Barry McCaffrey, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), says that ultimate success against the global scourge of drug abuse and trafficking will depend on concerted domestic and international efforts to reduce both the demand and supply of drugs. One priority is to inoculate American youth against drug use by running effective drug education prevention programs based on the family, schools and religious institutions. The other priority is to attack the international drug criminal conspiracy that threatens our democracies and our children.

McCaffrey, who serves as President Clinton's chief drug policy spokesman, was confirmed by unanimous vote of the U.S. Senate on February 29, 1996. Prior to his confirmation, General McCaffrey was the commander-in-chief of the U.S. Southern Command based in Panama.

Question: Some countries complain that the United States is not doing enough about its own serious drug consumption problem. What is being done to reduce demand?

McCaffrey: It's an excellent question. It is essential that we face this terrible menace to the North American people -- a problem that kills 20,000 of us a year and costs $67,000 million in losses. We are pleased to report there has been a 30 percent reduction in cocaine use in the United States in the past three years alone. As a result of aggressive prevention efforts, the number of illegal drug users has fallen by half since 1985, from 22 million people to less than 12 million. Also, the number of new heroin users dropped by 25 percent between 1975 and the early 1990s. So there's no question we've made a dramatic change. We don't see airline pilots, subway drivers, university faculty or the armed forces impaired by drug abuse. They were in the 1970s. So we've come a long way.

The second observation I'd make is that over 50 percent of the President's $15,100 million drug control budget for fiscal year 1997 goes toward prisons and law enforcement. The United States last year prosecuted 18,000 people in the federal system and convicted 15,000. Two-thirds of the 100,000 people who are in the federal prison system are there for drug-related offenses. Altogether, 250,000 Americans are serving time for drug law violations. There is no question that we will move ruthlessly to attack this threat to the American people.

But it is clear to us that drug addiction and abuse is an international problem. It is not a Colombian problem or a U.S. problem. It's a global problem. We have only four percent of the heroin addicts in the world. The vast majority of illicit drugs consumed in the United States is produced in other countries. So it's something we're going to have to work out in cooperation with one another. The problem isn't Mexico or Columbia or U. S. demand, the problem is drugs and an international criminal business that exploits them. I mean there are Russian criminal elements involved in this and Colombian criminal elements and many others. And we are absolutely focused on being tough with the international criminal conspiracy that's cost this nation more than 100,000 dead between 1990 and 1995. Success will be achieved through training and assistance programs, efforts at reducing cultivation and production, and strong law enforcement to destroy the trafficking organizations and deprive them of their profits.

Q: How do treatment programs fit into the national drug control strategy?

McCaffrey: What we want to do is make sure we have a balanced approach that moves to drug treatment, education, and prevention, as well as our current firm, judicial response. There are only 3.1 million hard-core chronic addicts in the United States. There are 260 million-plus Americans. But these three million chronic addicts cause tremendous damage to society. They're consuming two-thirds of the total drugs that come into the country. They commit the majority of drug-related crimes. Two-thirds of them are under arrest, awaiting trial, in prison or on parole in any given year. And the question is, are we going to do something other than arrest and imprison them? The answer is yes. We've got to move to treatment programs. If you invest in that you'll have a safer workplace, safer schools, safer streets. So if you don't like crime and violence you will like drug treatment programs that are effective, perhaps not in eliminating drug abuse but in minimizing the damage it does to our society. While the shortfall of available drug treatment services remains significant, the percentage of those who required and subsequently received treatment increased from 38 percent in 1990 to 52 percent in 1994. Additionally, the number of individuals in treatment programs has increased steadily since 1980. Three of four companies with more than 250 employees have formal anti-drug programs in place.

Q: What can be done to halt the rise in teen drug use?

McCaffrey: The number one goal of the 1996 National Drug Control Strategy is to motivate America's youth to reject substance abuse. It's one of five goals, but it has clearly got to be the priority. Drug use among adolescents in America is skyrocketing. Past-month use of all drugs among youth aged 12 to 17 increased by 50 percent between 1992 and 1994. Marijuana use almost doubled. A third of high school seniors have used illegal substances since last year. And we're also seeing drug use start as early as the sixth grade. So we're seeing young people with a greatly increased predisposition to drug and alcohol abuse. And that's going to predictably yield a giant crop of violence and addiction down the line. We believe that the long-term solution lies in the schools. It you want to get major leverage on drugs in America, you don't go to the end of the equation where you have one-and-a-half million Americans in prisons and local jails. You go to the other end of the equation and talk drug education and prevention to our youth. This is not a hopeless proposition. It you take a credible anti-drug message to children from kindergarten to grade 12, you will make a major impact on youth attitudes. If you run effective drug education prevention programs based on the family, schools, religious institutions, and coaches, you will inoculate young people against the drug menace.

Q: You've talked about the demand for drugs in this country. What about supply? What are you prepared to do in cooperation with Mexico to slow the supply of drugs coming into the United States?

McCaffrey: Both Mexico and the United States are fundamentally challenged by the drug issue. Our children are at stake. Our institutions of government and our police forces are challenged. Our national airspace is violated. Our sea space is being penetrated by drug criminals. So it is clear to us that we must work in absolute cooperation with Mexican authorities, with absolute deference to the sovereignty of each nation. The Mexican police, prosecutors and armed forces are the only ones that are charged with protecting the Mexican people. The Mexican armed forces destroyed more illegal drugs last year than any nation on the face of the Earth, at a cost of their own sweat and blood. We, however, do see a responsibility to provide, where it's deemed appropriate, training, equipment, and cooperation. The cooperation will include a full sharing of intelligence and evidence in the justice system. So the two democracies jointly believe that no law breaker can evade justice in the other person's country.

Also, U.S. Attorney General Reno and I will co-host the Southwest Border Conference July 10 in El Paso, Texas. During the conference top federal officials will listen to state and local officials involved in working along the 2000-mile Mexico-U.S. border in cooperation with Mexican authorities. The successes of the early 1990s in ports of entry like Miami, Florida, have caused the international criminal drug organizations to shift patterns of smuggling so that now we believe more than 70 percent of illegal drugs that enter the United States come in through Mexico. And we're going to have to work in cooperation with our Mexican partners to bring this to a halt or reduce it drastically over the next several years. So we think that the meeting on the southwest border is crucial, and one of the things I hope to get out of it are insights needed to form a more rational concept of U.S. command and control efforts to protect the border.

Q: You've said we are not going to militarize the peaceful U.S.-Mexican border. So what do you see as the role of the armed forces in the war against drugs?

McCaffrey: The President's budget proposes over 1,500 new border patrol agents, including 700 from the Immigration and Naturalization Service and over 600 from Customs. The budget calls for a seven percent increase in funding for interdiction efforts along the southwest border. But this war will not be won by anybody's armies. This struggle is a matter for legislators and judges, police and prosecutors, religious leaders and school teachers, and most importantly, families. The armed forces must help in appropriate ways, in strict conformity with the laws of each country.

So we are not going to militarize the border, but the armed forces can help and they will. The U.S. Air Force and Navy are involved in detection and monitoring and are contributing enormously. The U.S. Southern Command spent $153 million on counter-drug operations last year. Some of the operations could only be done by the armed forces. For example, we flew about a thousand flights that year on counter-drug air interdiction. We have F-16s on standby alert, AWACS aircraft, Navy and Customs aircraft, and other intelligence collection efforts. We've put into operation two so-called over-the-horizon back-scatter radars that were originally built, but never installed, to protect us from the Russian Air Force. We've turned them around and they're now looking at the southern approach to the United States. And they're extremely effective. We've also installed a very sophisticated X-ray machine at a major border crossing point for trucks. The machine, originally developed for nuclear arms verification procedures, essentially has stopped Mexican drug smugglers from using that crossing point. We picked up 11 violations in the last 20 months. So we're going to get more mobile X-ray devices that in the coming years will bring to a halt the smuggling of drugs by land from Mexico into the United States. And over the next five to 10 years there is no question that drug introduction into Mexico and into the United States will go down.

We're also seeing new forms of international criminal behavior. A few months ago we seized a vessel in the Pacific Ocean carrying 12 tons of cocaine. So they are now trying to bypass Mexico. I think we're going to see a new maritime threat as the principal source of entry of drugs into the United States.

Q: The greatest increase in the 1997 budget proposal -- 25 percent -- is for international programs. What will be the main emphasis here?

McCaffrey: We need to break up both foreign and domestic sources of drugs. We don't spend much money on this. Only nine percent of the total budget goes toward interdiction -- $26 million for Colombia, $25 million for Peru, $50 million for Bolivia. Given the fact that this is a problem that we said in the decade of the nineties killed 100,000 Americans, can we make the case for working in cooperation with the government of Peru to reduce the amount of coca grown there? I think we can. And the same case can be made in Colombia, in Bolivia. And we're going to have to face up to the problem of Burma, which is the source of 60 percent of the heroin that comes into the United States. And we have other goals dealing with these societies. Clearly human rights is at the top of the agenda.

Our interdiction efforts in South America have disrupted the trafficking patterns of cocaine traffickers in Peru, causing them to change flight routes and modes of transportation. A third of the cocaine produced in the region is intercepted before it hits our streets and those of other countries. Information sharing with allied nations has resulted in interdictions, including multi-ton cocaine shipments. In the past five years the world's authorities have taken over 1,400 metric tons of cocaine out of the system. U.S. authorities captured about half of it. That's about two years worth of supply that isn't on the streets of the United States. Our counter-drug efforts last year dealt the traffickers serious blows. Six of seven ringleaders of the Cali Cartel were arrested, one killed by the Colombian police while resisting arrest. Key Asian countries have begun to arrest heroin kingpins and extradite them to the United States.

Q: How will the recent vote by Colombia's lower house of Congress to absolve President Samper of charges that his 1994 election was financed by drug traffickers affect our counter-drug cooperation with that country?

McCaffrey: I would just say up front that we are absolutely committed to the Colombian constitution and its own notion of democracy. But we are not satisfied that the parliament's decision has laid to rest these incredible allegations. The U.S. government will act in accordance with our own laws and examine our options over the next few days and weeks and we'll come to logical conclusions about what actions to take. There are economic sanctions being considered. We will look at those. In addition, we will look at the entire range of U.S.-Colombian relations and judge them by our viewpoint on counter-narcotics cooperation.

The U.S. decertification of Colombia earlier this year (a finding by President Clinton that Colombian authorities are not doing enough to combat drug trafficking) does not affect our counter-narcotics cooperation with that country. And so we have continued to act in absolute partnership with the Colombian police and armed forces where they're involved in a counter-drug mission that is limited, and in cooperation with Colombian judicial authorities. In FY 1996 we provided some $29 million in assistance to Colombian authorities with their counter-narcotics mission. In the coming budget, we have proposed $26 million in assistance funding. We have enormous admiration for the hundreds of Colombian police officers and soldiers who have been killed and wounded in this struggle. They are fighting for the survival of Colombian democracy against thousands of narco-guerrilla forces and international cartels.

Q: What are we doing to prevent money laundering by the international drug cartels?

McCaffrey: We have a very sophisticated international effort that we're building. We had a very useful meeting in Buenos Aires, Argentina, a year ago, and we're trying to ensure that all the democracies have laws that allow them to work on this problem -- laws that deal with wire tapping, the introduction of conspiracy evidence, and money laundering techniques. Mexico has just passed significant new legislation that will allow them to start dealing more effectively with money laundering. The Panamanians are going to, we believe, attempt to confront money laundering. And we have a very important task force effort involving the U.S. Internal Revenue Service and all our law enforcement agencies to go after the money laundering system. We're starting to drive it out of U.S. banks and into marginal banks. So we're doing pretty well at it.

Q: You say this country's drug problem cannot be solved overnight and will require a 10-year commitment. What would you like to see in terms of reduction in drug use at the end of that 10 years?

McCaffrey: There is no reason why we can't return America to a 1960's level, a pre-Vietnam-era level of drug use. We won't achieve a total victory on drugs. We shouldn't expect that. We can't take every heroin or crack addict and cure them of their addiction. But we should expect to reduce by enormous amounts the number of young people using drugs and the damage that this epidemic does. So if you ask me for a target, let's go back to pre-Vietnam-level eras of illegal drugs.

Jim Fuller writes on narcotics and other global issues for the U.S. Information Agency.