SOUDER FUMING OVER ANTI-DRUG SNUB

WASHINGTON -- "The administration continues to be negligent in the area of
narcotics."

"The No. 1 crime problem in America is related to narcotics, and it's about
time this administration understood that problem."

Nothing mealy mouthed about those accusations.

If I told you they were from a Republican, you'd assume the administration
in question was the Clinton White House. But you'd be wrong.

Rep. Mark Souder has been on a verbal rampage against the Bush
administration and what he sees as its lax, slack and out of whack attack
on drugs. Souder, in short, is on the warpath on the war on drugs.

He doesn't come out and say that President Bush's policies and budget
proposals are in the enemy camp, but how else to interpret his complaints?

"What you see is a national strategy that I never thought I would see out
of my party, which is ‘Washington knows best because you guys at the
local level just don't cooperate right,' " Souder bemoaned on the
House floor.

Souder didn't come to Washington to be the chief congressional nag on
illicit drugs. But as a freshman he was appointed to a narcotics task force
(which appeared to be as much a vehicle for slamming President Clinton as
it did a panel for proposing anti-drug strategies) and then became the
chairman of a subcommittee that oversees the nation's anti-drug programs.
Those things turned him into a bulldog on the issue, and he doesn't care
whose leg he's gnawing.

At the moment, it's Bush's. More specifically: the budget Bush has proposed
for next year.

"This is not a question about cutting drug dollars," Souder said of the
2006 budget proposal. "This is a systematic, philosophical change of this
administration in how they want to approach narcotics."

Souder, it's clear, doesn't agree with the approach, and he hasn't been shy
about explaining why.

Souder sees an effective anti-drug strategy as perching on a four-legged
platform: preventing people from using drugs in the first place, arresting
domestic producers and dealers, blocking imported drugs, and treatment. The
Bush administration, Souder says, is doing OK on treatment and trying to
stop international production (think Colombia and Afghanistan.)

But:

"On the law enforcement and prevention, this budget is a disaster."

Bush wants to eliminate programs that funnel federal money to communities
for drug-prevention programs, anti-drug task forces and efforts to corral
local drug rings.

One of the things the Bush administration wants to zap is the High
Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas, which was designed to give federal help
to local law enforcement agencies in an area where there's a lot of drug
trafficking. The help comes in the form of money and coordination.

The initial five HIDTAs have expanded to several dozen in 43 states. They
are no longer a concentrated effort focused on a few drug hot spots. One
might conclude that having that kind of targeted money and resources is a
good idea, so doing it in a lot of places around the country is a good
idea. The Bush administration, however, sees it as congressional pork.

"The sheer magnitude of this expansion raises questions about whether the
drug trafficking in all of these areas meets the intent of the statute as
enacted," according to the Bush administration's critique. "Congressional
pressures have been primarily responsible for this expansion."

Overall, the White House rates HIDTA as "results not demonstrated," and
wants Congress to kill it.

Likewise, the White House sniffs at the Safe and Drug-Free Schools program.
It says schools have too much flexibility on how to spend the money and get
very little money on a per-student basis, so they can't do much anyway.

The White House wants to freeze the national anti-drug advertising campaign
at this year's level (which means a cut, given that the price of everything
has gone up) and eliminate a program of grants to police and sheriff's
departments.

By eviscerating the Safe and Drug-Free Schools program, HIDTAs, community
anti-drug councils and grants to local law enforcement, Souder said, the
Bush administration is wiping out the locally based programs and retaining
the Washington-run efforts. Hence his frustration at this un-Republican
attitude that Uncle Sam knows best.

Souder says it's wrong-headed to focus almost exclusively on treatment and
interdiction.

"I, as a Christian, believe the source problem is sin," he said in a speech
on the floor of the House. "You do not get rid of sin. There is nothing in
the Bible that suggests sin is going to disappear. If you want to call it
something else that is a struggle when you start to get addicted to an
illegal substance, fine, call it that; but it is basically do not ask me
why we cannot get rid of drug use in the United States and not ask the same
question about rape, spouse abuse and child abuse and other things we
struggle with. We never get rid of them.

"What we do is we try to control them the best we can."

Not everyone agrees that illegal drugs are the problem that Souder says.
But the fact is that society -- through our lawmakers -- has decided that
certain substances are off limits and that we will punish people who make,
sell and use them. If that is the national policy, Souder is right that it
is foolhardy to undercut programs that attempt to prevent people from using
drugs or devoting adequate resources to enforcing the laws.

But it's highly likely that Bush's budget won't become law. The Safe and
Drug-Free Schools program, HIDTA and the other programs headed for Bush's
trash heap have powerful advocates. Souder's passion pales in comparison to
the fervor of moms and dads, police chiefs and mayors who call their
congressional offices with testimony of how this or that program produced
results.

Bush is proposing to rearrange the overall anti-drug budget, not cut it.
Chances are, parents and community groups will be able to make a convincing
case to Congress that the programs Bush wants to boost should get more
money and the programs he wants to axe should be preserved.

For them, Souder is offering a roadmap. And he's making it very clear that
he, for one, is quite aware that Bush is a lame duck.