Orrin Hatch: “our Federal drug policy is at a crossroads. Unfortunately for Americans, drug control is not a national priority for the…”

“our Federal drug policy is at a crossroads. Unfortunately for Americans, drug control is not a national priority for the Clinton administration. For some time now I have been saying that President Clinton has been AWOL--absent without leadership--in the war on drugs. Put another way, the Clinton White House has been MIA in the drug war-- mired in arrogance. Ineffectual leadership and failed Federal policies have combined with ambiguous cultural messages to generate changing attitudes among our young people and sharp, serious increases in youthful drug use. This is painfully evidenced by this chart on my right, which shows that after a 12-year steady decline in drug use by high school seniors, from 1980 to 1992, there has been a sharp increase in such drug use during the last 3 years. As you can see, the decline came from 1980 downhill in every one of these categories, and in every one of the categories since 1992 drug use has started to go up sharply. Even more troubling is that this increase has been uniform as to those who have used drugs in the past month, in the past year, and those children trying drugs for the first time. No one is more responsible for our current dilemma than President Clinton. For more than 3 years, I have taken to the floor of the Senate to warn my colleagues and the Nation about the threat we face due to President Clinton's abdication of leadership in the war on drugs.”