TRYING TO COMBAT DRUGS

Pity those poor presidential candid dates. No sooner do they make a decent
showing in the horse race than they are' exposed to tiresome policy
questions that they would much rather avoid. The latest example is
Elizabeth Dole who finished a surprisingly strong third in the Republican
straw poll in Iowa last weekend. Suddenly she is being grilled on abortion,
evolution and homosexual Boy Scouts. Let us throw another issue on the
barbecue.

Speaking in Iowa, Mrs. Dole denounced the Clinton administration's drug
policy. There is always a lot to say, pro and con about any
administration's drug policy. Mrs. Dole may not have made the wisest choices.

She began by accusing the president of failing to use the bully pulpit to
warn children off drugs. In fact he has mounted an ambitious and by some
accounts effective advertising campaign to do just that. She went on to
accuse Mr Clinton of cutting the budget for drug interdiction. Actually,
the 1999 interdiction budget is up 11.8 percent from the previous year.

Finally, Mrs., Dole implied that Mr Clinton was especially indifferent to
the flow of drugs through Mexico. If elected, the candidate went on, she
would demand that the Mexicans stanch this flow'. If that failed, she would
use her powers as president "to shut that spigot off."

Perhaps President Clinton heard her More or less as she, was speaking, the
FBI and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration were closing in on a
Mexican-based drug ring that distributed marijuana and cocaine to American
consumers. The bust involved some 100 arrests. Among other things, it is
said to confirm that the recently stepped up. information-sharing between
Mexican and American antidrug officials is a project worth pursuing.

Candidates almost always oversimplify. It is the nature of campaign
communication. But Mrs. Dole, in addition to calling for forcefulness,
needs to show that she understands the complexities of the battle against
drugs abroad. America seeks to eradicate crops, break cartels, seize
shipments, but at the same time cannot appear to be trampling on the
sovereignty of allies whose support it needs in the very drug operations
themselves.

Recent talk that the Clinton administration might dramatically increase its
anti-drug effort in Colombia produced a backlash in the region. Colombia's
president, Andres Pastrana, had to defend himself against nationalist
critics who complain that the war on drugs has supplanted the threat of
communism as America's excuse to meddle with its southern neighbors.

The day before the Iowa straw poll, a gunman on a motorbike murdered Jaime
Garzon, a celebrated Colombian comedian who had tried to mediate in his
country's drug mayhem. Two days later, gunmen on motorbikes attacked
Mexico's top anti-drug prosecutor.

Latin Americans do not need to be reminded that drugs are a menace, and
they will not take kindly to the suggestion that defeating drugs is as easy
as shutting off a spigot. Americans, for their part, should ponder the
sobering fact that Colombia is already the third-largest recipient of
American aid, most of which goes toward the war on drugs, and yet coca
cultivation in that country is rising.