    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book I)]
    [February 25, 1997]
    [Pages 199-203]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks Announcing the 1997 National Drug Control Strategy and an
    Exchange With Reporters
    February 25, 1997

        The President. Thank you very much. First of all, thank you, Nathan,
    for your introduction and your commitment, and I thank all the young
    people who are here from the Boys and Girls Club, from the D.A.R.E.
    programs. I want to thank the members of the President's Drug Policy
    Council who are standing here behind me and those out in the audience
    who have been introduced by the Vice President and by General McCaffrey.
    And I thank the Members of

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    Congress for being here and their support, and all the rest of you who
    are involved in this battle.
        Let me say a special word of appreciation to General McCaffrey. He
    has literally been tireless in developing a national strategy to reduce
    illegal drug use and, more importantly, to implement it in a way that
    makes a difference in the lives of all Americans. I knew that he was
    well-suited for the job. I had had a lot of exposure to General
    McCaffrey before I asked him to do this job. But even so, I have been
    surprised by the increased intensity of his tenacity and focus, and for
    that I am grateful. I think it gives us a chance to turn this situation
    among our young people around, with all of your help.
        Let me say at the outset, one of the things that I have tried to do
    and one of the reasons I like this drug policy so much is that it is
    focused on children and therefore it is a part of what I think ought to
    be our overall mission, which is to give our children a safe, wholesome,
    constructive upbringing that begins with a drug-free life, appropriate
    health care, safe streets, and a decent education.
        I want to thank the Attorney General--today the Justice Department
    has announced something else that I think is important. I'd just like to
    begin, because I think we need to look at this in terms of the safety of
    our children. Today the Justice Department announced that in the first
    28 months since the Brady bill went into effect--another law directed to
    the safety of our children--more than 186,000 felons, fugitives, and
    stalkers were blocked from buying guns over the counter, more than
    186,000, from March of 1994 to the end of June of 1996. And more than 70
    percent were rejected because the applicant was an indicted or convicted
    felon. Now, it seems to me that, for all those who are still out there
    campaigning against the Brady bill, those of us who support it can now
    rest our case. It's the right thing to do for America. It's making us
    safer. It's giving these children a chance to grow up drug-free. And I
    ask all of you in law enforcement to redouble your efforts to support it
    and to do what we can to defend it.
        Our five-part drug strategy is another part of making America safer
    for our children. In 10 years, a young person, a young man or woman
    Nathan's age, will be in his or her early twenties, a time when a person
    should be well on the road to becoming a contributing member of society,
    an adult with responsible duties. Those 10 years, they're a pivotal 10
    years. We're learning all the time about how formative the young years
    are in a person's life when intelligence is formed, but we also need to
    concentrate on the formative years when not only intelligence but good
    judgment is formed and decisions are made about whether people will be
    good citizens, good workers, good parents, and among other things, drug-
    free. What happens to people in those 10 years should be an integral
    part of every drug strategy. This is an urgent issue.
        You know, there is hardly a day that passes when we don't read in
    the newspaper about yet another child becoming a victim of violence.
    Every American should be angry that a 9-year-old cannot make her way
    safely to her grandmother's door in a Chicago housing project--angry
    that she was brutally attacked and left for dead. That child will suffer
    with great physical and emotional pain for the rest of her life. A
    portion of her childhood was taken from her. And whenever an attack like
    that happens, a portion of our humanity is taken from all of us.
        Last week in Chicago, Hillary asked that anyone who has information
    about that attack contact the local law enforcement officials. I want to
    extend that call today and ask that all of us do more to keep watch over
    our children. We have to become angry whenever any child, one single
    child, becomes prey for drugs or violence or abuse, and we should use
    our anger to take action.
        Last week I unveiled our youth violence strategy to keep gangs,
    guns, and drugs off our street and called for new protections for our
    children, including safety locks on guns and extending the Brady bill to
    violent youthful offenders. But fundamentally this course will only
    change if all of us can teach our children right from wrong and if all
    of us can help them to steer away to a more productive, positive life.
        That is what we have to focus on in this drug strategy. We know what
    works. We know what works. There are people here who have been working
    in this vineyard for years and years and years. We know that bipartisan
    cooperation works. We know persistence and community action works. All
    were factors in reducing illegal drug use by half in the last 15 years.
    But we also know that during this time, drug use by adolescents, almost
    unbelievably, went

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    up. And I might add, until last year so was the crime rate by young
    people going up while the overall crime rate was dropping. And the two
    things were clearly related.
        This is not a problem confined only to the poor or to those in inner
    cities. It cuts across from rich to middle class to poor, from urban to
    suburban to rural. In each of these places there are children who are
    getting in trouble when they ought to be choosing a better life. Among
    eighth graders in the last few years, drug use is up 150 percent. An
    eighth grader, typically, is 13 or 14 years old. That's why prevention
    is important at that age and indeed even considerably younger. If we
    teach our children well, more of them will live well away from harm's
    way.
        Our drug strategy must be more than a year-to-year approach but a
    guide to action for the next decade for those critical 10 years of these
    young people's lives, to reduce drug use and its consequences, and to
    keep our young people out of the kind of harm that the invasion of drugs
    into their bodies will cause. We should first begin by giving our
    children the straight facts. We know that the more children are aware of
    the dangers of drugs and believe the facts, the more likely they are to
    avoid them. We propose to add up to $175 million to seed a far-reaching
    media campaign to get out the facts and shape the attitudes of these
    young people. We'll be seeking matching funds from the private sector
    for a total of $350 million because this must be a shared
    responsibility. If a child does watch television--and what child
    doesn't--he or she should not be able to escape these messages.
        And again, let me say I want to thank General McCaffrey for bringing
    this idea to me and pointing out how much we had permitted public
    advertising aimed at young people about the dangers of drugs to decline
    over the last few years. That is one of the seminal contributions that
    he has made to my understanding of this issue, and I appreciate it, and
    I ask the Congress to help us to get this job done.
        Second, we must reduce drug-related crime and violence. Drug
    trafficking supports gangs and sets off gang warfare. A million
    Americans are arrested every year for violating the drug laws. Let me
    say that again: A million Americans are arrested every year for
    violating drug laws. Three-quarters of the growth in the number of
    Federal prison inmates is due to drug offenses. We will enforce the law
    vigorously, but we have to do more than make more jail space. I saw
    yesterday that two of our largest States, Florida and California, now
    have prison budgets bigger than their higher education budgets, that
    prison construction is growing all over America much faster than
    constructions in our colleges and universities, even though enrollment
    is going up and older people are trying to go back to college.
        We have to do more to prevent these things from occurring in the
    first place, more to take the guns out of hands of criminals and
    juveniles, more to use the criminal justice system to reduce drug demand
    and break the cycle of drugs and violence. Drug courts and mandatory
    drug testing and treatment are effective. I'm pleased to announce that
    the Justice Department is providing $16 million in grants to more than
    125 communities across our Nation for planning, implementing, or
    improving drug courts. I have seen them work; I know they will make a
    difference.
        Third, we have to work to eliminate the social consequences of
    illegal drug use. A third of all AIDS and HIV cases are drug-related--a
    third. More than 3.6 million Americans, as the General said, are
    addicted to drugs. Drugs kill 14,000 of our fellow citizens every year.
    Often, people who use illegal drugs are people who go to class or hold
    jobs or have families. They drain our productivity. We can begin to
    reduce these circumstances if we can further decrease the number of
    casual drug users and if we can help chronic users to overcome their
    dependency. It is important that we try to do both.
        Fourth, we have to do more to shield our frontiers against drug
    trafficking. We all know that this is a very difficult task. Hundreds of
    millions of people enter our Nation every year. Hundreds of millions of
    tons of cargo are shipped here every year. Just one millionth of all
    that cargo is illegal drugs. One millionth of all that cargo is illegal
    drugs. But that is still far too much and an awful lot of cargo. Our job
    is to stop it without hurting the legal commerce and movement that makes
    us the trade leader of the world. Along our border to the south with
    Mexico, crime and violence linked to drugs must be brought under
    control. Our 1998 budget will bring considerable reinforcement to that
    border.
        Fifth, we have to reduce drug cultivation, production, and
    trafficking abroad and at home.

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    We've made a start by supporting alternatives to drug crops. In Peru,
    coca cultivation dropped by 18 percent. In the next decade, we want to
    completely eliminate the cultivation of coca for illicit consumption. If
    we help with alternative crops, that is a viable, viable policy in many
    cases.
        We've also had some successes against trafficking. The Coast Guard's
    Operation Frontier Shield in the eastern Caribbean between October 1st
    and December 1st of last year seized 14,000 pounds of illicit drugs,
    compared to 5,400 pounds for the entire previous year. It seized seven
    smuggling vessels and achieved an 80 percent interdiction rate, versus
    20 percent in the previous year. We can do better with interdiction, and
    we're learning to do it.
        Throughout the Caribbean and in South America, we've captured more
    than 100 tons of cocaine a year. With the cooperation of other nations
    and with regional organizations, we're committed to building on our
    record of success. And when Secretary Albright returns from her trip
    this afternoon, we'll be looking at certification on counternarcotics
    operations. We are committed to cooperating with our friends in Latin
    America. That's one of the reasons why I asked Mack McLarty to be my
    special envoy to the Americas. We want to cooperate with them, but we
    want them to cooperate with us as well. We want to reduce our demand for
    drugs, but we are determined to reduce the supply as well.
        Finally, let me say we have to do more to work together here at
    home. On May 21st I will host the first White House mayors conference on
    drug control, to bring together not only mayors but police officers and
    prosecutors, too, to make sure that in every community we are doing the
    very best job we can. I want parents, teachers, law enforcement, and
    other community leaders to help us. I want our young people to help us,
    most of all. We did not create this problem overnight, and it will not
    be solved overnight, but over that critical decade of these young
    people's lives who are here, we can lift a whole generation away from
    the grip of a terrible menace.
        Thanks to the efforts of many people, we now have a rational,
    coherent, and long-term strategy. Its ultimate success will depend upon
    the support it receives from every American. And ultimately, it will
    depend upon the willingness of our young people to listen, to learn, to
    be strong, and to find support. The rest of us have to be that support.
    There is no more urgent priority.
        Thank you very much.

    1996 Campaign Financing

        Q. Mr. President, in a short time we in the media will have access
    to documents which reportedly contain your feelings that overnight stays
    at the White House could be used as a motivation to get----
        The President. This is not a national priority.
        Q. ----could be used as a motivation for getting people to
    contribute more to the Democratic National Committee.
        The President. That's not what they contain.
        Q. Well, I'm--we have not seen these documents yet.
        The President. Well, I'll tell you what. I'll be glad to answer the
    questions, but you should see it first. What the document says--there's
    a document in there that points out that in early 1995, a lot of the
    people that helped me get elected President in '92 thought that they had
    gotten estranged, in effect, from me, that we had not kept in touch with
    them. And Terry McAuliffe sent me a memo suggesting things we ought to
    do to reestablish contact, which I thought was a good memo. And I told
    him to proceed. And I told Nancy Hernreich, in addition to that, that I
    wanted to ask some of my friends who had helped me when I got elected
    President that I hadn't been in touch with to come to the White House
    and spend the night with me. That is a reference to that.
        And later, by the way, today, sometime, we're going to release the
    people--the number of people who stayed at the White House in the last 4
    years, and you will see that the people that worked for me and helped to
    raise funds for me were a small percentage of the total number of people
    who stayed at the White House. But they were my friends, and I was proud
    to have them here. And I do not believe people who lawfully raise money
    for people running for office are bad people. I think they're good
    people. They make the system work that we have now. I'm proud that they
    helped me, and I was proud to have them here. I did not have any
    strangers here. The Lincoln Bedroom was never sold. That was one more
    false story we have had to endure. And the facts will show what the
    truth is.
        Thank you very much.

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    Note: The President spoke at 11:37 a.m. in Room 450 of the Old Executive
    Office Building. In his remarks, he referred to Boys and Girls Club
    member Nathan Habel, who introduced the President; Terence McAuliffe,
    finance chair, Clinton/Gore '96; and Nancy Hernreich, Deputy Assistant
    to the President and Director of Oval Office Operations.