[House Hearing, 108 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
FACING THE METHAMPHETAMINE PROBLEM IN AMERICA
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE,
DRUG POLICY AND HUMAN RESOURCES
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JULY 18, 2003
__________
Serial No. 108-93
__________
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
______
91-423 U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON : 2003
____________________________________________________________________________
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut TOM LANTOS, California
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JOHN L. MICA, Florida PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
DOUG OSE, California DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
RON LEWIS, Kentucky DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
CHRIS CANNON, Utah DIANE E. WATSON, California
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma C.A. ``DUTCH'' RUPPERSBERGER,
NATHAN DEAL, Georgia Maryland
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania Columbia
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio JIM COOPER, Tennessee
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas CHRIS BELL, Texas
WILLIAM J. JANKLOW, South Dakota ------
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
(Independent)
Peter Sirh, Staff Director
Melissa Wojciak, Deputy Staff Director
Rob Borden, Parliamentarian
Teresa Austin, Chief Clerk
Philip M. Schiliro, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana, Chairman
NATHAN DEAL, Georgia ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
JOHN L. MICA, Florida WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
DOUG OSE, California LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia C.A. ``DUTCH'' RUPPERSBERGER,
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia Maryland
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee Columbia
CHRIS BELL, Texas
Ex Officio
TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
Christopher A. Donesa, Staff Director
Nicholas Coleman, Professional Staff Member
Nicole Garrett, Clerk
Julian A. Haywood, Minority Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on July 18, 2003.................................... 1
Text of H.R. 834................................................. 4
Statement of:
Boozman, Hon. John, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Arkansas.......................................... 30
Case, Hon. Ed, a Representative in Congress from the State of
Hawaii..................................................... 34
Guevara, Roger E., Chief of Operations, Drug Enforcement
Administration; and John C. Horton, Associate Deputy
Director for State and Local Affairs, Office of National
Drug Control Policy........................................ 50
Kelly, Bill, captain, Sacramento Country Sheriff's
Department, narcotics division............................. 87
Martinek, Brian J., chief, Vancouver, WA, Police Department.. 93
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Boozman, Hon. John, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Arkansas, prepared statement of................... 32
Case, Hon. Ed, a Representative in Congress from the State of
Hawaii, prepared statement of.............................. 37
Cumings, Hon. Elijah E., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Maryland, prepared statement of............... 42
Guevara, Roger E., Chief of Operations, Drug Enforcement
Administration, prepared statement of...................... 53
Horton, John C., Associate Deputy Director for State and
Local Affairs, Office of National Drug Control Policy,
prepared statement of...................................... 69
Kelly, Bill, captain, Sacramento Country Sheriff's
Department, narcotics division, prepared statement of...... 89
Martinek, Brian J., chief, Vancouver, WA, Police Department,
prepared statement of...................................... 97
Sanchez, Hon. Linda T., a Representative in Congress from the
State of California, prepared statement of................. 27
Souder, Hon. Mark E., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Indiana, prepared statement of.................... 22
FACING THE METHAMPHETAMINE PROBLEM IN AMERICA
----------
FRIDAY, JULY 18, 2003
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and
Human Resources,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in
room 2203, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mark E. Souder
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Souder, Ose, Cummings, Sanchez,
Ruppersberger, and Norton.
Also present: Representative Baird.
Staff present: Christopher A. Donesa, staff director;
Nicholas Coleman, professional staff member; John Stanton,
congressional fellow; Nicole Garrett, clerk; and Julian A.
Haywood, minority counsel.
Mr. Souder. The Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug
Policy and Human Resources hearing will now come to order.
Good morning and thank you all for coming. This hearing
continues our effort to highlight Federal responses to the
problem of methamphetamine abuse. The problem most visibly has
manifested itself locally in towns and rural areas across the
country, but the array of meth-related problems from small labs
nationwide to so called ``super labs'' in California, to the
environmental consequences, to the social toll and cost of
addiction clearly are a significant national problem that
requires increasing Federal attention.
Today we will consider how the Federal Government can best
support efforts to control and prevent abuse of
methamphetamines across the country. Meth is among the most
powerful and dangerous stimulants available. The drug is highly
addictive and has multiple side effect, including psychotic
behavior, physical deterioration and brain damage, and carries
a high risk of death by overdose. Unfortunately, it also is
relatively easy to produce from common household chemicals and
cold medicines.
The growth of the meth problem in the last decade, both in
the number of addicts and the number of areas affected, has
been particularly severe. What was once primarily a regional
problem, concentrated mainly in southern and central
California, has now spread across most of the United States.
Today nearly every State and every congressional district has
been forced to grapple with meth trafficking and abuse.
Meth comes from two major sources of supply. Most is
produced in the super labs of California and northern Mexico,
which have accounted for over 70 percent of the Nation's
supply.
This subcommittee held a hearing in Congressman Ose's
district in central California on the super lab issue just a
few years ago. These super labs are operated by large Mexican
drug cartels and outlaw motorcycle gangs that have used their
established distribution networks to move meth throughout the
country.
These organizations import huge quantities of precursor
chemicals like pseudoephedrine from Canada, a practice made
necessary by tougher U.S. penalties against precursor diversion
and effective enforcement by DEA and other law enforcement
agencies. And as we heard at our last hearing, we continue to
work with Canada to strengthen their laws.
The second major source of meth comes from small local labs
unaffiliated with major trafficking organizations. These labs
have proliferated throughout the country, especially in rural
areas. DEA reports that over 7,700 of the 8,000 clandestine
labs seized in 2001 were these smaller labs. The total amount
of meth actually supplied by these labs is relatively small.
The environmental damage and the health hazard they create,
however, make them serious problems for local communities.
For example, every single county in my district, especially
the more rural counties, have seen this proliferation of small
meth labs, and we plan to hold a hearing in northeast Indiana
later this year.
The Federal Government has already taken significant and
effective action against the meth problem. The widespread
growth of the problem, however, has spurred calls for further
action. Most proposals have focused on the need to assist local
law enforcement in finding and cleaning up the numerous small
meth labs.
A well-balanced approach, however, will have to address
both the smaller labs and the major traffickers. At the Federal
level, DEA and other agencies will continue to take the lead in
disrupting and dismantling the organizations behind the super
labs, in close cooperation with such State agencies as the
California Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement, which has also
played a leading and significant role in this area. These
agencies need support and assistance, however, from additional
State and local law enforcement to be truly effective.
The High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas [HIDTA], Program
is designed to foster this kind of cooperation against drug
trafficking. HIDTA-funded initiatives have already targeted
many of the major super labs and the distribution networks
affiliated with them. This should continue to be a priority for
the HIDTA program within the context of other national
trafficking programs.
Although the smaller labs do not have the same national
impact on meth supply as the super labs, the damage they cause
is more widespread. It is a significant concern that requires
careful attention. The Federal Government must continue to
explore how best to assist States and localities in finding and
cleaning up these dangerous sites. Because the purpose of the
HIDTA program is to reduce the national supply of drugs and not
to deal primarily with local problems, a more inclusive and
locally focused program is needed.
One proposal offered by our colleagues, Congressman Doug
Ose, a member of this subcommittee, provides for a broad range
of initiatives aimed at the meth problem. Among other things,
H.R. 834 would provide funds to help States and localities find
and clean up meth labs, including expanding under the Community
Oriented Policing Services [COPS], grant program.
Additionally, resources for treatment and prevention at the
local level are also made available. I'm a cosponsor of this
bill, and I strongly support it.
[The text of H.R. 834 follows:]
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Mr. Souder. This hearing will address potential solutions
to the difficult issues surrounding the meth problem.
I am pleased to welcome two of my colleagues, Congressman
John Boozman of Arkansas, and Congressman Ed Case of Hawaii,
both of whom have taken a strong leadership role in the fight
against meth.
To help us further discuss the Federal Government's
response, we are also pleased to be joined today by Mr. Roger
Guevara, Chief of Operations for the Drug Enforcement Agency
[DEA]; Mr. John Horton, Associate Deputy Director of State and
Local Affairs at the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
At the same time, it is also important for us to hear from
the State and local agencies forced to fight on the front lines
against meth and other illegal drugs. We welcome captain
William Kelly, Commander of the Narcotics Division of the
Sacramento County Sheriff's Department; Chief Brian Martinek of
the Vancouver, Washington Police Department; and Sheriff Garry
Lucas of the Clark County, Washington Sheriff's Office.
Mr. Souder. We thank everyone for taking time to join us
this morning and look forward to your testimony. And I also
want to say we have two witnesses here from Washington, because
Congressman Baird has been an aggressive leader in putting
together the Meth Caucus and working with us. We had a hearing
a couple of years ago also, or maybe--I don't remember anymore,
2 years ago I think, that we had worked with him in pulling
together as well.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Mark E. Souder follows:]
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Mr. Souder. I'd like to yield to Congresswoman Sanchez if
you have any opening statement.
Ms. Sanchez. Thank you.
I'd like to thank Chairman Souder and Ranking Member
Cummings for their great leadership in calling this important
hearing today. Methamphetamine abuse has been the dominant drug
problem in California for a long time and it has become a
substantial drug problem in other sections of the West and
Southwest as well. There are indications that its use is
spreading to other areas of the country, including both rural
and urban sections of the South and Midwest.
Methamphetamine is now a nationwide problem. In the year
2000, 44 States reported meth lab seizures. In 2001 there were
over 1,300 labs seized, and 208 of those were in L.A. County
alone. Over 50 of these were super labs. These are labs that
have the capability of 10 pounds or more of meth.
Meth abuse is also on the rise. Nationwide seizures of meth
labs have significantly increased, from 263 labs in 1994 to
8,462 labs in 2000.
Traditionally associated with white male blue collar
workers, meth has spread to more diverse population groups that
change overtime and differ by geographic area. Most recently it
has become the drug of choice by this Nation's children.
Methamphetamine abuse is claiming younger victims and
destroying families. In 1999 meth use among youth nationwide
included 3.2 percent of 8th graders, 4.6 percent of 10th
graders and 4.7 percent of 12th graders.
Meth is not usually sold and bought on the streets like
many of the other known illicit drugs. It is a little more
pernicious. Users obtain their supplies of meth from friends
and acquaintances. It is typically a more closed or hidden
sale, prearranged by networking with those who produce the
drug. Often it is sold by invitation only at all-night
warehouse parties, or ``raves.'' Most alarming is the emerging
evidence that methamphetamine are being administered
increasingly via the intravenous route. Injecting this drug
puts the user at increased risk of contracting HIV and AIDS,
hepatitis, and other infectious diseases.
We need to find a more effective way to curb the use of
this drug and to stamp it out ultimately altogether. Much of
the success will depend on support from Congress and our local
law enforcement officers.
Again, I want to thank the chairman and ranking member for
having this hearing. I would also like to welcome and thank
each of the witnesses for being here today to discuss this
important topic, and we really look forward to your testimony.
I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Linda T. Sanchez follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Thank you.
I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative
days to submit written statements and questions for the hearing
record, that any answers to written questions provided by the
witnesses also be included in the record. Without objection, it
is so ordered.
I also ask unanimous consent that all exhibits, documents,
and other materials referred to by Members and the witnesses
may be included in the hearing record, that all Members be
permitted to revise and extend their remarks. Without
objection, it is so ordered.
Our first panel is composed of our colleagues,
Representative Boozman and Representative Case. This committee
usually asks witnesses to testify under oath. By tradition, we
do not administer an oath to Members of Congress because we
take the oath when we are first sworn in, so it is covered in
committee hearings. So you'll each be recognized for 5 minutes.
So, Congressman Boozman, welcome, and we'll start with your
statement.
STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN BOOZMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF ARKANSAS
Mr. Boozman. Thank you, Chairman Souder. Chairman Souder,
Ranking Member Cummings and members of the committee, I want to
thank you for allowing me to testify this morning on a very
important issue to Arkansas, methamphetamine. Methamphetamine
poses problems of epidemic proportions across the country. My
own State of Arkansas has the highest number of meth lab
seizures per capita in the Nation. Arkansas has become a
crossroads for meth production and trafficking, making meth one
of the top law enforcement problems in the State.
As a father of three daughters and a former member of the
Rogers School Board, I am very aware of our Nation's drug
problems. Years ago the problem seemed like something that was
far from the small towns and communities of my State. Today
that has all changed. The National Center for Addiction and
Drug Abuse has reported that the rate of drug abuse among teens
in rural America is now higher than in the Nation's large urban
centers. At the same time, mid-sized cities and rural areas are
less equipped to deal with the consequences of drug use. In a
survey of the counties in my district, law enforcement reported
that an estimated 75 percent of all crime is related to
methamphetamine.
As we all know, drug use is not a victimless crime.
Yesterday I heard a report of an 18-year-old girl who turned
her parents in for cooking meth in their home. Her parents had
been cooking meth for years, and yet she waited until her 18th
birthday to turn her parents in, because she wanted to be in a
position to have the ability to take custody of her younger
brother and sister.
In another case, police raided a heavily armed meth lab and
discovered that a baby living in the drug trailer had been left
alone and eaten the drugs left strewn about the trailer. I can
tell you countless stories like these, because meth is an
incredibly powerful drug and very destructive. Meth is a long-
lasting drug that produces the high for 9 to 12 hours. Persons
using meth frequently stay awake for several days. The sleep
deprivation, combined with the effects of the drug causes meth-
induced psychosis that in turn leads to violence, paranoia,
aggressive behavior, sexual abuse and drug abuse to children.
There is a proven correlation between the use of meth and
domestic violence. So not only is this a destructive drug to
the user, but the ultimate results are spouses being battered
and abused and young children being neglected and sometimes
abandoned altogether.
The destruction this drug causes is far-reaching, and we
have to remember that the rural areas where meth use is most
predominant do not have the means to deal with the problem.
There is no doubt that additional resources are needed to
combat the damage that is being done.
This really becomes clear when you look at the Arkansas
statistics on meth labs. In 1994, a total of 6 meth labs were
seized in Arkansas. In 2002, 955 labs were seized, and today
law enforcement officials have busted 25 percent more labs than
they did at this time last year. You can clearly see that the
meth problem in Arkansas has escalated and truly reached
epidemic proportions.
So I guess the question is, what can we do to help? After
talking to everyone in my district, from the State police and
local sheriffs to county judges, drug courts, prosecutors,
treatment facilities, I believe we must facilitate a balanced
approach to combating the problem of meth. This approach must
include demand reduction, prevention, enforcement and
treatment. We must educate the public, reduce the availability
of ingredients, provide the resources for law enforcement, and
then make the effort to fully rehabilitate the addicts.
This is why I'm a proud cosponsor of H.R. 834, the Clean-Up
Meth Act. This bill, as the chairman mentioned, authorizes
grants for educational purposes, provides law enforcement with
grants for training and equipment acquisition, and it also
authorizes grants for treatment. I'm pleased that Mr. Ose's
legislation takes a balanced approach in combating such a broad
and difficult problem.
Mr. Chairman, I appreciate this opportunity to speak for
the Third District of Arkansas and give you a brief glance of
the magnitude of the problem, and I give my greatest thanks to
all the officers, agents, prosecutors, judges, and counselors
who are on the front lines fighting against meth today. Thank
you.
Mr. Souder. Thank you for your testimony.
[The prepared statement of Hon. John Boozman follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Congressman Case.
STATEMENT OF HON. ED CASE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM
THE STATE OF HAWAII
Mr. Case. Chair Souder, members of this subcommittee, good
morning and ``Aloha.'' Before I go on, Chair, I think it's
appropriate to wish you a happy birthday if I'm not mistaken.
Mr. Souder. Once we're past 50, though, we don't really----
Mr. Case. I have that problem myself, so I'm not saying
anything about when you were born, just that today is your day.
Chair, you have my written testimony, and I also asked
members of my community throughout Hawaii to comment. Members
that are on the front lines, they are submitting testimony, and
I'd like to have this committee's consent both to insert my
written testimony in the record as well as theirs, so long as
it is received by the committee's deadline.
Mr. Souder. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Case. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair and
members, my Hawaii and the communities that I represent, which
are primarily as you've already noted the rural communities of
my State, are at war; and the war is against methamphetamine.
In Hawaii more particularly, this war is against the synthetic
crystallized form of methamphetamine which is almost 90 percent
pure, which is also known as ice.
The statistics in Hawaii, like those in Arkansas and across
the rest of the country, are really quite chilling. In Hawaii
now, we now have the highest rate of adults who have tried ice
in some form. In the last 2 years we have seen deaths
associated with ice use almost double. In the last couple of
years, we have seen the rate of homicide associated with ice
use go up to 40 to 50 percent by some calculations, and as my
colleague has already noted, it is a major ingredient of
domestic abuse. We estimate in Hawaii up to 90 percent now of
all child abuse cases are somehow related to ice.
We have seen an increase in violent and property crime
associated with ice. This is going up. We've had several high-
profile violent crimes just recently in Hawaii that are ice-
related. We have seen whole families and communities torn
apart. Each one of us in our work and our communities knows of
a family that has seen an incredible market deterioration in
this family structure because one or more of it members have
become addicted to ice.
I think the reasons are not really rocket science to any of
us. First of all in the big picture, wherever economies are
weak and opportunities are lacking, chances are that some form
of drug abuse will take hold. So all of our efforts--and we're
all committed to that in this Congress to improve our economy
and to provide opportunity--are also going to have an impact on
drug abuse and ice abuse in particular.
Like any other drug, but particularly with ice, anything we
can do to get to people before they start to use ice is a
valuable, incredibly important ingredient, and it's incredibly
important as we see the incidence of first-time drug users
really go down. We now have significant numbers, chilling
numbers of sixth, seventh and eighth graders that have had
exposure to ice and may be using it. So when we can provide
education to them before they start using it, that's valuable.
Law enforcement is so important, to be out there on the
front lines in really the Federal side of things going after
the dealers, a coordinated law enforcement. So your comments on
the High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area initiative are
particularly relevant.
And like my colleague, I believe in rehabilitation. For too
long many ice users, frankly, have been written off in favor of
the other side of the equation. We can't do that. If we don't
rehabilitate, they go out, they continue to use. And I think
the coordination is key. We have so many ingredients that need
to go into the fight against ice, whether it's law enforcement
or Federal, State, local or law enforcement, social services,
nonprofits, all the way across the board, everybody wants to
help. They need the coordination, and that is really what we
need most of. Where I think the Federal Government can really
contribute is through law enforcement, No. 1; and No. 2,
coordination, helping communities coordinate.
As chilling as this is in Hawaii, we've also seen some
incredibly encouraging signs--and I pass along to this
committee and I think that they are not unlike what is going on
in other communities--first of all, we have seen good education
down at the school level. Several great programs: No Hope and
Dope, which many of our law enforcement communities are so
personally vested in, to other very unique examples; such as in
my own State of Hawaii where a very popular comedian by the
name of Frank DeLima has a way of communicating with kids that
perhaps none of us can. And he goes into the schools and says
in a very comedic way, hey, you can't do this. Now, that kind
of stuff is unusual, but it works.
I've already talked about Federal coordination. We're all
familiar with Weed and Seed. The Weed and Seed program is a
Federal effort to coordinate whole communities against drug
abuse. In Hawaii we have taken high-crime communities where
we've had incredible drug abuse, and we've taken, with our U.S.
attorneys, the Weed and Seed program and applied them. That
program works. If we can expand that, it will be good.
Finally, community involvement. My colleague talked about
community involvement. I'm convinced that when communities
stand up and say no, whole communities say no, that is the most
effective thing that we can do. And anything we can do to
facilitate whole communities to say we're not going to take
this anymore is effective; because law enforcement can do it up
to a point, but if communities are not willing to pick up and
run with the ball, chances are it won't be lasting. We've seen
incredible results from my communities, places like Kahaluu on
Oahu, Kauai, Maui. And just 2 days ago on my home big island,
we saw 1,000 people out sign-waving on one particular day,
communities around that island basically increasing public
awareness. These things work.
So I concur with my colleague on where we need to go from
here. The Federal Government can help with basic coordination
of all of these efforts. The Federal Government certainly needs
to help with the basics of law enforcement. This is a national
and international problem, and State and local law enforcement
is not able to coordinate and provide a united front against
all of the ramifications of ice manufacture and use.
And finally, rehabilitation is very important. I support
representative Ose's bill as well. I'm a cosponsor as well. I
support the great work of this subcommittee and all of us in
Congress. I think we can do this job if we just continue to
turn to it, and I thank this subcommittee's attention to this
really important issue and thank you for the opportunity to
share some thoughts.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Ed Case follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Thank you.
I'm going to yield next to Mr. Ose, who we've been
referring to. He's been a leader in the meth issue and has the
bill, and is one of the more senior members of this committee,
and had another hearing scheduled today, and I appreciate him
for leaving the chair a little bit to come over here. And if
you'd like an opening statement, and to begin the questions as
well.
Mr. Ose. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to be
here. I do have another hearing, so I'm going to be running
back and forth. I want to submit my statement for the record.
I do want to recognize Captain William Kelly who is the
Commander of the Narcotics Division of the Sacramento Sheriff's
Department. He'll be testifying in our third panel.
This is an issue I think, as Congressman Case highlighted,
where those of us in our respective communities who have
positions of leadership, as Mr. Cummings has done in Baltimore
and so many others across the country, those of us in positions
of elected leadership can say this drug abuse problem is bad,
it is something we need to speak out on, and we need to
confront it directly. It is killing our young people and
destroying our neighborhoods. As Congressman Case said, that is
an appropriate purpose for which we can each use our offices.
And I do want to share with you that the Cleanup Meth Act,
H.R. 834, now has 113 cosponsors. Virtually everybody on your
subcommittee, Mr. Chairman, has signed on, and obviously a host
of others. We hope to move it through Mr. Gillmor's
subcommittee over on Energy and Commerce Committee next, and
then just proceed accordingly. The regrettable part is that
there are referrals to an additional six full committees of the
House, and we'll need everybody pulling in the same direction
to make this thing work.
You know, when I came to Congress before I was even sworn
in, Chairman Burton, who sat in the full committee's chair at
that time, my first introduction was to my plaintive request of
him to put me on this subcommittee. This is the one
subcommittee I asked to be on and which I have sustained my
membership on accordingly.
Mr. Chairman, your work on this has been noted. I'm pleased
to be here. I'm pleased to be here, because this issue is so
important. And today is your birthday. So happy birthday, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I'm
very pleased that you have called this hearing.
Methamphetamine, or meth, is one of the major drug threats
facing our Nation today. A powerful stimulant that affects the
central nervous system, meth is derived from amphetamine, a
compound which is contained in over-the-counter nasal
decongestants and bronchial inhalers and also used in certain
medical applications including weight loss treatments. Meth is
a drug that can be smoked, snorted, orally ingested or
injected, and is known by a variety of street names depending
upon the form in which it is used. Meth often comes in a powder
form and resembles granulated crystals and in a rock form known
as ``ice,'' which is preferred by those who smoke the drug.
Ingesting meth causes the release of high levels of
dopamine into the section of the brain that controls the
feeling of pleasure. The result is an intense rush and a high
that can last up to 12 hours. The side effects of meth use are
dangerous and sometimes even fatal. They include convulsions,
high body temperature, stroke, cardiac arrhythmia, stomach
cramps and shaking. Meth can be addictive, and abuse of the
drug can cause violent behavior, anxiety, insomnia, in addition
to psychotic effects such as paranoia, hallucinations, mood
swings and delusions.
Persistent users develop a tolerance for the drug that
requires a user to take increasing amounts to achieve the
desired effects. As a result, such users can suffer damage to
the dopamine-producing cells of the brain. Unlike drugs such as
cocaine and heroin, which are produced from plants entirely out
of the United States, methamphetamine can be manufactured using
ingredients purchased in U.S. retail stores. Most of the
production of U.S. consuming methamphetamine is domestic,
perhaps as much as 75 percent coming from labs in California.
U.S. production today occurs in both super labs, which
produce unprecedented amounts of high-purity methamphetamine,
and clandestine labs small enough to be found in apartments,
motel rooms, rented storage spaces and trucks.
Many clandestine labs produce as little as 10 pounds of
meth a year, but their impact on the environment and the cost
of cleaning up these sites can be huge. Collectively,
clandestine labs produce over 20 metric tons of toxic waste
each year, and individual labs can cost from a few thousand to
more than $100,000 to clean up depending upon their size.
Because the ingredients are not only toxic but extremely
volatile in combination, labs also pose a serious danger to
people who may live in the immediate vicinity of the activity,
including the children of small-scale manufacturers.
Drug Enforcement Agency estimates show that meth production
and trafficking are rampant in the West and Midwest regions of
our country. Traditionally, meth has been concentrated in the
Western States, especially California, Arizona, Utah.
In recent years the Midwest region has experienced
tremendous growth in both trafficking and production, and that
activity is spreading into the southeast and northeast regions.
The majority of operations in the western region are controlled
by Mexican drug trafficking organizations based along the
California-Arizona border.
Meth abuse has not yet become a major problem in the
communities of Baltimore and Howard Counties that I represent
in Maryland. Heroin, following in the footsteps of a
devastating crack-cocaine epidemic, is the primary drug threat
in my congressional district; but the rapid spread of meth
production, trafficking, and abuse in the United States
underscores the fact that America's drug problem affects all
parts of this Nation, as well as the sad but undeniable truth
that no community is immune to the introduction of a dangerous
new drug threat.
Today's hearing offers an opportunity to hear from two of
our colleagues, and law enforcement officials at the Federal,
State, and local levels, concerning the challenges faced by
communities affected by meth and methamphetamine crime, efforts
to combat the meth problem and the additional resources that
Congress should consider providing to assist those efforts.
I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for continuing to shine a light
on the issue in this subcommittee. I look forward to hearing
from our--the testimony of our witnesses, and I want to thank
all the Members of Congress who have brought this to our
attention.
I want to thank Mr. Ose, certainly Mr. Boozman and Mr.
Case, because we in this subcommittee take this very seriously.
We have seen our communities harmed tremendously. We have
traveled throughout this country and seen the harm that drugs
have done to so many people. We have seen the way that drugs
have stomped out not only dreams but lives. And so it is with
great pleasure that we work on this problem. We're sorry we
have to work on it, but we're going to do everything that we
can to work with you all to try to resolve this issue.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Elijah E. Cummings
follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Ms. Norton.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. May I thank you, Mr.
Chairman, for this hearing, and may I thank Mr. Ose for his
leadership on this issue, and our colleagues for the strong
leadership and attention they are giving to this issue.
I appreciate that we are moving now on a drug which, as my
good colleague from Baltimore says, is not as prevalent in this
particular region. But I hope we have learned the lesson about
the kind of country we live in, with porous borders. This drug
is particularly dangerous, because you can make it in the
United States in makeshift laboratories so easily.
When we speak about heroin and crack, we are often dealing
with supply and demand and suppliers from outside the country
and having arguments over who is to blame for demand or the
suppliers. If there wasn't any other country in the world but
the United States, we'd have this problem, because with very
little expertise you can produce meth right here. And therefore
the danger to our children, to young people who seem to be
drawn to methamphetamine, is particularly noteworthy. The
notion that motorcycle gangs once were the suppliers and that
now it has already moved to suburban communities ought to tell
us all we need to know. The notion that we associate meth with
the West or certain parts of the Midwest ought to tell those in
the East that it can't be long contained there.
So your work to assist localities to focus on this issue
now, to get rid of these meth labs, is very much appreciated in
this region where this is not a major problem. And I thank you
very much for your leadership, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Souder. Thank you. Mr. Ruppersberger.
Mr. Ruppersberger. First, thank you for having the hearing.
We all know the issues of having methamphetamine. I'm looking
forward to the testimony.
Mr. Boozman and Mr. Case, I recently had a conversation
with a member of the Baltimore County Police Department drug
unit, and, again, as has been stated, in the Baltimore area,
our problems are more in the heroin/cocaine area, but we have
had some incidents of methamphetamine labs. Just about a month
or so ago in another county, there was a drug bust involving a
lab.
I think a lot of the issue can be in the area of education
also. Many misinformed individuals use methamphetamine drugs
for what they consider to be practical purposes. Some users,
mainly teenage girls, take methamphetamine to lose weight.
Others use it to combat fatigue. And it is pivotal to the
welfare of these people that they receive proper education on
the effects of methamphetamine. It directly threatens the
health of not only the users of this substance but also the
residents of the communities where it is produced. It is
imperative that national programs targeting the trafficking
networks and production facilities of major meth manufacturers
are adequately funded.
In addition, Congress must reinforce its commitment to
combating the drugs, combating the domestic narcotics trade at
the local level, by fully funding the COPS grant program and
similar initiatives.
Thank you.
Mr. Souder. I'm going to ask a few questions and then we'll
see whether some of the others have questions. Let me thank you
both for your leadership on both sides of the aisle. As you can
see from this subcommittee, this is a very bipartisan
subcommittee. We've moved the ONDCP bill through, which is
pending coming to the floor in a unanimous way. We accommodate
each other, because this needs to be a bipartisan effort as we
tackle narcotics problems.
Unfortunately on the Republican side, I have seven
subcommittee chairs, I think, as members of my subcommittee,
because it is highly sought after. We're all the time having
other hearings, but they've been very aggressive in support of
these different things, and will be in and out today as well.
There were a couple of things that kind of jumped out from
your testimony when you both did so earlier. One, Mr. Boozman,
you said that 75 percent of all crime, an estimate from your
local law enforcement, is related to methamphetamine. Sometimes
we hear that in relationship to all narcotics, but I've never
heard a figure that high in any particular area related to just
meth.
Mr. Boozman. Yes. We surveyed--really called everybody we
could think of, and that was the figure that kept coming up,
which really shocked me.
The other thing that shocked me was the fact that, our labs
in all of Arkansas were 6 labs in 1994, 955 labs today--or last
year. And then growing at a 25 percent increase this year. So
what we're finding is that people that--once they become
addicted to meth tend to beat their families. They become
very--they do a lot of things that are antisocial, causing
other crime. And so that really is for real, according to the
folks that we're talking to. That is a for-real statement.
Mr. Souder. One of the things we're trying to do within our
subcommittee, among other challenges we're trying to do in the
next year, is come up with individual faces and names with some
cases. And if your law enforcement agency would help us with
the meth where we--it is just like after September 11. It was
so much more powerful when you could see the real people who
lost their lives because of terrorism. And we have 30,000 in
narcotics in the United States, and to call attention to a
problem like meth, the individual stories, individual cases,
same as Mr. Case in Hawaii; if you could help us with that, I
think we can get more support for the efforts we need for the
adequate funding levels that we need on these type of programs.
Also in talking to some of the judges in Indiana, one of
the things they said is we tend to think of it related to
violent crime and not necessarily--I wanted to ask Mr. Case in
just a minute about the 90 percent of child abuse. We don't
necessarily think of--my understanding is because it has such
an impact on people's ability to hold a job, that child support
and divorce and even in the civil courts they are seeing it,
not just in the criminal courts, as a huge problem. Have you
heard that in Arkansas as well?
Mr. Boozman. Well, I think you're right. You know, I gave
the illustration of the 18-year-old, that both of her parents
were using, you know, and she waited till she turned 18 so she
could take custody of her siblings who she was taking care of
prior to that time. So it really is very devastating to the
families, you. And that family, they were just blessed to have
somebody like that was kind of the adult in the family. But you
can see how that translates to other situations where you don't
have a strong--and so very much, so our shelters are full of
kids, not only the--I mentioned the spousal abuse but also the
neglect that comes from the children. They just don't care
about them once they get really into this thing.
Mr. Souder. In the last cycle we focused heavily--did a
series of border hearings around the United States and did a
report. We've clearly--because of ONDCP reauthorization coming
through this committee--have focused a lot on the height of
programs and a number of things related to that, the national
lab campaign, focused a lot on Colombia, but we have--while
we've had regular hearings, we're going to focus more intensely
in the next cycle on--next year on both treatment and
prevention programs.
And, Mr. Case, you alluded to several specifics in
prevention programs. I would be interested also in treatment
programs if for the written record and for potential future
hearings that we're working on, if there is anything in
particular they are doing on meth in the Drug-Free Schools
programs or in the drug treatment programs that is targeted
around that.
Often we tend to have general programs or different
approaches that work very well, PRIDE and DARE, and different
regionalized approaches, but we're also looking for examples.
And the same would be true in Arkansas, where a particular
problem is greater, of a program aimed especially at that
subgroup that is targeted toward the young people who are
heavily at risk. Often I feel our programs--and that is one of
the reasons we've had mixed success around the country in some
prevention and treatment programs, particularly in prevention,
is they are more generic and they aren't necessarily targeted
for the nuances of different markets around the United States.
That has been particularly true in urban areas where the
programs may not be targeted to the neighborhoods or the
different subgroups, but it also can be true in rural areas and
around drugs. And I wondered if you had any comments about that
and could supply us some particulars from your home State.
Mr. Case. Well, first of all, I think you're following
exactly the right train of thought and analysis, and I will
submit--and some of the written testimony that I already have
from the people in my State goes directly to the questions that
you have, that we have an outstanding U.S. attorney, Ed Kub,
who has very much taken this on. We have great prosecutors such
as Peter Carlisle on the island of Oahu who has really taken
this on. We have incredible people involved in all aspects of
the attack on ice.
The specific question that you asked I think is entirely
relevant. The programs that work best, I think we all know
this, but perhaps sometimes it gets lost in the Federal
Government/State government shuffle, is that programs that are
targeted to the listener are the programs that work best; and
so you can't have a one-size-fits-all program. You have to have
a program that has sufficient flexibility to be--to adjust to
the local--to the local potential, as you say, at-risk person.
In Hawaii, as an example in my rural areas, we have vast
differences in terms of our population constituencies. We have
ethnic differences. We have immigrant communities versus
nonimmigrant. We have lower income, higher income, and each one
of those, it seems to me, takes a tailored approach; and that
is why I wanted to talk about the program that, again, Mr.
Frank DeLima had come up with, because he's somebody that
obviously relates. That's the whole point: Can you relate? If
you just get in there and send somebody in from Washington and
say, ``Don't use ice,'' it ain't going to work. Get somebody
that they know into the schools that they relate to. It does
work.
I can give you those examples and I will find those
examples for you. But in concept, I don't think it's much
different than programs that are working very well in the rest
of the country on prevention. I think, just to repeat it, the
frightening thing about it is that those programs have to move
farther and farther down in the schools at this point, because
basically ice is chasing our kids down farther and farther. So
you've got to get to them earlier and earlier. So those
programs have to be also age-appropriate.
Mr. Souder. Ms. Sanchez, do you have any questions of the
witnesses?
Ms. Sanchez. No questions at this time. Thank you.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. Yes.
Congressman Boozman, I was just looking at this. This is a
very interesting statement, and the thing about--the statement
about the 18-year-old girl turning her parents in, I was just
wondering--and then I'm looking at this--these numbers with
regard to the meth labs. That is incredible. I mean, the
escalation.
Mr. Boozman. Yes.
Mr. Cummings. So your policemen must be going crazy. I
mean, it's just got to be--it's got to put a tremendous burden
on the police force when you see these kind of numbers.
Mr. Boozman. It really does; because the other problem with
meth is not only, you know, do you have to provide the
resources, you catch the people, but then you've got to deal
with the lab. And so that, in many cases, costs thousands of
dollars in cleanup. You do a good job, you bust the lab, and
then the county--the local municipality's faced with the
cleanup cost. And so it is a tremendous burden, it really is.
Mr. Cummings. Is there a link between when they catch these
folks and they convict them, is it normal that part of the
penalty is the cleanup of these places? I'm just curious.
Mr. Boozman. Well, it is. And yet a lot of these little
labs, you know, where they're cooking just for them and their
friends, it's not like busting a big coke dealer, you know,
where you go in and there's cash all over the place. A lot of
these are just cooking for themselves and their acquaintances,
and so they're living in poverty. It's not the typical
situation that you'd find, so it's much harder to go demand
assets to pay for the cleanup.
Mr. Cummings. And that was going to be my next question. Do
you find that--I was just wondering what percentage of these
were--of all of these labs were the mom-and-pop own-use kind of
shops.
Mr. Boozman. I couldn't tell you, you know, we're just that
as opposed to guys that were really, or girls, that were
getting after it, the super labs, you know, that sort of thing.
I'd say the majority of them are the mom and pops, though.
Mr. Cummings. To both of you, one of the things that we
have confronted in this committee--and it's a very difficult
question--is the question of when you've got people using and
then you--do you treat them, or do you arrest them? In other
words, when I went to--and I tell this story everywhere I go,
because it just hit me so hard. When I went to Mr. Souder's
district, Fort Wayne, and I listened to the drug court judges
talk about how they wanted to be in a position to rehabilitate
people and help them get back on track, but there were so many
penalties that it actually seemed to work against getting
people back on track.
Are you following me? And I'm just wondering what are you
all's feelings on that? I mean, we've got to--it's a difficult
question, because you want to make sure you do things that are
preventive. You want to punish those who may be selling. At the
same time, I think you can have some communities where you may
have maybe 5 percent of your young people basically saddled
with a record, and that in and of itself handicaps them and may
cause them to go back to do something that is in the area of
drugs, and I just was curious about what you all's feelings
were on that.
Mr. Case. Well, I think, first of all, let's distinguish
between manufacturers, dealers and users. The manufacturers, I
just don't think you have any option but to come down pretty
heavy on them, because if you can get it there, the chances are
you can get it before it goes out too far. It is a little
problematic when you're dealing with a drug that is a
combination of super labs and mom-and-pop operations. In Hawaii
it appears to be a mom-and-pop operation.
Now, those things can't go unnoticed in a community.
Communities usually know. That is why I really want to come
back to my comment earlier, which is if we can get communities
involved, they will start to get rid of ice themselves. That is
what is happening in parts of Hawaii. That is important for us
to support.
On users, I think really--and I've been through some
testimony in our State legislature in Hawaii over drug court.
The users will tell you that they need to be arrested, they
need to be brought into the system. If you simply take them out
and you offer the care of rehabilitation, without the stick of
going to prison, it is not going to work. You really need to
have both options available. You need to get them into the
criminal justice system, but then have the ability within that
system for the judges to run great programs like drug court.
Drug court works. And to get them rehabilitated. But if they
don't tow the line, there is a consequence to that.
And this isn't me talking, this isn't law enforcement
talking, it is the people that are using that are talking,
because they know how addictive this drug is and how
destructive it is to them. They need that. So you really need
them both.
Mr. Boozman. I would agree totally. You know, the
distinction between the person that is selling, you know, and
that aspect of it as opposed to the person that is caught up
into it, and we really don't do a very good job of just the
user. I mean, there needs to be a penalty to pay and things,
but at some point, you know, you need to help that person get
on with their life. And, I mean, I've had parents come in and
say, Look, you know, my daughter or my son is on drugs, you
know, we want to do something. They want to do something, but
truly, you know, in many instances there is just nothing
available.
We're not doing a very good job in that aspect in my part
of the country anyway, and it is something that I agree with
the struggle that you're going through. It is a tough problem.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you.
Mr. Souder. Ms. Norton, do you have any questions?
I want to thank you both, encourage you to look at the
community antidrug coalition programs, where we keep trying to
fund those, and we're trying to sustain the ones that we've
started, but I don't think too many of those have particularly
focused on meth. And it would be interesting to see if you
can--if you don't have one, to see if you can get it--is it the
Drug Czar's Office that makes the final selections? Yes. And
work with ONDCP to do that.
Once again, thank you for your leadership and for coming
today.
Mr. Cummings. Mr. Chairman, may I say just one quick thing?
Adding on to what the chairman just said, we in Baltimore, this
community coalition bill, we started looking at who was getting
those grants, and we discovered that here I am, the ranking
member of the subcommittee, and no--hardly any coalitions in
Baltimore had gotten grants. And so what we did, I took it upon
myself to--using Mr. Souder's example, and I think Sandy
Levin--and we began working with the Drug Czar's Office, and
they literally sent people and the deputy into our district. I
mean, she's been there three or four times to help organize our
folks so that they can actually qualify for these grants, and I
think this will--I don't know what is going to happen, but I
know we were able to submit some very good grant proposals this
time.
But I too would encourage you to take advantage of that
program. A lot of people don't even know about it. A lot of
people in Congress don't know about it.
Mr. Souder. Hawaii is farther than Baltimore, but you might
be able to convince them to come.
Mr. Case. We'll try to. Thank you very much.
Mr. Souder. Thank you very much.
If the second panel could come forward: Mr. Roger Guevara,
Chief of Operations for DEA; Mr. John Horton, Associate Deputy
Director for ONDCP. And if you'll remain standing.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Souder. Let the record show that both witnesses
responded in the affirmative.
Mr. Guevara, it's good to have you back, look forward to
your testimony today. Go ahead.
STATEMENTS OF ROGER E. GUEVARA, CHIEF OF OPERATIONS, DRUG
ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION; AND JOHN C. HORTON, ASSOCIATE
DEPUTY DIRECTOR FOR STATE AND LOCAL AFFAIRS, OFFICE OF NATIONAL
DRUG CONTROL POLICY
Mr. Guevara. Thank you, sir. I'm delighted to be back. And
good morning to you, chairman, and Ranking Member Cummings,
distinguished members of this subcommittee.
First let me express my sincere appreciation for your
ongoing support of this very important issue and allowing us to
face this methamphetamine problem in America.
It's also a privilege for me today to appear before you on
this panel with John Horton of the ONDCP, an agency with which
DEA has an outstanding relationship.
Mr. Chairman, the rise and spread of methamphetamine
traffic and abuse in America has created unique and difficult
challenges for our country. In 2001, the National Household
Survey on Drug Abuse reports that over 9 million Americans have
tried methamphetamine on at least one occasion during their
lifetime. Even more disturbing, in 2002 more than 2,000
children were present during the seizure of clandestine
laboratories; 22 of those children were injured, and 2 were
killed.
In 2002 the El Paso Intelligence Center reported the
seizure of over 9,000 meth labs, of which 191 were super labs,
those having the capacity to produce over 10 pounds of
methamphetamine or more per production cycle.
Unlike more traditional drugs of abuse such as heroin,
cocaine and marijuana, methamphetamine presents some unusual
challenges. First, it's a synthetic, relying on no harvested
crops in its manufacture. Second, it has hit rural areas in the
United States particularly hard, areas where resources to
combat this drug are often the least available. And third,
methamphetamine is a particularly intense stimulant, highly
addictive and overwhelmingly dangerous. The combination of
these factors require a multifaceted response.
To attack this national crisis, DEA has taken a proactive
and aggressive stance. Since 2000, DEA has dismantled or
disrupted over 60 priority target methamphetamine
organizations. In 2001, DEA offices across the country
conducted 250 methamphetamine investigations reflecting 19
percent of DEA's OCDETF cases. This year DEA has initiated 87
methamphetamine OCDETF investigations which represent almost 25
percent of DEA's OCDETF cases.
As with many of DEA's cases, these meth investigations are
being worked with our Federal, State and local law enforcement
partners across the country.
DEA estimates that Mexico-based organizations produce and
distribute the majority of the methamphetamine in the United
States. DEA intelligence and enforcement initiatives have
focused on identifying, targeting, and dismantling the Mexican
trafficking organizations based both in Mexico and in
California. To combat these organizations, DEA looks not only
toward the methamphetamine manufacturers and distributors, but
also toward those groups who supply the precursor chemicals
necessary for its production.
One such example, Operation Mountain Express III, targeted
individuals responsible for the smuggling of pseudoephedrine of
Canadian origin into the United States with the intent of
providing it to Mexican-based organizations operating super
labs in the western United States.
This operation resulted in arrest of 136 defendants, the
seizure of over 35 tons of Canadian-origin pseudoephedrine, 179
pounds of methamphetamine, six methamphetamine labs, and $4\1/
2\ million in assets.
DEA is also focusing its investigative efforts to fight the
spread of small toxic labs. While these labs produce a small
percentage of the methamphetamine in the United States, they
account for approximately 95 percent of the total lab seizures
and create significant environmental problems.
I'd like to draw your attention to the map to your right.
That is a map of our United States, and the map illustrates the
total of all methamphetamine clandestine laboratory incidents,
including the labs that were seized, super labs, dump sites and
locations where chemicals, glass, and equipment were located
during calendar year 2002.
Drawing your attention to California, for example, there
were 1,724 labs seized in that State. Of that amount, 159 of
those labs were super labs.
In drawing your attention to the middle of our map as an
example, the State of Missouri reported the seizure of 2,747
small toxic labs.
In addition to enforcement, DEA offers a robust training
program for DEA special agents as well as State and local
officers. DEA provides basic and advanced clandestine
laboratory safety training for law enforcement officers at the
DEA Clandestine Laboratory Training Facility in Quantico, VA.
Since 1997, DEA has provided clandestine laboratory training
and equipment to over 9,300 law enforcement officers across the
country. And since 1999, DEA has trained approximately 69,000
students in clandestine laboratory awareness.
DEA also addresses the trafficking of methamphetamine
through aggressive chemical programs, including voluntary,
regulatory, and legislative means. And since 1999, DEA has
increased its chemical investigations by approximately 400
percent.
And because chemicals associated with meth labs create
environmental hazards and enormous cleanup costs, DEA is
assisting State and local law enforcement in the cleanup of the
hazardous waste that is generated.
In conclusion, DEA recognizes that methamphetamine must be
attacked on several fronts in order to effectively combat this
epidemic. DEA will continue its aggressive enforcement and
intelligence initiatives geared toward identifying, targeting,
and dismantling these organizations who spread misery and false
hope in our country.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be happy to respond to any
questions you may have.
Mr. Souder. Thank you. And as I said earlier, your full
statement will be inserted in the record and any additional
materials that you want to submit.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Guevara follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Mr. Horton.
Mr. Horton. Chairman Souder, Ranking Member Cummings, and
distinguished members of the subcommittee, I'm glad for the
opportunity to be here today to testify about the problem of
methamphetamine in America. I have prepared a written statement
and would ask that it be entered into the record.
We know what it takes to get drug use in this country to go
down. We've seen declines in drug use before; for example, in
the decline in cocaine use since 1979, and we know why it
happened. We aim to replicate that success with all drugs,
including methamphetamine.
You know that our national drug control strategy focuses on
reducing both supply and demand of drugs through prevention,
treatment, and market disruption. I will briefly review how
these priorities apply to methamphetamine.
It is important at the outset to recognize that
methamphetamine poses a different sort of threat to America
than marijuana, cocaine or heroin. On the one hand, the
nationwide use of methamphetamine in America is still lower
than marijuana and cocaine, and we know that the dispersion of
the geographical methamphetamine threat is not uniform. In the
eastern part of our Nation, it remains comparatively low; but
the threat is significantly higher, for example, in the West
and the Midwest.
Wherever meth does exist it causes problems that, frankly,
just are not associated, at least to the same degree, with
marijuana, cocaine or heroin--toxic remnants from meth labs,
children neglected with burns and other serious injuries, and
associated criminal activity like car and identity theft.
The immediate harm caused by methamphetamine in our
communities sometimes tempts us to focus only on short-term
responses. Make no mistake, cleaning up meth labs, providing
meth users with immediate treatment, and putting meth cooks in
prison are all important, and law enforcement and our treatment
providers have to do these things.
But what the American people really want to know more than
anything else about our anti-drug efforts is this: Are we
actually making a long-term difference or are we just treading
water? Our long-term goals are to slash demand, to prevent and
punish import and production, and to stop the meth threat from
moving east. For that reason, I want to briefly touch on some
of the aspects of our long-term strategy.
First, economics tell us that demand is the key driver of
the market for methamphetamine, and that is why initiatives
like Access to Recovery, the President's treatment initiative,
are so important. While not focused on methamphetamine alone,
we know that early intervention with methamphetamine users
works. We know the drug courts, for example, help people
recover from drug addiction. And stopping initiation of
methamphetamine is an important component of our long-term
approach to reducing methamphetamine demand.
Second, by our best estimates, at least 80 percent and
possibly up to 95 percent of the methamphetamine in this
country is produced at super labs by Mexican criminal drug
traffickers, both inside and outside of our borders. This isn't
to say that the smaller labs you see in your home districts are
not a threat, but I will get to that in a minute.
My point is if we are going to cut the amount of
methamphetamine circulating in our Nation, we have to go after
the major drug trafficking organizations. Federal law
enforcement, including the HIDTA program, DEA, U.S. attorneys
and OCDETF, plays an important role in targeting major
identifiable drug trafficking organizations that make and sell
not only methamphetamine, but other drugs as well.
That is why our priority targeting initiative is
particularly relevant to methamphetamine. Drug trafficking
organizations are market players. They are flexible, and they
respond to market conditions, including the demand for
methamphetamine. While we reduce demand, we have to disrupt the
market and dismantle the organizations.
Third, I recognize that despite producing no more than 20
percent at our best estimates of methamphetamine in our Nation,
the small toxic labs are in fact a significant threat to the
communities in which they are found and they have both short
and long-term impacts.
Somewhere in the range of 96 percent of all methamphetamine
labs in America are discovered, investigated and processed by
our State and local law enforcement agencies. That is why
programs such as the COPS initiative to support State and local
law enforcement are an important part of our Federal efforts.
In addition to direct support, the cooperative efforts of
Federal law enforcement with State and local agencies play an
important role.
My written testimony further outlines the methamphetamine
threat, as well as the actions and strategies taken by a host
of Federal agencies or programs, including DEA, OCDETF, HIDTA
and the COPS Program on methamphetamine.
At the appropriate time, I will be happy to answer any
further questions the committee may have. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Horton follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Let me start with a couple of basic
informational things to try to figure out this array of
statistics in front of us.
The statistics on the chart from DEA, are those incidents
reported to EPIC or what are those?
Mr. Guevara. That is exactly it, Mr. Chairman. This is data
that is reported as a result of State and local agencies to the
El Paso Intelligence Center, and as a result of the
participation of the various law enforcement agencies, we were
able to compile this numeric picture of where all the small
toxic labs have been located for calendar year 2002 and where
all the major Mexican influence laboratories were also located.
Mr. Souder. So, for example, Mr. Boozman just testified
that there were 955 in Arkansas. That has 390. That would be
the difference in the State not reporting to EPIC, some
counties? Not all incidents would go through that system?
Mr. Guevara. That is entirely a probable reason.
Mr. Souder. And the problem that this presents is the
chart, while it is indicative of trends, may be somewhat off
depending on how a local area responds and what the
relationships are in reporting.
Sometimes, like Missouri, I know Congresswoman Emerson has
been raising for a number of years and Congressman Hulshof and
others, because clearly Missouri had an extremely high number.
The red numbers in the super labs, and I want to make sure
we sort this through, you both said that was the bulk, and you
are saying 70 percent of all meth comes from in effect those
red numbers?
Mr. Guevara. Yes, sir, that would be the conclusion. That
is where those labs are located. As you can see from the map, a
large majority of those are in California. I would say again
that our statistics are representative only of labs reported to
EPIC and that there may be a number of labs that are not
reported. So I would have to offer this as a conservative view
of perhaps what the actual problem is.
Mr. Souder. In reporting, just so we have this in the
record, as I understand EPIC, as well as other regional
reporting systems, there is a fee, and most State Police
systems are hooked through, maybe Mr. Horton, you could
elaborate on this too, either of you, in some counties, like my
bigger counties are hooked through EPIC, but some of the
smaller ones are not.
I am also wondering whether there is a reporting thing.
Part of the difference may be if it is a person producing only
for himself and his family, that isn't necessarily perceived as
reportable. If he is selling to three people, that might be
small. If he is selling in the community, that would definitely
likely hit the EPIC system.
Wouldn't this also partly depend on whether they have a
drug task force in your area, or some of those kinds of
questions that lead to reporting differences?
Mr. Horton. I would be happy to take an initial shot at
that. I think part of the challenge with respect to keeping
accurate data on methamphetamine lab seizures is exactly the
facts you suggested, the fact that some jurisdictions
considering manufacturing, that specific act, to be defined
differently. Some States you may find a small lab in the back
of a vehicle and there may be an arrest for methamphetamine
manufacturing, but it may not result in a conviction for that
specific crime and some localities may in fact consider
methamphetamine manufacturing to be defined differently from
other localities as well.
Mr. Guevara. That is correct, and that is one of the
dilemmas. What may be a lab to one jurisdiction may not
constitute a lab in another.
Mr. Souder. It is really important so Congress does not
make a mistake, because every Congressman here, particularly
from the Great Lakes region west, is feeling pressure on meth,
is hearing and seeing the same headlines in their district, and
that is we see far more headlines on meth and meth busts than
we do anything else.
It is important, what you are saying here, that is partly
because of what I tried to communicate, which is very hard to
communicate, is often the meth lab they are busting is in one
house covering one person, and it may take 100 of those busts
to equal one larger dealer bust that we are getting on other
narcotics or even a super lab or a meth precursor distribution,
is that not correct?
This is a political problem, because if you see the number
of headlines, the community starts to think they have a bigger
meth problem proportionately than it is actually there, and you
could also misallocate funds chasing the smaller numbers.
The other thing is, I know, Mr. Horton, you had in your
written testimony, I think it is important to get on the
record, what is meth exactly in the sense of how is it made,
and then you also I think, Mr. Guevara, in your testimony
mentioned the Internet, that some of the challenges here is,
and maybe I will briefly state it and then you elaborate a
little, that since this is a synthetic that you can
manufacture, and as you said in your written testimony, you can
increasingly find these merchants of death who advertise on the
Internet and elsewhere, you can pick up for small manufacturing
at a pharmacy. You would not necessarily need a precursor
dealer. And much like OxyContin is legal in some things and
ephedrine is not necessarily legal, it is large quantities.
But the big problem is the large quantities that are coming
in and for the mass production, and unless we look at the
trafficking organizations for that, unless we look at the
trafficking organizations like the big busts in the Great Lakes
region that would fuel thousands of these things, we could be
misdirected in chasing down individual homes, knocking to see
if they are cooking something that night.
Mr. Guevara. That is in fact part of the challenge or
dilemma, if I can characterize it that way, is that for the
small toxic labs, an individual who wants to set up a lab or
let's say process the precursors into an ounce of
methamphetamine for the local area consumption, he can actually
acquire all that he needs and requires for that production
through the local business community, whether it is the
hardware, whether it is any number of legitimate businesses
that he can acquire these.
He can then turn around and, in this scenario you
described, whether it is his bathtub or in a trailer or in a
car, he can actually then convert using these precursors and an
initial investment of about $100 into an ounce of
methamphetamine that he can turn around and sell amongst his
circle for a profit of at least $1,000.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. Yes. Mr. Horton, I want you to talk very
briefly, in your written testimony you talk about production of
meth in public parks and public land. Can you talk about that
for a moment?
Mr. Horton. Certainly. Thank you very much for that
question, Congressman Cummings, because it appears to be a
growing problem that not only our federally protected lands,
but other public lands, whether it be our national forest
lands, whether it be our national parks, that not only the
growing of marijuana, but the production of methamphetamine
sometimes approaching the super lab limit, but often the
smaller toxic labs, is done by individuals who want to for very
obvious reasons hide the fact that they are producing
methamphetamine and for also understandable reasons not do it
in their own home and their own car and to not be found.
Later this summer the Director of the Office of National
Drug Control Policy, John Walters, will be going to
Bakersfield, CA, where he will be highlighting the problem of
the production of methamphetamine and also the growing of
marijuana on public lands. In response to this problem, it is
important from the Federal perspective that we take a
cooperative approach to it, because if it is on Federal public
lands, the State and local agencies, of course, have less
involvement in that, but then it raises the question of how the
DEA can be best involved, our Federal prosecutors, and
sometimes the Departments of Interior or Agriculture and their
component agencies.
At the Office of National Drug Control Policy, we hold a
task force meeting about every 6 or 8 weeks with these
departments where we review the threat on public lands and how
to best respond to it. But the fact of the matter is that these
methamphetamine labs, even when they are small, pose a threat
not only with the methamphetamine that they produce, but they
pose an environmental threat as well, because of the great
toxicity of the ingredients used in methamphetamine, and when
they are left behind it damages that environment that they are
left behind in.
Mr. Cummings. You also talk about pseudoephedrine, and how
do you pronounce that?
Mr. Horton. Pseudoephedrine.
Mr. Cummings. In Canada. I am wondering what kind of
discussions have we had with the Canadian Government, if any,
with regard to this problem?
Mr. Horton. Thank you for that question as well,
Congressman. I would, after I present the answer, would
certainly welcome any further comments from my colleague from
the Drug Enforcement Administration on that, because they have
also played an important role.
There are three or four, maybe even up to five methods of
producing methamphetamine, but the most common ingredient in
methamphetamine overall is pseudoephedrine, for some detailed
chemical reasons that I will not go into.
Whether the manufacturer is running a super lab or whether
they are running a small toxic lab where they are only
producing for themselves, pseudoephedrine is an ingredient, and
speaking as a former prosecutor who handled narcotics cases, if
we saw somebody with large amounts of pseudoephedrine we often
knew why they had it.
With respect to the super labs that constitute, the figures
go from 70 up into the 90 percent range by estimates of the
methamphetamine that is circulating in this country, one of the
great concerns we have had is the fact that many of these super
labs get bulk quantities of pseudoephedrine either from or
through Canada. We have worked with the Canadian Government to
highlight this threat.
In January of this year, the Canadian Government imposed
some new rules and regulations pertaining to pseudoephedrine.
We view that as an improvement. We don't think they go far
enough. We think there is still some room for progress there,
and we are going to continue to work with the Canadian
Government to make sure these large quantities of
pseudoephedrine are not as readily available. Because, frankly,
if we can cutoff the ingredients used in methamphetamine, we
can break the back of the market.
Mr. Cummings. Do you have anything on that?
Mr. Guevara. Sir, if I may add just a note on those two
points, pseudoephedrine is the single most important precursor
in the manufacture of methamphetamine by the large super labs.
Were we able to check that availability, we would most
definitely make an impact into the super labs. That is without
a doubt.
Our initiatives that we have pursued jointly with the RCMP
have in fact indicated that the large amounts of seizures and
arrests that have occurred surrounding the investigation of
this chemical has resulted in an increase in the price of
sudafed in the United States. So that is an indicator that our
tactics in law enforcement are working.
Finally, I would like to add another note on your question
on the national forestry. DEA's experience has been that we
frequently or most often find these public lands being used as
dump sites. Missouri, for example, the Mark Twain National
Forest has a large percentage of these numbers. I would also
like to add that DEA has trained several forest land personnel
in equipping them to safely dismantle these labs.
Mr. Cummings. Tell me something. This may have been
answered earlier in testimony, but as I look at these numbers
on the chart, it is clear you have the concentration going
west. I was wondering, why is that? Is that just because that
is where they started and it is just slowly moving?
Mr. Guevara. If I may, sir, the stats that are on the
board, DEA, we stat all the labs, and any discrepancy coming is
from the lack of reporting to EPIC. If there is actually more
and EPIC is not made aware of it, that would not be reported.
But as to the question of why the concentration in
California, and I would characterize it as the Southwest, the
fact is that is where demographically a large portion of the
Mexican-American/Mexican population has settled, and going back
historically to the early 1990's, prior to which
methamphetamine production was largely controlled by the outlaw
motorcycle gangs, what occurred there was that the Mexicans had
access to the chemicals, to the pseudoephedrine and other
things like that, pseudoephedrine being key, they actually had
access to these chemicals in Mexico and easily acquired them
because they are easily found.
What occurred is they somehow connect with the outlaw
motorcycle gangs to the extent they started supplying these
precursors. Then of course being the shrewd businessmen they
are, they decided we can make it ourselves, and that is exactly
what they did. The net result was they were able to produce it
in vastly larger quantities at a higher purity, and back to the
early nineties when the outlaw motorcycle gangs, the Hell's
Angels I would say, were selling a pound of methamphetamine for
$10,000, the Mexicans were able to produce more, better, and
sell it for $6,000 a pound. So, of course, they moved those
criminal influences to the side. They remain engaged, but more
in their own circles. They cannot clearly compete with the
Mexicans.
What has occurred there, that is where it started in
California, and then as we moved eastward and as the
demographics changed and many immigrant hard-working, well-
intended Mexicans moved across our country, along with them, of
course, comes that small percentage of criminals who are using
that community either to hide in or to use to transport and
eventually distribute this methamphetamine throughout the
country, and it continues to move.
Mr. Cummings. I don't have anything else.
Mr. Souder. It is really interesting as you look at your
map in particular, because a couple of things that become
apparent. I know from working with this issue and also my own
State and being on the National Parks Committee and stuff, part
of it is in the West you have the places for the super labs,
the parks and particularly the forest lands, to some degree
BLM.
In Indiana, I would bet 100 percent that super lab was down
in Hoosier National Forest. That is where the big ones are. We
only have one national forest, and bang, that is where they go.
You have it coming up from Mexico, in the State of
Washington and coming through Detroit, you can see Missouri is
getting hit from both directions, because Canada and Mexico are
the biggest places the precursors are coming from, they are
hitting in those zones.
I think it is really important in the verbal record as well
as the written testimony, in Mr. Guevara's testimony, where you
referred to a couple of things. One is, for example, in picking
up 22 million pseudoephedrine tablets in Panama and Laredo, we
are talking about huge quantities as opposed to smaller
quantities.
Also the investigation in Canada, where six executives from
three Canadian chemical companies were targeted and sold bulk
quantities, if we can get control of the bulk portion, we will
be better able then to tackle the regional problems we have in
each of our home States.
I also thought that in your written testimony you said the
size of the lab does not matter when it comes to the danger
level involved. In other words, cases of child abuse, of
cleanup, when law enforcement comes in, you are saying the size
of the lab is not as critical, partly because they may not even
know how to manage the chemicals as well or dispose of them as
a super lab, or not disguise it as well. What does that
statement mean?
Mr. Guevara. One of the considerations is the toxic waste
that is generated behind the production. Generally speaking,
there is a ratio of about one to five. For every 1 pound of
methamphetamine that is produced, there is 5 pounds of toxic
hazardous waste that is produced. Of course, they will do
whatever they want with that, whether it is just throw it out
in the frontyard or flush it down the toilet, literally.
So this toxic waste becomes extremely hazardous, and DEA is
responsible for providing that assistance to the State and
local, and it does so through the funding of the COPS Program.
DEA is at the forefront in working with our State and local
counterparts. Today, as we speak, they are trying to become
creative and design new ways to bring the costs down, because
it is a costly project.
Mr. Souder. We have four votes, which is going to take a
half-hour. So I am going to suspend. I want to say one other
thing. First I want to acknowledge that we have Congressman
Baird with us, who has been a leader in the Meth Caucus. We
have several witnesses from his area I will let him introduce
in the next panel.
I will also say we are going to do a multi-committee
hearing in California looking in particular at a number of the
parks there. This subcommittee does all narcotics. We also have
jurisdiction over the parks. Mr. Ose's subcommittee has
jurisdiction over the forests. We are also going to do it in
conjunction with the Resource Committee and the Parks Committee
there, because we have had several huge incidents there in both
Sequoia and up in the Sierra National Forest. So we are going
to focus a little bit on some of these super labs and the
problems there. Of course, Olympic National Park.
It is not just meth, it is also the synthetic marijuana
being produced that is coming through in the transit zones in
these park areas as we learned from Big Bend at our hearing in
Texas and Organ Pipe in Arizona.
Mr. Baird, do you have any quick questions?
Mr. Baird. I appreciate the opportunity to be here. The
only thing I would say in response to Mr. Cummings' statement,
I formerly was a clinical psychologist and treated folks. I
think the key difference between methamphetamine and some of
the other drugs is you can manufacture it. So you get a pyramid
kind of marketing and manufacturing scheme, where if you can
turn somebody else on to using, they can go on the Internet,
figure out how to make it, go buy some pseudoephedrine, get
some kids to buy large quantities, they can manufacture it.
I don't mean to be pejorative here, but it is somewhat like
Amway, in the sense you can create a host of sub-users, and if
you can provide the precursor, what happens is once it gets
entrenched, you now get a distribution network that expands
out.
It is much different from, say, cocaine or heroin where you
have to have a central distribution network and there are often
gangs, etc. You can make your own methamphetamine from things
you can buy in the store. So once it gets entrenched, even if
the other areas show lower numbers right now, we have just got
a little more history. But when you have a drug that can grow
exponentially and can be manufactured at home, you can expect,
I believe, frankly, that in other areas meth will begin to
supplant crack and some other things just because of the way it
can be made and distributed, which is why it is so deadly and
why we work so hard in the caucus, and our law enforcement
officers will tell us more about that.
Mr. Souder. Thank you both for your leadership. I am sure
we will have followup questions. With that, the subcommittee
stands in recess.
[Recess.]
Mr. Souder. The subcommittee is called back to order. I'd
like to now swear in the witnesses on the third panel. Will you
raise your right hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Souder. Let the record show that the witnesses all
responded in the affirmative.
I now yield to Chairman Ose.
Mr. Ose. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure to be
here today. We have joining us on this panel a representative
from the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department who has a long
and illustrious career, and it is an honor to get the
opportunity to introduce him for the purposes of testimony.
Bill Kelly is a captain with the Sacramento County
Sheriff's Department, and he's been with the county 24 years.
Prior to that, he served his country as a member of the Marine
Corps. He has a law degree. His experience with the county is
not strictly limited to narcotics, but he has had a wide
exposure and experience to all of the various requirements of
local law enforcement, and I just want to step through some of
those.
He served as a patrol deputy. He has also been involved in
the operations side of the department. He was one of the select
few that is chosen to serve on our county's SWAT team, and he
has now and for the past period of time been the chief of the
Sacramento County Sheriff's Department Narcotics Division. He
has a good background, a solid record of performance. His
testimony, I'm sure, he'll share with us. He does us all a
favor, Mr. Chairman, of speaking plainly and directly to the
issues we face on methamphetamine, in particular.
I'm pleased to welcome to our witness table Captain Bill
Kelly.
STATEMENT OF BILL KELLY, CAPTAIN, SACRAMENTO COUNTRY SHERIFF'S
DEPARTMENT, NARCOTICS DIVISION
Captain Kelly. Thank you very much, Congressman. I hope I
can live up to that introduction. Thank you very much for
having me here today, and on behalf of Sheriff Lou Blanas, the
Sacramento County sheriff, he sends his regards to this
committee and to Congressman Ose.
Good morning. I'm Bill Kelly. I'm a captain with the
Sacramento County Sheriff's Department. I command the Sheriff's
Department Narcotics Unit. I'm also the director of the
California Multijurisdictional Methamphetamine Program.
In September 2001, specifically, the State of California
recognized that there was a need to address the methamphetamine
problem from a local level. The legislature and the Governor,
upon lobbying by the sheriffs, committed $60 million over a 3-
year period to develop frontline law enforcement's effort to
combat methamphetamine production and distribution, and we
created the CALMET program.
Essentially what that did is, we paid some personnel costs
from the State level; whereas, the HIDTA did not pay the
personnel costs which run about 80 to 85 percent of any
program. Personnel costs are just downright expensive. We can
buy equipment; it is always nice to be able to get the money
for equipment, but it's the personnel money and the personnel
costs for frontline law enforcement that's really important to
any local agency.
Local area law enforcement are pretty much charged with the
principles of education enforcement and treatment within the
narcotics community. We don't do much in the treatment program
other than enforce the laws and introduce those who are
arrested into the court system whereby, for the users, the drug
courts have come into focus, and they assist these individuals
who are the users in getting back their lives.
Law enforcement in Sacramento County has found that there's
a huge distribution level and production level of
methamphetamine, specifically because part of our county is
rural and because we have major roadways and thoroughfares that
transition the States, specifically the I-5 corridor. I'll
bring to light a couple of different recent investigations that
we had that should focus a little bit on the production and the
distribution of methamphetamine within the State of California.
We recently had one case, just last week, where we took
down a super lab just north of Sacramento County. There were 17
pounds of methamphetamine destined for Atlanta, GA. So not only
did we produce the methamphetamine in the State of California,
but we're also a major source of exportation of it.
We've also found that it's a polydrug culture in a lot of
senses. When they can't distribute their methamphetamine, they
will distribute other narcotics. In two of our most recent
methamphetamine investigations, we seized 115 pounds of cocaine
and 144 pounds of cocaine in addition to substantial numbers of
methamphetamine. So it's a polydrug culture.
These people are in business to distribute narcotics. The
large-scale organizations, the drug trafficking organizations,
they are not users. They market their product to society; they
don't use it themselves. They are in the business of marketing
and making money.
Local law enforcement, specifically at the city and at the
county, are the law enforcement most prepared and most
identified to address a specific need within a community.
There's always inherent problems in policing a community. There
are always going to be burglaries. You're always going to have
robberies. You're always going to have vandalism, but when you
get a product such as methamphetamine that is produced in large
quantities and distributed throughout the United States, local
law enforcement needs assistance; and that's why we appreciate
the House's consideration of the bill in making available,
hopefully, funds to local law enforcement to assist them in
addressing these problems in the future.
Again, on behalf of Sheriff Blanas, I thank you.
[The prepared statement of Captain Kelly follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Well, thank you very much for your testimony.
I'm going to go ahead and introduce the next two witnesses.
I'll let Congressman Baird, if he gets here, then sing your
praises in more detail, but we appreciate very much Chief
Martinek from the Vancouver, WA, Police Department and Sheriff
Lucas from Clark County, which is Vancouver--west, is it,
toward the coast; would that be Clark, or north?
Sheriff Lucas. Actually east and west and north.
Mr. Souder. It's all around, and Vancouver is the center of
that county. Does it go to Longview?
Sheriff Lucas. Vancouver sits in the lower southwest corner
of the county.
Mr. Souder. But we thank both of you. We've heard about the
Washington State problem and are looking forward to hearing
your testimony. And then we'll ask questions and draw it out a
little further.
Chief Martinek.
STATEMENT OF BRIAN J. MARTINEK, CHIEF, VANCOUVER, WA, POLICE
DEPARTMENT
Chief Martinek. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
committee. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you. I am
Chief Brian Martinek, the chief of the Vancouver Police
Department, as our mayor likes to refer to it, America's
Vancouver. And we don't want to be confused with Canada's
Vancouver, but with the 2010 Olympics coming, come to our
Vancouver anyway. Spend your money there.
But anyway, it's indeed a pleasure to be here and an honor
to be able to testify on what is a major problem in our area,
and across the United States obviously, after hearing some of
the testimony. Methamphetamine, unlike most common illegal
drugs that are abused like heroin and marijuana and cocaine,
has a negative impact on our society in every stage of its
existence, from its manufacture to its distribution.
And to the use of it, it is different in that fashion; and
a negative impact of this drug is that it has tentacles that
can often and do often reach every level of our society. And I
think that's the important focus for all of us to remember when
we're trying to address this problem. It is multidimensional,
as the captain was pointing out. There are more things that--
related to this drug in terms of its negative impact than with
most of the others.
The drug's use, distribution and manufacturing is a problem
with multidimensional consequences affecting men, women and
children. It knows no cultural or ethnic boundaries. It affects
people. Businesses, teachers, homeless, doctors, lawyers, the
justice system, police and public officials are all dealing
with its effects. Whether we are using it or not, it affects
us, and I think that's what I've heard consistently with every
group that has talked here today; and what I would hope we
would look at is a multidimensional strategy for ridding our
area of it.
In my 18-year career, including 6 years specifically
assigned to a drug task force, starting in the early 1990's, we
saw methamphetamine as a predominantly domestically controlled
drug that has now in a very short period of time taken on an
international competitive nature. This drug is indeed an
internationally marketed drug and supplied drug.
As a law enforcement officer, I've seen the drug involved
in every part of the law enforcement field: murder
investigations over meth lab businesses, where one person was
killed simply because of a marketing difference and how they
were going to market and sell their product; businesses
affected by the direct result of employees being on
methamphetamine and using it while they're working; labs in
apartments and hotels and vehicles, which affects every part of
society in that labs blow up. You don't have scientists running
these labs; you have people who don't know what they're doing
that are oftentimes high when they're doing it.
Burglary, fraud, theft and other property crimes
skyrocketing is a direct result of sometimes organized groups
of methamphetamine-connected criminals.
I think it was interesting to hear the captain talk about
the multitude of different activities that these groups take
on. It is not just drug trafficking. Organized groups in our
area and our region--and I know that this is happening on the
West Coast--are organizing people who are using methamphetamine
to steal people's identities and use that information to make
money; and eventually that money is put back into the
methamphetamine purchasing part of the business.
Theft and other computer technology-aided and -enhanced
crimes are often connected with our search warrants and arrest
of people who we serve search warrants on for methamphetamine.
Seventy-five percent of the Clark County prosecutor's felony
drug case load involves methamphetamine. A major portion of the
people booked into the Clark County jail have tested positive
for methamphetamine. Police records show a 32 percent rise in
the use of methamphetamine in our area over only a 3-year
period.
I just had a conversation with one of our mental health
professionals who told me that there's a significant rise of
assaults on medical staff, including mental health workers in
emergency rooms across our region, directly attributed to
methamphetamine users who are going through violent phases of
the use of the drug.
Its spread has gone from a predominantly West Coast
presence to being prevalent around the United States, including
the Midwestern sections and parts of the East and southern
United States. It is quickly becoming the No. 1 drug problem in
the United States because of its multidimensional effects; and
I would say that if you don't have it in your State or you
don't have a significant problem, you will, and that is based
on experience from talking to other chiefs across the United
States.
One of the focuses I hope this group will take, and this
legislation can help address, is the environmental concerns
because of the chemicals that are dumped into the sewers, the
watersheds and the streams of our areas. It is a fact that the
end waste product of meth labs is responsible for contaminating
not only homes and businesses and apartments and motels, but
it's also being dumped into our wildlands, into our public
parks and into our national parks. We find on a regular basis
meth labs, small and large, that have been dumped into
different areas of our region.
The average cost of a meth lab cleanup for law enforcement
in our area is between $5,000 to $10,000. I need to point out
that's the law enforcement cost for cleanup. The next cleanup
process is that of the owner of the residence, and I heard some
talk about judges assigning the suspects a task to pay back for
what they cause in damage. That rarely happens. Without DEA
funding and training, we would be severely underbudgeted for
the cleanup alone.
The other effect that it has, though, is that the owners--
in most States the owners of the property where the meth lab
was at are responsible for the eventual cleanup of that
residence before anyone can move back into it legally. There is
a big impact on owners. Last year in the State--or in 2001, in
the State of Washington, we had over 1,300 meth labs. Last year
as you saw from the DEA's numbers, we had 1,450 meth labs.
We absolutely need a multi-disciplinary approach to the
strategy for the elimination of methamphetamine from our
communities. Prevention, interdiction, treatment and a strong
chemical precursor control and law enforcement legislation is
needed. We need to wrap up our ability to control precursors,
both in the United States and coming from outside of the United
States as we heard in the example from Canada, before we are
going to get control of these large super lab type
organizations that are running that methamphetamine up the
coast.
We share the I-5 corridor with the Captain's agency, and I
think that is one of the reasons, in answer to the question of
why there are so many high numbers on the west end of the
United States and then going across to the Midwest.
The U.S. Government can help local communities most by
supporting and maintaining appropriate funding, legislation and
personnel support to our mission. In our southwest region of
Washington State, we have no U.S. Attorney's Office or Federal
Court, and we don't have a strong presence and staffing of law
enforcement Federal agents there, because we are in between
sort of a barrier with the Portland District U.S. Attorney's
Office and the Seattle district being 130 miles away from us.
It causes some logistical issues that do not always get us the
kind of law enforcement assistance that we need.
Having said that, the Western U.S. attorney, John McKay, is
doing a great job of starting to improve that process for us,
but it is something where we do need some very, very much long
overdue help from the Federal side in terms of law enforcement.
We are not going to win the war against this epidemic or
any drug epidemic without the cooperation and collaboration of
the Federal drug system. That is just the fact of the way this
system works up, especially when you are trying to go to the
top end distributors. Lack of Federal courts in our area has
been a problem for us.
We, however, do really appreciate the support we have had
in terms of the Byrne grants and HIDTA funds and recently we
were awarded $225,000 out of the Department of Justice COPS
fund to do a methamphetamine research and strategy project that
would give us a better idea of what the effects are in our
local community. Vancouver has 150,000 people. Clark County
altogether has about 350,000.
We want to involve the community as we do in other areas of
law enforcement so that they are a part of coming up with the
solution, because, again, in closing, to make any strategy
work, it has to be a multi-dimensional, multi-disciplinary
approach, that includes prevention, that includes treatment,
legislation and enforcement, and the community has to be a part
of that strategy, or it is not going to work. It will not be
safe for people to come and help us unless we have the leaders
of the community, both formal and informal, speaking up and
being part of the solution.
So I thank you again for this opportunity. If there is
anything else we can do, we would be glad to be part of it.
Mr. Souder. Thank you very much.
Sheriff Lucas.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Martinek follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1423.062
Sheriff Lucas. Chairman Souder, members of the committee, I
am Garry Lucas. I am the sheriff of Clark County, beginning my
fourth term and 36th year of law enforcement service with the
county of Clark.
Our methamphetamine problem began in the mid-1970's, so we
have been wrestling with this issue for some time. In a recent
series of four articles by the Vancouver Columbian on the
methamphetamine problem in Clark County, one official described
it as being of epidemic proportion. The abuse of
methamphetamine is growing rapidly within our communities and
across the country. If it is not a problem in your community
now, it will be.
Methamphetamine abuse is pernicious. It is extremely
addictive, relatively easy to produce, gives an intense, long-
lasting high, and is cheaper on the street than heroin or
cocaine. The chemicals used to produce meth are poisonous,
explosive and environmentally hazardous. Users coming down from
this intense high suffer from delusions, depression and
paranoia. They often react violently and unpredictably to those
around them.
Methamphetamine's effects slice across the fabric of our
community. Individuals using meth suffer physical and mental
dissipation, families disintegrate in its wake. We found
toddlers sleeping and playing in direct proximity to toxic
clandestine meth labs.
Children in our grade schools have been caught with
methamphetamine in their possession. Neighborhoods are alarmed
by meth cooks, dealers and their customers. Our wilderness
areas and campgrounds have been defaced by meth cooks dumping
their toxic wastes. Rental owners have had their properties
devalued by the results of meth labs in their units. Rental
houses where meth labs have been producing have been demolished
because it was simply too costly to renovate the property. Our
community's quality of life has been degraded by
methamphetamine production and use.
The costs of dealing with the problem are immense. A
Portland, OR, Police Bureau study revealed that 80 percent of
their fraud, forgery and identity theft cases were related to
the use and production of methamphetamine. Fraud, forgery and
identify theft are our fastest growing crime category, costing
tens of millions of dollars in our three-State region.
Clark County government is spending millions of dollars in
the criminal justice system, the social service system, the
medical community, the mental health community and substance
abuse treatment community that can be directly attributed to
the production, sale and abuse of methamphetamine.
Let me close with a thank you to our Federal Government.
Inclusion of the southwest Washington and Northwest high
intensity drug trafficking area is viewed by our law
enforcement agencies as a ray of hope. COPS grants give us
manpower that we would not otherwise have to be able to address
this issue. Byrne grant dollars are the backbone of our Clark's
Community Drug Task Force. We would not be able to continue our
efforts at their current level without them. Byrne grant
dollars have funded 60 percent of all drug prosecutions in
Clark County. Your infusion of money in the form of meth
initiative dollars has enabled us to support a
multidisciplinary group of professionals across our State and
in our community to combat the production and use of
methamphetamine in innovative ways.
The return of these dollars to our community has been
essential. We have used them effectively to combat this growing
and vexing plague on our community.
I would end with a plea, and that is please keep our
northwest HIDTA, Byrne grant, meth initiative and treatment
dollars flowing to the law enforcement, education, prevention
and mental health agencies in our local communities to help us
address this problem.
Mr. Souder. I thank you each for the long travel you have
made to come here to give testimony. Generally speaking, we try
to have a meth hearing at least probably, this is our second or
third one in a period of 3 or 4 years. So you are rare but
important participants in a process as we continue to gather
information on how to approach the meth question.
Let me ask each of you to respond. I am going to cluster a
couple of questions together, and then--before I get into that,
I have a couple of technical questions that I want to get on
the record before I get into some policy records.
You saw the chart earlier that showed the number of labs.
In the Washington State number, it was 1,417. The number I
believe you used, Chief, was 1,310. Do you know where that
number comes from?
Chief Martinek. The 1,350 is from 2001 and the DEA numbers
are from 2002. Those are consistent with what we think the
numbers would be. But the source of our numbers is from the
Washington State Sheriffs and Chiefs Association.
Mr. Souder. And do all of your labs go into EPIC and count,
or if that was the previous year, you said you think it is
consistent with. Do you think you could actually be up to
1,700? You heard us earlier talking about the difficulty of
collecting at the local level.
Chief Martinek. Yes, and that is a long time difficult
process problem across the United States. I would say our
numbers are probably pretty close to the DEA's, but I would
also say there is no way that I think anyone knows of right now
to make them absolutely consistent because of reporting errors.
That has been a common traditional problem in law enforcement
for my entire career, and my understanding from Sheriff Lucas,
it goes beyond the start of my career.
My guess and my information from being involved with the
Western States Information Network and EPIC and some of the
other narcotics enforcement intelligence sources is some of
those numbers are underreported. I can tell you from personal
experience that the Oregon numbers seem to be very much
underreported that were indicated on the DEA board, and that is
typical. I spent 14 years in law enforcement there, and they
don't have the reporting systems up to speed with EPIC that
Washington State does.
So I think our numbers are accurate, but I can't answer
you, because we had such short notice, as to whether they are
exact.
Mr. Souder. Captain Kelly, do you have any comment?
Captain Kelly. I would agree, Congressman. We pay attention
to the stats, we certainly do, but there is no universal
reporting mechanism nor mandate. I will highlight this for you.
You saw some numbers that were posted up there by the DEA
in 2002 with respect to Missouri. Missouri has seen a huge
increase from about 900 reportable labs in 2000 to more than
2,100 in 2001. I was curious about this, so I went and did the
research on this.
What happened in the State of Missouri was they came up
with a mandated reporting law. But what do they distinguish? Is
it a box lab? Is it just flasks? Is it a super lab? Are they
reporting just everything? Are they reporting the Beavis and--
well, let me put it this way, the mom and pop one small lab, or
are they reporting the super lab? So they are reporting
everything.
There is no universal system. That is good for the State of
Missouri that they do that, because they can track it. I wish
we all did that, but we don't. So, it would be nice to have a
mandated reporting system with some definitive guidelines, and
that way we could track the stats better.
Mr. Souder. Pursuing that a little bit, Sheriff Lucas,
getting into a broader question, mandatory reporting laws are
one way that things would be different. When a county like
Clark County becomes highly aware of their problem, how much of
this do you think is an actual increase in meth usage versus
now you are aware of it, you are tracking it closer, your
officers have been trained to look for it? Another way to ask
that is Part A. Part B is, is it as severe in the counties
around Clark, and, if not, why not? Would it be they are not
focused on it as much, or is it in fact as severe?
Sheriff Lucas. Well, we have been aware of the
methamphetamine problem, as I pointed out, since the 1970's, so
growth is not attributable to the fact all of a sudden we
became aware and started counting. We have been counting for a
long time and the numbers continue to go up.
Second, we are in kind of a unique position, because we are
the population center for southwest Washington, and the
counties that surround us, Skamania County, for example, has a
population of about 13,000, I want to say--15,000. Cowlitz
County probably greater than that, probably in the 75,000
figure, and Wahkiakum County is similar. So, we are the
population center located directly across the river from
Portland.
Mr. Souder. From what we heard earlier from Arkansas, and
this is kind of different, and in my home area which would be
similar, the city of Fort Wayne is bigger than the city of
Vancouver, the county is roughly the same, but when you move
out of Allen County you drop to counties of about 30,000, but
meth labs are actually increasing as you move out from the
city. Is that true, and why wouldn't it be moving into some of
the rural areas?
Sheriff Lucas. Actually they become dumping grounds and
manufacturing spots, because a less-populated county often has
fewer officers to be able to deal with the problem, it is more
difficult to discover their operation and dumping their toxic
wastes is much easier.
Mr. Souder. And following up with that, and then I want to
do the same thing for Sacramento, one of the things that is
fairly arbitrary, we have this problem a little bit as we
looked at our Southwest border HIDTA, and we are trying to
address that in the new ONDCP bill a little bit, but the New
Mexico State Police and New Mexico agencies view it as New
Mexico, and Arizona views their border as Arizona, and
California as California, and Texas as Texas, whereas the
cartels are much more fluid.
I am wondering how this deals around State lines? In my
area, Fort Wayne is dominant, but clearly as a shopping region,
as a TV region, as everything else, western Ohio moves in,
southern Michigan moves in. In your area it has to be even more
pronounced with Portland. When you do regional task force
things or when you look at a problem like meth or heroin or
cocaine, marijuana, Ecstasy, do you pull toward Portland, or do
you pull toward Seattle, because you are part of the State of
Washington?
Sheriff Lucas. There are several distribution routes that
flow across the West Coast. I-5 is the main distribution
channel. It goes into the tri-cities area, into the Yakima
area, and north into Vancouver, B.C., through Seattle. We try
to coordinate our efforts with DEA. Our Clark Community Drug
Task Force is connected. We attempt to do our interdiction
efforts. Our efforts have led us into California, and
California folks have developed cases in Clark County and on up
into Vancouver, British Columbia. So the law enforcement
network is fairly well tied together.
Mr. Souder. Is Vancouver considered part of the Portland
SMSA, the Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area?
Sheriff Lucas. I believe so.
Mr. Souder. Do you have anybody that sits on any drug task
force in Portland or on any HIDTA in Portland, or do you sit on
all the Washington things but coordinate them with Oregon?
Chief Martinek. The answer is we do both. We actually have
an officer assigned to the DEA task force that is the liaison
to our drug task force. He works out of Portland with that task
force, and they go back and forth.
Sheriff Lucas and I are on some drug advisory committees,
including the ETTF task force over in Portland. We do draw into
Portland. That is a big part of our trafficking, it goes across
the border there. But the fact is the I-5 corridor is our main
route and it goes from one end of the country to the other and
affects us very much so.
Mr. Souder. Let me ask another Washington question. Do you
see much swapping of your meth for BC-bud? In other words, what
we are hearing from Canada is--they are obviously selling--let
me quote Customs. If they see somebody with a hockey bag coming
across the border, they assume it is BC-bud. They are not just
coming to live in the United States with the BC-bud, they are
usually walking back with cocaine, sometimes heroin.
The question is are they taking any meth back, or is meth
not transported that way?
Sheriff Lucas. I don't have any specific knowledge that
would relate to that question.
Chief Martinek. I am not aware of meth being traded that
way either.
Mr. Souder. Are your precursors, particularly for your
larger labs, are they coming from Vancouver, Canada, the other
Vancouver?
Sheriff Lucas. The large volume of ephedrine principally is
coming from Canada.
Mr. Souder. We had one case being closely investigated in
one of my counties where a biker gang had actually sent
somebody through pharmacy school and had set up a traditional
pharmacy which became the laundering agent. Have you seen any
of that penetration spoke the pharmacy community, where they
could actually feed the local labs?
Chief Martinek. What we see more commonly is because we
don't have as tight a precursor law as, say, California does,
they don't have to put someone into the chemical companies.
They are able to get large amounts of precursor chemicals
through legitimate companies because of the lack of awareness
and the lack of legislative authority to stop that. That is
most common. I have not personally, and I don't think our drug
task force, has seen that in the State of Washington. However,
we have investigated and are investigating several Internet
suppliers.
Mr. Souder. Captain Kelly, in California, your Sacramento
County, could you give a little bit of the population with that
and the nature of the territory that you are working with?
Captain Kelly. Sacramento County is about 1,000 square
miles. It is pretty much heavily populated. The population is
about 2 million within that general Sacramento County area and
the outlying areas of Placer County, El Dorado, and Yolo,
Sacramento being the hub of both Highway 50, Highway 80, I-5,
and also the Sacramento River, the ports, and also having the
delta where we have a lot of migrant workers. We have rural
portions out there. Those are where our super labs would be. We
also have the international airport.
So we are a major hub for transportation-distribution. And
it is interesting you brought up the exchange of coke for BC-
bud. We just finished a case with that, where there was an
exchange of BC-bud down through the I-5 corridor, that we just
nailed somebody transporting 75 kilos up to Canada in exchange
for that. So it is a major distribution route.
Mr. Souder. In the earlier discussions where we talked
about meth predominantly being a rural phenomena, why do you
think the Central Valley has evolved differently and the major
metropolitan area has evolved differently?
Captain Kelly. I will take you through the steps on that,
sir. Methamphetamine can be produced, and you brought up
earlier how it is easily found on the Internet. I brought this
with me. I printed this out on the Internet the other day. It
is easy to find this stuff about how to produce
methamphetamine.
Within the cities, within heavily populated areas, you have
a difficult time making large quantities of methamphetamine
because of the odors, because of the physical hazards of taking
the chemicals, the supplies, and everything into a heavily
populated area. So you get your smaller labs and your different
methodologies such as the ``Nazi'' methodology, the different
methodologies that these meth users and meth cookers make their
products.
As you get into the outlying areas and start getting into
the super labs, you have more vacant area, more rural area,
where the chemicals are not as detectable. There is
availability of chemicals from the farmlands, where they can go
rip these farmers off for their anhydrous ammonia, and then
they can set up shop out there in some rural portion of the
field, and they will cook 20, 40, 60, 100 pounds of meth within
a 24-hour period. They dump the chemicals into the groundwater,
into the ecological supply, they are on the road, and so is 100
pounds of meth, plain and simple.
Within the cities, you can't do that, so you get the
smaller labs. So the more rural area, the larger the labs you
will get.
Then, of course, generally the Mexican nationals and the
migrant workers sometimes are more or less associated with the
cooking portions of it, and they kind of avoid the heavily
populated areas. Either they can't live there, they can't
afford to live there, they can't find jobs there, something
like that. But it is not all Mexican nationals. It predominates
that.
Mr. Souder. Is the Sierra National Forest close to you?
Captain Kelly. Yes.
Mr. Souder. Isn't that where they found the heroin poppy
growing?
Captain Kelly. Yes, it is. That is interesting too. It is
very close, about 60 miles away from Sacramento. Growing
poppies in the State of California, other than the State
flower, unbelievable.
Mr. Souder. Is that part of the giant labs in your area,
the super labs, the heroin, the quantity of BC-bud, the coke
busts that you talked about, is Sacramento a hub because you
have a number of these national forests and open areas around
it, and then they move through Sacramento to move to other
parts of the United States? In the Central Valley, what would
be the other major hubs? Would Fresno and Modesto have similar
things?
Captain Kelly. They do. They butt up to the Yosemite Valley
and the national forests and the parks. They will go into the
rural areas, and the more rural the better, the more likely
they are not going to get detected. So if they can get into
those parks, they certainly will go into those parks. But there
is still enough rural land within the State of California and
within any of the States, I think, that they can always find
their little niche where they are going to make their dope.
Mr. Souder. According to this DEA chart, there is 191 super
labs that they had reported through EPIC, 159 of which were
California, which means that if those super labs were
accounting, as they said, for 70 percent of meth sales in the
United States, it means that California is somewhere around 60
percent, 58 to 60 percent, of all the meth in the United States
is coming, and most of it from the Central Valley, is that
correct?
Captain Kelly. There is a lot of meth generated and cooked
in southern California, too. You have the deserts, you have
rural farmland and everything. I can highlight, within the last
year and a half we have seized up in the Central Valley, in the
north of the State, 250 labs. Those are actual cooking labs. I
am not talking dump sites, I am talking pseudoephedrine
reductions. I am talking an actual 250 labs. Out of those, 45
were super labs. They were capable of producing more than 10
pounds in one cook. About 18 percent. That seems to be about
the number; 18, 20, low 20 percent is the number of super labs
in comparison to the other labs that are found.
Mr. Souder. That was just your counting?
Captain Kelly. That was actually just my program for about
an 18-month period.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Baird has joined us. I told them you were
going to give this sterling introduction, so if you want to add
anything to the introductions or have any comments or
questions?
Mr. Baird. I want to thank the chairman and apologize to my
good friends back home. They are familiar, we have an area
called Camp Bonneville, which is literally coming to a head at
the exact same time this hearing was scheduled, plus votes on
the floor. My humble apologies, but I just could not be both
places at once.
The reason I want to thank the chairman for inviting all
three of these individuals, I think it is so important for us
to hear from people on the ground who deal with this every day.
I have done ride-alongs with the officers, the crew, where they
do a great job. But one of the things I think they might help
us to understand in the committee and the Congress is the added
cost and burden of bringing down a meth site versus, let's say,
a marijuana operation or dealing heroin or cocaine.
I wonder if they could talk about some of the added things,
and particularly both in terms of financial costs, but also
risk to your officers, being exposed to the toxins and possible
explosive environment. I wonder if any of the three could
enlighten us about that. What kind of challenge do your
officers face on the street physically in terms of safety and
what are the economic implications of those additional hazards
and costs?
Chief Martinek. Well, there are extreme costs associated, I
would call them extreme costs associated with law enforcement
when it comes to meth and meth labs because of the equipment
needed for each officer to be able to go in. The dangers are
many, and I think that the captain would be better able to tell
that part of it. I would just say this, in every case that we
go into a house, the potential for a meth lab to be behind the
door is there, and the volatility of the chemicals used in the
process is always life-threatening when someone goes through
the door, and most of the time, unless we have a search warrant
for a meth lab, they are going through not necessarily knowing
whether there is a meth lab on the other side.
Now, it is true that most of the meth labs we are talking
about are not super lab sized, but the end result of an
explosion or the chemicals that could permeate someone's skin
are, nonetheless, dangerous to our officers.
The training, I said this before in my statement, but the
training and the equipment that it takes to just outfit the
HAZMAT teams and the police officers that routinely go into
these meth labs is very burdensome. Again, if we didn't have
the funding we get from the DEA or from the Federal Government,
along with our agencies' budgeting, we would not be able to
make it. We are getting to that point of where we are breaking.
We have been fortunate to get some funding in that area
through Homeland Defense dollars and some other avenues, but we
are, at least for my agency, we are way behind in getting our
patrol officers and those that may run into that accidentally
every day equipped to the level they need to be.
Mr. Baird. Thank you. One of the things, Mr. Chairman, that
we have worked on in the Meth Caucus has been legislation
referred to as the meth mask legislation. Our firefighters have
breathing apparatus, etc., and they can go in. Oftentimes our
frontline police and sheriffs, they are just going in breathing
in these terribly dangerous chemicals, and they have to secure
the area, sometimes wrestle with perpetrators, and they are
exposed that whole time.
So we believe there is a need for additional support for
our local law enforcement officers, and we have modeled this
along the lines of the body armor legislation, wherein local
law enforcement agencies can apply for grants to help provide
basic protective equipment to protect their officers on the
street, and, from what we hear, it could be a tremendous help.
I would be interested in Captain Kelly's comments or Sheriff
Lucas'.
Sheriff Lucas. I just would say that there are training
costs that are associated with people that we send in to meth
labs and with line level officers who may encounter a box lab
on the street.
There is the personnel productive equipment [PPE], that we
have to issue for responders. There are baseline and ongoing
medical examinations that you have to provide for people who
are entering meth labs on a regular basis. There are the
cleanup costs associated with the lab itself. Then there are
property renovation costs that are associated with a lab clean-
up that normally the private property owner has to bear. If we
go in and take down a lab, the costs are significantly more. If
we go in to clean up marijuana growing, we go in and we whack
down the plants, we throw them in a bag, we take them out and
we are done, and so is the property owner. But when you take
down the meth lab, the steps are significantly different.
Captain Kelly. They have, I believe, hit on anything I
could touch on, other than once you establish an officer and he
is trained and equipped, or she, to investigate a clandestine
lab, there is recertification ongoing, fit testing for their
masks, medical baseline testing.
Sacramento County, you may have a labor organization that
says, ``Hey, those deputies or those officers that investigate
clandestine labs get a 10 percent hazard pay.'' So those are
additional burdens upon a department through a collective
bargaining process.
But certainly it is expensive. It is expensive to do so, it
is expensive to take care of officers, and it is expensive to
take care of a drug-endangered child.
Mr. Baird. Perhaps this has been addressed in your earlier
comments. I have heard very high numbers in terms of the
estimate of the contribution in one fashion or another of
methamphetamine to the overall crime problem, be it identity
theft. I think you may have addressed that earlier.
Any estimate in terms of what, either direct or indirect,
portion of our crime problem, burglary, robbery, identity
theft, etc., homicides, we have some huge, terrific homicides
in our district with this. Any estimate of that or sense of it?
Chief Martinek. We had a quote from Portland Police Bureau
that they felt like over 80 percent of their criminal activity
that they recorded was attributed to methamphetamine. I have
anecdotal evidence, and certainly don't have any hard fact
data, but I think it is not an understatement to say that most
of the crime that we see in the Vancouver area is directly
attributable to drug abuse, including alcohol abuse, and I
would say a majority of that is related to methamphetamine.
Certainly without doubt, this spike in ID theft and fraud
related to that is absolutely attributable to methamphetamine
users and dealers and methamphetamine organizations who use it
as a way of funding either to buy the drugs or to buy the
precursors to make the drugs. There is no question about that.
Mr. Souder. Do you drug test people you arrest?
Chief Martinek. We do have some ability to drug test. We
don't drug test everyone. We aren't very good at keeping those
kind of statistics on the front end. The jail does some testing
and the hospitals do some testings that we are just now
starting to talk about doing a better job of getting hard data
so when we talk about these things it is not just anecdotal.
But we don't as a Vancouver Police Department drug test.
Mr. Souder. Do you in the prison? For prisoners, do you
drug test, and is meth included in that kind of drug test?
Sheriff Lucas. Some prisoners. I would attempt to address
the 80 percent figure. Because fraud, forgery and identity
theft is such a huge issue, the Portland Police Bureau and its
law enforcement partners in the region have gone together to
attempt to form a regional center for the investigation of
economic crime. As one of the first steps in forming the
center, we tried to relate various criminal patterns to each
other. And their 80 percent figure said that 80 percent of
their fraud, forgery and identity theft cases were directly
related to methamphetamine, 90 percent if you included cocaine
in the mix.
Mr. Souder. Captain Kelly, do you drug test, as a pattern
do you test for different drugs, or do you have to have
somebody busted on a drug charge in order to do that? How do
you pursue that?
Captain Kelly. It would depend on their history. There have
been programs within our jail systems, our main jail downtown,
such as the Adam Project, the California Alcohol and Drug Data
where we have interviewed and taken tests, and pretty much that
is on a volunteer nature.
What we do have, and perhaps I could send each one of you
this, is our first year of our Cal-MMET report. We actually did
some statistics whereby we went out and tried to capture
arrests, narcotics, emergency room admissions and actually
deaths related to different narcotics, and certainly
methamphetamine was off the scale. Second, believe it or not,
was marijuana and hashish.
Mr. Baird. One of the questions I would like to ask when we
have an opportunity to have on-the-line people who face these
problems every day, if there were a couple of things, if you
could pick two or three ways in which the Federal Government
could help, and often, obviously, it is financial that is
important. But it is sometimes other things. I hear about
flexibility in the use of funds. I hear about coordination. One
of the ways in our area, I know we have a great U.S. attorney
who is finally bringing U.S. attorney presence.
Mr. Chairman, you commented on the relationship between
Portland and Vancouver. One of the challenges we face there is
if you commit a certain drug crime across the river, it is a
Federal offense. It is still a Federal offense on our side of
the river, but we haven't had the resources. Having worked in
prisons myself, they know this stuff. They know that if they
rob a bank in Portland, OR, they are doing Federal time; if
they rob a bank in Vancouver, WA, they are doing State time, if
any. This drives these poor folks crazy because the robbers
come to our side of the river. They commute.
But the original question is, if we could do two or three
things, given that money is finite, what would they be, to help
on-the-line law enforcement the most to deal with this
particular problem?
Chief Martinek. From my perspective, Congressman, you hit
the nail on the head, that U.S. attorney, Federal Courthouse
and Federal law enforcement support and assistance located in
southwest Washington is by far No. 1 in terms of having the
judicial system in place to help us with these larger
organizations.
The second thing would be funding for training and
equipment for our personnel.
Third, absolutely of equal importance, would be dollars for
treatment, prevention and education, because without that
multi-disciplinary approach we are going to be chasing our
tails. Law enforcement cannot be the only approach to that
problem.
Sheriff Lucas. Amen.
Captain Kelly. My Sheriff would probably tell you send him
the money and he will take care of it. But certainly, as I
highlighted earlier, the personnel costs are extremely
expensive, and that is a finite consideration here.
When you look at the overall problem, there is education,
there is treatment, there is mutual cooperation. Perhaps what
we ought to do is take a look at some of the requirements to
bring a case forward from a local law enforcement agency to the
OCDETF level and looking at OCDETF reimbursements.
I know that the HIDTAs are transitioning some of their
thought process into making them OCDETF cities on a larger
scale, whereas the Central Valley HIDTA, I believe that Bill
Ruzzamenti, the Director of the Central Valley HIDTA, would sit
here and tell you that $1.5 million that would be sent to the
San Francisco area would be better spent in the Central Valley,
whereby he can put it to use, expanding his HIDTA and gaining
other counties into the HIDTA.
Mandated reporting, consistent statistical reporting and
evaluation, and expansion of the precursor vendor and
intelligence program, those are some things that I believe
would serve law enforcement' best interests.
Mr. Baird. It is a wonderful thing to have folks when
something has been said just say amen. The practice here is to
say it yourself, but only longer. I appreciate the succinct but
very relevant and helpful comments.
No further questions.
Mr. Souder. I also wanted to ask Chief Martinek, you had in
your testimony that DEA gave you training and funding, and in
the written statement from DEA we heard a little bit about what
they do for training. What funding stream do they have to help
you beyond the training?
Chief Martinek. Beyond the training, in the training, all
of our drug enforcement agents go through the DEA drug school
and also to the meth lab clean-up school so they can be
certified. But the funding is for clean-up of meth labs. There
are cases where we can get the DEA involved in our meth lab
investigations and they will actually be involved to the point
where they use DEA funds to help clean those labs up.
Mr. Souder. So it is a tie through the task force and it
becomes a task force funded through DEA; It is not money they
give to local police departments to do it?
Chief Martinek. Yes, sir. That is exactly right.
Sheriff Lucas. The other way they help us is that they
bring resources to the table that we don't have. Many times
when we are chasing our local crooks, they lead us up the
supply chain. When we get to a certain point in the supply
chain, it is very helpful to be able to call DEA and say we
have a case, these are the facts, these are the people, can you
help us. Many times they come to our assistance with money and
resources that we couldn't possibly put together.
Mr. Souder. You heard me say earlier in this hearing that
we are going to be focusing on prevention and treatment. If you
have specific cases, because both of your areas have dealt with
this issue and are two of arguably the four hardest hit meth
areas in the United States, of programs in the schools that
target either to a particular group or subgroups on meth that
seem to be working on prevention and on treatment.
Now, I want to give you a warning, as we go through this
type of thing, that just like a lot of people say, oh, why
don't we just give up on the drug war? It is not working. They
don't say that as much on child abuse and spouse abuse and they
are not eliminated either. This is a tough problem, we are
never going to eliminate it.
But a lot of times we hear, well, the prevention and
treatment are the hope. We have to be pursuing all ends. But,
as you know, many of the people, if not everybody, you are
arresting, has been through multiple treatment programs, very
seldom anybody who hasn't been through five or six.
How do we find out which ones are effective? We know some
of that is insurance reasons, and we know some of it is they
haven't really made an internal commitment. So what types of
programs help them make an internal program in their head, a
head and heart commitment, as opposed to a law commitment, or
the family forced them to go in?
What kind of treatment, and are there treatment programs
that can specify more in detail on meth, that because you have
been tracking this longer, you have that longer? Are there
treatment programs that specialize in meth in your area that we
might as it spreads across the United States and as we put
people in treatment, that we might highlight as examples?
Similar in prevention, in that we are always looking for
creative ways to do this. These are a little bit different
markets we have dealt with. In reality, it would not
necessarily be a program that focuses solely on meth, because
we all know it is a poly drug, just like we heard one of the
other things we are trying to do is document individual cases.
Part of the reason I asked you whether you measure is we
hear these numbers. But at the same time when you read a report
of an accident, you often don't hear ``was high on marijuana.''
You may see the alcohol, because often we test for the alcohol.
But in many cases we don't even test for meth, ecstasy, LSD,
unless there is a reason to suspect it. These tests are
expensive for cocaine and heroin.
Therefore, people think, oh, we don't have a drug problem.
We have an alcohol problem. We have a poly drug problem in many
cases, and this mix, and the alcohol becomes even more potent
when mixed with the other drugs, including this really high
grade marijuana.
So the degree that you have some prevention or treatment
programs in your area, as two of the kind of hardest hit meth
areas of the country, we would very much appreciate that.
Also, Captain Kelly, we will be working with chairman Ose
too, to look at, I remember when we were in the Sacramento area
with a hearing, we had the family, the initial lab that blew up
and the little girl that started the lab law and the child
abuse law in California.
Any additional information, if you want to submit that
here, of how that child abuse law has worked in California on
helping you in law enforcement and in prevention and education
areas in the community on that, it would be helpful to get it
in the hearing's record as well.
Also we heard you have tough precursor laws. If you could
tell us a little bit of how you have tightened those up for the
record, so we can show what impact that might have had in how
we move it.
You also used the example of the Atlanta case in the major
lab. We will give you some of these in a printed form too. But
because you have had so much activity in the Central Valley
area, some of the specifics of some other cases like that
Atlanta case, where you think some of the super lab stuff is
being distributed.
Mr. Baird. Could I comment in response to what you have
just said? On the issue of treatment, particularly on meth, the
gentleman I know mentioned our Washington State meth
initiative. One of the things that we are very proud of is a
Meth Moms Program.
We have two programs working, where moms who have been
found to be using meth are basically faced with losing their
kids, and they are required by the courts to go through both a
meth treatment and a parenting program. So a lot of times they
are just rotten parents and they don't necessarily know it
because they are so focused on meth.
I have met with these folks, been to the program, and they
are getting some graduates out, and it is tremendously
gratifying to watch them actually learn to parent. One woman
said, I thought I was being a good parent, but now that I have
been through this, I realize that Ramen noodles every night is
not exactly a balanced meal. She just was raised in a culture
and by parents who had not trained her well and did not know
how to parent, and simultaneously then was hooked on meth.
What we are finding is they are not only coming out and
staying clean off the meth, they are coming out and have some
pretty good parenting skills, and at least with some of these
folks we may finally break this cycle. Because I know the
officers know and I used to see it in my clinical work as a
psychologist, you see this just heart-breaking chain of people
hooked on meth, terrible parenting skills, hooking their own
kids on it and creating just further cycles. So this Meth Moms
Program has been very effective.
The other thing I think we have done some good work on is
integration of law enforcement--I believe Vancouver and Clark
County does this. I know Olympia does it--integration with
child protective services and our hospitals, so that you have
got pediatricians and child protective service workers working
hand-in-hand with law enforcement.
One of our programs, the CPS worker is right there right
after the bust, goes in with the Teddy bears and stuff, not
only takes the kids out, but takes them to foster parents who
have been trained in meth. So you have the whole cycle, the
kids now taken from the parents, the parents are incarcerated,
they go get a thorough physical from doctors who know about the
impact of meth.
And then, when they are placed, they are placed in a foster
home where the foster parents have been trained in meth. I
don't know if you want to comment or there's time, but those
kinds of programs, I think, have been working pretty well.
Mr. Souder. A comment on that?
Chief Lucas. Not really, but, again, my personal bias is
toward an accountability model. In my years in law enforcement,
in observing folks that have been involved in treatment
programs, the closer the supervision, the tighter the
accountability, in my opinion the more likely the individual is
to safely--make it out the other end of the treatment program,
relatively successful.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
It was also helpful, because often we forget the U.S.
attorney angle, and if you don't have the prisons, if you don't
have the U.S. attorneys to prosecute, if you don't have the
U.S. marshals to move the people, the whole system starts to
break down. And we heard this also in northern Washington, at
Blaine in Congressman Larson's district, as he was getting that
county flooded, in a very small county, with people coming
across from Vancouver. So thank you for that testimony, too.
Thank you for all your frontline work and for taking the
time to come here to the other Washington and the other coast
to share with us your grass-roots experience, and hopefully we
can incorporate these ideas into our meth bill as we move
forward in the other areas as well.
With that, the subcommittee hearing stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 2:16 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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