Pubdate: Thu, 14 Oct 1999 Source: Associated Press Copyright: 1999 Associated Press Author: Cassandra Burrell, Associated Press Writer U.S. DRUG HEAD: OPERATION SNAGGED WASHINGTON (AP) - A request for information from a House subcommittee cost the White House's drug policy office $10,000 and brought its operations to a near halt for the last two weeks, the head of the office said Thursday. An angry Barry McCaffrey, President Clinton's chief adviser on drug control policy, told the panel he was offended at the suggestion that his office had not been responsive to requests for details about its $185 million media campaign, including television and radio announcements, to persuade teen-agers to stay away from illegal drugs. "It is enormously important to me personally that I be viewed as responsive to Congress in general and to this subcommittee," McCaffrey told the House Government Reform Committee's panel on criminal justice, drug policy and human resources. "I have provided your office with more 12,000 documents. It cost me over $10,000 to do this. We have brought my agency to a halt for the better part of two weeks," McCaffrey said. Subcommittee Chairman John Mica, R-Fla., said McCaffrey's office had done good work but it had delayed turning over requested information. "Based upon available information, there are signs of progress and there are also signs that raise doubts as to the media campaign's effectiveness and efficiency," Mica said. "I now see a very tangled web of (media) contracts that appears overly complicated, expensive and untested." Republicans in Congress have long criticized the Clinton administration for what they believe would be a lax anti-drug policy without their influence. McCaffrey said anti-drug messages on television, radio, print and on the Internet are reaching 95 percent of 12- to 17-year-olds an average of 8.3 messages a week, some of them made by celebrities who have donated their time. The messages have been translated into 11 languages, he said, and many are tailored to appeal to various ethnic groups. "We are reaching nearly every single American child on a regular basis with anti-drug information," McCaffrey said. "This campaign is working." He asked the subcommittee to submit more focused requests for information and offered to meet personally with Mica to nail down precisely what information the subcommittee is seeking. "They're just fishing - looking for something," McCaffrey told reporters after testifying before the subcommittee. "There is no lack of careful scientific evaluation of what we're doing." - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D