IS THE PRESIDENT'S NEW ANTI-DRUG INITIATIVE A BILLION-DOLLAR BOONDOGGLE?

President Clinton has announced a $1 billion campaign to
fight drugs by buying commercial time for anti-drug advertising.
Could this money have been better spent on drug treatment or
interdiction?

ROBERT NOVAK, CO-HOST: Tonight, the war on drugs.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, ANTI-DRUG AD)

ANNOUNCER: The perfect age to talk to your kid about marijuana is when
you think he's too young to talk to him about marijuana.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOVAK: Will it work, or is it a waste of money?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAM J. CLINTON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: These ads are
designed to knock America upside the head and get America's attention.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ETHAN NADELMANN, DIRECTOR, THE LINDESMITH CENTER: This is a billion
dollar feel-good campaign for an effort directed at drug abuse with no
evidence whatsoever that the campaign will work.

ANNOUNCER: Live from Washington, CROSSFIRE. On the left, Bill Press.
On the right, Robert Novak. In the Crossfire, Republican Senator from
Missouri and member of the Judiciary Committee, John Ashcroft. And in
New York, Ethan Nadelmann, founder and director of The Lindesmith
Center, a drug policy and research institute.

NOVAK: Scathing. Welcome to CROSSFIRE. Bill Clinton and Newt
Gingrich got together on something today. The speaker of the House
and the president joined forces to unveil an unprecedented advertising
campaign against drugs that may total $2 billion before it is
finished. Here's what Americans will be seeing on their television
sets.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, ANTI-DRUG AD)

UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: This is your brain. This is heroin. This is
what happens to your brain after snorting heroin. This is what your
body goes through. It's not over yet. This is what your family goes
through, and your friends and your money, and your job, and your
self-respect, and your future. Any questions?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, MENTORING AD)

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: I'm a mentor.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOVAK: The first commercial is aired, the campaign is under attack.
Conservatives say money should be spent on law enforcement, not gentle
persuaders. Social workers say the $195 million appropriated by
Congress this year for the media campaign would be better spent in
persuading individual kids. And libertarians argue that the whole war
on drugs is a misguided fiasco, a waste of time and money, and that we
ought to make the illegal substances legal. So this is the Crossfire.
Are we fighting drugs the wrong way? Or is this the wrong war? Bill.

BILL PRESS, CO-HOST: Senator Ashcroft, good evening. Let's start with
today's ad campaign. Here you've got Democratic president, Republican
speaker of the House. You've got the private sector putting up a
billion, government putting up a billion dollars, all to try to
encourage kids not to take up illegal drugs. Seems like that's a
win-win program. Why are you dumping on it?

SEN. JOHN ASHCROFT (R), MISSOURI: Well, if you were to take the money
that's been allocated or is projected for this you could double the
amount of interdiction that we're doing along the border, double the
amount of drug effort by the INS. It seems to me that stopping the
flow of drugs, telling people that drugs are illegal, enforcing the
drug laws, is a very important and appropriate response for
government. Now, I do believe that parents need to talk to children,
but let's do what government is supposed to do, and make drug use
risky in an illegal basis. And let's stop drugs and their flow into
this country.

PRESS: But Senator Ashcroft, we're spending $16 billion on the federal
war on drugs this year, projected $17 billion next year. I don't know
where your numbers come from. So if you add another $1 billion you
get it up to $18 billion next year, don't you think at least these --
as part of the total strategy, that these ads directed at kids to
prevent them from starting their habit ought to be part of the program?

ASHCROFT: You know, it is sad that we have to go to advertising to
kids and not be able to have our leaders talk to kids. This president
- -- which decimated drug interdiction and as a result of it drug use
has skyrocketed during his administration -- his most memorable
statements on drugs are, "Well, I didn't inhale, but if I had it to do
over again, I would inhale." And he took and really just wiped out the
drug czar's office and wiped out our interdiction program. And as a
result the best he can hope for now, he says that "Two years after I
leave office, I hope we have only 130 percent more drugs than we had
when I came into office." Whenever you wipe out law enforcement's
capacity to deal with the drug problem, you know, ads don't replace
moms and dads, and you can't just, with this kind of public
information telling kids what they already know, stop the drug problem.

PRESS: Well let me -- you talk about talking to kids about -- when
this war on drugs started there was one very prominent American who
went around talking to kids. I think we remember Nancy Reagan's
program. Let's just remind ourselves about that and take a little
look at this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NANCY REAGAN, FIRST LADY: Let's practice saying, "Just say no." What
should you do when someone offers you drugs?

UNIDENTIFIED CHILDREN: Say no!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PRESS: Now, are you seriously suggesting, senator, that that's more
effective than these hard-hitting ads right on TV, right on prime
time, aimed at kids?

ASHCROFT: Let's just look at the data. When a moral leader who had
the credibility of moral conviction led the country to say "no," drug
use plummeted.

PRESS: No, it didn't.

ASHCROFT: Yes, it did...

PRESS: Oh, we'll see that.

ASHCROFT: ... we had declining drug use from 1979 to 1991-1992, when
this president took over and decimated the drug interdiction program.
Started -- he took the drug czar's office from 145 people down to 25
people.

NOVAK: Ethan Nadelmann, one thing Americans can do good is advertise.
We can tell people that -- we can convince people through the great
industry of advertising to buy things that they don't really want. We
can get them to vote for politicians they don't want. Surely, a $2
billion...

ASHCROFT: Hey, take it easy, Bob. You don't have to point to me when
you say that.

PRESS: They may or may not want.

NOVAK: Surely, a $2 billion...

ASHCROFT: Get them to watch TV programs they don't want
to.

NOVAK: All right. Surely a $2 billion program can do something about
dissuading kids from using drugs.

NADELMANN: Maybe, maybe not. Odds are it will have almost no impact
whatsoever. I mean, the bottom line is, you know, American
advertisers are good at getting people to buy things whether it's
Nike, or IBM, or GM -- whatever it might be. They can get Americans
to buy things and do things positive, but where's the evidence that an
advertising campaign to get, not just adults, but kids not to do
something is going to work? From everything we know about kids, the
forbidden fruit syndrome. This seems like an advertising campaign
designed to play right into that. So in that sense I agree with
Senator Ashcroft. This money is in all likelihood a billion dollars
down the drain. If we're going to spend money this is not way we
should be doing it.

NOVAK: Well you ask, "Well when was a case that we ever had of this
kind of thing working?" and Bill Press is wrong, and Senator Ashcroft
is correct. The "Don't say no" campaign by Nancy Reagan did work.
The statistics are all there.

NADELMANN: You know, Nancy Reagan, "Just say no" -- I like "Just say
no." That's a good thing for elementary schoolkids. You know, I have
a 9-year-old daughter. I'll say "Just say no" to her, but when you're
dealing with high school kids and high school seniors,and when you see
the evidence showing you that 80 percent of high school seniors have
tried alcohol, and 60 percent have tried cigarettes, and 40 percent
have tried marijuana, it seems to me we need something other than a
"Just say no," n-o campaign. Not only that, those kids you showed in
the clip from Nancy Reagan before, those 7, 8, 9 and 10- year-olds who
were so exposed to that "Just say no" campaign, those are the same
high school kids today who are using drugs in greater numbers than
we're seeing in many years.

NOVAK: Mr. Nadelmann, y'know, in this program we all like to fly under
our true colors. And I want to ask -- I mean, I've been reading some
of your stuff. I get the idea you don't think marijuana is much of a
problem. You don't -- you had a lot of the interest in the permissive
drug programs that are used in Europe. Is it a case of the fact that
you don't think this will work, or you're really not that much
interested in fighting the war on drugs?

NADELMANN: No, look, Bob, the bottom line about drugs and drug policy,
for me, for the senator, I believe, and probably for you and Bill and
everybody else, is we're concerned about our kids. We want to do
policies. We want to do interventions and approaches that'll reduce
the likelihood that our kids use drugs and especially reduce the
chance that our kids will get in trouble with drugs. That's what we
care about. That's what we care about.

Now when it comes to marijuana, marijuana is a dangerous drug. Every
drug can be dangerous. But the evidence, the evidence that is
determined by every single independent commission to study the
marijuana issues around the world for the last 80 years comes to the
same conclusion, which is that the war on marijuana is, in most cases,
doing more harm to people than marijuana itself.

NOVAK: I was privileged to be on the platform a couple of weeks ago at
the 25th anniversary of the Drug Enforcement Administration. We had
several former DEA directors -- administrators, and the present
administrator, Thomas Constantine, who is a tough cop from New York,
they all believe that marijuana is very dangerous, and they had
something to say -- Tom Constantine had something to say about people
like you, if you'll pardon me putting you in that category. Here's
what he said.

He said, "It allows," the attitude you have, "It allows them to
withdraw from the battlefield, saying 'This isn't my problem. I can
live in McLean, or in Scarsdale, or in Grossepointe, and come home
every night in my Mercedes or my Lexus. And park my car in the garage
with the alarm system. And be able to seal off, and not view, all of
the impact of what is happening with people and drugs.'"

Isn't that the case that the chaos in the inner city is pretty far
removed from your little think tank?

NADELMANN: Bob, I'm delighted that you were honored to be at a DEA
meeting. Quite frankly when it comes to telling kids about drugs I
don't want the guys from the DEA or the tough ex-state police chief
from New York doing it. I want to hear from the people who know about
drugs. I want to hear from scientists and health people. I want to
hear from people who know something in this area.

You know, the other thing, of course, is the sort of cheap shots, that
this is all about a permissive attitude. Last month there was a
public letter sent to the U.N. secretary-general Kofi Annan. And this
letter said that, "We believe the war on drugs is now doing more harm
than drug abuse itself." And when we look at the black markets, and
the violence, and the corruption...

NOVAK: Who sent the letter, I'm sorry?

NADELMANN: ... those things are not the result -- now this letter,
which was sent by my institute, but it was signed...

NOVAK: By your institute.

NADELMANN: ... it was signed by George Shultz and Milton Friedman. It
was signed by Paul Vocker (ph). It was signed by the former
secretary-general of the United Nations. It was signed by LLoyd
Cutler and by Bob Strauss. It was signed by Richard Burt, the former
ambassador...

PRESS: OK...

NADELMANN: ... The point is is that this is not a fringe argument.
What we're talking about is a growing consensus among
Americans...

PRESS: All right, Ethan.

NADELMANN: ... that this war on drugs is bankrupt.
Bankrupt.

PRESS: Let's get our senator back in here. Senator, would you outlaw
tobacco? Would you outlaw alcohol?

ASHCROFT: No. No.

PRESS: Well why does it work for drugs and not work for tobacco and
alcohol?

ASHCROFT: Well we've proof that it's worked for drugs, it has worked
before for drugs. You know, this bankrupt idea that you have that you
can't outlaw drugs, that you can't control this, this throw-
in-the-towel mentality. Legalize drugs mentality. Well frankly, it
has worked before. Tough enforcement with the right kind of moral
leadership.

And let me just say this, Nancy Reagan's "Just say no" program is a
far cry from this president's paid political advertising. If we have
to go to Madison Avenue to have moral authority in this country
because our president can't stand up and tell people to say no to
drugs, and we can't have that kind of message out of the White House,
it really is a sad commentary. Nancy Reagan did a good job. Drug use
was going down. Listen to what's happened to 8th graders in drug use:
90 per -- 99 percent increase in 8th graders using marijuana since
1992; cocaine use up among 10th graders -- it's doubled since 1992;
heroin usage among 8th graders and 12th graders doubled since 1992.
And what's this administration's response?

PRESS: Well wait...

ASHCROFT: This administration's response is a clean...

PRESS: ... you're just proving...

ASHCROFT: ... needles program to accommodate drug use instead
of...

PRESS: Senator...

ASHCROFT: ... stop drug use. We should...

PRESS: Senator...

ASHCROFT: ... be leading...

PRESS: Senator...

ASHCROFT: ... and not accommodating.

PRESS: With all due respect, your program, you announced today, is to
bar meth-pushers from public housing for life. What's that going to
do to solve the drug problem?

ASHCROFT: Well, it sends a clear signal that if you produce
methamphetamine in public housing, endangering individuals with the
volatile substances in the evil chemistry of meth-production -- I've
been in to take down those labs, I know what's involved there -- and
you endangering the lives of people doing it, you should never again
be eligible...

PRESS: And how's that going to stop all those kids from using
drugs?

ASHCROFT: Well, it's going to stop people from being involved in
methamphetamine. It's going to tell them clearly, "You do that,
you're ineligible to be assisted in your housing." And I think that's
the right signal to send.

PRESS: All right, the war over the war on drugs continues in just a
minute. While we go to our break, we're going to take a look at
another one of those ads, then back to the debate.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, ANTI-DRUG AD)

UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: What would you do if a stranger talked to
you?

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD ACTRESS: I wouldn't talk to him because he might be
bad.

ACTRESS: Very good. And what would you tell someone playing with
matches?

CHILD: I would tell them not to play with them, because they might
start a fire.

ACTRESS: Wow. How come you know so much?

CHILD: My mommy told me.

ACTRESS: Oh, and what did your mommy tell you about
drugs?

ANNOUNCER: Your children are listening. Are you talking?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PRESS: Welcome back to CROSSFIRE. What's the best way to win the war
on drugs, or is there any way to win the war on drugs? We review,
analyze, dissect and debate the whole drug war with Senator John
Ashcroft, Republican of the state of Missouri, just one of several
Republicans with his eye on 2000, and with Ethan Nadelmann in New
York, director and founder of the Lindesmith Center, a drug policy
research institute.

NOVAK: Mr. Nadelmann, let me just get your position straight, because
I don't quite understand it and I am sure the viewers would like to
know: Do you want to legalize any drugs that are now illegal?

NADELMANN: I think when it comes to marijuana we need to move in the
direction of decriminalization. I think with the other drugs, I don't
think the right approach is a free market. I admire Milton Friedman,
the economist, greatly and I think he makes a very provocative
argument for a free market approach. I think he's very accurate and
honest about assessing the negative consequences of the prohibition,
but I don't think that a legalized free market is the right way to
go.

But you know, Bob, there's a more important point here, and I think
there's a common ground here as well. Rather than focusing on what we
want, let's focus on identifying what the bottom line is. My bottom
line is to focus on reducing the death and disease and crime and
suffering and wasted government expenditures associated with both drug
abuse and our drug control policies. So when I hear...

NOVAK: Well, you know...

NADELMANN: Let me just say this.

NOVAK: No wait, Mr. Nadelmann...

NADELMANN: When I hear the senator say that 19...

NOVAK: ...we don't have time...

NADELMANN: Bob, let me just say this.

NOVAK: ... for speeches.

NADELMANN: When I hear the senator say that 1980 was a terrible point
and 1990 was great thing because drug use was reduced. I look at 1980
and nobody had ever heard of crack cocaine, now it's a national epidemic.

NOVAK: Mr. Nadelmann, you're making a speech.

PRESS: My point exactly.

NOVAK: As a matter of fact, I really do prefer Tom Constantine's (ph)
position on drugs to yours. I think I'd rather take a tough cop than
some guy in a think tank.

NADELMANN: Why? Bob, why? Where's the evidence that that
works?

NOVAK: I just want to -- wait a minute. Just a minute.

NADELMANN: No. But where's the evidence that Constantine's approach
works?

NOVAK: Let me ask you question, he said the other day at this 24th
anniversary of the DEA, he asked this question: Do we as a society
willingly engage in a pattern of behavior where we provide people with
substances that get them addicted to drugs for the rest of their lives?

The answer to that has to be yes, doesn't it?

NADELMANN: No -- listen, the answer, Bob, is that we should do those
policies, which are most successful in reducing the death and disease
and crime and suffering. Let me give you an example, there's a
scientific consensus now that needle exchange programs, providing
sterile syringes, reduces the spread of HIV and AIDS and does not
increase drug use, drug abuse.

ASHCROFT: You know, I challenge that. I just...

NADELMANN: Every commission, President Bush's advisory commission,
President Clinton's advisory commission, everything -- National
Academy of Science, Centers for Disease Control all come to the same
conclusion. What do you see happen? The president, the drug czar,
the Republican leadership and half the Democratic leadership say, at
this point, the hell with the science, forget the science, forget
common sense, all we know is we have a, supposedly, moral message that
will involve more people dying...

PRESS: Let's get the senator to respond to that. Do you want to
respond, senator?

ASHCROFT: Well, I just don't believe it's true that there is a
consensus among scientists that you get all these reductions by
providing clean needles. And furthermore, I think it's an immoral
thing for a government to supply people with drug apparatus, drug
paraphernalia. It's illegal to have unless government gives it to
you.

We could make bank robbery a safer profession if we would just provide
bullet-proof vests to the bank robbers, but we're not going to do it.
We shouldn't make drug use safer just by providing clean needles. I
don't believe that it does. It's not safer for the kids, who picked
up those clean needles that are left on the street by irresponsible
users of drugs. Don't be fooled clean needle program.

NADELMANN: Senator, there's a higher morality here. There's a higher
morality steeped in Judeo-Christian ethics, and that's about the
preservation of life. You have hard, cold evidence that these
interventions reduce the spread of disease, not only...

ASHCROFT: The Vancouver studies don't indicate that...

(CROSSTALK)

NOVAK: One at a time, please.

NADELMANN: But also among young people. The policies you advocate are
responsible for the death of young people, for the babies of drug addicts.

NOVAK: All right, let the senator respond to that. Let the senator
respond to that.

NADELMANN: It seems to me a highly harmful strategy that you're
advocating.

ASHCROFT: You know, to keep young people away from drugs, to stop
drugs at the border. His argument is to kill people.

NADELMANN: No, come on, senator.

(CROSSTALK)

ASHCROFT: The policies we advocate are responsible for killing people.
It's drugs that kill people. It's the irresponsible lack of
enforcement; it's...

PRESS: Senator.

ASHCROFT: ... an administration that's more focused on salesmanship,
because it's not involved in leadership. We need moms and dads, not
actors and ads in this arena.

PRESS: Very quickly I used to be with you a hundred percent, arguing
totally against legalization. A Republican judge comes on to my talk
show in Los Angeles and points out 80 percent of his time -- 80
percent of his court time, 80 percent of the court time, 80 percent of
the bailiffs, 80 percent of the cops, 80 percent of the prison
population in Orange County, California, non-violent drug crimes: Why
does that make sense?

ASHCROFT: Well, we ought to stop drug crime. And the idea -- the mere
fact that people have used drugs and are also committing crimes
doesn't mean that drugs caused the crime. But we need to be tough on
stopping crime.

PRESS: Doesn't it show the law enforcement approach is not working,
senator?

ASHCROFT: You know, we've had history in this country that when we
have had tough law enforcement it does work. Let's not deny history,
let's not refute history with the last six years where we haven't had
a tough approach, where we haven't had leadership from the president.
Look, whenever the president's most eloquent statement is, "if I had
to do it over again, I'd inhale," that's not the kind of consistent
message that young people need.

NOVAK: OK, that'll have to be the last word, thank you very much Ethan
Nadelmann in New York; thank you very much, Senator John Ashcroft.

And, Bill Press and I will be back with closing comments.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PRESS: Bob, you know I checked today -- $22 billion under Ronald
Reagan, $44 billion under George Bush, $15 billion under Bill Clinton
we have spent on this war on drugs. Let me tell you Bob, this is the
classic big government program that's not working. I am the true
conservative tonight, Bob. It's not working. Kill it.

NOVAK: Yes. Well, there's lot of true conservatives who work in the
rich suburbs and want to have the drugs in the inner city. So I want
to just tell you this. The DEA administrators who I was privileged to
be with on their 25th anniversary. They say it isn't a question of
the war on drugs not working. You know what they asked? When is the
war on drugs going to start, that's the real point.

PRESS: But Bob, of course. These are the bureaucrats who want more
money.

NOVAK: They're policemen.

PRESS: Don't you get it? I don't care. They're bureaucrats who want
more money for their little operation, Bob. We shouldn't be listening
to them.

NOVAK: Can I, Bill...

PRESS: I mean, listen to William F. Buckley. Maybe he's rich in the
suburbs, but he's not for more crime. He just knows the programs are
not working. Get rid of it.

NOVAK: Let me say one thing I really like about those ads, and that is
getting the parents to try to talk to the kids into not using drugs.
Jesse Helms said when we interviewed him he didn't smoke until he went
to college because he was afraid of his parents.

I didn't smoke until I went to college, because I was an afraid of my
patients. We need more kids who are afraid of their parents, and
that's why people like you...

PRESS: And Pat. No, no, no.

NOVAK: ... could poison the whole situation.

PRESS: Parents ought to talk to their kids about drugs, like I told my
kids not to do drugs and told them not to use them, Bob.

NOVAK: Did it work?

PRESS: That doesn't mean...

NOVAK: Did it work?

PRESS: Of course, Bob. Parents talking to kids work. The big
government doesn't.

From the left, I'm Bill Press. Good night for CROSSFIRE.

NOVAK: From the right...

(LAUGHTER)

What do you call yourself a conservative. From the right, I'm Robert
Novak. Join us again next time for another edition of CROSSFIRE.