Important to conservatives in 2020 and the Republican Partys future agenda. And later the drug policy alliances kassandra joins us to discuss the history of the war on drugs. [video clip] more need more prisons, jails, more courts, more prosecutors. I am requesting altogether 1. 5 billion in drugrelated spending on Law Enforcement. Former president george h. W. Bush on september 5, 1989, what many site as the beginning of the u. S. War on drugs. Good morning, this is washington journal. 30 years later, the fight against drug abuse continues with news yesterday from President Trump of another 2 billion in funding for the Opioid Crisis. The first hour talking about the legacy of the war on drugs. What experience have you had with it . The numbers to call for those in eastern and central time zones, that is 2027488000. The mountain and pacific regions, 2027488001. We also welcome your comments on our facebook page, facebook. Com cspan. And send us a tweet at cspanwj. We will show you momentarily the news yesterday from the oval office from President Trump. The reporting in the Washington Times, trump doles out nearly 2 million for opioid fight is their headline. We want to give you a chance to go back 30 years and hear that notable speech from george h. W. Bush about the war on drugs. Here is a bit more from that speech. [video clip] this is the First Time Since taking the oath of office i thought it issue was so threatening that it warranted talking directly with you, the american people. All of us agree the gravest domestic threat is drugs. Drugs have strained our faith in our system of justice, our legal system stretched to the breaking point. The social cost of drugs are mounting. In short, drugs are sapping our strength as a nation. Turn on the evening news or pick up the evening paper and you will see what some americans know just by stepping out the front door. Our most serious problem today is cocaine and in particular, crack. Who is responsible . Let me tell you, everyone who uses drugs, everyone who sells drugs, and everyone who looks the other way. I will tell you how Many Americans are using Illegal Drugs and i will present our National Strategy to deal with this threat and i will ask you to get involved in what promises to be a very difficult fight. This is crack cocaine. Seized a few days ago by Drug Enforcement agents in a park across the street from the white house. It could easily have been heroin or pcp. It is as innocent looking as candy, but it is turning our cities into battle zones and murdering our children. Let there be no mistake, this stuff is poison. Some call drugs harmless recreation, they are not. They are a real and terribly dangerous threat to our neighborhoods, our friends, and families. Us is out of harms way and fouryearolds play in playgrounds strewn with discarded hypodermic needles. It breaks my heart when cocaine, one of the most deadly and addictive Illegal Drugs is available to schoolkids, it is an outrage. When hundreds of thousands of a beast are born each year to mothers who use drugs, premature babies born desperately sick and even the most defenseless above us among us are at risk. Host we are talking about the legacy of the war on drugs. 2027488000 for those in the eastern and central time zones. 2027488001 mountain and pacific time zones. The late president there using a prop for probably one of the first times in a president ial speech. Where the white house got that prop is an interesting back story. The white house set up a drug buy in the park. Government agents lured a drug dealer in front of the white house for a prop. A move the president the tended act defended after the speech. Some figures on where we are on the war on drugs, the arrest for drug possession and drug dealing each year, take a look at this chart area here is 1990, 700,000 arrests for a position possession in the u. S. , 400,000 for distribution. The change to 2017 for sale and manufacture, 200000 and the possession number doubled since 1989. Your thoughts. Lets hear first from shelby in baltimore, maryland. Good morning. Caller i am a trauma surgeon and a criticalcare doctor in the maryland, baltimore, d. C. Area. The amount of patients we see that come in under violence because of pcp, heroin, et cetera is astounding. Because we work in intensive care units, i have been dumbfounded by how many patients in their young 20s have come in in cardiac arrest because of heroin needing to tell families their loved ones are gone and these are kids who have gone to college and done everything and then slipped up in some ways and you are telling their families their child is dead. Wemedical care physicians, see this on a daily basis and it is unreal. Amount, hast the number of patients exploded in the last couple years . Caller it is hard to say. I think it has changed. There have been times where i have been in an intensive care unit and there have been times where you walk in in the morning and there are 7 or 8 patients who are young kids who have had their heart stop because of overdose. That is incredible. Host are you headed into work today . Caller i am and that is one side of things and that does not take into account the trauma surgery side of things, the patients we see again on a daily basis high on pcp or in the war on drugs. In addition to that last thing is from a Hospital Point of view, what is fascinating is we do not have the resources to get them into a place that will fight their addiction. If you get these patients to a point where they can be okay, us trying to get resources to get them into a place where they can fight their addiction is nearly impossible. Host are you saying you dont have the resources . Your facility or the state of maryland . Caller i would not be able to intelligently comment on that, but working at county hospital, we are struggling. We dont have social work, we dont have the support system to necessarily help the people who want to get help. Sharingappreciate you your experience. In baltimore, we hear next from robert, good morning. Caller good morning. I pretty much called because of the premise of your question. You were talking about george bushs war on drugs. From the limited research i have done on my own, this whole thing theted when there was marijuana prohibition. Nixon. Rward 20 years to man, heown righthand pretty much had this campaign whereby he wanted to associate marijuana with hippies and heroin with africanamericans because even though there was a drug war, it was pretty much a destroy theish, demographic that was diametrically opposing him. Host we talked about that in developing the question this morning. We talked about Richard Nixon and i think those are valid points in terms of where efforts against drug abuse and drug related crime started. It is notable for the date of the speech of george w. Bush, particularly the use of the prop was a very different approach for the administration at that time. Caller i also wanted to say when it came to george bush senior, the willie lynch broccoli, a lot of that came the impetus behind the thing was to fund the the privatet of Prison Industrial Complex. All these things coincided with what senator byrd was trying to do. He did not want to start this process for private prisons and when bill clinton did the crime bill thing, everything kind of coincides in this perfect storm. Cocaine came about, everybody conveniently forgets the fact it is the federal government, cia phoning these things into the country. They brought drugs here. They further from analyzed whilenamericans all the while they pretty much had now you fastforward to where we are now pretty much the 21st century and you have a situation whereby we are spending 2 trillion on treatment and cant people continue to forget we spend money to get people hooked on crack to begin with. That is all i wanted to say, thank you. Host you ring a lot of good points to the conversation. How many people are locked up in the United States . One point 1. 3 million local jails. Federal prisons, jails, 221,000 and a number of smaller figures for immigration and other jails across the country from the Prison Policy Initiative. We go to lewis in florence, in florence, hello there. Caller i wanted to pick back on what robert said. Growing up in the 60s, i saw a lot of it. I see drugs in this area where you dont see no cops. Drugs and you go on the others out of the town and you have 15 police over there. When he says war on drugs, it was a war on black people. In alabama, we have prison for profit. They line you up for every little thing so they have to make sure the prisons are full. ,s far as this opioid thing just say no. Like the kid with the crack, just say no. Host President Trump continuing u. S. Efforts against the opioid. Risis the Washington Times writing President Trump said the twin pots of money are exciting and. Ill make Immediate Impact they rightly Substance Abuse and Mental HealthServices Administration is giving up 932 million among states, the second round of grants tied to sweeping opioid legislation. Here is President Trump in the oval office yesterday. [video clip] we are doing things other administrations did not focus on at all. Nothing is more important than defeating the opioid and addiction crisis. The 1. 8 billion in funds we are awarding today will be. Istributed to all 50 states it is very exciting. They will be used to increase access to medication and medication assisted treatment and Mental Health resources, which are critical for ending homelessness and getting people the help they deserve. So many problems are caused by this problem. These grants will support state and local governments by obtaining comprehensive data so we can help the most people and. Ave the most lives my administration is determined ourse every resource at disposal. Use inagencies to their arsenal to overcome the deadly plague of opioid abuse. Since then, we have secured 6 billion in funding to respond to this emergency. Host getting your thoughts on the legacy of the u. S. War on drugs. The war on drugs cost the United States 1 trillion. In 2015, the federal government spent 1. 2 million every day to incarcerate people accused of drug related offenses. In the eastern and central time zones. 2027488001, mountain and pacific. Lets go to facebook. Joshua post we need to rethink rate fellthe murder dramatically because gangsters dont fight over legal trade. The same would happen if we ended drug prohibition. Joe king saying war on drugs has become a failure that wasted tax money and cost innocent lives. From wayne, about us successful as johnsons war on poverty or vietnam, for that matter. This is bruce, good morning. Caller how are you doing this morning . I used to be an activist. I did lsd and marijuana when i was 14 in 1968. Take it back before reagan. Nixon went after marijuana because he wanted to go after tape. Ppies, that is on today in michigan because of our efforts, i have been growing marijuana for 10 years, so i dont even pay anything for it. A couple of comments. On the soft drugs like marijuana, nixon did that because he wanted to arrest the so i think it was 1968 and there were only 54,000 people arrested and now it is up to millions. As far as the harder drugs, and lets not forget johnson pushingwho got sued for industrialized deindustrialized areas. Offshored jobs, they build the Prison Industrial Complex and destroy the black families in detroit. Its all about the money and it sad. L quite there has really never been a problem with marijuana. That was a political thing. Its all about control and the thing that is interesting is you had bush and i think when he was talking in 91 speech was from 1989. Caller and two years later he introduced agenda 21 of the u. N. They are still against marijuana. Its all about control. The whole thing was about control. The opioids is a problem, it has always been a problem, you can also do that blame that on Johnson Johnson. Host in philadelphia, go ahead. Been a warhis always the term war on drugs, even though nixon, it was pushed bigger by reagan. It was like a federal thing. Communisthave these cops and then these prosecutors, it gave people a lot of jobs. Host you are saying the war on drugs gave people a lot of jobs . Caller the prosecutors and judges and so on and so on. Toyou could give me time change things scrutinize the war on drugs, i am a nutritionist. The war on drugs is like a war on help and information also. You had like opium. People that were not making money, share crop and the opium, they marched to the white house. I think president Theodore Roosevelt was afraid every dentist they were all going to become democrats or whatever. It was always political. Hydrated, your heart there is a host of like amino acids and certain herbs that can counter these side effects. Host you are one of a number of callers that pointed out the Historical Context of the war on drugs going back many years in history. Time magazine has a piece headlined americas war on drugs treated people unequally since its beginning. When prohibition ended, drug enforcers finally had a new agency they could call their own. This launched the career of its first commissioner. The first person to use it and likely the first person outside of any royal family to be referred to as a czar. The standards that continue to serve, the basic tool of the trade for americas Drug Enforcement. There remain serious agreement in scholarly and though he achieved several significant legislative victories each of which had its own specific laws. As difficult as passing drug laws is, and forcing them specifically has proven to be virtually impossible. You can read all of that. Here is one of the comments, joint speeches together to the 1986. , this is september [video clip] i implore each of you to be unyielding and inflexible in your opposition to drugs. Our young people are helping us lead the way. Not long ago, i was asked by a group of children what to do if they were offered drugs and i offered just say no. Those children formed a club and now there are over 10,000 such clubs all over the country. Their participation and encourage in saying no needs our encouragement. We can use every opportunity to force the issue of not using drugs to the point of making others uncomfortable, even if it means making ourselves unpopular. Our job is never easy because drug criminals are ingenious. They work every day to plot a new and better way to steal our childrens lives. For every door we close, they open a new door. They prosper on our unwillingness to act, so we must be smarter and stronger and tougher than we are. It is up to us to change attitudes and simply dry up their markets. Host your thoughts on the legacy of the war on drugs. Brian from pennsylvania. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. Certifiedired board naturopath. There is a wonderful book. One of the comments was every legislator and judge in every state should do well i would encourage your listeners to get that and read it. The war on drugs started when the hypodermic needle was invented. Prior to that, many people received health care from hic and homeopathic medicine. When the needle was invented and opioids could be isolated, it opened a whole range of pharmacology that allowed people to make a lot of money on infusions and isolating active ingredients. Healthfulm is the efits of herbal medicine pharmacology pharmacology says the most active ingredient is beneficial, so that is what we are going to isolate. Godproblem with that is always puts the answer next to the problem. They isolate away the protections. One of the callers mentioned Johnson Johnson. We have these prescription plans and health care in this country revolves around the use of drugs. 400,000reported over deaths occur over prescription drugs and medical malpractice. The war of drugs should be aimed at the ama and the medical doctor establishment, which are the pusher of these drugs. Host i can tell you, it aint your grandpa tale of crack cocaine. I am 99 sure we cover that author and that book on book tv. Lets go to jeff in georgia, go ahead with your comment. The air with on us . Are you there, jeff . Caller yes, can you hear me . Host we can now, go ahead. Caller i am actively involved with the Recovery Community and i want to speak to how awesome a community it is. This is absolutely a move in the right direction. I am not a very political person, i will be honest with you. I can speak to this is a crisis and you will notice a lot of this is from Early Childhood trauma, abuse, and neglect. That is usually what causes these type of things. Any resources these communities winbe given is absolutely a. Host where are you in your progress . Caller i am in personal, longform recovery longterm recovery. I prescribe to literature high cant speak on, but it is with a fellowship, it is basically recovery. It makes no difference what fellowship, it is a Spiritual Organization and when you get involved, it is life changing and i can speak to that personally. The Washington Times rights the centers for Disease Control using about 900 Million Dollars to help state and local governments track overdoses. , saying the nation faced a 12 month lag time it months. Own to 6 next is dorothy in hampton,. Irginia caller good morning. I hear everybody talk about the drug epidemic and everything. When i saw nancy reagan, i became irate because ronald iran. Sold arms to every time a plane load of supplies went to nicaragua, a pla