Rolling Out the Big Guns

By Jacob V. Lamar Jr

Though some furniture was rearranged to make way for lights, cameras and teleprompters, the West Hall of the White House was supposed to look pretty much as it would on an ordinary Sunday evening. The atmosphere was to be friendly and intimate as the President and Nancy Reagan welcomed a projected 80 million television viewers into their home. Producer Roger Ailes, a trusted old pro, worked to make sure the camera angles were just right. Ken Khachigian, a former Reagan campaign speechwriter known for his rhetorical flair, collaborated on the address. The details had to be perfect, for the President and his wife were going to speak to America on a subject that has emerged as the nation's hottest topic: the fight against drug abuse.

The President planned to reiterate his initiatives for the fight: drug-free schools and workplaces, expanded drug treatment, stronger law enforcement and drug interdiction efforts, and greater public awareness. "Drugs are menacing our society," Reagan planned to say. "They're threatening our values and undercutting our institutions. They're killing our children." The First Lady was going to stress further the vulnerability of the nation's youth: "Today there is a drug and alcohol epidemic in this country, and no one is safe from it -- not you, not me and certainly not our children, because this epidemic has their names written on it."

The abuse of illegal drugs has certainly become the Issue of the Year, except that the main issue involved seems to be how far politicians scramble to outdo one another in leading the crusade. The Administration last week came up with a plan to require more than 1 million federal employees who deal with sensitive information (everyone from defense-contract employees to diplomats) to submit urine samples for drug testing.

The Democratic-controlled House, with Republicans in overwhelming accord, abandoned budgetary restraints -- and perhaps a few constitutional ones as well -- by passing a bill that would throw as much as $4 billion over the next three years into a wide array of antidrug efforts, permit the military to protect the country's borders from drug trafficking and impose a federal death penalty on those who commit murder while dealing in drugs. Across the country candidates were not only trying to top their opponents with radical proposals for tackling the problem but were challenging one another to urinating contests as a demonstration of fealty to the cause.

This sudden, aggressive activism no doubt reflects a genuine desire on the part of political leaders to wipe out drug abuse in the U.S. But this is an election year. Being against drug abuse may seem about as extraordinary a stand as being for motherhood, yet conservatives and liberals alike are making sure the voters know where they stand. "There aren't a lot of emotional, personal issues this year," explains Barbara Pardue, spokeswoman for the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee. "The drug issue cuts across all economic and age groups, older people, teenagers, parents, you name it. Blacks are concerned, whites are concerned. It is a universal issue."

In a survey conducted last week for TIME by Yankelovich Clancy Shulman, 75% of respondents said they believe drug use in the country as a whole is very serious. (Some 17% said it is fairly serious, 6% somewhat serious and 1% not serious.) Only 35%, however, agreed that it is very serious in their own communities. While experts think regular cocaine use leveled off about six years ago, the number of Americans who say they know someone who has tried the drug has actually grown in the past 3 1/2 years. In March 1983, 24% said someone close to them had used coke; today the figure is 39%. Among people between the ages of 18 and 34, some 63% said they know coke users. Only 14% of all respondents admitted to having used coke themselves.

In the TIME poll, 69% of the public said they would favor a drug-testing program at their company, while 23% said they would be against it; 81% said that if given a choice they would agree to be tested. More specific questions, however, disclosed some deep ambivalences: 58% said they agreed with the statement, "It is people's right not to be tested if they do not want to be," and 44% with the statement, "There are too many questions about the accuracy of drug tests for them to be used to test people at work."

The $4 billion House bill, which has not yet been considered by the Senate, would provide significant new funding for drug interdiction, law enforcement, education, rehabilitation and treatment. Passed by a 392 to 16 vote, it contained several hastily drafted, and not always wise, amendments.

One would require the President to deploy, within 30 days after passage of the bill, military equipment and personnel to thwart drug trafficking. Although the posse comitatus act of 1878 generally forbids the armed forces from enforcing civil laws, the bill would allow the military to arrest dealers captured in "hot pursuit." Said David Westrake, an official of the Drug Enforcement Administration: "Increased military support is welcome and needed." But a variety of civil-liberties advocates immediately demurred, as did the Defense Department. Said Spokesman Robert Sims: "It is a bad precedent to use the Army as a police force." Other critics said the amendment would hurt military preparedness and questioned whether soldiers could be properly trained as law enforcers in 30 days. Proponents dismissed such caution. "This is war," declared Mississippi Republican Trent Lott. "If this isn't defending the shores, I don't know what is."

Another amendment would allow prosecutors to introduce into federal trials evidence that had been obtained illegally without a warrant as long as law- enforcement officials seized the material "in good faith." New Jersey Democrat Peter Rodino, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said the amendment had not been considered in hearings by his panel. "All day long we've been fighting the war on drugs," said he. "Now it seems that the attack is on the Constitution of the United States."

Although Congress is stretching its fiscal imagination, juggling budget figures to stay below the $144 billion debt limit set for next year by the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Deficit Reduction Act, there was little talk of restraint on the subject of curbing drug abuse. House Speaker Tip O'Neill last week said he would favor new taxes to pay for the plan. "I'm afraid this bill % is the legislative equivalent of crack," said Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank, one of the handful of Congressmen who voted against the package. "It yields a short-term high but does long-term damage to the system. And it's expensive to boot."

The President's plan, which will probably form the basis for the Senate's version of a bill, was touted by the White House as containing $2.5 billion for the drug war. In fact, it would probably authorize only $250 million in new spending and it does not contain grants to local governments for programs, like prison construction, that made the House bill so politically popular.

One controversial part of the President's plan is the recommendation for random drug testing of 1.1 million federal employees. In discussing the proposal last week, a Cabinet counsel agreed that a worker who flunks his first test should undergo drug treatment, but there was some dispute over whether a second failure should result in firing. Presidential Counsel Peter Wallison objected that dismissal "would be punitive." Shot back Education Secretary William Bennett, a hawk in the drug war: "It's meant to be punitive." Noting that his own plan for getting rid of drugs in schools called for expulsion of second-time offenders, Bennett asked: "How can you be harder on kids than you are on tax-supported federal workers?" In the end, the proposal won unanimous approval.

Amid the preparations for her joint television address Sunday night, Nancy Reagan carried her campaign against drugs to Harper's Ferry, W. Va., site of John Brown's 1859 rebellion. Calling drugs a "silent killer," she said they had the "potential of tearing our country apart, just like the Civil War did." Although most officials sincerely support that sentiment, even within the Administration there are some who are becoming cautious about turning the war on drugs into something resembling the Civil War's Wilderness Campaign, with a lot of frenetic and random shooting in all directions.

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With reporting by David Beckwith and Michael Duffy/Washington