[House Hearing, 107 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
AMERICA'S HEROIN CRISIS, COLOMBIAN HEROIN, AND HOW WE CAN IMPROVE PLAN
COLOMBIA
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
DECEMBER 12, 2002
__________
Serial No. 107-152
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house
http://www.house.gov/reform
-------
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland TOM LANTOS, California
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
STEPHEN HORN, California PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii
JOHN L. MICA, Florida CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana DC
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
BOB BARR, Georgia DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
DAN MILLER, Florida ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois
DOUG OSE, California DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
RON LEWIS, Kentucky JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia JIM TURNER, Texas
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
DAVE WELDON, Florida JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
CHRIS CANNON, Utah WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida DIANE E. WATSON, California
C.L. ``BUTCH'' OTTER, Idaho STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia ------
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma (Independent)
Kevin Binger, Staff Director
Daniel R. Moll, Deputy Staff Director
James C. Wilson, Chief Counsel
Robert A. Briggs, Chief Clerk
Phil Schiliro, Minority Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on December 12, 2002................................ 1
Statement of:
Crane, Barry, Deputy Director for Supply Reduction, Office on
National Drug Control Policy; Paul Simons, Acting Assistant
Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law
Enforcement; and Rogelio Guevara, Chief of Operations, Drug
Enforcement Administration................................. 86
Isacson, Adam, senior associate, Center for International
Policy..................................................... 138
Jimenez, Felix J., retired Special Agent in Charge, DEA, New
York Field Division, Special Agent in Charge,
Transportation Security Administration, New York Field
Division; detective Tony Marcocci, Westmoreland County, PA,
District Attorney's Office; detective sergeant Scott
Pelletier, Portland, ME, Police Department, head, Portland
Police Department-Maine Drug Enforcement Administration
Heroin Task Force; Tom Carr, director, Baltimore-Washington
High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area [HIDTA]; and Mr. X,
undercover narcotics detective, Howard County, MD, Police
Department................................................. 34
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Barr, Hon. Bob, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Georgia, prepared statement of.......................... 154
Burton, Hon. Dan, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Indiana, prepared statement of.......................... 5
Carr, Tom, director, Baltimore-Washington High Intensity Drug
Trafficking Area [HIDTA], prepared statement of............ 61
Crane, Barry, Deputy Director for Supply Reduction, Office on
National Drug Control Policy, prepared statement of........ 87
Cummings, Hon. Elijah E., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Maryland, prepared statement of............... 157
Gilman, Hon. Benjamin A., a Representative in Congress from
the State of New York:
Letter dated October 1, 2002............................. 13
Miami Herald series...................................... 19
Prepared statement of.................................... 25
Guevara, Rogelio, Chief of Operations, Drug Enforcement
Administration, prepared statement of...................... 114
Isacson, Adam, senior associate, Center for International
Policy, prepared statement of.............................. 141
Jimenez, Felix J., retired Special Agent in Charge, DEA, New
York Field Division, Special Agent in Charge,
Transportation Security Administration, New York Field
Division, prepared statement of............................ 36
Marcocci, detective Tony, Westmoreland County, PA, District
Attorney's Office, prepared statement of................... 54
Mica, Hon. John L., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Florida, article dated October 29, 2002........... 152
Pelletier, detective sergeant Scott, Portland, ME, Police
Department, head, Portland Police Department-Maine Drug
Enforcement Administration Heroin Task Force, prepared
statement of............................................... 45
Schakowsky, Hon. Janice D., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Illinois:
Doug Castle articles..................................... 73
Prepared statement of.................................... 10
Simons, Paul, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for
International Narcotics and Law Enforcement, prepared
statement of............................................... 104
AMERICA'S HEROIN CRISIS, COLOMBIAN HEROIN, AND HOW WE CAN IMPROVE PLAN
COLOMBIA
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THURSDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2002
House of Representatives,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 11 a.m., in room
2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Dan Burton (chairman
of the committee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Burton, Gilman, Mica, Norton,
Tierney, and Schakowsky.
Staff present: Kevin Binger, staff director; David A. Kass,
deputy chief counsel; Marc Chretien, senior counsel; Kevin Long
and Gil Macklin, professional staff members; Blain Rethmeier,
communications director; Allyson Blandford, assistant to chief
counsel; Robert A. Briggs, chief clerk; Robin Butler, office
manager; Joshua E. Gillespie, deputy chief clerk; Michael
Layman, legislative assistant; Nicholis Mutton, deputy
communications director; Leneal Scott, computer systems
manager; Corinne Zaccagnini, systems administrator; T.J.
Lightle, systems administrator assistant; Tony Haywood,
minority counsel; Ellen Rayner, minority chief clerk; and Jean
Gosa and Earley Green, minority assistant clerks.
Also present: Ambassador Anne Patterson.
Mr. Burton. Good morning. A quorum being present, the
Committee on Government Reform will come to order. I ask
unanimous consent that all Members' and witnesses' written and
opening statements be included in the record, and without
objection, so ordered. I ask unanimous consent that all written
questions submitted to witnesses and answers provided by
witnesses after the conclusion of this hearing be included in
the record, and without objection, so ordered. And I ask
unanimous consent that all articles, exhibits and extraneous or
tabular material referred to be included in the record, and
without objection, so ordered.
First of all, I would like to congratulate Mr. Cummings,
who's not here today. He's been very deeply involved in the
drug issues since he's been in Congress and he's one of those
people that really, really has been concerned about problems of
more heroin and cocaine and other drugs coming into this
country. Mr. Cummings has told this committee a number of times
about the heroin epidemic that has besieged his congressional
district. This week he was elected to be the new chairman of
the Black Caucus and I wish he was here so I could congratulate
him. It's great to see some of our Members moving up the
ladder, as others of us are moving down the ladder.
I'd also like to thank my vice chairman, Mr. Barr, and
Chairman Gilman, who proposed holding this hearing.
Unfortunately, Mr. Barr got stuck in Monaco. That's a tough
place to be stuck, don't you think? And this is an issue that
they care a lot about. They've done excellent work and we're
going to miss them in the next Congress.
I also want to thank my colleague, Mr. Mica, who's been
very active on this issue for some time, and Ms. Schakowsky.
She's interested in this as well as a number of things we've
been working on for some time. This is an issue that we all
care a lot about and hopefully there'll be some resolution of
some of these problems.
We're holding today's hearing to explore the damages that
Colombian heroin is wreaking on our society. Statistics show
more than 20,000 Americans died last year from drugs and drug-
related violence. Other estimates go as high as 50,000. And
when we talk about our prisons and having to build new prisons
all the time to take care of criminals, we find that over 70
percent of all the people who are incarcerated are incarcerated
in one way or another in some nefarious activity that's been
related to drugs.
And so the drug problem here reaches all across the
spectrum and it costs this country billions and billions and
billions of dollars. Conservatively, the 20,000 Americans that
died last year, that's about seven times as many as died in the
tragedy on September 11th. Nationally, drug-related deaths
surpassed homicides for the first time in 1998 and that trend
has continued.
According to a graph I'd like to show right now from ONDCP,
heroin is the most addictive substance after nicotine, and
that's pretty startling when you look at those figures. There
are a number of different ways to attack this problem and
focusing too heavily on one to the detriment of the other will
only result in overall failure. We spent most of the Clinton
administration focusing too heavily on treatment and too little
on eradication and interdiction, and the result has been a
dramatic increase in drug production in Colombia. Law
enforcement has said it is nearly impossible to stop drugs
after they enter the stream of commerce and repeatedly have
told us the best place to stop them is in the poppy fields or
the coca labs in Colombia before they begin their voyage to the
United States.
Our borders are extremely porous, as everybody knows. We've
got almost a 2000-mile border between us and Mexico. We've got
the Gulf of Mexico, the East and West Coasts and the huge
border in Canada, and so the problem is very, very bad.
The message our first panel of witnesses is going to
deliver will come as no surprise to those of us who followed
this onslaught for the past 6 years. We predicted that it was
going to happen and we acted by providing the right equipment
and guidance to the State Department in an effort to stop the
flow of heroin before it reached the United States.
Many of us, including Chairman Gilman, Speaker Hastert, Mr.
Mica, Mr. Barr and others, began pressing the previous
administration to deliver mission specific equipment. The
mission of eradicating opium poppy was critically important. We
pressed a reluctant administration to deliver much needed
equipment and helicopters to our allies in General Serrano's
Colombian National Police starting in 1996.
It was not easy. It took constant pressure to pry each and
every helicopter out of the Clinton administration. And I don't
want to knock them too much because we've done enough of that
in the past. But the problem is we needed equipment down there
and the equipment wasn't getting there as rapidly as it should
have and when it did get there many times it was outdated,
outmoded and didn't have the proper protections. Even when
congressionally directed assistance arrived, it required
constant oversight by this committee and the International
Relations Committee to attempt to get the U.S. Embassy to use
and maintain the aid as Congress intended. At nearly every turn
the Embassy and the State Department chose to ignore
congressional direction.
In 2000, we saw initial success with the heroin strategy.
Our allies in the Colombian National Police eradicated 9,200
hectares of opium poppy plants in Colombia's high Andes
Mountains. This put a serious dent into the supply of heroin
coming into the United States. It was then that the State
Department chose to stop opium eradication to, as Ambassador
Patterson put it, to take advantage of a historic opportunity
to eradicate coca. And the only problem is Colombia's cocaine
is now increasingly headed in another direction, to Europe. And
the opium poppy used to make more deadly Colombian heroin is
almost exclusively headed for the United States of America and
our East Coast. We're facing a tidal wave of the purest, most
deadly and most addictive heroin in the world. Under those
circumstances, you would think that eradicating heroin would be
a top priority. We need to know why this decision to cut back
poppy eradication was made, and that's one of the reasons we're
having this hearing today.
This decision to focus almost solely on coca eradication at
the expense of opium eradication has clearly had unforeseen
consequences. The result has been an increase in Colombian
heroin available in the United States, an increase in hospital
administrations for overdoses and an increase in overdose
deaths in nearly every big city and small town east of the
Mississippi.
Now, I understand that the State Department is now
increasing the spraying of poppy fields, and that's good news.
In my view it should have never been decreased. The spraying
that's been done in the last 2 years has been a fraction of
what was accomplished in 2000, and I don't understand why it
was decreased and why that happened. What I hope to hear today
from the State Department and the Drug Czar's office is that
there is a strategy in place for a concerted effort to
eradicate opium poppies in Colombia and that this is going to
be a top priority.
I want to thank all of our witnesses for being here today.
I was hoping that we would be able to have Ambassador Patterson
to testify, but we weren't able to work that out. However, as I
understand it, she will be here, or she is here and if we have
to confer, if one of the witnesses has to confer with her they
can do that. We do have Assistant Secretary Simons here to
testify and Ambassador Patterson is here to advise him. And I
was also hoping that the Drug Czar, Mr. Walters, could be here
but his schedule wouldn't allow it. And I'm sure that they're
not avoiding us, because the war against terrorism and the
attention the administration is paying to that right now
requires a lot of the top executives in the administration to
be elsewhere. But nevertheless I appreciate those who are here
for being here, and I want to thank Deputy Director Crane for
being here in the place of the Drug Czar. I also want to thank
Mr. Guevara from the DEA and the four dedicated law enforcement
officers we have on our first panel. We have one law
enforcement officer, as you know, who's encased in this
cubicle, and the reason for that is because he's doing very
important work and there may be some danger to him if he were
to testify in public.
And with that, Ms. Schakowsky, do you have an opening
statement you'd like to make?
[The prepared statement of Hon. Dan Burton follows:]
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Ms. Schakowsky. Yes, I do. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want
to tell you how much I appreciate your making time in the last
month of your tenure as head of this committee to focus
attention on the growing heroin crisis in America as well as
our country's severely flawed policy in Colombia. I understand
this is the third hearing that you've had in this last week of
your tenure and I want to just tell you what a privilege it has
been to serve with you as chairman and I want to thank you for
your leadership on this and so many issues that affect
Americans.
The heroin crisis in America does need urgent attention.
This problem is unlike other substance abuse cases in that
heroin is more addictive, as you pointed out, Mr. Chairman,
more lethal in small doses and at times easier to obtain by
teenagers than any other form of intoxicant.
I welcome our law enforcement witnesses and look forward to
hearing their views on how we can best address the subject.
That being said, however, as will be clearly evident during
today's hearing, there is not agreement among Members on how
the heroin problem in America can be best addressed. I strongly
oppose much of the policies put into place by Plan Colombia and
the Andean Region Initiative because they have in my view been
too heavily weighted toward supply side reduction, a strategy
that has not worked to reduce substance abuse in the United
States, coca or heroin. The policy so far has largely
disregarded concerns about several important issues, including
human rights abuses, committed by corrupt forces within the
Colombian military, the plight of Colombia's internally
displaced population, and alternative development, human and
environmental health concerns related to the campaign of aerial
fumigation of coca, as I said a campaign that has failed to
achieve its goals, corruption within Colombia, mismanagement of
U.S. taxpayer dollars and a failure by our Embassy and State
Department officials to enforce U.S. laws and a failure of the
Colombian government, its Attorney General in particular, to
pursue cases against known human rights offenders.
New concerns have been raised by many human rights
advocates and Members of Congress about the changing nature of
our mission in Colombia. Congress this year authorized funds
previously appropriated for counternarcotics operations in
Colombia to be used for counterinsurgency. The administration
has a plan to provide to Colombia and to Occidental Petroleum,
for starters, over $100 million from U.S. taxpayers to protect
a portion of the Cana-Limon oil pipeline. I oppose our mission
shift in Colombia and I oppose the administration's pipeline
protection program. This mission shift will put U.S. personnel
directly into Colombia's decades old civil war. The pipeline
program is a giveaway to an incredibly wealthy corporation from
the U.S. Government and we have no guarantee of a return on our
investment, not even a deal for a discount on Occidental oil.
I want to move on and discuss what I believe to be the best
way we can improve our Colombia policy, and that is to uphold
U.S. principles and laws, and I want to use an example to
underscore the failure of our officials posted in Colombia to
demonstrate leadership on this subject.
On December 13, 1998, in a Colombian village called Santo
Domingo, 17 civilians, including six children, were killed when
Colombian military helicopters provided to Colombia by the
United States dropped what the FBI later certified was U.S.
made bombs on the community. This appeared to many of us,
including Senator Leahy, to be a clear violation of the Leahy
law, which requires that U.S. aid be cutoff to Colombian
military units, ``credibly alleged to have committed gross
violations of human rights,'' until the perpetrators are
brought to justice.
While some actions were taken, investigations were opened
and closed and reopened, the United States failed to show a
commitment to the law over the course of this case. Meanwhile,
troubling information came out in the testimony of witnesses
and the press. Colombian personnel directly involved in the
operation over Santo Domingo have testified that they were
given the coordinates to drop the bombs on Santo Domingo by a
U.S. contractor called Air Scan. Air Scan was under contract to
provide security to Occidental oil.
Over 2 years after the bombing and almost 2 years ago I met
with U.S. Ambassador to Colombia Ann Patterson. I raised the
case of Santo Domingo. Ambassador Patterson urged me to be
patient. She acknowledged that she was on, ``thin ice on this
one,'' and that very soon she hoped there would be major
progress on this case. That was in February 2001. Ambassador
Patterson waited 1 year and 9 months from then and almost 4
years from the time of the attack on Santo Domingo to recommend
to the State Department that the Leahy law be invoked and aid
to the Colombian Air Force unit implicated in the case be
suspended. That is her recommendation. I don't know yet if that
has been followed through on. Granted, even if she wanted to do
so sooner, she may have been prevented from taking action
because of the Bush administration's disinterest in this case.
I challenge any Member and any representative of the State
Department to say that this is an example of leadership and a
commitment to human rights and upholding U.S. laws. We are
rewarding an oil company that hired a contractor to work with a
corrupt military by providing that same company with over $100
million in security aid and, according to the Secretary of
State, we are rewarding the military involved in this case and
countless other massacres of innocent civilians with additional
U.S. aid.
This case is an embarrassing and shameful blemish on the
United States. To me it symbolizes all that is wrong with our
policy and our priorities in Colombia. I think it's too bad
that Ambassador Patterson, who I do have a great deal of
respect for, but I'm sorry that she's not here to answer
questions on this important case.
Mr. Chairman, these are just some of the important issues
today's hearing should be considering. I intend to use my time
for questions on these issues, and I welcome our witnesses,
look forward to their testimony, and appreciate your indulgence
in allowing me to make this lengthy opening statement. Thank
you.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Janice D. Schakowsky
follows:]
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Mr. Burton. Thank you. Although I agree with a great deal
of your statement and disagree with some of it, I think since
you're so conversant with the issue it's worth it to listen to
what you have to say.
Mr. Gilman.
Mr. Gilman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you
for arranging this important hearing today. I think it's very
timely as we discuss where we stand on Colombian heroin and our
U.S. aid problems which our CODEL covered on a recent visit to
that beleaguered nation. Colombia's capital is only 3 hours
from Miami, and what happens there, of course, impacts all of
us.
Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that my October 1st
letter to ONDCP Director John Walters on the heroin crisis in
America be included in the record----
Mr. Burton. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information referred to follows:]
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Mr. Gilman [continuing]. Which notes failures of his
office, the INL Bureau at the State Department and the U.S.
Embassy in Bogota in tackling the Colombian heroin problem
before it gets out of control.
Today we'll be learning firsthand from our local police,
and we welcome them and we thank them for being here, the grave
dimension of the Colombian crisis. There's going to have to be
accountability for this mess at the Federal level. Regrettably
our government has failed to use the equipment that Congress
previously provided to eliminate the Colombian opium long
before we have the heroin that it creates flowing into our
Nation where it's difficult and nearly impossible to interdict.
ONDCP states it's about 10 percent at best.
Permit me to summarize our findings from our recent CODEL
visit to Colombia. The findings offer an excellent and a
practical solution to the Colombian heroin crisis now before
our communities and our young people here at home are
destroyed, notwithstanding that ONDCP and INL figures downplay
this threat.
With regard to our findings, we found that the major
illicit drug crops of concern to our Nation in Colombia consist
of coca and cocaine production and opium and heroin production.
The Colombian coca crop is the most extensive, employing about
130,000 hectares, more or less. And the annual opium crop is
much smaller, only 5- to 6,000 hectares at most. And yet today,
that limited Colombian opium crop is supplying nearly 60
percent of the heroin in our Nation, replacing Asian heroin.
It's the cheapest, most addictive, and deadliest that we've
seen. It's resulting in numerous heroin-related deaths as it
spreads across our Nation. It's already or soon will be the
major illicit drug in many States across the Nation and has the
highest risk of all drugs because of its dependence.
Newest trafficking trends show more and more Colombian
cocaine is headed for Europe while all of the deadly Colombian
heroin is coming here, creating havoc in our Nation. The media
recently reported that the son of a major Cali cocaine cartel
kingpin was just arrested for possession, not of cocaine but
for substantial amounts of Colombian heroin.
With regard to the coca crop, that crop has to be
eradicated throughout the year since it is produced four times
per annum. Opium, on the other hand, produces only two small
crops each year, which is up in the high Andes, primarily,
Huila, Tolima, Cauca, departments in the south and also the
Cesar area in the north. When opium is eradicated in the
mountains, the loss to the drug traffickers is much greater
than with coca since they've expended extensive funds and
energy in climbing the mountains to plant, preserving their
expensive, profitable but small opium crop. A kilo of heroin in
the United States on our streets is worth nearly six times more
than a kilo of cocaine on our streets.
The past experience of the anti-drug Colombian National
Police that have done such an outstanding job demonstrates that
you can simultaneously eradicate both coca and opium and still
produce good results on both of those fronts without having to
sacrifice taking down one crop for another as we regrettably
did during the past 2 years. Since coca is produced year round
in the bigger quantities, it's necessary to stay at it all year
to sustain eradication in order to get a net overall coca crop
reduction.
However, the same is not true for opium. According to the
CMP experts, opium, like coca, is only a twice a year crop,
grown in small amounts in the mountainous regions. It can and
should be sprayed just before harvest time. In 48 hours the
poppy flower wilts, unlike the coca leaf which takes much
longer to eliminate. The opium harvest time eradication
maximizes the impact and loss of revenue for the drug
traffickers, while in the interim it would be possible to
eradicate the bigger coca crop all year round.
You know, we should be able, Mr. Chairman, to walk and chew
gum at the same time. This CMP's insightful experience is based
on their enforcement theory and explains why in both 1999 and
in the year 2000 there was good eradication results of 80 to 90
percent of the opium crop was eliminated while continued
strides were also made against the coca crop all at the same
time. If we only had sustained the opium eradication effort
over the past 2 years, combined with DEA's excellent efforts
with the CMP going after the Colombian heroin dealers and
infrastructure, we would not be faced with the Colombian heroin
crisis which we're facing today.
So Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the Miami
Herald series in early November of this year on the Colombian
heroin crisis here at home be included in the record at this
point in the record. It deserves our attention.
Mr. Burton. Thank you, Mr. Gilman. Without objection, so
ordered.
[The information referred to follows:]
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Mr. Gilman. Overall, what the CODEL discovered on our
recent visit is the lack of any political will, the lack of
leadership, the lack of strategic thinking by the Drug Czar and
the lack of long-range planning by the State Department and by
our Embassy leadership in Bogota. All of them sorely need to
sustain these past efforts to eliminate opium, to thwart--to be
able to thwart the heroin crisis. If sustained, along with our
excellent DEA efforts, we could have nearly eliminated
Colombian opium and avoided the heroin crisis we're now facing
in our Nation that originates in nearby Colombia.
Without that small opium crop there'd be no Colombian
heroin of course. It's that simple and very easy to comprehend.
But regrettably our Federal Government has failed to comprehend
that. The CMP Deputy Director says this job of eliminating
Colombia opium can still be done in just 3 months, Mr.
Chairman, and that's what this important hearing's all about.
We need some credible explanations why it hasn't been done and
why there should be no excuses of why it can't be done.
Coca eradication takes years and the net benefits are far
less beneficial than with opium eradication in the high Andes.
Since the Colombian anti-drug police now have the Blackhawks
which we--this committee has helped them obtain and the spray
planes to do the job, our executive branch should now lead,
should be held accountable for the carnage which we're going to
be hearing about from our local police.
The opium elimination results fell off in the year 2001 by
more than 70 percent. Let's find out why. Let's ascertain who
is responsible and then find out how we can reverse that figure
and hold people accountable.
With regards to the excuse that we hear about with weather,
bad weather conditions, we often heard from the Embassy and
ONDCP those excuses. The police say this is nothing new in
Colombia, especially in the opium mountainous regions. We
should wait, wait it out, as did the CMP, and go back a day or
a week later when the weather clears in the high mountains and
obtain the kind of eradication results we need. The CNP's past
experience, which we learned of in our visit, fully answers the
erroneous U.S. Government and Embassy Bogota excuses, which
included that there's often bad weather and that they can't
find the opium and if they do eradicate it it's just replanted.
I think all of those excuses, Mr. Chairman, ring hollow.
In summary, what's needed now is strong leadership of
political will at the top so the Colombian opium and in turn
Colombian heroin now destroying our youth here in our country
can become a thing of the past.
Mr. Chairman, we thank you again for conducting these
hearings. I'm certain these things can and must change and when
the American people know what can and must be done and demand
that their Federal Government do the job of protecting them
from illicit drugs from abroad, and in this case Colombian
heroin, it's going to happen. Our local police departments,
from whom we're
about to hear from, can't do this eradication job at the source
in Colombia. But we and our Federal Government can and should
do the job.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Benjamin A. Gilman
follows:]
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Mr. Burton. Thank you, Mr. Gilman.
Mr. Tierney.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank you first of
all for holding these hearings and for the great work that
you've done as committee Chair, particularly over the last year
where we've really addressed a number of issues that were
important to the American people, and I look forward to your
continued efforts in that regard with whatever subcommittee
chairmanship you get after we reorganize.
I want to in large part associate my remarks with those of
Ms. Schakowsky, who I think went into greater length than I am
going to go into, but certainly was on point with much of what
she had to say.
The Andean Country Initiative and the Plan Colombia are not
the best of plans that we could put forth to do what we need to
do in this country in terms of eliminating the drugs that are
coming into the United States. Spraying, while, Mr. Chairman,
you may think it's good news that they're spraying, many people
obviously don't think it such good news when it turns out they
have a huge internal displacement causing probably more
internal refugees than anywhere else in the world, and we need
to go at this in a little bit of a wiser situation. We have
alternative development issues that need to be addressed. If
people are going to have their crops eradicated and be moved
on, then there has to be something for them to go to. We should
be concentrating more on building a civil society in Colombia.
They need a much strengthened judiciary, a much improved police
organization, a much improved military. We also need to know
that their military right now is not of the nature that it
should be.
We're sending down a substantial amount of money from the
United States and now sending our men and women there only to
find out that if you have enough wealth and if you have enough
education in Colombia, then you need not serve in the Colombian
military forces, and I think that's something that has to be
addressed by President Uribe before we keep sending our money
down there.
The fact is that every time we succeed or think we're
succeeding in eradicating either poppy or cocaine, coca, it's
just moving. We did a relatively good job we thought in Peru
and in Bolivia and it moved to Colombia. And we're now making
efforts in Colombia and the fears are that it's moving back to
Peru, back to Bolivia and maybe into Ecuador. So that we have
to do much more and we have to come at this from more than one
direction, and I think that we can do that.
I'm always dismayed that we really don't sink our teeth
into issues that would really make a difference, as difficult
as they may be for people in political life up here. First and
foremost on that list I put money laundering. If we really
concentrated on going after the money, I think we'd make the
jobs of the witnesses in front of us a lot easier on that.
Let's go where it is.
It's the toughest thing politically perhaps to be done in
this country, Colombia and the other countries involved, but
let's go at the source. Let's go at the arms transfers and
sales. The number of arms shipments going into Colombia and
other countries that are manufacturing these drugs is
outrageous. Yet the United States is the singular most
important country that withdrew from the small arms discussions
that were going on in the international community, and that's a
disgrace.
Let's talk about interrupting the precursor chemicals that
go into the production and manufacture of these drugs. You
know, these people are making money. This is a business. And we
sit here looking like the only thing we can do is eradicate
crops of poor peasants, making them internal refugees running
around their country looking for food, looking for a place to
settle down, looking for a way to be safe. And the only people
that can go after money laundering, arms transfers and sales,
interruption of precursor chemicals really is the United States
taking the leadership. And where are we on that, Mr. Chairman?
Just where is the courage of this body of Congress? And where
is the courage of other people in going where it really makes a
difference?
We're just going to keep pushing this ball around the park
from Peru to Colombia to Ecuador and back if we don't start
going at the source of the root of that issue. And we can do a
lot more in terms of having treatment on demand in this
country. As much as supply is, and let's not fool ourselves,
demand is an even larger issue. The price for these drugs has
not gone down one iota in all the time that we've spent trying
to address this issue. No matter how much we move it from Peru
to Bolivia to Colombia to Ecuador or any place else, go
overseas, the fact of the matter is the price on the streets of
this country remains the same.
So we're not having the impact that we think we're doing.
We're spending huge amounts of money. We're spending a lot of
money on military products. I'm sure somebody here is making a
buck on that. We're not going after where the real issue is and
we're displacing hundreds of thousands of people and not
bringing them any more safety or human rights or protection in
their country at all.
Mr. Chairman, we've got a formula to move on this, and some
of it is what we've been doing now, but unfortunately not an
awful lot. We need to be working at the infrastructure, the
civil infrastructure in Colombia. We need to be making sure
President Uribe has his people joining their military, buffing
up their police department so that it actually is an effective
police department, doing something about the paramilitaries as
well as the guerillas so that people have confidence in their
own law enforcement and their military mechanisms, and then
making sure that we do the things that could make the largest
difference of all, taking on the money launderers, the arms
transfers and salespeople, the precursor chemical
manufacturers, producers, shippers and doing something about
demand in this country.
This isn't some squishy liberal answer to this problem.
This is a part of a serious business of going after the
problems where the roots are, and we should get over this
nonsense about you're not being tough enough, you're being too
tough, and get down to where it really makes a practical
difference and go right at the heart of the problem.
We're spending $411 million in fiscal 2002, the third
largest amount of U.S. foreign aid of any country in the world,
and we're not having much success except to ruin the lives and
further exacerbate the suffering of people in Colombia.
Mr. Chairman, I hope as we go forward that if you have the
committee that deals with this issue, or whoever has it, we
start dealing with the real things that will make a real
difference as hard as they may be politically.
Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Tierney.
Mr. Mica.
Mr. Mica. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank you again
for holding this hearing, one in a series, to address what
unquestionably is our most challenging and serious social
problem in this Nation, and that's the problem of narcotics use
and abuse. And we're particularly concerned about the
continuing problem we're having in heroin production. This
isn't rocket science. We know where the heroin's coming from.
We can do chemical analysis and even trace it to the fields and
we know it's coming from Colombia. We know that in 1992 there
was almost zero heroin produced in Colombia. I had the
opportunity to serve as your Chair of the Criminal Justice,
Drug Policy Subcommittee and looked at that issue during my
tenure, some 2 years ago, worked on it back in the 1980's,
Chief of Staff for Senator Hawkins. And the problem can be
resolved if you have the will and you have a plan.
We put together a plan. I was pleased to participate with
you and others in developing Plan Colombia. Now the challenge
is executing Plan Colombia. It's true that some of the traffic
does move. Mr. Gilman and I and others were involved back in
the 1980's and the 1990's and we worked with Bolivia and Peru.
We eradicated a tremendous percentage of the cocaine and heroin
coming from those countries in a very cost effective manner. We
know where the drugs are. It's cheap to eradicate them and
eradicate their production. It does take the will, both of the
United States and the host country. We now know that we've made
progress in cocaine and coca eradication in Colombia. We could
do the same thing with heroin.
We played games in the 1990's, unfortunately, under the
Clinton administration and under the guise of human rights and
protecting the peasants and all of the other things you've
heard paraded today. President Pastrana attempted to negotiate
with terrorists, and there's not any way you can negotiate with
terrorists. You need to eliminate terrorists, create stability.
And fortunately President Bush has that plan, is willing to put
the military resources to stop the slaughter of people. And
they love to bring up isolated cases of terrorism, and there is
terrorism and destruction of life on both sides. The
paramilitary, the FARC guerilla. But what you need is an end to
that terrorism and you need to use whatever military means or
enforcement to stop that. And the United States can provide
those resources, should, and I believe will, and that will
bring stability.
If you want to trace the money in this, it's not that
difficult. The money is provided by the drugs to terrorists who
are committing terrorist acts and I don't care what side it is.
They've slaughtered tens of thousands of people, not 17 in some
isolated incident using U.S. arms. That's not the question
here.
So you have to have stability and you have to have a plan.
And that will, folks, respect human rights. The rights of tens
of thousands of Colombians have been violated. And they're not
being displaced because of some crop eradication program. I
spray crops in my backyard--or weeds in my backyard with
defoliants that are stronger than what they're using in
Colombia. That's another bogus argument. They're being
displaced because of one of the worst civil wars and terrorist
wars in the hemisphere.
The demand--it's nice to talk about demand and treatment
and treatment on demand. And we've tried that. We spent tens of
billions of dollars on social programs in jail and everything
else. I have friends who have kids that are hooked on drugs. I
have friends who are hooked on drugs, and unfortunately, only
about a third of those programs have any success. Addiction is
a very difficult problem. And we've tried education and we're
working on that. That program was screwed up in the last
administration. But it takes, as we've learned, a combination
of all of these things.
So we've got to get Plan Colombia fully executed. And part
of that is eradication of heroin. This isn't rocket science.
And there's no excuse for an increase of 62 percent, which
we'll hear testimony in a few minutes, I believe, increase in
heroin production in Colombia. That's not acceptable. That's
not going to be acceptable to this committee. So you've got to
have the will. You've got to eradicate those drugs and use
whatever means necessary to create stability and use all means
to fight this scourge on all fronts.
Finally, Plan Colombia does have a good plan. It has
eradication, it has stabilization, which is so necessary to
that region. And we even have an alternative crop development
program and economic assistance. But we've got to restore our
shoot down policy, our information policy, our micro herbicide
policy, things that have been studied for too long and need to
be put into action to eliminate this problem. So we can do it,
and we know how to do it. We just need the will to do it.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Burton. And thank you, Mr. Mica, for the work you've
done on this in the past. We'll now hear from our first witness
panel. Agent Felix Jiminez, Detective Tony Marcocci, how do you
pronounce that? Marcocci? Thank you, Tony. Detective Sergeant
Scott Pelletier. I'm getting close. Tom Carr. I can get that
one without any trouble, Tom. And the undercover narcotics
detective who's in the cubicle.
Would you please stand and raise your right hand?
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Burton. Let the record reflect the witnesses responded
in the affirmative. And I appreciate you all being here today.
Do any of you have opening statements you'd like to make?
How about you, Mr. Jiminez. We'll start with you. And if you
could keep your statements to around 5 minutes I'd really
appreciate it. And can you pull the mic close to you because we
don't pick that up sometimes. You'd better turn the mic on.
STATEMENTS OF FELIX J. JIMENEZ, RETIRED SPECIAL AGENT IN
CHARGE, DEA, NEW YORK FIELD DIVISION, SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE,
TRANSPORTATION SECURITY ADMINISTRATION, NEW YORK FIELD
DIVISION; DETECTIVE TONY MARCOCCI, WESTMORELAND COUNTY, PA,
DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OFFICE; DETECTIVE SERGEANT SCOTT PELLETIER,
PORTLAND, ME, POLICE DEPARTMENT, HEAD, PORTLAND POLICE
DEPARTMENT-MAINE DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION HEROIN TASK
FORCE; TOM CARR, DIRECTOR, BALTIMORE-WASHINGTON HIGH INTENSITY
DRUG TRAFFICKING AREA [HIDTA]; AND MR. X, UNDERCOVER NARCOTICS
DETECTIVE, HOWARD COUNTY, MD, POLICE DEPARTMENT
Mr. Jimenez. Chairman Burton and members of the committee,
good morning. I would like to begin by thanking the committee
for the opportunity to appear before you today. I commend the
committee for their unwavering support in the fight against
illegal drug trafficking. As a former Special Agent in Charge
of the New York Field Office of the Drug Enforcement
Administration, and with over 30 years of drug law enforcement
experience, I would like to provide the committee with an
overview of South American heroin trafficking and the
distribution and its effects to the New York geographic area.
Heroin traffickers from South America are bringing some of
the world's purest heroin into New York. Of the world's four
major heroin sources areas, South America, Southeast Asia,
Southwest Asia and Mexico, heroin from South America is the
most frequently trafficked and widely available in the New York
area. During my tenure as the Chief of the Heroin Desk in DEA
headquarters in the late 1980's and early 1990's, DEA began
developing intelligence that drug traffickers based in Colombia
were cultivating opium poppies and seeking to develop a heroin
processing capability. Significant shipments of South American
heroin began arriving in New York in 1991. By applying the same
trafficking expertise used by their peers to dominate the
cocaine trade, and by significantly reducing prices and
increasing purity, South American heroin traffickers were able
to dominate New York's heroin market by the mid 1990's.
Unlike the cocaine kingpins and cartels of the 1980's,
South American heroin organizations are generally loose
confederations of several organizations and entrepreneurs who
realize that a high profile is counterproductive and dangerous.
Originally relying on relatively small heroin conversion
laboratories in Colombia producing a few kilograms of heroin,
traffickers today utilize laboratories capable of producing
significantly greater quantities.
South American heroin traffickers originally smuggled their
heroin into New York in relatively small amounts primarily
using couriers internally carrying up to a kilogram of heroin
or flying on direct commercial aircraft to JFK Airport from
Colombia. Over the time South American heroin organizations
grew in number size and experience. These organizations'
methods and tactics continually evolved, becoming more
sophisticated and difficult to counter.
Reacting to an increased rate of interdiction for direct
flights from Colombia, smugglers began transiting through
secondary countries and changing methods of conveyance. In
addition to the direct flights couriers now flew to the U.S.
airports often from secondary countries, such as Venezuela,
Brazil, Ecuador, Argentina, Chile, as well as from intermediate
stops in Central America, the Caribbean and Mexico. In one of
the first counter moves made by the South American heroin
traffickers, they began routing heroin couriers to the United
States through Argentina, Brazil and Chile, traditionally not
identified as source countries.
Additionally, the traffickers aggressively sought out
citizens of these countries to become couriers, as they do not
need a tourist visa to enter the United States, reducing the
scrutiny given to these potential couriers. As a result, South
American heroin smuggled into the United States by the
Chileans, the Brazilians and especially Argentinian couriers
sharply escalated. Regardless of the route chosen, the
nationality of the courier and the nationality of the person
who recruited the courier, Colombian traffickers remained the
leader and controllers of the South American heroin trade in
New York.
Traffickers began using more sophisticated methods,
smuggling heroin in luggage, postal shipments and container
cargo. Soon virtually all the methods utilized for smuggling
cocaine were adopted for heroin smuggling. Additionally,
smuggling methods became more sophisticated.
The volume smuggled increased. For the last half the 1990's
heroin shipment per courier averaged about one to three
kilograms of heroin. Starting around 1999, authorities began
interdicting larger shipments. The average amount smuggled by
couriers is presently between five to eight kilograms a
shipment, either hidden in a combination of luggage, strapped
to the courier, and/or swallowed by the courier. Ever
expanding, South American----
Mr. Burton. Mr. Jimenez. If you could try to sum up, we
would appreciate it. I know you have a very lengthy statement
and it will be put in the record so we can read all of it, but
we want to make sure we have time for everybody to be
questioned properly.
Mr. Jimenez. OK.
Mr. Burton. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Jimenez. Well, in a nutshell we have more heroin
available in the United States. It's more pure and more cheaper
than ever. And about 90 percent of the heroin available here in
the United States is from Colombian origin.
That's my summation to the problem that we're facing in
this country.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Jimenez follows:]
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Mr. Burton. Thank you so much. We really appreciate the
hard work.
Mr. Jimenez. My pleasure, Your Honor.
Mr. Burton. Mr. Pelletier. Is that--was I closer that time?
Mr. Pelletier. That was correct, Mr. Burton. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I'd like to
first thank you for my--this opportunity to testify before you.
My name is Scott Pelletier. I was born and raised in Portland,
Maine. I'm presently a Detective Sergeant with the Portland
Police Department, and I'm assigned to the State task force,
which is Maine Drug Enforcement Agency. I have been with--in
law enforcement for over 15 years. I've worked a number of
different types of jobs from the regular street beat patrol
officer all the way to investigations from everything from
theft to homicide, and the majority of my time has been with
drug-related investigations. Since 1999, I've been assigned to
the Portland office of the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency as a
Supervisory Special Agent. The MDEA is a multi-jurisdictional
task force that has six offices statewide.
In the State of Maine there are 16 counties. Maine has a
population of approximately one and a quarter million people.
For that amount of people there are only 34 drug agents
assigned to MDEA. Twenty-seven of those agents are federally
Byrne grant funded. Without their funds we'd essentially have
no drug agents other than local police officers. My offices
consist of myself and four other agents and we're located in
the city of Portland, and we're responsible for all the drug
investigations within Cumberland County, Cumberland County
being the largest county in the State, with approximately a
quarter of a million people and it expands about 853 square
miles.
Last year, in my office alone 38 percent of our total
arrests were heroin related, for either its sale or possession.
The city of Portland may be considered a small city compared to
other cities in America, but like many of those larger cities I
can tell you with complete confidence heroin is the single
largest drug threat to our area.
Many people believe that heroin is making a comeback. I'm
here to tell you that it essentially has never left. There have
been significant changes, however, in heroin trends due in
large part to Colombian cartels aggressively adding heroin to
their supply of available drugs being marketed throughout the
United States. Once the Colombians decided to market their
heroin it became cheaper and more pure.
I've witnessed firsthand how heroin's increased
availability has impacted the city of Portland. The most
significant trend has been due to this increased availability.
In Maine, during our fiscal year 2001, seizures of heroin rose
171 percent over fiscal year 2000, and a dramatic 622 percent
over fiscal year 1999. In 2002 there was a 56 percent increase
in heroin seizures over fiscal year 2001. And in addition,
heroin arrests in 2001 rose 50 percent over 2001 and 110
percent over the previous year of 1999.
There has historically been a problem in Maine with heroin
but over the past 5 years it has become nothing short of
epidemic. During my 15 years in law enforcement, I personally
witnessed a devastation that heroin has inflicted on countless
families within my community, not to mention throughout the
State. The increased availability of heroin is the single most
contributing factor when accounting for the State's dramatic
increase in heroin-related incidents, including its sale, use,
arrests and, sadly, deaths.
During the nineties, I was assigned to conduct numerous
undercover operations where I would personally purchase heroin
from in-state and out-of-state suppliers. During that time, a
heroin bag or one single dose cost approximately 35 to $50 a
bag for a single dose with a purity level between 10 and 30
percent. At that time it was approximately a dose of heroin
weighed one-tenth of a gram.
Within the city of Portland I knew almost all the addicts
by name. They tended to be poor, uneducated, middle-age people
who were in their stages--late stages of substance abuse.
Today a bag of heroin, the same bag of heroin costs between
15 and $25 a bag in southern Maine, and the purity levels are
consistently in the 80th percentile if not more pure than that.
Today with the higher purity levels, a bag of heroin
contains now 1 one-hundredth of a gram of the highly addictive
drug. If I could for a moment--I believe you'll find a packet
of Sweet and Low before you--give you this visual
demonstration. Most people, we understand these numbers, but if
you take a Sweet and Low package, they're measured out in 1
gram. In you were to open that package and pour it in front of
you and separate that 1 gram into 100 equal parts, if you can
do it--it's very difficult to do--once you get around 10, there
is just so little of the drug there, or if that was the drug.
The shipments into the United States are in the kilos,
1,000 grams to a kilo. That translates into 100,000 doses,
single doses of this highly addictive drug. It's no wonder why
our young people feel immune that such a small, minute piece,
little bit of white powder, could ever affect them.
Today a single dose of heroin can be purchased for $4 a
bag. That's less than you could purchase a happy meal or a
convenience meal at any of our local restaurants. Obviously the
increased availability of this drug, along with the
simultaneous decrease in its price, has created a market that
makes this drug attractive to younger people who oftentimes may
become addicted after using it only one time. The drug is made
even more attractive to young adults who believe they cannot
become addicted to heroin if they only snort or smoke it rather
than inject it. This myth is quickly dispelled, however, after
the first use, first or second use of this incredibly addictive
drug.
This dire problem is a direct result of the Colombians
intentionally flooding their established cocaine markets with a
stronger, cheaper heroin. We can no longer wonder if our
children will be exposed to heroin. Now we must wonder when
will they be exposed and pray that they choose not to
experiment with it.
Today I can only estimate the number of addicts in Portland
alone is between 12- and 1500, and I no longer know them all by
name. I do however know, based on our arrests, that the average
user of this heroin is no longer a late-stage substance abuser;
they are teenagers, young adults, college students, and high
school graduates from every walk of life. It is no longer
exceptional for law enforcement to have contact with an 18- or
19-year-old heroin user who is already into their first or
second year of substance abuse.
Mr. Burton. Mr. Pelletier.
Mr. Pelletier. This translates into younger addicts
committing crimes such as robberies, thefts----
Mr. Burton. If you could sum up, we'd appreciate it, sir.
Mr. Pelletier. Certainly I will. It has often been said, as
Maine goes, so goes the Nation. In this case I hope that is not
true. I urge you to make it a priority to assist officials here
in the United States and abroad who desperately want to keep
heroin out of the country by eradicating heroin at its source.
Our children are our future. We must afford them every
opportunity to succeed in life and reduce the likelihood of
experiencing the death and despair that comes with heroin
addiction. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Pelletier follows:]
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Mr. Burton. As I said to Mr. Jimenez, I say this to all of
you, we really appreciate the hard work and risks that you take
in trying to protect us; and we're very happy that you're here
today.
Mr. Marcocci. I'm going to have to learn more about you
Italians.
Mr. Marcocci. Chairman Burton and committee members, it is
an honor and a privilege to speak to you today about heroin. I
am Detective Tony Marcocci, along with my partner, Detective
Terry Kuhns of the Westmoreland County District Attorney'S
Office, and Detective Ray Dupilka of the Latrobe Police
Department. In 1985, Detective Kuhns and I, along with other
law enforcement, first encountrered a new drug on the streets
of Westmoreland County. That drug was crack cocaine, which is
cocaine in its purest form.
During these investigations we learned of the addictive
qualities of crack. While their children went without food or
clothing, we watched as parents traded food stamps for crack
cocaine, and in other cases individuals committed crimes to
obtain it.
Addressing this drug problem presented a challenge never
before seen. We thought that through public education, drug
awareness programs, and dedicated police work, we could
eliminate the use of crack cocaine. We were wrong. With all the
time, manpower, and effort law enforcement spent to combat the
crack cocaine problem, we now face an even more urgent,
pressing, deadly, dangerous and addictive enemy.
In the past 18 months we have seen an unprecedented rise in
the use of a new form of an old drug in Westmoreland County.
The wholesalers of this drug, in an attempt to assist the
buyers, print the names of their product on the sides of each
bag. Some of these names include Lightening, 12 Monkeys, Mombo
King, Murder One, Boyon, and Brain Damage. This drug is
Colombian heroin. I have brought some evidence samples of these
bags for you to understand a little better what I'm talking
about.
These bags contain very small quantities of heroin, usually
between .01 grams and .03 grams. The reason that such a small
amount of heroin can be placed into these bags is because the
purity of this heroin is between 80 and 90 percent. We have
never experienced heroin of this quality in our careers. Heroin
buyers are able to purchase these bags on the streets of
Westmoreland County for 20 to $30 a bag. Some individuals drive
to neighboring communities where they are able to purchase
these bags for $100 a bundle, which is a 10-unit bag, bundle of
heroin, or $500 per brick, which is, say, a 50-unit quantity of
heroin. Some of these individuals are doing this as a way to
make money to support their own habit.
Heroin has made its way into the mainstream of drug use in
adults and unfortunately in our high schools and middle schools
with children as young as 12 and 13 years old. Almost all
heroin users tell us that their addictions began with
prescription drugs such as Oxycontin and Vicodin. They develop
a tolerance and progress upwards to heroin. They also advised
us that they began snorting heroin because they believed it was
not as addictive if ingested in that manner. They were just
kidding themselves. Once they began to develop a tolerance to
snorting, they began injecting it. After working 28 years in
law enforcement, we have seen many tragedies, but nothing is
more sad than seeing a child or a teen become the victim of a
crime. In Westmoreland County, we're seeing it daily. My
partner and I have witnessed teens dying from heroin overdoses.
We've executed search warrants and spoken with 16- and 17-year-
old children who say they have already been through
rehabilitation and they're still using heroin. These same teens
tell us how they are coping with the ancillary effects of their
heroin abuse such as Hepititis C and HIV. Clearly the societal
costs of heroin extend beyond the users and their families.
Throughout our years in the narcotics field, we have spoken
with individuals who have used heroin for a short time and
others who have used it for years. They may be detoxed or
attend court-ordered treatment facilities for their heroin
abuse. These people may stay heroin-free for a week, a month,
or in some cases a few months, but they will always go back to
using heroin. The sad reality of heroin abuse is we personally
know of no success cases as a result of treatment. It's a
disturbing reality to look into the eyes of a parent or their
child, knowing in our hearts there is no hope that child will
ever beat this addition.
Often people believe that this is an inner-city problem,
but it's not. Westmoreland County is a typical rural and
suburban community population of approximately 400,000. Often
people believe that this problem is with low-income
individuals, but it's not. Heroin has touched families of all
social and economic backgrounds. In Westmoreland County we have
had 12 overdoses resulting in death this year alone, all of
which were between the ages of 19 and 46. Ten were male, two
were female, all were white. As a comparison to these 12
deaths, in the preceding 5 years we only had five overdoses
resulting in death.
Upon checking with one local community hospital emergency
room, they report the number of individuals seen for heroin
overdoses has doubled every year for the past 3 years, with 60
individuals being examined this year, 2002. I'm sure if we
contacted all the hospitals in our area, that number would
multiply exponentially.
My partner and I are asked regularly to speak before
committees and organizations. In September of this year, we
took part in a drug symposium in our county. A speaker at this
symposium presented an analogy to our current heroin problem.
As you will recall, September--in September, a sniper was
killing and critically injuring individuals in the Washington,
DC, area with no regard to race, age, or income level. As a
result of the shooting spree, 10 people died and 3 were
critically injured. During this time, a massive effort was made
by local, State and Federal agencies to stop the senseless
killings. Cooperation and open lines of communication among the
various law enforcement agencies played a large part in
bringing this case to a successful conclusion. These agencies
were attempting to stop a faceless killer of 10 in the
Washington, DC, area.
We in Westmoreland County are faced with a killer of our
own. Our killer is heroin. It has taken 12 lives this year
alone and will continue to destroy lives at an ever-increasing
rate. Knowing now what is happening in our small community and
others like it, my belief is that eliminating this drug in its
country of origin will help all of us at the local level. If
heroin can be eliminated at its source, it would reduce the
amount of heroin on the streets in my community and in many
others, helping law enforcement to help the community that we
are sworn to protect and serve. Thank your, Your Honor.
Mr. Burton. Thank you Mr. Marcocci. The only people that
may call me Your Honor is my kids. So you don't need to call me
that.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Marocci follows:]
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Mr. Burton. Mr. Carr.
Mr. Carr. Good afternoon, Chairman Burton----
Mr. Burton. Turn the mic on.
Mr. Carr. Mr. Gilman, Mr. Tierney, and especially Ms.
Norton who is from my area. My name is Tom Carr. I am the
Director of the Washington-Baltimore HIDTA. The HIDTA program,
as you all know, is a program designed to enhance and
coordinate drug control efforts in certain geographic areas of
the country. The Washington-Baltimore HIDTA was designated in
1994 by the Office of National Drug Control Policy, and we
focus on the central part of Maryland, to include Baltimore,
all of Washington, DC, and the northern part of Virginia.
As the heading for the hearing here today, ``America's
Heroin Crisis'' indicates, there is a growing crisis perhaps in
other areas of the country, but I'm here to tell you that in at
least the Baltimore region, that's been a standing epidemic for
years.
I have submitted my testimony and other documents to you.
Let me just briefly cite you some statistics which I think
point out the gravity of the situation. Baltimore's population
is around 651,000. That accounts for around 12 percent of the
total population of Maryland. Yet 55 percent of all the drug
overdoses occur in Baltimore. Of the 306 overdose deaths that
occurred in Baltimore last year, 86 percent were connected
either directly or in combination with an overabuse of a
narcotic, primarily either heroin, morphine, or methadone, all
spinning around the heroin industry. What we've seen since the
middle nineties is an increase in purity of the heroin.
Baltimore, another shocking figure estimates--this is from
their health department--they have 60,000 heroin addicts. Again
I remind you, in a population of 651,000 people, that's 9
percent of the population. It's an astonishing figure.
I wish Congressman Cummings was here today. He could
certainly verify what I'm saying because, unfortunately, many
of them live in and about his district. And we've been working
very hard with him to come up with some solutions for that. But
there are some other things that sort of point to that. All of
Baltimore is not bad, just pockets of Baltimore have these
problems. For example, when you look at the high crime areas
where the homicides are--is the chart up here? I don't need to
see it. If you look at the concentration of those dots in there
which represent homicides since--what does it begin with, 1990?
Mr. Burton. 1992.
Mr. Carr. 1992 up through 2000, I believe.
Mr. Burton. 2001.
Mr. Carr. Thank you, sir. I should be able to see it, I
guess. At any rate, if you look at the pockets there, you can
see there hasn't been many changes as to the locality of these
homicides. I could show you other crimes that cluster there as
well.
My point is that there is where the area is bad. This is
where you see many single parents; in fact, usually fatherless
households, absentee, they're the absentee parent, and the
parents themselves have arrest records, drug--history of drug
abuse and drug problems. Only 54 percent of the seniors in the
school system in Baltimore graduate high school.
And another alarming figure that we went over yesterday
with the police commissioner, Ed Norris, is that 87 percent of
the births last year in Baltimore were to unwed mothers. That
has some real ominous forecast for Baltimore and what may come
in there.
In Baltimore since--from 1990 to 1999, 3,200 homicides.
Most of those, between 75-80 percent, are drug related. I'm
happy to report that thanks to the efforts of the Baltimore
Police Department, Congressman Cummings' support, work of the
Baltimore HIDTA, that we've got that number down below 300. So
it was the first time in a decade we were able to get that
homicide rate down, number of homicides down below 300.
According to our indications, according to reports we have,
the heroin that we see in Baltimore comes from New York and
Philadelphia. We see heroin--this epidemic is starting to
spread into the D.C. area; we see gangs trafficking heroin and
cocaine in this area. And along with that, I can assure you,
will come more violence because it's street-level trafficking;
the fight for the drug market, the fight for the drug corner to
make that dollar that Mr. Tierney referred to and that is so
important to focus on will take place when this trade comes
down here.
I mean, that's what it's all about. This is a business
that's designed to make money. These people aren't in this
job--or in selling drugs because they're altruists believing
that everyone has a right to use drugs; they're in this to make
money. And they've proven in Baltimore and other areas over and
over again they will kill to do it.
Now, so far as the source of the heroin, in the late
1980's, early 1990's it was clear to us that the source of the
heroin was Southeast Asia and Southwest Asia. Indications are,
from different sources, although we certainly can't confirm all
of it, is that much of this heroin now--what the police
departments estimate and others estimate--upwards of 90 percent
is South American heroin. At least it has the signature of
South American heroin.
Most of our distributors are locals. It's a cottage
industry. They can drive to source cities like New York,
Philadelphia, buy drugs, come back and quickly double their
money. So I guess they look at it as, why should I go, why
should I go to high school as evidenced by the dropout rate,
why should I go get a minimum-pay job at McDonald's when I can
sell drugs on the street?
Mr. Burton. And make hundreds.
Mr. Carr. The trouble is, it's dangerous. I'm going to
conclude; I realize I'm taking too much time. I'm sorry.
I just want to say that despite all these sad figures I'm
quoting to you, I could cite even more, we've taken the
attitude that you can either complain that the rose bushes have
thorns or rejoice that the thorn bushes have roses. We're doing
a lot of good things. We've seen them make a lot of changes and
a lot of headway, but we need to get heroin off the street.
Mr. Burton. Thank you, Mr. Carr. I think you made a very,
very graphic argument.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Carr follows:]
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Mr. Burton. I don't know your name and I'm not supposed to
use it, so would you like to make an opening statement?
Mr. X. I would. Thank you.
Good morning. I would like to thank the committee for
taking the time to hear me on the topic of heroin. My name is
being withheld because of my work in an undercover capacity and
to not jeopardize cases which I'm currently involved in.
However, I can say that I'm a member of the Howard County
Police Department in Maryland. I am currently assigned to the
Vice and Narcotics Division within that department. I have been
a sworn police officer for just about 7 years.
Howard County itself is in the Washington metropolitan area
and includes a multicultural, very diverse population of
approximately 258,000 citizens. It's approximately 252 square
miles. It is one of the wealthiest counties in the country and
also one of the most educated countries within the country.
It's home to many high technology companies as well as farms in
its rural areas.
However, just as too many other communities throughout the
country, Howard County is not spared from the scourge of
illegal drugs. Primary responsibility for the investigation of
violations of the controlled substance laws are assigned to the
Vice and Narcotics Division, which I'm a part of.
It is common knowledge and well known to police agencies
around the country that a large number of street crimes, such
as robbery, theft, assault and murder, are directly connected
to the drug trade. The unit to which I'm assigned is tasked to
address the drug trade in a proactive, community-based way. In
this way, not only is the drug trade directly affected, but
crimes associated with the sale and use of drugs are also
curtailed.
The majority of our investigations revolve around marijuana
and crack cocaine at this time. These drugs are the most
commonly seized. However, the Howard County Police Department
is currently seeing a rise in seizures of PCP, phencyclidine,
heroin and methamphetamine.
The focus of this committee hearing is on heroin. Heroin,
as we know, is a highly addictive and dangerous drug. It is
responsible for many accidental and intentional overdose deaths
throughout the country. Howard County is not spared by this
fact. Statistics alone cannot paint a picture of heroin use and
its dramatic effect on the Howard County community.
Death from heroin overdose often comes from unexpected
places. I'd like to tell you one story. Colombia, Howard
County, Maryland, a young male was in his first year of college
in Pennsylvania. He was from an upper middle-class family. He
was a promising musician and a member of two different bands.
He had trained to become a professional musician.
While in high school, he experimented with and used
marijuana. When he went away to school, he began to use heroin.
As all too often happens, he became addicted. He then left
college and came home. He continued to use heroin. He was
apparently doing well at home. He had good grades. He was in a
long-term relationship with his girlfriend. He had no problems
with his parents and appeared to live a happy life.
One day he told his father he was going upstairs to study.
Around 9:45 p.m., his father wanted to talk to him. He knocked
on his bedroom door and got no response. He then forced his way
into the room and found his son unconscious and unresponsive.
Paramedics were called and the father attempted to start CPR.
When EMS personnel arrived, they took over rescue efforts.
These efforts failed and the young musician died.
The cause of death was ruled to be an accidental overdose
of heroin. During an interview with the parents, they stated
they did not know the scope of their son's addiction. They knew
he used heroin while in Pennsylvania, but did not know he still
used it. The last memory they have of their son is him lying in
bed with a syringe in his arm and blood coming from his mouth
and nose.
A trend the detectives in my unit are currently seeing is
that heroin is becoming a drug more commonly used by
adolescents and younger adults. The younger heroin users are
generally not injecting it first, their heroin, they're
snorting the heroin powder. Heroin powder, that we've been
seeing within the county, is generally white and generally
packaged in glass bottles. When talking to arrestees and
informants, both advise that they usually go to Baltimore City
to obtain their heroin, and bring back quantities of heroin to
use and sell.
Also, as mentioned before, the use of heroin is related to
many other crimes. One arrestee in particular said he had a
$400-a-day heroin habit. He also stated he does not inject the
heroin because he does not like needles. I think he's kidding
himself. He stated he likes to snort it. To support his habit
he steals cars, shoplifts and commits burglaries. This is a
person from an upper middle-class family, lives in a nice home.
He's 19 years old, said he has been using heroin for several
years now. He's not your stereotype junkie, but represents a
growing trend in younger, more affluent persons using heroin.
In summary, the stories that I have told you are from
experiences of the detectives of the Howard County Police Vice
and Narcotics Division. As I said before, I could spend hours
talking about persons' lives that I've certainly seen ruined by
heroin.
The fact is that heroin is becoming a much more commonly
used drug. It's no longer the stereotype junkie in the dark
alley of a city with a needle sticking out of his arm. Heroin
is now moving rapidly into the suburbs, and Howard County in
particular, and affecting families that it is not normally
traditionally associated with.
Heroin not only destroys the person using it, but all the
people around him or her. Mothers abandon their fathers--
families, sons and daughters die, and families are destroyed
all from heroin. Thank you for your time.
Mr. Burton. Thank you, Detective. We really appreciate
that.
First of all, I want to thank all of you. I know you lay
your lives on the line on a daily basis trying to deal with
this crisis.
I've been in public life off and on for about 35 years. I
know I look a lot younger, but it's 35 years--I'm glad you
didn't laugh at that--but I want to tell you something. I have
been in probably 100, 150 hearings like this at various times
in my political career. And the story is always the same. This
goes all the way back to the 1960's, you know, 35, 40 years
ago. And every time I have a hearing, I hear that people who
get hooked on heroin and cocaine become addicted and they very
rarely get off of it. And the scourge expands and expands and
expands.
And we have very fine law enforcement officers, like you,
who go out and fight the fight; and you see it grow and grow
and grow, and you see these horrible tragedies occur. But
there's no end to it.
And I see young guys driving around in tough areas of
Indianapolis in cars that I know they can't afford, and I know
where they're getting their money. I mean, there is no question
a kid can't be driving a brand-new Corvette when he lives in
the inner city of Indianapolis, in a ghetto ,and you know that
he's got to be making that money in some way that's probably
not legal and probably involves drugs.
Over 70 percent of all crime is drug-related, and you've
alluded to that today. We saw on television recently Pablo
Escobar gunned down and everybody applauded that and said
that's the end of the Medellin cartel. But it wasn't the end;
there's still a cartel down there. They're still all over the
place.
When you kill one, there's 10 or 20 or 50 waiting to take
his place. You know why? It's because of what you said just a
minutes ago, Mr. Carr and Mr. Marcocci, and that is, there's so
much money to be made in it, there's always going to be another
person in line to make that money.
And we go into drug eradication and we go into
rehabilitation, we go into education, and we do all these
things; and the drug problem continues to increase, and it
continues to cost us not billions, but trillions of dollars,
trillions. We continue to build more and more prisons. We put
more and more people in jail. We know that the crimes that
they're committing are related most of the time to drugs.
So I have one question I'd like to ask all of you, and I
think this is a question that needs to be asked. I hate drugs.
I hate people who have to--who succumb to the drug addiction. I
hate what it does to our society. It's hit every one of us in
our families and friends of ours.
But I have one question that nobody ever asks and that's
this question: What would happen if there was no profit in
drugs? If there was no profit in drugs, what would happen?
I'd like for any of you to answer that. If they couldn't
make any money out of selling drugs, what would happen?
Mr. Carr. If I could comment, if we took away all the
illegal drugs today, we're still going to have a drug problem.
Mr. Burton. I understand that. I'm talking about new drugs.
Mr. Carr. The question is--what you're arguing then is
complete legalization?
Mr. Burton. No. I'm not arguing anything. I'm asking the
question. Because we've been fighting this fight for 30 to 40
years--let me finish--we've been fighting this fight for 30 to
40 years and the problem never goes away. New generations,
younger and younger people get hooked on drugs. Kids in grade
schools are getting hooked on drugs. Their lives are ruined.
They're going to jail. They're becoming prostitutes and drug
pushers because they have to make money to feed their habit.
These horrible drug dealers, many of whom reason--using
drugs, they send free drugs into schools and school yards and
everything else to hook these kids; and the problem increases
and increases and increases. And nobody ever asks this
question.
I'm not inferring anything, because I hate drugs. I hate
the use of it. I hate what it's done to our society. But the
question needs to be addressed at some point. What would happen
if they don't make any money out of it?
Mr. Carr. I don't think you can create a situation where no
one makes any money out of it. There's always going to be a
black market. I don't think the American public is going to
say, OK, well, drugs don't cost anything, but only 18-year-olds
can have it, or 18 and above; then you have a black market for
the minors. No one is going to say 2-year-olds can have heroin,
5-year--where do you make that demarkation? So I don't think
you can get to that point where you have a laissez faire type
of drug business without any profit in it. That would reduce--
even with that would reduce some forms of crime. But you're
still going to have other crimes there because we aren't
addressing----
Mr. Burton. How about the overall effect on our society?
The long-term problem with our society, the number of people
that are being addicted in our society, would it go up or down
if there was no profit?
Mr. Carr. Oh, I think it would go up. If people were told
that it was free, I think people would try it more and get
addicted.
Mr. Burton. I didn't say free.
Mr. Carr. I think people would try it more if it was
available.
Mr. Burton. Well, I don't think that the people in Colombia
would be planting coca if they couldn't make any money. And I
don't think they'd be refining coca and heroin in Colombia if
they couldn't make any money. And I don't think that Al Capone
would have been the menace to society that he was if he
couldn't sell alcohol on the black market. And he did, and we
had a horrible, horrible crime problem.
Now, the people that are producing drugs over in Southeast
Asia and Southwest Asia and in Colombia and everyplace else,
they don't do it because they like to do it. They don't fill
those rooms full of money because they like to fill it full of
money. They do it because they're making money.
Mr. Carr. Exactly.
Mr. Burton. The problem, in my opinion, is that at some
point we have to look at the overall picture. And the overall
picture--I mean, I'm not saying there's going to be people who
are addicted and you're not going to have education and
rehabilitation and all those things that you're talking about.
But one of the parts of the equation that has never been talked
about, because politicians are afraid to talk about it--this is
my last committee hearing as chairman, last time, and I've
thought about this and thought about this, and one of the
things that ought to be asked is, what part of the equation are
we leaving out and is it an important part of the equation, and
that is the profit in drugs.
Don't just talk about education. Don't just talk about
eradication. Don't just talk about killing people like Escobar,
who is going to be replaced by somebody else. Let's talk about
what would happen we started addressing how to get the profit
out of drugs.
Mr. Carr. I think that's something that needs to be looked
at, but I still question the idea of--if you're taking the
profit out of drugs, that doesn't mean you're eliminating the
demand for drugs. People are still going to want heroin, so
someone is going to produce it and someone is going to sell it.
Mr. Burton. But the new addictions, would they be
diminished if you didn't have somebody trying to make money, if
you didn't have these people going from Philadelphia to New
York or from Washington to New York? Why would they drive from
here to New York to get these drugs, to sell them, if they
couldn't make any money?
Mr. Carr. I think they're going to make money. I don't know
how you're going to eliminate them, not making money. If they
couldn't make money, certainly they wouldn't; they would do
something else.
Mr. Burton. That's right. And that's part of the equation
that ought to be looked at that we haven't been looking at.
Mr. Carr. I think you're right.
Mr. Burton. Ms. Schakowsky, do you have questions?
Ms. Schakowsky. Mr. Chairman, I wanted to stay and hear
your question, because I want to thank you for raising it. I
think we can't be afraid to raise these kinds of questions when
we discuss this whole issue of addiction and substance abuse,
the attendant crime and law enforcement issues that go with it.
And I think--going forward, I'd welcome, under your leadership,
that we explore this issue fully and follow your line of
questioning.
I do have to leave. I want to thank the panel. I'm hoping I
will get back for the other panels, but I wanted to ask to
include in the record a couple of articles by Doug Castle from
the Center for International Human Rights, Northwestern
University School of Law, regarding the issue of Santo Domingo,
what I believe was a corporate cover-up in Colombia states and
the killing and covering up in Colombia, if I could make these
part of the record.
Mr. Gilman [presiding]. Without objection.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you.
[The information referred to follows:]
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Mr. Gilman. Do you have any further questions, Ms.
Schakowsky?
Ms. Schakowsky. No, thank you.
Mr. Gilman. I'd like to ask Mr. Carr, you know, the
staggering numbers of heroin deaths in Baltimore crime and
violence are really an indictment of the de facto legalization
scheme in Baltimore of a few years ago. Do you agree with that?
Mr. Carr. I wholeheartedly agree with that. We had a
program that was put forth by then the mayor, Mayor Shmoke, who
was calling for legalization. They were instituted programs
that were on the--I call them ``feel-good'' programs. You feel
good because you institute them. That doesn't mean they do any
good.
It wasn't a coordinated effort. As a result, attention was
drawn away from enforcement, and crews or gangs were able to
get strong footholds in neighborhoods and on the street; and as
a result of that, homicides went up because they were fighting
for turf.
That's what the current administration has turned around,
the police department. People like Congressman Cummings have
really helped turn that around up there.
Mr. Gilman. So you no longer have any legalization program?
Mr. Carr. I'm not aware of any legalization program
although there are always those in the area that bring that to
the surface. There are some drug needle exchange programs, I
understand, still operating up there.
Mr. Gilman. We had a similar problem in the Netherlands
where they have a tolerance program, and it's not helped the
situation.
Mr. Carr. Every drug addict in Europe that goes to the
Netherlands has a lot of tolerance, don't they? That's the
thing, it's drawing crime, it's drawing people in of that
milieu and that element of society.
Mr. Gilman. The Netherlands is now fighting additional
crime.
I would like to address the entire panel: What's the purity
level of the Colombian heroin that you're seeing in your
cities? And also who are the wholesale heroin traffickers of
Colombian heroin? Is it Dominicans, Colombians, Mexicans who
are the major traffickers, if the panelists could address that?
Mr. Jimenez. Felix Jimenez from--retired Drug Enforcement
Administration Special Agent.
When I was in charge of the office in New York, the DEA has
a program called the Domestic Monitor Program. Basically what
we do is, we go out to street corners and buy samples of heroin
to determine the origin and to determine the price and the
purity. I can tell you right now that in New York 90 percent of
the heroin available is from a South American origin, and we're
finding at the street level samples that come back at 90
percent pure heroin.
Mr. Gilman. Who are the retailers?
Mr. Jimenez. Basically the organizations responsible at the
street-level distribution of heroin in New York are Dominican
trafficking organizations who are receiving this heroin from
either Mexican trafficking organizations responsible for
smuggling the heroin across the Mexican border, bringing that
to New York and then passing the heroin to the Dominicans for
street distribution.
Mr. Gilman. Mr. Pelletier, are you finding similar
problems?
Mr. Pelletier. Yes, sir. It's basically Dominican
distribution organizations selling the Colombian heroin.
Mr. Gilman. What about the purity level?
Mr. Pelletier. We routinely see it in the low 80's if not
higher, but the routine is in the low 80's.
Mr. Gilman. Mr. Marcocci.
Mr. Marcocci. Yes, we're seeing heroin--our heroin is
between 80 to 90 percent pure. Sometimes it has exceeded 90
percent purity. Mostly it's inner city youths selling the
heroin, the Colombian heroin. Individuals from our neighboring
communities will travel to the larger city to bring it back.
Mr. Gilman. Mr. Carr, who are your distributors in the
Baltimore areas?
Mr. Carr. The suppliers, the wholesalers, are Dominicans,
Colombians, out of New York and Philadelphia; the street
dealers are African Americans; the purity levels range from
below 10 percent to up in the upper 90's.
Mr. Gilman. And I'm sorry, Mr. X.
Mr. X. That's OK. We don't do qualitative analysis within
my department, so the purity levels I do not know. However,
without fail, all the heroin that I've seized or bought, or
that I know where it comes from, has come from Baltimore City,
from the inner city.
Mr. Gilman. Who are the distributors?
Mr. X. Again, it's mostly younger persons.
Mr. Gilman. But you don't know the origin?
Mr. X. No, I don't.
Mr. Gilman. And I suppose we have an obvious response to
this question. If you had a choice of either fighting the
menace in Colombia or on the streets of your cities, where do
you think we should be focusing our efforts?
Mr. Jimenez.
Mr. Jimenez. Yes, sir. I think that we should be attacking
the problem at the source area. I think that we need to
concentrate in Colombia. We need to start a program, an
eradication program, in Colombia to ensure that we can destroy
those opium poppies before they are processed and converted
into heroin hydrochloride and then smuggled into the United
States for final consumption.
Mr. Gilman. Thank you.
Mr. Pelletier, what are your thoughts about that?
Mr. Pelletier. Sir, I would agree that it should be
attacked at the source. If your bathtub was overflowing, you
wouldn't think of stopping the flow by taking a Dixie cup and
picking the water up off of the floor; you'd turn the faucet
off to stop the water. I think that speaks clearly of local law
enforcement, with increased incarceration times and such,
speaks nothing of getting it at the source. We continually put
local Band Aids on a situation that needs to be taken care of
at the source location.
Mr. Gilman. Mr. Marcocci.
Mr. Marcocci. Sir, I would indicate that it should be
stopped at its place of origin. We in law enforcement would
make every effort we could to stop it on the streets as best we
could. However, there is too much heroin getting out on the
streets today as we're trying, and too many lives are being
affected by it.
Mr. Gilman. Mr. Carr.
Mr. Carr. I certainly think it should be attacked at the
source, but I want to caution you by saying that drugs are here
by invitation, not invasion. And it's going to take us a long
time to get all the people that are addicted and involved in
this back to being productive citizens.
Mr. Gilman. We have to fight both demand and supply at the
same time.
Mr. X.
Mr. X. I agree with Mr. Carr. I mean, we have to focus on
its origin.
However, you cannot forget the efforts that myself and
other police officers are doing here on the street. It's going
to be difficult to make it all disappear; even if we stop it at
its source, it's still here. We still see it. We're still going
to see it. And there are still addicts out there that are going
to want to do that.
Mr. Gilman. We have to do both simultaneously?
Mr. X. That's my opinion, that's right.
Mr. Gilman. What's the recovery rate after treatment for
heroin addicts, Mr. Jimenez?
Mr. Jimenez. Experts say they physically can recover in 2
weeks to 3 weeks; however, the problem is the mental dependency
that they have in the individual. That sometimes never goes
away. Once they become a heroin addict, they are still, for
life, a heroin addict.
Mr. Gilman. Mr. Pelletier.
Mr. Pelletier. That's my understanding as well. The
addiction process with opiate abuse is lifelong.
Mr. Gilman. Mr. Marcocci.
Mr. Marcocci. Myself, along with my partner, know of no
success cases through treatment programs.
Mr. Gilman. Mr. Carr.
Mr. Carr. I can tell you plenty of success treatments
through treatment programs. One of the biggest treatments is
drug substitution, methadone, which a lot of people argue is
not that very satisfactory. But you can detox them in 3 to 4
days; the drugs can be out of their system in several weeks.
And a lot of the whether they will recidivate or not depends
upon the environment they're in and their own mental attitude.
Mr. Gilman. Mr. X.
Mr. X. Unfortunately, it is a lifelong addiction from my
experience and what I've seen on the streets. I have a lot of
repeat customers, so to speak. We deal with the same people all
the time.
Mr. Gilman. I want to thank our local police officials for
your outstanding work, and we're trying to find a better way of
handling being this.
Mr. Tierney.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank all
of the witnesses. It's been extremely helpful to hear your
testimony.
I sort of gravitate toward the view that Mr. Carr expressed
lately, that there is some potential for treatment. And, Mr.
Marcocci, you apparently haven't had very good success with
that in your area, and that's disturbing; but I think there is
potential for treatment, and there is some sort of success. But
I think a large part of that--I'm sure Ms. Norton would agree
with me, because I've heard her speak to that before--is the
environment that people are left in after they've had the
treatment. If you send them back to the same environment and
same conditions, probably the recidivism rate is going to be
sky high. So that's in large part of the problem.
I want to ask you a question that goes back to some of the
things that were in my opening statement. I have varying
degrees of sympathy for people--for people all along the line
here. I have more sympathy obviously for the peasant grower
than I do for the producers and manufacturers than I do for the
traffickers, than I do for the dealers; and versus them, I
probably have more sympathy for the person who is a user-addict
on the other end of that. So we go back and forth.
What are your individual opinions of what impact it would
have if we made a serious effort to go right at the money
laundering issue and right at the precursor chemicals and
things that go into the production and manufacture of these
drug? If we really went after them, would that make your job
easier in an appreciable way?
Mr. Carr, I might go right to left here on this one.
Mr. Carr. From my standpoint, I think that's where we have
to go. We've been ignoring the money. I mean, that's what the
money's about. We have to be concerned about not only the flow
of drugs into the country but the huge sums of money that go
out of the country, especially after September 11th, so it gave
us the wake-up call.
I mean, these funds, and I can--I'm not at liberty to cite
specific cases, but we have cases under investigation right now
that are tied to the funding of terrorist activities. It's drug
money. It's drug money. It's going to al-Qaeda sources, and
it's right in this area. And I'm sure that this area is not
unusual compared to other areas of the United States where the
terrorists we've tracked from September 11th, we knew where
they were and we know that we have other elements of al-Qaeda
and other radical groups in our country.
So, yeah, it's a very important that we do that. We've all
too often and for all too long ignored the money end of it
because, quite frankly, if we're speaking directly, it wasn't
politically correct. We're worried about someone's uncle who
ran a used car lot, and we didn't want to get him indicted
because his uncle is this or his cousin is that. I'm sorry;
that's where it's taking place.
If you look at the cash industry in this country, which is
used cars, a lot of import-type businesses, and as of late, a
lot of the banks, they're involved in this. DEA has had over
the years some tremendous cases involving the banking industry.
And, you know, the terrorists are going to use this, these
methods, to get money out of the country and into their pockets
and finance what they're doing.
Mr. Tierney. Just to interject before I go to Mr. Marcocci,
this stuff is fungible. If you eradicate in Colombia, as I said
before, it's going to go to someplace else. If you eradicate in
Latin America, it's going to go to Southeast Asia, you know,
Southwest Asia, in or out. I mean, that's going to be a never-
ending cycle of chasing people around.
But if you go to the money, if you go to the money, I think
you might have a better prospect of doing that. And while you
may have to do all the other things, too, you're really hitting
them where it hurts, and some of Mr. Burton's question, what
about the money, well, let's go get the money.
Mr. Carr. There's no silver bullet. There's no one answer,
but we have to do all these things.
Mr. Tierney. Mr. Marcocci, is going after the money, in
terms of money laundering, a major part of this?
Mr. Marcocci. Yes, sir, it is.
Mr. Tierney. In your opinion, have we been doing nearly
enough of that?
Mr. Marcocci. No, sir. Various dealers have told me right
up front that they as addicted to the money as the user is to
the drug itself.
Mr. Tierney. Could you or Mr. Carr give us ideas of just
how to start going about that would make an impact? This is not
something that's a mystery to anybody, right? We could put
together a plan to do this in fairly short order?
Mr. Carr. Yes. We have a plan.
Mr. Pelletier. No. I agree, any proactive type enforcement
absolutely would make an impact. We can no longer just react,
increasing someone's jail time; and the things that we do at a
local level, those are Band Aids.
I agree that any proactive type thing would absolutely
increase the effectiveness. Unfortunately, in my State there's
34 of us absolutely designed to handle investigations; 27 of
those are federally funded. Without those types of funds,
States like Maine that don't have a huge presence of Federal
law enforcement and the locals just don't have the manpower or
the resources.
Mr. Tierney. I'm thinking more in line, Mr. Chairman, of
something like; that is, why not have a national task force
using our resources nationally to just take this and target
this issue and go after it, that wouldn't tax your local police
force? It would need your cooperation, obviously; and we could
arrange for that, whatever, but this is a job that is large
enough to be undertaken by the Drug Enforcement Administration,
by the FBI.
And Mr. Jimenez, why haven't the DEA and the FBI been more
active in this area?
Mr. Jimenez. I think that we are. We are working together
with the Federal agencies as well, as the State and local.
But in your initial question about money laundering I would
like to be very careful on how I'm going to answer your
question. But I would like to leave you with my thoughts as to
what I think of our money laundering.
The U.S. Government needs to be very, very careful in the
utilization of that tool, because sometimes--and I have seen it
in the past--money laundering investigations have turned into
the U.S. Government being the financiers of the drug
trafficking in Colombia. What I mean is that utilizing that
tool to launder the money for the traffickers and following
where the money goes from New York to offshore banks and--to go
back to Colombia. What is happening is, we are putting in
there, in the Colombian's drug trafficker cartels, their money
and their profit; and they're producing more drugs to be sent
to the United States.
Mr. Tierney. I've got to stop you there, because I'm
missing you. How is that happening?
Mr. Jimenez. Well, the money, the profits that they're
making in the United States are going back to Colombia to
produce more drugs.
Mr. Tierney. That's what we're trying to stop here. So if
we stop the money laundering----
Mr. Jimenez. That is not money laundering. What basically
we're talking is seizing the money before it goes back to
Colombia.
But in money laundering you have to launder that money by
taking the money in New York, depositing that money in an
account. That money goes into an offshore account in a bank,
and you follow that. And then, after that goes into another
offshore bank and then probably ends up in a bank in Mexico,
and then from Mexico it goes into Colombia. That's what is
money laundering, OK?
Mr. Tierney. OK.
Mr. Jimenez. By doing that, we are putting back in the
hands of the traffickers their profits.
We can't allow that to happen, because then we are becoming
the financiers of the drug trade.
Mr. Tierney. Maybe I'm just being obtuse today; I'm sorry.
But my idea, that would be what we're trying to stop, sir,
am I right, trying to interrupt that from being a viable
option?
Mr. Jimenez. Money laundering investigation means that we
are going to let the money go until it goes back to the owner,
legal owner of that money. So normally the money, we follow it
from where is the----
Mr. Tierney. So you want to grab the money earlier?
Mr. Jimenez. At that point we seize the money, goes to the
source country or the owners or the producers of the cocaine,
then it would be a success.
Mr. Tierney. So you want to stop the money earlier and
maybe take action against the people along the process?
Mr. Jimenez. Absolutely. But in money laundering
investigations, a lot of that money goes to the final
destination.
Mr. Tierney. So you would approach it differently, but with
the same goal, going after the money--going after the money,
stopping the people along that chain of the process and
grabbing it as quickly as you could to take it out of that
chain?
Mr. Jimenez. Yes, sir, that would be a success.
Mr. Tierney. Do we do any of that now?
Mr. Jimenez. We're doing that in some cases. In other
cases, we need to let the money go into the final destination
so we can identify the people who are behind it in Colombia and
in these countries.
Mr. Tierney. The object, once that happens, is to shut
those people down so people know there's a price to pay?
Mr. Jimenez. That's the idea.
Mr. Tierney. Mr. X, I don't want to leave you out. I know
the chairman's got a quick trigger on the button here.
Mr. X. I agree pretty much with what the panel has said.
The drug problem has to be attacked in a multifaceted way.
Taking money and profits and things purchased with drug money,
at least on a local level, is a very important tool for us. We
take money, we take cars, case houses, that kind of thing. It's
important, I think, to--to look at the whole picture.
Yes, that would be a very important tool, and it would take
a lot of the profit away from the people that are dealing or
importing drugs into the country. And in all honesty, at that
level, at the importer and the dealer, that's going to be their
main concern. They want that dollar. We take that from them, we
take some of their incentive to do these things because of the
penalties that they're looking at. They balanced the money,
what jail time they could get, for example; so if you take
that----
Mr. Tierney. Closing your bank is going to get your
attention, too, I would think.
Mr. X. Absolutely. That way, they'll have nowhere to put
that money they get; and it opens up the doors for other
agencies to look at those money laundering issues and that kind
of thing.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Mr. Gilman. Thank you, Mr. Tierney.
Ms. Norton.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is a very
important hearing. I appreciate the work you've done on
eradicating supply at the source, and the work of the chairman
on this issue as well.
When I hear the word ``heroin,'' I'm inclined to say, ``Not
heroin again.'' At least it used to be expensive. The notion of
cheap heroin is the most frightening drug notion I can think
of. It is cheaper and purer at the same time.
You know, we all remember the $100-a-day addicts, the $500-
a-day addicts. And at that time heroin, almost by itself,
destroyed entire parts of cities. There are parts of--from New
York to L.A.; there are parts of Philadelphia and Baltimore and
New York you can drive through, and I'm talking about huge
clumps of land that--where there used to be communities that
aren't there any more; and if you trace back to the source, you
will find heroin at the source.
D.C. is not immune. Mr. Carr spoke about how the terrible
problem in Baltimore, of course, edges over into D.C. We're
seeing a spike in our crime once again. Heroin which became--as
manufacturing jobs left the inner cities, filled the gap there
and became the way in which people from low-income families
made money. It destroyed family life in the great cities.
In my own African American community, it has absolutely
destroyed family life, where more than two-thirds of the
children are born to single women, where young African American
men have no models as their grandfathers did.
Many, many reasons for this. Obviously, if there were a
legitimate economy in those communities, it would be different.
There is an illegitimate economy in those communities. And it
is, of course, at its root, a drug economy.
I am very much for eradication at its source. You will
find, for example, in African American communities, that's the
first thing they say. Go to the source, eradicate it at its
source. We stand on record for that. But there is a balance
here that requires effective law enforcement on the one hand
and treatment at home on the other.
Now, I don't know about decriminalization. I think you will
find in the African American community that nobody wants to
hear it. I don't know what legalization and decriminalization,
I don't know how they meet--you know, if people are talking
about decriminalizing a little marijuana stuff that--perhaps
that's what they mean, although I have some problems with that.
It's a gateway drug for many people in D.C.
We have had big trumps of marijuana selling in this town. I
don't know. All I know is that in the absence of opportunity in
our community, decriminalizing heroin ain't going to help us. I
can tell you that much. The folks--if folks can get what
they're paying $4 bag for with no penalties attached to it--and
you will see in some of my questions that I think some of the
penalties, mandatory minimums and the like, have had the
opposite effect that they were intended. So I'm certainly not
speaking for putting people in jail as the alternative. I just
know we haven't come upon what is the right balance.
I have a question first of Mr. Carr about this study in
Baltimore. Apparently it is the only full-scale study of a
single study. It's called Steps to Success: Baltimore Alcohol
and Drug Treatment Outcomes. It came before one of our
subcommittees last February, but this study concluded that
increased access to drug treatment on demand had resulted in
significant reductions in drug and alcohol abuse and property
crime, HIV risk behavior, and I want to know what you think of
whether treatment on demand is available in Baltimore, whether
you think it would help in bringing down crime and abuse. And
I'd like, as the law enforcement officer, your view on
treatment on that.
Mr. Carr. Let me point out that we also fund a $5 million
treatment program with HIDTA in the region, and a lot of it
goes back to--and I think this is why my colleagues and other
members of the committee say, well, gee, I don't know a
treatment program that works. It's just like I don't know every
law enforcement program that works either, but I can show you
some that do work. We have one that does, and we measure it
vis-a-vis a crime control measure, and that is recidivism
rates. The big important thing that we look at with our
clients--and I might say if I recall, I gave you a copy of the
study--our average client is 33\1/2\ years of age, 10 arrests,
6 convictions, and they're drug addicts. So we're not--we're
dealing with a hard core group, the group that the--20 percent
of the population that consumes--I'm sorry. The group of the
population that consumes 20 percent of the drugs and commits 80
percent of the crime. We used a coerced treatment model, and by
coerced treatment, that means that they're under some form of
legal--there's a legal hammer over their head to make sure they
come, because we know that people that volunteer for treatment
don't stay in treatment very long. We have drug testing, and we
have imposed a series of graduated sanctions to make sure these
people hold the line and stay in the program. And if they
don't, they go back to jail.
I mean, just let me add very quickly that the best
treatment for drug dealers is incarceration. I mean, they're
there to make money. Some of them become addicted. Some of them
don't, but I think the best form of early intervention with
them is incarceration. Slapping them on the wrist, letting them
go back on the street over and over, as we've seen in
Baltimore, only reinforces the negative. They become more
violent. They become more belligerent, sometimes as a result of
the use of drugs themselves, and that's not a good situation.
Some drug treatment is very effective. Other drug treatment
has shown to have no effect on the population. It depends how
it's implemented, is the best answer I can give you.
Ms. Norton. You may be aware that the Bureau of Prisons,
pursuant, I would say, to funds that this Congress authorizes
has both drug treatment and alcohol abuse treatment in prison.
Now, of course when you get out of here from a State prison,
you're not in the same shape.
I do want to put on the record and I'd like to introduce
into the record and I will--I don't have it with me now, the
record of the--the agency--it's short--it's the agency that--in
fact D.C. prisoners now go to Federal prisons, and there is an
agency which handles them when they get out.
As a result of that, the very program you describe has in
fact reduced recidivism in this city. I mean, carrot and stick,
not treatment that says, y'all come on and, you know, some of
you sit down and we'll just talk to you and you won't be on
drugs anymore. The others of you sit down and if you look like
you're going to again, call up somebody. I don't know if
anybody has ever liked ice cream a lot and then tried to wean
themselves from it or tried to lose weight, but if you
understand how hard it is to lose weight and stay off of fatty
foods or give up ice cream, then perhaps you have some idea of
what a truly addictive substance would be like. And I could not
agree more. What it takes to in fact overcome it with all of
these prescriptions out here is not well understood, but we do
understand that this carrot and stick approach, Mr. Carr, that
you describe----
Mr. Gilman. Ms. Norton, did you want to put the report in
the record?
Ms. Norton. Yes, I do and I will submit it for the record.
Mr. Gilman. Without objection. What is that report?
Ms. Norton. It is a report of the reduction in crime--in
recidivism by inmates who get out of the Bureau of Prisons and
come home to the District of Columbia.
Mr. Gilman. Without objection. And let me remind my
colleagues that we have another panel that follows this. So
please be brief.
Ms. Norton. Could I just ask one more question, then?
Mr. Gilman. Yes.
Ms. Norton. It has to do with mandatory minimums. Our
answer when the crack cocaine--it was about the time of the
great increase in crack cocaine that we went into mandatory
minimums. Since that time, the Drug Sentencing Commission and
the Federal judges have all asked that this huge disparity
between powdered cocaine and rock cocaine be eliminated, that
it had produced hugely unfair effects, that you were getting
the mules and the minor drug dealers, the people who launder,
and the rest you don't get, even though they try to break them
through the mules. I'd like to know where you stand on
mandatory minimums and an effective way of controlling drugs.
Mr. Gilman. Ms. Norton, would you agree to limit that to
the former DEA official because of our time?
Ms. Norton. Yes, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Gilman. Mr. Jimenez.
Mr. Jimenez. I strongly support that the----
Mr. Gilman. Would you press your mic button?
Mr. Jimenez. I'm sorry. I strongly support that the minimum
mandatory sentences be reviewed, especially on the heroin
issue. To the fact that I know that we are looking up people in
New York as well as in Philadelphia and other parts of the
country, and 3 years later we are placing them back in the
streets and they are more in control and they are more
organized than ever. So basically it's a revolving door at this
time. We are looking them up. They will maintain the control of
the organization from jail, and when they come out they will
have more money and more control than ever. So that must be
reviewed, and the sooner the better.
Mr. Gilman. Thank you, Mr. Jimenez, and I want to thank our
panelists once again, Mr. Jimenez, Mr. Pelletier, Mr. Marcocci,
Mr. Carr, Mr. X, for your excellent work out there fighting the
battle. We appreciate your taking the time to be with us.
I now excuse this panel and ask our Panel No. II to please
take seats at the panel table.
We want to welcome Panel No. II. Will the panelists in
Panel No. II please take their seats. Barry Crane, Paul Simons,
Roger Guevara. Let me swear them in first.
We'll now hear testimony from Panel No. II, our ONDCP
witness panel, including the Honorable Barry Crane, Paul Simons
from State, and Roger Guevara from DEA. I'm going to ask our
gentlemen, would you please stand, and would you raise your
hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Gilman. Let the record indicate that the panelists have
indicated that they agree to the oath.
We're deeply disappointed that our Drug Czar, John Walters,
was not able to join us this morning. Our committee, as you
know, serves as both an oversight and legislative authorizing
committee, and if the Drug Czar was here, he could have
responded to questions that we have about Colombia heroin. Our
committee did invite Mr. Walters with adequate notice back in
October and we wrote to him as well regarding the Colombian
heroin crisis that we're now facing and as yet regrettably
we've received no response to that inquiry.
We look forward to hearing from Mr. Walters' staff in how
we can develop a badly needed heroin strategy and solutions to
the crisis that we heard this first panel that was before us
today of local police officers discussing.
The Colombian heroin crisis is rapidly moving west and will
soon consume our entire Nation. We don't want our Drug Czar to
be AWOL with regard to this problem. Accordingly, I'm going--
this is my last hearing, regrettably, due to involuntary
retirement due do redistricting, and I urge our committee and
the new 108th Congress to stay intensely engaged in fighting
this Colombian heroin crisis until ONDCP is able to effectively
correct the problem. Our Drug Czar is going to have to take the
lead in our war on drugs. I have a high regard for Mr. Walters,
and we hope that he will assume the proper leadership in this
issue.
So now let's ask Mr. Crane if he would take the first lead
on testimony. Please try to limit your response to 5 minutes.
Mr. Crane.
STATEMENTS OF BARRY CRANE, DEPUTY DIRECTOR FOR SUPPLY
REDUCTION, OFFICE ON NATIONAL DRUG CONTROL POLICY; PAUL SIMONS,
ACTING ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS
AND LAW ENFORCEMENT; AND ROGELIO GUEVARA, CHIEF OF OPERATIONS,
DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION
Mr. Crane. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Gilman. And I might add that Mr. Crane is Deputy
Director for Supply Reduction in the Office of National Drug
Control Policy. Mr. Crane.
Mr. Crane. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's indeed an honor to
be here. These are respected colleagues here. And other members
of the committee, it is a pleasure to meet with you today and
discuss some of the major threats to the United States,
especially heroin. Let me thank you for your longstanding and
strong support for the fight against these drugs over the years
and the social destruction they engender and the terrorism they
subsidize.
You have a copy of my prepared testimony, and I ask that my
written statement be included in the record.
In addition, I have some brief comments.
Mr. Gilman. Without objection.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Crane follows:]
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Mr. Crane. First, let me say for the first time in many
years, there's some real hope in Colombia. With the
inauguration of President Uribe last August of this year,
there's been much more support for U.S. counterdrug policy in
Colombia, and we hope they've turned a corner. The challenge
President Uribe faces are daunting. Over 30,000 armed
narcoterrorists in this country threaten the safety and
security of his people, kidnapping, assassination and massacre.
These same terrorists provide sanctuary for the drug
production, and trafficking supplies 90 percent of the cocaine
and on the order of a third of the U.S. heroin market.
The insecurity bred by these evils of drugs and terror have
harmed Colombia's economy, driven much of the population out of
their homes and threatened the democratic foundation of their
institutions.
But we are now in a new era in Colombia. President Uribe
has very bravely stepped up to these numerous challenges facing
his country. He has rallied his people to his side and against
the traffickers and terrorists. He is mobilizing resources and
political will. He is committed to reestablishing the rule of
law in areas currently controlled by the illegal armed groups,
providing security to the communities ravaged by terror and
attacking this illegal drug industry. It's the fuel for the
large instabilities in Colombia.
In the short months of his administration, he has attained
historic eradication records in coca and restored poppy
eradication. He's sped up the seizure disposition of property
belonging to the narcoterrorists. He's trying to restore the
environmental conditions of the rain forests destroyed by the
drug traffickers. He's established record rates of extradition
of wanted criminals. He's begun to repatriate numbers of these
child soldiers that were pressed in the service by the FARC,
and he's increased substantially the funding for his military
and police.
The administration's drug control policy in Colombia is now
built on a firm foundation of political will. Any progress in
Colombia comes because the Colombian people will it, because
their leaders have the courage to risk their lives and because
the U.S. Congress has embraced this worthy cause, and we thank
you for that over the years.
We are thankful for the bipartisan support of Congress in
the efforts to protect our communities from drugs by giving the
Colombian people many of the tools they will need to take their
country back from the narcoterrorists.
President Bush has assured President Uribe of our support
in helping defeat these narcoterrorists, and we are hoping this
is really the beginning of a new day in Colombia. However, we
can't take our eyes off the fact that the United States has a
serious polydrug problem, involving marijuana, synthetic drugs,
principally methamphetamine and ecstacy and cocaine and
especially heroin, the last two which come to us from Colombia.
We are under attack by international criminal organizations
that traffic in drugs, arms and people. Cocaine still continues
to be a serious problem, and there's no doubt that heroin is
particularly visible in many of eastern cities.
We want to reduce drug use in this country. Our objective
in supply reduction is to cause one or more elements vital for
drug production to collapse and structurally damage the entire
drug industry. We need to treat drugs as a commodity, increase
the cost of doing business by targeting its vulnerabilities in
the marketplace that's transportation and that's profit-based.
With regard to heroin, we have to look at the entire gamut
of the entry and how it operates worldwide, what actions are
necessary to break it and what actions have historically had
little or no measurable impact. Our national drug control
strategy employs a variety of tactics such as interdictional,
organizational attack, alternative development, intelligence
collection and sharing, in addition to aerial eradication,
which we are continuing. We have not been able, though, to
adequately assess how effective the aerial eradication on
heroin flow to the United States has been. It does, however,
exact a high opportunity cost, in that it uses up a substantial
amount of eradication resources.
The nature of the poppy plant operational difficulties
posed by the mountainous regions in Colombia where the poppy is
grown suggests that we are continuing study of this issue.
Another important consideration in Colombia is that the
cocaine industry supplies a very large amount of the income
that supplies the terrorist organizations. We need to support
Colombia's strong anti-coca campaign and not let it fail if we
have to redirect assets. It is coca and the large amount of
money that keeps the illegal armies in the field and denies
security to Colombia.
We have employed in Colombia promising alternative
strategies against heroin that can produce good or excellent
results and build on our present efforts. We've attacked the
movement of heroin through airport inspections and using many
new technologies and also expanded substantially the law
enforcement activities.
We'll continue to track our efforts, assess the
effectiveness of this strategy, and we'll update Congress on
our progress. I want to thank you again for this opportunity
and for your steadfast support in this important struggle and
for your part in the success of the current campaign being
waged by President Uribe and the United States. We must all
continue to back President Bush's commitment to support
President Uribe and the brave people of Colombia. Thank you,
sir.
Mr. Gilman. Thank you, Mr. Crane.
Our next witness is Mr. Simons from the State Department,
and we're going to ask Mr. Simons if he would proceed with his
testimony.
Mr. Simons. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for this
opportunity to meet with you today to discuss U.S. heroin
strategy in Colombia. I'd also like to associate myself with
the congratulations that Mr. Crane offered for Mr. Gilman for
your long-standing support for our Colombia programs and our
counternarcotics objectives in Colombia.
Mr. Gilman. Thank you. Let me note that Mr. Simons is
Acting Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics
and Law Enforcement. Please proceed.
Mr. Simons. Thank you. I also plan to deliver a short oral
statement and would ask that my longer written statement be
entered into the record.
Mr. Gilman. Without objection, we appreciate your brevity.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Simons follows:]
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Mr. Simons. U.S. counternarcotics programs in Colombia
represent a response to one of the most important challenges we
confront today. The issues raised by Colombia's production and
U.S. importation of illicit drugs directly affect the well-
being of U.S. citizens, the survival of a democratic Colombia,
the stability of the Andean region as it relates to fighting
the twin nemesis of the illegal drug industry and terrorism.
For Colombia confronting the intertwined dangers of
counternarcotics and drug-supported terrorism is a vital
element in President Uribe's broader initiative to reinforce
the rule of law, build a healthier and stable economy and
instill a greater respect for human rights.
Mr. Chairman, attacking the heroin production problem in
Colombia is an important U.S. counterdrug priority. Opium poppy
cultivation in Colombia now totals approximately 6,500 hectares
and generates a potential 4.3 metric tons of heroin, nearly all
of this destined for the U.S. market. This could represent up
to as much as one-third of the estimated 13 to 18 metric tons
of heroin consumed annually in the United States.
Our fight against heroin and other hard drugs is a
coordinated multifaceted campaign, again as Mr. Crane has
indicated, that includes interdiction elements, eradication
elements, alternative development elements, as well as the law
enforcement elements.
State Department resources provided through INL are
supporting all four elements of this strategy in cooperation
with our 28-year program of partnership with the Colombian
police.
In the interdiction area, our financial and technical
assistance to Colombia during the last few years under Plan
Colombia is increasing the government of Colombia's capability
to interdict heroin in its production and distribution phases.
In fiscal year 2002, we directly budgeted $26 million in
INL resources to the Colombian National Police, specifically
for interdiction activities, and we also funded over $84
million in CNP aviation and construction programs that
supported their ability to conduct interdiction operations.
In addition, the sizable portion of the $104 million that
was provided in our resources for Colombian military
counterdrug programs was also directed toward interdiction.
INL is also financially supporting DEA's airport
interdiction project, which intends to detect and capture hard
drugs and traffickers using air transport, and for that purpose
we've dedicated $1.5 million in fiscal year 2002 and a proposed
$1.75 million in fiscal year 2003 funding.
Reflecting the importance of this interdiction activity,
Colombia has seized more than 670 kilograms of heroin and
morphine in 2002, which is a significant portion of total
potential production.
With respect to aerial eradication, we are currently
engaged in the second and most aggressive phase of this year's
poppy spraying program, utilizing four T-65 spray aircraft in
the southwestern part of the country.
To date this year we have sprayed approximately 3,200
hectares of poppy, and we hope to reach the goal of spraying
5,000 hectares, which is our goal, by year-end.
We recognize, Mr. Chairman, that the spray figures from
2001 were considerably lower than 2000's total of 8,800
hectares. This was due to a number of different factors. Slow
delivery of the spray planes that were ordered under Plan
Colombia, inability of security aircraft, shortages of pilots,
some interruptions in the budget and bad weather, but most
importantly in the first year of Plan Colombia both the U.S.
Government and the Colombian Government did assign a priority
to the attack against coca in fiscal year 2001.
This year I am pleased to report that with the support of
Congress and considerable effort and work on the part of both
the Colombian police as well as U.S. Government officials from
different agencies, we have significantly increased our
capability to spray. We now have a spray plane fleet which is
capable of carrying out serious eradication programs for both
coca, as well as opium poppy, and we hope to see evidence of
that both in the 2002 numbers, as well as in what we can do
next year.
Of special note is the addition of three additional air
tractor, AT-802, spray planes in our fleet this year, and the
upcoming delivery of another five air tractors in the first
half of next year. These aircraft, which have a greater load
capacity, can effectively be deployed for either coca or opium
spray operation. Initially we plan to use the air tractors for
coca spraying, but this will have the important fact of freeing
up the traditional T-65 aircraft, of which we should have six
by the middle of next year for a dedicated effort to poppy
spraying.
We also have sufficient helicopters for reconnaissance
security to support our spraying missions, as well as to use
these helicopters for interdiction and air support.
Until this year--and, Mr. Chairman, this has largely to do
with the natural lags in the delivery of the Plan Colombia
equipment--we did not have sufficient assets to carry out both
programs to the degree that we would have wanted.
We've also made a major effort this year to enhance the
training of pilots who could spray in the high altitude poppy
environment that we find in Colombia.
We have already trained nine pilots specifically under New
Mexico conditions to operate the air tractors in poppy-type
environments. An additional six pilots should be trained in the
first half of 2003. This means that by the middle of 2003, a
complete contingent of 16 mountain-trained air tractor pilots
will be ready in time to match the incremental delivery of this
equipment to Colombia.
So for 2002 we plan to achieve our goal of 5,000 hectares
of opium poppy spraying. For 2003, our goal is to spray all
remaining Colombian poppy, up to 10,000 hectares, along with
the remaining Colombian coca, which may total as much as
200,000 hectares.
I would also like to remind the committee that full funding
of our fiscal year 2003 request for Colombia will be essential
in order for us to achieve these goals.
Finally, let me say one word about alternative development
in Colombia. Alternative development is an important pillar of
our strategy to counter the drug trade in Colombia, and not
only in the coca areas but also in the poppy areas. USAID is
undertaking major efforts and alternative development, which
are detailed in my statement. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Gilman. Thank you, Mr. Simons.
Our next witness is Roger Guevara, Chief of Operations of
DEA. Mr. Guevara, you may proceed.
Mr. Guevara. Thank you, sir. Mr. Chairman, distinguished
members of this committee, I'm very pleased to be here before
you today. Before I begin, I would like to thank you and the
committee on behalf of Administrator Hutchinson and the men and
women of DEA for your continued support of both our
international and domestic efforts to combat heroin and other
drug trafficking organizations.
Mr. Gilman. And please convey to Mr. Hutchinson that we
regret that he's soon to leave our battlefield to go on to a
bigger battlefield, and we hope we're going to have a good
alternative chairman and replacement. So please wish him well
in his new endeavors. Please proceed.
Mr. Guevara. I'll convey your good wishes, sir.
High purity, low-price Colombian heroin today dominates the
heroin market in the eastern United States. Although abuse of
cocaine and marijuana are far more prevalent than heroin, its
highly addictive nature, increased potency and availability
make it one of the more significant challenges we face.
The increased availability of Colombian heroin over the
last decade has led to higher levels of heroin use nationwide.
The number of heroin users in the United States has increased
substantially from an estimated hard core heroin user
population of 630,000 in 1992 to almost 1 million regular users
today. This country has an additional half million occasional
heroin users. Today they consume 13 to 18 metric tons of heroin
each year. Between 1996 and 1999, heroin was the third most
frequently reported drug in emergency department visits, and
the second behind cocaine involved in drug-related deaths.
According to the 2001 National Household Survey on Drug
Abuse, more than 3 million Americans age 12 or older had tried
heroin at least once. These statistics place heroin among the
top three drugs of abuse in the country.
In the 1980's and 1990's, Southeast and Southwest Asian
traffickers dominated the heroin trade. The majority of heroin
entering the market originated in Burma and Afghanistan. Today
Colombian traffickers have effectively seized control of the
East Coast market.
In 2001, under DEA's heroin signature program,
approximately 56 percent of the heroin seized in the United
States by Federal authorities and analyzed by DEA was from
Colombia as opposed to a combined 14 percent from Asia and 30
percent from Mexico. Although these results should not be
equated with market share, they are good indicators of relative
availability over time.
Independent trafficking groups who operate outside the
control of the major cocaine organizations dominate the
Colombian drug trade. In the early 1990's, the bulk of the
South American heroin smuggled into the United States was
transported by couriers on direct commercial flights from
Colombia to the United States. Since the mid-1990's, Colombian
heroin traffickers have diversified their methods of operation,
smuggling heroin into the United States through countries in
South America, Central America and the Caribbean and sending
bulk shipments of heroin to the United States using cargo
planes, container ships, and go-fast vessels.
Seizures of 15 to 30 kilograms of heroin are now common,
and seizures of up to 50 kilograms of heroin occur but less
frequently. Uncorroborated DEA intelligence has implicated
Colombia's terrorist organizations, the FARC, ELN and AUC in
the Colombian heroin trade. Specifically, these groups are
suspected of charging a tax fee from heroin traffickers who
obtain heroin from areas under their control. These groups are
also suspected of taxing farmers who cultivate poppy plants in
areas they control.
While on the subject of terrorist organizations involving
the Colombian heroin trade, I would like to repeat something
Administrator Hutchinson has stated repeatedly, namely that the
fight against international drug trafficking organizations is a
crucial element in conducting the war on terror and one we are
committed to fighting.
With the full backing of the administration and support of
Congress, DEA and the Colombian National Police have created a
heroin task force to coordinate Colombian heroin
investigations. At full strength, the task force will be
comprised of 40 officers in five locations throughout Colombia.
To assist with this effort, DEA has dedicated additional
manpower resources to Colombia. Effective multinational
enforcement initiatives led by DEA have already resulted in
significant seizures of heroin outside of the U.S. borders.
Since 1997, heroin seizures have increased by 1,100 percent
in Venezuela, 1,000 in Ecuador, 500 percent in Panama and 300
percent in Colombia. The regional enforcement initiative known
as Operation LATA Forma was launched in April 2001 and resulted
in the seizure of 144 kilograms of heroin and the arrest of 85
defendants in Colombia, Chile, Peru, Venezuela and Ecuador.
Based on this success, participating countries have continued
the operation on a permanent basis.
DEA and the CNP initiated Operation Matador to target a
heroin trafficking organization responsible for transporting
multikilogram quantities of heroin from Bogota to the United
States. The organization utilized couriers to transport heroin
over land from Bogota to border towns located in Venezuela and
Ecuador and then ship the heroin in commercial planes to Mexico
City, Mexico and subsequently to McAllen, Texas. In November
2001, this investigation was concluded with the arrest of 26
key members of this organization and the seizure of 38
kilograms of heroin. Additionally, DEA offices in Texas, New
York, New Jersey and Rhode Island arrested 28 defendants and
seized an additional 38 kilograms of heroin.
The United States, Colombia and the Andean region countries
face dramatic new challenges in combatting heroin trafficking
groups. DEA will continue to invest considerable time and
resources in the close partnership we have developed with our
counterparts in the region.
I thank the committee again for this opportunity to appear
before you today, and we'd be glad to answer any questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Guevara follows:]
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Mr. Gilman. Thank you, Mr. Guevara.
Mr. Simons, allow me to address some questions to you. You
mentioned that you're going to be able to eliminate 5,000 by
the end of this year, 5,000 hectares of opium. Is that correct?
Mr. Simons. Our goal for this year is 5,000. Currently
we're at about 3200.
Mr. Gilman. Well, how are you going to do it in just the
few remaining days?
Mr. Simons. We don't have too many days left, but we are
going to see how close we can get to the 5,000 figure----
Mr. Gilman. How close do you expect to get to it?
Realistically without putting figures----
Mr. Simons. I think we'll get as close as we can, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Gilman. Well, that's an obvious answer.
I note that in the year 2000 under General Serrano, some
9,200 hectares were eliminated in a 9-month period, and then in
the year 2001 only 1,800 hectares of opium were eradicated. And
now we're only up to 3,000, a total of 4,800 hectares in a 2-
year period, 2001 and 2002. How do you account for that
reduction in this important crop that's affecting our whole
Nation?
Mr. Simons. Mr. Chairman, I think the main intervening
event during that period was the passage of the Plan Colombia
supplemental funding in the middle of the year 2000 and the
major shift that took place at that time in which the
government of Colombia, supported by our government, devoted
substantial energies to spraying coca during the year 2001 at a
time in which the new spray aircraft that were funded--were
being funded on Plan Colombia had not yet arrived. So if you
look at the total spray figures for the year 2001, we actually
were able to boost the coca spraying from about 53,000 hectares
up to 94,000. So clearly, there was a major focus----
Mr. Gilman. Let me interrupt you. What was the boost?
Mr. Simons. It was about 40,000 hectares in the coca side.
Mr. Gilman. Yeah, but what----
Mr. Simons. Clearly, there a major focus----
Mr. Gilman. What happened to the opium side?
Mr. Simons. Well, the opium side obviously went down.
Mr. Gilman. Why? We want to know why it went down. Is it
true that Ambassador Patterson notified our committee that in
January 2001 she decided to stop spraying opium in order to
pursue an historic opportunity to spray a record number of
hectares of coca? Is that an accurate statement?
Mr. Simons. My understanding, Mr. Chairman, is that the
decision for the year 2001, the recommendation on the part of
both the Colombians, which was supported by the United States,
was to focus our energies on coca, and for that reason there
was a major increase in the coca spraying.
Mr. Gilman. Who made that decision?
Mr. Simons. I believe that was a decision in which the
Colombian officials in consultation with the U.S. officials
were involved.
Mr. Gilman. Is Ambassador Patterson here? I see she is.
Would Ambassador Patterson come up to the desk, please?
Ambassador Patterson, did you make that decision back in
January 2001 to stop spraying opium?
Ambassador Patterson. Mr. Chairman, it's a pleasure to be
here. Let me first say that.
Mr. Gilman. We welcome you. Thank you for coming.
Ambassador Patterson. Mr. Chairman, as my colleague from
the State Department has said, that was a joint decision, but
certainly it was a decision that we made, yes, sir.
Mr. Gilman. And was that directed by State in Washington?
Ambassador Patterson. Frankly, I can't recall, but there
was vast support within the Colombian government and within the
State Department, and I believe other agencies in the U.S.
Government, to focus all our resources on coca eradication.
Mr. Gilman. So there was no objection to stop opium
eradication back in Colombia in January 2001?
Ambassador Patterson. Mr. Chairman, we continued opium
poppy eradication continually throughout the year, and we're
certainly trying to recover now, but we did have a--and we were
very successful in coca eradication.
Mr. Gilman. Yeah. I don't question that, but what I'm
concerned about, what we're concerned about in this committee,
is that only 1,800 hectares of opium were eradicated in the
year 2001, a drop from 9,200 in the prior year, and it resulted
in a massive increase in the export of opium to the United
States.
Ambassador Patterson. Mr. Chairman, we were also facing a
crisis in coca. It was flooding cheap coca. It was increasing
at a rate of something like 20 and 30 percent a year.
Mr. Gilman. But Madam Ambassador, isn't most of the coca
production going to the European continent and the vast
majority of the illicit drugs coming from Colombia are opium
drugs at the present time?
Ambassador Patterson. Our estimates are somewhere between
half and a third of the coca cultivation, coca crop goes to
Europe but still a good half of it comes here.
Mr. Gilman. But we have about 60 percent of the opium crop
coming to the United States, do we not?
Ambassador Patterson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Gilman. In light of what we heard from the local police
this morning and the fact that ONDCP itself reports that heroin
is the most addictive drug by nearly twice that of cocaine,
was--Mr. Simons, I'm asking you--was this decision to stop
spraying opium an appropriate decision?
Mr. Simons. Mr. Chairman, I think it's inappropriate to
refer to a decision to stop spraying opium. As the Ambassador
has indicated, the greater focus was placed on coca spraying.
There was still spraying of opium that went on during the year.
Mr. Gilman. But it was minor and intermittent compared to
what had been done previously. Isn't that correct?
Mr. Simons. Certainly there was a decline, but as I pointed
out in my testimony----
Mr. Gilman. A major decline, 1,800 hectares in 2001
compared to 9,200 hectares in the year 2000.
Mr. Simons. That's correct.
Mr. Gilman. 75 percent reduction.
Mr. Simons. That's correct, but we are making--we are
beginning to make that up, and we expect to make major inroads
next year.
Mr. Gilman. You've only made it up to 3,000 this year. It's
still a 60--one-third of what was done in the year 2000, and--
--
Mr. Simons. That's correct.
Mr. Gilman. You heard the local police expressing their
concern of the widespread opium addiction problem in our
country. Something is wrong at the top here in your strategy.
Mr. Simons. That's correct, Mr. Chairman, but once again,
if I could refer back to the observation I made before, which
was we were able to achieve a very substantial increase in coca
eradication this year, we'll be achieving up to 130,000
hectares.
Mr. Gilman. Allow me to interrupt you. We're not concerned
right now about the coca crop, which most of it is going to
Europe. We're concerned about this vast supply of heroin that's
coming to our country, and yet you're not doing enough to make
the prior 2000 volume of 9,200 hectares that were sprayed only
because you stopped eradicating, and I don't understand that
rationale. I'd like you to explain that.
Mr. Simons. I think the issue here is it was a resource
constraint. We had additional spray planes coming on board, but
they had not arrived. At the same time there was a political--
--
Mr. Gilman. Mr. Simons, General Serrano had the same amount
of aircraft. He sprayed 9,200 hectares of opium with that
amount of aircraft. So that's not an excuse that's rationally
correct.
We've heard all kinds of excuses from the State, like bad
weather, lack of spray planes, the crop is hard to find, and it
goes on and on why opium eradication fell off, but the
Colombian police in less than three-quarters of a year in the
year 2000 nearly eliminated 80, 90 percent of the opium crop.
So these excuses are hollow to our ears, and what we want to
know is what you're doing now so eliminate the crop. We were
told that in 2 or 3 months that crop could be eliminated
completely if properly addressed.
Mr. Simons. Mr. Chairman, I would just go back with respect
to the year 2000 and note that we were able to spray with the
Colombians 53,000 hectares of coca that year, in addition to
the 8,000----
Mr. Gilman. You keep going back to the coca crop. I'm
talking now about our crisis in opium.
Mr. Simons. Well, there were difficult tradeoffs to be
made, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Gilman. Why did we make that tradeoff when we have such
a problem with opium confronting our country?
Mr. Simons. Mr. Chairman, I would just go back to your
opening statement with which I agreed, which is that we ought
to be able to--I believe you said walk and chew gum at the same
time. I believe in the year 2003 when the equipment that you
provided under the supplemental is made available, we will be
able to accomplish both of our objectives.
Mr. Gilman. Well, you've had good equipment in the year
2002 and you've only done 3,000 hectares of opium spraying. It
seems to me there's a lot lacking here, and I hope you would
take another look at all of this. And wasn't it Ambassador
Patterson who had to make that--that came out of Washington.
And I think you made some wrong decisions, and you heard the
local police today. They don't know what to do with this major
flowing of heroin that's coming out of Colombia. I hope you're
going to take another look at the direction in which you're
going.
Mr. Guevara, do you have any comments you'd like to make?
Mr. Guevara. No, sir. I've already indicated the level of
the problem as DEA sees it. So we can do more with the
resources that we have. We must continue to keep up the good
fight.
Mr. Gilman. And if we had better eradication, I assume your
fight would be eased quite a bit?
Mr. Guevara. Well, I could not certainly dispute that. If
we can attack it at the source, I think that we're all in
agreement that is where we could have the biggest----
Mr. Gilman. Was your agency conferred with with regard to
cessation of opium eradication at the time they beefed up the
coca eradication? Were you consulted?
Mr. Guevara. Sir, I can't answer that specifically, but I
can assure you that the DEA in country in Bogota who report to
the Ambassador certainly are in day-to-day coordination on all
matters with regard to the drug issue in Colombia.
Mr. Gilman. Well, I'm asking was DEA here in Washington
consulted with regard to the change in policy of concentrating
on coca eradication as compared to opium eradication? Do you
know whether that----
Mr. Guevara. I do not know the answer to that. I'll
certainly look into it and see whether my predecessor had such
conversations.
Mr. Gilman. I would appreciate it if you could advise this
committee in writing after you've consulted with your people
whether DEA was consulted.
Mr. Crane, do you have any comments?
Mr. Crane. No, sir. What we have to find is an effective
way. However, I look at this problem as a large problem.
Wherever the heroin is coming from, we have to stop it and----
Mr. Gilman. You're in charge of supply reduction?
Mr. Crane. Yes, sir.
Mr. Gilman. Were you consulted with the change of attitude
about eradicating coca as compared to eradicating heroin?
Mr. Crane. It would be my view I should get back to you
since I've been there, what, 6 months and check the record.
Mr. Gilman. Would you do that and notify us in writing
whether you were consulted?
Mr. Crane. Yes.
Mr. Gilman. Thank you, and I'm about to turn the Chair over
to Mr. Mica, who's been an outstanding warrior in our war
against drugs. And I regret that I have to go on to another
meeting. And I thank our panelists for being here and welcome
Ambassador Patterson. We appreciate your hospitality when we
were there not too long ago.
Mr. Mica.
Mr. Mica [presiding]. I thank our panelists again for their
cooperation today and thank Mr. Gilman for his untiring efforts
to deal with this narcotics problem. I think when I was a
staffer back in the Senate in the early 1980's starting on the
problem, he had already provided leadership in the Congress on
the issue, and we're going to miss his efforts. He certainly
has been one of the warriors to address this very serious
problem. And I think y'all join me in wishing him well. We'll
miss him, both on the committee and in Congress.
The testimony today has provided us an update on, again, a
very serious problem, and that's the availability of heroin and
very deadly heroin coming in in unprecedented amounts from
Colombia. We know the source, and we have the signature
programs that identify exactly where this stuff is coming from.
And unfortunately, its effects--we've also heard the testimony
with regard to the deaths and destruction of lives, addiction
it's causing.
There is some conflict in some of the testimony we've heard
today, and I have a copy of an estimation of heroin
availability in 1996 to 2000, which was published by the
Executive Office of the President Office of National Drug
Control Policy.
Let me state and quote from that report. It says, ``An
analysis of retail heroin signature data indicates that South
American heroin dominates the U.S. heroin market, particularly
in the eastern United States, accounting for more than 67
percent of the heroin consumed in the United States.''
And we also have a copy of the official Country Handbook on
Colombia, put out by the Department of Defense, dated October
2001, and it states on page 60 that ``65 percent of the heroin
found in the United States is of Colombian origin.''
Are these figures correct, Mr. Crane?
Mr. Crane. ONDCP did put the study out making the
assumption that the signature program gave the balance.
However, subsequent to that Drug Enforcement did a very
detailed study, and there's been a reevaluation of the--the
official estimate now is quite a bit less, so when that study
was published it was based on assuming that the signature data
gave the----
Mr. Mica. Can you turn the mic on?
Mr. Crane. Oh, I'm sorry, I apologize. I thought it was on.
Let me begin again. When that study was published the
assumption underlying it was that the signature data gave an
adequate estimate of the production percentages. However,
subsequent research later concluded looking at where the fields
are and the new breakthrough analysis by Drug Enforcement
suggested that was an error. So the most recent studies,
official estimates that we've put in are the current ones of
about four metric tons available based on the amount of fields
and the production. And they also looked in some detail how
many harvests and so on. So the newer data is accurate, and
these studies are outdated by newer research.
Mr. Mica. Who does the signature program? Is that you, Mr.
Guevara?
Mr. Guevara. That is a study that's led by DEA, and it's
conducted in concert with other government agencies. That study
has in fact been conducted, and we identify as Operation
Breakthrough.
Mr. Mica. Our staff has been told that there's a different
figure here that is only about a third of heroin production
coming out of Colombia, and you've just heard Mr. Crane say
that number--the numbers in these documents and the documents I
quoted are incorrect. What do you find?
Mr. Guevara. One of the results of the study was that the
opium poppy fields were actually only capable of producing two
times a year versus the previous belief that it was three and
four times a year.
Mr. Mica. Well, this is information given to our
congressional staff and Members in October, and it says 65
percent of the heroin in the United States is from Colombia.
I'm not sure if this has a date on it. Given in October, but
what date--do you know if that would hold true, or is that
information incorrect also?
Mr. Guevara. I would have to consider what date
specifically we're looking at. Our best information, sir----
Mr. Mica. Well, what's the latest signature evidence--and
signature should be pretty accurate, because it's taken from, I
guess, a chemical DNA analysis. I've been told you could
pinpoint it practically to the fields where the stuff is being
produced. What's the latest data that DEA has produced on the
percentage coming from Colombia?
Mr. Guevara. I do not have that at my fingertips at the
moment, but again, the study indicates that there's----
Mr. Mica. Well, everything we have from these reports and
executive summary, the information provided to staff and
Members as recently as October, just a month or two ago,
indicates a higher percentage than we're hearing testimony
today. Is there something we're missing?
Mr. Guevara. I understand, sir, that the heroin signature
program from DEA has--that issue--considers 56 percent to be
the----
Mr. Mica. What was the time of that analysis?
Mr. Guevara. I believe this to be the most current
estimate.
Mr. Mica. Would that be 2000--2002, the latest information
you have?
Mr. Guevara. That's correct.
Mr. Mica. So that's a little bit different than a third
that you've heard Mr. Crane and others testify to or comment on
today.
Mr. Guevara. I can only go by the best estimates, and I
believe that to be 56 percent.
Mr. Mica. One of the disturbing things I found in the
analysis--and I've been following this for a while. You said in
the 56?
Mr. Guevara. Well, if I may be allowed to consult this
question for clarification, please.
Mr. Mica. Well, signature analysis would give us very
specific data as to that which--that's based on seizures and
where that drug is coming from.
Do we have a--I want to try to proceed with the hearing.
Mr. Guevara?
Mr. Guevara. Sir, as I understand it, of all the seizures
made that DEA has analyzed----
Mr. Mica. As of what date?
Mr. Guevara. As of 2002, 56 percent of all the heroin that
was analyzed by the DEA under the heroin signature program, of
that amount 56 percent of it was Colombian.
Mr. Mica. And that's what I have from previous documents
provided by DEA. One of the differences I see is an increase in
Mexican heroin production and also identification of Mexican
heroin that's seized in the United States, and that's up to 30
percent?
Mr. Guevara. That was correct.
Mr. Mica. Well, again, Mr. Simons, Mr. Crane, these figures
do differ from what you provided us today in testimony and also
what you're indicating. Now, maybe you know something that we
don't know about, a trend that's taking place right now. I'd
certainly like to know about that. What's your explanation of
the difference? Mr. Crane.
Mr. Crane. The official estimates of supply come from
surveillance of the fields in both Mexico and Colombia, and
that's done through intelligence means. Then--so that's how we
estimate how many fields there are, and then there's also a
study of how many times they're harvested and how much--what is
the yield of opium to heroin.
Mr. Mica. With the actual--the official drugs that are
reaching the United States we know pretty definitely from this
DEA analysis where they came from. That's correct?
Mr. Crane. Well, let me comment. The signature data, for
example, is based on seizures, and there were a lot of seizure
increases after September 11th because we've increased
security. But the seizures don't necessarily represent an
unbiased sample of the country. So what they would provide
basically is an estimate of, you know, what transportation
modes they were seized off and so on. So they don't necessarily
represent a production estimate. The one thing about as best I
understand when I came to the job and I looked at this is the
signature program can tell you the chemical process used to
produce it. So, for example, if Mexican heroin was processed
with the Colombian process, we would identify it as South
America. So it depends on the type of process. So anyway,
that's the best of my understanding at this time and why
there's some of these differences.
Mr. Mica. Well, whether we have some of the differences or
not, we're seeing dramatic increases in heroin. We're seeing
dramatic reduction in the eradication program. I mean, you've--
everyone has testified to that. Our job is to react to what's
taking place, and we have the equivalent of September 11th
every day--I'm sorry, every year in the United States now on an
annual basis taking place with drug overdose deaths and many of
them attributed to increase in heroin activity. And somehow--
and you all represent the leadership at least in the
administration on these issues. Somehow you've got to have the
policy respond to the threat, and obviously it isn't doing it
whether--and it's now unfortunately under our watch with this
new administration.
So the next question would be we've identified that there
is a problem. Everyone identifies that heroin is on the
increase. Everyone agrees that the eradication program has
fallen short, and maybe it was to address coca, but we've got
that problem now, and we need a balance. One of the things
that's been mentioned here is a lack of resources to go after
both coca and heroin poppy production. I'm also told it's going
to be the middle of 2003 to shift--now, I think 2003 it was
indicated it would take that long to train additional pilots,
and that's to have your maximum capacity do the job. In the
meantime is there some reshifting of resources to increase the
eradication of the poppy heroin problem?
Mr. Simons.
Mr. Simons. Thank you. Yes, Mr. Chairman, as I indicated in
my opening statement, our goal is to spray the entire Colombian
opium poppy crop during calendar 2003 up to 10,000 hectares. We
have not yet received the analysis, as Mr. Crane pointed out,
from the Intelligence Community which will give us some idea as
to the size of that crop. We should receive that in the next
couple of months. But once we receive that we will map out with
the Colombian National Police a game plan which will cover
calendar 2003, which will look at our goal of spraying the
entire poppy crop as well as the entire coca crop.
Mr. Mica. OK. Now, were all the funds that were to be
expended on eradication through 2002, through the end of
fiscal--the past fiscal year expended, and expended on the
eradication program?
Mr. Simons. We have obligated all our fiscal year 2002
funding that was devoted to the eradication program, yes.
Mr. Mica. Well, OK.
Mr. Simons. Some of that will carry over.
Mr. Mica. OK. My question--let's go back. You've obligated,
so what--how much of the obligation is a carryover from 2002
fiscal year that ended in the end of September?
Mr. Simons. We--at the very end of 2002 there were various
holds placed on our eradication moneys during fiscal year 2002.
We actually did not have the availability of those funds.
Mr. Mica. And who placed the holds?
Mr. Simons. By the Senate side. So we did not actually
obtain a release of those funds until the very end of the
fiscal year. So we are right now working----
Mr. Mica. And when was that?
Mr. Simons. I'm sorry?
Mr. Mica. When was that?
Mr. Simons. The last week of September.
Mr. Mica. The last week of September.
Mr. Simons. Correct.
Mr. Mica. And how much money was held by the Senate?
Mr. Simons. $17 million, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Mica. What percentage of that was your total plan?
Mr. Simons. That was the entire budget for the chemicals
that were used in the program.
Mr. Mica. So you had no money for chemicals?
Mr. Simons. We are now utilizing the fiscal year 2002
moneys for the chemical program, but we don't have our budget
yet for fiscal year 2003. We're operating off a continuing
resolution.
Mr. Mica. All right. So $17 million, and you carefully
term--in your testimony you said that you obligated--that's all
obligated and that's all for chemicals?
Mr. Simons. That's correct.
Mr. Mica. And if you have the chemicals, what about the
aircraft and other operational spare parts and things that are
needed?
Mr. Simons. Well we're still working off some 2002 moneys.
But we will need--I can get back to you on the specific numbers
on that.
Mr. Mica. What percentage? 50 percent, 20 percent? Was part
of that held up, too?
Mr. Simons. No, it was not, just chemicals.
Mr. Mica. OK. And well--again, I'm trying to get a picture
of where we are, what we haven't done with money that was
appropriated and whether it was--and some of this may
justifiably be--well, that's not justifiable, but it may not be
your responsibility. What I'm trying to do is pinpoint
responsibility, why things didn't get done and where
responsibility lies.
So let's go back to equipment, and tell me what you have
left over, spare parts, other things it would take to do the
job. And then when you finish with that, I was told it took
about a year to do one of the contracts, and I want an
explanation why it takes so long to contract. I don't have the
specific information on the 1-year contract. But let's start
first with what's left over now in addition to the chemical
fund disbursement delay.
Mr. Simons. Essentially, Mr. Chairman, the resource issue
has largely to do with the delivery of the spray aircraft that
we obtained under the fiscal year 2000 supplemental for Plan
Colombia. Those aircraft are now starting to arrive. Three of
the air tractors have arrived this year. We'll get five more.
Mr. Mica. OK. That was 2000?
Mr. Simons. That's right, and that procurement took some
time.
Mr. Mica. Yes, and that was part of my question is why that
took so long.
Mr. Simons. Well, there are various lead times in terms
of--Mr. Chairman, There are various lead times in terms of
ordering these aircraft and also in terms of training the
pilots. We needed to train the pilots for the mountain
conditions in Colombia.
Mr. Mica. Well, the contract took how long to do for the
aircraft?
Mr. Simons. I believe the aircraft, most of the aircraft
were available toward the middle of this year, and since then
we've been engaged in pilot training.
Mr. Mica. I'm told that's a separate contract. The first
one for the T-65 aircraft waited so long that the contractor
went out of business. Is that the case?
Mr. Simons. Could you repeat the question?
Mr. Mica. Well, they're talking about several contracts
here. The T-65 spray aircraft, it took so long for the contract
to be processed, during that time of the processing the
contractor went out of business, filed for bankruptcy?
Mr. Simons. I don't have that information, Mr. Chairman. I
can get it for you.
Mr. Mica. Could you get it for us?
Well, again, I mean, this is like the gang that can't shoot
straight. Sometimes I wonder if they don't want to shoot in the
first place. But it's very frustrating from our standpoint. And
I know that there are impediments placed on you if the Senate
puts a hold or somebody puts a hold on this money. But you can
see why we're not getting the job done. It's----
Mr. Simons. I would remark, Mr. Chairman, that together
with the Colombian police we will succeed in spraying
approximately 130,000 hectares of coca this year, in addition
to 94,000 last year. And we hope to meet our goal of 5,000
hectares of poppy this year of the 10,000 hectares of poppy
next year. And these in our view are significant achievements.
Mr. Mica. OK. And you have the money now, you have the
resources as far as the aircraft, because you need aircraft.
You have the resources as far as the chemical. You have the
resources--you have all the resources to get the job done. Some
carryover money. You do have some delay now and you probably
should have a resolution in January on the funding for the
fiscal year we're in. Does that present a delay factor?
Mr. Simons. No. We should be able to achieve our objectives
provided we get full funding in 2003.
Mr. Mica. OK. And that would be of the funds that you're
anticipating and that you've seen at least preliminarily
designated for this fiscal year we're currently in but hasn't
been finished. Is that correct?
Mr. Simons. That's correct.
Mr. Mica. OK. The only caveat that I heard in testimony was
that it would take another 6 months to train the pilots to have
all aircraft flying. That's also correct?
Mr. Simons. That's correct. The new air tractors that we'll
be getting during the first 6 months of the next year, it will
take that much time to train the pilots.
Mr. Mica. One of the--OK. So there are no impediments.
We're having testimony today that we will have the resources to
go after both the coca and heroin production. Are there any
political impediments, either on the Colombian side or the U.S.
side that you know of that would inhibit moving forward with
this eradication program?
Ambassador, you want to just----
Ambassador Patterson. Could I take this, Mr. Chairman?
Mr. Mica. Yes. Go ahead.
Ambassador Patterson. There are no political impediments.
Actually the new administration in Colombia has been extremely
aggressive.
Mr. Mica. We've met with the President. I've met with him
twice. The Speaker has met with him and we're told that he
has--well, he's personally committed the will, the resources,
the policy to support that effort. What about the United States
side?
Ambassador Patterson. I wanted to followup on my
colleague's response if I could. The bottom line is that they
would spray even more aggressively if we could provide
additional resources. In other words, we can always use extra
money. I think we could do more, and perhaps this would be
something to discuss with you in 2004, if we had additional
aircraft and additional helicopters. But they have, this
current administration in Colombia has an unprecedented degree
of political will to prosecute the drug war.
Mr. Mica. Well, I'd rather do it in 2003 than in 2004, so
if you could provide us with a request--I'm asking for a
request for a supplemental to be provided to the subcommittee
and what it would take to move forward in this fiscal year to
complete the job.
The other thing, too, in Plan Colombia, and, you know, we
heard--we do hear that this does push the product around. I'm
also concerned about the spread of cultivation in Ecuador. And
we did provide funds and assistance in the program in Plan
Colombia to assist some of these other regional, potential
future locations as they're spreading the cultivation. Where
are we on that, Mr. Simons?
Mr. Simons. Administration request for 2003 for the Andean
counternarcotics initiative; $731 million is the administration
request. That's also the House mark and that's the number that
we are hoping that we can receive full funding for in order to
obtain our objectives. Of that $731 million, $439 million is
for Colombia. The remainder is for the other Andean countries,
specifically to address this issue of spillover that you
mentioned. Now, the bulk of these funds are for Peru and
Bolivia, but there's also a substantial amount for Ecuador for
alternative development as well as for support to Ecuadoran law
enforcement.
Mr. Mica. The other thing being--and again, you don't have
to be a rocket scientist to look at these things--is that
Mexico is now becoming one of our top producers. And every year
I get the statistics back I'm shocked by the increases in drug
production in Mexico, and also percentage of Mexican either
produced or processed narcotics that is entering the United
States. And that's confirmed by your signature analysis; is
that correct, Mr.----
Mr. Guevara. That's correct.
Mr. Mica. That brings up a couple of things as to how we
stop the Mexican production. Have we developed any kind of a
strategy to deal with this, Mr. Simons?
Mr. Simons. Certainly we're taking a very close look at
Mexico. For a number of years our programs in Mexico were quite
small. But we've recently enjoyed a much improved relationship
with Mexican law enforcement across the board. I think DEA may
also want to speak to that. So we have the opportunity now to
work more closely with our Mexican counterparts, and most
recently in the fiscal year 2002 supplemental we sought and
received $25 million in additional funding for Mexico for the
border security project on the northern border, which could
also have significant impact on the drug trade.
So we're certainly taking a look at opportunities to work
more closely with Mexican law enforcement.
Mr. Mica. Mr. Guevara, the Mexicans placed a limitation on
the number of DEA agents in the past. Has that changed?
Mr. Guevara. Yes, sir. We have made a request of the
Mexican government to increase our staffing in Mexico for the
express purposes of assigning additional personnel along the
northwest border of Mexico. It's my understanding----
Mr. Mica. Have we--they did put a cap before. Has that cap
been lifted, or do you just have a request pending?
Mr. Guevara. I believe that the request has been honored
and that we have received approval to go forward with opening
additional DEA offices along the border. The fact----
Mr. Mica. What about investigations?
Mr. Guevara. Yes. They would be there for----
Mr. Mica. Are you aware of any treasury increase in
activities in Mexico to cooperative efforts to increase our
financial investigations?
Mr. Guevara. I could only speak for DEA, and we see an
enhanced will and ability as well on the part of----
Mr. Mica. What about the issue of allowing our agents to
carry weapons and protect themselves?
Mr. Guevara. That has also been brought up with the Mexican
State Department, the SRE, and that has not been resolved to my
knowledge and remains an outstanding issue.
Mr. Mica. What's INL's recommendation to the President on
the certification issue for this coming year? Have you held a--
--
Mr. Simons. Mr. Chairman, I'm afraid I can't get into that
question here in open session. But we may be able to brief you
separately on this. The President has not yet made his
decision.
Mr. Mica. What was your recommendation?
Mr. Simons. Until the President makes his decision, Mr.
Chairman, I would prefer to handle this separately.
Mr. Mica. All right. And can you provide the subcommittee,
if you don't want these documents public, with copies of your
recommendations. Without objection, that request is so ordered
of your office. And I'd like to try to have that in as soon as
possible.
Let me run back to equipment and resources. I got
sidetracked and didn't ask this question. One of the problems
we've had is first getting equipment down there, getting
resources and then having a balanced program that goes after
the threat as it is developed or recognized or we see its
effect in the United States. We've lost more aircraft in
Colombia than I think we lost in the entire Desert Storm
operation.
What are we doing to protect the assets that we're sending
down there? What kind of program is in place? Is INL working on
that? Is Defense working on that? Can you report to me, Mr.
Simons, on what we're doing to protect the assets that we have
down there?
Mr. Simons. Well, we have an active safety monitoring
program in place that is supervised by the INL airwing out of
Patrick Air Force Base and appropriate safety standards----
Mr. Mica. Is DOD assisting with that? I mean this is a
defense of--it's not----
Mr. Simons. I'm not aware if DOD is engaged in this
activity.
Mr. Mica. Who is--is there a plan or is there something
that is in place to deal with, again, good program to protect
our flying assets?
Mr. Simons. We have an active air safety program in place.
We can provide more detail to your staff on this.
Mr. Mica. I wish you'd do that.
Mr. Simons. But I would note that it is a very dangerous
operating environment in Colombia and we have some very
courageous Colombian police and army officials who put
themselves at considerable risk in the drug war and the
Secretary--Secretary Powell when he was down in Colombia last
week paid tribute to the Colombian police who died in the
course of duty. And not only do they face substantial risks but
our contractors who are also out there on the front lines also
face substantial risk. Within the last year our spray pilots
took more than 180 hits from ground fire.
So this is an issue that we take very serious, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Mica. I'm very much aware of that, but it doesn't sound
like we have a plan to protect those assets and it doesn't
sound like INL is coordinating with DOD. And there's a greater
DOD presence in the activity and we've been protecting--we've
been protecting the National Police and we should be protecting
these assets, which are pretty damn expensive and very
difficult to get down there.
Let me ask you another question about the assets that we
have there, helicopters and any other aircraft, either
participating in spraying or any other activities. Are 100
percent of those assets in the air and being utilized or are
some of them--the last time I was there they were being
cannibalized and they didn't have parts to fly and we had a
small percentage of the assets to complete these missions
incapacitated. What's the status of that?
Mr. Simons. Well, one of our highest goals is to maintain a
high operational readiness rate for the aircraft that we
support, and we support a large number of aircraft and
helicopters in Colombia and we've been pretty successful on
this. In fact, our contractor--part of their----
Mr. Mica. Are our assets all----
Mr. Simons. I will provide the figures, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Mica. OK. Can you do that?
Mr. Simons. But I wanted to indicate to you that this is a
high priority and it's something that we also measure.
Mr. Mica. Could you provide me with the background?
Mr. Simons. I can provide them right now, but I wanted to
indicate to you that this is a priority.
Mr. Mica. OK. Well, just submit them to the committee and
the most updated figure you have.
Mr. Simons. I have them right now and I would like to
provide them here in open testimony. The Colombian National
Police fixed wing fleet, there are 23 aircraft we support.
Their operational readiness rate has been over 75 percent over
the last year. The mission readiness rate for the CNP
helicopter fleet was in excess of 75 percent over the past
year. And the Colombian Army helos, the 71 Colombian Army helos
that were provided under Plan Colombia we've maintained
readiness rates of over 80 percent for those. So we think we've
actually acquitted ourselves quite well on the issue of
operational readiness. And as I mentioned, the premium payments
that we made to our contractor are specifically related to
their being able to meet the targets on operational readiness.
So for INL and INL management this is a very high priority.
Mr. Mica. OK. And on the contractor, do you have any
percentages of what they're keeping their aircraft up at?
Mr. Simons. They're keeping their aircraft at an
operational readiness rate also in excess of 80 percent.
Mr. Mica. OK. Well, hopefully we're making some progress in
that--you've been provided with some additional background you
want to provide? Did you have something else you wanted to
provide?
Mr. Simons. Nothing else.
Mr. Mica. OK. All right. One of the other concerns I have
is whether--well, there's two things that I mentioned in my
opening comments that we've studied a long time, or delayed,
and one is the shoot-down policy as it relates to Peru and
information providing--I'm told that already in Peru we're
seeing additional trafficking, additional production, lack of
ability to respond to again, reinstitution of production and
trafficking in that area because we haven't been able to make a
decision or initiate a policy that will help the countries that
want to cooperate to move forward.
What's the status on that, Mr. Simons?
Mr. Simons. Mr. Chairman, this came up during Secretary
Powell's recent visit to Colombia. Certainly, one of President
Uribe's top priorities is the renewal of the air bridge denial
program in Colombia. And Secretary Powell indicated to
President Uribe that we are moving as quickly as we can to get
this program back up and running and that we would hope to have
it operational early in the next year. Currently, we are in the
process of training pilots and crews, Colombian and Peruvian
pilots and crews.
We are working out a revised series of procedures that are
consistent with the new U.S. law. We plan to deploy a team to
Colombia, a negotiating team, in the next couple of weeks to
begin to review these procedures with the Colombian government.
Subsequent to that, Congress enacted a procedure that requires
a certification process before we actually bring the decision
to the President whereby a U.S. team would go down to Colombia
and certify that the revised procedures are in place. Once all
that is done, we come up here, we consult with Congress, and
then the President issues the determination that can make the
program move forward.
Mr. Mica. So we could actually have that done by April or
May if everybody did what they were supposed to, right?
Mr. Simons. Well, I think the Secretary indicated to
President Uribe that we would try to get this running early
next year, and that's what we're trying to hold to.
Mr. Mica. Well, you have very strong support and I'm going
to ask Mr. Souder, the chairman of the subcommittee, if he
continues, or whoever chairs the subcommittee to followup with
additional hearing or review of that matter. I think it's
extremely important. Appreciate your keeping the subcommittee
posted.
The other matter that I raised was the micro herbicide
program. What's the status of that Mr. Simons, Ambassador,
someone?
Ambassador Patterson. My understanding is that it was--it
was tested some years back, a couple of years ago and proven to
be effective in Colombia. We have not pursued it with this
government and perhaps we should, Congressman.
Mr. Mica. I think it should be. And, you know, for a
little--we found that we cannot only spray this stuff, but we
can also deactivate it for some period of time, saving money
and lives and then encouraging alternative production. It's not
like you put this crop out with a little bit of herbicide. I
think it has great potential. I wish we could pursue that. And
it would do a lot of damage to the potential of the stuff
coming back.
Ambassador Patterson. We are having very good luck, Mr.
Chairman, with glyfersate, which is a very benign herbicide and
very widely used.
Mr. Mica. Well, I have no objections to a less benign
herbicide. So I think, again, it's something that I'd like to
see pursued. I know a majority of the subcommittee would, too.
I understand you have to leave at this time. I have some
additional questions, but what I'm going to do is actually give
them to the staff and let them submit them. So without
objection, we will be providing our witnesses with additional
questions and we'd like you to respond. Without objection,
we're going to leave the record open for a period of 2 weeks,
14 days. So ordered.
So I will excuse the witnesses at this juncture. Thank you
again for your cooperation. This isn't meant to be critical of
you. You all do yeoman's work in this effort. Our job is to
look at what's happening and then try to see if we can correct
the problems. Part of the problem of course is the Congress, if
they put holds on things or you have conflicting signals given.
But we have adopted a major plan. We need to execute that plan.
We need to make certain that you get the resources to do that
and try to move this along. So we appreciate your cooperation.
And also, if you could get back to the subcommittee we would--
well, we'll not only be grateful, we won't hold you in
contempt. How's that? Thank you all. Have a nice holiday, and
look forward to working with you in the new Congress. You're
excused.
Mr. Guevara. Thank you, Mr. Mica.
Mr. Mica. We have one other panelist and I'm going to call
that panelist forward. If we could go ahead and proceed. We
have one final panel. This third panel consists only of Mr.
Adam Isacson. I think the other witness, who was a tentative
witness, is not here. He is a Senior Associate for the Center
of International Policy.
Mr. Isacson, you know this is an investigative oversight
subcommittee of Congress. If you'd stand and be sworn.
[Witness sworn.]
Mr. Mica. The record will reflect that the witness answered
in the affirmative.
Welcome, Mr. Isacson, and if you have lengthy documentation
or statement, you're welcome to submit it to the subcommittee
and we'll put it in the entire record. If not, recognize you to
proceed at this time.
STATEMENT OF ADAM ISACSON, SENIOR ASSOCIATE, CENTER FOR
INTERNATIONAL POLICY
Mr. Isacson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know it's been a
long hearing and I'm going to take that 5-minute limit very
seriously. I just want to begin by congratulating you and the
whole committee for holding a hearing on Colombia's heroin
crisis. To my knowledge, this problem hasn't been given such a
high profile in the House before. We've already seen today that
this crisis is severe and it's getting worse. But I want to
caution the committee that simply increasing aerial spraying is
not likely to reduce the poppy crop. There are several reasons
for this.
First, opium poppy is an annual plant. If poppies are
sprayed, new ones can be planted and harvested within 120 days.
A spray program is going to have be very nimble in order to
catch up with that kind of growth cycle.
Second, poppy cultivation is also kind of hard to find.
Poppies are grown in high altitude zones along the spine of the
Andes in very rugged terrain with lots of cloud cover in plots
that are usually an acre or smaller. Poppy is so illusive that
since 1999 the State Department hasn't even had a decent
estimate of how much is being grown in Colombia. If we can't
even tell how much there is, how are we going to be able to
eradicate it all?
But it gets worse. The highest estimate I've heard lately
is about 15,000 hectares and there's a citation in my written
testimony of about how much poppy is in Colombia. That sounds
like a lot of land, but in fact if you were to put all those
hectares of poppies together, 15,000 hectares, they'd fit into
a square only 7.6 miles on a side. That's smaller than the
District of Columbia, and it's scattered around the country, a
country the size of Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma put
together. I'm not convinced that spray planes and helicopters
are going to be able to keep up with this.
Our experience trying to spray coca in Colombia is also
instructive. Since 1996 the United States and Colombian
Governments have sprayed herbicides over nearly a million acres
of coca growing zones. Yet we've seen the coca cultivation in
Colombia in that period triple and the total amount grown in
South America has stayed just about the same.
But it gets worse. Colombia has 32 departments or
provinces. When large scale coca spraying began in 1996, four
of these departments, maybe five of them had about 1,000
hectares of coca or more. At the end of last year, 13
departments of Colombia had that much coca. Despite all of our
spraying, coca is spreading like a stain across the map of
Colombia.
So what do we do then to start reducing drug protection in
Colombia? The answer is as complicated as the problem itself.
We have to do a lot of things at once. We have to spend a lot
of money, and only a fraction of this money should go to
forcible eradication. We have to recall that in a lot of rural
Colombia there's simply no way to make a legal living.
Security, roads, credit access to markets, they're all missing.
When the spray planes come they take away farmers' illegal way
of making a living, but they don't replace it with anything.
For arguments in support of alternative development we
don't even have to look further than classic counterinsurgency
doctrine. A basic tenet of counterinsurgency strategy is that
arming the security forces isn't enough. Large amounts of
development aid are needed to help the government win the
people's hearts and minds. But when thousands of families get
their crops sprayed and then aren't reached by development aid,
which is what's happening now, their opposition to the
government hardens. This is counterinsurgency in reverse and
it's good news for the guerillas.
A major increase in alternative development has to be at
the center of our strategy to reduce heroin in Colombia.
Alternative development should be easier to carry out in poppy
growing zones than coca growing zones for two reasons. First,
the guerillas and paramilitaries aren't as much of a threat
because they're not as involved in the poppy trade. The DEA
Administrator, Asa Hutchinson, told the Senate at its Narcotic
Caucus in September, our indication is that the terrorist
organizations are principally engaged in the cocaine
trafficking. There are other criminal organizations in Colombia
that are heavily engaged in heroin. But thus far we are not
seeing significant terrorist involvement in the heroin side. So
security shouldn't be as much of a threat.
Second, there's already an obvious alternative crop. Coffee
grows best at the same altitudes as heroin poppy. Yes, coffee
prices are at historic lows and in fact some coffee growers are
turning to poppies in Colombia. But the U.S. Congress has
already shown that it wants to help. Last month the House
passed a bipartisan resolution calling on the United States to
adopt a global strategy to respond to the coffee crisis with
coordinated activities in Latin America, Africa and Asia.
Alternative development in poppy growing areas must be part of
that strategy.
Beyond alternative development we must never forget that
Colombia's status quo, its crisis of drugs and violence
benefits some very powerful people who are getting away with
their lawbreaking. We've got to do more to go--we've got to go
beyond spraying peasants and jailing addicts. We have to do
more to stop the traffickers who've set up international
networks. We have to stop the corrupt government officials who
allow drugs to pass through. We have to stop the bankers who
are laundering the money. Too many of them are still getting
away with it.
Finally, we have to keep increasing funding to treat
addicts here at home. It's been discussed a lot and it's true.
Remember the 1994 RAND Corp. study that asked how much would
the government have to spend to decrease cocaine consumption in
the United States by 1 percent? RAND found that $1 spent on
treatment is as effective as $23 spent on crop eradication.
Just to sum up, we all agree that Colombia's heroin crisis
has reached frightening proportions. The way out though is
going to be complicated, expensive, and sometimes frustrating.
I ask the committee not to place all of its eggs in the basket
of spraying and aid to Colombia's security forces. We're going
to need a much fuller mix of strategies if we're going to solve
this.
Thank you very much. I look forward to your questions.
Mr. Mica. Thank you, Mr. Isacson. Just a couple of quick
questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Isacson follows:]
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Mr. Isacson. Sure.
Mr. Mica. One, I think you pointed out one of the problems
of just spraying for eradication of a poppy crop or coca crop.
That was why I asked the question of Ambassador Patterson and
the other witnesses about the micro herbicide. They do provide
a long term eradication. Are you familiar with their use?
Mr. Isacson. I'm familiar with their use and I haven't seen
any tests showing----
Mr. Mica. We have tests that show that it will eradicate
some of these crops for substantial periods of time. So I
guess, based on your testimony, you would be supportive of
something that would take the crop out for a long time.
Mr. Isacson. Well, micro herbicides, to be honest, make me
nervous because we don't know what their impact will be on this
Amazon ecosystem. We're talking about the second largest
biodiversity of any country in the world.
Mr. Mica. But you also said the area that would be--that's
in production is less than the size of the District of
Columbia.
Mr. Isacson. Scattered around an area more or less the size
of California if you look at the Andean ridge.
Mr. Mica. So it wouldn't do much damage since it's spread
over such a large area. And if the evidence showed that micro
herbicide only affected that individual plant you're trying to
eradicate, you'd certainly be supportive, wouldn't you?
Mr. Isacson. Hmm, I would be supportive of something that
got rid of coca, but also strengthened the Colombian government
and provided an alternative to the people who had nothing left
to do.
Mr. Mica. If you were devising Plan Colombia to deal with--
first of all, you said one of the things we had to do was
provide Colombia with security. That was one of the problems
that we have. If you have security you can probably deal with
some of this production and illegal trafficking which finances
the terrorism in pretty good order. So we--if we put an element
to deal with security in Plan Colombia, we put an element in
that deals with crop eradication, and then finally we also put
an element in to deal with alternative development, which you
strongly advocated in your testimony, are you--you're aware
that at least a third of the funds that were in Plan Colombia
were dedicated toward either economic development or crop
alternative programs?
Mr. Isacson. Yes, I am and I agree on security. I wish that
our assistance did more to protect actual Colombians and
increase the strength of the state. What we did mainly was
secure the fumigation program and now we're proposing to secure
a pipeline. That doesn't really affect the lives of most
Colombians.
Mr. Mica. Well, I think if you secure the terrorist threat
you do provide security for the land and the ability to also
conduct business and make a living. So we have about a--well,
we have in excess of over a third of the funds for these
assistance programs. So I think it's a pretty good balance. I
would have to say that I've been personally disappointed that--
not only in the eradication and security areas, but also in the
economic development----
Mr. Isacson. I share that disappointment.
Mr. Mica [continuing]. And alternative development
programs. There have also been unnecessary delays, bureaucratic
bungling and lack of progress. So we appreciate--I guess that
would be your same observation?
Mr. Isacson. That would be my observation, too. I'm worried
that coverage is nowhere near where it should be.
Mr. Mica. Right. And it does take all of those elements to
make this program successful. Well, I want to thank you. I
tried to stall a bit to see if any of the minority Members
would return since you are a witness from--requested from their
side. But we do appreciate your participation, your patience in
waiting until the end, and also for your recommendations to the
panel on a very important subject.
So we'll excuse you at this time, and we'll also see if
they have any questions from the minority side that they'd like
to submit. And we've left the record open for that purpose. So
thank you and you're excused, Mr. Isacson.
Mr. Isacson. Thank you for your invitation.
Mr. Mica. And I did have one article that I wanted to
submit to the record by Mr. Burton and Mr. Gilman. It's dated
Thursday, October 29th, commentary on heroin awakening. Without
objection, this will be made part of the record today.
[The information referred to follows:]
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Mr. Mica. There being no further business before the
committee today, and this is the full committee meeting isn't
it? Excuse me. I'm usually chairing the subcommittee, but this
is historic in that we're addressing a very serious issue
facing the United States. It's also historic in that it's the
last hearing, I believe, of the Government Reform Committee in
the 107th Congress.
I want to particularly thank the staff on both sides of the
aisle for their cooperation, the Members for working over the
past year, our chairman for his leadership and our ranking
member for his leadership in one of the most important
committees in the House of Representatives that is charged with
investigation and oversight of all of the activities of our
Federal Government.
So there being no further business, this hearing and this
committee for the 107th Congress is adjourned.
[Note.--The report entitled, ``Fiscal Year 2002 Annual
Report, July 1, 2001-June 30, 2002, Maine Drug Enforcement
Agency,'' may be found in committee files.]
[Whereupon, at 2:40 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
[The prepared statements of Hon. Bob Barr, Hon. Elijah E.
Cummings, and additional information submitted for the hearing
record follow:]
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