Tom Latham: “I serve on the Speaker's drug task force. Anyone who has looked for a moment about drug usage with children and how they…”

“I serve on the Speaker's drug task force. Anyone who has looked for a moment about drug usage with children and how they start, there are two key components: Number one, the risk, the risk of what is going to happen to them. They are going to get sick or it is going to kill them. Number two is the peer pressure or the moral authority that drug use is wrong. Now, if we, as a Federal Government, use taxpayer dollars to say to kids it is okay if they use drugs as long as they use a clean needle and we are going to pay for it, what message does that send to our kids who are facing very difficult decisions today? If we tell kids that, hey, it might not be good, mom and dad do not like it, but the peer pressure is not there because the Federal Government says it is okay, we are going to subsidize their drug use, it is wrong. And I support this bill 100 percent.”