
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, March 2, 1990                   TAG: 9003022892
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By Associated Press
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

LEADING DRUG AGENT QUITS IN DISGUST WITH LEADERSHIP

NEW YORK - A leading federal drug agent who resigned this week says the nation's multibillion-dollar drug war is being compromised by inexperienced leaders and a politically fueled demand for quick success.

Robert Stutman, who until Wednesday was chief of the New York office of the Drug Enforcement Administration, maintained in an interview that efforts to stem drug smuggling - a focus of the drug war - are virtually futile.

In unusual remarks for a prominent law enforcement official, Stutman said the Bush administration has overemphasized the role of law enforcement in fighting drugs. He urged greater attention to education and treatment.

"For too long American policy-makers and others have depended on people who carry a badge to solve the problem, and it's not going to happen that way," Stutman said. "The problem is we continue to try to sell the American public on short-term answers. And that's what law enforcement is."

Stutman, 46, a 25-year DEA veteran, said he believed that inexperience in the federal Office of National Drug Control Policy, led by former Education Secretary William J. Bennett, was contributing to the policy flaws.

"I'm not sure the people who are presently setting policy have the experience level and are dealing enough with what's happened in the past," he said. "One of the attitudes I saw in Bennett's office was, `We don't want to even hear what happened in the past, because that's all been a failure."'

Fred La Sor, a spokesman for Bennett's office, disagreed with Stutman's suggestion that its leaders had been ignoring the expertise of others.

More broadly, he said: "We have to do what we have to do. Congress is asking for results. The White House is asking for results. The American public is asking for results. We're going after results, and I think we're getting some."

La Sor said the year-old drug policy office was focusing, in part, on interdiction because the U.S. government handles that work alone, while state, local and private programs share treatment and education efforts.

by CNB