[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 85 (Tuesday, June 11, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6072-S6074]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             THE ROAD NOT TAKEN: DRUG POLICY AND LEADERSHIP

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I have spoken a number of times, last 
year and this year, on the need for a sound drug policy. We have 
entered a time, of course, when more teenagers are using drugs. It is a 
very serious problem. When more teenagers see no serious harm or wrong 
in using drugs, it seems to me that we cannot simply accept these facts 
in silence. We need to ask ourselves if we are prepared to see a repeat 
of the drug epidemic of the late 1960's and 1970's that claimed so many 
lives. It was an epidemic that destroyed so many young people and, of 
course, it brought a cycle of enduring pain to their respective 
families.
  Of course, I do not believe that we can afford to remain silent. It 
is not a responsible policy to be silent. It certainly is not effective 
leadership to preside over a repeat of what we know to have been a 
social disaster of epic proportions. To today's ears, this may sound 
like exaggeration, but a brief reminder might serve to make the memory 
fresh in our thinking.

  Before the 1960's, we had virtually no major problems in this country 
with illegal drug use. Then, beginning in the mid 1960's, the notion 
became current that drug use was not so bad, that drugs were your 
friend. It became common to hear the refrain that drug use was a 
personal choice that did no harm to anyone. That drugs could be used 
responsibly. That making drugs legal would end crime.
  Hollywood picked up this theme and replayed it in countless movies. 
Music and cultural leaders made drugs fashionable and exciting. Even 
government got into the act. By the mid and late 1970's, a number of 
States had decriminalized marijuana use and lowered the drinking age to 
18. Federal authorities began to talk about responsible drug use. 
Government experts accepted the notion that cocaine was not addictive. 
That marijuana use did not lead to so-called harder drugs. As the 
chorus on the wonders of drugs increased, dissenting voices were 
drowned out. Contrary opinions were overruled as unenlightened 
holdovers of a repressive past that had to be dismissed.
  As a consequence, we decided to walk down a path that encouraged 
people, young people especially, to believe that drugs were okay. The 
result was the de facto legalization of drugs in this country. It was a 
vast social experiment based on wholly foolish notions about the 
dangers of large-scale drug use and its anticipated consequences. It 
relied on creating in the mind's eye some mythical drug user of heroic 
proportions, an everyman, someone who could use drugs with no ill 
affects, someone whose mind and consciousness would expand to include 
new horizons of enlightenment, someone who would be a better citizen. 
It was a form of a collective delusion. We found that the path we had 
chosen led to a dead end.
  In the space of a few years, we went from having virtually no drug 
problem to having over 70 million people who had tried drugs and at 
least 6 million addicts. When you stop to consider that the vast 
majority of those addicts came from among kids, then the scale of the 
disaster becomes more apparent. We had an explosion of emergency room 
admissions and a plague of drug-related deaths and violence. In the 
very years that we stopped enforcing drug laws we saw a corresponding 
explosion in violent and property crimes. It is not wholly a 
coincidence that the explosion in drug use also accompanied the 
explosion in crime throughout America. It is no coincidence that the 
devastation of our inner cities, already suffering a host of problems, 
was a product of crack.
  We learned, the hard way, that there was no heroic individual drug 
user. There were just people. Ordinary people. Most of them kids. We 
found that they listened to what adults said. We found, to our sorrow, 
that drugs worked. We discovered that when you make drugs widely 
appealing in large quantities at affordable prices more people will use 
drugs. Being a commercial and trading people, this should not have been 
a surprise, but under the spell of the drug culture, we ignored our 
experience.
  We learned, to our profound regret, that dangerous drugs were illegal 
for a reason. We learned that they were illegal because they were 
dangerous, not dangerous because they were illegal. We learned that 
increased use leads to more addiction and to all of the collective woes 
that come with it. We learned these lessons because we ignored reality. 
we disparaged common sense. And we paid the price.
  The first people to recognize the true extent of the consequences 
were parents. It was not some mythical Everyman that was using drugs, 
it was their kids. In alarming numbers. Parents began to fight back. In 
doing so, they enlisted the government. Finally, beginning in the early 
1980's, we made extraordinary strides in reducing use. That meant we 
got more kids to just say no to drugs. Remember that phrase? It may 
have been laughed at by some, but it worked.

[[Page S6073]]

  We still had the horrible legacy of our misdirected and ill-informed 
past, but we made real strides in reducing use. By the earlier 1990's, 
we had a comprehensive strategy that addressed both supply and demand. 
We had succeeded in persuading rising generations of young people that 
drug use was both dangerous and wrong. Except for hardcore addicts--our 
legacy from accepting the lie that drugs are OK--we were winning the 
struggle against drugs. Then, somewhere, somehow, we lost our way.
  Somewhere, the silence set in. We replaced ``Just Say No'' with 
``Just Say Nothing.'' We came to a crossroads and took a wrong turn. We 
have seen the consequences. In the past several years, drug use among 
kids is on the rise. More seriously, their attitudes about the dangers 
of drugs are changing--for the worse. An increasing number of kids no 
longer see drug use as dangerous or wrong. Moreover, to fill the 
silence, the tragic chorus of legalization has returned. Once again the 
airwaves are filled with the sounds of the wonders of drug use. Once 
again we are assured that drug use is a personal choice that harms no 
one. Once again we are told that enforcing our laws are the cause of 
our problems. Once again we hear the refrains of drugs are OK.
  The question we ought to be asking ourselves, is how, after all the 
progress we were making, do we find ourselves back where we began? How 
is what we are doing today different from just a few years ago? Are we 
doing anything different? No matter what road you follow to get to the 
answers to these questions, it seems to me, that you come back to the 
same crossroads. We need to retrace our steps, to put our feet back on 
the right road.
  Examining recent drug policy and efforts from the 1980's and early 
1990's, several major differences emerge. Today's drug strategy funding 
is quite similar to its immediate predecessor. After the initial major 
increases in Federal drug funding in the first years of the Bush 
administration, the budget to fight the drug war has increased on 
average about 5 to 6 percent per year. This rate of increase holds true 
for both Democratic- and Republican-controlled Congresses. So, if 
funding has been fairly consistent, we need to look elsewhere for the 
changes in policy that might account for the dramatic changes in our 
domestic drug situation in the past 3 years. When we look at the 
problem from this perspective, what we see as the major changes come 
not in money but in emphasis. Emphasis on how the money is spent, and 
on the public posture of the administration on the drug issue.
  Now, we need to ask ourselves if we intend to accomplish anything by 
the policies we pursue. If we do, then we ought to be able to look at 
the results and draw some conclusions about whether our efforts are 
producing the results we want. If they aren't, then we might conclude 
that something isn't working. It is important to examine the record of 
the administration's drug policy and what seems to be happening with 
the drug problem. We need to remind ourselves of where we were and the 
road we took to get where we are now. I have been detailing this issue 
in the past. The last time I did it was just before the Memorial Day 
recess. At that time, an esteemed colleague of mine asserted that I was 
using my remarks to play politics in an election year.

  I do not want to question my colleague's motives for raising that 
particular concern. I trust that her remarks on the administration's 
records were made because she is concerned as well as I am with the 
issue and not with the circumstances. Certainly, in sponsoring very 
recently a legislative initiative that addressed a Clinton 
administration policy of letting drug smugglers go, she herself is 
aware of some of the shortcomings of that record. Unfortunately, in her 
remarks after I made my remarks that day 2 weeks ago, she did not 
address many of the issues that I raised. In addition, she, too, seems 
to have found it difficult to set the record straight based on the 
record. Many of her remarks dealt with administration initiatives that 
are only indirectly concerned with drug policy.
  It is, therefore, useful to review the record of both actions and 
words that took us down the path that we are on today, in other words, 
the path that changed dramatically from the 1980's up until about 1991 
or 1992.
  Here we can see three major difference in present policy from our 
earlier successful efforts. First, at the beginning of the Clinton 
administration, we saw a decision to lower the profile of the drug 
czar's office. That was accomplished by firing over 80 percent of the 
staff in the first weeks of the new administration and by appointing a 
no-profile drug czar. We should ask ourselves if that decision tells us 
anything about the intent of a new administration.
  Second, we saw a decision by this administration to shift the counter 
drug efforts away from interdiction and enforcement to treatment. This 
was, in fact, an upfront announced policy of this administration. It 
would seem to tell us something about priorities and about desired 
outcomes. The consequences of that decision have been a steady decline 
in our interdiction efforts and a decline in prosecutions of major drug 
offenders. It would seem we are getting what we should have expected.
  Third, we saw a decision by the President to absent himself from the 
drug issue. In this regard, I have noted the need for clear, consistent 
leadership on this issue, but a number of our colleagues, both Democrat 
and Republican, have noted a deafening silence in the past, coming from 
the White House on the issue of drugs. This is in sharp contrast to 
previous administrations.
  You can actually count on your fingers on one hand the number of 
times the President mentioned drugs in the first 3 years of his 
administration. We need to ask ourselves if this silence was 
accidental, was an oversight, or was a matter of deliberate policy. 
Even a policy defined by an absence of mind, however, is still a 
policy. And, of course, as we all know, choices have consequences.
  Taken together, these decisions represent more than just a minor 
restructuring of programs that were working. Even though spending on 
counter drug efforts remained fairly steady, there was a significant 
shift in emphasis. There was a very significant dropoff in rhetoric 
about the drug problem, and there was a significant decline in 
interdiction and enforcement efforts. These have been documented in a 
number of news reports, a number of congressional studies, and even in 
information provided by this administration.

  Leading Democrats and Republicans in the last several years have also 
noted the silence from the President on the drug issue. Their 
conclusion was that the bully pulpit lost its chief representative.
  Unfortunately, as this silence progressed, the voices for 
legalization of drugs gathered steam. Silence at the White House, a 
maddening echo around the issue for legalization.
  Not since the 1970's have we seen this much voice, this much effort 
about the clamor to make drugs more widely available. And, 
disturbingly, the renewed call for drug legalization comes first from 
within the administration itself. It came from no less a person than 
the Surgeon General of the United States, a position that carries great 
moral weight and an opportunity to lead.
  At the time, the startling remarks of Joycelyn Elders may have 
received only a minor rebuke from the White House. Whatever might have 
been said or done to counter the efforts of the Surgeon General's 
remarks remain unsaid. Oh, yes, I know she was fired, but the rest, as 
they say, is history.
  Now, if choices have consequences and if policies have purposes, we 
should ask ourselves what we see as a result of these choices and 
policies of recent years. Here is the current record.
  After a decade of decline in drug use, we see startling new figures 
of returning use of drugs. Every survey, including the most recent 
hospital emergency room studies released just last week, show a 
returning drug problem. Teenage use is on the rise. Teenage attitudes 
about the dangers of drug use have changed for the worse. Emergency 
room admissions are rising. Calls for drug legalization and efforts to 
accomplish it abound.
  The bottom line is that more kids are starting to use drugs. 
Presumably, these outcomes were not the intent of the policies stated 
or left unstated, as I have mentioned. If that is true, then we are 
drawn to the conclusion that

[[Page S6074]]

these efforts are either a failure or, at least, ineffective, and we 
have some further evidence that this view is shared by the 
administration.
  In the last several months of an election year, the administration 
has changed its course very dramatically on drug policy. The President 
has named a new high-profile drug czar. He has agreed to restore the 
personnel, that 80 percent cut I spoke about that came in 1993 in the 
drug office, to restore that personnel. We have given the money to do 
that. He has agreed to beef up spending on interdiction and 
enforcement, and he has made himself more visible on the drug issue.
  These changes may smack of an election-year conversion, but they 
correspond exactly to the problems in the policies that I noted 
earlier. They seem to indicate an awareness of a problem. I leave it to 
others to determine whether this shift is too little, too late. I leave 
it to others to decide whether the shift is as a result of political 
convenience in an election year. But what we all need to know and 
remember is that when it comes to drugs, we find ourselves back in a 
familiar and dangerous neighborhood. We took a wrong turn and have 
ended up on a dead-end street. We have been here before, and we cannot 
afford to stick around a dead-end street.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.
  Mr. EXON. Madam President, if I understand the parliamentary 
situation, we went, temporarily, off the budget resolution so the 
Senator could speak as in morning business. Is that correct?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.

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