Federal Drug Prosecutions

In a campaign speech on October 6, Texas Governor George W. Bush charged that for “the last seven years the Clinton-Gore Administration has sent the wrong message on drug abuse.” He pledged that if elected president his administration would renew the federal government’s commitment to the war on drugs. There of course are many ways to measure a government’s concern about illegal drugs, but certainly the number of individuals prosecuted for such crimes would be one good yardstick. The data show that in the first two years of the Clinton Administration drug prosecution per capita dropped somewhat. From 1995 to 1998, however, they increased to 11,051 per 100 million population in 1998. This compared with 10,636 per 100 million at the end of the Bush years and 7,419 at the close of the Reagan administration.