ACCESSION NUMBER:00000
FILE ID:96050902.tgi
DATE:05/09/96
TITLE:09-05-96  PARTISAN SPARRING AT CONGRESSIONAL HEARING ON NARCOTICS

TEXT:
(Administration priorities opposed by Republicans)  (720)
By Jerry Stilkind
USIA Staff Writer

Washington -- President Clinton has proposed a record-high $15,000
million budget to fight the spread of illegal drugs but his
congressional opponents are challenging the strategy and priorities he
has planned for the battle.

In this presidential and congressional election year, few government
programs escape the careful scrutiny of President Clinton and his
Democratic party and the leadership of the Republican party, which
controls both parts of Congress.

Both sides agree that fighting drugs is one of the most important
issues facing the country. They do not agree on how to do it and
whether the problem is dramatically worsening.

The budget proposed by President Clinton for the fiscal year beginning
October 1 is 9.3 percent higher than the current one. The largest item
in the proposed budget, as it was in this year's, is $2,900 million
for treatment programs that help addicts break their dependence on
drugs.

Representative Bill Zeliff, chairman of the Subcommittee on National
Security, Committee on Government Reform and Oversight in the House of
Representatives, took aim at this priority when General (Retired)
Barry McCaffrey, director of the White House drug office, appeared
before the subcommittee May 8.

"The sad truth is that this president still seems to think that
treating the wounded is the way to win this war...," Zeliff said at
the opening of the hearing into the administration's 1996 drug control
strategy plan.

He called for shifting priorities to several other programs in the
proposed budget -- U.S. and international efforts to reduce illegal
drug crops in Latin America and Asia; tightening controls at U.S.
borders to stop drugs from entering the country; and education and
other measures that would help prevent youngsters from starting to use
narcotics.

"We have a major policy failure," Zeliff charged.

McCaffrey replied that the crop destruction and interdiction programs
could use some more money but pointed out that the proposed budget was
a "dramatic" increase over current spending.

Nevertheless, it is a "lean budget" that meets today's realities, he
said.

He defended the emphasis on treating drug offenders by saying that
almost 1.5 million are arrested a year for narcotics violations by
local, state and federal officers at a cost of thousands of millions
dollars to taxpayers. He estimated that the social costs of drug use
-- imprisonment, policing, robberies, hospital treatment, related
health problems such as AIDS -- has been $67,000 million a year since
1990.

The number of drug users has dropped to 12 million from a high of 24
million in 1979, which led McCaffrey to argue that treating the
addiction of this declining population would, if successful,
dramatically decrease the societal costs of illegal narcotics.

Some treatment programs have a good success rate, he said. McCaffrey
said one of his priorities in the coming year was to study which
treatment programs do work and promised the subcommittee he would
report back to it with that information.

But, he conceded that drug use among teenagers, particularly
marijuana, has risen the past few years. Almost 1.5 million high
school seniors (17-year-olds) will abuse drugs monthly by the year
2000 if the current rate of increase continues among youngsters.

More will de done to educate and prevent youngsters about the hazards
of drug use, he told the subcommittee. That is the number one goal of
the president's budget, he said.

Zeliff argued that the rise in abuse by youngsters shows that the
narcotics problem is getting worse in the United States and that the
administration's strategy needs to be drastically revised.

As for reemphasizing the use of military planes and ships to stop the
smuggling of narcotics, McCaffrey said that strategy would not work as
well now as it did just a few years ago because the drug lords are
using different tactics.

About 70 percent of the cocaine from South America now is being
carried over the Mexican border into the United States, he said.

"They're not flying drugs from Colombia to South Florida. That ain't
the game. So the easy pickings are over.... The payoff in interdiction
in the future is more likely to be smart intelligence than it is ships
on station and flying hours," he said.
NNNN