John Mica: “I come once again before the House this afternoon to talk about the issue of illegal drugs and narcotics, its impact on…”

“I come once again before the House this afternoon to talk about the issue of illegal drugs and narcotics, its impact on our Nation and on our community and on our children. I have probably spoken more than any other Member in the last 5 years on this issue and I intend to speak every opportunity I can get about what drugs are doing to the lives of our young people. I always like to review what took place when I came into Congress and the other party controlled the House, other body and the White House. In fact, their first steps under the Clinton administration were to cut the positions in the drug czar's office from almost 150 down to about 25. The next thing that the new President did, and I was a freshman and protested it here on the floor, was to cut the interdiction, to end the military involvement in the war on drugs, to stop and really cut the drug interdiction and eradication programs, to cut the Coast Guard, to dismantle all kinds of enforcement programs, and then the ultimate insult to the American people was to appoint a Surgeon General, Joycelyn Elders, who adopted the policy that I entitled ``just say maybe to our young people,'' not to mention that the leader of the free world, the highest office in our land, said to our children, ``If I had it all to do over again, I would inhale.'' That set a tremendous pattern.…”