Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, this bill is one part of the solution to the most insidious national security threat that we as a Nation face today. International drug trafficking is rampant across our borders, and unfortunately this does not affect our borders. It affects our street corners. It affects our neighborhoods. It affects our communities. It affects our children. It affects people in our workplaces. It affects people in our highways and our schools. This bill is dedicated certainly to the 14,218 Americans, most of them are youth, who died last year directly from drugs and drug violence. This bill aims to shut down drug growers and drug processors in places like Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, Mexico and Myanmar. Over the past 5 years, first-time use of heroin by kids ages 12 to 17 rose by 875 percent, an 875 percent increase. That means for every one child who tried heroin in 1992, more than 8 children tried it in 1997. That kind of explosion in drug use, in heroin, methamphetamine, marijuana and cocaine, is intolerable. It is immoral, destructive and fundamentally unAmerican. Worst of all, it is a tragedy of our own making. Deep cuts, billions of dollars in cuts, are the hallmark in the early part of this administration. In 1993 alone, the White House slashed a billion dollars from drug interdiction programs.”