Casual Users ‘Accomplices’ to Murder: 1st Lady

Nancy Reagan brought the violent realities of the inner city and drug factories of Latin America to the American suburbs today with a blunt declaration, “If you’re a casual drug user, you’re an accomplice to murder.”

Opening the White House Conference on a Drug-Free America, the First Lady brought 2,000 cheering anti-drug activists to their feet--and upstaged her husband--by blaming casual, middle-class drug users for a wave of drug-related violence.

“The casual user may think as he takes a line of cocaine or smokes a joint in the privacy of his nice condominium, listening to his expensive stereo, that he’s somehow not bothering anyone,” she said. “But there’s a trail of death and destruction that leads directly to his door.”

‘You’re an Accomplice’

Chiding those who call it a “victimless crime,” she recited lurid details of tragic cases in which drugs were a cause or contributing factor to murder, rape and torture.

“The casual drug user cannot escape responsibility,” she declared. “If you’re a casual drug user, you’re an accomplice to murder.”

Recalling the murder last month of Colombian Atty. Gen. Carlos Hoya Jimenez at the hands of a powerful drug cartel, she said, “the people who casually use cocaine are responsible, because their money bought those bullets.”

President Cites Progress

Similarly, she said that in the case of American drug agent Enrique Camarena Salazar, killed by drug traders in Mexico in 1985, “this country’s casual marijuana users cannot escape responsibility for their fellow American’s death, because they in effect bought the tools for his torture.”

Nancy Reagan, for whom the war on drugs has become a high-profile personal crusade, was preceded by the President, who took note of reports on how drug trafficking has increased.

“With all the headlines on how we’re losing the drug war, let’s keep in mind the progress we have made,” he said. He insisted that there has been a “turnaround” in the battle, citing statistics on narcotics seizures, arrests and more aggressive enforcement.

“But as significant as stopping smugglers and pushers is,” he said, “ending the demand for drugs is how in the end we’ll win.”