From: [wren 1] at [ccnet.com] Newsgroups: talk.politics.drugs Subject: DEA Conference Date: 16 Feb 1996 04:07:09 GMT February 14, 1996 WASHINGTON The Drug Enforcement Administration on Tuesday convened its first conference of federal, state, and local law enforcement officials on " a startling rise in the use of methamphetamine" ( here we go again , Gee, it must be an election year) U.S. Senator Orin Hatch (Republican/Utah) chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, complained about Mexican interdiction efforts. " I think it is important that we lay down a marker ( to the Mexican goverment) that we are watching this closely," ( translation: give up your sovereignty or we will wreck your economy, i.e. Colombia, Panama) Hatch also called the Clinton administration's drug policy "imbalanced" and its enforcement effort lethargic, "President Clinton has abandoned the bully pulpit, overemphasized treatment of hard-core users and most importantly, de-emphasized core law-enforcement and interdiction activites," he said. Hatch said later that he thought the administration's drug-fighting priorities result form the relative youth of White House aides who grew up the 1960s. The White House called Hatch's comment on the administration's younger members "silly". ( OUCH! I bet that really hurt Senator Hatch, Why doesn't the Clinton Administration sent over that four-star general that Clinton just appointed as the new drug Tzar to punch Orin in the nuts?) END THE WOD