Drug Enforcement Quotes & Sayings

The pope, speaking to participants at a drug enforcement conference in Rome, said that even limited steps to legalize recreational drugs "are not only highly questionable from a legislative standpoint, but they fail to produce the desired effects." But he said the problems underlying drug use must be addressed, including inequality and the lack of opportunities for young people. — Anonymous

How many thousands of lives would be saved if we enforced our immigration laws, our guns laws, and our drug laws? Public safety is not being held hostage by the 'gun lobby,' but by the open borders lobby and the anti-law enforcement lobby. — Jeff Sessions

The CIA admitted in 1998 that guerrilla armies it actively supported in Nicaragua were smuggling illegal drugs into the United States - drugs that were making their way onto the streets of inner-city black neighborhoods in the form of crack cocaine. The CIA also admitted that, in the midst of the War on Drugs, it blocked law enforcement efforts to investigate illegal drug networks that were helping to fund its covert war in Nicaragua.5 — Michelle Alexander

What law enforcement will tell you is that in a terrorist act or even an act of people who are involved in crime, such as a drug gang, that they tend to get their weapons illegally. — Rob Portman

These rules have made it possible for law enforcement agencies to boost dramatically their rates of drug arrests and convictions, even in communities where drug crime is stable or declining.33 But that is not all. These rules have also guaranteed racially discriminatory results. The reason is this: Drug-law enforcement is unlike most other types of law enforcement. — Michelle Alexander

[T]ake the war on drugs. The average American says, "The war on drugs has been beneficial." The rest of us see reality. This war has destroyed thousands of Americans. It is also a pretext for government agents to rob innocent people in airports and on the highways - they seize and confiscate large amounts of cash and say to their victims: "Sue us if you don't like it." And more and more judges, politicians, intelligence agents, and law-enforcement officers are on the take - as dependent on the drug-war largess as the drug lords themselves. — Jacob G. Hornberger

I remember, when I was writing 'Traffic,' talking to top federal drug-enforcement officials and having them say they read it and found it very good and believable, except the scene where the girl describes her resume. — Stephen Gaghan

Legalized drugs would cause dislocations in the US economy - the prison industry for example and tens of billions spent annually on drug enforcement. But because the US economy is so large, this would be a minor blow, hardly as severe as the ultimate nightmare for the US economy, global peace, which would shutter its death industry commonly called the military/industrial complex. — Charles Bowden

Conservatives don't merely want less government. They want to raise spending for the military - even bring back Star Wars - not reduce it. They want to build more prisons. There is no move to eliminate the drug enforcement agency. — George Lakoff

The potential savings in the national budgets from the elimination of police, criminal courts, standing armies, pollution control agencies, drug enforcement, and many poverty programs is almost beyond calculation. — Pat Robertson

Our emphasis here is based not only on the growing seriousness of drug-related crimes, but also on the belief that relieving our police and our courts from having to fight losing battles against drugs will enable their energies and facilities to be devoted more fully to combatting other forms of crime. We would thus strike a double blow: reduce crime activity directly, and at the same time increase the efficacy of law enforcement and crime prevention. — Milton Friedman

You can't expect law enforcement to provide the solution to the drug problem. — Bill McCollum

Because what a temporary worker program would do is help relieve pressure on the border. It will allow our law enforcement officials and Border Patrol agents to focus on those who are coming here for the wrong reasons, the criminals and the drug dealers and the terrorists. — Scott McClellan

The Unites States used to use law enforcement to aggressively target North Korea illicit activities - counterfeiting U.S. currency, drug-running, counterfeit cigarettes and pharmaceuticals - until diplomacy gutted those efforts. The effort should be reinvigorated. — Ed Royce

Laws against things like drugs are inhumane, and create an inhumane society and inhumane law enforcement. I know what's causing violence in America - the damn drug laws. — Michael Moriarty

State and local law enforcement agencies were granted the authority to keep, for their own use, the vast majority of cash and assets they seize when waging the drug war. — Michelle Alexander

In enforcement, you always have to have both a focus on the really worst actors - you know, gang bangers, in this case, drug dealers, that sort of thing - but also routine enforcement because think about, for instance, the IRS. They don't say, OK, well, if you're not a money launderer, it doesn't matter whether you fill your tax return out right or not. They have both. They go after the really bad actors and they have a kind of general, routine enforcement — Mark Krikorian

What really drives the battle against law enforcement and punishment is not a commitment to treatment, but the widely held view that, first, we are imprisoning too many people for merely possessing illegal drugs; second, drug and other criminal sentences are too long and harsh, and third, the criminal justice system is unjustly punishing young black men. These are among the great urban myths of our time. — John P. Walters

Methamphetamine is a hideous drug. Meth makes a person become paranoid, violent, and aggressive - making them a serious threat to society and law enforcement. And maybe more importantly, meth users are a threat to their own children and families. — Dirk Kempthorne

The fact that police are legally allowed to engage in a wholesale roundup of nonviolent drug offenders does not answer the question why they would choose to do so, particularly when most police departments have far more serious crimes to prevent and solve. Why would police prioritize drug-law enforcement? — Michelle Alexander

The anti-marijuana campaign is a cancerous tissue of lies, undermining law enforcement, aggravating the drug problem, depriving the sick of needed help and suckering well-intentioned conservatives and countless frightened parents. — William F. Buckley Jr.

Practically overnight the budgets of federal law enforcement agencies soared. Between 1980 and 1984, FBI antidrug funding increased from $8 million to $95 million.73 Department of Defense antidrug allocations increased from $33 million in 1981 to $1,042 million in 1991. During that same period, DEA antidrug spending grew from $86 to $1,026 million, and FBI antidrug allocations grew from $38 to $181 million.74 By contrast, funding for agencies responsible for drug treatment, prevention, and education was dramatically reduced. The budget of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, for example, was reduced from $274 million to $57 million from 1981 to 1984, and antidrug funds allocated to the Department of Education were cut from $14 million to $3 million.75 — Michelle Alexander

I have no regrets - in fact, I am pleased to have expelled the US ambassador, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and to have closed the US military base in Bolivia. Now, without a US ambassador, there is less conspiracy, and more political stability and social stability. Without the International Monetary Fund, we are better off economically. — Evo Morales

I was certainly not inclined to decriminalise. However, during my time in the unit, as I saw more and more evidence of 'what works', to quote New Labour's mantra of the time, it became apparent to me that ... enforcement and supply-side interventions were largely pointless. They have no significant, lasting impact on the availability, affordability or use of drugs. — Julian Critchley