Book Description

Excerpt from America's Drug Strategy: Lessons of the Past Steps Toward the Future: Hearing Before the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, One Hundred Third Congress, on Examining the National Drug Control Policy, Focusing on Law Enforcement, Drug Treatment and Prevention Programs, April 29, 1993 U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Washington, DC. The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:22 a.m., in room Sd-226, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joseph R.Biden, Jr. (chairman of the committee) presiding. Also present: Senators Metzenbaum, Feinstein, Moseley-Braun, Hatch, Grassley, Specter, and Pressler. Opening Statement Of Hon. Joseph R.Biden, Jr., A U.S. Senator From The State Of Delaware The Chairman. The hearing will come to order. Today we are beginning the first of what will be a series of hearings on our national drug strategy, and today I am releasing the fourth annual Comprehensive National Drug Strategy, which in years past was referred to as an alternative strategy. This year's strategy shares the primary goal of all others, and that is gaining control of the drug epidemic. At the same time, this years strategy stands apart from those offered in the past. Quite simply, we face a unique moment of opportunity in two respects. First, 4 years into the fight the Nation has some hard lessons about what works and what does not in determining how to deal with deterring drug addiction and drug-related crime. Second, with a new President we hopefully will have very shortly a new drug Director, a man who I think most of us would conclude is a first-rate, serious player. The time is ripe to take advantage of the lessons we have learned in the past, the mistakes in strategy made by the last administration, made by me, made by the Congress, made by all of us, to move with a consensus toward a new drug strategy. Since the release of the first annual drug strategy in September 1989, the Federal Government has spent a total of $38.5 billion combating the drug epidemic. Unfortunately, these enormous expenditures have not won the war. Hard-core drug addiction, drug-fueled crime and violence, and drug supplies have, in fact, worsened since the release of the first drug strategy. For example, there are currently about 6 million hard-core addicts. There is a drug treatment shortfall of at least 900, 000 treatable hard-core addicts. Comprehensive drug education programs barely reach one in every two school children in America. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.