WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bill Clinton proposed a new drug strategy on Saturday with the aim of cutting illicit drug use in half over the next decade.
     "This plan builds on our strategy of tougher punishment, better prevention, and more partnerships to shut down the international drug trade," Clinton said in his weekly radio address.
     Clinton said there have been successes in the war on drugs, saying studies have shown the number of Americans who use drugs has fallen by a half since 1979.
     "But that number is still too large," he said. "We can and must cut drug use in America by another 50 percent."
     As evidence that recent administration policies are working, Clinton cited a Justice Department study that reported progress in weaning from drugs those who have served time in federal prisons.
     It said those inmates who received drug treatment were 73 percent less likely to be rearrested and 44 percent less likely to test positive for drugs in the first six months after their release than those who did not receive treatment. The study involved 1,866 inmates at 30 prisons.
     "Not too long ago, there were some who said our fight against drugs and crime was hopelessly lost," Clinton said. "Well, crime has fallen every year for the last five years and now the tide is turning against drugs."
     In the Republicans' response, House Speaker Newt Gingrich charged that "strong leadership has disappeared" in the fight against teenage drug use since President Clinton was elected in 1992. Gingrich said there has been "a resounding silence from the White House on drugs" that has resulted in skyrocketing use of drugs by teens.
     He said President Clinton's proposal for cutting drug use effectively meant that, by 2007, youth drug use would be about where it was 15 years earlier in 1992 since so many more teens were using drugs.
     Gingrich said that was an unacceptable "timetable for defeat" and pledged the Republican-dominated Congress would propose more sweeping legislation to shrink drug use.
     Gingrich offered no timetable for such an initiative but insisted President Clinton withdraw his "so-called drug plan and its hodgepodge of half-steps and half-truth" and join Congress in a broader effort.
     Clinton's anti-drug plan for the 1999 budget year starting next Oct. 1 would cost a record $17 billion, an increase of $1 billion over the current fiscal year.
     It includes a $195 million national youth anti-drug media campaign, $50 million for school drug prevention coordinators, $163 million for border patrols, as well as $74 million for interdiction efforts in the Andean region and the Caribbean and to train Mexican counter-drug forces.
     Clinton said his strategy envisions 1,000 more border patrol agents, working closely with neighboring countries. They would use the latest technologies to monitor the borders to keep illegal drugs from entering the United States.