Lessons Learned the Hard Way: on Drugs

Drug-free society focuses on both drug supply & demand

The Partnership for a Drug-Free America, with its constant efforts at persuasion & education, and Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign had a real effect on drug use between 1984 and 1992. In fact, drug use declined by 2/3 in 8 years. Drug use began to rise again when the educational ad campaigns were dumped by the Clinton Administration. Now we have to launch a full-scale torrent of antidrug education, in schools, in churches, in youth organizations, in after-school programs, and everywhere else that young people hang out.

We must also raise the cost of buying and using drugs. We must find a number of economic and social penalties--not just the threat of prison which we know does not work--that will make drug use socially unacceptable. We must seal off the American border by combining [various agencies] into one focused border agency.