Senate Holds Hearings On Medicinal Marijuana -- Dec. 2, 1996
California OK's Marijuana For Medical Use -- Nov. 6, 1996
Transcript of Clinton's Dec. 12 Remarks
California's Proposition 215 Home Page
Clinton Announces New Rules For Inmate Drug Tests
WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, Dec. 12) -- President Bill Clinton today announced new rules to institute comprehensive drug testing for prisoners and parolees. (256K AIFF or WAV sound)
"This law says to inmates, if you want out of jail you must get off drugs," said Clinton. "And it says to parolees, if you want to stay out of jail you must stay off drugs. If you go back on drugs, then you have to go back to jail."
In a meeting with his new Cabinet Council on Counter Narcotics, the president announced that all states, by March 1, 1998, must submit plans for the implementation of the proposal. The states must begin their testing by Sept. 1, 1998.
"We know this effort will work," said Clinton. "A recent report shows that in Delaware, prisoners who got treatment in prison and during work release were 75 percent drug-free and 70 percent arrest-free after 18 months.
"But 80 percent of the prisoners who did not receive treatment went back on drugs, and two out of three were arrested again," Clinton said. "There is a huge connection between crime and prison population and drug use which we are now strongly determined to break."
The president also briefly addressed the initiatives passed in Arizona and California last month that allow the medical use of marijuana and other drugs. Clinton said he's instructed drug czar Barry McCaffrey and other federal drug officials to "look at what our options are under federal law to proceed there."