GOP CALLS FOR NEW WAR ON DRUGS

WASHINGTON (AP) - A Republican senator, speaking for his party, chided
President Clinton for a too-little, too-late strategy for ending teen drug
use and blasted his proposal to ease prison sentencing guidelines for
small-time crack cocaine dealers.

``It would be a catastrophe to let any drug dealer think the cost of doing
their deadly business is going down,'' Michigan Sen. Spencer Abraham said
Saturday in the Republicans' weekly radio broadcast.

Abraham noted that over the past seven years - ``most of which has occurred
during this administration'' - the percentage of high school seniors
admitting to illegal drug use has risen by half, while drug use among 10th
graders has doubled.

``Faced with this bad news,'' Abraham said, ``the president has finally
submitted a long range, national drug strategy to Congress. It has taken
him nearly five years to begin action.

``And as the numbers show, our children are paying the price.''

Senior White House adviser Rahm Emanuel lamented Abraham's ``political
finger- pointing.''

Last summer, Clinton asked Congress to reduce the huge differences between
sentences for selling crack versus powder cocaine.

Attorney General Janet Reno and Clinton's top drug-policy adviser, Barry
McCaffrey, had recommended lowering the disparity to a 10-1 ratio, meaning
that the mandatory five-year sentence for selling 25 grams of crack also
would apply to dealing 250 grams of powder cocaine.

Current law sets a five-year sentence for selling 5 grams of crack or 500
gram of powdered cocaine, a 100-1 ratio. Black lawmakers in particular have
pressed to end the disparity, contending that it sharply discriminates
against minorities who are more inclined to use crack because it is the
cheaper form of cocaine.

``Going easier on crack peddlers - the dealers who infest our schoolyards
and playgrounds - isn't a solution,'' Abraham said Saturday.

``Here's the Republican answer: let's make the sentences for powder cocaine
dealers a lot tougher,'' he added.

Abraham also knocked the Clinton administration for what he called its
belated implementation of last year's Drug-Free Community Act, which
provided for federal grants to assist neighborhood drug-fighting campaigns.

The senator noted that nearly a year after the law was signed the
administration has not yet appointed the grant-making board. ``As a result,
communities still can't apply for these critical funds,'' he said.

Nanda Chitre, a spokeswoman for the White House, countered that Congress
did not appropriate funds for the grants until last October. She
additionally noted that board nominations are ``in the final stages of
vetting'' and that the administration's Office of Justice Programs is
already setting up the process for taking grant applications.

``This is not an issue that should fall prey to political
finger-pointing,'' said Emanuel, the Clinton adviser. ``The policy that
General McCaffrey and President Clinton have been implementing was
developed in conjunction with law enforcement officials and neighborhood
drug-fighting groups. We should all remember that our duty here is to
protect our children and our families.

Copyright 1997 The Associated Press.