Political Quotes

“I would like to speak on another topic that, sadly, is still relevant today as it has been for so many years. And I want to start by recalling 35 years ago, when I was a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, I was faced with one of the most troubling votes in my whole career. It was the height of the war on drugs. A new narcotic showed up. It was called crack cocaine. We didn't know much about it, but we knew several things: First, highly addictive; second, dirt cheap; third, if a woman who was pregnant used it, she could cause permanent harm to the baby she was carrying. We started worrying that this was going to become the drug of choice across America and that the war on drugs was going to be lost forever. And just about the time we were debating this, an event took place that really had no direct connection to crack cocaine, but it rocked the Capitol. There was a basketball player at the University of Maryland, whose name was Len Bias. He was a very good basketball player, destined for the NBA. Sadly, he overdosed and died. It shocked everyone all across this region, and it certainly was felt in the House of Representatives. And, perhaps, it was part of the impetus for a measure that we enacted, which I later came to really regret. Congress took action in 1986. I joined 400 of my House colleagues. We decided to take a stand--a really powerful stand--against crack cocaine.…”