    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book I)]
    [June 27, 1997]
    [Pages 836-840]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks on Signing the Drug-Free Communities Act of 1997 and an Exchange
    With Reporters
    June 27, 1997

        The President. Let me, first of all, say to you, Congressman
    Portman, and to Congressman Levin and Congressman Hastert and, in his
    absence, Congressman Rangel, and to the Senators who worked on this,
    this is a very important day for this legislation because it does
    reflect our commitment in Washington to behave in the way that people in
    communities behave when they do what works in fighting the drug problem,
    and I cannot thank you enough.
        The fact that we did this in a bipartisan fashion, and we did it, to
    use Congressman Portman's words, based on trying to legislate nationally
    a system not only to empower people to do what we know works in some
    communities today already but to give them the incentive to do more of
    it, is, I think, a great thing. So I thank the Congressmen for being
    here. I thank the members of the Cabinet for their support. I thank Jim
    Copple, the president of the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America;
    Dick Bonnette, the Partnership for a Drug-Free America; and all the rest
    of you who are here.
        Now, before I sign this bill, I have to make a couple of comments
    about--this has been a very interesting week of momentous decisions by
    the Supreme Court. Today the Supreme Court issued a ruling on the Brady
    bill. And since I have been so heavily identified with that for several
    years now, I'd like to make a few comments.
        The decision struck down the requirement that local police officers
    conduct background checks but left intact the Brady bill's 5-day waiting
    period. Since the Brady bill passed, 250,000 felons, fugitives, and
    mentally unstable persons have been stopped from purchasing handguns. I
    don't think anyone can seriously question that it has made a major
    contribution to increasing the safety of the American people. And I'm
    going to do everything I can to make sure that we continue to keep guns
    out of the hands of people who should not have them.
        These criminal background checks make good sense; they save lives.
    Now 27 States, 9 more than when the Brady bill first passed, have State
    laws requiring them, and they will continue to do the background checks.
    Even in other States, criminal background checks will continue. The
    Brady law was drafted by our law enforcement community; they wanted it.
    Again, it was a community-based resolution of a difficult problem. So I
    know that these State and local law enforcement officials who asked us
    to pass the law will continue to do the background checks.
        I've asked Attorney General Reno and Secretary Rubin to contact
    police departments across our country to make sure they know that the
    background checks can and should continue

    [[Page 837]]

    to be done by local police on a voluntary basis. And then the Attorney
    General and Secretary Rubin will immediately convene a meeting of law
    enforcement officers to review and develop recommendations, including
    appropriate legislation, to ensure that we can continue to perform these
    background checks. It's my understanding that the Supreme Court actually
    made some suggestions about how we might proceed from here.
        My goal is clear: no criminal background check, no handgun anywhere
    in America. No State should become a safe haven for criminals who want
    to buy handguns.
        We know that--again, I say, tremendous progress has been made. The
    idea that 250,000 of these sales and transfers have been stopped is a
    very impressive thing in just a few years, and I think it clearly
    contributed to the largest drop in violent crime in over 35 years last
    year, murders dropping a stunning 11 percent in 1996.
        So we've got to keep going on this. And even though I wish we didn't
    have to do this extra work, I think the framework of the Court decision
    makes it clear that we have done the right thing, that the 5-day waiting
    period is legal. And let me remind you, as the Attorney General said, by
    November of 1998, which is not all that far away, we expect to have in
    place the technology and the capacity to do instantaneous background
    checks. Is that the date? So what we've got to do is figure out how to
    keep this system alive between now and November of '98. We are committed
    to doing it.
        Let me just say another couple of words, if I might, about this
    legislation today and what it means to us. I think the Congressman said
    it's only a small part of our overall drug budget, but it clearly sends
    a signal that we are shifting emphasis, not to diminish what were doing
    on interdiction and the other work that we have to do about drugs beyond
    our borders, but to recognize that we will never get a hold of this
    problem unless we deal with the demand side here in America.
        And we know that while casual drug use has plummeted over the last
    15 years among adults, it has doubled among young people in just the
    last 5 years, and among eighth graders it has tripled. The fact that the
    percentage of total people trying drugs at that age level is small is
    cold comfort when you look at the trends and you ask yourself, how could
    these trends be running in direct contradiction to the fact that drug
    use is going down among people between the ages of 18 and 35? That is
    the real threat to our future. That is the problem we face today. And
    the quicker we face up to it the better off we're going to be.
        A study by Columbia's Center for Addiction and Substance Abuse has
    shown, for example, that a young person who tries marijuana is 85 times
    more likely to try cocaine than peers who don't try marijuana in the
    first place. So a middle schooler or a high schooler who mistakenly
    decides that it's safe to try cocaine or heroine or LSD or
    methamphetamine or any of the so-called designer drugs, along with
    marijuana, is playing a dangerous game, and we have to try somehow to do
    more than we have done in the past to stop this. And we know that the
    broadly based community antidrug coalitions have been successful at
    driving down casual drug use. We know that they've been more successful
    than anyone else and than any other approach has been.
        So what we're trying to do here is to find a way to support them, to
    encourage them to do more, and to increase the number of such coalitions
    throughout our country. We know that this has got to be done person by
    person, family by family, community by community. That's what this
    legislation does. More than 4,300 communities in every State in America
    and our territories have organized themselves to deal with this, to help
    parents, to help the teachers, the coaches, the principals, all the
    others who are fighting for drug-free schools and communities and a
    drug-free future for our children.
        So this is the sort of partnership we need more of. Again, let me
    say I am immensely gratified by the bipartisan nature of this. I also
    would say, if you focus on the problem, which is why juvenile drug abuse
    is going up while young adult drug use is going down, and the whole
    impact of the culture on that, I think it justifies the policy that
    General McCaffrey adopted that I have supported him on of having an
    unprecedented advertising campaign to try to get the message out to
    these young people. And I certainly believe it supports our juvenile
    crime strategy of having 1,000 afterschool programs to give our young
    people positive things to do, because we know that a lot of the most
    difficult hours are those right after school closes for criminal
    activity and for casual drug use.

    [[Page 838]]

        So the Drug-Free Communities Act of 1997 is not only a good thing,
    but I hope it is an indication of things to come.
        The last point I'd like to make, just to echo what the Vice
    President said about the smoking issue, is I think that this settlement
    was a terrific achievement. It is the result of all the work that was
    done before then in the public health community and the work that our
    administration had done. But we have to take a quick look--I mean, a
    careful look at it, and we will take a careful look at it. Secretary
    Shalala and my Domestic Policy Adviser, Bruce Reed, are heading a group
    that will consult with the public health community, will look at it
    carefully, and we will offer our judgments on it.
        My preliminary take is that we do not want to paralyze the capacity
    of the FDA to protect the American people. That, to me, is the critical
    thing. And that in no way minimizes the enormous achievement of the
    attorneys general and the others who are involved in this in the public
    health community. And I have no final judgment on it. I just want to say
    that Secretary Shalala is going to take a serious look at it. We're
    going to work hard here in the White House. But if we can do more and
    more of these things together in a bipartisan way as we're doing today,
    I think this country is going to be much better off.
        Thank you very much.

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

    Supreme Court Decision on Handgun Legislation

        Q. Mr. President, with the Supreme Court ruling today, will your
    administration--and can it legally--speed up the process of getting this
    instant background check system in place?
        The President. Well, that's one of the things the Attorney General
    and Secretary Rubin are going to tell me in the next day or two. We're
    going to look at what our options are. Obviously, we've been thinking
    about this. I think the important thing to point out is, the Supreme
    Court said it was constitutional for us to have a 5-day waiting period,
    that we can have background checks but that five of them did not believe
    we could require local officials to do it. They said we could have done
    what we've done in the past by tying Federal funds of some kind to the
    willingness to do it, sort of a contractual arrangement.
        We're going to look at what our options are and see where to go from
    here. But in the short run, I would just implore the officials in the 23
    States that don't have their own State laws requiring this to keep on
    doing it, because there is no longer any serious debate here; no one who
    needs to get any kind of weapon has been seriously inconvenienced, and a
    quarter of a million people who had no business with them don't have
    them. It's a huge public policy success for the United States. It's a
    part of driving the crime rate down. And we'll come up with our options
    as quick as we can.

    Proposed Tobacco Agreement

        Q. It sounds like you like the tobacco agreement.
        The President. No, I don't think you should draw any conclusion one
    way or the other. I like the fact that they achieved it and that has--
    and the broad dimensions of it are quite staggering. I mean, even in
    Washington $368 billion is a lot of money. [Laughter] And I think that
    it's a real testament to all--to the work the attorneys general and the
    other parties did. But I would say that we have an obligation to look at
    it very carefully from the public health point of view.
        Keep in mind, whenever--in any settlement in any lawsuit, both sides
    think they're better off settling than not, or there wouldn't be any
    settlement--I mean, by definition. So what we have to make--we have to
    be sure that the things that made the tobacco companies believe that
    they did the right thing to settle don't compromise the long-term
    interests of the public health and especially our attempts to stop
    children from smoking in the first place. That's all. And we're looking
    at it.
        But I don't think--you know, even if I were to render a negative
    judgment on it after Secretary Shalala and Bruce Reed finish their
    review, I would still be immensely impressed with the work that the
    attorneys general and the others have done. It's quite a staggering
    thing. It's a long way from where we were just a couple of years ago
    when no one thought that any progress would ever be made on this issue.
        Q. Mr. President, what are your specific concerns about the FDA
    provisions in this agreement?

    [[Page 839]]

        The President. I want to wait until I get my review. I just want to
    make sure that they will still be able to do what is necessary to
    protect the public health and children's health based on the evidence
    that comes before them in the intervening period. Now, there is a period
    of years in which they cannot actually ban nicotine. But there are a lot
    of other options and issues which could come before them during that
    period, and that's what we're looking at, to make sure their
    jurisdiction has not been under any--[inaudible].

    Tax Cut Legislation

        Q. Sir, how do you resolve the rhetorical battle between Republicans
    and Democrats with the tax bill? There seems to be a stand-off going
    into yesterday over the income tax----
        The President. Oh, I think a lot of that is--I think the best way to
    resolve it is, one, for everyone to say, we want a tax bill, we want a
    tax cut bill. We want a tax cut bill that does not explode in the out-
    years, does not bring the bad old days of the deficits back to us. We
    want one that is faithful to the agreement that was made. And I want one
    that, particularly within the confines of the agreement, that helps
    families to raise their children and that helps to fund greater
    education.
        But you should expect a little of this skirmishing. We're going to
    do more, and we're going to offer our thoughts on Monday about what
    should be in the tax bill, and then we're going to keep working. But
    I'm, frankly, quite optimistic. I wouldn't--you would expect that all
    the parties would advance their views in the most vigorous way possible.
    But I think the issue is, are we likely to have a bill that meets those
    criteria, and I think the answer is, yes, we are quite likely to have
    one.

    Line Item Veto

        Q. You feel stronger with a line item veto, don't you?
        The President. Well, I think it's the right thing to do. I was
    pleased that the Supreme Court didn't strike it down, although they
    invited the first person who gets mad enough to do so. [Laughter] So I
    guess we'll be back in court on that one. But let me--I had it when I
    was Governor; most Governors do. I think it should be used with great
    care and discipline. You have to respect the congressional process. And
    my experience was after having used it a few times, that the great value
    of it was that it was a low--it was just another part of the framework
    of fiscal discipline we're trying to effect. That is, when I was a
    Governor, after a year or two, the most important thing about it was not
    when it was used, but that it existed in the first place, because it
    helped to keep us within a framework of fiscal responsibility. That's
    basically what I'm interested in.

    Sending Power Back to the States

        Q. Mr. President, what do you think of the Supreme Court's record on
    sending power back to the States, now that the term is almost over?
        The President. Well, I need to have time to evaluate all the things.
    Basically, you know, we sent a lot of power back to the States since
    I've been President. Since I used to be there, I can hardly say it's a
    bad idea. I think the question is, what are the terms on which the power
    goes back, what is the framework, can the national interests still be
    protected? And that's how you have to evaluate all this.
        But in general, it's just like this bill here. This bill basically
    empowers communities within the framework of an agreed-upon national
    objective. Why? Because this is not a problem we can solve in
    Washington. And every Republican and every Democrat who has ever looked
    at it says the same thing. So what these Members have done is to embody
    what seems to me to be a common-sense principle.
        So I have no problem with that. I think that a lot of the
    operational work of life is better done where people live, at the
    grassroots level. The only question I would have on any of these things
    is, can we still pursue the national interests? If we had no capacity
    coming on-line in '98--let's take the Brady bill, for example--if we
    have no capacity coming on-line in '98 to do instantaneous background
    checks, then I would take the--certainly would want to take the Supreme
    Court up on their offer to tie the receipt of some kind of Federal
    money, at least, to the willingness to continue these background checks
    because I think that's a national interest issue.
        But on balance, I think the operations, doing more operationally at
    the State and local level, is a good thing.

    Line Item Veto

        Q. Would you use the first line item veto on the tax bill?

    [[Page 840]]

        The President. You go back and read that legislation; that was a
    battle over legislation--they were very artful, the Congress was, in
    kind of limiting the extent to which the President can use it on a tax
    bill. It's different. The options on spending are broader than the
    options on the tax bill. So I'll have to look at that.
        I hope I don't have to use it at all. I hope we just make a good
    agreement; that's my goal.
        Thank you.

    Note: The President spoke at 12:32 p.m. in the Roosevelt Room at the
    White House. H.R. 956, approved June 27, was assigned Public Law No.
    105-20.