American Notes DRUGS

Ordering drug offenders to register with the police, revoking their driver's licenses, marking their cars with bumper stickers. Requiring federally subsidized landlords to certify that their dwellings are drug free. These and other stringent proposals to combat the drug epidemic are under consideration by the National Drug Policy Board, headed by Attorney General Edwin Meese.

The recommendations came from U.S. Customs Commissioner William von Raab, architect of the Administration's controversial zero-tolerance program, which briefly made headlines with the seizure of huge yachts found to be carrying minute amounts of drugs. Some suggestions are mild -- withholding some federal aid from states that fail to adopt strict antidrug policies. Others are radical -- flooding the market with "benign pseudo drugs" to confuse users. Says Von Raab: "The American people are going to have to suffer some inconvenience in order to win this war."