Just Say Whoa

Cocaine prices are up. The number of drug overdoses is down. Marijuana is relatively scarce. Surveys indicate that "casual" drug use in the U.S. is declining. Latin America's top drug kingpins are on the run. Federal antidrug spending is at an all-time high ($9.5 billion planned for this year).

So claims William Bennett, President Bush's drug czar, who asserts that the Administration's war on drugs has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. That is also the reason given for Bennett's resignation last week, effective Nov. 30, after just 20 months in office. "I feel I've done what I promised the President I would try to do," he said. When the combative Bennett took the post as director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, he told Bush that to fight the drug menace he needed a coherent strategy, bipartisan support for the effort and more money. Now, he says, "that's done."

Many may disagree with that assessment, but Bennett is getting out while his stock is at its highest. Congress has just approved virtually everything that Bennett recommended for fiscal 1991. Opinion polls show that the American public has become strongly intolerant of drug use. "We're on the road to victory," Bush declared last week as he bade farewell to his rumpled drug adviser.

Critics insist that Bennett, a conservative intellectual with an abrasive manner, simply burned out. "I don't understand this idea about declaring victory and quitting," said Democratic Representative Charles Rangel of New York, chairman of the House Narcotics Committee. "He must be smoking cigarettes without printing if he thinks he can lead me to any city, town or village and find anybody who will say, 'Thank you, Bill Bennett, there's light at the end of the tunnel.' " "Mr. Rangel," Bennett retorted, "is a gasbag."

Friends say Bennett yearns for more ideological battles and more challenging adversaries. He is joining the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, and he plans to write a couple of books on education and on his stint as drug czar. There was speculation in Washington that the next antidrug chieftain would be one of the high-profile Republicans who were defeated on Nov. 6. There was also talk at the White House of a successor with a military background. Whoever gets the job will have plenty to do. Americans still spend billions on cocaine and other illegal substances.