Pubdate: Fri, 24 Jul 1998 Source: Miami Herald (FL) Contact: Website: http://www.herald.com/ Author: Mark Silva Capital Bureau Chief BUSH: DENY DRUG USERS SCHOLARSHIPS MacKay campaign calls that `very harsh treatment' TALLAHASSEE -- Promising an assault on illegal drugs, Republican Jeb Bush proposes tougher policing and prosecution, better detection and treatment of drug abuse and denial of scholarships for teenagers who use drugs. ``We're not going to reinvent the wheel, but we're going to do something revolutionary,'' Bush pledged Thursday, unveiling a wide-ranging, 19-page plan in his campaign for governor to wage a war on drugs -- and win it. ``We're going to stop at nothing less than total victory.'' Bush's game plan, with an estimated cost of nearly $40 million its fourth year, comes at a time when overall crime is in decline, but concern about teenage crime and drugs -- especially highly addictive substances, such as heroin -- is growing. It also poses new points of contention for Bush and Lt. Gov. Buddy MacKay, the Democratic candidate for governor, criticizing such tactics as assignment of a state drug czar and denial of scholarships. ``This is a problem of such importance that it is going to be on the governor's and lieutenant governor's desks. . . . That is where it stops,'' Robin Rorapaugh, MacKay's campaign manager, said Thursday. ``The drug problem of Florida is not one that Buddy wants to pitch to someone else.'' MacKay applauds much of what Bush proposes, Rorapaugh says, because much of it -- from drug interdiction at Florida's ports to drug treatment in prisons - -- already is under way. The problem, she says, is that a Republican-run Legislature has inadequately funded program after program. However, in the state budget that Gov. Lawton Chiles and MacKay proposed to lawmakers this year, the problem of illegal drugs was virtually unmentioned. The administration did seek more money for juvenile justice, and a massive campaign against underage smoking -- which Bush supports and says he wants to improve -- but made no concerted pitch against illicit drug abuse. Acute shortages of cash hamper some of the state's drug-fighting efforts. Florida's prisons say 22.6 percent of the convicts who entered last year came with drug-related convictions -- 13.3 percent for sale, purchase or manufacture, 6 percent for possession, 3.3 percent for trafficking. But there is room for only about 3,000 inmates a year in the most effective, six-month-long drug treatment programs. Bush proposes adding 1,250 inmates a year, at a cost of $2 million a year, until the full need is met. All told, Bush says, it will cost $11.6 million next year to cover what he wants, and $37.5 million by the 2002-03 budget year. For high schoolers and college students convicted of drug offenses, Bush proposes cutting off financial aid -- suspending or revoking the ``Bright Future'' scholarships Florida offers high-scoring students. ``There has to be a recognition that being a good citizen means remaining drug free,'' said Bush, 45, who acknowledges trying marijuana when he was 17. ``It was a stupid thing to do, and it was wrong.'' MacKay views withholding of scholarships as ``very harsh treatment,'' Rorapaugh said. ``Drug use, for children, is a problem, but taking away their tools for education and becoming better citizens does not solve it.'' She said MacKay, 65, ``has never experimented with illegal drugs, never.'' Copyright 1998 The Miami Herald - --- Checked-by: Melodi Cornett