ReconsiDer Tidbits

 
Stephen Crowley/The New York Times 
At a rally in Marion, Ill., Friday, Gov. George W. Bush said the White House
war on drugs was ineffective. 

MARION, Ill., Oct. 6 — Gov. George W. Bush today accused the Clinton
administration of fighting illicit drugs "without urgency, without energy and
without success" and proposed $2.7 billion in new grants in the next five
years to combat narcotics and provide drug treatment.

For the third consecutive day, Mr. Bush tailored his campaign to focus on
ways to help parents protect their children from influences outside the home.
This time his focus was not Hollywood entertainment or sexually graphic and
violent Internet sites, but illicit drugs.

"The job of protecting our children falls to us — as parents," Mr. Bush said
this morning in an address to several hundred supporters in Cedar Rapids,
Iowa. "Yet we want to know that our government is on our side. We want to
live in a society that supports our values and upholds our authority. We need
allies, not adversaries. Schools that form character. A decent public
culture. And leaders who set a good example."

After his speech, Mr. Bush flew to Illinois, en route to Florida, where the
campaign has become highly competitive. He was greeted here by a crowd
chanting, "No more Gore." A warm-up speaker, State Representative Lee
Daniels, attacked the character of President Clinton and Vice President Al
Gore, saying, "We are sick and tired of the lies and the immorality and the
exaggeration."

Mr. Bush pushed his $1.3 trillion, 10-year tax-cut proposal, dismissing Mr.
Gore's criticisms in the first presidential debate that the plan would give
too much to the wealthy. "He loves pitting people against people," he told
the cheering crowd. "You can't lead the nation by dividing people into
groups."

And repeating his debate dismissal of Mr. Gore's statistics, he said, "No
fuzzy math."

But the centerpiece of his day was his stand against drugs. Mr. Bush vowed,
if elected, to set a goal of a "drug-free society."

He said that the nation needed to fight the spread of drugs "for one great
moral reason. Over time, drugs rob men and women and children of their
dignity and character. They are the enemies of innocence and hope and
ambition."

He accused the Clinton administration of downgrading the battle against
drugs, and drew a distinction between what happened in the 1980's under the
administrations of President Reagan and his own father, and what occurred in
the 1990's.

"From 1979 to 1992, our nation confronted drug abuse successfully," he said.
"Teen drug use declined each and every year. It was one of the best public
policy successes of the 1980's.

"All that began to change seven and a half years ago," he continued. "From
1992 to 1997, teen drug abuse increased each and every year. Heroin use
doubled. The age at which people began using that drug dropped from 27 in
1988 to 18 in 1997."

Mr. Bush acknowledged that teenage drug use had leveled off in recent years —
the Clinton administration said that teenage drug use had dropped over that
period — but he called drug policy "one of the worst public policy failures
of the 90's."

He said that one of Mr. Clinton's first acts when he entered office was to
cut the staff of the White House drug office from 146 to 25 people — "about
half the size of the White House public relations operation."

He had kind words for Mr. Clinton's drug czar, retired Gen. Barry
R.McCaffrey, but said, "There is no substitute for presidential leadership."

Robert Weiner, the spokesman for General McCaffrey, said Mr. Bush was using
"ancient numbers." Mr. Weiner said that Mr. Clinton cut the drug office staff
to 25 when he took office, as a part of a pledge to reduce the White House
staff, but that he had since turned around, and the office now has 154 staff
members.

Mr. Weiner said that teenagers' drug use had not just leveled off but
declined, and cited a Department of Health and Human Services' survey, which
recorded a 21 percent drop in drug use by teenagers from 1997 through the end
of 1999.

The Gore campaign charged in a statement that "using Washington- fuzzy math,
Bush tried to create the false impression that under Clinton- Gore the budget
on the war on drugs had been slashed."

To fight drugs, Mr. Bush proposed a series of grants, including $25 million
for nonprofit groups that teach parents drug prevention, $25 million to
groups that help small businesses fight drug use in the workplace, $350
million for community antidrug coalitions, and $100 million to expand a
federal school antidrug program.

He also promised to hire more border enforcement agents and said he would
require prison inmates to take regular drug tests.

Mr. Bush also said he would seek to reduce cultivation of coca in Bolivia,
Peru and Ecuador and opium in Southwest Asia by spending $165 million over
five years for alternative crop development in the regions.

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