FIGHTING THE DRUG PROBLEM

Our country's anti-drug efforts have been quite successful. Over the past
two decades, casual drug use dropped by half. Cocaine use plummeted 75
percent since 1985. Sixty-one million citizens who once used illegal drugs
have rejected them. Unfortunately, 5 million Americans, from a U.S.
population of 270 million, are chronically addicted.

The drug problem is multifaceted and requires a systemic, comprehensive
solution.

Our strategy includes prevention and treatment plus interdiction and law
enforcement. We can make headway against this difficult problem by adopting
a long-range approach.

The 2000 Annual Report for the National Drug Control Strategy emphasizes a
10-year outlook supported by annually updated five-year budgets.

The Strategy aims to reduce drug-use rates by 50 percent in the coming
decade - to the lowest levels in 30 years.

The Strategy defines reduction in demand as the main focus.

Prevention of drug, alcohol, and tobacco use among sixty-eight million
youngsters is our most important goal. The Strategy recognizes that no
single approach can solve this problem.

Rather, drug prevention, education, and treatment must be complemented by
supply-reduction abroad, interdiction on the borders, and strong law
enforcement within the United States. The Strategy ties public policy to a
scientific, research-based body of knowledge. A performance measurement
system allows for periodic review and adjustment as conditions change.

Our signature program is an unprecedented, five-year, billion-dollar
anti-drug media campaign.

This initiative is necessary because even though overall drug use has
declined, teenage use rose precipitously in the early '90s. Eighth-grade
use, for example, nearly tripled between 1992 and 1996. Because mass media
acts like a "proxy-peer" to kids, defining culture by identifying what's
"cool" and what's not, a broad-based anti-drug campaign counteracts
pro-drug messages youngsters receive from many sources.

A minimum of four anti-drug ads a week reaching 90 percent of the target
audience (mostly children but also parents, youth leaders, coaches, and
other adults who work with young people) is changing attitudes and behavior.

Accordingly, drug use among adolescents decreased 13 percent from 1997 to 1998.

We have begun to shift federal spending in support of the five goals of the
national strategy (which can be viewed at www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov).
Resources for prevention increased 52 percent since 1996, and treatment
rose 32 percent.

Drug courts channel nonviolent drug-law offenders into tough, supervised
treatment instead of prison.

The first drug court was established in 1989. Now, more than seven hundred
drug courts are in operation or under development. Nevertheless, drug
treatment is still unavailable for too many desperate Americans.

The problem of drug abuse, like illness or warfare, won't go away in the
foreseeable future.

The so-called "war on drugs" is a poor metaphor because it creates an
expectation of speedy victory.

The metaphor of "cancer" is more appropriate. Like education, efforts
against drug abuse must be ongoing in every generation. By way of example,
we don't close schools - claiming we lost the "war on ignorance" - because
history, science, and math must be taught year after year. Illegal drugs
cost our society 52,000 dead and $110 billion a year. We will only make
progress against this threat through mutually supportive public-health and
law-enforcement policies based on a strong dose of prevention.

Vallejo has been recognized around the country as a model community because
of 10 years of initiatives targeting substance abuse. Well-deserved praise
has been offered for the Vallejo Fighting Back Partnership. Your community
received grants from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Center for
Substance Abuse Prevention, and ONDCP's Drug-Free Communities Program,
among others.

Your strategic plan with measurable outcomes is exemplary.

We have come here to support the work of Mayor Anthony Intintoli,
Congressman George Miller and his field representative Kathy Hoffman - who
is also president of the board of directors of VFBP - VFBP Executive
Director Jane Callahan, Chairman of VFBP's Community Council John Ramos,
Coordinator of the Safe and Drug-Free School program Jewel Fink, and
countless others who are participating in this valiant effort to reduce
drug abuse. We are proud of Vallejo's dedication to prevention, treatment,
and supply reduction.