CONTINUE FIGHT AGAINST DRUGS

Retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey departed this month as director of the
White House Office of National Drug Control Policy with a mixed record.

On the plus side, drug use by adolescents is down 21 percent since 1997.
Drug-related murders are down by half since 1990. Federal spending on
programs to prevent drug abuse has increased 55 percent since 1996. The
number of community drug courts has gone from only 12 in 1994 to about 700
planned or in operation today.

Moreover, the use of illegal drugs in the United States has declined by
about 50 percent over the last 20 years.

Unfortunately, there is also bad news. The use of so-called club drugs,
like ecstasy, by teen-agers is increasing almost exponentially. Heroin is
making a comeback. The methamphetamine plague continues. About 6 percent of
Americans use illegal narcotics. And 57 percent of addicts in the United
States get no drug treatment. That's disastrous.

In addition, escalating federal efforts over more than 20 years to
interdict drugs entering the United States have failed to reduce their
availability or raise their street prices. Cocaine and marijuana are
cheaper than ever.

So it's easy for skeptics to brand America's supposed "war on drugs" a
failure, and even urge its termination. It's also easy enough to brand
McCaffrey a failure.

Easy, but wrong.

In truth, McCaffrey was by far the most energetic and determined White
House drug fighter in the dozen years the office has existed. True, he made
mistakes, like his misguided plan to buy anti-drug messages inserted into
television entertainment. His bureaucratic battle to put himself into a
centralized chain of command that the drug war lacks proved a divisive
flop. Agencies like the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration predictably
resisted any encroachment on their authority.

Still, McCaffrey used the office's bully pulpit relentlessly to crusade
against the drug abuse that kills an estimated 50,000 Americans a year. He
got steady increases in funding for counter-narcotics programs. Two decades
ago, the federal government spent barely $1 billion fighting drugs. Today
the figure is $19 billion.

Federal funding for drug treatment and drug prevention has increased
dramatically, with McCaffrey's support.

The Bush administration should spend the time needed to digest the lessons
McCaffrey learned, and the recommendations he leaves behind. Those start
with, in McCaffrey's words, "prevention coupled with treatment accompanied
by research." And no to the drug legalization that would constitute surrender.