Drugs are the enemies of ambition and hope - and when we fight against drugs we are fighting for the future.

Riley frames drug abuse not merely as a criminal or medical problem but as a direct assault on the inner resources that make long-term striving possible. By calling drugs “enemies of ambition and hope,” he links addiction to diminished agency: the erosion of goals, motivation, and belief in a better life. The second clause shifts from diagnosis to civic exhortation—anti-drug efforts become a positive, future-oriented project rather than simple punishment. The rhetoric is typical of political anti-drug messaging: it moralizes the stakes (hope, ambition, the future) to justify collective action and to cast prevention and enforcement as investments in the next generation.