``It's so important for Americans to know that the traffic in drugs finances the work of terror, sustaining terrorists, that terrorists use drug profits to fund their cells to commit acts of murder,'' Bush said. ``If you quit drugs, you join the fight against terror in America.
U.S. officials have accused Saudi-born fugitive Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network, blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, as well as their hosts, Afghanistan's Taliban rulers, of supporting themselves with illicit drug profits.
With the U.S.-led war forcing the Taliban to flee and an interim coalition government ready to take power on Dec. 22, Washington is keen to get rid of opium stockpiles in Afghanistan and to stop farmers from planting more poppies.
``The Taliban were a drug trafficking government,'' Steven Casteel, assistant administrator for intelligence at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said earlier this month. But he, and other experts, noted that the Northern Alliance, which has led the effort on the ground to oust the Taliban, were also heavily involved in the drug trade.
On the home front, Bush took aim at the Democratic administration of his predecessor, Bill Clinton, for failing to build on successes in the war on drugs under previous Republican presidents, including his father, George Bush.
'LOST GROUND'
``From the mid-80s to the early-90s, drug use among high school seniors was reduced each and every year, progress was steady and, over time, dramatic,'' he told a conference of community activists. ``Yet, recently, we've lost ground in this important battle.''
Bush said the latest data showed the percentage of 12th graders using an illegal drug in the previous month rose from less than 15 percent in 1992 to about 25 percent in 2000.
Over the same period, the percentage of 10th graders using an illicit drug in the previous month rose from 11 percent to more than 22 percent. Marijuana use among eighth graders rose, while their perceptions of its dangers fell and there was a similar decrease in the perception of risk involved with LSD and powder and crack cocaine, he said.
``Drug use threatens everything, everything that is best about our country,'' Bush told an appreciative audience. ``It turns productive citizens into addicts. It transforms schools into places of violence and chaos. It makes playgrounds into crime scenes.''
But Bob Weiner, spokesman for the Clinton administration's drug czar, disputed Bush's statistics, calling them ``ancient numbers'' and urged the new administration to reach out to both parties instead of pointing fingers.
``It does a disservice to all those who worked very hard to say that when a Democrat came in everything was bad,'' he told Reuters. ``It was an untrue statement.''
SOLID FOUNDATION
Saying there had been a 34 percent reduction in drug use in the past few years, Weiner acknowledged there was ``a long way to go'' but said the Clinton administration had left a solid foundation on which to build.
He said overall youth drug use actually declined in the last three years of Clinton's term. ``It did not go up and all the surveys showed that.''
After speaking, Bush signed legislation extending and expanding a program that supports community-based efforts to reduce the demand for illegal drugs, citing it as a step in his plan to cut use through education, prevention and treatment.
At his side was his own drug czar, John Walters, who also served under the elder Bush in the Office of Drug Control Policy. Walters ran into a firestorm of criticism from Democrats during his confirmation hearings when they challenged his drug-fighting philosophy as too focused on enforcement and punishment at the expense of treatment and prevention.
``We must aggressively and unabashedly teach our children the dangers of drugs, Bush said. ``We must aggressively treat addiction wherever we find it and we must aggressively enforce the laws against drugs at our borders and in our communities.''
``America cannot pick and choose between these goals, all are necessary if any are to be effective.''