FEINSTEIN DERIDES CAMPBELL'S DRUG PLAN

She Defends Interdiction Against Challenger's Idea To Press For Rehabilitation

A recuperating incumbent U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, on the
re-election campaign trail in earnest this week, yesterday dismissed
as ``bizarre'' the proposals by Republican challenger Rep. Tom
Campbell that local governments be allowed to distribute drugs to
addicts as part of a rehabilitation project.

``Anybody who thinks you can rehabilitate somebody addicted to
narcotics by giving them narcotics, they might as well be living on
another planet,'' Feinstein, D-Calif., told The Chronicle e ditorial
board.

Feinstein defended efforts to cut off the supply of drugs to the
United States by attacking the problem at the source -- spending $1.3
billion on military aid to Colombia to fight narco-terrorists who are
seeking to overthrow that nation's government.

Campbell, R-Campbell, has said that the American war on drugs is a
failure and that all the money spent on attacking the supply ought to
go into reducing the demand by rehabilitating addicts in locally
controlled programs.

The sending of military aid to Colombia smacks of a Vietnam-like
involvement, Campbell said.

But Feinstein said it is in the nation's interest to aid the Colombian
government in battling the drug industry in that nation.

``I think that democracy could fall. I think it could go
narco-terrorist in a big way. I think that will impact the whole
region. This is our hemisphere. It will penetrate here,'' Feinstein
said.

``I think the people that deal in narcotics are the worst people in
the world. I'm going to stand against them wherever I have a chance
to,'' she said.

The answer is to attack the problem at the supply side, but also to
encourage the expansion of successful programs with a track record of
rehabilitating addicts, she said.

There also is a place for the government to lead by example and
rhetoric, Feinstein said.

``You know, everybody made fun of Nancy Reagan with `Just Say No to
Drugs.' Guess what? Drug use among kids went down,'' Feinstein said.

Feinstein attended the editorial board meeting in a wheelchair, her
left leg held in a stretched-out position. Having had surgery for a
fall early last month, Feinstein said she is a week away from being
able to walk without crutches and that she expects to maintain a full
schedule of campaign activities in the final weeks before the Nov. 7
election.

But she refused an offer yesterday by Campbell to debate drug policy
on a statewide radio broadcast he is planning.

``I'm not in the business of running his campaign,'' she said. ``He
can run his campaign any way he wants to. He doesn't need me to do it.
He thinks he does.''

Feinstein laid out for editors her list of accomplishments in the past
six years, including a ban on assault weapons, passage of the
California Desert Protection Act, a bill to clean up the waters of
Lake Tahoe, and the brokering of an agreement to preserve 7,500 acres
of old-growth redwoods in the Headwaters Forest.

She said she is proud of Democratic efforts to maintain the economic
prosperity of the past eight years, including her casting of a key
vote for the 1993 Budget Reconciliation Act.

In another term, Feinstein said she would push for a constitutional
amendment that delineates specific rights of crime victims, including
the right to court-ordered restitution and notice of the pending
release of their attackers.

She said she supports spending the bulk of the federal budget surplus
on paying off the national debt, and also providing a $500 billion tax
cut targeted to those in the lower income levels who need it the most.