William Jefferson Clinton Memorial Library

We'd like to welcome you to the William Jefferson Clinton Memorial Library -- dedicated to preserving the true legacy of the 42nd President of the United States.

Bill Clinton promised as President that his would be the "most ethical administration in the history of the country.” As you explore the pages of this website, you can decide for yourself whether he lived up to that promise

Zero Tolerance of Drug Use

"Our challenge is to take back our streets from crime, gangs, and drugs."
President Bill Clinton

Liberals in Congress claimed, "President Clinton and the Democratic Party have waged an aggressive war on drugs."
Clinton claimed to have dismantled Columbia's Cali Cartel, the primary source of cocaine, and added drug patrols on our borders and points with pride to enacting the Safe and Drug-Free School Act to protect schools from crime and drugs.

The zero-tolerance War-on-Drugs continued to heat up during the Clinton years and schools got tough on students with contraband, charging them for "drug trafficking" and suspending them for possession of such notorious items as: over-the-counter cough drops (WV), health-food store concentrated lemon drops (CO), Certs breath mints (VA), a bottle of Bordeaux wine presented as a Christmas gift to an 8th-grader's French teacher (GA), possession of Advil (VA), sharing an asthma inhaler with another student suffering an asthma attack (MD), and, possession of Listerine mouthwash (VA).

''Since Clinton took office, I haven't gone to one school where some of the kids didn't laugh at drugs because of the president's comments.'' -- Wayne Roques, former DEA agent.
(Referring to Clintons MTV interview where he said he'd inhale if he had to do it (smoke dope) all over again.)

By the time Clinton left office, teen use of drugs was substantially higher than it was when he entered office. Heroin and cocaine was cheaper and purer than they've been since they were outlawed in 1914.

What did Bill Clinton do to combat drugs?

In the wake of his failure to combat drugs, Bill Clinton turned the attention away from the real problem and instead "redefined" tobacco as an addictive drug. What he essentially created was a whole new class of discriminated against Americans. Later, he will use statistics from his new tobacco crack-down to "spin" statistics to make him look like he has done something about "addictive drugs".

The Clinton Administration has actually encouraged drug use.
Although he had promised to wage war on drugs, on Feb. 9, 1993 Clinton eliminated 83 percent of the staff at the Office of National Drug Control Policy and halted drug testing for White House staff. In his first year in office, Clinton cut 625 drug- enforcement personnel from the Drug Enforcement Administration; the Federal Bureau of Investigation; the Immigration and Naturalization Service; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms; the Customs Service and the Coast Guard. In addition, Clinton cut the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy by 80 percent, from 146 to 25 employees.

Clinton's involvement in drug smuggling and use
Bill Clinton was accused of being complicit in the shipment of drugs through Arkansas when he was governor and allowed laundering of drug money through ADFA (Arkansas Development and Finance Authority). He had been tied to the $100 million per-month drug running operation of the "Mena Cartel". Clinton's best friend, Dan Lasater, is the only one involved who went to jail along with Clinton's brother, Roger. After staying in jail only a few short months he was granted a full and complete pardon by Bill Clinton the day after he got out.

• Presidential leadership was equally weak.
  In 1993 and 1994, President Clinton made seven addresses to the Nation; none mentioned illegal drugs. The President's 1993 presidential papers reveal 13 references to illegal drugs in a total 1,628 presidential statements, addresses, and interviews. Of 1,742 presidential statements and other utterances in 1994, illegal drugs were mentioned only 11 times." ("National Drug Policy: A Review of the Status of the Drug War," House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, H. Rept. 104-486, 3/19/96)
  
  
• ABC News "PrimeTime Live," on July 8, 1998 reported on Rodney Matthews, a pot smuggler turned informant, who became an informant for the U.S. Customs Service and was allowed to legally smuggle billions of dollars of cocaine into America.
  
  
• The Clinton Administration allowed the Sentencing Commission to reduce sentences for federal drug trafficking crimes. In addition to ignoring the country's worsening drug problems, Bill Clinton has a record of appointing soft-on-crime judges and U.S. attorneys. For example, the Los Angeles Times revealed that one Clinton appointee, U.S. Attorney Alan Bersin of San Diego, has allowed suspected drug smugglers to escape prosecution for their crimes and return to Mexico -- free to smuggle drugs again. Government figures show that since 1994, Bersin's program has released more than 1,000 smugglers without prosecution, some found smuggling as much as 37,000 Quaalude tablets, 158 pounds of cocaine and 32 pounds of methamphetamines.
  
  
• His appointed Surgeon General, Joycelyn Elders, suggested studying the legalization of drugs. After her son was sentenced to prison for 10 years for selling cocaine, she remarked, "I don't feel that was a crime."
  
  
• Attorney General, Janet Reno, proposed reductions in the mandatory minimum sentences for drug trafficking and other drug-related federal crimes.
  
  Instead of drugs being a priority, Attorney General, Janet Reno, made her "top priority" the persecution and crushing of discordant pro-lifers. Notice that her first words as Attorney General did not lash out at drug lords, or Mafia bosses; she didn't decry gang-warfare or car-jackings, or even mail and credit card fraud. No, she lashed out at Christians and set her sights squarely on pro-life activists. People truly do govern in accordance with their ethical allegiances. For her, preserving child-killing is evidently more important than stopping cocaine sales.

Bill Clinton's legacy in the war on drugs

Clinton, who claims he "did not inhale" has LOST the war on drugs.
In spite of Clinton's claims and nearly 30 years of a war on drugs, drug use has increased.

• For the third straight year, drug use among America's youth is up. Some 48.4 percent of the class of 1995 had tried drugs by graduation day. (Senate Judiciary Committee, 12/19/95)
• Drug use among 12- to 17-year-olds rose 78% from 1992 to 1995 -- 33% between 1994 and 1995 alone, according to the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse by the Department of Health and Human services (HHS).
• Between 1994 and 1995, the use of LSD and other hallucinogens rose 54%; cocaine use rose 166%.
• Marijuana use jumped 137 percent among 12-13 year olds since 1992 and 200 percent among 14-15 year olds. In 1994, 2.9 million 12-17 year olds claimed to have used marijuana within the past year -- 1.3 million more children than in 1992. (National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services)
• A report from the Drug Abuse Warning Network, also administered by HHS, showed emergency room visits since 1992 rose 96% for marijuana, 58% for heroin and 19% for cocaine.

The War on Drugs Was and Excuse to Wage a War on Civil Liberties
Harry Browne, the Libertarian Presidential candidate, says the War on Drugs is a total failure. "Government can't keep drugs out of the country," says Browne "It can't even keep drugs out of its own prisons. Democratic politicians like the War on Drugs just as it is -- because they love the power it gives the federal government. Republican politicians want to accelerate the War on Drugs -- by taking away more of your Constitutional liberties, by taking away more of your privacy, by turning America into more of a police state."

During the Clinton years, the War on Drugs shredded much of what remained of the Bill of Rights. The biggest losers in the war on drugs were mothers, fathers, small-time dealers, medical-marijuana users and even children -- not the "drug kingpins".

Financially, police agencies involved in the forfeiture of property were winners. Following the passage of the 1984 Omnibus Crime Bill, police agencies were allowed to sell the assets they seized and keep the money. Tens of thousands of people had their property seized for the most trivial drug-law infractions. On the highways, police use "drug courier profiles" to stop and search motorists and confiscate their vehicles if any drugs are found. At airports, travelers' cash is seized when it tests positive for traces of cocaine.

• In Maryland, Pamela Snow had her business and home confiscated when one of her kids received a United Parcel Service package that contained marijuana. Part of the official "justification" for the forfeiture was the Grateful Dead poster in her son's bedroom-supposed evidence that the house was a "narcotics-related" meeting place.
  
  
• In Washington, DC, Marsha Simmons repeatedly called police to have them remove her crack-selling grandchildren from in front of her house-only to have the police respond by seizing her home because her grandchildren had sold crack on the property.
  
  
• In Denver, Colorado, 13 SWAT team members stormed the upstairs apartment of Ismael Mena looking for drugs. After breaking open the front door, the SWAT team found the door to Mena's room latched, and kicked it in. Police say they found him armed with a .22 revolver, standing on his bed. Officers claim they screamed "Police!" and "Drop the gun!" repeatedly. Mena started to put the gun down, asking, "Policia?" But police say when they then moved to disarm him, he again raised the gun. Officers opened fire. Mena, a father of nine, was hit by eight bullets and killed instantly. No drugs were found. The next day, SWAT team officers learned they had raided the wrong residence-they should have gone next door.
  
  
• In Pennsylvania, a 21-year-old man with no prior offenses, was shot to death in his house by a squad of masked police dressed in ninja-style uniforms. They didn't even knock before tossing a smoke grenade through a window, setting fire to the house. The unarmed John Hirko, suspected of dealing small amounts of marijuana and cocaine, was found face down on his stairway, shot in the back while fleeing the fire.

Children used in the war on drugs
Children have been increasingly used as weapons against their parents by police and prosecuting agencies. Children are frequently used as leverage to secure arrests and admissions of guilt-often where there is none-from parents terrified their kids will be taken away from them if they don't cooperate with the law.

The Drug Abuse Resistance Education ( DARE ) program has produced hundreds of arrests using evidence initially provided by children. While the program purports to educate children about the dangers of drugs, the police officers who teach it frequently put a black box near the front of the classroom and encourage kids to put the names and addresses of anyone they know who uses drugs into it. That information is then often then used to secure warrants against those people.