Porter Goss: “I rise today to underscore one of the greatest unnecessary obstacles to the education of our children: drugs. We all…”

“I rise today to underscore one of the greatest unnecessary obstacles to the education of our children: drugs. We all know the word; we all know the problem. Drugs are a fact of life for America's children and we have to deal with that. Over half of all high school seniors have tried an illegal drug and nearly one in two can buy marijuana within an hour. There is not a community, a school, a family in this Nation that is immune to the destructive pervasiveness of drugs. We all know it is past time to stop paying lip service and get on with the war on drugs and start with positive and specific action. Stalemate is unacceptable. The administration's effort to curb this trend has been sadly negligent. We know that. It ranges from 'no commitment' to 'wrong message.' While cocaine and heroin prices have steadily declined and teen drug has skyrocketed, the administration has cut international interdiction by $1 billion and drug arrests have fallen by 12 percent. Let me tell my colleagues, as the chairman of the House Committee on Intelligence, that stopping supply is possible and it matters. We cannot continue to let drugs stand in the way of the safety and education of our children, obviously. So we are committed to attacking the drug epidemic on all fronts, from production to the school room.”