[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 56 (Thursday, May 7, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H2984-H2985]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             ILLEGAL DRUGS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I come once again before the House this 
afternoon to talk about the issue of illegal drugs and narcotics, its 
impact on our Nation and on our community and on our children. I have 
probably spoken more than any other Member in the last 5 years on this 
issue and I intend to speak every opportunity I can get about what 
drugs are doing to the lives of our young people.
  I always like to review what took place when I came into Congress and 
the other party controlled the House, other body and the White House. 
In fact, their first steps under the Clinton administration were to cut 
the positions in the drug czar's office from almost 150 down to about 
25. The next thing that the new President did, and I was a freshman and 
protested it here on the floor, was to cut the interdiction, to end the 
military involvement in the war on drugs, to stop and really cut the 
drug interdiction and eradication programs, to cut the Coast

[[Page H2985]]

Guard, to dismantle all kinds of enforcement programs, and then the 
ultimate insult to the American people was to appoint a Surgeon 
General, Joycelyn Elders, who adopted the policy that I entitled ``just 
say maybe to our young people,'' not to mention that the leader of the 
free world, the highest office in our land, said to our children, ``If 
I had it all to do over again, I would inhale.''

  That set a tremendous pattern. It changed the whole dynamics where 
drug use and abuse by our children had gone down, down, down from 1981 
under Reagan and Bush, it began a steady climb. We have seen the 
dramatic results.
  Let me tell you what the results are. 1.5 million Americans were 
arrested in 1996 for violating drug laws. We have over 2 million 
Americans behind bars and our law enforcement officials tell us more 
than 70 percent of those individuals are there because of a drug-
related or drug involvement offense. Since 1992, overall drug use among 
12 to 17-year-olds has jumped 78 percent. A study by the Partnership 
for a Drug-Free America shows the number of fourth to sixth graders 
experimenting with marijuana increased a staggering 71 percent between 
1992 and 1997. What is the cost to this Congress? The cost to this 
Congress and the Federal Government is $16 billion out of your taxpayer 
money. The total cost to the American economy is approaching $67 
billion a year in lost jobs and opportunities and again cost to our 
economy.
  During this President's tenure in office, if we continue at the pace 
we have been at, 114,000 will die under President Clinton's tenure from 
drug-related problems. We are now killing our Americans at the rate of 
20,000 a year. That is the toll. The story goes on and on.
  But I must say that the Republican Congress has tried to turn that 
around in the last 36 months. We in fact have restored money to bring 
our military back into the war on drugs. We have restored money and 
funding for interdiction programs because we know it is most cost 
effective to stop drugs at their source and when they get to our 
streets and schools and our communities it is very difficult. And then 
we passed tough enforcement, and we know tough enforcement works. Look 
at New York City, look at what Rudy Giuliani has done with tough 
enforcement. Tough enforcement works. New York City has seen a 30 
percent decrease in crime.
  This week the Republicans, and we have tried in a bipartisan effort 
to bring our colleagues from the other side of the aisle in, have 
announced programs and extensive legislation which we will be 
introducing every week for the next 6 weeks to combat illegal drugs, to 
provide funding and programs that work and assistance to our local 
communities and our schools for education, for enforcement, for 
interdiction and also for treatment programs that work. This is one of 
the most critical issues, social issues, before this Congress and 
before the American people. I am committed to this and I think that if 
we have the cooperation of the administration now, the cooperation of 
my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, that we can come 
together, that we can make a difference, that we can reduce the drugs 
coming into this country, into our streets and into our schools. I 
reach out and ask all of my colleagues to join us in that effort.

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