George H.W. Bush: “Let me repeat the question because I want to argue with the premise a little bit, not totally. The premise is, it seems…”

“Let me repeat the question because I want to argue with the premise a little bit, not totally. The premise is, it seems to be getting worse on narcotics, drugs, amongst young people, and what do you propose to do about it? We have a national drug strategy. We are making significant if not dramatic progress amongst young people, for example, in the use of cocaine, down by 10 percent. Where we're hurting as a society is the 35 and older, kind of the addicted crowd is not shaking it. Education is a part of it. Treatment is a part of it. Interdiction, a much more successful interdiction effort, is a part of it. But the national drug strategy is working. And then there's another ingredient to this. It's the private partnership under the leadership of a guy named Jim Burke. We're spending $1 million--they are, not Government--$1 million a day with, I don't know whether you've seen them, with advertisements, pro bono advertisements trying to help educate children and parents that drugs are--you know, turn off of drugs. We are making progress. We've made big progress in marijuana, made big progress in cocaine use. And yet, we've still got a long way to go. So, we'll keep fighting the problem, but I just want to give a little hope out there that these figures are fairly encouraging in terms of the age group that you asked about. Last pitch is this on it: I still think that the people of New Hampshire, in spite of the economic problems and being out of work, still really epitomize for a lot of the rest of the country what Barbara and I talk about as family values. I worry about the decimation of the American family. Everything we do, like child care, we try to make it that the family has a choice, or education, that the family does. Barbara is out there trying to get people--``Read to the kids.'' So, I do think that family involvement is vital to the success. The Federal Government cannot get this drug thing done by itself. We've got a program. We've got to keep the families together and the families involved in solving this. That isn't a vote-getter, and that isn't going to outpromise some Democrat halfway across the State. But it is something I feel very, very strongly about and will continue to try to help the American people understand. You've got to read to your kids. You've got to hug them. You've got to lift them up and dust them off and put them back into the game. And if you don't do that, they drift off into some of this mire. In the inner city they need help on it, too. [At this point, County Commissioner Maureen Barrows presented a book on the history of Exeter to the President.]”