Bush Sets Goals for Major Cuts in Drug Use

President Bush set a goal Tuesday of cutting the use of illegal drugs in the United States by 10% over two years and 25% over five years as he unveiled a national drug control strategy.

The program, which the president said is “in the center of our national agenda,” is built on three elements: disrupting the market for illegal drugs, helping drug users, and preventing drug use among those who have not gotten involved with it.

Bush’s plan calls for increased funding for drug abuse treatment, heightened efforts to educate young people about the dangers of using illegal drugs, and greater involvement by parents in making drugs socially unacceptable.

In seeking to balance efforts to reduce demand for drugs with the campaign to reduce supplies that took root when Bush’s father was president, the proposal marks a sharp turn in government anti-drug policy.

“We’re determined to limit drug supply, to reduce demand and to provide addicts with effective and compassionate drug treatment,” the president said. “Each of these steps is essential, and they’re inseparable.”

Bush also linked the campaign against drugs to the anti-terrorist campaign, which has become the focus of his foreign policy.

Citing the support he said terrorist networks get from selling drugs, whether in South America or Afghanistan, Bush said: “When people purchase drugs, they put money in the hands of those who want to hurt America, hurt our allies.”

He said 70% of the world’s opium has come from Afghanistan, “resulting in significant income to the Taliban.”

Actually, the Taliban’s record was mixed: Until recently, Afghanistan was the world’s largest producer of opium. But in July 2000, Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban leader, condemned opium cultivation. In one edict, he brought the output of 3,200 tons a year to a virtual standstill.

Now, there are new fears among international anti-narcotics officials that farmers will feel free to resume planting the valuable crop, ignoring the new government’s anti-poppy decrees.

Bush’s focus on drug abuse, and the priority he is giving the effort, reflect a renewed interest in the administration on domestic policy as Bush and his advisors widen their sweep beyond the immediate demands of the war against terrorism.

His new policy comes in the wake of a sudden increase in the seizure of illegal drugs along the nation’s southwest border due to tighter security after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

In the budget sent last week to Congress, the administration proposed spending $3.8 billion for drug treatment, increasing that funding more than 6% over the current fiscal year. It is also seeking to spend $2.3 billion on drug interdiction efforts along the borders, a 10% increase.

The administration’s plan appears to draw on both the role of law enforcement that the previous Bush White House emphasized and the “Just Say No” campaign in which Nancy Reagan, the former first lady, sought to discourage young people from using illegal drugs.

At the same time, by focusing on the demand for drugs, the administration appears to be responding to complaints from drug-producing countries in Latin America that drug money filtering south from the United States is fueling corruption and other criminal behavior there--and that they would send fewer narcotics northward if fewer people in this country wanted drugs.

“The best way to affect supply is to reduce demand for drugs,” Bush said in a speech in the White House East Room to anti-drug experts from government agencies and Washington research groups. “We can work as hard as we possibly want on interdiction, but so long as there is the demand for drugs in this country, some crook is going to figure out how to get them here.”

And convincing young people not to use drugs, he said, “starts with good parenting.”

For Bush, the matter reaches beyond one of policy to one of personal concern. His niece Noelle, 24, the daughter of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, has been accused of prescription drug fraud. Her lawyer said Friday that she has been admitted to a drug treatment program.

The president made no reference to Noelle Bush during his announcement.

Adele Harrell, a drug policy expert at the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan policy research organization, said after Bush’s speech that he was “the first president to approach the problem” with an appreciation of the importance of reducing the demand for drugs.

But Harrell said the nation has never been able to reduce drug use to the degree that is called for in the Bush plan. “I found the number startling,” she said.

As for the emphasis Bush put on parenting, she said drug abuse by teens and young adults “confronts many parents who’ve been good parents, and have done everything you’d ask of them.”

In California, experts praised Bush’s goals and spending increases. But if he is to meet his goals, they said, he may need to divert more money from drug seizures to treating addicts.

“They are pretty lofty goals but give him an ‘A’ for effort,” said Jim Stillwell, executive director of Impact, a private, nonprofit foundation running one of the largest drug treatment programs in Los Angeles County.

As someone who has been involved with treatment programs for more than 30 years, Stillwell said, he could not recall a president establishing such precise percentage goals for reducing drug use in the U.S.

But while Bush’s goals are certainly attainable, they will “certainly not be cheap,” he said. “Right now, there are waiting lists all over the country for residential treatment programs.”

And while Bush also proposes a big increase in spending for drug interdiction, Stillwell said, that will have no impact on one of the nation’s most nettlesome narcotics--methamphetamines--which are produced for the most part in California.

Mike Brady, public policy consultant for the California Senate, also said that Bush’s initiatives are laudable but will need far more money than is now proposed by the administration.

“Frankly, if he is talking about 6% more for treatment programs and 10% more for drug interdiction, I think he should spend the whole 16% on treatment,” Brady said.

Brady added that while outpatient treatment programs cost from $3,000 a year to double that amount, the price is far less than the minimum $25,000 a year it costs to incarcerate drug addicts convicted of crimes that support their addictions.

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Times staff writer Greg Krikorian in Los Angeles contributed to this story.