Political Quotes

“I Would like to share his concern about the state of the White House operation in this matter--the matter of drug interdiction and drug abuse--which was established by legislation in 1988. The then majority leader, Robert C. Byrd, created a task force which consisted of the Senator from Georgia, Mr. Nunn, and myself, and I think we had more than a little influence in the legislation that finally passed. I will take a moment of the Senate's time to speak about that legislation. We saw the problem as being twofold. One was the reduction in the supply of drugs--most of which began as legal pharmaceutical products. They arrived from the onset of organic chemistry in German universities in the early 19th century. You take this gradual escalation from opium to morphine to heroin. Heroin, Mr. President, is a trade name. You can find advertisements in the Yale Alumni News, if you wish, for heroin in 1910 or thereabouts. It was developed by the Bayer Co., that produced Bayer aspirin. Aspirin is a trade name. Heroin was tried out and tested on its employees and it made them feel heroisch in German, heroic. Cocaine emerged from the same process, from the coca leaf to the synthesized product. Sigmund Freud's first publication ``Uber Coca'' described his use of cocaine as a means of treating morphine addiction, which did not succeed, and he became very much opposed to it. These drugs were outlawed in 1915, if memory serves, by the Federal Government, and remain so.…”