MPERIAL BEACH, Calif. - Standing 30 feet from the border of Mexico, Republican presidential candidate Elizabeth Dole yesterday promised to reduce the flow of illegal drugs into the United States and pressure other countries to do the same.
Dole said she would increase the number of US Border Patrol agents from 8,000 to 20,000 and increase the use of high-tech antismuggling devices at the border.
She would also cut off aid to nations that refuse to extradite suspected traffickers or that make no progress toward reducing their supply of drugs to the United States.
''President Elizabeth Dole will lead a crusade with the goal of a drug-free America,'' said Dole.
The former cabinet secretary spoke to about 20 people at Borderfield State Park, 15 miles south of San Diego.
About 10 Mexicans and a reporter from a Tijuana newspaper listened from the other side of the border fence as Dole spoke about increasing the US Border Patrol. Though its primary mission is to control immigration, the patrol should use agents in the drug war, Dole said.
The get-tough-on-drugs address is Dole's third in a rollout of what aides say are the four cornerstones of her campaign: education, national defense, drugs, and taxes.
She noted studies that show a doubling of teen drug use since 1992, the year Clinton was elected, undoing the ''gains of the 1980s `Just Say No' campaign ... during the Reagan and Bush presidencies.''
''The White House has not led a war on drugs,'' she said. ''It's not that they surrendered - they just didn't show up,'' she said.
The Clinton administration challenged her depiction of its antidrug efforts.
''Many of the objectives she states are exactly what the administration is doing,'' said Bob Weiner, spokesman for Barry McCaffrey, director of the White House National Drug Policy Office.
The administration has committed $17.8 billion to antidrug efforts this year, ''the strongest anti-drug budget in history,'' said Weiner, who added that youth drug abuse declined 13 percent last year.
