WHITE HOUSE SEARCHES FOR BALANCE IN DRUG FIGHT

NASHVILLE - Seeking to defuse a growing confrontation with members of
Congress and local officials over drug policy, the Bush
administration dispatched the attorney general and two other top
officials here on Thursday to promise that the government was
committed to battling methamphetamine.

"You can tell President Bush considers it a serious threat that he
had three of his cabinet members here today," Attorney General
Alberto R. Gonzales said in a speech to judges, antidrug advocates
and graduates of a treatment program at Davidson County Drug Court,
adding, "I can tell you, as a father, I care about this."

The administration also vowed to make $16.2 million available in
grants for treatment.

For several years the White House has focused the national antidrug
strategy on marijuana, arguing that it is the most widely used drug,
particularly among high school students, and can be a gateway to more
serious drug use. Officials have continued to emphasize that in
recent months, even as law enforcement officials across the country
pleaded for more help fighting meth, a drug made using chemicals
commonly found in cold medicine or on farms.

But local officials and members of Congress from both parties have
argued increasingly loudly that meth, which is highly addictive, is
the real problem. They say the administration has virtually ignored
the problem despite the devastation it has caused in many parts of
the middle of the country - increasing crime, crowding jails and
leaving more children neglected or abandoned.

The federal officials here Thursday insisted that no drug took precedence.

"We believe you can walk and chew gum at the same time," John
Walters, the director of the White House Office of National Drug
Control Policy, told reporters after the speeches. "The issue here is
not meth or marijuana. We're concerned about substance abuse generally."

"We are not ignoring problems," Mr. Walters added.

The comments here were remarkably different from ones earlier this
summer when a spokesman for the drug policy office told Newsweek that
people were "crying meth." In addition, other officials have said it
makes sense to focus on marijuana, because there are about 15 million
users of it, compared with about 1 million users of meth.

The debate is also percolating among drug policy experts. Some argue
that meth is the preoccupation of the moment and should not drive
policy; others say the administration should seize the opportunity to
disrupt a relatively new drug market.

"It seems to be very unlikely that increasing attention to marijuana
is going to greatly affect marijuana use, but getting out in front of
meth while the epidemic is still in the nascent stages might," Mark
A. R. Kleiman, a professor of public policy at U.C.L.A. and director
of the university's drug policy analysis project, said in an interview.

But Joseph A. Califano Jr., president of the National Center on
Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, said, "If you
don't reduce the use of marijuana, you can't possibly reduce illegal
drug use because marijuana is far and away the most used drug."

Still, the administration provoked a political furor when officials
with the drug policy office seemed to play down results of a National
Association of Counties survey, released in July, in which 500 local
law enforcement officials nationwide called meth their No. 1 scourge.

When administration officials doubted the local officials'
characterization of meth as an epidemic, the 100-member bipartisan
meth caucus in Congress, as well as the rural caucus and members of
districts particularly hard hit by the drug sent angry letters.

The letter from the meth caucus noted that 58 percent of those
surveyed by the county association said that meth was their biggest
problem and that cocaine was a distant second at 19 percent, and
marijuana third at 17 percent.

"Clearly, these results show our nation's drug control strategy
should make methamphetamine a top priority," the letter said.

At a House hearing in July, Representative Mark Souder, Republican of
Indiana, sharply criticized a deputy in the drug control policy
office and demanded that the White House acknowledge meth as "the
most dangerous drug in America."

"This committee is trying desperately to say, 'Lead!' You're the
executive branch," Mr. Souder said.

Scott Burns, the drug policy deputy, argued that law enforcement
officials in the Northeast would laugh if told that meth was an
epidemic, because heroin was the bigger problem in their region. But
Mr. Burns also promised to relay the message to the White House.

Still, while the Bush administration billed the event on Thursday as
both a spotlight on current efforts against meth and an announcement
of new programs, the officials largely emphasized what they had already done.

"We've been very, very active already," Mr. Gonzales said.

The officials said they would support Congressional efforts to limit
individual sales of pseudoephedrine, the cold medicine that is the
key ingredient in methamphetamine, and to monitor the importing of
that ingredient more closely.

Michael O. Leavitt, the secretary of health and human services, said
his agency would grant $16.2 million in grants for treatment. Mr.
Walters said the drug policy office would begin running new
advertisements this fall for the first antimeth media campaign. (Of
the 67 print advertisements in the current antidrug campaign, most
focus on marijuana, and only one mentions methamphetamine.) And Mr.
Gonzales said he would direct United States attorneys to seek "the
harshest penalties possible" against meth cooks.

But their new initiatives fell short of what members of Congress from
states hit hard by meth have asked for - mostly, the restoration of
federal money that the police have used to fight the drug.

"While this is an improvement," Representative Ken Calvert,
Republican of California and co-founder of the meth caucus, said, "we
still need a better national and international strategy to stop meth
production, smuggling, and reduce usage."

Senator Jim Talent, Republican of Missouri and co-author of a bill to
restrict sales of pseudoephedrine, said, "While the administration
should be applauded for recognizing the need for additional resources
to fight meth and to provide additional funding for treatment, their
plan is inadequate because it doesn't go far enough to restrict
products containing pseudoephedrine."

Representative Brian Baird, Democrat of Washington, criticized the
administration for cutting certain grants, which give money to the
local police, to states that allow the use of medical marijuana.

"It's like you're focused on two kids having a wrestling match,
meanwhile two guys are squaring off with sawed-off shotguns," Mr.
Baird said. "That's how it's been with this administration."