Pubdate: Mon, 30 Apr 2001
Source: Washington Times (DC)
Copyright: 2001 News World Communications, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.washtimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/492
Author: A.M. Rosenthal
Note: A.M. Rosenthal, the former executive editor of the New York Times, is 
a nationally syndicated columnist.

A DRUG CHIEF WHO KNOWS THE MISSION

My doctor told me my health would probably be better, and my disposition 
definitely, if I wrote good-news columns instead of harping on the torture 
and church burnings of the Chinese communists, slavery in the Sudan, Yasser 
Arafat and Saddam Hussein, Bill Clinton's perfidy in breaking his promises 
to fight for human rights, Americans who put profit above country in 
foreign trade topics like that.

So this column is about drug addiction, the plague that cripples millions 
of Americans and their victims. All Americans sea to sea should rejoice at 
the news I am giving them. Well all except those few with obese wallets who 
are busily trying to sabotage the war against drugs, the people who are on 
their pro-drug payrolls and those who swallow their propaganda for creeping 
legalization.

The news is that President Bush has finally chosen a new chief of the White 
House anti-drug office John P. Walters, a former deputy director for drug 
policy under Bill Bennett, the first and most passionate of what used to be 
called drug czars. The federal government and the press no longer consider 
that title politically correct, nor the term drug war but I do consider 
them very correct.

Mr. Walters understands fully that winning the war means putting money and 
personnel, lots of both, into law enforcement, interdiction of illegal 
narcotics and therapy not one, but a three-legged stool. We two do share a 
bias: against Americans being fed the sugar candy that law enforcement is 
not all that important or effective. Weakening law enforcement is no less 
dangerous than eliminating therapy for those who need it, or teaching 
foreign farmers not to grow drug crops, and the arrest of Americans who do.

Even before the announcement of his appointment, shots are being taken at 
him in Washington too tough a guy, his nonadmirers say. Somehow toughness 
in the anti-drug war, by therapists or enforcements that crack down on 
addicts and pushers, does not break my heart. Without the compulsion of the 
law,therapists know, most addicts would evade the treatment that could help 
them.

And without experts like Mr. Walters and the fine outgoing anti-drug chief 
Barry McCaffrey, a retired general,, the pro-drug people and organizations 
would get away with using the weapons even more important than the money of 
their sponsors the lies and distortions they throw at the public.

Gen. McCaffrey went after one of the propaganda peddlers on Tim Russert's 
"Meet the Press"; I treasure the transcript. The man is one Gary Johnson, 
the Republican governor of New Mexico. He is known outside New Mexico only 
because of his being an eager supporter of legalization of heroin and 
marijuana, and a user (former, of course) of cocaine. One by one, the 
general exposed Mr. Johnson's "errors" and then issued a putdown I fully 
intend to steal in future columns: "Everybody is entitled to their own 
opinions. . . . You are not entitled to your own facts."

Now, doctor, I have a dilemma. Here I am congratulating the new drug czar 
and the outgoing one, the anti-drug specialists in law enforcement and 
therapy, but not specifically the president.

The reason is that he has disappointed the hopes of so many people who 
believed he would give the country what it needs most to fight the drug war 
presidential leadership, the feeling that this new president would throw 
himself into a crusade against drugs, not just do his bureaucratic duty of 
appointing an anti-drug chief. He did not.

During the campaign, Mr. Bush barely spoke of the importance of fighting 
drugs. It took him three months in office to decide on the person he 
wanted, although there are a number of well-known and fully qualified 
people. Some of the president's supporters say Mr. Clinton took the same 
amount of time; Mr. Clinton is not my role model. Some ducked the 
appointment because the president is seriously considering withdrawing the 
job's Cabinet-rank status.

That status gave the drug czar participation in a large range of financial 
and social problems connected to drug-fighting and put him within the inner 
power loop.

Why Mr. Bush would downgrade the position nobody can or will tell me except 
in mumble-jumble that means nothing except embarrassment. It is not so much 
the new anti-drug chief who would lose status and respect as the president. 
Mr. Bush can win the anti-drug leadership still, but it has to be done 
quickly, clearly and continuously and by him, not only surrogates. It does 
not seem too much to ask a president to lead one of the most important 
struggles America faces. That is my last jolly thought for today, doctor or 
no doctor.

A.M. Rosenthal, the former executive editor of the New York Times, is a 
nationally syndicated columnist.
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