DEBATE OVER `DATE RAPE' DRUG STIRS ATTACK

Rep. Ron Paul , R-Surfside, the lone House member to vote against a
bill to tighten restrictions on a so-called "date rape" drug,
characterized his opposition as anti-federalism.

"It is much easier to ride the current wave of federalizing every
human misdeed in the name of saving the world from some evil than to
uphold a constitutional oath which prescribes a procedural structure
by which the nation is protected from what is perhaps the worst evil,
a national police state," Paul said in a prepared statement on Friday.

The bill, called the Hillory J. Farias Date Rape Prevention Act,
passed the House 423-1. If it clears the Senate, the measure would put
gamma y-hydroxybutrate (GHB) in the same legal category as heroin and
cocaine.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, would
impose a 20-year prison sentence for anyone convicted of administering
GHB to an unknowing person. Although Paul was the only dissenter, he
voted consistently with his Libertarian orientation. He was the
Libertarian Party nominee for president in 1988.

Paul aide Michael Sullivan said the congressman wants the federal
government to let states decide how to deal with crime and to decide
issues on principle, not polls.

"It's much easier to go with the trend," Sullivan said. "But police
officers do not like the federal government telling them how to fight
crime ... in Houston, Texas, or anywhere else. But the state
legislators do understand what needs to be addressed."