On December 11, 2007, the President appeared before a group of government officials, foreign dignitaries, and ordinary Americans to discuss the problem of illegal drugs in the United States. Nearly 6 years had passed since he had stood before a similar group to announce the Administration’s first National Drug Control Strategy. This time, however, the President described not a rising threat, but one in retreat:

“Because Americans took action, today there are an estimated 860,000 fewer children using drugs than 6 years ago. Because Americans took action, because grassroots activists stood up and said ‘We’ve had enough,’ because law enforcement worked hard—communities are safer, families are stronger, and more children have the hope of a healthy and happy life.”

The progress the United States has achieved in reducing drug consumption and trafficking is yet another indication that when our Nation rallies its greatest resource—its people—to confront an important problem, that problem can be made smaller. Skeptics and advocates of drug legalization have long argued that our fight against drugs is hopeless, but the results tell us yet again that our Nation’s fight against drugs is anything but. In fact, we are winning. The nearly 25 percent decline in youth drug use and the major disruptions in the cocaine and methamphetamine markets have saved lives and strengthened our Country.

As with other serious societal problems—crime, disease, hunger—we must continue to directly confront all aspects of the drug problem. We know that traffickers will react and respond to our successes, and that there is always another generation of American youth that must be educated about the terrible risks of drug abuse and addiction. It is with them in mind that we have set the new goals described in the introduction to this Strategy: an additional 10 percent reduction in youth drug use, the continuation of random student drug testing as a prevention tool, greater access to screening and brief intervention services, the reduced diversion of prescription drugs and methamphetamine precursors, declines in Andean cocaine production and Afghan opium poppy cultivation, a reduction in the flow of illegal drugs across the Southwest Border, and declines in the domestic production and use of marijuana. Achieving these goals will require a continuing partnership with all those throughout the Nation whose hard work has produced such meaningful progress for the American people over the past six years.