In America, this means old fashioned grassroots political lobbying to gain full funding for preschool modeled after the French experience and job training modeled in part after the German experience. It means massive voter registration of the poor, following some of the lessons of Canada. It means tight controls on special interest group lobbyists in Washington, the people who walk around in thousand dollar suits and allegator shoes. It means public financing of political campaigns, elimination of contribution loopholes and far shorter campaigns that limit both the use of money and the use of television, as is the case in the United Kingdom.

A great many Americans hold Congress in contempt. Campaign finance reform is not just the best way to control lobbyists. It also is the best way to make Congress more honest. Citizen groups and the Executive Branch cannot allow Congress, and especially the majority leadership of Congress, to postpone the campaign finance reform proposed by Common Cause. In addition, legislators need to be educated on how multiple solutions work best and how legislation is fragmented, uncomprehensive and short term. Congressional appropriation set asides and earmarks should be validated by the Congressional Budget Office and the Office of Technology Assessment on the basis of scientific evaluations proving their success. In part because the majority party, and its leadership, acquiesced to the disinvestment of the 1980s and was responsible for the Alice in Wonderland legislation after the Los Angeles riots, we need uniform federal term limits on Members of Congress.

A Deeper Sense of Responsibility

As John Gardiner has warned, we must be prepared for sacrifice. Over the 1980s and longer, we consumed too much and saved too little. Quick fixes have substituted for public responsibility. The one trillion dollar debt is a tax on our children. Americans now must have the intelligence, willingness, courage and strength needed in face of hard realities. They must, for example, be willing to pay more taxes-even if most of those taxes are on the rich. They must acknowledge the need for long run solutions and have the patience to implement what works over time. They must, to paraphrase Vaclav Havel, rediscover within themselves a deeper sense of responsibility toward the world.

The Dream Deferred

Our most serious challenges to date have been external. Serious external dangers remain, but the graver threats to America today are internal. The greatness and durability of most civilizations has been finally determined by how they have responded to these challenges from within. Ours will be no exception and so, in the concluding words of the Kerner Commission, it is time "to end the destruction and the violence, not only in the streets of the ghetto but in the lives of the people."

With leadership both from the top as well as the grassroots, we can face those challenges and end that destruction. We no longer need to defer the American dream to substantial portions of the American population.

"What happens to a dream deferred?" asked the honored African American poet, Langston Hughes:

Does it dry up

Like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like sore

and then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over

Like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

Like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you all for some very penetrating observations.

Mr. McCandless.

Mr. MCCANDLESS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. Falco, in your testimony, you said, unfortunately, the Office has not lived up to its promises, which we all agree here this morning is true. And the other two members of the panel would certainly be welcome to chime in, but let's start with Ms. Falco.

If we went back to the point at which Mr. English said we first began our GAO reports and they sounded like updates, changing the figures a little bit and the date, and addressed the Drug Czar or the Office, as it was referred to by Mr. Caulkins-and I like that idea, the Office-how would we construct the office to achieve the objectives that we are looking for, and that is a coordination, a total coordination of the efforts of the system?

Ms. FALCO. The system, as you know, sir, is increasingly complex. I think the estimate is now, what, up to 40 different agencies are involved. Almost everybody has some part in the activity.

I think that some of the things that Dr. Curtis has outlined make a lot of sense, but I think the cutting edge issue which was faced in 1970, 1971, when the Congress, you remember, established SAODAP, the Special Action Office for Drug Abuse Prevention, which was created in response to the heroin crisis, a lot of it involving our personnel in Vietnam, the key issue there is whether you give real budget review authority to this office.

I mean, if you think that beyond-I do think there is a great role I didn't mean to denigrate the bully pulpit. I think that is an amazingly important role, and a lot of very effective people have helped increase American awareness of the problem.

But in terms of what really happens within the Federal Government, in order to get everybody to step up behind the same strategy, which presumably this office would also be doing, and we have heard a lot of very good comments on what that strategy might look like, but assuming we had a terrifically effective visionary strategy, how do you get 40-probably 60-different agencies with very different agendas, different congressional committees, how do you get everybody to march to the same drummer? I think it is very, very tough unless the director of the office has some kind of real statutory authority.

Now, that is very tough to do. I mean, this whole thing was debated in a slightly different context 22 years ago at the time SAODAP was created, but that was also done in the face of an immense public crisis. I mean, this was truly No. 1 in everybody's mind. I am not sure there is that kind of political support for that right now.

I don't mean to be academic in my response, but I think that anything short of real review authority in the hands of the director will essentially be window dressing, and I think window dressing has its place. I don't mean to undercut it. And I do think that producing reports and sort of bringing together all the informational aspects of the government agencies can be immensely helpful. I mean, in a sense we are starting almost from a blank slate.

For example, you know, I work in the I am supported by private foundations. And so I thought it would be terribly helpful be

fore I came up here and gave some of my speeches around the country to find out how many American children are now actually getting prevention programs in school. I thought that would be an easy one. Nobody has that figure. I mean that is just an example. The Department of Education-I did pursue it. The Department of Education regularly receives reports from school districts all over the country who grumble about having to fill them out, but they have never actually had anybody to review those reports, to look at them, to put them together in any kind of useful way so that you as this committee could say, we need to double prevention appropriations because only half the American children are gettingyou know.

So that is just one little thing that you could say, well, maybe the drug office should be saying to the Education Department, get your act together. But how does that really happen unless at the time that the budget goes forward there is some kind of real power, some kind of sanction?

So I am not advocating radical legislative change. I am just saying that those are the issues that you essentially are going to be grappling with.

Mr. MCCANDLESS. Mr. Curtis, Mr. Caulkins, do you have anything to add to that?

Dr. CURTIS. Yes. One, you have to be able to evaluate what works and what doesn't and then you need to implement what works and throw out what doesn't.

Mr. MCCANDLESS. But the word implement, therein lies the thing I am trying to address here. How do we implement this? Do we need to change the Drug Czar's office? Do we need to give it more legislative authority? If we need to give the Office more legislative authority, what authority should it have? I didn't mean to interrupt you. This is the key to the whole thing.

At one time in the debate over what the Drug Czar should be, an interpretation of one section of one person's ideas was that the Drug Czar could tell the 6th Fleet what to do or what not to do in the Mediterranean. Obviously, no one would want the Drug Czar to be in charge of the 6th Fleet. So in following Ms. Falco's thoughts here, you have a problem in trying to define this, and that is why I am sputtering around trying to place something in front of you that you could chew on.

Dr. CURTIS. I just wanted to make clear that we need to know what we are going to implement. But I agree with Mathea. I think the Drug Czar needs the budget authority to do that implementation.

I can recall the Cabinet Secretary meetings on President Carter's urban policy when I worked for him, and they were all just turfing and posturing. That is the same way the coordination is going to be now. It is not a matter of personalities. It is a matter of the basic positions of the Secretaries. Unless the Drug Czar is given budget authority, nothing is going to happen.

Mr. MCCANDLESS. Mr. Caulkins, did you have anything to add? Dr. CAULKINS. I am afraid I don't have specific suggestions, but a goal might be to place the burden on the agencies to prove that they are contributing to the goals and to attempt to quantify that. Mr. MCCANDLESS. One more question, if I may, Mr. Chairman.

Somewhere in your summary, Mr. Curtis, you talked about-I am trying to remember the terminology-traditional public relations vehicles and public service announcements. And then you go on to talk about, there is little scientific evidence that their program reduces crime in our cities. I don't know whether it does or not, but we spent a great deal of time here this morning talking about acquiring proper statistics in order to evaluate and measure. I have personally been involved in the DARE program in one of the school districts of my district now for 10 years, and periodically I ask the people who have run this-and, fortunately, there have only been three people who have had direct responsibility in that time coming from the local law enforcement agency. These kids were sixth graders. They have gone through high school or they are in high school. Have we been successful? Is it worth the time and effort of everybody involved?

And they start rattling off, well, we have followed this and this is this and this is that. Would that indicate to you a proper measurement for the success or failure of, say, the DARE program if we could put together how many people got through high school without being involved in drugs?

Dr. CURTIS. I would have to see it in writing. A scientific evaluation means, for example, you take 1,000 kids who are in DARE and you compare them to 1,000 similar kids who are not in DARE and you see the difference based over time whether they use more or less drugs.

A study just came out-I haven't seen it myself; it was reported in the post within the last month-that said that, on balance, DARE was not effective or cost effective in terms of reducing drug use by high-risk young people. But that is all I know. But I would really need to examine the study before being 100 percent certain. Mr. MCCANDLESS. All right. Thank you.

Any comment on the part of Ms. Falco, Mr. Caulkins.

Ms. FALCO. A footnote to the DARE evaluation is that the study also found that it improved the attitude of the children toward uniformed police authority, which might also be a good goal.

Mr. MCCANDLESS. Kiwanis has a program, oh, five or six of them in operation by service clubs and other-some tax-supported agencies. That is why I used DARE as an example to get your response. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, panel.

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you very much.

Let's agree that we are going to reorganize the whole drug policy, strategies and related activities in the Federal Government. This may be an awkward vehicle to begin that task because they just sent up some papers saying, you know, just reauthorize the Drug Czar's office, Conyers and friends, and you know, that is all we need right now, fellows. We are all working together on the same team, and let's not start any monkey business.

I mean, we have the Vice President reinventing government. We have national performance reviews. We are all buzzing around here in the first 10 months. And we don't need—we don't need-we don't need this.

We have your friend, Lee Brown, in charge. You should be very happy. You saw him sworn in.