NATION : Bush Lauds Black War on Drugs

President Bush, likening the U.S. war against drugs to people’s quest for freedom in Eastern Europe, today lauded a poor black community that united to drive drug dealers out of a public park.

“As with the new freedom in Eastern Europe, freedom from drugs isn’t something the government can give you,” Bush said in remarks at an anti-drug rally at Winzer Park in his adopted hometown. “You’ve got to take a stand,” he urged.

He lauded the tenants and community activists from the Acres Homes War on Drugs Committee, who helped sweep drug dealers out of Winzer Park last year and organized neighborhood crime-watches to keep them out. He said that like those demanding freedom to travel and vote in Eastern Europe, the Acres Homes residents “have used ‘people power’ to fight for another kind of freedom: freedom from fear; freedom from crime; freedom from drugs.”