WASHINGTON (AP) The White House is considering a veto of a Housepassed
bill that would require the administration to cut drug use by more than
half within four years, said President Clinton's top drug policy adviser.

The bill reauthorizing the Office of National Drug Control Policy would tie
federal money to congressionally set goals, including reducing drug use
from the current 6.1 percent of the population to 3 percent by the end of
2001.

``As political rhetoric, that's OK,'' Barry McCaffrey, who heads the
drugcontrol office, told reporters Wednesday. But cutting antidrug money
if the nation fails to reach an unreachable goal will hurt drugfighting
efforts, he said.

``There was a debate over whether I should send over a threat of veto''
over the proposed bill, he said. ``We didn't do it, yet.''

Rep. Dennis Hastert, RIll., chief sponsor of the bill, said the goal ``is
a virtual drugfree America by the year 2001.'' The measure passed by voice
vote Tuesday.

The Clinton administration will make ``a serious attempt to run drug abuse
in America back where we think it ought to be, which is 3 percent or under
by 2007,'' McCaffrey said, saying the goal took a year to determine.

House Speaker Newt Gingrich criticized McCaffrey's goals in an Oct. 7
letter released by McCaffrey.

``Winning the war on drugs does not mean that 10 years from now we should
have more than 5 percent of our children as young as 12 years old on
drugs,'' wrote Gingrich, saying the administration must ``begin to take
seriously the threat drugs pose to our children and their future.''

Calling Gingrich ``a brilliant man,'' McCaffrey said he hoped that ``some
young polemicist wrote'' the letter and that Gingrich hadn't read it.

McCaffrey said he was very confident the Senate ``will sort this out'' with
the help of Sen. Orrin Hatch, RUtah, who chairs the Judiciary Committee.

McCaffrey, just back from a South American tour, said new leadership in
Bolivia will lead to an end of that country's coca cultivation. Most of the
coca leaf used in U.S.consumed cocaine comes from Bolivia.

Bolivia's drug production has stayed level or risen slightly despite $850
million in U.S. antidrug support the past five years, but McCaffrey said
that could soon change.

``The young guys (in top government positions), meaning the ones in their
40s, want to no longer be ashamed of their standing in the world, and they
have publicly stated that they're going to eliminate coca production in
five years,'' he said. ``I am convinced their thinking is sound and their
commitment appears to be genuine.''