GENERAL BARRY MCCAFFREY DISCUSSES DRUGS USE AMONG TEENAGERS

JESSE JACKSON, BOTH SIDES: Welcome to the program. My guest is four star
General Barry McCaffrey, a man of war brought in two years ago to fight the
drug problem in this country. We're winning some battles, but what about
the war? We'll find out. Welcome to this program, General McCaffrey.

GEN. BARRY MCCAFFREY, DRUG POLICY DIRECTOR: Good to be here.

JACKSON: On both sides, whatever the issue you will hear my agenda. I have
one. But I'm open to hearing others and who knows, there just might be some
common ground. General, before we talk, let's learn more about you. Here's
a report from Lee Thornton.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LEE THORNTON, BOTH SIDES (voice-over): When he became director of the
Office of National Drug Control Policy two years ago, General Barry
McCaffrey said war is straightforward, assign a mission and get the job
done. McCaffrey knew a lot about that. He developed the successful left
hook Persian Gulf War strategy that destroyed units of Saddam Hussein's
Republican Guard. But the general said the battle against drugs would most
likely never end. And after a quick Senate confirmation, McCaffrey made it
clear that results would not come swiftly.

MCCAFFREY: Americans, we all want to knock this thing dead in two years.
It's not going to happen. This is a 10 year struggle to protect our children.

THORNTON (voice-over): But there has been progress since McCaffrey assumed
office. Last year, the U.S. Coast Guard tripled its seizures of cocaine. In
December, 1997, the White House announced the Southwest Border Initiative,
an ambitious strategy to stem the flow of drugs at the Mexican border
within five years. Through cooperative efforts, drug traffic through Peru
and Bolivia is down. And overall, drug use in the U.S. is down. But
McCaffrey says the threat is constant and clear.

MCCAFFREY: And so it's still out there and that's a problem. Now, the
second problem is our children are using drugs in increasing numbers.

THORNTON (voice-over): So as concerned as he is about interdiction and
international cooperation, McCaffrey is equally concerned about the
continuing demand. He's developed a 10 year strategy to combat that demand.
Part of it, a youth media ad campaign.

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

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JACKSON: General, several months ago, we were on this program and we were
talking about the rising use of heroin among youth as early as the eighth
grade.

MCCAFFREY: The eighth grade, yeah.

JACKSON: Where is that now?

MCCAFFREY: Well, we're in a shocking, dangerous situation in terms of new
drugs affecting America. Drug use among children is down last year very
slightly. That's the good news. Secretary Donna Shalala and I and Secretary
Dick Riley in Education are cautiously optimistic that what we're doing is
going to help. But at the same time we have to recognize last year 141,000
people tried heroin for the first time, high purity, low cost, it's back.

JACKSON: This is this basic eighth grade lower age group that were taking
the heroin?

MCCAFFREY: Well, what we're saying about the eighth grade, more eighth
graders are using heroin now than 10th or 12th graders. So the problem is a
new generation of children came along, they were inadequately educated
about the dangerous of drug abuse and they're using drugs again.

JACKSON: Well, are you handling that by building more jails for these youth
or is there some rehabilitation process?

MCCAFFREY: Well, I think we've got a shocking situation on jails. We've got
1.6 million Americans behind bars at local, state and federal level.
According to Joe Califano and Columbia University, probably 50 to 80
percent of them are there for a drug related reason. Now the solution,
though, the president's drug strategy, what we're trying to achieve is to
go talk to adolescents, put out a message, a preventive message in their
early years that you shouldn't smoke cigarettes, abuse alcohol or smoke
pot. Those are the three major gateway behaviors that get young people into
trouble later on in life.

JACKSON: But then you have this ad campaign going. Do you think that youth
at the eighth grade level, ninth, 10th, really respond to a TV ad?

MCCAFFREY: Well, I think primarily they respond to their own parents, their
own mother, their high school coach, their home room teacher, their
minister or coach. Those are the primary influences on young people. And
having said that, by the time you finish high school in our country, you've
had 12,000 hours of formal instruction, you've watched 15,000 hours of
television. So we're persuaded that an additional important part is a
consistent message that tells them drugs are wrong and that ought to
include the Internet, radio, television and print.

JACKSON: But you've got public service announcements saying don't try drugs.

MCCAFFREY: Yeah.

JACKSON: Then you have movies glorifying pot and glorifying crack and
heroin and guns and sex and violence. It seems that the ratio of impact of
the PSA cannot compare with the commercial industry that dries the
glorification of drugs.

MCCAFFREY: Well, I think that's a good point. In other words, a couple
billion dollars in cigarette advertising, possibly $5 billion in alcohol --
or excuse me, I had that reversed, a lot of money out in the commercial
marketplace that are sometimes giving the wrong message. But our $195
million from bipartisan support by Congress will get us a serious presence
on the Internet, television and radio.

JACKSON: But it seems that the response to this strain of heroin, this pure
form of heroin that's often taken by young, white, suburban youth, the
response basically has been for these young white youth rehabilitation,
let's get them well. But for young black youth on crack, the answer has
been to lock them up. It seems as if there are two sets of rules and two
responses to the same crisis.

MCCAFFREY: Well, the numbers are unsettling, I would agree with you. But I
remind Americans, when you look at drug abuse and its impact on America, it
affects all communities, not the same ways, but drug use in America is
primarily employed, seven out of 10. It's overwhelmingly white.
Seventy-four percent of drug users are white. As a matter of fact, when you
look at younger African-Americans, they have lower rates of use of
cigarettes, cocaine, heroin and alcohol than whites do.

JACKSON: But it's 55 percent of those in jail are black. So you have this
dilemma of five grams of crack cocaine, five years mandatory, 500 grams of
powder, you can get probation. So those who bring it in seem to get a break
and those who get trapped on a silly, cheap high go to jail. Must we not
address that as we seek to have moral authority addressing this issue?

MCCAFFREY: Well, I think there's no question. Now, the attorney general,
Janet Reno, and I put together an idea, gave it to the president, who
approved it, and we sent it to Congress. We've got to resolve some of these
apparent unjust disparities in sentencing. But our argument was based less
on justice than we argued it's bad drug policy and bad law enforcement
policy. So what we're going to try and do is get a little move sensible
approach. But the center part of the strategy is if you've got a drug
problem, we've got to give you access to treatment in prison and then in
follow on care or we're wasting our time.

JACKSON: Somehow it seems that our own appetite, maybe our society is so
wealthy or so egregious, some kind of values crisis here is driving the
demand. But what about the supply? It seems that in a couple of countries
that there is some slowing down of the drug supply. But Mexico, it seems to
be 70 percent of the drug flow. How can we stop it coming from the greatest
source?

MCCAFFREY: Well, let me remind you, only six percent of America is using
drugs. It's a disgracefully high number and our intention is over the next
decade to drop that by half and we think that's achievable, but we're not
alone in the world having a drug problem. And I remind our global partners,
we've got 600,000 heroin addicts. Pakistan may have three million. There's
terrible drug problems throughout the hemisphere. Cocaine is looking for
new markets. Our cocaine use is down by 75 percent in the last 15 years.

JACKSON: But what about our impact on the supply side of it? In other
words, we associate with our foreign policy if a nation is engaging, say,
in communism, in the ideology we abhor, our foreign policy is determined by
that. But if it is dealing in drug trafficking, we seem not to have the
same degree of fierceness or determination in a foreign policy relationship
with that country.

MCCAFFREY: Yeah. Well, many of these countries are equally as threatened as
we are and equally concerned. The violence, the corruption that comes along
with drug abuse is a tremendous threat to Mexican, Panamanian, Peruvian
institutions of democracy as well as ours. But there is some good news now.
Peru, we are starting to see spectacular progress in reducing coca
production. Bolivia, this year, apparently has for the first time in a
decade made significant progress. Mexico, we think, last year destroyed
more drugs than any other nation on the face of the earth.

JACKSON: But we share 2,000 miles of border with Mexico. Do we really have
the money, the capacity to stop the flow across the border as well offer
more incentives on the Mexican side to slow down the production and to stop
the production?

MCCAFFREY: Well, we could do a lot better than we are and so the attorney
general and the secretary of the treasury, Bob Rubin, and I and others are
looking at how we can provide technology to the Customs Service and how we
can do a better job giving the Border Patrol the resources they need and to
work in cooperation with Mexico. We simply can't address this problem
unless we do it as a partnership with the 94 million people that live to
our south.

JACKSON: But it seems that we must see this massive drug flow coming off
with Mexico and still say let's have a fast track policy, it does not alter
our foreign policy. With China, we know there's a drug flow there and we
say but let's pursue the relationship because of trade. Yet with Nigeria,
we say there is a drug policy, therefore let's not communicate with them
until -- drugs as well as democracy are big factors in how we deal, say,
with Nigeria. Why the inconsistency and why not be as tough on the supply
flow of drugs wherever the supply is coming from?

MCCAFFREY: Well, of course, your question is a good one, how do we
influence foreign partners? And in Peru and Bolivia we're making
significant progress, in Mexico, in other parts of the world. Burma and
Afghanistan, as an example, are the source of much of the world's
heroin production and it's much more difficult to sort out what do you do
about those two nations. So our view has been where we have a democratic
government to work with let's form a partnership, they're equally at
threat, and let's try and reduce the source of drugs. I would also add now
10 years from now when my daughter is sitting here talking to you as the
drug czar, she'll report that cocaine is no longer the number one threat to
America, but it may be methamphetamines produced here in the United States.
So we are also a drug producing nation.

JACKSON: So in a real sense, none of us are safe until all of us are safe?

MCCAFFREY: I agree. Our children are all at risk.

JACKSON: We're going to come right back to talk more about drugs and the
demand side which drives the drug trade right here at home. Stay with us.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED TEENAGER #1: Doesn't get straight As.

UNIDENTIFIED TEENAGER #2: Doesn't get straight As.

UNIDENTIFIED TEENAGER #3: The average kid can live on French fries.

UNIDENTIFIED TEENAGER #4: I could live on pizza and ice cream.

UNIDENTIFIED TEENAGER #3: Gummi bears.

UNIDENTIFIED TEENAGER #5: The average kid trusts their friends more than
anybody.

UNIDENTIFIED TEENAGER #6: The average kid is totally bored.

UNIDENTIFIED TEENAGER #7: Totally bored.

UNIDENTIFIED TEENAGER #8: The average kid has a lot more on their mind than
you think.

UNIDENTIFIED TEENAGER #9: The average kid is pretty strange.

UNIDENTIFIED TEENAGER #10: The average kid has been offered pot.

UNIDENTIFIED TEENAGER #11: He has been offered pot.

UNIDENTIFIED TEENAGER #12: The average kid thinks everybody else smokes it.

UNIDENTIFIED TEENAGER #13: The average kid doesn't.

UNIDENTIFIED TEENAGER #14: The average kid is anything but.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JACKSON: Welcome back. I'm talking with General Barry McCaffrey. He's the
man tapped by the White House to head the Office of National Drug Control
Policy. General McCaffrey says the term war on drugs is misleading and he
has said there will always be a demand for drugs. And that leads us back to
the issue of demand, general. We all can think of the enemy out yonder.
It's China, it's Nigeria, it's Mexico, it's Peru, it's out yonder and yet
the drive, the demand for drugs, the money for drugs, the hunger for drugs
comes from our country. What can we do to reduce the demand for drugs?

MCCAFFREY: Well, your point is a good one. Sixty-seven billion dollars a
year is what Americans are spending on illegal drugs. So that becomes an
engine that in some ways drives international crime and pulls these
substances through Mexico and through our Caribbean partners. We've got to
reduce demand and we're persuaded by the studies that if you want to reduce
the number of Americans addicted, and by the way, there's only four million
or so addicted, a giant problem, 14,000 dead a year and $70 billion worth
of damage, but it's four million addicted Americans, you simply have to get
them between their middle school years and age 19 without being involved in
drug use.

JACKSON: You basically see this as a national sickness, our Achilles heel?

MCCAFFREY: Well, I think it's a, we've got to remind ourselves 80 percent
of our kids have never touched an illegal drug. So most of them don't want
to wreck their lives. But a lot of them are at risk and we simply have to
get them through those formative years without being involved in drug use.

JACKSON: But our response has been, you know, since 1980 a 250 percent
increase in prison construction, the number one industry in upstate New
York now is the jail industrial complex with 1.7 million in jail, 80
percent because of drugs, non-violent crimes. Ninety percent of them are
high school dropouts. It seems that our solution has been more to lock them
up than to rehabilitate them on the back side or to prevent them on the
front side.

MCCAFFREY: Yeah. Well, I don't, I think you're right on target. You know,
the president and I and others just put in front of the American people a
proposal that the attorney general would try and develop legislation to
give us the authority to allow states to use some of the prison
construction money to provide drug treatment in prison and during follow on
care. We simply can't arrest and jail our way out of this problem. If
you're in prison because you're a compulsive drug user, we've got to
provide access to treatment or we'll never get at a solution.

JACKSON: Not long ago in New York City, the 30th precinct, 30 police were
indicted for distributing drugs. The police precinct was the drug
distribution center. Last week in Cleveland, Ohio, a drug bust, 44 police
officers. I mean what do you do in terms of sending a clear message that
those who have the badge and gun to protect them must face more severe and
swift punishment?

MCCAFFREY: Well, I think we ought to remind ourselves we take great pride
in general in American law enforcement. The levels of corruption that we've
encountered off this drug issue are surprisingly small. Now having said
that, there is so much money at stake that it constantly tests these
democratic institutions and where we find wrongdoing, it has to be punished.

JACKSON: Well, you see we've come rather strong on stopping it at the
border and are punishing other nations and are locking up the youth. But
then it seems that when the trusted public servant protected by a gun and
badge is caught, we seem to have a weak spot or a sense of disbelief. We
may be underestimating just how extensive those who are charged with
enforcing the policy are, in fact, perpetrating the problem.

MCCAFFREY: Well, we ought to remain skeptical of our own institutions,
you're right. That's healthy. At the same time...

JACKSON: Philadelphia, Cleveland, New York, Chicago, L.A. This is what
fueled the sense of conspiracy about the CIA and drug trade because of the
evidence here of that level of police involvement and we seem to be less
resolved to address that issue.

MCCAFFREY: Well, I hope not. You know, I think it has to be done. We have
to protect our land and sea borders. We've got to be resolute with our
allies. But to borrow your own line, which I use in public all the time, if
you want to run an interdiction program on cocaine, start at your own nose.
So, again, it's back to our children, it's in our home communities. We
don't have a national drug problem, we have a serious of community drug
epidemics.

JACKSON: I'm glad that you quoted me on TV. I've not seen it in writing.
But thank you, general, I need that. General, on a serious note, you have
this 10 years strategy because you say it's not an instant wipe out.

MCCAFFREY: Sure.

JACKSON: What can happen in the 10 year rhythm and how is it going?

MCCAFFREY: Well, I think part of what we've got to understand is if you
invest up front on prevention, if you apply effective treatment programs
for those behind bars, we can gradually grind down the 13 million Americans
using drugs and reduce the number of those who are addicted.

JACKSON: Given the impact of drugs on people's bodies, their minds, their
families, how can anyone ever have gotten the idea that taking heroin or
shooting it was like all right, cool, chic?

MCCAFFREY: Well, it's astonishing.

JACKSON: I mean the glorification of it.

MCCAFFREY: Yeah, absolutely. It's on selected movies and selected music as
romanticizing the use of drugs. Now you and I see drug use at close range.
If you talk to a hospital room physician, a night judge in a court, a
police officer, you see the reality of drug abuse, the devastating impact
on people's lives. We simply have to focus in on this. It's not normal
behavior. It's not romantic. It's an ugly sight.

JACKSON: A drug addict cannot maintain a marriage.

MCCAFFREY: They're unemployable.

JACKSON: Cannot raise a child. Cannot keep a job.

MCCAFFREY: They're a third of all the HIV in America, they're a third of
all the industrial accidents. They're a significant amount of our car
crashes. It's a devastating illness in America.

JACKSON: And yet we see drugs as cool and smooth and relaxing as opposed to
more dangerous than any other foreign threat. General, we're going to come
right back. Stay with us. This matter of drugs and supply and demand. Don't
go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JACKSON: General, this matter to you is rather personal. I see you wear a
bracelet of a young person who died. Tell us about that.

MCCAFFREY: Well, it's a bracelet of Tisch Elizabeth Smith, (ph) who was a
young college girl. Her mother gave it to me about a year ago when Jim
Burke (ph) of the Partnership For A Drug-Free America and I were having our
anti-heroin conference and the mother gave it to me. Her daughter had never
used drugs, alcohol, cigarettes. First semester at college smoking pure
heroin and crack cocaine and put herself brain dead. And I want to remind
myself that, you know, I tell people if you want to worry about the war on
drugs, sit down at your own kitchen table and talk to your own children.
That's who's at risk.

JACKSON: You know, I think the most misleading part of these ads about
drugs is that we see the kids, you know, take a shoot and they look real
fierce. But the fact is taking drugs is fun. It's delightful. But it's
short-term pleasure, long-term pain and early death. We must not, we must
see the drugs as the work of the devil. I'll be back here next week with
another news maker, with another important issue important to all of us and
again thank you, General McCaffrey, for your work. Join me again here next
Sunday at 5:30 Eastern. Keep hope alive.

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