[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 130 (Thursday, September 19, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11055-S11056]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   THE NEED FOR COHERENT DRUG POLICY

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, for my colleagues who may have missed 
the information during the August break, or the news since, the latest 
household survey numbers on drug use are out. For anyone concerned 
about drug use in this country, those numbers tell a depressing story. 
The story is quite simply this: more kids are using more drugs. Put 
what gloss you want on the numbers, the depressing fact is, we are in 
the midst of a new drug crisis.
  There are five major surveys of drug use in this country. These 
include the Drug Abuse Warning Network, or DAWN, which surveys hospital 
emergency room admission rates. The high school survey, which studies 
use among seniors and others in high school. The Parents' Resource 
Institute for Drug Education, or PRIDE survey of high school substance 
abuse. The Drug Use Forecasting, or DUF, survey that tests for 
substance abuse among arrestees.
  And the household survey, which samples over 17,000 households to 
look at drug use trends in the population age 12 and older. These 
surveys are our early warning network. And the alarm bells are ringing. 
The emergency lights are flashing. We need to heed the warning.
  To understand the warning in its fullness, we need a little 
perspective. Today's growing problem does not occur in isolation. It is 
not the result of ignorance of the dangers of drug use.
  The 1960's and 1970's taught us a bitter lesson about that. They 
taught us about the risks individuals and communities run in dealing, 
or failing to deal, with the drug problem. Since 1981, when we began to 
fight back seriously, we have spent $128 billion at the Federal level 
to combat illegal drug use. We have spent a like amount at the State 
and local levels. In addition, we have spent in the neighborhood of $1 
trillion on the indirect costs of drug use and an additional $1 
trillion, out of individual pockets, to buy illegal drugs.
  This is only the fiscal summary. It does not begin to tote up the 
human toll. These numbers do not account for the tens of thousands of 
deaths or the millions of addicts. They do not make plain the toll of 
drug-addicted babies. Mere numbers do not convey the suffering, the 
loss of life, the damaged lives, the ruined prospects and shattered 
dreams that are all part of the legacy of this country's flirtation 
with dangerous drugs. In a generation, we went from a nation with no 
drug problem to a country in which one-fifth of the population has 
tried drugs and over 6 million people who are addicts.
  There is not a single, major social pathology today that is not in 
some way linked to drugs. From family violence to drive-by shootings, 
from drug-addicted babies to devastated inner-city neighborhoods, the 
legacy of drugs is written in bold print across the face of this 
country.
  We got ourselves into this mess because we allowed our cultural elite 
and others to persuade us, against our understanding, that drugs were 
really OK. That using drugs was merely a form of personal expression 
that did not hurt anyone, not even the user.
  We bought into that idea and lived it through the 1960's and 1970's. 
We came dangerously close to legalizing drug use. And we delegitimized 
the notion of enforcing our laws against drug use. We are living with 
the consequences. Today's billions spent on the war on drugs are a 
direct result of the choices that we made yesterday. Our drug problem 
was no accident. Movies and music glorified drugs. Politicians publicly 
questioned the usefulness of preventing individual drug use.
  Our cultural elite talked of legalization. In virtually all our means 
for communicating what we think is proper and appropriate, we sent the 
signal that drugs were OK. And who were we talking to? Who was 
listening? who got the message? It was our kids. And it was our kids 
who ended up as the principal casualties of this so-called enlightened 
policy. What were we thinking?
  In the 1980's, however, we realized our mistake. We began to fight 
back. It was not that we just spent money on the problem. Parents and 
communities, schools and businesses, civic and political leaders came 
together to stop the nonsense. They formed coalitions, lobbied their 
public officials, and organized public and private efforts to fight 
back, to save the kids. And it was working. Between 1985 and 1992 drug 
use in this country went down. More important, attitudes among kids 
about drugs improved.
  More and more kids came to see drugs as dangerous. More kids stayed 
away from using. That was no accident. Everywhere they looked the 
message they got was the drugs were bad. The message was, just say no. 
And they listened.
  That did not mean that our difficulties were past. We still had a 
large addict population that was using more and more. We had enriched 
powerful drug organizations that had extensive networks for drug 
smuggling and money laundering.
  We still had to deal with a lingering notion that somehow, despite 
the evidence before our eyes, drugs were OK. Nevertheless, we were on 
the right track. In recent years, however, we have gone off the rails. 
In some areas, we have been pulling up the tracks and shooting the 
engineers and conductors.
  This is what the most recent household survey makes clear. It shows 
that marijuana use among young people is up over 100 percent since 
1992.
  It went up 37 percent last year alone. Overall drug use has risen 78 
percent since 1992, 33 percent last year. Fully 10.9 percent of young 
people aged 12 to 17 reported using marijuana monthly last year. That 
is up from 8.2 percent the year before. At this rate, we will have lost 
all the ground that we won in the late 1980's and early 1990's. And the 
people who are at risk, once again, are kids and teenagers and young 
adults. If this trend continues, and it is showing no signs of changing 
under present policies, in the next few years we will have wiped out 
all the gains made in the 1980's.
  Now, if you do not believe that legalization is a rational policy, 
then you cannot welcome the recent news. And if you do not think 10, 
11, and 12 year olds ought to be making their own decisions about using 
heroin or cocaine, then you have to conclude that the present trend is 
a disaster in the making. As I suggested earlier, the warning lights 
are flashing.
  When the oil light goes on in your car, it is time to check the 
engine. If you decide to ignore the light you risk making an expensive 
mistake.
  Well, the Nation's warning light is on. And what do you find when you 
open the hood and check on the reasons? As it turns out, we've been 
trying to run our programs without the right stuff.
  Despite what some of my colleagues have argued on this floor, this 
administration simply has not taken the drug issue seriously. Not from 
day one, and not, so far as I can see, yet. In fact, its policy, where 
one can be disconcerned, has downplayed the issue and distanced the 
President from any involvement.
  Now, having said this, I know that one of my colleagues is likely to 
be down here any minute accusing me of playing politics. That seems to 
be the administration's line any time someone criticizes them. Indeed, 
Secretary Shalala and the Attorney General have been going around 
saying this. They have blamed Congress for lack of funding. They have 
pointed to increases of drug use in Europe. They have also taken to 
blaming the Bush administration for the present problem. When they do 
that, reaching back 4 years to try to blame someone else, that is not 
playing politics, of course.
  That is not dodging. That's not blowing smoke. That is what passes 
for policy in this administration. But serious policy is more than 
artful dodging.
  Let me remind you, that this administration came into office saying 
that the Bush administration had not fought a real drug war--that claim 
was made despite the fact of steady declines in teen use. The present 
occupant of the White House promised to do better. At the least, then, 
we should expect to see the trend of teen use continuing to decline.
  We should expect that teenage attitudes about drug use would remain 
negative. But that is not the case. In fact, it is exactly the reverse. 
And it was not the Bush administration that presided over these recent 
increases. It

[[Page S11056]]

was not past policies that created the present crisis. The 
administration's own numbers make this clear. All you have to do is 
look at those numbers. But, in keeping with this administration's whole 
program, the response is deny, deny, deny.
  I am sure most parents have had the experience in dealing with their 
kids that when the crockery gets broken, it was some mysterious villain 
that did the deed. Just ask the child. ``I didn't do it.'' Or, ``George 
did it.'' Or, ``I don't know how it happened.'' These excuses are what 
one expects. From children. As adults, however, we are supposed to know 
better. But, even as the numbers grow worse, the administration is 
still hoping to pin the blame on someone, anyone else. But, in the end, 
it is their policies, it is their programs, it is their attitudes that 
have shaped how we have dealt with the drug issue in the past 4 years.
  And, the fact remains, after years of decline, drug use among kids is 
getting worse by the minute, and this administration cannot think of 
anything more constructive to do than pass the blame.
  All of this is a matter of record. I and others here and across the 
country have documented this story. Even the President's drug czar now 
acknowledges that we are in the midst of a crisis of new drug use. In 
one of his most recent press releases outlining the problem, however, 
he wants us to develop amnesia about how we got into this mess.
  He wants us to look only at what we must do about it. I understand 
why he may want us to overlook the recent past. But no serious effort 
to get our programs back on track can hope to succeed if we do not 
grasp why it is we are having the problem. This is not playing 
politics, this is talking about policy. It is talking seriously about 
responsibility.
  We are in this mess because of choices that were made about what to 
do. We are talking about conscious decisions deliberately made.
  But it is now clear, that those decisions were, are a mistake. Our 
present policies are simply not up to the task. Benign neglect, 
indifference, and just say maybe are not good policy choices. We have 
the evidence of what happens when they are, however, our policy
  Clearly, by all the warning systems that we have developed to give us 
feed back, those choices have failed. The extent of that failure is 
shocking. If we are to change this, we must start doing something 
different, we must do it better, and we must do it now. To repeat the 
mistakes of the 1960's and 1970's would be a shameful retreat from 
responsibility.

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