[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book II)]
[December 18, 1995]
[Pages 1902-1904]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



[[Page 1902]]


Remarks on Signing the Memorandum on Federal Arrestee Drug Testing and 
an Exchange With Reporters
December 18, 1995

    The President. I want to welcome the Attorney General; United States 
Attorneys Eric Holder of Washington, DC, and Kathryn Landreth of Nevada; 
the Attorney General of Minnesota, Skip Humphrey; District Attorney 
Lynne Abraham of Philadelphia; District Attorney Michael Barnes of South 
Bend, Indiana, who is president of the National District Attorneys 
Association; and Jeremy Travis of the National Institute of Justice. I 
thank all of them for joining me here today.
    I am about to sign a directive to the Attorney General instructing 
her to take the next step in our administration's all-out effort to 
break the cycle of crime and drugs.
    The criminal justice systems of our country are overburdened with 
drug-abusing defendants who cycle through the system while continuing to 
use drugs. Far too many criminals brought into our system have a 
substance abuse problem. In fact, a 1993 study by the Justice Department 
found that more than half of the arrestees tested positive for an 
illicit substance. Unless we break the cycle of drugs and crime, 
criminal addicts will end up back on the street committing more crimes 
and then right back in the criminal justice system still hooked on 
drugs. That's not fair to the taxpayers, the crime victims, or the 
American public. The cycle must be broken.
    All across our country employers have accepted responsibility to 
reduce the level of drug use in the workplace. Teachers and coaches have 
accepted the responsibility to reduce the level of drug use in our 
schools. Now it is time for agencies in our criminal justice system to 
use all their power to reduce drug use by Federal arrestees.
    With this directive, when you enter the Federal criminal justice 
system, you will be tested. If you have been taking drugs, you should 
suffer the consequences. The administration is committed to breaking 
this link between crime and drugs. Indeed, if we could break it, we 
could dramatically lower the crime rate.
    As a nation, there is only one message we can send: Continued drug 
use is unacceptable. We can't have a comprehensive crime-fighting effort 
until we end drug offenders' habits. That's why it's critical that the 
criminal justice system put all its power behind cleaning up drug-
abusing criminals.
    This directive is another example in which the Federal criminal 
justice system can serve as a model for States. I'm very honored to be 
joined by the Minnesota Attorney General, Mr. Humphrey, and the district 
attorneys of Philadelphia and South Bend, Indiana. When they leave here 
today they're going home to ask their State legislatures to follow our 
lead in making sure all offenders are drug tested. I call upon every 
Governor, every State assembly, every State attorney general to do the 
same.
    I'm proud of our antidrug strategy. It combines tough enforcement 
with a real, comprehensive prevention program and more investment in 
treatment. This directive is another step in our efforts to eliminate 
illegal drug use.
    We know that reducing drug use will require everyone's effort. 
That's why today, our drug director, Dr. Lee Brown, is in California 
urging high school coaches to adopt drug testing of their athletes in 
order to reduce drug use among our teenagers.
    These two actions send a clear and unambiguous message: Drug use and 
drug abuse are both wrong and illegal. We can't tolerate a revolving 
door of criminal drug abusers in our system. And if we work together, we 
can ensure that all the offenders in our country become drug-free and 
stay drug-free if they're going to stay out of jail.
    Just yesterday, the FBI reported that for the first 6 months of this 
year, violent crime was down by 5 percent and the murder rate was down 
by 12 percent. Over the last 3 years, we've made ``three strikes and 
you're out'' the law of the land, passed the Brady bill, the assault 
weapons ban. We're well on our way to putting those 100,000 new police 
officers on the American streets. But there is still one very disturbing 
and unacceptable finding in the FBI report, the trend of violence being 
committed by juveniles.
    Later this week, I will be sending the Enhanced Prosecution of 
Dangerous Juvenile Offenders Act to the Congress. This legislation will 
help to address the critical problem of youth

[[Page 1903]]

criminals by strengthening Federal laws designed to deal with genuinely 
violent use. It's an additional tool for prosecutors to deal with 
violent juvenile criminals by holding dangerous youth criminals 
accountable for their actions. Once they've been arrested, we must stop 
them from repeating their crimes.
    With these steps that we've announced today, Federal arrestees who 
are abusing drugs will no longer be out on the streets, and hardened 
criminals will be dealt with accordingly, even if they're juveniles.

[At this point, the President signed the memorandum.]

Drug Policy

    Q. Do you think that's constitutional?
    The President. The way it is drawn, I do. The Attorney General might 
want to explain it, but basically, in the places where this has been 
tried the people who are arrested are asked to undergo drug testing. As 
I understand it, about 80 percent of them agree. If they don't agree, 
instead of being forced it's just reported to the judge in making a 
determination about how high to set bail and what the conditions of bail 
should be.
    Q. Well, if they are found to have taken drugs, does this mean 
they're not eligible for bail?
    The President. Well, it means it can change the circumstances under 
which they're tried and what they might have to do as a condition.
    Do you want to discuss that?
    Attorney General Reno. What it is saying--it is clearly 
constitutional to condition bail on testing. And what this says is, if 
you are going to get bail, you may have to agree to testing, you may 
have to agree to continued testing, to supervision, to certain conduct 
while you're on bail. Or it may mean that you have got to remain in the 
jail because the conditions would not ensure that you would be drug-free 
once you were on the streets.
    Q. Wouldn't you be subject to additional charges, though? You know, 
in other words, you're arrested on some totally unrelated charge and 
you're found to have had drugs.
    Attorney General Reno. What we're trying to do is to prevent the 
unrelated charge that happens once they've left the courthouse. And if 
they are using drugs and if drugs are what is fueling so much of crime 
in this country, to send them back out without doing something to 
interrupt that cycle and to let a crime happen that was drug induced 
doesn't make any sense.
    What the President is doing here is saying, look, we're going to try 
to do everything we can to ensure the safety of our streets based on 
these offenders and their condition, and we're also going to try to do 
something to make sure that we interrupt the cycle of drug use on the 
part of these offenders.

Budget Impasse

    Q. Mr. President, what do you hear from the Speaker and Senator Dole 
on the budget and opening the Government again?
    The President. Well, I had talks with both of them this afternoon, 
and I offered--first, I asked them to open the Government again, and to 
do it immediately, so that the people who have made plans for Christmas 
week to be here and elsewhere would not be disappointed and so that the 
Federal employees would not be basically disoriented during this 
Christmas week. And I offered some ideas about how we might reopen the 
Government and how we might resume our budget negotiations. And they 
agreed to take my ideas under advisement and to speak with each other, 
perhaps with others as well.
    So I don't think I should talk about specifically what I said to 
them until I hear back from them. I think that would be wrong. I owe it 
to them to have a chance to consider this in a confidential matter on 
their own time.
    Q. Did you invite them to come over here to sit down with you and 
try to resolve this?
    The President. I talked about how we could get together and my 
personal willingness to be involved. But I'd rather not talk about the 
specifics of it until I hear back from them.
    Q. Do you think they'll respond tonight?
    The President. I just don't know. I hope so. I want the Congress to 
open the Government again. This is not--this whole action is without 
precedent. I think we should stop it, and we should go back to the 
ordinary way of dealing with this.
    I have demonstrated, I think, repeatedly, that I am committed to 
balancing the budget. I have shown that I will put forward a plan in 7 
years. I have told them that I will work with them. And I will work with 
them, and I believe we can do it. But we ought to re-open the 
Government, the Congress should, for the benefit of the American people, 
especially this week. We

[[Page 1904]]

shouldn't--this week the people and the employees should not be subject 
to this Government closing.
    Q. Are you willing to have them over here as early as tonight, Mr. 
President?
    The President. Well, I'd like to give them the chance to get back to 
me. I think it's important that I not talk anymore about the contents of 
my conversation until they have a chance to consider it and get back to 
me.
    Q. Are you more encouraged, though, by what you heard in this phone 
call that the Government can get back to working 100 percent?
    The President. I hope so. That's all I can say. I hope so.

Note: The President spoke at 4:35 p.m. in the Oval Office at the White 
House.