John Mica: “I come to the House floor tonight to talk about President Clinton and this administration's supposedly new policy…”

“I come to the House floor tonight to talk about President Clinton and this administration's supposedly new policy relating to national drug control strategy. Yesterday the President was in my State, and I was somewhat excited about the possibility of his coming to Florida and announcing a new drug strategy. Unfortunately, my hopes for some new approach to this tremendous problem facing our country, particularly under his stewardship, were immediately dashed when I first learned that the President's major activities were several Democratic fund-raising events in the Miami area and I guess a golf game and some other activities. I really thought he was going to come forth with a new strategy, but that was not the case. Then I got my hopes up until I got a copy of the national drug control strategy that was just released by the administration. I had hoped that there would be some solid solutions to some of the problems, and I find that actually it is just sort of repackaging in sort of a slick cover some of the same approaches that have proven so ineffective during the past 3 rac{1}{2} years. What is particularly disturbing is this whole pattern from this administration relating to drug abuse, substance abuse, and it started right after the President came into office when he first of all dismantled the drug czar's office and fired the bulk of the staff.”