Source: Associated Press Pubdate: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 DRUG CZAR: GINGRICH 'IRRESPONSIBLE' WASHINGTON (AP) -- White House drug policy chief Barry R. McCaffrey charged Monday that House Speaker Newt Gingrich was playing partisan politics and being ``irresponsible'' in rejecting out-of-hand President Clinton's plan to reduce illegal drug use. ``I've got an enormous concern about this,'' McCaffrey told The Associated Press. ``My immediate reaction is that this is irresponsible.'' Clinton and Gingrich both talked about drug policy in separate radio addresses Saturday, with the speaker dismissing the president's long-term plan as a ``hodgepodge of half-steps and half-truths'' and saying he will ask the House to pass a resolution asking for the White House to withdraw it. He described it as the ``definition of failure.'' ``This strikes me as this brilliant man Newt Gingrich conducting drug policy by what I would have termed in my last life as ``ready, fire, aim,''' said McCaffrey, a retired Army general. ``I'm sympathetic to partisan wrangling and know that Newt Gingrich is looking for issues for the midterm election, but that's not what I signed up to do. I'm afraid he's going to do a disservice to a comprehensive strategy.'' Gingrich's spokeswoman, Christina Martin, said the Republican from Georgia had met McCaffrey several times and tried to work with him. ``There's nothing hasty or political about Speaker Gingrich's deep disappointment that the Clinton administration cannot put together a serious strategy for saving America's teens in a more timely and effective manner,'' Martin said. ``The bottom line: the speaker worries that the slower, more ineffective America's drug plan is, the more young lives lost and damaged.'' Clinton said he hopes to cut the number of Americans using drugs in half over the next decade. To accomplish that, the administration has budgeted $17.1 billion for next year for expanded prevention education, more border patrol and Drug Enforcement Agency agents, more community policy and expanded prisoner treatment. ``We put thousands of hours of work into it,'' McCaffrey said. ``Before we went to print we had the support of law enforcement officers, academics, mayors, ... this has been a non-partisan approach to the problem that is widely supported around the country.'' Gingrich, in his radio address, asked why it should take a decade to cut drug use when the Civil War was won and slavery abolished in just four. The speaker, who has made a drug-free America the first among four long-term goals for America, said the GOP-led Congress would pass its own anti-drug agenda. Other goals are better education, lower taxes and reforming Social Security. He suggests building community anti-drug coalitions, giving parents more anti-drug information, creating drug-free workplaces through market incentives and starting a national clearinghouse for anti-drug information. McCaffrey said the administration, with Republican help, had implemented some of those ideas such as community coalitions and a national youth strategy.