Dianne Feinstein: “if I may, I would like to continue the arguments that the Senator from Georgia has made and add some of my own. And, Mr.…”

“if I may, I would like to continue the arguments that the Senator from Georgia has made and add some of my own. And, Mr. President, I do not make these arguments lightly, nor do I make them with any sense of pleasure. It is never easy or pleasant to criticize a friend, a neighbor, and an ally. And Mexico is all of these. The United States and Mexico have a deep and complex relationship that spans every conceivable form of interaction across a 2,000-mile border. And we need to work together to solve problems that confront us. I have heard many arguments--``Oh, this is all a United States problem.'' Well, Mr. President, the United States is trying to address that problem. Let me give you just two facts to corroborate that. One, in 1998, the U.S. Federal Government has spent or will spend nearly $16 billion fighting drugs. Of that, on demand reduction alone, we will spend $5.37 billion; on interdiction, $1.62 billion; on domestic law enforcement, $8.4 billion. And it all goes up next year. One interesting fact is in 1985 prisoners on drug charges in Federal prisons were 31.4 percent of the total. Today, almost 60 percent of the Federal prison population is in prison on drug charges. So the number of people in Federal prisons for drug crimes in the United States of America has risen by over 30 percent in this decade. We are trying. We may fail, but we do try. So this country does make a substantial effort--prevention, education, treatment, all of it.…”