Departing DEA Chief Assails Clinton Drug Policy : Narcotics: Robert C. Bonner says government is not ‘sending a clear signal’ on problem. He questions focus on treatment of hard-core addicts.

WASHINGTON —  Departing Drug Enforcement Administration chief Robert C. Bonner is warning that the government is no longer “sending a clear signal” on illicit narcotics, and he questioned the Clinton Administration’s strategy of focusing its efforts on treatment of hard-core drug addicts.

In an interview last week--held for publication until today, when he officially steps down--Bonner said that emphasizing treatment for hard-core abusers “is doomed to failure” if it means curtailing money for efforts to curb casual use.

As a result, he said, a steady stream of less-addicted users would more than replace the ranks of cured addicts.

Moreover, he maintained that “the success record of treatment programs is not very good.”

Bonner, a former federal judge and U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, has headed the DEA since August, 1990. He has said he decided to leave the DEA to return to a private law practice, where he expects “to be handling high-stakes kinds of litigation matters.” No successor has been named.

The focus on hard-core addicts was the centerpiece of the interim drug strategy that Lee P. Brown, director of the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy, presented to the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this month.

Brown, acknowledging that some progress had been made in reducing casual or intermittent drug use, said that emphasis now must be placed on reducing the hard-core abusers who are responsible for a large portion of cocaine use.

Bonner said he does not oppose drug treatment or research into treatment methods, but he does not believe that the government should pay for such programs by shifting money from enforcement.

He also said the government is sending out a “more ambiguous and muted” signal about drugs than it once did. The Administration has been criticized for failing to draw up a clear, strong drug policy.

Bonner did not place the blame entirely on President Clinton. “Backsliding” began during the George Bush Administration, around the time of the buildup for the Persian Gulf War, he said.

As evidence, Bonner cited previously reported surveys indicating increasing drug use among eighth graders and “the beginning of a very significant increase in the number of heroin abusers in the United States.”

Bonner said the increased heroin use also reflects “that there is an absolute glut of heroin” in the country.

He also called for reducing the emphasis on interdicting drugs by locating and seizing shipments. That approach plays to the strength of the major trafficking organizations, he said.

“We are playing into their hands because they have the financial capability and the organization simply to increase the production of cocaine relatively quickly to make up for losses, and the profits are so great that there’s no problem doing it,” he said.

He said large amounts of resources could be moved from expensive interdiction efforts to “a more highly focused attack on the leadership, key members and infrastructure of these major trafficking organizations.” This is the “kingpin” strategy the DEA emphasized under Bonner.

The Administration has already announced a “controlled shift of emphasis” away from interdiction toward pursuing drug producers in source countries. Last week, it scaled back the use of aircraft and ships for drug interdiction in the Caribbean, claiming a savings of $200 million.

Previously reluctant to discuss turf wars that have hampered the nation’s anti-drug efforts, Bonner addressed the friction among the DEA, the FBI and the U.S. Customs Service, the federal agencies most involved in fighting drugs.

While noting that he was pleased by Atty. Gen. Janet Reno’s decision not to merge the DEA into the FBI, Bonner said he found fault with her naming of FBI Director Louis J. Freeh to head a new Justice Department office devoted to mediating disputes involving the FBI, the DEA, the U.S. Marshals Service and the Border Patrol.

He said it represented “an abdication of the responsibility of the Justice Department,” which he contended should “exercise civilian policy control over federal law enforcement agencies.”

While Bonner expressed “the highest regard for Freeh,” he said that “having the director of the FBI call the shots here certainly is not going to create the perception of impartiality, neutrality that I think is important.”

Bonner said his Washington experience showed “that the agency that prevails when there is some dispute is the agency with the ear to the throne.” In this case, senior FBI officials who meet with Freeh daily “will have the ear to the throne,” he said.

He expressed concern that every minor dispute between the FBI and the DEA out in the field “now will be sucked up to the Freeh committee.” He cited a recent dispute between the FBI and the DEA in San Francisco over submitting an affidavit to a court for authority to use a listening device.

Freeh said this was a minor dispute usually left to the local U.S. attorney to resolve, but that an FBI supervisor, whom he did not identify, said: “ ‘Either a bureau agent is going to sign the affidavit or we’re going to take it to the Freeh committee.’ That’s the mentality of the FBI.”