WE NEED A DRUG CZAR NOW

As a part of our painful national education about terrorism since
Sept. 11, Americans now know more than they ever wanted to about
bioterrorism, chemical weapons, and the threat of "suitcase bombs."
And we have learned a great deal about the connection between
terrorism and illegal drugs, including the fact that our enemies in
Afghanistan have derived considerable sustenance and resources from
the drug trade. This trade not only spreads addiction but is an
inherent enemy of lawful order and democracy throughout the world:
Just as heroin and cocaine destroy lives, so, too, do the heroin and
cocaine trades destroy institutions of law and popular government.

And yet, as the war on terrorism proceeds both at home and abroad, we
have barely begun to rethink our foreign and domestic drug-control
policy. According to the most recent Household Survey on Drug Abuse,
despite large reductions in the 1980s and early 1990s, some 14 million
Americans use illegal drugs on at least a monthly basis. Nearly one in
four of these drug users are children between the ages of 12 and 17.
In 1999 (the most recent year for which we have data), there were some
two million new marijuana users -- more than 5,000 new users per day
- -- with an average age of 17.

These statistics are especially disturbing because, according to the
National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, kids who experiment
with drugs tend to keep using drugs. Among children who try cocaine
and LSD in high school, more than three out of five are still using
the drug when they leave school. That translates to a hard fact: Far
too many children who use drugs grow up to be adults who use drugs.
The idea of "youthful experimentation" is all too often a dangerous
myth.

Illegal drug use, especially among our children, is a plague that has
lacked serious federal attention -- from Democrats and Republicans, as
well as from the executive and legislative branches. We must push back
against the drug problem, because if there's one thing I learned as
drug czar, it's that when we push back, the problem gets smaller. And
to start the new push back, we need effective, informed, and
aggressive leadership in the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

John P. Walters, President Bush's nominee for director of National
Drug Control Policy -- and my chief of staff back when I was drug czar
- -- is an outstanding choice to fill that role. He understands the
explosion of drug abuse in America. As he has often expressed, the
greatest loss is measured in human terms -- homelessness, crime, the
emotional and physical violence done to families, and, worst of all,
the tragic loss of life, opportunity, and potential that has swept
through an entire generation of young people. He understands the links
which the drug trade has to terrorism abroad and destruction at home.

Mr. Walters supports a comprehensive and commonsense approach to
helping our young people -- including anti-drug education, attacking
the international drug trade, more treatment made more easily
available, and tough penalties for drug dealers and kingpins.

He has come under criticism from those who argue he is too focused on
interdiction and law enforcement and too dismissive of treatment and
education. This is an attack with no basis in fact. From 1989 through
1993, Mr. Walters helped me craft the first Bush administration's drug
budgets. During that time, we secured the greatest expansion of
federal support for treatment services in history. In fact, during my
tenure as drug czar and that of my successor, Bob Martinez, Mr.
Walters fought for -- and got -- an increase in the drug-treatment
budget twice as large in percentage terms as any increases over the
eight years of the Clinton administration.

Mr. Walters also understands that, while treatment and education are
indispensable parts of any successful anti-drug strategy, interdiction
and international efforts are a uniquely federal responsibility. No
one else has the authority, or the ability, to stop drugs coming
across our borders. The idea that we must choose between "treatment"
and "enforcement" is a charade, for drug use must be attacked on all
fronts. But the federal government alone is empowered to attack the
international drug trade, and so the drug czar must focus on that aspect.

There are those who would "go soft" on the drug war -- who say that we
are fighting a losing battle, and that we should give up and go home.
Similarly, there were those -- just days and weeks ago -- who warned
of a similar fate in the war on terrorism. The best response to these
arguments are the facts. The Taliban have lost control of almost all
of Afghanistan, despite the naysayers. And Mr. Walters's own record
shows that we can reduce the use and harm of illegal drugs, that lives
can be changed and saved. The record shows this clearly; it is, as Mr.
Walters himself has said, "beyond question today, even if it is not
always beyond denial."

In the 1990s, the federal government all but gave up on saving our
youth from drugs. It is time -- past time -- for the Senate to confirm
John Walters and let him get to work as drug czar. It is time to start
pushing back.