The Nation - News from Aug. 28, 1985

Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III said in Washington that the United States plays a major part in international drug trafficking problems because of the heavy American demand for narcotics. He also suggested that law enforcement officials failed to move forcefully enough against the narcotics cult that blossomed in the 1960s. In an hourlong question-and-answer session by satellite television with reporters from five Latin American nations, Meese termed the 1960s in America “a decade of gratification, a decade of selfishness, particularly among young people, when narcotics got a toehold.” He told reporters from Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela that “we’re a long way from winning the war, but we’re not losing it, and that’s a change from what has happened.”