DRUG-CONTROL EXPERTS ATTACK MOVE TO TIE DRUG MONEY, TERRORISM

WASHINGTON -- With the war on terrorism threatening to siphon support,
money and attention from the fight against drugs, Bush administration
officials increasingly are linking terrorist groups with drug traffickers.
But some experts in drug control believe it is a dubious and dangerous
strategy that could backfire.

The strategy, featuring splashy television commercials that debuted during
January's Super Bowl, tells teen-agers that by buying drugs they are
handing money to the Sept. 11 terrorists and their ilk. It is backed up by
an official push to make sure the anti-drug cause does not get swallowed up
by the anti-terror campaign, but becomes part of it.

But some in the drug-control effort say the message is factually suspect
since most drug money goes nowhere near terrorists. Worse, they add,
fingering America's millions of drug users, including pot- smoking
teen-agers, as accomplices to terror is unrealistic and counter-productive.

"It's despicable and dangerous," said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director
of the Drug Policy Alliance, a group that favors alternatives to the drug
war. "When you start labeling tens of millions of Americans as accomplices
to terrorists or de facto murderers, you are creating and stirring an
atmosphere of intolerance and hate-mongering that ends up being destructive
and dangerous to the broader society."

Tom Riley, spokesman for the Office of National Drug Control Policy, said
the new message simply tells it like it is.

"Every time you buy drugs, the money goes to people who hurt, kill and
maim," Riley said. "People won't buy a brand of sneakers because they use
substandard labor in another part of the world. This money goes to people
who are far, far worse than that."

The administration seized on the new message in the wake of Sept. 11 and
shows no signs of letting go. Riley's office is running an elaborate ad
campaign, leaders are testifying before Congress, officials are holding
high-profile conferences, budget documents are being carefully crafted, all
to make one basic point -- that terrorists use drug money to finance their
evil works.

In one sense, the new approach fits Bush's current pattern of casting many
of his goals as crucial to the war on terrorism, from tax cuts to health
reform to energy policy. But the drug message is being broadcast with
special vehemence.

The message sprang into public notice when the Office of National Drug
Control Policy, often called the drug czar's office, launched a $10 million
advertising campaign with two jarring 30-second ads during Super Bowl
XXXVI. The ads have run frequently since, and print versions have appeared
in nearly 200 newspapers.

In one, a young man says, "Yesterday afternoon, I did my laundry, went out
for a run, and helped torture someone's dad." In another, a youth says,
"Last weekend I washed my car, hung out with a few friends, and helped
murder a family in Colombia."

The ads conclude somberly, "Drug money helps support terror. Buy drugs and
you could be supporting it, too."

The idea, sponsors say, is to get through to jaded young men and women who
have been contemptuous of previous anti-drug messages and who view drug use
as a victimless crime and a personal choice.

"One of the reasons these ads are so potent is that they appeal to the
idealism of young people," drug czar John Walters said recently. "Where
previous anti-drug ads have focused on the devastating toll that drugs take
on individuals, these ads speak to young people's desire to make the world
a better place."

The ads are only a small part of the administration's new drugs-equal-
terror campaign. Last December, Bush signed a new anti-drug initiative and
told his audience: "Terrorists use drug profits to fund their cells to
commit acts of murder. If you quit drugs, you join the fight against terror
in America."

Last week, Attorney General John Ashcroft announced the indictment of three
members of a Colombian guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia, or FARC, for allegedly conspiring to ship cocaine into the United
States, and he stressed the "evil interdependence" between drugs and terrorism.

Shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Drug Enforcement Administration
convened its first-ever conference on drugs and terrorism.

Earlier this month, DEA administrator Asa Hutchinson played up the
drugs-terror connection in pushing a $1.7 billion budget request.
Hutchinson knows he must compete with the enormous spending on the war on
terrorism; Congress approved $40 billion to fight terrorism last year, and
Bush is now asking for $27 billion more.

In asking Congress last month for a budget increase, Hutchinson said the
proposal would give the DEA "not only the money needed to fight drug abuse
and drug trafficking, but would also help break the historic link between
drugs, violence and terrorism."

Those who oppose the war on drugs are distressed by this drumbeat. The new
message, in their view, is merely a way to reinvigorate a discredited war
on drugs. Only a tiny fraction of drug dollars flows to terrorists, they
said, and the assertion that buying drugs helps terrorism is questionable
at best.

"You have to stretch a long way to make that plausible," said Peter Reuter,
a drug policy expert at the University of Maryland. "Marijuana, which is
what the vast majority of drug users use, is grown primarily in the United
States and Mexico and has no connection with terrorism."

Others said a portion of the money from many purchases -- from diamonds to
athletic shoes -- goes to unsavory characters, so drugs are hardly unique
in this way. And they questioned the ads' effectiveness, saying skeptical
teen-agers were unlikely to buy the argument that smoking marijuana after
school helps Osama bin Laden.

"This is an effort to demonize drug users," said Eric Sterling, president
of the liberal Criminal Justice Policy Foundation. "At a time when many are
talking about the importance of drug treatment, this rhetoric sends the
message that drug users are not people with chemical dependencies, they are
aiding and abetting terrorists and need to be locked up."

Riley, the drug czar's spokesman, dismissed such arguments. The vehement
protestations, he said, merely reflect the message's effectiveness.

"The reason the drug legalizers have been incredibly critical of these ads
is that their argument has always been, 'Hey, drug use doesn't hurt anyone
else, it's my choice,' " Riley said. "This exposes that. When you buy
drugs, you are hurting other people."

Right or wrong, the public is likely to see more of the drugs-and- terror
message in the future. Walters, the drug czar, has ordered up another batch
of the controversial ads.

"Our goal was to introduce an idea," Walters said. "I believe we have
accomplished that goal."