[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 13]
[House]
[Pages 19287-19288]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                ILLEGAL NARCOTIC TRAFFICKING IN AMERICA

  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 to the floor again tonight to talk 
about the problem of illegal narcotics. Tonight I would like to help 
set the record straight.
  After years and months of nearly deadly silence by the President of 
the United States on one of the most pressing issues facing our Nation, 
that is the problem of illegal narcotics use and abuse, the President 
spoke out yesterday.
  I have a transcript of his speech, and I was really stunned to hear 
his remarks. These are his exact comments.

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                              {time}  2300

  He said, ``When we were out there running for office in 1992, the 
Vice President had this hilarious rap about everything that should be 
up was down and everything that should be down was up, and everything 
was all mixed up. And it is true.'' And then the President said, and 
again let me quote him, ``And one of the sad things that was up was 
drug use.'' Now, this is what the President of the United States said 
yesterday.
  Mr. Speaker, this does not gibe with the facts. In fact, we did a 
little bit of research and we found, and this chart states quite 
clearly, that long-term trends in lifetime prevalence of drug use, from 
1980 when President Reagan took office, and this is the Reagan 
administration, through 1988, with President Bush during that period, 
we found that the trend in prevalence of drug use actually went down. 
These are the facts.
  Now, again the President said, ``And one of the sad things that was 
up was drug use.'' That is what the President said. These in fact, Mr. 
Speaker, are the statistics. These are not tainted or misconstrued in 
any way or partisanly presented. Those are the facts.
  Then if we looked at individual narcotics, the trends in cocaine use, 
the President said, ``And one of the sad things that was up was drug 
use.''
  So we can look at drugs individually. We see that during President 
Reagan and Bush's era, that the point at which President Clinton took 
office that there was a downward spiral in cocaine use. In fact, when 
President Clinton took office, we see the resurgence of that in fact 
returning and going up. This does not show the dramatic increase in 
drug use. Because of the Clinton policy, we in fact had a shift of more 
people going not only to cocaine but also to heroin in unprecedented 
amounts and also to methamphetamine which did not appear on any of 
these charts. So what the President said, ``And one of the sad things 
that was up was drug use'' is not in any way correct or does it relate 
to facts.
  Then if we look at heroin, in the Reagan administration and Bush 
administration, we see downward trends. He said, ``And one of the sad 
things was that drug use was up.'' We see in fact during President 
Clinton's term, it dramatically shot up, and heroin, deadly heroin, in 
incredible quantities. I do not have a chart on methamphetamine, but 
meth was not even on this chart and now is staggering up. The only 
reason we see any change here in a downward spiral in the last several 
years is because of the Republicans taking over the Congress and 
restarting the war on drugs.
  Finally, the President also said, ``We tried to do more to keep drugs 
from coming into the United States.'' This is the quote of the 
President. I do not have all the charts with me, but under complete 
control by the Democrat-controlled Congress, the White House and the 
Senate, the administration and this other controlled legislative body, 
1992 to 1993 dramatically decreased the source country programs, they 
cut them by over 50 percent, dramatically cut the military. He said, 
``We tried to do more to keep drugs from coming into the United 
States.'' Dramatically cut the military and interdiction programs. 
Nearly cut in half the Coast Guard drug programs, stopped antidrug 
resources from getting to Colombia which is now the major source of 
heroin and cocaine coming into the United States. And certified Mexico, 
which is the greatest source of illegal narcotics and now 
methamphetamines of anywhere coming into the United States. And our 
President said yesterday, ``We tried to do more to keep drugs from 
coming into the United States.''
  Mr. Speaker, the President says one thing. The facts prove something 
totally different. It is sad that after years and years of deadly 
silence, we finally have the President come out in one of the rare 
occasions he ever mentions illegal narcotics and says two things that 
do not gibe in any fashion with the facts as to what actually took 
place.
  It is very sad that I report this to the House, but I think that the 
facts relating to this important problem that is facing our Nation that 
has condemned so many families tragically to losing loved ones, 14,000 
people died last year alone because of direct results of illegal 
narcotics. It is very sad, indeed, that the President of the United 
States paints a picture that does not gibe with the facts.

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