Chuck Grassley: “When we had Bill Bennett resign as drug czar during this period of time, it was front-page news. When Dr. Brown left 2…”

“When we had Bill Bennett resign as drug czar during this period of time, it was front-page news. When Dr. Brown left 2 or 3 months ago, you may remember the story was buried someplace on page 12 in one of the newspapers I read. Dr. Brown's resignation there, the story of it was buried along with news about drugs or the public's concern. That fact of how the media treat this very serious problem, versus how serious the public at the grassroots really feel it is, tells us something about the present state of our drug policy and how the media think. Since they do not care about the drug issue, since the media do not care about the drug issue, it ceases to be news. Never mind the public attitude or what these surveys show, just somehow it does not happen to be news. It is clear, however, Mr. President, that the public is very, very concerned about this issue. A poll earlier this year showed that over 80 percent of the public saw stopping the flow of illegal drugs to the United States as their primary foreign policy concern. Just in the last few weeks, the Gallup poll organization released information on the public's attitude about drugs. This poll makes it clear that, unlike with the administration or the press, the drug issue has not fallen off the public's agenda. According to this poll by Gallup, 94 percent--I want to repeat that--94 percent of the American public say the drug abuse problem is either a crisis or a serious problem.”