BUSH'S $19 BILLION ANTIDRUG PLAN FOCUSES ON LAW ENFORCEMENT AND TREATMENT

WASHINGTON, Feb. 12 — President Bush today unveiled a $19 billion national
antidrug strategy that gives renewed impetus to law enforcement at home and
abroad and calls for "compassionate coercion" to get addicts into treatment.

Asserting that illegal drugs kill as many as 20,000 Americans a year and
cost the health care system almost $15 billion, Mr. Bush set a goal of
reducing drug use nationally by 25 percent over the next five years.

"Drugs attack everything that is best about this country, and I intend to
do something about them," Mr. Bush said in a White House ceremony that was
attended by a handful of lawmakers and the drug policy chief, John P. Walters.

The sharpest increase in the budget over last year was a 10 percent rise in
financing for interdiction. That effort to stop drugs at their source, or
while they are in transit, includes hundreds of millions for eradication
efforts and police work in South America as well as more money for the
Coast Guard and border patrols.

The $2.3 billion interdiction budget bore the imprint of Mr. Walters, who
has long advocated stronger enforcement.

Mr. Walters, a top antinarcotics official in the administration of the
president's father, quit in protest in 1993 when President Bill Clinton
announced a shift away from law enforcement toward coping with addiction.

Mr. Bush linked the fight against drugs to the battle against terrorism,
saying groups like the Taliban in Afghanistan financed their attacks in
part through narcotics trafficking.

"You know I'm asked all the time, `How can I help fight against terror? And
what can I do, what can I as a citizen do to defend America?' " Mr. Bush
said. "Well, one thing you can do is not purchase illegal drugs."

As if to underscore the enforcement drive, officials have notified Congress
that they intend to resume American counternarcotics flights over Colombia
and Peru. Those flights were suspended last year after a Peruvian fighter
jet, alerted by a Central Intelligence Agency aircraft, shot down a plane
carrying American missionaries, killing two.

A Senate panel sharply criticized the C.I.A. for lax oversight and demanded
new safeguards, which the administration says it is putting in place.
Control of the surveillance flights will be transferred from the C.I.A. to
another government agency, officials said.

The national strategy calls for a 6 percent increase in spending on
treatment, allocating $1.6 billion over the next five years. Money will be
targeted for the most vulnerable populations, including pregnant women, the
homeless, people with H.I.V. and teenagers, the president said.

Some critics said the administration should be vastly increasing spending
for treatment, noting a 7-to- 1 disparity in favor of law enforcement.

"Unless the president commits to funding treatment and controlling demand
at the same level as supply reduction," said Rachel King, a lawyer with the
American Civil Liberties Union in Washington, "the administration will
inevitably fail in its goal of cutting drug use by a full quarter by 2007."

The president's strategy calls for the creation of a "new climate of
compassionate coercion" to persuade drug users to seek treatment. It seeks
to enlist the help of family members, friends and employers, as well as the
police and groups tied to religion, to break through addicts' denial.

Mr. Bush acknowledged that the best way to affect supply is to reduce
demand. His budget calls for spending $644 million on school and community
programs and $180 million on a media campaign intended to reach the young.

"If we want to usher in a period of personal responsibility, if we want a
new culture that changes from `If it feels good, do it' to one that says
we're responsible for our decisions, it begins with moms and dads being
responsible parents, by telling their children they love them, on a daily
basis," he said. "And if you love somebody, you'll also tell them not to
use drugs."

Some advocates of a new drug policy expressed impatience with such remarks,
given the pervasiveness of the problem. A recent University of Michigan
study found that fully half of students reaching 12th grade had tried an
illegal drug.

Ethan Nadelmann, the executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, which
favors a strategy based more on treatment, noted that the president's own
daughters and a niece had recent brushes with the law involving alcohol and
prescription drugs.

"When it comes to drug policy, you should treat other people's children the
way you'd want your own treated," Mr. Nadelmann he said.

"That's a policy that's missing" from the administration's approach, he added.