John Shaw: “Back in 1988 I was one of the prime sponsors, along with the gentleman from New York [Mr. Gilman] and others, that…”

“Back in 1988 I was one of the prime sponsors, along with the gentleman from New York [Mr. Gilman] and others, that worked so hard in this area of drug prevention of the original so-called drug czar bill, which was then watered down considerably in conference. This would reestablish much of the power that many of us back then, in a very bipartisan way, were supporting in order to try to get a handle on this Nation's growing drug problem. What has happened in the last 10 years? In the last 10 years we have spent $103 billion on the war on drugs. I will tell my colleagues that in the last 10 years, we have seen a bipartisan failure in the war on drugs. Neither party can say that they have been successful. Now, what are we doing with this bill? We are setting up expectations. We are setting up goals. We are setting up flexibility. We are setting up more power within the drug czar's office. We are doing all of the right things in order to try to get to what we all want to accomplish, both Democrats and Republicans, and that is to finally start winning some battles in the war against drugs. This country has had absolutely no resolve. Our war on drugs has been a blueprint for failure. We have not actually gone to war with the objective of winning. We have gone to the war on drugs with a Vietnam mentality, and that is the status quo.”