First Lady Tells U.N. Drug War Needs to Start in U.S.

Nancy Reagan today called for a home front war on individual drug users and said authorities should arrest Wall Street bankers buying cocaine during lunch.

It is as important to stop drug use in the United States, she said, as it is to stop coca growing in Peru, processing in Colombia and shipping through the Caribbean.

“It is often easier to make strong speeches about foreign drug lords or drug smugglers,” she said, “than to arrest a pair of Wall Street investment bankers buying cocaine on their lunch break.”

The First Lady called for a new crusade against drug use at home during a speech to the U.N. Third Committee on Social and Humanitarian affairs.

The Reagan Administration has emphasized interdiction and stopping illegal drugs from entering the country, especially from Latin America. But Mrs. Reagan said the battle also must be fought at home.

“The drug user is an accomplice to every criminal act, every murder, every terrorist attack carried out by the narcotics syndicates,” said the First Lady, who wore a mulberry-colored dress and heavy gold jewelry.

“If we lack the will to fully mobilize the forces of law in our own country to arrest and punish drug users, if we cannot stem the American demand for drugs,” she said, “then there will be little hope of preventing foreign drug producers from fulfilling that demand. . . . Drugs must remain illegal at every step in the chain.”