UN General Assembly
2017

We can no more live with drugs than we can with terrorism which, as the United Nations admits — and as we have discovered — is funded by the drug trade. This has created the new phenomenon of criminal insurgency. In the century before last, a huge and well- populated Asian country was enslaved by a maritime Power that flooded it with drugs. We welcome this opportunity to address the international community’s concerns and correct the perceptions gleaned from media reports that deny the real scale of the problem, as if denial were a solution. The problem is huge and we will not reduce it in our imagination because we dare not face it in reality. Appeasement emboldens evil. We counsel patience, but delay will make the problem bigger until it is beyond containment and control. Indeed, as we heard from President Trump in this Hall, “When decent people and nations become bystanders to history, the forces of destruction only gather power and strength” (ibid.).