The Clinton administration delivered its interim drug plan Wednesday - which was due last Feb. 1. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, immediately denounced as "a placebo."
Drug czar Lee Brown unveiled the plan at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing and said the administration will push programs to reduce hard-core addiction - but cut law enforcement programs to pay for them.Hatch, the committee's ranking Republican, called the plan "a major disappointment consisting largely of generalities and pitches for various Clinton administration proposals like the National Service Plan."
He added, "It is a placebo; a political document so general as to be unhelpful and useful only to give the appearance of taking this issues as seriously as it should be."
Democrats have complained that past Republican administrations wrongly devoted 70 percent of the anti-drug budget to law enforcement and international efforts, leaving only 30 percent for reducing the demand for drugs through education and treatment.
"Hard-core drug use fuels the overall demand for drugs and is the primary cause for so much of the disruption we see in our social landscape today," Brown said, explaining why the Clinton administration wants to shift focus.
The outline of its strategy relies on passage of a Democratic crime bill and its plan to fund 50,000 community police officers over the next few years, as well as the Brady bill gun-control measure, and President Clinton's health-care plan, which would fund drug treatment.
The strategy would reduce interdiction efforts in favor of promoting additional crackdowns within drug-producing countries, something criticized by former drug director William Bennett.
Even the nomenclature is changing. Clinton officials are rejecting the notion of a "war on drugs."
"The strategy rejects the use of `war' analogies to discuss our nation's drug abuse policy," Brown said. "You cannot succeed in this effort by declaring `war' on our own citizens."