GRANTS GIVEN TO CITIES FOR DRUG PROGRAMS

WASHINGTON - Tests of criminal defendants in 23 major cities showed
yesterday the nation's drug problem is regional and generational, as the
use of methamphetamines rebounds in the West and Southwest and cocaine
loses its appeal among young troublemakers.

To counter the trend, President Clinton released $32 million to help local
officials tailor anti-drug strategies.

The grants announced in Clinton's weekly radio address followed a
nationwide $1 billion government anti-drug ad campaign launched Thursday.
Clinton also pushed yesterday for Congress to provide an additional $85
million to expand mandatory drug testing and treatment programs for
probationers, prisoners and parolees.

Of the federal money released yesterday, $27 million will be used to create
special drug courts in 150 jurisdictions. More than 270 drug courts already
exist around the country, combining supervision with sanctions, testing and
drug treatment to coerce nonviolent criminals to come clean.

"To stop the revolving door of crime and narcotics, we must make offenders
stop abusing drugs," Clinton said. He noted that in some cities, drug-court
participants have recidivism - or repeat offender - rates as low as 4
percent.

An additional $5 million in federal money was released to six cities with
documented problems of methamphetamine abuse. Phoenix, Salt Lake City,
Oklahoma City, Dallas, Minneapolis and Little Rock, Ark., are getting
grants to tailor enforcement and prevention efforts to the peculiarities of
methamphetamine use.

"There is no single national drug problem. We have lots of very different
local drug problems," said Jeremy Travis, director of the National
Institute of Justice, research arm of the Justice Department.

The grants came as the institute's Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring program,
or ADAM, showed a rebound in methamphetamine use in Western and
Southwestern cities. Where use among arrested people fell in these cities
between 1994 and 1996, 1997 testing for the aggression-inducing stimulant
put its use back close to 40 percent of adults arrested in San Diego; 18
percent in San Jose, Calif.; 16 percent in Phoenix and Portland ; and 10
percent in Omaha, Neb.

By contrast, crack cocaine use continued to wane in Manhattan, with 21
percent of arrestees testing positive last year compared to 77 percent in
1988.

The ADAM survey also found cocaine is not as popular with young defendants
as it used to be. In Detroit and Washington, D.C., just 5 percent of those
aged 15-20 tested positive for cocaine use, compared with almost 50 percent
of those 36 and over. In the late 1980s cocaine use among those arrested
for crimes reached 80 percent and higher.

The study further found that cocaine use nationally was two to 10 times
more likely among males 36 or older than males between ages 15 and 20 - a
trend that could bring lower crime rates because "older cocaine users are
aging out or dying out . . . " said Jack Riley, director of the institute's
Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring Program.

Researchers call this discrepancy "the big-brother syndrome," in which
younger children shun a drug after seeing its devastating effects on older
users.