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 Americas & Beyond | May 2008 
Drug Czar Adds and Subtracts
 Bud Foster - KOLD News 13
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| | John Walters | | |
John Walters has been the Drug Czar since President Bush came to office. If you haven't heard much of Walters, you're not alone. He remains for the most part, low key. But there's nothing low key about his job or the money he commands.
"We have to compete for those resources with all kinds of other programs. The problem really isn't frivolous things, it's that there are tough choices that have to be made on serious things," he told a crowd of 40 lawmen, government officials and drug treatment councelors who gathered at the Tucson Police Department.
He was responding to a question of why the money for interdiction has doubled in the Bush administration while the money for drug prevention has been slashed by more than $419 million.
"It's not that we just spent that money that was going to prevention on border security. We did it because of the war on terrorism. We did it because we want to get control of the border and it's the right thing to do," he says defending the administration's policy.
Walters was in Tucson in part to discuss the Merida program which will give the Mexican Government $1.4 Billion over the next two years. It's designed to help Mexican President Philipe Calderon in his battle against the Mexican drug lords.
Walters described how the drug lords in Mexico have been merciless in their killings, beheading and mutilating government officials and their drug competitors. He says they must be stopped to preserve Mexico and our country as well.
Some of the violence in Mexico has spilled over into Arizona making our state the front line against the narco terrorists he told the crowd.
He also pointed out that some 4,000 schools in the US now participate in drug screening and that drug use among teens has dropped.
He was invited here at the request of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. |
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