Source: NBC News' Meet The Press Contact: Sunday, 10 August 1997 EXCERPTS FROM "NBC NEWS' MEET THE PRESS." This is a rush transcript provided for the information and convenience of the press. Accuracy is not guaranteed. In case of doubt, please check with MEET THE PRESS NBC NEWS (202)8854598 Sundays: (202)8854200 NBC News MEET THE PRESS Sunday, August 10, 1997 GUESTS: SEN. RICHARD LUGAR (RIN) Senate Committee on Foreign Relations SEN. CHUCK HAGEL (RNE) Senate Committee on Foreign Relations SEN. THAD COCHRAN (RMS) ALEXIS HERMAN U.S. Secretary of Labor GEN. BARRY McCAFFREY Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. MODERATOR/PANELIST: Tim Russert NBC News ROUNDTABLE:Paul Gigot The Wall Street Journal Jack Germond The Baltimore Sun MR. RUSSERT: Welcome again to MEET THE PRESS. Our issues this Sunday morning: The Teamsters strike against UPS is now one week old. Millions of Americans are being affected. Why won't the president intervene? We'll ask the secretary of labor, Alexis Herman. Then, political hardball in Washington: Should Jesse Helms be allowed to block the former Massachusetts governor, William Weld, from becoming ambassador to Mexico? We'll talk with three Republican senators in the middle of this debate, Richard Lugar of Indiana, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, and Thad Cochran of Mississippi. And as our kids prepare to go back to school, new studies say more than half of them will try drugs before they finish high school. Why can't we win this socalled war on drugs? We'll ask the nation's drug czar, General Barry McCaffrey. And in our MEET THE PRESS minute, former first lady Nancy Reagan brought her antidrug campaign to MEET THE PRESS 11 years ago. (Videotape, September 14, 1986): MRS. NANCY REAGAN: Well, we have to have the fight against drugs, but I don't believe that just dumping a lot of money into this is going to solve the problem. (End videotape) MR. RUSSERT: And in our political roundtable, insights and analysis from Paul Gigot of The Wall Street Journal and Jack Germond of The Baltimore Sun. But first, joining us now with the very latest on the UPS strike, the secretary of labor, Alexis Herman.MR. RUSSERT: We have to leave it there. Senator Thad Cochran, Senator Chuck Hagel, Senator Richard Lugar, thanks all very much for joining us this Sunday morning. Coming next, the nation's drug czar, General Barry McCaffrey. And our MEET THE PRESS Minute with former first lady Nancy Reagan, from 11 years ago. (Announcements) MR. RUSSERT: Welcome. GEN. McCAFFREY:Good to be here. MR. RUSSERT: New study's out. Good news; bad news. The number of young kids experimenting with marijuana seems to have gone down a bit... GEN. McCAFFREY:Mmhmm. MR. RUSSERT: ...and yet you're quoted last week as saying that onehalf of the nation's kids will try drugs before they get out of high school. Is there any chance we'll ever win this socalled war against drugs? GEN. McCAFFREY: Well, Secretary Shalala and Dr. Nelda Shavaz had some reasonably mixed reviews out last week. There is some good news. I mean, the good news is that kids, in general, rather than continuing a fiveyear upward trend, we saw a modest decrease in the apparent rates of drug abuse among the 12 to 17yearold group. Also, apparently, some decrease in alcohol use. So I don't think any of us are going to be too quick to assert that we've turned it around. Joe Califano at Columbia University and Lloyd Johnston at University of Michigan will both have other studies out. We're at a turning point, though, and I think it's starting to work. MR. RUSSERT: One of the more disturbing facts was heroin... GEN. McCAFFREY:Uhhuh. MR. RUSSERT: ...is on a dramatic upswing, particularly with young adults, 18 to 25. Why? GEN. McCAFFREY: Well, part of it may well be that heroin production has doubled in the last 10 years. So the price has never been lower. The purity is high. These kids are smoking it and snorting it. The numbers on heroin use are disturbing141,000 new initiates, the highest rate of startingup heroin use we've seen in 10 years. MR. RUSSERT: All this talk, this constant debate, spending billions and billions and billions of dollars, some suggest why not just legalize drugs? Get the black market out of it? GEN. McCAFFREY: Mmhmm. What a disaster. You know, it's counterintuitive that if the price went down, if it was socially approved, if it was not against the lawmost of us don't use drugs. The country is about at a 6 percent drugabuse rate. The chances are good if these were more available that we might see a doubling in the rates of drug abuse. So we're doing pretty good. Cocaine useJanet Reno and Jeremy Travis released some stats on that rate last week also. A tremendous decline over the space of the years. So we think we're on the right track. MR. RUSSERT: So the whole notion of legalization, then, is just off the boards? GEN. McCAFFREY: Well, I think so. I don't think the American people are going to buy that, and certainly educators and doctors and law enforcement officials and parents shouldn't sign up for it. MR. RUSSERT: There's a big debate about the medicinal use of marijuana. GEN. McCAFFREY: Mmhmm. MR. RUSSERT: The National Institute of Health had a study just the other day recommending that there be more grants made available to study this issue further. Last fall you campaigned vigorously against initiatives in Arizona and California... GEN. McCAFFREY: Mmhmm. MR. RUSSERT: ...which would, in effect, allow the medicinal use of marijuana. GEN. McCAFFREY: Mmhmm. MR. RUSSERT: How serious of a problem is using marijuana for medicinal use? GEN. McCAFFREY: Well, the California Proposition 215 and Arizona's approach we thought were bad medicine, bad science. What we're trying to do is put this back where it should be, with Dr. Harold Varmus and the NIH and Dr. Alan Leshner, National Institute of Drug Abuse. They convened a countrywide assembly of scientists. They're going to look at the question. And that's where it belongs. If it's safe and effective, then medicine and science ought to judge it, not politics. MR. RUSSERT: There's an initiative at the District of Columbia... GEN. McCAFFREY: Yeah. MR. RUSSERT: ...advocating the medicinal use of marijuana. GEN. McCAFFREY: Yeah. MR. RUSSERT: Would you support that initiative? GEN. McCAFFREY: Oh, no, not at all. We've got a national campaign by drug legalizers, in my view, to try and use medicinal uses of drugs and legalization of hemp as a stalking horse to get in under the radar screen. So, again, the proper place where Donna Shalala and I and others think this question ought to be decided is by doctors and scientists, not by local politics. MR. RUSSERT: A few weeks ago I spoke to Speaker Newt Gingrich on CNBC about the war on drugs, about you as well. I want to roll that tape for our viewers and get your reaction. Here's Newt Gingrich. (Videotape, July 12, 1997): REP. NEWT GINGRICH (Speaker of the House): When I met with General McCaffrey, I was thrilled by his response. I mean, he is a serious man. He has been ahe understands being a theater commander. You know, he was the theater commander in Southcom. So when you say to him, design a campaign plan for victory, you're talking to a man who has the professional skill to do it. MR. RUSSERT: When will we see this war or this plan? REP. GINGRICH: I think he has promised me a pretty comprehensive plan by September. We have to reauthorize the drug office. I want him to become a genuine czar. I would like to give him for four years the power to coordinate all American capabilities on winning the war on drugs from prevention to rehabilitation to local enfthe ability to genuinely have impact... (End videotape) MR. RUSSERT: What do you think? GEN. McCAFFREY: Well, I certainly appreciate the bipartisan support I get out of both houses. I mean, the '97 budget was passed with a 9.4 percent increase, so the speaker's support is absolutely vital. All I would, though, add to that is at the end of the day the problem in this country on drugs is a local series of epidemics. So, in our view, parents and community coalitionsteachers, local law enforcement are really the heart and soul of the national drug strategy. We've got to talk to our children, 68 million of them. MR. RUSSERT: Is the speaker correct, though, that you're going to draw up a battle plan which would make you more than just an adviser, but, in effect, a czar who could say, "Coast Guard, do this; police, do this; Mr. President, do this"? GEN. McCAFFREY: Mmhmm. Mmhmm. Well, we'll have to see if we can craft something that fits the needs of the nine appropriations bills that I have in front of the Congress right now. There's more than 50 agencies involved in this, Tim. I'm used to being in command of situations in the military. In my view, the current approach is I'm the intellectual quarterback of what's a pretty decent team. Janet Reno, Donna Shalala, Dick Riley, Tom Constantine and others. MR. RUSSERT: Of the DEA. GEN. McCAFFREY: Yeah. Exactly. So... MR. RUSSERT: Parents who are watching this program today who have children 9, 10, 11, 12which is more deadly to their kids right now, or a more serious problem, tobacco, alcohol or drugs? GEN. McCAFFREY: Well, what we've talked about is gateway behavior. If you're early adolescent and you're doing a lot of marijuana, you're smoking cigarettes and you're binge drinking, you're in trouble. You know, the Califano data indicates you may put yourself in an 80fold increased risk of addictive behavior later on in life. We've got four million Americans addicted to illegal drugs, and if you want to avoid that, then parents have to tell their kids: Zero tolerance of pot, cigarettes and alcohol. MR. RUSSERT: Will America ever be drugfree realistically? GEN. McCAFFREY: No. But we probably at current rates of 6 percent drug abuse are 300 percent too high. We ought to be able to return drug abuse in America to where it was in the '60s, under 2 percent, with a lot less misery and a lot less crime if we do so. MR. RUSSERT: Do we need more money for education and prevention and treatment? GEN. McCAFFREY: Clearly. The biggest change in the '98 budget was a 21 percent increase in all those programs targeted on children. We have $175 million a year youth media strategy campaign. So we're going to go out and talk to our kids in the media that they're paying attention to. MR. RUSSERT: Nancy Reagan, who we'll see in the MEET THE PRESS Minute, made famous "Just Say No." GEN. McCAFFREY: Mmhmm. MR. RUSSERT: If General Barry McCaffrey could give one message to parents and kids this morning on MEET THE PRESS, what would he say? GEN. McCAFFREY: Parents, talk to your children. If you want to win the war on drugs, sit down at your kitchen table and talk to them about zero tolerance of drugs. MR. RUSSERT: That has to be the last word. Drug czar Barry McCaffrey, thanks very much for joining us. GEN. McCAFFREY: Good to be here, Tim. MR. RUSSERT: And we'll be right back with Jack Germond and Paul Gigot and Nancy Reagan in our MEET THE PRESS Minute. (Announcements) (Videotape): MRS. REAGAN: When someone offers you drugs, what will you do? Group of Children: (In unison) No! Unidentified Child: Say no! (End videotape) (Announcements) MR. RUSSERT: In her eight years as first lady, Nancy Reagan's simple but forceful message on drugs was "Just say no." Eleven years ago, she made her case on MEET THE PRESS. (Videotape, September 14, 1986): MR. MARVIN KALB: Do you think that given all of the difficulties on budget deficits and all that we can afford the fight against drugs? MRS. REAGAN: Well, we have to have the fight against drugs, but I don't believe that just dumping a lot of money into this is going to solve the problem. I think, and I've always said thisI think that we're now at the point now that we arethat we have reached the level of awareness, now we're at the point of making people stand up and take a position that this is morally wrong. And they have to make a full commitment, but that's the way you're going to solve it and not by just throwing a lot of money into a problem. MR. KALB: You feel, for example, in terms of your personal family, that your children working should submit themselves to drug testing if asked? MRS. REAGAN: If asked, I would hope they would. MR. KALB: You would hope they would. And that would, of course, then go for anydo you know, for example, whether your children have ever had drugs or taken drugs? MRS. REAGAN: Oh, when they were in college they tried marijuana, yes. Mmhmm. And thatyes. MR. KALB: And that was it and they... MRS. REAGAN: That was it, yes. MR. KALB: ...didn't like it or... MRS. REAGAN: No. That was back in the '60s when we were going through a very rough time. MR. KALB: Right. One final question. You have been at this now for quite a few years, and for a time, you seemed as if you were baying at the moon because nobody was listening. MRS. REAGAN: Yes. MR. KALB: And as you said earlier, you now have everybody's attention. Where there many times when you were discouraged through this process? MRS. REAGAN: Well, there were times when I wished that more people were with me. Discouraged, no. No. Because of seeing all those kids and listening to them in the rehabilitation places and they were so, so willing and so anxious to get back their normal lives, and they were really fighting a very tough fight. And thatyou can't get discouraged when you're talking to people like that. (End videotape) MR. RUSSERT: Nancy Reagan just celebrated her 76th birthday. She's living in California, caring for President Reagan, who is suffering from Alzheimer's disease. That's all for today.