US CT: GENERAL SENDS ANTI-DRUG MESSAGE TO KIDS

SOUTHINGTON - The nation's anti-drug chief, General Barry R. McCaffrey,
director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, warned
grass-roots activists and community leaders of the consequences of drug use
in our country.

"We have more people behind bars than we do in the armed forces and it's
going to go up if we don't do something about it," he said at the Aqua Turf
Club Wednesday night.

As much as 10 percent of the population is affected by drugs, according to
the general, at a cost of $6 billion a year to taxpayers for rehabilitation
and prison expenses - not to mention the destruction of the family unit.

U.S. Rep. Nancy L. Johnson also spoke at the dinner, sponsored by the
Southington Drug Task Force and the Regional Substance Abuse Council of
Central Connecticut to show her support for the anti-drug movement.

"I'm not only proud of the Connecticut Huskies, but I'm also profoundly
optimistic for our state in the war against drugs," she the 6th District
congresswoman.

The meeting was a chance for groups like the Simsbury Community Youth
Partnership and the new anti-alcohol group in town - Training Intervention
Procedures, or "TIPS" - to pass around a family-style meal and some ideas.

McCaffrey's solution: Send the anti-drug message to children when they are
young.

To demonstrate his point, McCaffrey showed the 250 guests a series of
television advertisements he said the government has made as part of a
5-year, million-dollar campaign against drug use.

In one commercial, a little girl says her mother told her never to talk to
strangers, but she is silent when she is asked what her mother told her
about drugs.

That ad hit home for one guest - Police Chief William Perry.

In the town where there is an average of 2 or 3 narcotics arrests per week
- - usually marijuana or crack cocaine - Perry said there is a connection
between children of the 1960s smoking pot and their children following that
example.

"Some of the parents I arrested 15, 18 years ago are now having problems
with their kids," Perry said. "The solution is back to basics - back to
family."

Among the numerous statistics McCaffrey tossed out to the crowd: children
who do not use drugs report spending after-school hours eating dinner as a
family or playing sports.

Commercials, billboards and Web sites in partnerships with companies like
Disney and America Online, McCaffrey said, are part of his strategy for
reaching the youth. And the federal government, he said, has the most money
ever - $3 billion - to fund these media outlets.

"We're beginning to put our money where our strategy is," McCaffrey said.

A few detractors were there to let the nation's top anti-drug official know
they do not agree with his policy.

There were two men with signs protesting the "War Against Drugs" outside
the event. And Laura Spitz of Burlington - a member of a state-based group
called Efficacy that aims to legalize marijuana - said she purchased a $25
ticket to question the general's policies, but she was never picked to ask
her question.

"The truth is that no one has ever died from marijuana and it doesn't
deserve to be in the same category as cocaine and heroin," she said, adding
that she believes there are benefits to growing hemp as a cash crop and
using marijuana to alleviate pain. "I think we need honesty in policy so
that children will have more respect for the law," she said.

While there's no evidence the drug cures any medical problem, McCaffrey
said, he agrees it is possible that components of marijuana could alleviate
pain. But he thinks the leaders of the movement have another agenda.

"What's not legitimate is to push for legal marijuana smoking through
(legalizing) industrial hemp and medical use," McCaffrey said.