WHITE HOUSE TO STUDY CITIES' DRUG PROGRAMS

Baltimore On Itinerary As Officials Seek To Promote Success Stories

WASHINGTON -- The White House announced a plan yesterday to visit Baltimore
and two dozen other cities to study community drug strategies, in an effort
to circulate ideas that seem to be having some success.

The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy then plans to create
a Web site and produce a report to distribute its findings to cities.

"The major cities have been particularly ravaged by the drug problem," said
John P. Walters, the White House drug policy chief, who is leading the
effort. "We want to collect the data and make it available to help people
see what is successful."

The initiative will provide no new money to the cities, a fact that drug
policy analysts said could limit its effectiveness. Some also expressed
skepticism that the office would be open to ideas at odds with the
administration's views, such as its opposition to alternative methods such
as needle exchange programs.

"Our only concern is, are they going to be honest and really try out
different or alternative policies?" said Bill Piper, an associate director
for the Drug Policy Alliance, a Washington-based group that advocates
fighting drug abuse through social programs and treatment.

"The Bush administration has a certain perspective on drug treatment,"
Piper said. "So far, in terms of alternative ideas, they've been very
aggressive in opposing them."

Walters' office will pay for him and a group of staffers to travel to the
cities, beginning in the next few months, and compile statistics and
research. But the cities would bear the cost of assigning their own
staffers as "partners" to the drug policy office and of producing
information, statistics and contacts.

Walters noted that the drug policy office can't force cities to comply with
any recommendations. The office and the White House have been criticized
recently for what some states and cities viewed as a veiled threat to cut
their federal crime fighting grants if they refused to adopt White House
drug policies, especially involving marijuana and mandatory high school
drug testing.

Yesterday, Walters said his office would not pull federal grants or funding
as a weapon to force compliance.

"Our goal is not to come into the cities and say, 'You have to drug-test
your students,'" he said. "But if you see kids dying in high school, we
want them to know that that is a tool they can use. Every one of our cities
have successful programs, and they need to be reinforced."

For example, the office wants to study the success that nonprofits and
community groups have had in fighting open-air drug markets in their
communities. The office also plans to look into treatment programs that
have succeeded in containing addiction.

Walters said the initiative won't criticize programs that his office
believes aren't working or try to shut down programs not in line with
administration policies, such as one involving medical marijuana efforts in
San Francisco, for example.

"It's not constructive for us to point fingers," he said.