[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 5182-5183]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           UNGASS REFLECTIONS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, last week I had the opportunity to be an 
official observer at the United Nations as they had a special meeting 
dealing with the international war on drugs.
  Much has happened since President Clinton addressed the Global Drug 
Summit at the United Nations in 1998, carrying the American war on 
drugs to the international stage. But this, in my mind, solidified the 
need for us to reset these failed drug policies.
  People across the political spectrum now agree that this approach to 
drug policy is flawed and ineffective. We have spent over $1 trillion 
on this effort over the years.
  We have undermined countries in Latin America and helped unleash an 
unprecedented wave of violence in Mexico, killing tens of thousands of 
people in the drug wars.
  Yet, despite all the effort, all the money, drugs are still widely 
available in the United States, actually less expensive than before we 
started. We seem unable to even keep drugs out of our own prisons.
  America's failure to deal with harm reduction, treatment, and 
prevention has helped lead to the epidemic of opioid addiction and 
death. In 2013 alone, we lost 20,000 people to prescription drug 
overdose.
  As people get hooked on amazingly over-prescribed prescription drugs, 
it leads to heroin addiction when they substitute it when they can no 
longer get access to opioids.
  Now, it is interesting that some of the countries that have been most 
devastated by this war on drugs, in dealing with the international 
cartels--Mexico, Colombia, Guatemala--were there at the United Nations 
leading the charge for a different approach.
  Many of the presentations that I witnessed were suggestions to the 
Outcome Document, with the common theme that it did not go far enough 
in reforming the path forward.
  Calls for harm reduction, greater access to treatment, and fighting 
the barbaric practice of executing drug offenders energized that 
consensus.
  Now, America was on the sidelines. America was not calling for 
adjustment and change in reform. We were sort of between those more 
progressive forces, including those countries that

[[Page 5183]]

have really been in the throes of the drug wars.
  And then there is Iran and China and Russia, and we were sort of 
floating in between. It is kind of embarrassing, as an American, to see 
the United States not leading.
  I come back to Washington, D.C., more committed than ever for the new 
administration and the next Congress to be a voice of reform to change 
these failed policies.
  We need to put an end to the mindless military action and hard-edged 
policies that fail and replace them with policies that will make a 
difference, saving lives, and having effective regulations as tools.
  Now, the United States is moving ahead at reform at the State and 
local levels. Forty States now provide some access to medical 
marijuana. Four States and the District of Columbia deal with adult 
use, and there will be four or five more States that will join this 
year.
  In 2019, when we go back to the United Nations, hopefully to be able 
to make some of these reforms, the world is going to look different.
  First of all, there are moves in both Canada and Mexico to expand the 
use of medical marijuana and to legalize adult use.
  In 2019, virtually every American will have a legal access to medical 
marijuana, and we will continue the action at the State level, making 
those critical changes. Public opinion, once and for all, will be 
settled in favor of regulation, taxation, and responsible adult use.
  We will break the shackles of research on marijuana, where the 
Federal Government actually gets in the way of being able to have the 
information that the scientists and doctors can produce to settle the 
question so we don't have to guess.
  I am hopeful that the United States will be on the right side of 
reform, that we will stop expensive and regressive policies that don't 
work, and that we will be able to respond to the emerging American 
consensus of the people at the State and local levels to do it better. 
This is one effort we can't afford to fail.

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