WASHINGTON — Nearly three-quarters of Americans say the United States is losing its war on drugs and that the appetite for drugs is so great the problem will never disappear, a poll by the Pew Research Center showed Wednesday.

"The real lesson here is we have to give a lot more attention and connect with the public about what's possible. You can't wave a magic wand and make it go away," said Maureen Steinbruner, president of the Center for National Policy that publicized the report.

The Washington-based Pew researchers polled 1,500 people in February and found 74 percent consider the U.S. campaign against drugs a failure. The poll had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

The poll also found that 68 percent of those questioned thought Latin America would never crack down on the problem in spite of U.S. drugs-related aid packages totaling some $700 million a year.

More than 40 percent of those interviewed thought the Bush administration should reduce the amount of U.S. money given to Colombia and other countries fighting drug producers.

Attorney General John Ashcroft made renewing the war on drugs one of his three top priorities when he took office in February.

With one-in-five Americans admitting that their family had been rocked by drug use, the poll found the public inclined to favor more compassionate treatment of drug offenders.

More than half said drug use should be treated as a disease instead of a crime.

Although still in favor of maintaining traditional tough approaches such as drug bans and jail terms, the public is more skeptical of them, the poll showed.

Steinbruner of the Center for National Policy agreed in a telephone interview that there was a role for interdiction and imprisonment but that other approaches had to be examined.

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"We started down this path 25 years ago and it's time for a new look," she said.

Steinbruner said the government should consider establishing compulsory treatment programs for victims of drug abuse as an alternative to incarceration.

"There's evidence building that the forced treatment package is showing some reasonable results," she said.

The Pew Research Center is an independent opinion research group that studies attitudes toward public policy issues.

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