U.S. DRUG HEAD: OPERATION SNAGGED

WASHINGTON (AP) - A request for information from a House subcommittee cost
the White House's drug policy office $10,000 and brought its operations to a
near halt for the last two weeks, the head of the office said Thursday.

An angry Barry McCaffrey, President Clinton's chief adviser on drug control
policy, told the panel he was offended at the suggestion that his office had
not been responsive to requests for details about its $185 million media
campaign, including television and radio announcements, to persuade
teen-agers to stay away from illegal drugs.

"It is enormously important to me personally that I be viewed as responsive
to Congress in general and to this subcommittee," McCaffrey told the House
Government Reform Committee's panel on criminal justice, drug policy and
human resources.

"I have provided your office with more 12,000 documents. It cost me over
$10,000 to do this. We have brought my agency to a halt for the better part
of two weeks," McCaffrey said.

Subcommittee Chairman John Mica, R-Fla., said McCaffrey's office had done
good work but it had delayed turning over requested information.

"Based upon available information, there are signs of progress and there are
also signs that raise doubts as to the media campaign's effectiveness and
efficiency," Mica said. "I now see a very tangled web of (media) contracts
that appears overly complicated, expensive and untested."

Republicans in Congress have long criticized the Clinton administration for
what they believe would be a lax anti-drug policy without their influence.

McCaffrey said anti-drug messages on television, radio, print and on the
Internet are reaching 95 percent of 12- to 17-year-olds an average of 8.3
messages a week, some of them made by celebrities who have donated their time.

The messages have been translated into 11 languages, he said, and many are
tailored to appeal to various ethnic groups.

"We are reaching nearly every single American child on a regular basis with
anti-drug information," McCaffrey said. "This campaign is working."

He asked the subcommittee to submit more focused requests for information
and offered to meet personally with Mica to nail down precisely what
information the subcommittee is seeking.

"They're just fishing - looking for something," McCaffrey told reporters
after testifying before the subcommittee. "There is no lack of careful
scientific evaluation of what we're doing."