    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book II)]
    [October 16, 1995]
    [Pages 1610-1611]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at the Concert For Hope in Hollywood, California
    October 16, 1995

        Thank you very much. Thank you, Joe Califano, for your singular
    determination to keep this issue before the American people. There is
    not another citizen in the entire United States of America who has done
    as much as Joe Califano to help us all to come to grips with the
    implications of substance abuse. And every American is in his debt.
        I also want to thank the other honorees for the work they have done,
    the late Frank Wells and Tony Bennett and our friend Betty Ford. I want
    to thank the Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia for
    helping us all to learn more about this, and all the performers tonight
    for making this a very special evening for the United States.
        This mission of ours cuts across politics, geography, income, and
    race. It must unite all of our people in a common purpose. Tonight in
    3,500 cities and towns all across our beloved

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    country, community antidrug coalitions are gathered in auditoriums and
    town halls to watch this broadcast. These people have played a large
    role in our antidrug efforts, many of them part of an important campaign
    led by Lee Brown, our Director of National Drug Control Policy, who
    accompanied me here tonight. With their help, he is getting an urgent
    and very straightforward message to our teenagers: Stay drug-free; you
    have the power. With marijuana use on the rise among our teens, that's a
    message every one of us must now help to spread every day.
        Tonight the antidrug coalitions all across our country who are
    sharing this evening with us are honoring some of their own and some of
    our Nation's finest. I applaud these honorees as well, the parents, the
    police officers, the prosecutors, the clergy, the social service
    workers, the doctors, the recovering drug addicts and alcoholics, and
    all of their families, for they are the true foot soldiers and the real
    heroes in this, our common national crusade. To them I say, we know your
    battle is not easy, but you are not alone, and you must keep fighting
    for all of us and especially for our children.
        Like millions of Americans, I know firsthand how a family suffers
    from both drug and alcohol abuse. The consequences of this kind of abuse
    are many. But since December 1st is World AIDS Day, we should take
    special note that 25 percent of AIDS cases are the result of drug abuse.
    Many other cases can be blamed on the risks our young people take under
    the influence of drugs or alcohol.
        The battle against substance abuse must be waged a person at a time,
    a family at a time, a school at a time, community by community. But it
    must be backed by all of our efforts, including the President. We are
    doing what we can at the national level, with punishment, with working
    to keep drugs out of the country, with helping our community-based
    efforts to promote safe and drug-free schools and prevention and
    treatment programs that are so important. And I will keep fighting to
    keep these things funded.
        But I also hope all of you will help me in this battle against teen
    smoking. We know that every day 3,000 of our young people begin to smoke
    and that 1,000 of them will have their lives end prematurely because of
    it. Children who reach the age of 20 almost never start smoking if they
    haven't started by then.
        These are our common goals and our common endeavors. We wish for all
    of our children a drug-free America. It's up to each of us to take the
    kind of responsibility that your honorees, and the honorees in all those
    town halls and auditoriums all across America, have assumed. If we can
    do our part, we can give this country a drug-free America in the 21st
    century.
        Thank you, and God bless you all.

    Note: The President spoke at 9:40 p.m. in the Pantages Theater. In his
    remarks, he referred to Joseph A. Califano, Jr., director, Center on
    Addiction and Substance Abuse, Columbia University; Frank G. Wells,
    former chief operating officer, Walt Disney Productions; entertainer
    Tony Bennett; and former First Lady Betty Ford.