Jack Kingston: “What is interesting, Mr. Speaker, is that while the administration was busy not cutting taxes, they had no problem…”

“What is interesting, Mr. Speaker, is that while the administration was busy not cutting taxes, they had no problem cutting drug awareness money. Last week I had the opportunity to speak at the Harris County DARE graduation, and just some statistics that are in my mind. The average age now nationally that teenagers smoke marijuana is age 13. Thirty-eight percent of parents think that their kids do not smoke or get involved in drugs, and yet, in reality, the percentage is often higher than that, depending on where they are. Twelve- and 13-year-olds and 14- and 15-year olds have one of the highest increases in marijuana use in the Nation, higher than any other age bracket. But one of the statistics that I think is very encouraging is that if you can keep your child off of drugs until he or she is 19 years old, then they have a 90 percent chance of staying drug-free for the rest of their lives. I think what we really need to do is talk to our teenagers about drug abuse. I think it should be drug and alcohol abuse and any other substance, legal or illegal, that they can abuse, because we have to keep our children drug-free. We have to keep our schools drug-free and the workplace drug-free. If we can do that, we are going to have a generation that will successfully take the torch on, and we will all be able to retire one day and they will pay for our Social Security.”