GORE TRUMPETS AN `ALL-OUT EFFORT' TO BANISH DRUGS

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."

But despite the Clinton administration's claim to a balanced approach
in cutting the nation's drug problem in half by 2007, other people
involved in the issue decried what they saw as a continued emphasis on
law enforcement over prevention and treatment.

Administration officials said the plan would 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 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 yesterday.

The five parts of the administration plan are 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 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 others involved in the issue were not convinced 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 ACLU said that two-thirds of the drug-control budget
is still used for 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,
highlighting 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," McCaffrey said. "If you look at drug
treatment dollars it's up 17 percent, and the (fiscal year) 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 nation's youth, and that education and adult
role models were just as important as law enforcement.