The Triumph of Nancy Reagan Karen Tumulty (motivational novels .TXT) 📖

drastic reductions in those that dealt with drug abuse education, prevention, and treatment. Ronnie’s administration was approaching the nation’s narcotics problem as a law-and-order matter more than a health issue. Under Attorney General William French Smith, who had been part of the Kitchen Cabinet in California, the FBI got more heavily involved in the fight against drugs, and five hundred new agents were added to the Drug Enforcement Administration. Thirteen regional task forces were set up across the country, combining agents from the DEA; the US Customs Service; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms; the Internal Revenue Service; and the army and the navy. There were record numbers of seizures and convictions, but the problem of illegal narcotics use and addiction in the inner city remained just as great.

Larger societal trends were also at work in the early 1980s. Nancy launched her campaign at a time when the nation’s attitudes about drugs—particularly marijuana—were evolving. In the previous decade, cannabis use had become so common across the country that a dozen states passed laws decriminalizing small amounts. More and more, it was being argued that the prosecution of otherwise law-abiding young people for a relatively harmless recreational drug was a waste of resources that could otherwise be spent combating more dangerous ones, such as heroin and cocaine. There was also pressure to change the federal law under which marijuana possession could result in up to a year in prison or a fine of up to $5,000. In his 1976 campaign, Jimmy Carter advocated decriminalizing marijuana, and in October 1977 the Senate Judiciary Committee voted for an amendment that would have made possession of up to one ounce of weed a civil rather than a criminal offense, with a maximum fine of $100.

Then came a backlash and a growing mobilization of concerned parents who feared for the safety of their children. More and more young people were taking up pot, at earlier and earlier ages, with potential long-term consequences. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, antidrug activists blamed popular culture—movies, television, rock music—for glamorizing drugs and luring kids into trying them. Some who advocated less tolerance formed what became known as the Parent Movement. It grew into a potent political force in communities across the country and succeeded in retoughening marijuana laws in many places. Nancy had heard of the efforts of these parents and was intrigued by the idea of discouraging children from being attracted to drugs. She was convinced there were ways to accomplish that which did not involve government intervention and were rooted in traditional values.

Her partner within the White House was the man that Ronnie appointed as his drug abuse policy adviser in July 1981. Blunt-spoken Carlton Turner was born in Choctaw County, Alabama, and was a chemist by training. He had headed the Marijuana Research Project at the University of Mississippi and had actually grown pot to provide to government researchers. Turner had been arguing for years that marijuana was far more dangerous than much of the scientific community generally thought it was. But he did not believe that throwing more government dollars at the problem was the answer. “I used to say, ‘Let me put it to you succinctly: the only person that has a vested interest in solving drug abuse is the parent or the family,’ ” he told me. “ ‘Because the DEA will get more money, the bigger they can make the problem. Customs will get more money, the bigger they make the problems. And even though their job is to reduce drug abuse, the National Institute on Drug Abuse gets more money, the bigger they can make the problem. So the object for the federal bureaucracy is not to solve the problem. The object for a federal bureaucracy is to build their prestige, their power, and their influence and their budgets.’ ”

Shortly after Turner joined the White House, he was asked to meet with Nancy in the library of the family quarters. His boss, Martin Anderson, the assistant to the president for policy development, came with him, which Turner thought was a sign that Anderson was worried about what the new drug adviser might say. But it was Nancy who did most of the talking. A meeting that was supposed to last twenty minutes turned into an hour. The first lady shared what she had observed about the drug problem in California and elsewhere, and peppered Turner with questions. He was struck by her knowledge of the issue. Then she put it to him: “Carlton, we’ve been here nearly six months. When are you going to do something?” Turner, in fact, had been on the job for only two weeks at that point, but, he recalled, “That told me right away that I had to get busy.”

Not much happened, however, until early 1982. Turner was preoccupied with carrying out Ronnie’s order that he clean up the drug problem in the military. Nancy was concerned with her husband’s recuperation from the assassination attempt and finishing up her redecoration of the White House. She had scheduled a few events around the issue in the early months of Ronnie’s presidency, but they had been infrequent and generally got lost in all the negative coverage of her china purchase, her wardrobe, and the White House makeover.

With the arrival of Ronnie’s second year in office, fixing Nancy’s image problems had become a priority, though some top officials at the White House had misgivings about a first lady taking on a battle as dark and seemingly unwinnable as fighting drug abuse. Turner told Nancy’s staff that the first thing she should do is get out of “this firing range”—the DC media—and “get out to where the real people live. You need to get her out to where people can see and she can feel.” On his advice, Nancy took a two-day swing through Florida and Texas in February. It was only her second big trip on her own as first lady, the first having been the PR disaster of