VICE PRESIDENT UNVEILS PLAN TO FIGHT DRUGS

"We must do so much more," Al Gore says in announcing the $18 billion effort.

WASHINGTON - Releasing the administration's five-part strategy to
fight drugs, Vice President Al Gore called yesterday for an "all-out
effort to banish crime, drugs and disorder and hopelessness from our
streets."

Administration officials said the plan continued to build on recent
success in the fight against drugs, noting 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 nationwide 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 drive against
drugs.

The five parts of the administration plan call for educating children,
decreasing the addicted population, breaking the cycle of drugs and
crime, securing the nation's borders from drugs and reducing the drug
supply.

The blend of strategies is aimed at reducing the use and availability
of drugs by 25 percent by 2002 and 50 percent by 2007. Achieving the
goal would mean 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 unconvinced that the administration's proposal
would do 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, director of the Lindesmith Center, a
drug policy think-tank funded by billionaire George Soros.

Nadelmann and the American Civil Liberties Union 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 emphasize education and
treatment.

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