ReconsiDer Tidbits

ReconsiDer's  Nicolas Eyle was interviewed for this story from MSNBC...

http://www.msnbc.com/news/574442.asp

Drug czar’s tough talk faces scrutiny

BUSH SEEMS to have a fondness for putting lightning rods in high posts. Just as his choice of Gale Norton for interior secretary roiled environmentalists, drug reformers are incensed by Bush’s choice of Walters.
Their frustration stems largely from a fear that the new administration will undo the Clinton administration’s work on drugs. Clinton’s drug czar, Gen. Barry McCaffrey, spent billions on high-profile anti-drug campaigns and his Office of National Drug Control Policy in recent years focused on the very demand-side strategies Walters has dismissed, including more money for treatment.
Yet Walters is also an irresistible target to reformers: They loathe his politics, but many are convinced his approach is so severe it could help their cause.
"I think this could be the last spasms of a dying policy here," said Nicolas Eyle, executive director of ReconsiDer, a New York state-based drug reform group. "Putting in these drug warriors is going to bring more and more attention" to the administration’s hard-line focus.

CONSERVATIVE — AND MORE

Walters is commonly portrayed as a conservative, but the term does not precisely define him or the no-mercy tactics he freely acknowledges hewing from drug policies of the Reagan era, when, he once told Congress, a "moral injunction not to use drugs swept over the [n]ation."
Walters takes an old-school approach to drugs. As deputy director of White House drug policy under William Bennett during the first Bush administration, he was tasked with coordinating the administration’s supply-side fight. Even after his tenure in the White House, Walters has frequently been called upon as a critic of Clinton-era drug policies and an advocate of such tactics as using the National Guard to help catch drug smugglers. If he backs the president’s proposed budget priorities on drugs, some of the biggest spending hikes will be for federal prisoner detention, additional money for Coast Guard interdiction and a large expansion in the Drug Enforcement Administration’s operating budget.

CRITICIZED BY MCCAFFREY
Indeed, Walters drew criticism from outgoing drug czar McCaffrey, hardly one to soft-pedal drug policy, who took Walters to task for favoring interdiction over treatment and prevention. Ironically, before McCaffrey shifted his rhetoric late in his tenure and described the U.S. drug problem as a "cancer," reformers assailed him for the same thing.
Amid a climate in which drug policy leaders face often impossible goals, Walters has the unenviable position of balancing enforcement of drug laws with treatment and rehabilitation issues. Yet he must do so without alienating law enforcement agencies that, thus far, seem receptive to Bush’s pick.
"I really don’t think that philosophy of Mr. Walters is going to be a problem," Gene Voegtlin, legislative counsel for the International Association of Chiefs of Police. "Any attention that’s paid to the drug issue ... is going to be welcomed."
Walters’ penchant for tough talk may not play as well with the public. Americans had been increasingly supportive of the last administration’s efforts to reduce demand for drugs. By mid-2000, nearly half of the nation thought progress had been made in fighting drug use, a Gallup Poll showed.
And though police want Washington to support them on the streets, there is growing support among law enforcement, at least behind the scenes, for a demand-side approach. Many police acknowledge the problems with harsh sentencing guidelines, and many conservative communities, such as Omaha, Neb., have initiated drug courts and other programs once derided as soft-footed approaches.

FOCUS RETURNING

Bush’s anti-drug plans appear to return focus to federal efforts, but a rare note of support for local programs was sounded through more proposed funding for the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program, which offers money to coordinate local anti-drug efforts. HIDTA funding, controlled by Walters’ office, could rise from $158 million in 2000 to a proposed $206 million in 2002

Walters faces yet another challenge in working with the military. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, faced with a tight budget and a growing list of priorities, has signaled his desire to keep the U.S. military out of the drug war.
That could lead to tension between the two. Walters told Newsweek he has concerns about the $7.5 billion Plan Colombia program, which funds eradication programs in a Latin American nation Walters said was "destabilizing rapidly." Plan Colombia was hatched as a way to keep U.S. troops from an intervention role. If the White House seeks to send troops back to Latin America on new drug interdiction missions, it may meet resistance from the Pentagon.

JUST A SYMBOL?
Walters’ controversial views, and his potentially contentious role in the administration, have led some critics to wonder whether his position will be primarily symbolic, a nod to Bush’s right-wing backers.
"Politicians are behind the curve," said Joseph McNamara, the former police chief of Kansas City and San Jose, Calif., who now studies drug policy for the Hoover Institution. "The Senate confirmation process wants to hear the drug war nonsense, and John Walters will give them the drug war rhetoric."
The White House, no doubt, sees it differently. Bush insists Walters understands the need for a "thoughtful and integrated approach" to drugs. It remains to be seen whether Walters proves his new boss right.

ANALYSIS By Jon Bonne MSNBC