[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 12 (Wednesday, February 9, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: February 9, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                       PRESIDENT'S DRUG STRATEGY

  (Mr. GILMAN asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, today the President released his long-
awaited national strategy on drug control, which emphasizes treating 
and rehabilitating hardcore drug abusers while cutting back on 
broadscale overseas interdiction.
  Sadly, this policy is a signal to drug traffickers to expand their 
shipments to the United States.
  If the Colombian drug cartels were listed on the New York Stock 
Exchange, Wall Street would issue a buy signal for them after reading 
the President's new strategy.
  It stands to reason that if interdiction is allowed to lag, more 
drugs will come into the country and this will create more users. 
Because today's user becomes tomorrow's abuser, the very treatment 
programs on which the administration wants to focus eventually will be 
swamped.
  Mr. Speaker, many of us in the Congress have been in the front lines 
of our drug war for a long time and we have come to know what is 
essential. We don't need to reinvent the wheel.
  We have to fight the drug war on five major battlefields--
simultaneously reducing demand and supply through eradication and 
interdiction, enforcement, education, and treatment. We must go beyond 
the users and the abusers, and stop the pushers and producers to be 
effective in the battle against drugs and crime.

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