenders has risen from 12 in 1994 to 700
now.

Yet, said Mr McCaffrey, "we're still looking at a US society in which
6 per cent of us last month used an illegal drug". There are an
estimated 14m users each year. There are also 52,000 deaths, and
Dollars 110bn (Pounds 73bn) in damages per year.

The anti-drug crusade has brought widespread criticism. Ethan
Nadelmann, executive director of the New York-based Lindesmith Center
Drug Policy Foundation, said it "increasingly violates constitutional
rights, and yet has resulted in increased deaths from overdose and HIV
. . . It's time for us to focus on a new bottom line - one that
emphasises the reduction of death, disease, crime and suffering rather
than simply reducing drug use".

The Clinton administration put billions of dollars into drug treatment
and prevention. Of the Dollars 19.2bn for drug programmes last year,
Dollars 2.78bn went into treatment.

However, "there are approximately 5m drug abusers who need immediate
treatment and who constitute a major portion of domestic demand", the
report said.

The administration has spent Dollars 1bn on a media campaign,
featuring among others Spider-Man, to discourage drug use among young
people. "We are reaching 95 per cent of our audience with messages 7.5
times a week," Mr McCaffrey said.

The number of drug users in prisons continues to mount. More than half
the inmates in state and federal prisons - 700,000 in all - have
mental health or substance abuse problems. But Mr McCaffrey said there
was now "an enormous number of alternatives to incarceration" for
non-violent drug law offenders.

Jim Bovard, a prominent critic of the anti-drug crusade, said: "Drug
use is far higher now than when Clinton took office."

Mr McCaffrey said he had briefed President-elect George W. Bush on the
drug strategy. "This has been a bipartisan, congressionally-supported
effort with significant enhancement and resources," he said. "I think
it's due for a re-look, and I'm sure they'll give it careful
consideration."