Pubdate: Thu, 04 Jan 2001
Source: Register-Guard, The (OR)
Copyright: 2001 The Register-Guard
Contact:  PO Box 10188, Eugene, OR 97440-2188
Website: http://www.registerguard.com/
Author: John Donnelly, The Boston Globe

DRUG CZAR'S FINAL REPORT SHOWS U.S. STILL STRUGGLING

WASHINGTON - Youth drug use in America increased sharply during the eight 
years of the Clinton administration and the number of drug-related episodes 
in emergency rooms are now at historic highs, according to figures in a 
national report on drug policy to be released today. The sobering news 
comes during a time when the federal government committed huge amounts of 
new money recently to fight the problem, increasing funding to $19.2 
billion this year from $13.4 billion in 1996, an average increase of more 
than $1 billion a year.

But Barry McCaffrey, director of the Office of the National Drug Control 
Policy, will argue in a White House news conference that the drug problem 
among youths in particular is getting better.

To support his position, he will cite a 21 percent decrease in use from 
1997 to 1999, perhaps the first signs from a widely praised anti-drug media 
campaign.

Still, drug use among those ages 12-17 was exactly the same in 1999 as it 
was in 1996, when McCaffrey became drug czar: In both years, 9 percent of 
those youths surveyed acknowledged using illegal drugs sometime during the 
previous month, according to the national survey. And in 1993, when Clinton 
first took office, only 5.7 percent of teens said they used illegal drugs.

"We've got a long ways to go,'' said Joseph Califano Jr., chairman and 
president of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at 
Columbia University and a former secretary of Health, Education and Welfare.

The report, a copy of which was obtained by the Globe, for the first time 
during McCaffrey's nearly five years in office includes closing the gap in 
treatment as one of five national drug stategy goals. In 1998 - the last 
year for which figures are available - 57 percent of America's addicts who 
needed treatment did not get it.

The numbers in the 2001 national drug strategy report suggest that even 
with a 34 percent increase in treatment funding during the past five years, 
the programs fall far short of helping those who are toughest to 
rehabilitate and most costly to society.

The report estimated 3.3 million hard-core cocaine users and 694,000 heroin 
addicts in 1993. The 1998 figures: 3.3 million cocaine addicts, 980,000 
heroin addicts.

In Clinton's first year, the drug abuse warning network recorded 460,910 
drug-related conditions in emergency rooms. In 1999, the number had 
increased to 554,932, the highest ever recorded.

"To me, there is still a huge amount of unmet demand out there for 
treatment,'' said Michael Massing, author of "The Fix,'' a history of 
America's drug war. "The percentage of those untreated remains to me one of 
the most telling figures in the wealth of statistics the drug control 
office puts out. It's a continuing indictment of the policy that Clinton 
and McCaffrey have pursued.''

McCaffrey, the strong-willed former Army four-star general, leaves as drug 
czar later this month.

Even critics acknowlege McCaffrey's foresight in starting a $2 billion 
anti-drug media campaign and note that it may take several years for 
statistics to fully reflect the effects on youth attitudes toward drugs. 
McCaffrey himself will depart office unsatisfied on several fronts, 
including the frustrating lack of change in the numbers of hard-core 
addicts. "We have 5 million people chronically addicted to drugs,'' he said 
last month. "They are a total mess. They are in misery. ... Their personal 
behavior is disgusting, so it's hard to organize rational drug policy 
around them. This group is difficult to love.''

Califano, a well-known Democrat, suggested sharply increasing funding for 
treatment programs in prisons. He cited studies that showed 1.6 million of 
the country's 2 million inmates in local and state jails had committed 
alcohol-or drug-related crimes. Of that 1.6 million, about 200,000 were 
drug dealers, not users.

But in his final report as drug czar, McCaffrey kept his focus on the 
positive. He said in a letter to Congress that a wide range of Americans in 
recent years have "made great progress in reducing drug abuse and its 
consequences.''
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MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens