NEW ANTI-DRUG PROPOSAL PUTS FOCUS ON CHILDREN

WASHINGTON (AP) Vice President Al Gore released the administration's
five-part strategy against drugs Monday, adding a call for an
"all-out effort to banish crime, drugs and disorder and hopelessness
from our streets."

But despite the Clinton administration's promise of a balanced
approach in cutting the country's drug problem in half by 2007,
advocacy groups decried what they saw as a continued emphasis on law
enforcement over prevention and treatment.

Administration officials said the plan continued to build on recent
success in the fight against drugs. They noted that government
estimates show drug use by adults is at half what it was in 1979 and
that drug use by young people has started to decline.

"But when drug dealers still roam our streets and rob our children of
their dreams, and drug-related crime still ravages so many of our
neighborhoods, we know that we have barely begun," Gore said. "We must
do so much more."

The effort includes nearly $18 billion to be spent this year by the
federal government. White House drug policy director Barry McCaffrey
wants children to be the focal point for the campaign.

The White House "seeks to involve parents, coaches, mentors, teachers,
clergy and other role models in a broad prevention campaign,"
McCaffrey said in the four-volume strategy sent to Capitol Hill on
Monday.

The five parts of the administration plan are educating children,
decreasing the addicted population, breaking the cycle of drugs and
crime, securing the country's borders against drugs and reducing the
drug supply.

The blend of strategies aims to reduce the use and availability of
drugs by 25 percent by 2002 and 50 percent by 2007. Achieving the goal
would mean just 3 percent of the U.S. population age 12 and older
would be using illegal drugs. The current figure is estimated at 6.4
percent. In 1979, the rate was near 15 percent.

But some advocates were not convinced that the proposal did enough to
boost treatment and prevention.

"Unfortunately, it's just another example of throwing billions of
dollars down the bottomless pits of interdiction and failed prevention
programs," said Ethan Nadelmann, the director of the Lindesmith
Center, a drug policy think-tank funded by billionaire George Soros.

Nadelmann and the ACLU said that two-thirds of the drug-control budget
was still dedicated to law enforcement and interdiction. Rep. Rob
Portman, R-Ohio, who has had a hand in writing anti-drug legislation
in Congress, said the Clinton administration's budget numbers didn't
match its promise to stress education and treatment.

"My concern is that the president's budget priorities don't match the
rhetoric from the White House," Portman said.

McCaffrey defended the administration's commitment to prevention. He
pointed to an advertising campaign that generates more than $195
million in matching contributions from media companies.

"If you take a three-year snapshot, we've increased prevention dollars
by more than 40 percent," he said. "If you look at drug treatment
dollars it's up 17 percent, and the FY 2000 budget continues that."

McCaffrey also trumpeted reduced coca cultivation in the Andean
region, especially in Peru and Bolivia. However, cultivation in
Colombia, where the product of the coca plant is used to produce
cocaine, has risen 26 percent in just one year.

Gore said the fight against drugs was linked to a "spiritual" struggle
for the hearts of the country's youth, and that education and adult

role models were just as important as law enforcement.