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The Administration appears to be pursuing several drug strategies simultaneously. The President has asked for a 7% rise in the budget for law enforcement as well as $13 billion for drug-control programs, an increase of $804 million over the current year. Last month Lee Brown, the Administration's drug czar, told a Senate subcommittee that the drug-control programs would now emphasize "demand-reduction programs" would now emphasize young people. Attorney General Janet Reno has also adopted a high profile on drugs, campaigning for a "national agenda for children" that would attack the root causes of drug abuse and violence.
Meanwhile the daily challenge of containing the drug epidemic falls largely to local cops and DEA field offices. Ingenuity is the name of the game. In California, where 19% of the state's marijuana is grown indoors to evade detection, the DEA tracks purchases of illicit equipment, such as high- pressure sodium lights, to pick up the trail of growers. Minneapolis police have grown more sophisticated in tracking crack dealers who no longer keep cars, residences or bank accounts in their own names. "We've begun using financial records and become more knowledgeable in accounting and the flow of money," says Lieut. Bernie Bottema, supervisor of the city's narcotics unit. "We've had to rise to the level of our competition." It appears that level is not going to drop off anytime soon.