[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 33 (Tuesday, March 22, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: March 22, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                 DRUGS SHOULD BE FOREIGN POLICY CONCERN

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                        HON. BENJAMIN A. GILMAN

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, March 22, 1994

  Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, one of the most serious questions of this 
administration, more than 1 year into office, is its policy on illegal 
drugs. The administration's announced intention of focusing on 
treatment and rehabilitation of hardcore users means that resources 
will necessarily be diverted from other vital areas, such as 
interdiction.
  I am particularly concerned over administration plans to cut back in 
the areas of international interdiction and eradication. Proposals such 
as turning the State Department's Bureau for International Narcotics 
Matters into an amalgam that includes crime and terrorism--each of 
which merit attention on their own--will be a clear signal abroad that 
narcotics is not longer a top foreign policy issue for the United 
States.
  A few days ago, New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, spoke to the 
Washington Times about the importance of placing narcotics at the top 
of U.S. foreign policy concerns. If anyone, Mr. Guliani knows from 
direct experience as the U.S. attorney for New York what is needed to 
effectively prosecute the never-ending war on narcotics. He also knows, 
as mayor of the Nation's largest city, the impact of illicit drugs on 
crime, health care costs, and the very viability of our great cities.
  In an article in the Times, Mayor Giuliani said that local government 
may have a bigger role to play in combating narcotics, but only the 
Federal Government can provide overall guidance, and to do so properly 
it has to make the drug problem a matter of foreign policy.
  Mr. Speaker, I commend the article to my colleagues and ask that it 
be printed in the Record at this point.

               [From the Washington Times, Mar. 16, 1994]

                    Giuliani Urges Drug-War Priority

                          (By Ralph Z. Hallow)

       The United States created the world's drug problem and 
     could solve it by putting drugs at the top of America's 
     foreign policy agenda, New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said 
     yesterday.
       ``What the federal government can do to help New York and 
     other cities is to get seriously engaged in the drug 
     problem,'' Mr. Giuliani said at a luncheon with editors and 
     reporters of The Washington Times.
       Although a Republican, Mr. Giuliani did not single out 
     President Clinton and his Democratic administration in 
     Washington for what he called 25 years of national failure on 
     the foreign policy-drug policy front.
       Mr. Giuliani, who defeated incumbent Mayor David Dinkins 
     last year, argued that only the federal government can see 
     every aspect of the problem and therefore have influence over 
     every aspect of illicit drugs.
       ``It might very well be local government has a bigger role 
     to play, but only the federal government can guide the effort 
     so that you get the benefit out of the various roles the 
     local governments should play,'' he said.
       To guide that effort, the federal government has to make 
     the drug problem a matter of foreign policy. ``New York, Los 
     Angeles or Philadelphia can't,'' he said. ``And if the 
     federal government doesn't make that a major aspect of 
     foreign policy, then it can't get done.''
       Asked why drugs, in his view, have not been a major thrust 
     of foreign policy, he said: ``This is something I've 
     struggled with for 25 years. I don't know why.''
       The former federal prosecutor said: ``The exercise of 
     foreign policy is trying to advance the interest of your 
     country, and we understand this in terms of peace and war and 
     international trade. But domestically, one of our great 
     problems is drugs.
       He said President Nixon started moving in the right 
     direction on drugs and foreign policy and President Reagan 
     also ``did for a while. . . . But it never really entered 
     into the foreign-policy establishment.''
       Mr. Giuliani, who became the third-ranking member of the 
     Reagan administration's Justice Department, said the State 
     Department's foreign-policy establishment ``doesn't consider 
     drugs one of the very important things they're supposed to 
     deal with.''
       ``The only person who can change that is the president--by 
     talking about it, getting it to enter into the minds of the 
     State Department,'' said Mr. Giuliani, who began as a 
     Democrat in Brooklyn and became a Republican in the mid-
     1970s.
       He said that persuading other countries to stop harvesting 
     poppies--and exporting opium and heroin--is not a questions 
     of how much the United States can pay to replace the crops.
       ``It isn't a matter of cost,'' Mr. Giuliani said. ``There's 
     no solution to any problem that we have enough money for. The 
     world's drug problem was created by the United States on the 
     demand side. We spend so much money on drugs that we draw the 
     drugs to us. . . .
       ``We have to show we're serious about reducing that,'' he 
     said. ``It's just as important that we convince foreign 
     countries to cooperate with us. If we were more 
     sophisticated, we could explain to the government of 
     Colombia--independent of whether we give it a penny--why it's 
     in its self-interest to do away with the poppy crop. The 
     economy of Colombia is built on a false base.''
       Asked why Colombia could not figure that out on its own, 
     Mr. Giuliani said, ``They just need a push from us in that 
     direction.''

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