The Nation - News from Dec. 1, 1986

Calling drugs the “scourge of America,” New York Mayor Edward I. Koch asked mayors of the nation’s cities to join in his demand for a $4-billion federal commitment to the war on illegal narcotics. Directors of the National League of Cities, which already had proposed four policy recommendations on urban issues at its convention in San Antonio, agreed in a rare move to reopen its agenda to consider a resolution backing Koch’s proposal. Koch said that the $1.7-billion anti-drug measure passed by Congress, while laudable, “is grossly inadequate” in helping state and local law enforcement agencies.