McCaffey reports on antidrug work

WASHINGTON

Mexico is making advances in antidrug efforts, but it has a long fight
ahead as it takes on traffickers who supply the majority of illegal drugs
consumed by Americans, the Clinton administration's drug policy director says.

Barry McCaffrey also touted eight Xray machines the United States is
deploying on the U.S.Mexico border, saying their ability to spot drugs in
trucks will push traffickers elsewhere to sea or air shipments and
reduce border violence.

But law enforcement crackdowns in foreign countries and careful border
searches won't cure America's drug ills or the violence the illicit trade
spawns here and abroad, he said.

"Our principal contribution, without any question, will be to focus on 68
million American children, between the ages of 10 and about 19, and try and
get them to not smoke pot, abuse alcohol or smoke cigarettes," McCaffrey
told reporters yesterday. If youngsters can grow up without doing those
things, "they won't create the next generation of drugabusing Americans."