Pubdate: Fri, 11 May 2001
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2001 The New York Times Company
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: David E. Sanger

BUSH NAMES A DRUG CZAR AND ADDRESSES CRITICISM

WASHINGTON, May 10 - President Bush today nominated as his drug czar 
John P. Walters, who has long argued for jail time over voluntary 
treatment for drug offenders, calling him the man to battle illegal 
drugs that rob people "of innocence and ambition and hope."

Mr. Bush's choice of the conservative Mr. Walters to head the White 
House Office of National Drug Control Policy was criticized by groups 
that want to emphasize curing drug addiction rather than punishing 
drug offenders or cutting off the supply of narcotics.

As he introduced Mr. Walters, who served as the deputy drug director 
under his father, Mr. Bush tried to defuse criticism of his choice by 
declaring that the administration would emphasize treatment, 
including through religious organizations. He also said, however, 
that Mr. Walters would lead "an all-out effort to reduce illegal drug 
use."

"Acceptance of drug use is simply not an option for this 
administration," Mr. Bush said in the Rose Garden, to applause.

"We emphatically disagree with those who favor drug legalization," he 
said, adding that "drug use and addiction would soar."

The administration also said Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney 
were the first two employees at the White House to take a drug test. 
But White House officials declined to say if anyone on Mr. Bush's 
staff had failed the mandatory test.

Mr. Walters, 49, previously worked at the Department of Education, 
where he headed the Schools Without Drugs prevention program and then 
served under William J. Bennett, who was drug czar in the 
administration of Mr. Bush's father. More recently Mr. Walters has 
been president of the Philanthropy Roundtable, an association that 
advises more than 600 donors to charities. He has also served as 
president of the New Citizenship Project, which promoted the role of 
religion in public life.

In his writings, Mr. Walters has supported tough prison sentences for 
violent felons, marijuana smugglers and repeat offenders, though he 
expressed a more lenient attitude toward first-time drug users. In an 
article published in March in The Weekly Standard, a magazine with 
conservative leanings, he denounced the "therapy-only lobby" in 
Washington and declared that prison sentences, combined with therapy, 
were a key element to reducing drug use.

"The evidence is that coerced treatment works at least as well as 
voluntary treatment," he wrote.

Mr. Walters served as acting drug policy director briefly in 1993. He 
quit in protest when President Bill Clinton sharply reduced the 
office's staff and announced that he was redirecting antinarcotics 
policy to focus on hard-core users, while de-emphasizing enforcement 
and interdiction.

Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1996, Mr. Walters 
was scathingly critical of what he called "this ineffectual policy - 
the latest manifestation of the liberals' commitment to a 
"therapeutic state" in which government serves as the agent of 
personal rehabilitation."

Mr. Walters has no shortage of critics.

"Anybody can give lip service to drug prevention and addiction," said 
Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Lindesmith Center-Drug 
Policy Foundation, a New York organization that advocates a focus on 
therapy instead of punishment. "But listen to him and he stands out 
as a bellicose drug warrior."

Mr. Nadelmann argues that get-tough approaches have "left illicit 
drugs cheaper, purer and more available than ever."

Among Mr. Walters's defenders is Tommy G. Thompson, the secretary of 
health and human services, who as Wisconsin governor pressed for more 
money to treat addiction rather than to build jails. He said Mr. 
Walters was "much more balanced" in his approach to the drug problem 
than his critics allowed.

Besides naming Mr. Walters as drug czar, Mr. Bush directed John J. 
DiIulio Jr., who leads the White House effort to open federal 
programs to religious community groups, to examine federal 
partnerships with local groups engaged in antidrug work.

The president said he asked Mr. Thompson to conduct a state-by-state 
inventory of treatment needs and capacity and report to him within 
120 days "on how to most effectively close the treatment gap."

Finally, he asked Attorney General John Ashcroft to submit a plan 
within 120 days to keep federal prisons drug free and to expand drug 
testing for those on probation and parole.

If confirmed by the Senate, Mr. Walters would succeed Barry R. 
McCaffrey, a retired four-star Army general who sought to reduce 
confrontations with drug-exporting countries in Latin America and 
promoted an advertising campaign to convince adolescents that drugs 
could ruin lives.

When Mr. Walters's pending nomination became known late in April, 
General McCaffrey expressed concerns that Mr. Walters overemphasized 
enforcement and underemphasized treatment.

That seemed to sting the Bush White House, and today President Bush 
said: "This administration will focus unprecedented attention on the 
demand side of this problem. We recognize that the most important 
work to reduce drug use is done in America's living rooms and 
classrooms, in churches, in synagogues and mosques, in the workplace 
and in our neighborhoods."

Speaking after the announcement, Mr. Walters sounded a note of 
determination while subtly criticizing more liberal approaches.

"Our country has made great progress in the past in reducing drug 
use, and we will do it again," he said.

"Our efforts rest on the knowledge that when we push back, the drug 
problem gets smaller," he added. "This fact is beyond question today, 
even if it is not always beyond denial."

Later today Mr. Bush's spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said Mr. Bush was 
not interested in legalizing medical uses of marijuana.

"There are other effective ways, the president believes, to help 
people who suffer illnesses so they can be relieved of the pain and 
the symptoms that they're going through," Mr. Fleischer said.
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MAP posted-by: Josh Sutcliffe