[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 31, Number 30 (Monday, July 31, 1995)]
[Pages 1308-1309]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Statement on Senate Action on Appropriations Legislation

July 26, 1995

    Yesterday's action by a Senate appropriations subcommittee removing 
funding for the Office of National Drug Control Policy would seriously 
undermine the Nation's battle against drug abuse and drug-related crime.
    Removal of all funding for this office would severely curtail my 
ability to sustain a coordinated strategy among some 50 Federal agencies 
involved in drug control, including supply and demand, enforcement, 
interdiction, eradication, education, treatment, and prevention. Just 
when this coordinated effort is showing sustained success, the 
subcommittee is proposing we go back to the days when the Nation did not 
have a coordinated drug control strategy.
    The Republican majority is already proposing severe cuts in antidrug 
programs--a 60 percent cut in Safe and Drug Free Schools, which teaches 
39 million children about the dangers of drugs, a 26 percent cut in 
prevention and treatment services aimed at reducing the number of 
potential criminals, and a 50 percent cut in international antidrug 
cooperation programs, a cut that could prevent the continued arrests of 
the world's top drug kingpins.

[[Page 1309]]

    Members of Congress cannot tie our hands by cutting effective 
antidrug programs, kill the very office that coordinates our national 
antidrug strategy, and then expect to be taken seriously when they 
criticize the administration for not doing more. It's time instead for 
the Congress to support our antidrug initiatives.
    Lee Brown, Director of the ONDCP, is doing an extraordinary job 
focusing the Nation's attention on the need to fight drugs at all 
levels. He has helped me develop a comprehensive, effective, balanced 
antidrug strategy and has worked to reduce duplication among those 
agencies who play a role in our counternarcotics efforts.
    As this bill is now constructed, I will not sign it. I urge the full 
Appropriations Committee and the Senate to restore the funding of this 
office that is so critical to our battle against drugs.