Conversation 090-001

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Takk for ating med.

Donald Hunter, Buffalo, New York.

Dick Swinburne, Pittsburgh, Kentucky, Colorado, Los Leones, Arizona, Jerry Sahl, Anastasia, New York, John Briggs, Maryland, Newport, John Stokes, Atlanta, Texas, Iowa, Hollywood, Texas,

I remember many, many years ago, before I was in...

I had all of you come all over the country here in December.

First, while you actually have a chance of washing it off, and get your latest orders.

Are you as mean as people say?

Very nice, we got you.

Anyway, uh, we, uh, we say that, uh, that you should put Kleineese in his place.

He's the nice guy, and Kleineese is the mean guy.

That's true.

On a relative basis, that's true.

How is Martha?

Well, John and I, I think both of you are working for Martha, so... Well, and, um, you're coming here, of course, so...

It's something you've done before, but you're coming here on this occasion.

It's frankly for the purpose of getting him free to work on all the rest.

But we also want to hypo what we can, an issue that we believe deserves it.

a lot more public attention as far as what we're doing.

I noticed, in studying this problem, everybody says it's the best problem, it's the number one law enforcement issue without any question.

If you put down the various domestic issues in the present time, naturally, you run into economic issues like unemployment and cost of living.

But if you come down then to those drugs, which are always matters of great concern to people, the next two important issues, and that's on what's in the afternoon, is that there are dangerous drugs and musk.

Now,

The busing issue is one that is likely to become, as the months go on, much, much more and all the clients and personnel here, particularly the buses, keep bringing those suits to force busing over here.

It's a great day for me to be here.

You better stand where I stand.

I never could stand a bus, you know.

The nature of drugs issue is one that, regardless of the up and down, must go up and go down, depending upon the latest decision in the community in which you live.

I saw something in the news, in 1967, in the old station of, I guess it was 1965, in fact, it's been almost six years, in the old station of...

People of high school and college students, 10% admitted that they had used or had one pack or another marijuana.

The figure is not 51%.

Now, uh, we all know that, uh, our agent is part of heroin, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Second thing is, I guess, when they go for marijuana, let's just say, you know, whatever the case might be, that, you know, we do know that that, that is an indication of the problem.

Now when you see that figure, 51%, 51% of people, of young people below 21, that is 51% use marijuana.

What impressed me about that number was not 51%.

I'm not surprised at that.

I mean, you know, it was corn silk, the old days, cigarettes, you know, the various things.

You went through some marijuana, maybe used a little worse, and maybe the jury's still out as to what the penalties ought to be, and so forth and so on.

Although, my strong conviction for the reasons that I...

I will not detail here today is that we do not legalize them, as some would add to these, because my view is that I can see that there are no useful social purposes, a lot of people believe that there are no useful social purposes, but I also believe that there are.

But let's come down to that point of legalization, whereas 51% of young people have used marijuana at one time or another.

We have all recently, I say we, and this has been done by both the Democratic National Committee and other national committees, 78% of the people of this country across the board are against legalizing marijuana.

Now what does this cause?

It tells us far more about the parents than it does about the children.

It tells us far more about heroin and LSD than it does about marijuana.

What it tells us is that all food blocks, a great number of...

that they, of course, should be more consistent with what the crime is, and that would mean certainly not having some of the more out-of-the-way companies.

And, on the other hand, they feel involved in these crimes, strong convictions, because...

But, when we look at the people, the people that you work with, the people that you serve, the people in your dishes, what you have to realize is that not over 50%, but three-fourths of all the people, including the majority of the Republicans, a majority of the Independents, a majority of the Democrats, a majority of the Blacks, a majority of the Whites, a majority of the Mexicans,

Indicate that they're concerned about this dangerous drug problem.

Indicate it by saying, don't legalize marijuana.

That's just the way that you do it.

But if you ask them about the problem, they would say, we're not doing enough.

This administration has done a great deal in this field.

We've asked for legislation, and a lot of them have done it.

We've had a lot of administrative action.

We have, of course, the Jaffee office here dealing with prevention.

And also with the treaty handings once they're going to enter the Murray line office.

We've got a lot in the foreign policy field.

in the church, now working with the Franks, and so forth and so on, cutting off the sources of blood.

We've done some of the educational deals, for example, those ads that used to interrupt the football games, the baseball games, the basketball games, that's a direct result of the presidential meeting in this room, with the networks, and the advertising council, and the national government, and the basketball league, and the rest of the country, and they were getting affected, because as I said to the group of athletes, I said, you know,

It's interesting that you can reach people that you can't.

You can reach people that are preachers, or a teacher, or a politician who can't preach, because now the people look at you, and they respect you, and they want to be like you.

If you get out and say, I'll take a trip on a drug that has an effect on anything good, that's part of the educational pattern.

Not that they have to listen to a U.S. attorney who gets out and has an effect on you.

That's another subject.

What we're here, of course, today to emphasize is the enforcement side.

But on the other hand,

To the average person, this doesn't move anything right, totally.

But it does show that we have to move on.

The question is enforcement.

They say if somebody pushes, somebody's a peddler, why don't we do something about it?

I have said, and I thoroughly believe this, that anybody who is a pusher or a peddler is guilty of the most reprehensible crime that I can think of.

Murder is terrible, but murder sometimes can happen for, where shall we say, reasons of emotion, reasons of mental balance, many reasons of grief, whatever the case might be.

Murder can happen all the other times.

This one, this one, where people prey upon young people, prey upon them, make money instead of destroying their lives, this one is totally inexcusable.

And it's for that reason that I think the penalty should be added, but the prosecution must be relentless.

And I want the federal government to set the examples so that local governments will come along.

Now, we all know the problems you're going to have.

Some police departments are infected.

Some are not going to be able to cooperate.

You've got problems with that.

We have gone forward on cutting off the social supply, we've gone forward on the treatment project, we've gone forward on permission, we've gone forward on education, and now, this year, we

We need to go forward more effectively, and we need to get our story across more effectively, that we are out to prosecute those that are engaged in this issue.

Prosecute and pick them.

And I would like for each of you to carry that back to your districts, that we care about it here.

And just to show you what the problem is with public relations.

As much as we have done, no administration has shown us racism.

There are not only the appointments that we made, the legislation we supported, the speeches we made, but as much as we've done, polls indicate that a solid majority

solid majorities of the American people, 60-65%, believe that our program against dangerous drugs is inevitable.

They believe that almost many other candidates who might be involved may take a conversation with me, quite essentially.

Well, one involves what we do, and second, of course,

Thank you, John, for the publicizing what we do.

Now, every U.S. attorney, why you must deny this if you're ever asked is a hard politician.

And he's a publicist.

I'm not asking you to go out and sell something that you're not doing.

I don't think any of you should do that.

I mean, you, above all, are good lawyers.

You're good at enforcing the law.

I really think we have a quite good, despite my written thing I use here, not only fine judges, a lot of you will be judges someday.

Don't hold me to that.

Thank you for watching!

I followed after all New Yorkers who remember Tom Dilley.

He was a hell of a prosecutor.

And boy, he was a hell of a publicist, too.

Everybody who was doing it.

Now, just let me say that I want all of you here after this meeting to know what we're doing.

I want you to believe in it.

I want you to know the conviction we have in it.

But also, I think you have a responsibility.

I'm not speaking for the politics alone.

That is part of it.

But you have a responsibility to go back and reassure your constituencies.

I think too that you, and this has got to be subtly done without getting their sensitivities too badly bruised,

You've got to bring the local police forces and the sheriff's offices and all the rest of the line.

Give them and take them out.

And move them off if they need to be.

And I believe that in doing this, that all of you will have, of course, rendered a very great service to the country.

I am totally aware of the fact that no matter how much we do, the number of users is probably going to go up.

No matter how much we do, the problem is going to be solved.

Because as long as there's a demand, people are going to use the stuff.

And the demand is there, education, to a certain extent, and get it mitigated for the rest, but it will never solve it.

That's why there will always be crime.

That's why there will always be, of course, the problem of nature's drugs.

But while we're here, in the brief time that we're here in office, that you're in office and the rest, let's be sure that you've said that we did everything that we could possibly do on the law enforcement front to deal with this crime.

I would like every person here to feel that he has a personal desire and a personal direction to put this number one on your agenda when you go back.

Number one on prostitution, and number one too on education.

All of you on education, all of you.

And we'll get the materials to you.

We've got some great materials in the state.

But the line is going to be strong, it's going to be tight.

And frankly, in your communities, try to get across the idea that people can have faith that their government, at the national level at least, is aware of this problem and is doing everything it possibly can to fill it.

That's what we'd like to get across.

And there may be some around here who saw players who missed issues, like my days, but I just want you to know that.

By the way, I do appreciate your time.

Those Trumpets you just heard, those ambassadors, that's one of the problems in the world.

They change ambassadors a lot.

But all I can tell is the United States.

So, we'll see.

I tried to get them to present their credentials to the vice president.

But in any event, many of you already have these presidential couplets.

But I can't give you anything more valuable than that because of our little price for each of those.

I'll just get you another pair.

I often say you don't have to report them.

I can also tell you too that you're fine.

I want us to see that you already have a pair of eyes.

Give it to some rich contributor.

You don't want to be a judge, do you?

Laugh Laugh Laugh Laugh Laugh Laugh Laugh Laugh Laugh

Thank you for watching!

What you've just received, this is Bud Krug, who's been an assistant to the President, and has been coordinating the President's full-time contracting program.

This is Dr.

Bud Krug.

What you've just received is a statement by the President of the League...