NATION'S DRUG CZAR TO VISIT HIGHLANDS

HARRISON: John P. Walters insists that legalizing drugs raises more
questions than it answers.

On Wednesday the nation's drug czar will tell Highlands High School
students why they should shun illegal drugs.

Walters and U.S. Rep. Melissa Hart, R-Bradford Woods, will address an
assembly of grades 9-12 students in a presentation not open to the public.
Later a roundtable discussion will be held with parents, school officials
and law-enforcement officers.

Heroin has killed three Highlands students from the Class of 2001. Two of
the victim's mothers will participate in the event, a Hart spokesman said.

The assembly is one of many approaches Highlands is using to warn its
students about heroin, crack, Ecstasy, and other dangerous drugs, said
Superintendent Randall Kahler.

"No one approach works," Kahler said. "We do whatever we can."

He said the anti-drug talk came at Hart's request.

The anti-drug talk is one of many such meetings Hart's office has held
across the district in recent years, said spokesman Brendan Benner.

Walters has been director of the White House Office of National Drug
Control Policy since last Dec. 7.

The director is informally known as the nation's drug czar and he directs
federal anti-drug programs and spending.

From 1989 to 1991, Walters was the chief of staff for William Bennett when
he was drug czar. When Bennett was the country's education secretary,
Walters developed anti-drug programs for the Education Department.

Drug abuse cost at least $55 billion in 1998, not counting court costs, and
drug deaths have doubled since 1980.

Legalizing drugs would remove penalties, reduce prices and increase drug
demand, Walters said last summer.

When the Dutch decriminalized marijuana in 1976, there was little initial
impact, he wrote.

"But as drugs gained social acceptance, use increased consistently and
sharply, with a 300 percent rise in use by 1996 among 18- to 20-year-olds,"
he wrote.