Bush's antidrug plan urges screening

DENVER -- The Bush administration yesterday unveiled its 2006 antidrug program, a campaign that encourages high schools to screen students and urges teens to live above the influence of drugs and peer pressure.

Drug use among some teen groups is down, and this year's strategy focuses on expanding or improving existing campaigns for prevention, treatment, and reducing supplies, said John P. Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

''We're not radically tearing things up because, for the first time in a couple of decades, we're having dramatic results," he said in an interview before presenting the strategy at a youth substance-abuse treatment center. ''We want to keep the pressure on."

Illicit drug use among 8th, 10th, and 12th graders had dropped by 19 percent, or about 700,000 teens, since 2001, he said.

Since the Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that schools may randomly test high school students in competitive extracurricular activities, his office and the Department of Education have provided grants and other support to at least 350 school districts to screen students.

The White House strategy calls for expanding intervention programs and increasing treatment options, increased funding for drug courts, which can order supervised drug treatment rather than prison time, and stepped-up enforcement to halt production and transportation of drugs.

The fiscal 2007 budget request for the agency is $12.7 billion, the agency said.