CLINTON PUSHES PLAN TO CUT DRUG PROBLEM

WASHINGTON -- Hammering home the need for a drug-control strategy that
measures success and failure, the Clinton administration is announcing a
five-part plan designed to cut the size of the nation's drug problem in
half by 2007.

In a three-volume report to Congress, White House drug policy director
Barry McCaffrey said drugs cost the country more than 14,000 lives
annually, despite a nationwide effort that includes close to $18 billion
spent this year by the federal government.

President Clinton said that while "there is some encouraging progress in
the struggle against drugs, ... the social costs of drug use continue to
climb."

In a message to Congress, Clinton said that among the positive signs are a
growing view among young people that drugs are risky and a continuing
decline in cocaine production overseas.

"Studies demonstrate that when our children understand the dangers of
drugs, their rates of drug use drop," said Clinton.

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 supply of drugs.

The blend of strategies is aimed at reducing the use and availability of
drugs by 50 percent by 2007, 25 percent by 2002. Achieving the goal would
mean just 3 percent of the U.S. household population aged 12 and over would
be using illegal drugs. The current figure is 6.4 percent. In 1979, the
rate was near 15 percent.

Vice President Al Gore said "this strategy takes us into the next century
with a goal of dramatic reductions in the supply and demand for drugs and a
real chance of giving our children drug-free communities in which to grow up."

With Clinton attending the funeral of Jordan's King Hussein, formal
presentation of the plan today was being handled by Gore and McCaffrey.
Advance copies were made available last night.

A major piece of the drug-control effort: an advertising campaign that
generates more than $195 million a year in matching contributions from
media companies.

"The strategy seeks to involve parents, coaches, mentors, teachers, clergy
and other role models in a broad prevention campaign," said McCaffrey, head
of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

A cornerstone of the strategy is accountability for the wide array of
current anti-drug programs, with boosts for those that work and the ability
to identify swiftly and repair those that aren't producing results.

The goals for the period ending in 2007 are to reduce the rate of crime
associated with drug trafficking and use by 30 percent, and reducing the
health and social costs associated with drugs by 25 percent.

McCaffrey also wants to expand alternatives to jail for drug users -- an
approach based on studies showing that prisoners who get treatment are far
less likely to commit new crimes than those who don't.

"Efforts to break the cycle of drugs and crime will pay for themselves
through reduction in prison costs, social costs associated with drugs and
crime and through the money no longer wasted on purchase of drugs,"
according to the new drug-control strategy.