[House Hearing, 109 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
FIGHTING METH IN AMERICA'S HEARTLAND: ASSESSING THE IMPACT ON LOCAL LAW
ENFORCEMENT AND CHILD WELFARE AGENCIES
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE,
DRUG POLICY, AND HUMAN RESOURCES
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JULY 26, 2005
__________
Serial No. 109-101
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/
index.html
http://www.house.gov/reform
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
24-946 WASHINGTON : 2006
_____________________________________________________________________________
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
DAN BURTON, Indiana 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
GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
CHRIS CANNON, Utah WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee DIANE E. WATSON, California
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
DARRELL E. ISSA, California LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland
JON C. PORTER, Nevada BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
KENNY MARCHANT, Texas ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia Columbia
PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina ------
CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina (Independent)
------ ------
Melissa Wojciak, Staff Director
David Marin, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director
Rob Borden, Parliamentarian/Senior Counsel
Teresa Austin, Chief Clerk
Phil Barnett, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana, Chairman
PATRICK T. McHenry, North Carolina ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
DAN BURTON, Indiana BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
JOHN L. MICA, Florida DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota DIANE E. WATSON, California
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
CHRIS CANNON, Utah C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina Columbia
Ex Officio
TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
J. Marc Wheat, Staff Director
Nicholas Coleman, Professional Staff Member and Counsel
Malia Holst, Clerk
Tony Haywood, Minority Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on July 26, 2005.................................... 1
Statement of:
Burns, Scott, Deputy Director, State and Local Affairs,
Office of National Drug Control Policy; Joseph Rannazzisi,
Deputy Chief, Office of Enforcement of DEA; and Laura
Birkmeyer, Assistant U.S. Attorney, San Diego, and
chairperson, National Alliance for Endangered Children..... 10
Birkmeyer, Laura......................................... 25
Burns, Scott............................................. 10
Rannazzisi, Joseph....................................... 18
Young, Nancy K., Ph.D., Director, National Center on
Substance Abuse and Child Welfare, and Director, Children
and Family Futures; Valerie Brown, National Association of
Counties; Freida S. Baker, deputy director, Family and
Children's Services, Alabama Department of Human Resources;
Phil Byers, chief deputy, Rutherford County, NC, Sheriff's
Office; Sylvia Deporto, deputy director, Riverside County,
CA, Children's Services; Betsy Dunn, investigator and peer
supervisor, Tennessee Department of Children's Services,
Child Protective Services Division; Don Owens, chief,
Titusville, PA, Police Department; and Sheriff Mark Shook,
Watauga County, NC, Sheriff's Department................... 68
Baker, Freida S.......................................... 106
Brown, Valerie........................................... 97
Byers, Phil.............................................. 114
Deporto, Sylvia.......................................... 120
Dunn, Betsy.............................................. 123
Owens, Don............................................... 130
Shook, Sheriff Mark...................................... 147
Young, Nancy K........................................... 68
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Baker, Freida S., deputy director, Family and Children's
Services, Alabama Department of Human Resources, prepared
statement of............................................... 108
Birkmeyer, Laura, Assistant U.S. Attorney, San Diego, and
chairperson, National Alliance for Endangered Children,
prepared statement of...................................... 27
Brown, Valerie, National Association of Counties, prepared
statement of............................................... 99
Burns, Scott, Deputy Director, State and Local Affairs,
Office of National Drug Control Policy, prepared statement
of......................................................... 13
Byers, Phil, chief deputy, Rutherford County, NC, Sheriff's
Office, prepared statement of.............................. 117
Cummings, Hon. Elijah E., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Maryland:
Article dated July 8, 2005............................... 35
Prepared statement of.................................... 41
Deporto, Sylvia, deputy director, Riverside County, CA,
Children's Services, prepared statement of................. 122
Dunn, Betsy, investigator and peer supervisor, Tennessee
Department of Children's Services, Child Protective
Services Division, prepared statement of................... 125
Owens, Don, chief, Titusville, PA, Police Department,
prepared statement of...................................... 133
Rannazzisi, Joseph, Deputy Chief, Office of Enforcement of
DEA, prepared statement of................................. 20
Shook, Sheriff Mark, Watauga County, NC, Sheriff's
Department, prepared statement of.......................... 150
Souder, Hon. Mark E., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Indiana:
Photographs.............................................. 2
Prepared statement of.................................... 6
Watson, Hon. Diane E., a Representative in Congress from the
State of California, prepared statement of................. 49
Young, Nancy K., Ph.D., Director, National Center on
Substance Abuse and Child Welfare, and Director, Children
and Family Futures, prepared statement of.................. 71
FIGHTING METH IN AMERICA'S HEARTLAND: ASSESSING THE IMPACT ON LOCAL LAW
ENFORCEMENT AND CHILD WELFARE AGENCIES
----------
TUESDAY, JULY 26, 2005
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 2:08 p.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mark E. Souder
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Souder, McHenry, Mica, Gutknecht,
Foxx, Cummings, and Watson.
Also present: Representatives Osborne and Cooper.
Staff present: Marc Wheat, staff director and chief
counsel; Nicholas Coleman, professional staff member and
counsel; Pat DeQuattro, congressional fellow; Malia Holst,
clerk; Tony Haywood, minority counsel; and Jean Gosa, minority
assistant clerk.
Mr. Souder. The subcommittee will come to order. Thank you
all and thank you for coming. Today we continue our
subcommittee's work on the problem of meth trafficking and
abuse--a problem that is ravaging the entire Nation and putting
a severe strain on law enforcement agencies and child welfare
programs, particularly at the State and local levels.
Displayed on the video screens are a series of photographs
that capture a young woman's 10-year progression and downward
spiral resulting from meth addiction. These graphic photos
demonstrate the real-life impact of meth abuse.
[The information referred to follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4946.001
Mr. Souder. This is actually the ninth hearing on meth held
by the subcommittee since 2001. In places as diverse as
Indiana, Arkansas, Hawaii and Minnesota, I have heard gripping
testimony about how this drug has devastated lives and
families. But I have also learned about the many positive ways
that communities have fought back, targeting the meth cooks and
dealers, trying to get addicts into treatment, and working to
educate young people about the risks of meth abuse.
Meth is one of the most powerful and dangerous drugs
available, and one of the easiest to make. It can be ``cooked''
using common household or agricultural chemicals and simple
cold medicines, following recipes easily available on the
Internet. The drug is highly addictive and has multiple side
effects, including psychotic behavior, physical deterioration
and brain damage. Death by overdose is a significant risk.
Most meth comes from the so-called ``super labs'' in
California and northern Mexico, and Congress currently is
exploring ways to address that growing problem. However, it is
frequently the smaller, clandestine or ``clan'' labs that
generate so much damage and misery for local communities. The
amount of meth that is created at these smaller labs is
relatively small, yet the impact the labs have on the community
is staggering, due to the environmental damage and health risks
that they create.
The National Association of Counties [NACo] recently
published two surveys which detail the impact that meth is
having on law enforcement agencies and child welfare services.
The surveys, entitled, ``The Criminal Effect of Meth on
Communities,'' and ``The Impact of Meth on Children: Out of
Home Placement,'' surveyed hundreds of counties nationwide on
the effects of meth. The NACo law enforcement agency survey
reported that nearly 60 percent of responding counties stated
that meth was their largest drug problem.
The surveys provide further evidence of how the meth
epidemic is quickly spreading across the Nation, from rural to
suburban and urban areas. In the NACo survey directed toward
law enforcement agencies, the information on meth-related
arrests and meth cases overall was staggering. Of the 500
responding counties in the past year, 67 percent reported
increases in meth-related arrests. Counties in the southwest
reported particularly disturbing results, with 76 reporting
such increases. Over half of the agencies surveyed stated that
at least 1 in 5 jail inmates are serving meth-related
sentences.
The surveys also demonstrate that children are increasingly
becoming the primary victims of meth abuse. The surveys found
that 40 percent of child welfare agencies reported an increase
in ``out of home placements because of meth in the past year.''
This abuse unfortunately includes physical and mental trauma,
and even sexual abuse; 69 percent of county social service
agencies have indicated that they have had to provide
additional, specialized training for their welfare system
workers and had to develop new and special protocols for
workers to address the special needs of children affected by
meth. Community Health and Human Services, as well as child
welfare services, such foster care, are being overwhelmed as a
result of meth.
Officials at every level of government, Federal, State and
local, must take effective, coordinated action to address the
meth epidemic. U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales recently
declared that, ``in terms of damage to children and to our
society, meth is now the most dangerous drug in America.'' As
Members of Congress, we need to take a careful look to see what
additional legislation and resources are needed.
First, what forms of direct assistance, particularly in the
expensive realm of environmental cleanup, should the Federal
Government provide to local agencies when dealing with meth lab
busts and their aftermath? Second, what kind of specialized
training can and should the Federal Government provide to State
and local agencies, both in law enforcement and the child
welfare service areas?
And third, what are the ``best practices'' for dealing with
children found at meth labs sites?
In Indiana, just in the last few days, as most of the
Members of Congress had been saying, there have been multiple
major arrests, events in western Indiana, eastern Illinois. One
of these guys got into an anhydrous ammonia tank--a 1,000-
gallon leak that they had to evacuate many blocks of town and
then eventually the whole area, a problem that we faced in a
number of rural areas in my district and across Indiana.
We had a recreational vehicle plant that had a rumor that
they had the problem so they did a quick drug test and found a
third of the people at the plant where the average income is
over $72,000, hardly a low-income area, that one-third were
high at work that day, most on meth but also including
marijuana and cocaine.
A big story over the weekend was about one of these workers
who, he and his wife, both were very professional, had been
destroyed as they started with marijuana, moved to meth at this
plant and had their lives wrecked. And this story is becoming
far too frequent in community after community, and is starting
to hit our major metro areas.
As we heard in St. Paul, MN, two big cities where the
data--by next year, the national agencies will be reporting the
data coming in from these counties and all of a sudden, this
meth will go from 8 percent to much higher in these cities and
the data is behind.
It is one of our biggest collection problems that we have
when we look at this committee and as we do our oversight
hearings. Our data is often 2003 drug data and the issue is
moving so fast in the category of meth, it is flat-out wrong
right now.
At today's hearing, we will hear from the Federal, State
and local agencies that fight on the ``front lines'' against
the meth epidemic. We welcome Mr. Scott Burns, Deputy Director
for State and Local Affairs from the Office of National Drug
Control Policy; Mr. Joseph Rannazzisi, Deputy Chief of the
Office of Enforcement at the Drug Enforcement Administration;
and Ms. Laura Birkmeyer, Assistant U.S. Attorney in San Diego,
CA and chairperson of the National Alliance for Drug Endangered
Children.
On the second panel we will hear from Dr. Nancy Young,
Director of the National Center on Substance Abuse and Child
Welfare, which is funded by the Federal Substance Abuse and
Mental Health Services Administration [SAMHSA], and Director of
Children and Family Futures; Ms. Valerie Brown of the National
Association of Counties; Ms. Freida Baker, deputy director of
Family and Children's Services at the Alabama Department of
Human Resources; Chief Deputy Phil Byers from the Rutherford
County, NC Sheriff's Office; Ms. Sylvia Deporto, deputy
director of Riverside County Children's Services in California;
Ms. Betsy Dunn, investigator and peer supervisor from the
Tennessee Department of Children's Services, Child Protective
Services Division; Chief Don Owens of the Titusville, PA,
Police Department; and Sheriff Mark Shook from the Watauga
County, NC Sheriff's Department.
We thank everyone for taking the time to join us this
afternoon, and look forward to your testimony.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Mark E. Souder follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4946.002
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4946.003
Mr. Souder. I yield next to Mr. McHenry.
Mr. McHenry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
bringing attention to this important issue. Today we are
discussing fighting methamphetamine and trying to bring
attention to this matter. I think it is named appropriately
``Fighting Meth in America's Heartland,'' because that is
mainly where it is occurring in small and rural communities
across this Nation, and so it's becoming an epidemic in places
like my district in western North Carolina, and we are
struggling to battle this issue.
I certainly appreciate Chief Deputy Sheriff Philip Byers
and his wife, Sheila, for being here today. They will be part
of our second panel. I look forward to introducing them at that
time.
We have two expert panels today to talk about the
staggering effects that meths have on our Nation. I think it's
most important that we hear from our sheriffs' offices
especially, and our State-run child service programs, because
they have the unique challenge of dealing with this in small
communities across America where this epidemic is occurring.
In 2004, over 3,357 children nationally were found to be
connected with seized meth labs. This is an issue of severe
concern for this Congress and for this committee. The problem
is growing, but it is not a faceless problem, as our witnesses
will testify today. The debilitating mental and physical
effects of this drug, the production process, and the way it
touches everyone, especially in rural communities, are not
being overlooked.
In North Carolina alone, Medicaid costs, in part, have
increased due to the rise of children that have been taken out
of homes with meth labs. Beyond that, the medical expenses that
society will bear, that our governments will fund, and we as
taxpayers will fund, because of this meth addiction that our
folks are dealing with. I think it's important that we promote
awareness about this spreading problem that we protect our
children and provide resources to those on the front lines so
that we can take on this key area of concern.
I would like to welcome all of our witnesses today. Thank
you for taking time to be here before Congress. It will be a
unique process for you. Some of you have been here before, but
for those that have not, it should be definitely a learning
experience for both of us.
Thanks so much.
Mr. Souder. Ms. Foxx, do you have an opening statement?
Ms. Foxx. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank
both the chairman and the ranking member of the subcommittee
for holding this hearing and for their continued effort to
fight the dire methamphetamines problem in this country. I want
to thank the members of both panels for the work you do in your
communities in collaborating with Congress today in this
constructive dialog on how to best address this problem
nationwide.
I am honored to have one of my constituents and community
leaders here today as a member of the second panel. Sheriff
Mark Shook of Watauga County, my home county, has truly become
an expert and leader in this area through his outstanding work
over the past several years. As a former patrol officer and
detective, Sheriff Shook has over 20 years experience from the
law enforcement side before being elected Watauga County
sheriff 3 years ago.
At that point, he wrapped his arms around the meth problem
and tackled it at full force. He understands the curse that
meth has been on our community and has done a terrific job in
attacking the problem from all angles. He has been extremely
effective in educating our community about meth, and my first
knowledge about this problem came from a workshop that he held
in our community, attended by over 100 people. I have known
Mark his entire life, and we share a passion for the beauty of
the mountains of northwestern North Carolina.
Methamphetamine production and abuse have been a scourge on
the beautiful mountain area that Mark and I care deeply about.
Sheriff Shook and I have teamed up to minimize and eliminate
the problem. With his leadership and tireless efforts, we have
made great strides.
I am honored and proud to have Sheriff Shook here today to
share his success with Congress, and I hope his story can be a
benefit to the subcommittee and other communities that are
afflicted with meth abuse.
The challenge meth abuse poses is strong, serious and
immediate, and so, too, must be our response. The outstanding
job Sheriff Shook has done at the local level must be
duplicated at the Federal level if we are to eradicate meth
from our communities.
I look forward to receiving the testimony of our panelists
and hope we can use the feedback to create a firm legislative
response to the meth problem.
Thank you again, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Gutknecht.
Mr. Gutknecht. Just very briefly, Mr. Chairman. Again,
thanks for this hearing. More importantly, thank you for taking
the subcommittee around the country to hear from folks from all
areas of our Nation. This is a huge and a growing problem. We
learned, for example, in the Twin Cities, that there is a
growing sense among law enforcement that no longer is this a
drug which is just being produced in rural communities, that
more and more of it is actually coming in from Mexico, across
our borders, which raises even more interesting questions that
we at the Federal level need to address. So, again, thank you
for this hearing and thank you for your dogged pursuit of this
particular issue.
I yield back.
Mr. Souder. Thank you, I would now like to recognize a non-
member of this subcommittee, Mr. Cooper, who wants to introduce
a Tennessee witness. Tennessee has been one of the hardest-hit
States. Your delegation has been great, including the gentleman
with us today in helping us to fight meth. I recognize you for
the purpose of your introduction.
Mr. Cooper. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I really appreciate
your leadership on this issue because I know of no greater
scourge our rural area faces than meth. Tennessee has been hard
hit. We are about second worst State in America, and that is
not a distinction that any of us wants to hear.
I am particularly proud that Betsy Dunn will be joining us
on the second panel, because she is the model of what a Child
Protective Services worker should be. She has been at it for 16
years and we know it is a high turnover in her profession. She
is serving in one of the toughest areas of the country. Our
hometown of Cookesville is beautiful, a university town and
wonderful, but all around Cookesville, our areas have been very
hard hit by meth.
Many of us have read horror stories by the famous author
Stephen King, but I think Betsy can tell us scarier stories
than anything that Stephen King has written about, because her
stories are real and they are affecting our kids every day in
large numbers. Our State went ahead and the State legislature
took pseudoephedrine off the pharmacy shelves. I hope that our
adjoining States and all the States in the country will
consider steps to do that, to do anything they possibly can,
anything to alleviate the scourge.
But we are very proud of Betsy and her pioneering work over
the years. You make us proud, Betsy.
Thank you.
Mr. Souder. Thank you. I ask unanimous consent that all
Members have 5 legislative days to submit written statements
and questions to the hearing record and that any answers to
written questions by the witnesses also be included in the
hearing record. Without objection, it is so ordered.
I ask unanimous consent that all exhibits, documents and
all other materials referred to by Members may be included in
the hearing record and that all Members may be permitted to
revise and extend their remarks. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Our first panel is composed of Mr. Scott Burns, Deputy
Director for State and Local Affairs, Office of National Drug
Control Policy; Mr. Joseph Rannazzisi, Deputy Chief, Office of
Enforcement of DEA; Ms. Laura Birkmeyer, U.S. Assistant
Attorney, San Diego and chairperson for the National Alliance
for Endangered Children.
Would each of you stand, as an oversight committee it's our
standard practice to ask our witnesses to testify under oath.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Souder. Let the record show that each of the witnesses
responded in the affirmative.
Mr. Burns, thank you for joining us. You are recognized for
5 minutes.
STATEMENTS OF SCOTT BURNS, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, STATE AND LOCAL
AFFAIRS, OFFICE OF NATIONAL DRUG CONTROL POLICY; JOSEPH
RANNAZZISI, DEPUTY CHIEF, OFFICE OF ENFORCEMENT OF DEA; AND
LAURA BIRKMEYER, ASSISTANT U.S. ATTORNEY, SAN DIEGO, AND
CHAIRPERSON, NATIONAL ALLIANCE FOR ENDANGERED CHILDREN
STATEMENT OF HON. SCOTT BURNS
Mr. Burns. Thank you, Chairman Souder, and distinguished
members of the subcommittee for inviting me to discuss our
national efforts against meth. I am particularly honored, Mr.
Chairman, to be here with Mr. Rannazzisi and Ms. Birkmeyer,
both renowned experts, not only in this country, but worldwide.
Mr. Rannazzisi, as you know, is not only a respected DEA agent,
but a lawyer and a pharmacist.
Ms. Birkmeyer, a fellow road warrior, we see each other
crossing the country, is not only an assistant U.S. Attorney
who has spent years in the courtroom prosecuting
methamphetamine cases, but she is truly a voice and a champion
for children in this country on these issues. So I am honored.
I am also honored to be here with my brothers and sisters
in law enforcement from rural America. As you know, Mr.
Chairman, before coming here to work for the President and the
drug czar, I spent 16 years as a prosecutor in a small town. I
learned about the destructive aspects and nature of
methamphetamine firsthand. I worked with police officers who
were put at risk by having to respond to, enter and sit on meth
labs. I worked with city councilmen and city commissioners and
others to try to figure out a way to pay for the overtime while
we waited for a DEA chemist or work crews to come in. I met
with innocent neighbors who lived near houses who were turned
in meth labs. I have learned of children whose parents were
found to be under the influence of meth and suffered neglect as
a result.
As you know, Mr. Chairman, this is a bad drug. The toxic
waste, 6 or 7 pounds of waste associated with each pound of
methamphetamine is produced, children poisoned and toxicity
levels at the lab, burns from explosion, I see Congressman
Cooper here, I know that we were out in Tennessee at the burn
unit and the children and those suffering from meth explosions,
the violence associated with this drug and the costs to
incarcerate and clean up. It affects and destroys individual
lives, as we know, of families and communities.
So the national drug strategy has to be balanced. As you
know, our priorities are prevention and treatment, and also a
marked destruction, dismantling drug trafficking organizations.
We believe the strategy, with your help and your leadership,
has yielded success through the monitoring the future survey
and the household survey, those measures that we look to
determine whether or not we are doing any good--17 percent
reduction over the last 3 years. Our strategy to reduce drug
use in America has not, however, been focused on one illicit
drug at the expense of another, but seeks to reduce all illicit
drug use in this country. The increase in treatments for meth
over the past few years, especially in the western and
midwestern States, illustrates the devastating impact of the
drug on many adults.
The good news, however, is that the surveys show that
methamphetamine use among teens is down 25 percent over the
last 3 years. Hopefully, the message is reaching them that we
can buildupon those reductions with respect toward children.
I will be brief, because I want to take questions, but I
want to just basically outline some of the efforts in combating
the meth problem on a Federal level, the Drug Endangered
Children Program, and Ms. Birkmeyer will talk about that in
depth.
The NAMSDL, or National Alliance of Model State Drug Laws,
Sherry Green and others that are in her office putting on
training in summits and town halls across the country. The
HIDTA program, more initiatives in the High Intensity Drug
Trafficking Areas Program, are focused on methamphetamine than
any other singular drug. You talked about the NACo survey and
the perception or determination that methamphetamine was a No.
1 problem.
The HIDTAs are charged with determining the threat in their
area and responding appropriately and more initiatives to
target methamphetamine than any other single drug. The national
methamphetamine chemical drug initiative, again one that Ms.
Birkmeyer oversees in the HIDTA program, that brings together
the best and the brightest of law enforcement officers across
this country to talk about trends and ways to make the problem
smaller.
The administration has kept level the request for funding
for cleanup in Federal law enforcement, as Mr. Rannazzisi will
talk about, has done a phenomenal job, especially of shutting
down the flow of pseudoephedrine from Canada into the United
States, over a 90 percent reduction in interdiction. The
methamphetamine advertisements or PSAs that you, Mr. Chairman,
and others were so helpful in bringing to fruition, will be
coming out.
I chair the Synthetic Action Plan that brought together my
office, as well as the Department of Justice, and just about
everybody in the intergovernmental world in Washington to sit
down and try to come up with recommendations to bring to the
Congress with respect to how to make this problem smaller.
I personally thank you for your leadership and for your
courage, to take on these issues, as was mentioned, you are not
only here in Washington but out in the field. I have been to
Indiana as you know, twice to try to assist and just about
every other State in the country, talking about this issue.
I ask that my full statement be made part of the official
record and I look forward to your questions, thank you.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Burns follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Mr. Rannazzisi.
STATEMENT OF JOHN RANNAZZISI
Mr. Rannazzisi. Thank you, sir. Chairman Souder and
distinguished members of the House Government Reform Committee,
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human
Resources, on behalf of the Drug Enforcement Administration's
Administrator, Karen P. Tandy, I appreciate your invitation to
testify here today regarding DEA's effort to combat
methamphetamine trafficking and abuse across the United States.
I just want to say that I am both honored and humbled to
sit here at the table with Ms. Birkmeyer and Mr. Burns. They
have given us outstanding--nothing short of outstanding support
in our fight against drug abuse, and they should be recognized
for that.
Today, few communities in the United States have not felt
the crushing impact of methamphetamine, which goes far beyond
the actual trafficking and abuse of this drug. The DEA is well
aware that combating this drug requires a multifaceted approach
to law enforcement.
In addition to our domestic and international enforcement
efforts, the DEA is battling this drug through the efforts of
our office of training, hazardous waste disposal program and
victimless witness assistance program. Training is vital to
ensure that officers conducting laboratory investigations are
provided with safe and efficient procedures and equipment which
allows them to work in these dangerous environments.
Since 1998, with funding originally received to the
community-oriented policing program [COPS], and then through
direct annual appropriations, the DEA offers a strong training
program for our State and local counterparts. Each of our
training courses exceeds OSHA-mandated minimum safety
requirements and is provided at no cost to qualified local law
enforcement officers.
Since 1998, we have trained over 8,600 State and local law
enforcement personnel plus an additional 1,900 DEA employees to
conduct clandestine laboratory investigations, dismantle seized
labs and to protect the public from methamphetamine toxic
waste. As part of this training, approximately $19 million in
meth lab personal protective equipment has been provided to
State and local law enforcement officers. The DEA has also
conducted training for our foreign counterparts and has also
provided awareness training for our U.S. military in
Afghanistan.
Today our hazardous waste program, with the assistance of
COPS, supports and funds the cleanup of a majority of the
laboratories seized in the United States. This program promotes
the safety of law enforcement personnel and the public by using
qualified companies with specialized training and equipment to
remove hazardous wastes seized at clandestine drug labs. The
average cost of the cleanup during the initial contract was
approximately $17,000 and currently the average cost is
approximately $2,000.
To further reduce the cost of clandestine lab cleanups, in
fiscal year 2004 we join the Kentucky State Police to join a
pilot clandestine lab container program in Kentucky. This
program has streamlined the laboratory cleanup process and has
resulted in the reduction of operational costs, the length of
time officers must remain on the lab site and overtime costs to
law enforcement agencies. The current average cleanup lab time
cost in this project is approximately $350 per site.
More than any other controlled substance, methamphetamine
trafficking endangers children to the exposure of drug abuse,
neglect, physical and sexual abuse, toxic chemicals, hazardous
waste, fire and explosions.
A key goal of the DEA victim and witness program is to
provide assistance to victims of methamphetamine, particularly
drug-endangered children. Each of our field divisions has a
victim-witness coordinator to insure that all endangered
children are identified and that the child's immediate safety
is addressed at the scene by appropriate child welfare and
health service providers.
Assistance has also been provided to vulnerable adults,
individuals of domestic violence and customers and employees of
businesses, such as motels and hotels such as where
methamphetamine has been produced and seized.
We also provide training on drug-endangered children to
Federal, State and local law enforcement and to national State
and local victims organizations. In order to provide the public
with current information on methamphetamine and drug-endangered
children, the DEA participates in numerous local, State and
national conferences and exhibits.
In conclusion, the DEA is attacking the methamphetamine
epidemic on all available fronts. In addition to our domestic
and international enforcement efforts, we provide vital
laboratory training equipment to law enforcement officers from
across the country. Our hazardous waste program, with the
assistance of grants to State and local law enforcement,
supports and funds the cleanup of a majority of the clandestine
laboratories seized in the United States.
Over the years, this program has become more efficient, and
we have engaged in efforts to further streamline this process
and reduce the cleanup costs. Through the victim-witness
assistance program, we are providing assistance to
methamphetamine victims.
Chairman Souder, distinguished members of the subcommittee,
thank you for your recognition of this important issue and the
opportunity to testify here today. I will be happy to answer
any questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Rannazzisi follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Thank you, Ms. Birkmeyer.
STATEMENT OF LAURA J. BIRKMEYER
Ms. Birkmeyer. Chairman Souder and distinguished members of
the subcommittee. It is a true honor to appear before you today
to discuss the plight of America's drug-endangered children. I
am the Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney in the southern
district of California, and I have prosecuted methamphetamine
and precursor chemical cases for most of my 18 years there.
But today, I address you as director of the National
Alliance for Drug Endangered Children. The alliance encourages
communities to intervene on behalf of children and to establish
Drug Endangered Children [DEC], multidisciplinary programs to
rescue, defend and shelter and support these children.
Methamphetamine is running ferociously throughout the
country, and in its wake, often unseen and overlooked are
thousands of children. Drug endangered children are at enormous
risk in homes where meth is manufactured or where parents live
a methamphetamine life-style.
If this were a different venue I would present to you the
hundreds of pictures and video clips we have collected of
deplorable living conditions evidencing the homes of these
children. Words don't adequately describe the filth, chaos and
danger there. Their homes--where their sheets, if there are
any, are never washed, where children's bedrooms are used to
store drugs, where toxic waste from methamphetamine
manufacturing is routinely poured down kitchen sinks and
bathtubs in which children are later bathed. There are homes
where the plumbing doesn't work, food in the refrigerator is
moldy and rotten, and where if there is any food, many times it
is contaminated because often times methamphetamine and
methamphetamine chemicals are stored there.
There are also the homes where doorbells ring all day and
night during binge cycles and where a constant stream of
strangers, ex-felons, registered sex offenders and poly drug
users come and go to use meth. The air is filled with second
hand methamphetamine smoke that is precipitating out on
surfaces throughout the house. The children are
``parentified,'' they are left to look out for themselves and
their younger siblings while their parents binge, sleep and
cope with their drug habit.
I could also spread before you murdered, burned, bruised
and maimed children who are victimized by these same adults.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. All of these children,
even those that emerge without serious bodily injury, suffer
enormous psychological harm, degradation and lack of nurturing.
Methamphetamine affects the body, and particularly the brain in
a way that lingers long after ingestion occurs.
NIDA Director Nora Volkow and others have just begun to
show that methamphetamine alters brain chemistry for months and
years after the drug use ceases. The affects on the brain alter
parental behavior and impair the ability to parent. Often
parents in drug treatment do not recover in sufficient time and
prove competent enough to be reunified with their children.
Just yesterday, the alliance brought together a working
group of drug treatment experts to identify the most effective
methamphetamine programs and to evaluate and recommend programs
which address the total needs of family and their dependent
children.
We are also in the process of designing an awareness
program used to notify drug treatment providers who are
sometimes unaware of the dangerous consequences for dependent
children when their parents relapse. I know you are familiar
with the El Paso Intelligence Center statistics.
You also probably know that we cannot count the total
number of drug-endangered children in this Nation. We know that
the El Paso numbers are not complete. Some counties are
starting to count their drug endangered children on their own
and in my home county, DEC teams have taken more than 400
children into protective custody in the past 12 months.
Significantly more than 95 percent of those come not from meth
lab homes but from homes where adults use methamphetamine or
traffic in methamphetamine.
Drug endangered children teams comprised of law
enforcement, child welfare workers, medical professionals,
psychologists, prosecutors, and where possible, working closely
with drug courts and court-appointed special advocates, are an
effective response.
Drug endangered children, once they are found by law
enforcement and protected by child custody are evaluated for
placement in safer environments as non-offending parents,
family members or in the foster care system. And a prosecutor
will later determine if it's appropriate to file child
endangerment charges or to permit reunification with parents.
As those children enter foster care they stress a system
that searches for a way to coordinate a provision of services.
Many communities are reporting that we need better preparation
of foster parents for the behavior and medical issues attendant
to children exposed to methamphetamine environments. State and
counties have different resources and structures, and there is
no one-size-fits-all for implementing a model of DEC. In order
to implement that process, last year we started the National
Drug Endangered Children training program administered by my
office, which provides cost-free break to requesting States.
We send out experienced training teams consisting of law
enforcement officers, prosecutors, doctors and nurses, the
people that actually do this day in and out. In the last 18
months, we have trained more than 5,500 professionals for
multiple disciplines in 20 different States. I wish to finish
with a note of hope. The psychologists who work with the
alliance say that these children are resilient. If given the
opportunity and a caring environment they will strive. We have,
as one of our goals, the hope that they will not be tagged
``crank babies'' as if they are irreversibly damaged. We
believe, and it is our fervent shared belief, that by rescuing
these children, we can break the cycle of drug abuse.
Thank you. I would be happy to answer any questions you may
have.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Birkmeyer follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Thank you, I would recognize Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank the
witnesses for their testimony. Mr. Chairman I will give my
statement at this time. Methamphetamine or meth is hardly a new
drug, but in recent years, it has quickly become one of the
major drug threats facing this country. According to a recent
report by the National Association of Counties, entitled the
Meth Epidemic in America, meth is now the No. 1 illegal drug
threat facing most of the 500 counties that participated in a
survey of local law enforcement agencies. Moreover, the drug's
destructive impact on families has contributed to a significant
increase in child welfare rolls as we have just heard in
hundreds of counties across the Nation, according to the same
record. The New York Times described meth's devastating impact
on families in a compelling article published on July 8, 2005,
entitled, ``Drug Scourge Creates its Own Form of Orphan.''
I would ask unanimous consent, Mr. Chairman, that article
be submitted as a part of this hearing's record.
[The information referred to follows:]
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Mr. Cummings. A powerful stimulant that affects the central
nervous system, meth is derived from a chemical compound
contained in over-the-counter nasal decongestants and bronchial
inhalers as well as in certain weight loss treatments. Meth can
be smoked, snorted, orally ingested or injected and is known by
a variety of street names depending on the form in which it is
used. Meth frequently is produced in a powder form, resembling
granulated crystals and also in a rock form known as ice, which
is referred by those who smoke the drug.
Meth causes an increase rush and a high that can last up to
12 hours. The side effects of meth use are dangerous and
sometimes fatal. They include convulsions, high body
temperatures, stroke, cardiac arrests, arrhythmia, stomach
cramps and shaking. Meth is highly addictive and abuse of a
drug can cause violent behavior, anxiety, insomnia in addition
to psychotic affects such as paranoia, hallucinations, mood
swings and delusions.
Persistent users develop a tolerance for the drug that
requires the user to take increasing amounts to achieve the
desired affects. Meth can be manufactured using ingredients
purchased in U.S. retail stores. Most of the production of
U.S.-consumed methamphetamine is domestic, occurring both in
large super labs, which produce unprecedented amounts of high
purity methamphetamine, as well as in small, clandestine labs
found in homes, apartments, hotel rooms, rented storage space
and trucks. Many methamphetamine labs produce as little as 10
pounds a year, but their environmental costs in the cleaning up
of toxic wastes from these sites can be huge. Because the
ingredients are not only toxic but extremely volatile in
combination labs also pose a serious danger to the so-called
meth cooks who make the drugs, as well as individuals living in
close proximity to the activity.
All too often, these individuals are the young children of
small-scale manufacturers. They are not only at great risk of
physical harm, from explosions, exposure to toxic chemicals,
but they are very often the victims of family neglect or abuse,
because the drug's affects on their parents or other relatives.
A National Association of Counties report, and ``New York
Times'' article described, these circumstances have led to a
large number of children being taken from the custodial control
of their parents and placed in foster care. Sadly the health
and behavior affects that result from prenatal exposure to meth
and from severe family neglect or abuse make meth-addicted
parents especially challenging for foster parents to care for
and very, very difficult to place. Absent effective treatment
for the parents of displaced children, reuniting families, torn
apart by meth, may be impossible.
Traditionally, meth has been concentrated in the western
States, especially California, Arizona and 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. Meth abuse has not
yet become a major problem in the communities of Baltimore City
and Baltimore-Howard counties that I represent, 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 America and that no community, absolutely
no community, is immune to the introduction of a dangerous new
drug threat.
Today, on our first witness panel, we will hear from
officials who are responsible for shaping, coordinating and
carrying out the Federal response to the growing meth epidemic,
including preventing its spread to the East Coast and urban
districts like the one that I represent.
We will also hear directly from law enforcement and child
welfare officials from States and localities that are suffering
the myriad of problems that affect communities where meth is
produced and consumed.
Federal legislative efforts to address the meth epidemic
have focused on limiting over-the-counter access to products
containing precursor chemicals as well as providing support for
law enforcement and the cleanup of toxic sites. There is no
doubt that these are important objectives that Congress and the
administration should pursue.
At the same time, Mr. Chairman, I believe that it would be
impossible to underestimate the importance of drug treatment in
addressing this epidemic. Research from the Center for
Substance Abuse Treatment shows that meth addiction can be
effectively treated and that the benefits of treating meth
addiction are similar to the benefits derived from treating
addiction to other drugs. Use of the drug is sharply reduced.
Criminal activity and recidivism decline. Employment status and
housing status improve, and overall health improves--a healthy
drug-free employed person in a stable housing situation is a
person who is far more likely to be able to function in civil
society and be a responsible, loving parent--of insuring that
people who have become dependent on meth have access to
effective treatment is therefore essential to stopping this
epidemic that is sweeping across our great Nation.
So, Mr. Chairman, I thank you for continuing to shine a
light on this issue. I thank each of our witnesses for
appearing with us today.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Elijah E. Cummings
follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Before we move to questions, Mr. Mica, do you
wish to make an opening statement.
Mr. Mica. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, thank you for
recognizing me. I didn't get a chance to make an opening
statement, but if you would permit me just to make a few
comments.
First of all, I thank you for this hearing. I rarely try to
write and direct the actions of this subcommittee, although I
had the honor and privilege of being a former Chair of this
panel. But as you know, I requested that we look at this issue.
The meth issue is totally out of hand. I have worked on this
subcommittee with you and other predecessors back at--before
Denny Hastert.
We have tackled crack and cocaine issues. I have worked
with Mr. Cummings in trying to clean up Baltimore and some of
the challenges we faced in that community and other
communities. We have been through heroin. We have tracked down
perpetrators to the Andes, we have put together multibillion
dollar programs to go after drugs at their sources, illegal
narcotics at their sources. We have been through the designer
drug phase.
Now we are at an interesting juncture where we have done
some good things in some of those areas. But this problem is in
everybody's backyard in this Congress and in every community
across the country. It's almost totally out of hand. It's our
worst drug nightmare come true, because the ingredients are
easily accessible in drugstores. The recipes are on the
Internet.
If you look at crime tragedy and social problems in this
country right now, spousal abuse, child abuse--I remember one
time hearing the story of--it is affecting every aspect of our
society. All the social levels, whether it's a rich family that
puts their baby--the mother puts the baby in a microwave and
tries to fry her, or in some of the poorest backwaters of our
country, this is a serious problem, out of hand. I honestly
don't know what the answer is. I think if you get to treatment,
it is probably too late. They have already destroyed lives and
families, because, again, of the insidious nature of this drug.
We have to look at again, education. We may need to haul
some folks in. I am anxious to hear what they recommend. We
need to look at our laws. We need to look at enforcement,
whatever it takes. But this situation is totally out of hand,
and we have to come up with some solution to bring all the
resources possible to address this.
So I thank you for calling this hearing. I am anxious to
not only hear the testimony, but also hear some of the
solutions that are suggested by some of the expert witnesses
you have assembled. So thank you and I yield back.
Mr. Souder. Ms. Watson, do you have any opening comments?
Ms. Watson. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, for putting
together this hearing today. Because eliminating drug smuggling
and distribution throughout the United States is vital in
keeping our communities safe. The Department of Justice
contends that in my home State of California, we have over 80
percent of the Nation's meth labs, and, therefore, we are the
leading exporter of this deadly drug.
In 2002 to 2004, 142,749 people were treated for meth
treatment in my State alone. I am very troubled by the fact
that I believe that over 12 million Americans, ages 12 and
older, have tried methamphetamine at least once in their lives.
These statistics are startling as well as devastating. And our
youth, being the future of this Nation, and the fight to
decrease the distribution of this drug, along with all other
illegal substances, should be at the forefront of all of our
efforts.
Throughout this hearing, we will discuss the impact on
methamphetamines on the child welfare system. We are seeing a
growing trend where every day more and more children are
entering the foster care system because of meth, because of its
manufacturing or because they are selling it. Our children are
suffering from their parents' addiction to meth. Most of our
youth who end up being users were introduced to meth by their
parents or by other family members. The scope of the
methamphetamine problem is not just the users and distributors
problem, it is the problem of everyone who touches the life of
someone who is using this harmful substance.
Methamphetamine use and distribution have disastrous
consequences across America's heartland and beyond. So we must
do everything in our power to expand access to treatment,
strengthen our prevention services and continue to support
research that will help us get rid of this problem here in the
United States. We need to be focused on supplying treatment
that will not only get the abuser off of drugs, but supply them
with a job, help them remain out of jail and be a positive
contributor to society.
So, Mr. Chairman, I thank you again for putting together
this hearing, and I would like to thank the witnesses for their
willingness to come and testify. I hope that we can all work
together to effectively tackle the abuse of all illicit
substances that are ruining our streets and killing our
children every day.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Diane E. Watson follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Thank you. Like Congressman Cooper, Congressman
Osborne is not a member of this committee, but he has been a
leader in the fight against meth. Would you like to make any
comments.
Mr. Osborne. No statement.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Burns, before this hearing, you met with
the bipartisan caucus leaders, Congressman Calvert, Congressman
Larsen, Congressman Baird.
Mr. Burns. Yes.
Mr. Souder. They had specifically asked you to come back
with what the Federal Government was doing in a coordinated way
to tackle the problem of meth. Could you elaborate on that a
little bit and what your plans are to come back to the meth
efforts we have been organizing aggressively here in Congress?
And we would like to hear what the administration is doing.
Mr. Burns. Yes, let me start by saying, as many of you know
who have followed this issue, we had great successes in
stemming the flow of pseudoephedrine from Canada into Central
Valley, CA, Congresswoman Watson, your State. We saw a drastic
reduction in the number of super labs, super labs being a lab
that can produce 10 pounds or more methamphetamine in a 24-hour
period.
We saw those labs, we believe, go south to Mexico. So the
strategy this the administration had, Ms. Birkmeyer and Mr.
Rannazzisi and our brothers and sisters in law enforcement and
across the country, had a year ago has changed. This is not an
issue that you can come up with the solution, that is, forever
going to work. So I look forward, and I am pleased that the
meth caucus has agreed to sit down with us and look at the
immediate and best practices we can employ to making the
problem smaller.
With respect to moving the meth to Mexico, for example--and
I have talked about a synthetic action plan that we have come
up with. There are efforts underway and the meth caucus has
agreed to assist us in dealing with China, Hong Kong, Czech
Republic and Germany and other countries that export
pseudoephedrine, primarily and formerly to Canada, but now
primarily to Mexico. Any assistance that can be provided in
conjunction with the administration will be well received.
Ms. Birkmeyer and the national methamphetamine chemical
initiative, now I am talking about the domestic side of
methamphetamine, bringing together law enforcement officers
from Florida and from Nebraska and from North Carolina and
every State in this country, Indiana, to look at best practices
and to make recommendations to us with respect to what will
work--who better than the women and men in the field and in the
trenches of these sheriffs and folks behind us that give us----
Mr. Souder. Mr. Burns, I appreciate that.
Mr. Burns. Sure.
Mr. Souder. What we want to see are not the piecemeal
efforts which have been extraordinary. We want to see a
coordinated effort. This is not a new drug. It didn't just
suddenly burst on the scene. We held the first hearings under
Mr. Mica in Congressman Ose's district right before California
passed their childhood endangerment law, and it had to be at
least 8 years ago when this hit California. It has been
steadily moving across the country.
What we see are individual HIDTAs having to come bottom up.
We see individual programs being coordinated around the State.
We see no national coordinating meth strategy. What I would
like to see is not how is this piece and how we are going to do
this and that.
In the past 3 weeks, we have passed more pieces of
legislation on meth which the administration could have been
doing, which the administration could have done, but didn't do.
We are going to keep the pressure on. What the meth caucus
wants to hear are not the pieces but the overall strategy. How
does this strategy tackle this?
The Canada bust was tremendous. It dried up a portion of
the pseudoephedrine across the border. There are only nine of
these plants in the entire world. This isn't that hard. It is
not going to be that easy, but we want to see a coordinated
strategy.
Just a little over a week ago, the Attorney General said
that meth was an epidemic, which is not what we have been
hearing out of the government, and he said it is the most
dangerous drug in America. Does ONDCP agree with that? Do you
think that is the most dangerous drug in America?
Mr. Burns. I don't think anyone would disagree with
Attorney General Gonzales and his statement regarding the
destructive nature of methamphetamine. I don't know that he
called it an epidemic.
Mr. Souder. That is a quote.
Mr. Burns. I made the same statement in Portland, OR, a
couple of weeks ago. Based upon my experience there is no more
serious drug in the country. But as you know, and as the Office
of National Drug Control Policy, we also have to deal with
heroin in the northeast where they would laugh if you told them
there is a meth epidemic. We have to deal with gangs in Chicago
who would laugh if we told them there is a meth epidemic. We
have to deal with the fact that there are more kids in
treatment for marijuana than all the other kids combined and
75\1/2\ million are using that drug. We have to be able to
address all of the drugs and all of the problems on a
comprehensive----
Mr. Souder. So you don't agree it is the most dangerous
drug in America. In other words, its rate of increase, the way
it grabs, it's impact on the State and local law enforcement.
Look, I want to say for the record, you have been an ally on
this internally----
Mr. Burns. Thank you.
Mr. Souder [continuing]. And it has been very difficult.
But we are not arguing that cocaine isn't a dangerous drug or
that heroin isn't a dangerous drug, but they are relatively
flat. What we are seeing, as many of the African-American
interim big city organizations realize they can cut out the
Colombians, go straight with the Mexicans, and when they
convert over to meth, we are going to see an epidemic like
never before in America as it hits the areas where they don't
have an epidemic.
That is why the Attorney General says it is the most
dangerous drug and we want the ONDCP to acknowledge it. One of
those is my next question. The President with the active
backing of ONDCP proposed cutting the HIDTA, the High Intensity
Drug Trafficking Areas Program by 60 percent, which we have
restored, in fact increased, eliminating the Safe and Drug-free
Schools State grants, which we put the money back for in
Congress, eliminating the Burn grants to State and local law
enforcement, which we will hear on our critical second panel,
wiping out the Meth Hot Spots Program, which we have restored.
Now the question is, are ONDCP and the administration ready
to say we were wrong--and as we go to conference here, are they
going to back us on the meth questions--and if you are not
prepared to say that today, I hope you will take it back to the
Director of ONDCP and the White House that Congress has spoken.
We need you not to come up and say, look, we are working on the
meth piecemeal. We need you to stop cutting the budget on how
we are trying to address it. We need you to back up the U.S.
Congress as we try to move it forward and back up the State and
local law enforcement, the DEA agents, in the field so they can
stop this before we bemoan 2 years later that the statistics
ate us alive.
Mr. Burns. I will deliver the message, Congressman, I hear
you loud and clear, I think we heard it loud and clear in the
House and the Senate with respect to HIDTA and other assistance
in State and local law enforcement.
As you mentioned prior to the hearing, I met with the meth
caucus, met with Congressmen Larsen and Baird and Calvert and
admitted that we would make an attempt to do it in a package
fashion and not piecemeal and comprehensive. You and I see each
other enough. You can make sure I do that.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Rannazzisi, is it the DEA position that
India, Mexico, Germany, China, are cooperating with us at this
point on the precursors? We put it in the State Department bill
last week for data collection. What other tools do you have
that we could help with?
Mr. Rannazzisi. Well, I believe we are getting good
cooperation from our international counterparts. Mexico--we are
in constant contact with Mexico and Mexico recognizes the
problem, recognizes that pseudoephedrine, as many could go into
their country and we are working very closely with them, with
their competent authority that handles the chemicals. They are
looking at the problem just as strongly as we are.
As far as the other countries you mentioned, all of those
countries have been more than cooperative with us, you know, on
specific information. If we ask them, you know, they will
provide the information. We all sit on the same international
committees. It is not a one-on-one--it is more of a--like U.N.
committees, for instance. We sit on U.N. committees, Operation
Topaz, committees like that, where we actually share
information on chemical flows through the world. So the
cooperation is good.
Now, on the second part of your question, I am sorry, could
you repeat that, please?
Mr. Souder. We would like specific suggestions you might
have to enable us to make DEA more effective as you try to
intercept the pseudoephedrine coming in. It is coming from a
few known places, we have the data on that, known cooperation,
there are obviously certification processes that the drug czar
can recommend, administration can recommend and decertify
countries if they don't cooperate. What kind of cooperation do
we need in that area?
Mr. Placido, when he testified here a number of weeks ago,
he promised he was going to provide a list to this committee a
list of how DEA and the organized way it has been tackling
meth, not--kind of generally gave us a couple of good programs
he was working. My understanding is, is that still going
through clearances? We need to see those documents.
We want to know what systemic way DEA is tackling this
issue as a critical part of components. If I can add one last
thing, you had the Kentucky program that was really
interesting. That one of the things we have learned in the
process here is our asset forfeiture laws may be weaker than
they need to be as far as seizing certain assets in the home
cooker cases. If you have any suggestions or informal advice
you want to give to us as we develop those kinds of pieces of
legislation and move forth in ways we might be able to put that
in some of the cleanup costs, what we could do to go forward
and help promote that program like you have in Kentucky,
because that would be a big break through for local law
enforcement.
Mr. Rannazzisi. As far as what we are doing and what we
need to do to go further, as far as the chemicals, that is
something I am really not prepared to talk about. But I will
get back to you, and I will get Mr. Placido and make sure those
documents are completed and vetted and sent to the committee.
Mr. Souder. Thank you. Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much. I want to thank all of
you very much for your testimony. I want to go to you, Mr.
Burns, and I just want to correct you on one thing. You had
said in response to the chairman, one of the chairman's
question, you said that if you, and you can correct me if I am
wrong, I am not sure if I am paraphrasing that completely
accurately, you said if you were to go to the northeast and
said that there was a meth epidemic, that they would laugh at
you, something of that nature?
Mr. Burns. Yes.
Mr. Cummings. Well, I am here to tell you that I am in the
northeast, and we don't laugh at that, because we realize that
for any person in this country, to suffer from drug addiction
is like the entire country is suffering, whatever the drug may
be. In my area it's heroin, and it is crack cocaine. But I
believe that the people who go through that and see their
families destroyed, see their communities destroyed, see their
children's hopes and dreams not delayed, but snuffed out, they
sympathize with anybody, anywhere, who is going through a
similar problem, no matter what the drug of choice might be.
I just want to make that clear, because I think it's very
important that all of us understand that no matter what the
drug is, the destructive nature of drugs is universal, and it
has no boundaries.
But let me just go to something else. In my opening
statement, I talked about the effects of this meth, and I
talked about violent behavior, I talked about psychotic
effects. He talked about hallucinations and delusions. One of
the things I think that concerns me greatly about
methamphetamine, is that they can do the same thing that we
have seen done in the inner city of Baltimore. They can create
narco-terrorist's right in your own neighborhood.
They don't have to come from overseas somewhere. People are
afraid to even go into their houses or come out of them. People
are afraid that their own children will kill them. That is a
very, very serious business. And so when Mr. Souder talks about
solutions to the problems, I am just wondering exactly, why is
it--and perhaps you might be able to help me with this, Ms.
Birkmeyer.
Why is it that you think that 47 percent of the
methamphetamine abusers are women? Why do you think that is?
Ms. Birkmeyer. I am not an abuse expert.
Mr. Cummings. OK. Maybe one of the gentlemen can tell me.
Ms. Birkmeyer. I have learned through my travels, though,
that because methamphetamine is a weight loss drug and women
sometimes have the desire to appear to be slender, that it is
appealing to them. It is a drug that gives you quite a bit of
energy. And so in places that are rather--that you wouldn't
think as being areas ripe for drug use, mothers who are raising
a lot of children use it to stay awake.
Many young women are fed methamphetamine by boyfriends or
by peers and become addicted to it. So it is a drug that
crosses every sphere, as you all have noted, and it is very
dangerous to women. And it has particular impact, because it is
drug that is popular to women, it has particular impact on
children.
Mr. Cummings. Speaking of children, what would you like to
see the Federal Government do with regard to the issues that
you raise as far as parents not being there for their children?
Because it appears that we may very well be creating a new
negative generational cycle, that is, a generational cycle of
drug addicts.
We have seen it, by the way, in my district where the
mother, the child, the grandmother, grandfather, generation
after generation of addicts.
You know, how do we try? I mean, what can the Federal
Government do to deal with their problem? Because it does not
seem that there is any letting up of folks who are becoming
addicted. And at the same time, while we are trying, Mr. Burns
and many others are trying to address the problem, we still
have little children who are simply trying to grow up, not
pulling themselves up by their bootstraps because they don't
have any boots and no straps. They are just trying to make it.
And so how do we make sure that we--what can the Federal
Government do to help folks in positions like yours, locals and
States, deal with these kinds of issues? I am talking about the
children aspect of it.
Ms. Birkmeyer. I am hoping that beyond today's hearing you
will permit the National Alliance to work with you, and I would
love to be able to submit to you some plans and suggestions.
I mentioned earlier the fact that we believe very strongly
in drug-endangered children [DEC] teams. And I can't submit to
you how important that is. I would suggest that the reason we
have seen these generational problems is because, in the past,
we left the kids behind. After law enforcement did their hard
work, cleaned up a house, arrested folks, seized drugs, the
child was handed off to the first non-felon that walked through
the door, was never identified as a crime victim and was often
reunited with parents as soon as they got out on bail. And
nobody was recording that child as somebody that we needed to
pay attention to.
The DEC team philosophy is completely different. It
elevates the role of that child as a victim. It ensures that
child welfare workers work in partnership with law enforcement.
And one of the things that we urge at the National Alliance is,
it is not just about the rescue.
Good for us that we rescue, good for us that we identify
that child, but we need to follow that child long term. We have
to make sure that immediately they get a medical exam
appropriate for the type of environment they are found in. We
know that we have to do developmental exams on them to see what
this environment has done to them. We know we can't return them
to parents until the parents are competent to be parents. And
so that is a long-term goal.
I think we have done a fairly good job. Nobody was talking
about drug-endangered children 5 years ago. I mean, I am sure
all of you were in one sense or another, but we weren't
identifying it as a national crisis or problem. I think we have
made strides in terms of awareness. We have a long way to go.
There is a lot that needs to be studied.
There is some ground-breaking research that has occurred,
DEA chemists assisting the National Jewish Hospital and Medical
Center in Denver, CO, and Dr. John Martyny have gone a long way
to start the research we need to do about what are the true
effects of the meth environment? How is it really contaminated?
We have yet to really study what happens to a child in that
environment.
You can't use a child as a guinea pig, of course, so we
need to look at the children we are taking out of there and
see, long term, how do they suffer? What are the developmental
delays that we see?
We know that our treatment programs and even the great
programs like drug court have to acknowledge the fact that
there are children in the background when you are treating the
adult, that if the adult has a relapse, you can't then send the
adult home who may ignore or, worse yet, harm the child.
So I think we are doing a decent job on consciousness
raising.
I would appreciate the opportunity to work with you and
this committee in the future to submit suggestions. We have got
a long list.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much.
Mr. Souder. Yield to the vice chairman, Mr. McHenry.
Mr. McHenry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will make this very
brief, and it is a simple question.
What is your one suggestion for Congress in order to--what
is the one thing we in Congress can do to attack this meth
problem? And we can just start from left to right. I would like
to hear your one suggestion, if you could just boil it down,
keep it short and simple. I only have 5 minutes. I am not the
chairman, I am not the ranking member.
Mr. Burns. Well, I think Chairman Souder hit the nail on
the head. I mean, sometimes it is difficult for us in the
administration to keep up with Congress and the legislation
that is being proposed and find out who is going where and when
and why.
I think, if I had one suggestion to make, it would be that
we make a concerted effort to sit down and come up with a
comprehensive package to address the issue. That would be my
one recommendation.
Mr. Rannazzisi. I think that the recommendations that were
put forth in the National Center Drug Action Plan should be
taken seriously. And, basically, they are a very good starting
point as far as where we should be down the road to combat
methamphetamine.
Ms. Birkmeyer. Mr. Burns stole the words right out of my
mouth, and that is, a comprehensive approach. It is something
that the National Methamphetamine Chemicals Initiative has been
pushing since 1999. But particularly with respect to children,
I think every time you look at this aspect of methamphetamine--
and, mind you, drug-endangered children aren't exclusive to
meth; you well know that a cocaine home or a marijuana home or
a heroin home can be just as dangerous and terrifying to a
child. But it really is all about comprehensive approach and
thinking every time we do something, how is this going to
affect children and how can we make sure that we get them the
services they need.
Mr. McHenry. Thank you.
Mr. Souder. Ms. Foxx.
Ms. Foxx. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Burns suggested that the meth problem is not as bad or
as broad as cocaine, heroin, and others. In our experience in
North Carolina, meth certainly is a much bigger problem than
other illicit drugs. If what you say is correct, however, it
may not be correct for long.
What I mean by that is, widespread meth abuse is relatively
recent, and meth may replace heroin, cocaine, and others as the
worst drug problem in America. Hindsight shows us something we
could have done differently when cocaine and heroin problems
were developing. Learning from those lessons, what can we do to
adapt them to fight meth ahead of the curve?
Mr. Burns. Well, and perhaps I haven't articulated well, I
was talking about looking at the problem from a national level.
And if I can go back, Ranking Member Cummings, and just
respond briefly to your comment, I would never insinuate or
state that there is anything humorous about any of this. I was
talking about, on a national level, trying to look at cocaine
and methamphetamine and marijuana.
I buried a brother 52 years old on July 8th who suffered
the disease of addiction for 27 years. He was in a mining
accident and never got off pills and never got off alcohol. My
mother understands it, my remaining brother understands it, and
I understand it. And there is nothing funny about it.
With respect to your question. All problems are personal.
When I came to Washington, DC, from Cedar City, UT, the No. 1
issue that I brought, an area of expertise, was
methamphetamine. Perception is reality. You are correct,
however, that in different parts of the country, different law
enforcement agencies and policymakers have to deal with their
present problems.
What are we doing to send the message from the West Coast
to the East Coast about best practices? Ms. Birkmeyer and Mr.
Rannazzisi have been with me on numerous town halls and summits
and meetings to try to bring together Federal, State, and local
law enforcement, to bring together members of communities.
We talk about educating people in the business community.
We talk about the drug-endangered children program and training
we can put together. We talk about educating law enforcement.
We actually bring people from the West Coast to the East Coast.
I have been to Maine and New Hampshire and Connecticut and,
most recently, Rhode Island. We are working on a summit there
to talk about methamphetamine before they even have, frankly, a
lab problem or meth problems, to try and get ahead of the
problems. So that is what we are doing in the administration.
Ms. Foxx. Thank you.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Mica.
Mr. Mica. OK. Mr. Burns, this is a great report--I sent it
to you, Mr. Chairman--from the Washington Times done by a Guy
Taylor. They did a series. This one, this part of it, is
entitled Meth's Infection: Labs Spread Bitterness to
Communities, a series--part of a series.
In this he says, ``In Tennessee, the Department of Child
Services investigated meth-related cases involving more than
750 children from just last October to February alone.''
Let us take another State quoted in here.
``Indiana reported a thousand raids''--that is your home
State, Mr. Chairman--``on mom-and-pop meth labs. One of the
sheriffs of Vigo County said the annual cost of running the
jail jumped from $800,000 7 years ago to $3\1/2\ million last
year. And he said 80 percent of its more than 250 prisoners are
held on meth-related charges.'' Furthermore, this report says,
``more than half of the local law enforcement representatives
in 45 States surveyed this month by the National Association of
Counties, NACo, listed meth before marijuana and cocaine.''
That is an epidemic, OK? The Attorney General said it is an
epidemic, the county and local officials are saying it is an
epidemic. This is the most out of control I have ever seen,
since I have served in Congress, of any narcotic. And we had
them in the mid-1990's, dropping like flies in central Florida
from the heroin epidemic, when we had people dying in those
numbers.
My question is, on the education side, what kind of a
targeted program and how much of our resources in dollars or
percent of dollars are we spending to address this? Could you
tell me?
Mr. Burns. I couldn't give you a figure with respect to----
Mr. Mica. Well, that scares me if you can't give me a
figure.
Mr. Burns. Well, then be scared, because I can't. I mean, I
can get back to you and try and figure out how much goes
toward----
Mr. Mica. See, now that scares me, too, because when you
have these kinds of statistics and we don't have a plan and we
don't know how much money we are spending on it, there is
something wrong.
This is an epidemic. This meeting to sit down should have
occurred a long time ago. This isn't something just new on the
block.
Mr. Souder and I were--he told you about 7, 8 years ago;
and this has continued to build, and now it has reached a
crescendo. It is affecting everybody. And we need a plan with--
you know, we helped get the education programs started in this
subcommittee. We want those dollars spent where there is a
problem, so some of that money needs to be diverted, a program
needs to be developed.
Hell, if we operated our campaigns this way, well, let us
just sit around and think about it, maybe we can target this
group after the election, none of us would be here. And one of
the reasons we put together a National Media Campaign was
because we could focus attention, a message, and get it to
where the problem or the issue was, the people that we want it
to affect.
Quite frankly, I am disturbed because I don't see that
happening.
From a law enforcement standpoint, we have one--let us see.
We have the deputy officer of drug enforcement and Laura
Birkmeyer, Joseph and Laura. What is the law enforcement--do we
need to change Federal law? Do we need--what do we need to do?
Do you have specific recommendations? Is there something
missing that we can't do? I know the administration came up
with changing some of the emphasis from the HIDTAs, and I
supported that. It didn't meet very well here in targeting
money, because the HIDTAs were supposed to go after high-
intensity drug traffic.
Is that part of the problem, not the resources to get
there? Money? Or is it laws? What is it from the law
enforcement standpoint? One at a time.
Mr. Burns. Well, sir, as far as the resources, again,
currently, that is something that I couldn't answer at this
hearing. It is something I would have to go back----
Mr. Mica. Well, OK.
You know what I would suggest, Mr. Chairman? We get the
Attorney General and some of his folks, we get DEA and their
folks, we get the U.S. attorneys, and anyone else who is
involved in this, and we bring them together on an immediate
basis. We need a plan.
You know, the kids have this ``Sounds like a plan?'' I
don't hear anything that sounds like a plan. So we need a plan
to deal with this from the law enforcement standpoint.
I love treatment. You know, treatment is great. But I will
tell you, by the time you are treating these people, it is way
too late in the game. They have already destroyed their lives,
their families' lives, their kids' lives, and everybody else's
lives in the process.
The other thing, too, we haven't done, Mr. Chairman. We
need to go back and look at the way we are collecting
statistics. Statistics today versus the way we have required
these being put together don't show us the whole picture. I
don't know if the subcommittee needs to work on legislation.
We are looking at the whole picture. You know, we look at
26,000--now we are up to--drug overdose deaths, drug-related.
We are looking at drug-related deaths; we aren't looking at the
murders, we aren't looking at the statistics on children that
are put into State and protective care. We don't look at all
the other things.
I read the paper the other day. A kid killed somebody and
he was on meth. Now, that kid is going to go to jail. Maybe
that will get recorded somewhere. The poor person that was
killed in the accident is a drug-related death. I will bet you
that wasn't counted.
But we need a plan. I would say that you demand that the
law enforcement people, starting with the Attorney General, who
has said, as you said, this is an epidemic, that we get
together.
Have you all sat down? Has DEA sat down with anyone from
the Attorney General's, the U.S. attorney's offices, and
discussed this issue?
Mr. Burns. Absolutely.
Mr. Mica. But you don't have a plan?
Mr. Burns. We do have a plan. Right now between working
with ONDCP on the----
Mr. Mica. He doesn't have a plan.
Mr. Burns. Well, I have a plan if you will let me answer. I
am trying to respond to your question, Congressman.
Mr. Mica. You came before this subcommittee and you can't
cite or recite to this subcommittee, which is in charge of our
national drug policy, what resources are being targeted. You
can't even agree on whether this is an epidemic, which the
Attorney General or other officers of this administration are
saying.
We need a plan. I need to know how much money we need. If
you need more resources, this is the subcommittee that can do
it. If we need more enforcement tools, we need to change the
law. We need to do it now rather than later. This is hell on
wheels as far as doing damage to the very basic fabric of our
society, so we need a plan.
I need to talk to John Walters. We need to talk to Alberto
Gonzales, and we need a plan. We need a summit on this issue
immediately and we need people making decisions, getting
legislation here, getting you the resources that you need to do
the job.
I am not criticizing you. I am just saying, this is
something that we have to come together on somewhat in the vein
of what you said, but we should have been doing it earlier
rather than later.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Souder. Are there any specific recommendations in that
book you are waving?
Mr. Burns. I am sorry?
Mr. Souder. My understanding is, there are no specific
recommendations in that report?
Mr. Burns. There are specific recommendations.
Mr. Souder. That those are things you are looking at?
Mr. Burns. Yes.
Mr. Souder. But they are not recommendations.
Mr. Burns. We have two more meetings of the inner working
group; and as I mentioned today to the meth subcommittee, after
we meet in the intergovernmental arena, we plan to sit down
with the meth caucus and with Members and try and come up with
a comprehensive plan.
Mr. Mica. Mr. Chairman--see, you know the way this works,
they are deciding budgets right now, finances. So if you need
money for this, resources, you need to get us the information.
We are looking at next year doing this. If you need changes in
the law, we need to know now rather than later. Whatever it
takes, this needs to be put on an emergency, expedited basis if
we are going to get anything done.
We have this little break in here. You should come back
before we come back with specific recommendations, with a plan
for the education drug money. If you need a supplemental, we
will do a supplemental, whatever it takes. This is slaughter on
the streets of the United States.
We have identified the problem. It is not Plan Colombia; we
have been there, we have done that. It is not designer drugs;
we have been there and done that. This is meth popping up
everywhere, and we have to get a handle on it. So you guys come
up with a plan.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Osborne, did you have any comments?
Mr. Osborne. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have a
comment. Obviously there is a little frustration here, and I
can----
Mr. Burns. I really didn't sense that.
Mr. Osborne. And it was building within me as I sat. And,
you know, the question was, what one thing would you suggest?
And I heard you say, well, we need a comprehensive plan. I
guess that is--but it seems like there ought to be more of a
rifle shot.
I mean, some of the things that come to mind: Education,
there are power points, there are very graphic videos that
could be shown to every child in the United States if you
wanted to do that. We could target parents, make sure they
understood the scope of the problem.
As far as I am concerned, from where I am living, meth
currently is the biggest threat to the United States, maybe
even including al Qaeda--and I mean that seriously--in terms of
the very fabric, the very structure of our Nation. And to have
the administration apparently not even be aware of this, that
this is the No. 1 drug problem, was really difficult to hear.
A couple other things: Funding, we went from $1 billion for
Byrne grants 2 or 3 years ago to $300 million. We have cut it
by one-third, and the chairman and others have fought to get a
little bit back. But obviously I would think somebody would
say, well, we need more money for this, because that is where
it interdicts it, on the street, is in the Byrne grants, in the
HIDA grants, in the COPS. HIDA has been a fairly level; COPS,
we are struggling.
Laws, do we need a national standard? Right now, each State
is coming up with a standard, and so what is happening, you are
pushing the traffic from one State to another: Where is the
toughest State? And then the one that isn't very tough, well,
they are going that way.
Do we need a national standard as far as how we handle
pseudophed? Do we make it a schedule 5? What do we do? Those
are things you could talk about.
What are some of the penalties for the manufacture and
sale? Should we make this something like life? Should we make
it 30 years? What should we do? We have talked about rehab.
And then last, the precursors. We have introduced--the
chairman and others this last week, we introduced an amendment
which I think made some sense to target the five largest
exporters and importers of pseudophedrine. And what we have
said is, OK, if you don't cooperate with the Drug Enforcement
Administration and let them know where those shipments are
going so we can track and find the superlabs, then we cutoff
your international aid; you don't get any money from the United
States.
I didn't hear any comment on that, but we have tried to
push you to see. We called, many times, the DEA, my staff and
I, over the last 3 or 4 weeks and we tried to say, what can we
do? And we couldn't seem to get an answer. So there is
frustration here.
And I am sure you are doing the best you can, and we are
not trying to throw rocks at you, although I guess we are. But
we are saying there is a sense of urgency here, and we need
specifics, we don't need generalities at this point.
So I really don't have any further questions. I just wanted
to express my feeling of frustration as well as several others
up here and from where I am seeing the problem out in the
countryside.
And I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Souder. Thank you. And before wrapping up this panel, I
just want to restate a couple of basic points, in that we
appreciate all of your service, we appreciate the fact that
some things have been done on methamphetamine; and in certain
areas, very critical things, such as what we thought at one
point was taking down 40 percent of the pseudophedrine company,
in the company in Detroit bust, now we find out it wasn't; that
what our frustration here is, I have never seen--and all of you
know, we couldn't have been more aggressive on the cocaine in
Colombia, and heroin, drug-free schools, community grants, drug
testing programs.
It is not that I don't believe all that is important. I
understand there is nobody on meth who doesn't start on
marijuana. Tobacco and alcohol can be gateway to drugs, to many
things, but, hey, there is a direct line from marijuana into
meth that we are seeing around the country. And I appreciate
that difficulty.
What our frustration here is, is that this has been a
building pattern moving from west to east. And when it hits a
zone, nothing is like it. Now we are seeing it go from rural to
small town, and seeing it hit the first cities. And when it
hits a city, as the U.S. attorney said in Minneapolis--which is
no small town, the Minneapolis size, about a million and a
half--it hits. And when it hits that, it changes its form, it
just overwhelms a city. On the St. Paul side, the district
attorney there said that they went from nothing to 85 percent
in 12 months of children under child protection, were all of a
sudden under meth. From nothing to 85 percent. Only three mom-
and-pop labs in St. Paul.
The rural counties are saying we have mom-and-pop labs,
these clandestine labs, but it is a different form of meth that
hits the cities. But when it hits, in Omaha, Minneapolis-St.
Paul, and a few of those cities are the first big cities hit at
the edges of Detroit, edges of New Orleans. And as it marches
east, the question is, what is the strategy to stop it?
So what we heard in the budget is--and Mr. Mica's question,
what is the prevention program? Well, what we heard was, Safe
and Drug-Free Schools isn't working. Well, where is the
proposal to make it work? What I would like to hear out of
ONDCP is specific suggestions, as the drug oversight office, of
how we can improve as we move to redoing No Child Left Behind,
which will include Safe and Drug-Free Schools.
We have basically a year and a half; let's figure out how
to make this program work. Don't zero it out. It's the only
prevention program we've got at the school level. In the
National Ad Campaign, what's happening in meth is it's bubbling
up. I have never seen in all my years of working in narcotics
as a staffer, and now as a Member, something that is coming up
from the grass-roots, rather than the people in charge,
figuring out how to get ahead of it. We now see the survey at
the county level doing it. You see this free-lancing among
Members of Congress. How do we come up with a Meth Hot Spots
program?
It was every year the administration zeroing out, and it
gets bigger. It is one of the only programs in this budget
thing that it is like the administration says, zero it out. It
was at $12 million, it comes back at $18; zero out it, and it
comes back at $25. This year it was zeroed out at $32 and it is
back at $38. Why? Because members know that the grass-roots of
the problem is Meth Hot Spots.
You would think somewhere in that 5-year plan that somebody
would have said, you know, this isn't going to go away; maybe
we ought to manage it, maybe we ought to figure out where the
Meth Hot Spots programs ought to be, rather than trying to zero
it out, if the Members of Congress are going to put it in.
And it is even the leadership of both sides of the House
right now. This started as a Member bottom-up attack,
basically, on the appropriations bills and the authorizing
bills because we couldn't get a meth week, we could get the
bills through.
So what we did in a bipartisan way is, we sat down together
and said, we are going to make every week a meth week until
somebody figures this out, and every single bill that comes
through this floor every single week we are going to attach
meth amendments until somebody comes up with a strategy.
This isn't the way you tackle narcotics. And I hope that
each agency is figuring out that this isn't going to stop. We
are just going to keep it up until somebody comes up with a
strategy. And it will be a hit-or-miss, random type of thing
that the people in charge of coming up with a strategy need to
say, what do we need to do interdiction internationally? What
do we need to do in law enforcement? What do we need to do for
children? What do we need to do in prevention?
And say, OK, now let us prioritize this: What do we do to
get ahead of the curve rather than chase behind it? And that
that report, good as it is--our staffs have gone through it--
the group is still working on drafting things even though we
are 6 to 8 years into this pattern of steady marching, lack of
stabilizing the rural areas, move to small town, and now
starting to move into urban areas.
How many years do we have to see the same pattern at an
increasing rate in the United States until there is something
where we have concrete recommendations, not another cotton-
pickin' meeting, and that it needs to move in that direction. I
believe you are getting the message.
I agree with Director Tandy that we have to get in and look
at the systems that are bringing this in, because we need to
hear from the administration that they support Chairman
Boehlert's bill on cleanup and that we can do that.
How do we move this Kentucky program into a larger scale so
we don't overwhelm the locals? What can we do in the child
endangerment question and understand that, look, local
officials are dealing with this stuff, but to get it in a
systematic way in each of your departments as they are tackling
the many things and narcotics efforts that they are doing. And
we applaud their efforts.
At the same time, what this is, is if you can't get on top
of it and make this a crash program, it is going to be
micromanaged with lots of different pieces, without a strategy.
And that is what is happening.
And it is going to continue happening, and this committee
is trying desperately to say, lead. You are the executive
branch. You are doing this day to day. You have agents in the
field. Because the way you do this is not having us do random
amendments coming up, but we couldn't figure out any other way
to do it.
Any comments?
Mr. Souder. Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. I will just be very brief.
When you are sitting here in the Congress and you often--I
think meaningful life is one way one's self has constant self-
examination and where one tries to figure out if what one is
doing is being effective and efficient.
And I have to tell you, as I sit here, I couldn't help but
wonder whether this is effective and efficient, because it
seems as if on both sides of the aisle we all agree that we
have a very urgent situation.
Many years ago people thought that they had an urgent
situation in the inner cities. Now, in Baltimore, there are
250-plus murders in a population of less than 650,000 every
year. There would be many, many more if we did not have one of
the best shock trauma centers in the world. That doesn't even
go to all of the hospital admissions, it doesn't go to all the
children being left behind, it doesn't go to the AIDS that is
spreading through needles.
And I guess what I am saying is that in some kind of way we
have to be effective and efficient. We really do. While I--you
know, I think that we have to really protect ourselves against
terrorist attacks and things of that nature. I am telling you,
what I said a little bit earlier, I meant it; we have
terrorists in our own houses. And until we get a comprehensive
plan and actually execute that plan, we are going to be saying
the same things over and over again 10 years from now, only the
problem is going to be 30 times greater.
And so I would beg you--I would ask, but asking is too
cheap, because there is some little child right now who is
going without a parent; there is somebody probably in high
school who is thinking about going on a date with somebody on
Saturday night, where they are going to be introduced to this
stuff, and it is going to ruin them for the rest of their
lives. And while we are talking and while we are bickering and
trying to figure this out, folks are going to suffer.
So that is why I am just so glad that the word ``urgency''
has been used here. I don't want the Nation to be an area with
a population of 650,000 and 250-plus murders. And you know what
happens? There comes a point in time when you begin to
celebrate the fact that you didn't get up to 300 murders. That
is deep.
And so it is that I hope you all will listen, and listen
carefully--particularly you, Mr. Burns--and will take back that
message of urgency. It is not enough to say, we are still
getting it together. People are dying and suffering, and
generations are being created. New generational cycles are
being created, like Ms. Birkmeyer said. And when we are dancing
with the angels, there will be people who are suffering for
what we didn't do under our watch.
Mr. Souder. Ms. Foxx, did you have a comment?
Ms. Foxx. Well, I just wanted to say that I really
appreciate what the chairman and the ranking member have said,
and the comments from Representative Mica and Representative
Osborne. I have been very disappointed in the responses that we
received today, too, so much so I wasn't sure how to respond to
you all.
But I think that we have to say to you, stop traveling so
much, stop having summits, and do a little work on the issue
that we brought to your attention.
I think the chairman is very right. You can either give
some leadership to this, or you can see the Congress
micromanaging what you are trying to do. And I would love,
frankly, to see a schedule of the trips and how much money has
been spent on it, and then see what results you got from it;
because I think everything you do should be giving you some
results, and we are not hearing that at all.
Mr. Souder. Thank you. And I do want to say something I
said earlier. And I know Mr. Burns has raised some of these
questions internally, and hopefully we just strengthened your
hand in working with the State and locals. But we want the
message to go back clearly to ONDCP: You have to lead.
DEA has attempted this, a little bit different type of a
thing for DEA to tackle, but you have been at the grassroots
level doing it. We need to figure out how now to have a look at
what you have been doing at the grassroots level and say, look,
how can we do this systematically rather than each HIDTA coming
up with a strategy, each DEA task force.
In my area, the DEA leads the task force, and they are
obviously having to deal with meth cases. How can we figure
out, like we do on cocaine and heroin, how to do this
systemically? And I look forward to working with you.
And thank you for bringing the attention to the children
question, because often, as we are looking at the law
enforcement question, we forget that, A, you lock up the
parents, what happens to the kids? And how do we deal with
this? I think, like crack babies, we will find that the kids
are pretty resilient if we can get to them and get them out of
the house and protect them while we get their parents dried out
and back functioning as parents.
I thank this panel. I look forward to continuing to work
with each of you.
Would the second panel please come forward.
Dr. Nancy Young, Director of the National Center for
Substance Abuse and Children Welfare, and Director of the
Children and Family Futures; Valerie Brown, National
Association of Counties; Freida Baker, Deputy Director of
Family and Children's Services, Alabama Department of Human
Resources; Chief Deputy Phil Byers, Rutherford County Sheriff's
Office of North Carolina; Sylvia Deporto, Deputy Director of
the Riverside County Children's Services of California; Betsy
Dunn, Investigator, Peer Supervisor, Tennessee Department of
Children's Services, Child Protective Services Division; Chief
Don Owens, Titusville Police Department, Pennsylvania; and
Sheriff Mark Shook, Watauga County Sheriff's Department, North
Carolina.
Before you sit down, if you will find your places and
stand. I will swear each of you in.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Souder. Let the record show that each of the witnesses
responded in the affirmative.
And, Ms. Foxx, would you like to welcome your North
Carolina sheriff and friend again?
Ms. Foxx. I would. We are really very pleased to have
Sheriff Mark Shook from Watauga County with us here. As I
stated in my comments earlier, I have known Sheriff Shook all
his life. That is an unfortunate comment on my age. But his
family and my husband's family, particularly, have grown up
together for a long time.
Mark has done remarkably well as a law enforcement officer
in Watauga County, and we are so fortunate to have him as
Sheriff. His family is still my neighbor, and they are doing a
great job, and we are very pleased to have him. This is his
first trip to D.C., by the way, so he sort of had a trial by
fire on his first trip.
Mr. Souder. Mr. McHenry, do you want to introduce your
Sheriff?
Mr. McHenry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am pleased today to have the Rutherford County Chief
Deputy Sheriff, Philip Byers, here today. Philip is a man that
has great experience. Though a constituent of mine in
Rutherford County, he actually went to school in your district,
Congresswoman Foxx, at Appalachian State University. That is
where he got his B.S., and he also attended Western Carolina
and obtained his Master's in public administration there.
He is a man who loves education. As a former teacher and a
business owner, he is still very involved in that field, both
volunteering in Rutherford County as well as his duty with the
Sheriff's Department. He has had 14 years of law enforcement
experience, and 4 years of that as the Chief Deputy in
Rutherford County.
And Rutherford County is an area that has tackled severe
methamphetamine problems over the last few years, and it has
the second leading number of meth labs of any county in North
Carolina. And the reason why I believe the number is so high is
not only because of the issues that we are dealing with in
Rutherford County, but because of the good work of the
Sheriff's Department there to root out these meth labs. Just
last week they busted their 13th meth lab this year.
And so I appreciate the hard work of Phil.
I certainly appreciate him traveling to Washington, DC,
with his new wife, Sheila, and I thank you both for being here.
And it is Philip's first time testifying before Congress,
so, Mr. Chairman, I just ask you to go easy on him. But if you
don't go easy on him, I am sure he can hold his own.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Souder. And I take it you didn't know him as he grew
up?
Mr. McHenry. I did not. Maybe he knew me.
Mr. Souder. And I hope we didn't scare you off with the
first panel.
I thank each of you for coming today. I would like to yield
to Dr. Young for her statement.
STATEMENTS OF NANCY K. YOUNG, Ph.D., DIRECTOR, NATIONAL CENTER
ON SUBSTANCE ABUSE AND CHILD WELFARE, AND DIRECTOR, CHILDREN
AND FAMILY FUTURES; VALERIE BROWN, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF
COUNTIES; FREIDA S. BAKER, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, FAMILY AND
CHILDREN'S SERVICES, ALABAMA DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN RESOURCES;
PHIL BYERS, CHIEF DEPUTY, RUTHERFORD COUNTY, NC, SHERIFF'S
OFFICE; SYLVIA DEPORTO, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, RIVERSIDE COUNTY, CA,
CHILDREN'S SERVICES; BETSY DUNN, INVESTIGATOR AND PEER
SUPERVISOR, TENNESSEE DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN'S SERVICES, CHILD
PROTECTIVE SERVICES DIVISION; DON OWENS, CHIEF, TITUSVILLE, PA,
POLICE DEPARTMENT; AND SHERIFF MARK SHOOK, WATAUGA COUNTY, NC,
SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT
STATEMENT OF NANCY K. YOUNG, Ph.D.
Ms. Young. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chairman Souder,
members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to
address you today. As the Director of Children and Family
Futures, I direct the National Center on Substance Abuse and
Child Welfare. We are funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental
Health Services Administration, and also by the Administration
on Children, Youth and Families. However, my testimony today
are the views of myself and not the Federal agencies.
There are six points that I would like to discuss today
that are detailed in my written statement, including a list of
suggested actions.
First, to summarize some data about child welfare trends
and about who is coming into treatment. Despite the increase in
folks accessing methamphetamine treatment, the overall trend in
child welfare has continued to decrease since 1999. At this
point, the increase of persons seeking treatment for
methamphetamine, we have not seen an overall increase in that
trend for children coming into care. Details of those data are
in the written testimony on page 3 and page 4.
Even in California, with a decade of experience in
addressing methamphetamine disorders, the number of kids in
care over the past several years has continued to decrease.
This contrasts with the cocaine epidemic of the late 1980's and
early 1990's in which the foster care population increased by
half. The alarming information about who is coming into
treatment is about methamphetamine and the dramatic effect it
has created with child welfare services in that rural
communities have been affected and that there has been a sharp
increase in treatment admissions for women with primary
methamphetamine dependence.
Among adolescents in treatment for methamphetamine, the
majority are girls. Most disturbing is the upward trend of
pregnant women coming to treatment with marijuana dependence
and an even higher rate of increase for pregnant women with
methamphetamine dependence. About 10 percent of the births in
our country are affected by prenatal substance exposure. Page
10 shows a table of drug use by pregnant women. That is about
400,000 infants per year.
My second point is the critical need for child welfare to
differentiate between the various types of children affected by
methamphetamine. All children of substance abusers are at risk
of abuse and neglect. But there are six different ways in which
children are affected specifically by methamphetamine use:
parents who use; parents who are substance dependent; parents
who use during pregnancy--I should say mothers who use during
pregnancy; parents who manufacture or cook in the home; parents
who traffic methamphetamine; and parents who operate superlabs.
The majority of methamphetamine-afflicted children in child
welfare are those whose parents abuse or who are
methamphetamine dependent.
Risks to children and the interventions for their families
vary a great deal based on these different categories, and
child welfare is challenged to appropriately screen for these
groups. They are challenged to have access to quality
assessments and to ensure that families have timely and
comprehensive family treatment resources so that they might
recover and reunify.
My third point relates to the characteristics of persons
needing treatment, especially women. Alarmingly, the majority
of women in treatment for methamphetamine who may have also
abused or neglected their children were, in fact, abused and
neglected themselves as children. One-third of women in
treatment for methamphetamine reported childhood sexual abuse.
Here, the challenge for child welfare is twofold: to
appropriately engage with mothers who need treatment, as well
as to provide significant substance abuse prevention efforts to
children currently in care. I currently know of only one State
that targets specific prevention efforts at the children in
foster care.
Fourth, treatment effectiveness studies--and we have heard
it already today--have shown that rates of recovery for
methamphetamine use disorders are similar to other drugs of
abuse. This message needs to be widely disseminated among child
welfare agencies and the public.
Fifth, there are models of effective child welfare and
substance abuse services working together. In Sacramento County
over the past decade they have implemented six significant
system and practice changes. They are seeing dramatic results
in their outcomes.
They intervene at the very first court appearance for all
parents with substance abuse allegations with a message of hope
and recovery. The full text of my testimony gives the details
of their outcomes by primary substance on page 18. Parents with
methamphetamine dependence are reunifying with their children
at rates similar to parents with alcohol and cocaine
dependence, nearly twice the rate of reunifications before
their system reforms.
This didn't happen overnight. As I mentioned, they have
been working on it for a decade, on the substance abuse and
child welfare efforts.
Finally, what can be done? We must remember and learn from
the cocaine epidemic and its impact on child welfare. We must
not let child removal escalate without effective prevention and
treatment in place. We must not let a generation of children be
mislabeled. Rather, we must ensure that they receive the early
intervention and special education services that they need. As
an adoptive parent of two children with these issues, I know
first-hand that these other system interventions are critical
for biological, foster, and adoptive families to raise these
children to reach their full potential.
We must recognize that in many ways we are flying blind on
this issue. Child welfare does not routinely collect
information about families with substance use disorders, and
treatment agencies do not collect data from parents about
children who may be at risk of abuse and neglect.
In most States, we are operating on data about prenatal
substance exposure that is more than a decade old. The last
such study in California was in 1992, and I believe Ms. Watson
played a significant role in making that happen. It has not
been repeated since that effort.
We need better data from hospitals and the maternal and
child health systems on prenatal and at-birth screenings so we
can appropriately monitor, intervene, and provide services for
families with prenatal substance exposure. We need to continue
to invest in better training for child welfare workers so that
they can recognize methamphetamine and other substance use
disorders. And we must continue to invest in better training
for substance abuse treatment agencies to ensure supports are
in place for family treatment and interventions for the
children.
When we refer parents to treatment as a condition of
keeping or reunifying with their children, we must make sure
that the treatment is state-of-the-art, comprehensive, allows
families to be treated together, and most importantly, to meet
the intent of the Adoption and Safe Families Act, that those
interventions are timely.
I hope that I will get the questions about what would you
specifically do, because I have a list. Thank you very much.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Young follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Ms. Brown.
STATEMENT OF VALERIE BROWN
Ms. Brown. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member
Cummings, for allowing me to appear this afternoon on behalf of
the National Association of Counties on this critical issue of
methamphetamine abuse. My name is Valerie Brown, and I am a
county supervisor from Sonoma County, CA. That would be
Congresswoman Watson's California.
The National Association of Counties [NACo], is the only
national organization that represents county governments. With
over 2,000 member counties, we represent over 85 percent of the
Nation's population.
A growing issue for NACo counties is methamphetamine abuse.
Methamphetamine, or meth, is consuming a greater share of
county resources because of its devastating and addictive
nature. For Congressman Mica, I will boldly tell you, counties
need more money. In many parts of the Nation, county jails are
becoming overwhelmed with inmates on meth-related charges.
Investigating and busting meth labs is producing longer hours
for county law enforcement. Along with these law enforcement
consequences, meth treatment, cleanup, and removing children
from meth houses are all painful reminders of a community
dealing with meth.
Because of the need for data, NACo commissioned two surveys
on the meth epidemic, and I would like to make three key points
on these surveys and NACo's policy on meth.
First, as our survey confirmed, methamphetamine abuse is a
national drug crisis that requires national leadership.
Second, a comprehensive, intergovernmental approach is
needed to combat the methamphetamine epidemic. Necessary
components must include law enforcement, treatment, prevention,
education, public health, cleanup, research, and restricting
the sale of pseudophedrine.
Third, existing programs such as the Justice Assistance
Grant Program, foster care, and mental health and substance
abuse programs are critical to the fight against the
devastating effects of methamphetamine.
To elaborate, I will touch on NACo's survey on law
enforcement. In the 500 responding sheriffs' departments, 87
percent report increases in meth-related arrests starting 3
years ago. Mr. Chairman, two of the States that reported 100
percent increases in meth-related arrests during the last 3
years are your State of Indiana and my home State of
California.
Additionally, 58 percent of county law enforcement agencies
reported that meth is their largest drug problem. Meth outpaced
cocaine at 19 percent, marijuana at 17 percent, and heroin at 3
percent.
Meth-related arrests represent a high proportion of crimes
requiring incarceration. Fifty percent of the counties
estimated that one in five of their current jail inmates are
there because of meth-related crimes.
In Orange County, CA, of the 11,500 new probation cases
each year, 60 percent test positive for meth. In my home
county, the sheriff's department estimates that 85 to 90
percent of our drug arrests are related to methamphetamine.
Numbers are increasing so rapidly, counties are having a
difficult time ramping up our services to address the problem.
We surveyed child welfare officials from the 13 States
where services are provided at the county level. Children
living in environments where meth is produced are considered
drug endangered due to toxins, neglect, and abuse. Forty
percent of all the child welfare officials in the survey
reported increased out-of-home placements because of meth in
the last year.
During the past 5 years, 71 percent of the responding
counties in my home State of California reported an increase in
out-of-home placements. The Midwest reported similar findings,
with 69 percent in Minnesota and 54 percent in North Dakota.
In addition, 59 percent of county officials reported meth
has increased the difficulty of reuniting families. An ER
physician, who also serves as county commissioner, stated at
our recent annual conference that a premature baby born to a
meth-addicted mother costs approximately $1 million before the
infant leaves the neonatal center. His center currently houses
three drug-addicted babies.
NACo believes that these figures confirm the need for a
comprehensive and intergovernmental strategy to fight this
insidious drug. A multidisciplinary approach has proven
effective in several communities that have been facing this
drug for many years.
One such program is in Pierce County, WA, where a social
worker accompanies law enforcement officials to meth busts to
assess the effects of that environment on the children present.
This level of cooperation starts at the top, as Pierce County
Sheriff Paul Pastor recently stressed at a NACo meeting.
Fighting methamphetamine in our communities requires a team-
oriented approach with all departments, which is very costly
for counties.
Last, I would like to make an appeal for some existing
Federal resources. One critical program is the Justice
Assistance Grant Program. These funds could be used for local
law enforcement, for prevention, education, and treatment. Many
counties use this funding for regional drug task forces
especially in rural America. However, the administration zeroed
out this program in its fiscal year 2006 budget request. NACo
strongly supports restoring JAG funding during the
appropriations process to deal with the problems of meth
production and use.
In conclusion, I would like to again thank you, Mr.
Chairman and Ranking Member Cummings, for the opportunity to
appear today on behalf of NACo. We will be conducting future
surveys on meth abuse and look forward to reporting our
findings and working with you to resolve this issue
legislatively.
Thank you, and I will be happy to answer any questions.
Mr. Souder. Thank you. And I can't tell you how much that
survey helped us at a very critical time.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Brown follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Ms. Baker.
STATEMENT OF FREIDA S. BAKER
Ms. Baker. Good afternoon. Thank you so much for the
opportunity to speak with you about the impact of crystal meth
on children and families in Alabama. I have been a social
worker for nearly 24 years, and I have worked with families who
struggle with a lot of things, but this crystal meth epidemic
is as dangerous and challenging as anything we face.
Without question, crystal meth poses a significant threat
to vulnerable people in Alabama. The Department of Human
Resources has several challenges with meth-related issues at
the State level.
First, we must ensure the safety of children and provide
effective services to individuals affected by the drug.
Second, we must prepare our workers through both education
and direction.
And, third, we must craft policy and procedures so that
consistent methods and safeguards are in place in each of the
State's 67 counties.
There are important implications to the agencies that serve
these children and their families in that, unlike other abuse
or neglect scenarios, the home environment not only poses an
immediate health threat to the children, but to any individual
charged with providing services in that home as well.
Alabama's child welfare training curriculum has a newly
expanded focus on substance abuse, but now, in addition to
clinical training around the dynamics of substance-abusing
families, workers must also be taught very specific meth-
related investigative skills and cautions.
Select training for social work staff now often mirrors law
enforcement in terms of function and role with meth. Workers
are now, for example, routinely taught to look around outside
the residence for suspicious items used in making or using
meth, such as vents or piping sticking up from the ground, or
booby traps, wires, surveillance cameras that appear to be
there for no intended purpose. And even with Alabama's caseload
standards, we find that an already-strained child welfare work
force with young, inexperienced staff is further burdened with
the complex dynamics of crystal meth. We find that workers
leave the agency because of personal risks, the nature of these
cases, and the challenges of working with these families.
Crystal meth has further complicated this multi-faceted
issue in public child welfare. The number of children in the
custody of Alabama's DHR has increased over the past 3 years.
In 2001, there were approximately 5,400 children in foster care
at year's end, and in 2004 that number had risen to 6,346 and
continues to rise.
Reports of child abuse or neglect related to crystal meth
have risen dramatically in Alabama, and these increases reflect
our system's response to changing needs and issues.
Removal of children from their families is traumatic, and
the added complications of meth use compound this trauma. If
children are removed from active meth homes or labs, workers
are instructed not to take any of the children's clothing or
belongings from the home as they may be contaminated. Familiar
clothing, toys, blankets are often helpful for children in this
distressing situation, yet meth prevents even those small
gestures for them.
If there is obvious contamination of the clothes the child
is wearing, clothing is to be discarded and left at the scene;
then the child must shower as soon as possible. The child's
personal things are left at the scene to minimize contamination
of other areas or people.
In 2001 only 3.9 percent of the Alabama admissions to
foster care were due to substance abuse. Last year in Alabama,
nearly 20 percent of admissions into foster care were a result
of family substance abuse. The treatment community in Alabama
has recognized the addiction crystal meth imposes. John
Schafer, the executive director of Pathfinder, a 12-step
spiritually based in-house treatment program in Huntsville,
reported that 45 percent of the entries there over the last
year have been due to crystal meth. The faith community in
Mobile has embraced the clientele at the Shoulder, a private
Christian-based inpatient treatment facility for substance
abuse. Employees at this facility, when faced with funding
shortages 3 years ago, voted to take a decrease in pay in order
to keep serving the community and report crystal meth as
significant. Even in counties where numbers of children in care
have remained stable, they cite crystal meth as being a much
more frequent reason for removal than 18 to 24 months ago.
Statewide efforts are underway to explore all the treatment
scenarios and to standardize protocol. The problem calls for
coordination with law enforcement agencies, safety instructions
and, should the need arise, decontamination instructions.
Troy King, Alabama's attorney general, has designated a
task force to address issues caused by crystal meth. DHR staff
are members of the task force. The Alabama legislature recently
passed the legislation regulating items that can be purchased
to make crystal meth. The Governor's office has faith-based
substance abuse initiatives, but meanwhile, the system's
response to issues of imminent danger is to assess safety
quickly and plan accordingly. Traditional resources and new
creative strategies must be employed across all the human
services agencies if we are to prevent and treat the abuse of
crystal meth and all substances. America's children and
families deserve our best efforts. Thank you for your time and
attention. I am grateful for this opportunity.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Baker follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Chief Byers.
STATEMENT OF PHIL BYERS
Mr. Byers. Mr. Chairman and distinguished members, I must
first admit that being a political junkie and a C-SPAN junkie,
I feel like I know each of you personally and have spent many,
many hours with you at my home. It is indeed an honor to be
here with you and to, first of all, thank you for what you are
doing and a service that you provide to this Nation.
I am just one little chief deputy from--well, I am just one
chief deputy from Rutherford County, NC--maybe not little. But
I thank you for what you are doing, each and every one of you,
for this Nation and for these hearings.
Rutherford County, NC, is a rural county. Again, we are in
western North Carolina. We are comprised of 566 square miles
and 63,000 residents. Rutherford County has historically relied
upon a manufacturing-based economy, textile and furniture
industries being the two largest employers. We have lost most
of our textile jobs during the past 5 years, and the majority
of the furniture industry jobs are also gone. Unemployment
rates loom between 8 and 10 percent, far above the national
average.
Rutherford County and her citizens will recover from the
loss of manufacturing jobs with continued good leadership. The
economic situation will improve if and only if we can curtail
the present methamphetamine epidemic that we are facing. And
yes, Congressmen and Congresswomen, it is an epidemic.
Methamphetamine addicts and cooks are driving some of
Rutherford County's most costly social problems, including
domestic violence, child abuse, mental illness, homelessness
and the spread of hepatitis and AIDS. Rutherford County
continues to struggle with social and economic setbacks caused
directly by methamphetamine addicts and the manufacturers.
The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation reported
the following responses to meth labs in Rutherford County as
follows: 2003, 34 lab responses; 2004, 43 lab responses; and as
of June 30th of this year, 25 lab responses. Of those, five
children were taken from meth labs in 2003; 2004, that rose to
24 children that we removed from meth labs. This year, as of
June 30th, the number is up to 22. In 2004, in North Carolina
alone, 124 children were removed from homes where
methamphetamine labs were in operation; 24 of the children were
residents of Rutherford County. This year, 2005, has already
seen 22 children removed from homes where meth labs were
operating in Rutherford County.
Many of the children removed from meth labs are abused and
neglected and will suffer emotional consequences for the
remainder of their lives. The number of children present in
methamphetamine labs is expected to continue to increase at an
even higher rate. As the number of children present at the
laboratories increases, more will suffer the physical and
psychological effects associated with exposure to dangerous
chemicals, and the number of related abuse and neglect cases
will increase.
Without a doubt, the most innocent victims of the meth
epidemic are the children who are exposed. Chemicals contained
and used in meth permeate through the rooms, thus leaving
children exposed to meth chemicals that can cause headaches,
nausea, dizziness and even damage to the brain, liver, spleen,
kidneys and immune system. In 2004, 2,700 children were found
to be affected by methamphetamine labs seized by law
enforcement officials nationwide. Children were present in 34
percent of the total labs seized in the United States.
The North Carolina General Assembly, Governor and Attorney
General are working in conjunction with local and State law
enforcement to combat the ills of methamphetamine production
and addiction. In 2004, the criminal penalty for manufacturing
methamphetamine was increased from a Class H felony to a Class
C felony. Prior to December, the punishment for manufacturing
meth in North Carolina was 6 months probation. This
guarantees--the new class C felony guarantees prison time for
anyone found guilty of manufacturing.
And again, the General Assembly is working to pass an
additional methamphetamine lab prevention act. If approved, the
act would limit the sale of Pseudoephedrine allowing the
product to be sold without a prescription only by a registered
pharmacist. The purchaser of the Pseudoephedrine would be
required to present the pharmacist with a photo ID and must be
18 years of age. The name and address would be obtained, and
identification could be used and entered into the record for
consumers and for law enforcement use. Pseudoephedrine
purchases would be limited to no more than 9 grams of any
mixture of the product or any products containing a controlled
substance within a 30-day period. This law, if passed, will
benefit the law enforcement community, but that and that alone
are not enough.
Restricting the sale of Pseudoephedrine products should
occur in all 50 States. Rutherford County is contiguous to
South Carolina, thus presenting only a short drive for
Rutherford County citizens, Rutherford County cooks, if you
will, to obtain Pseudoephedrine.
Rutherford County will continue to face economic setbacks
as a result of methamphetamine addiction. The Rutherford County
Sheriff's Office recently transferred two vacant positions to
the narcotics division and obtained one new position through
local funding. This expansion was due solely to demand being
placed on our office by the increased meth labs and
methamphetamine addiction. Additional funds will be necessary
to pay overtime to our officers working the methamphetamine
cases. The meth epidemic has caused a tremendous burden on
local law enforcement budgets, and without State and Federal
assistance, the moneys will not be available.
We have to this day been an area of local meth cooks making
and selling the product. We have begun to seize Ice from Mexico
and from super labs throughout the United States. Ice
trafficking will continue to grow in Rutherford County,
resulting in additional problems and abuses associated with
meth addiction. We must place stronger and tougher restrictions
on the Mexican border or Ice will continue to pour into the
United States and into Rutherford County, and we will begin to
experience an additional plague.
Social Services has also found themselves in budget
shortfalls due to meth labs. The Rutherford County Social
Services is currently in need of foster parents to accommodate
the ever-increasing number of children being removed from homes
where meth labs are present. Social workers are constantly
called to assist law enforcement when children are discovered
to be living in meth labs. The department is also working to
investigate and deal with child abuse and neglect cases as a
result of meth addiction. Local mental health agencies are
working to develop a successful treatment program for
methamphetamine addicts. Current meth addicts have a recovery
rate of less than 10 percent. Mental health resources will
continue to deplete until a successful treatment program is
developed to treat the long-term effects of meth addiction.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Byers, you are quite a bit over your five.
Could you just go to your recommendations? And your whole
statement will be included in the record.
Mr. Byers. Absolutely. The recommendations that I would
like to make are: No. 1, restrict the sale of Pseudoephedrine
products nationally; tighten the Mexican border to help prevent
meth trafficking from Mexico; address the Pseudoephedrine
market in Canada and China; longer prison sentences for meth
traffickers and meth producers and anyone who involves children
in the trade or allows children to reside in a home used for
meth production; continue to prosecute meth manufacturers at
the Federal court system; longer sentences are beneficial to
local law enforcement; continue funding interstate drug
interdiction teams; and work with mental health care providers
to develop a better recovery and treatment plan.
I thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Byers follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Thank you. Now you haven't just watched it; you
have been on C-SPAN.
Ms. Deporto.
STATEMENT OF SYLVIA DEPORTO
Ms. Deporto. Thank you ladies and gentlemen.
I am Sylvia Deporto. I am the deputy director for
children's services in Riverside County, CA. I began with the
department in 1992 as a social worker, and methamphetamine was
the No. 1 problem of substance abuse for child welfare at that
time. I sit before you today on July 26, 2005, and I tell you
that methamphetamine is the No. 1 substance abuse problem in
Riverside, CA, for Child Welfare Services. It is an epidemic.
The Riverside County Drug Endangered Children Program is
one of the most innovative multi-disciplinary projects to date.
The Drug Endangered Children Program utilizes the Sheriff's
Department, Child Protective Services, the District Attorney's
Office, public health, nursing, medical personnel, courts,
HazMat and environmental health to intervene on behalf of
children who have been exposed to drug use, sales and
manufacturing environments.
Drug endangered children are found living in about 45
percent of home-based methamphetamine labs covered within
Riverside County. That figure causes great concern because one
in every six illicit labs is discovered as the result of fire
or explosion. The Children's Research Center Data on Safety
Assessments for California Counties indicates that
approximately 50 percent of children in Riverside County are
removed from their parents by child welfare involve parental
substance abuse.
In Riverside County, we have four law enforcement drug
teams. Each of these teams has at least one social worker
assigned to them full-time to assist with drug labs. Social
workers must take the children removed from the drug labs
directly to a hospital for evaluation and testing as part of
the DEC program. The social worker may wait in an emergency
room with the children for up to 6 hours. Many of these
children have been neglected, demonstrating signs of
malnourishment, lack of physical and dental hygiene, physical
and/or sexual abuse and test positive for chemicals due to
exposure.
Riverside County recently purchased four Community Resource
Vehicles specifically for use by law enforcement and child
welfare at drug labs. Due to the chemical exposure, the
children need to be cleaned with water immediately, and in the
past, this has occurred outside with a hose. The community
resource vehicle will provide a place for the child to be
cleaned in a shower and provided with clean clothes and fed
while the social worker interviews them.
Children who are placed in the custody of Child Welfare
Services require continued medical followup and evaluation. The
social workers must ensure that these children are tested
regularly for their chemical levels, and this information must
be recorded in their health history. Many of these children
have not attended school on a regular basis and must be
provided with special education services to bring them up to
grade level. Both foster caregivers and educators struggle with
a multitude of behavioral problems and learning disabilities
from these children due to prenatal drug exposure to
methamphetamine. Riverside County has initiated several drug
courts, in superior, dependency, delinquency and family law, in
an attempt to address the severity of our drug problem, its
effect on the multiple agencies and, most importantly, its
effect on our children.
I remember a case when I was still a field worker. The
parents were methamphetamine abusers and were hiding from CPS
with their children. They were located living in a very rural
part of Riverside County in a small travel trailer. As we were
taking the children, the parents were attempting to flee. The
trailer was filthy, and the smell was overwhelming. At the
office, the children stated to me that they used the bathroom
outside just like the dogs do. They washed in the hose, and it
was very, very cold. And they dumpster dived for their dinner
every night. Children should not know a life like this.
I urge you to take notice of the severity of our Nation's
problem with methamphetamine abuse. There are severe long-term
consequences for our Nation and extreme costs. If you consider
what we are currently spending on specialized law enforcement
teams, hazardous materials teams, environmental clean up, child
welfare and foster care, medical and educational costs to
address the needs of these children, the dollars are
overwhelming. We should put those dollars into prevention and
treatment instead of in clean up.
I thank you today for the opportunity to share this
information with you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Deporto follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Thank you very much.
Ms. Dunn.
STATEMENT OF BETSY DUNN
Ms. Dunn. Chairman Souder and distinguished members of the
subcommittee, I thank you for inviting me here to testify.
My name is Betsy Dunn. I am a Child Protective Services
case manager at the Tennessee Department of Children's
Services, and I am here to talk to you today about the worst
form of child endangerment that I have ever seen. It happens
when methamphetamine takes over a family's life and threatens
to destroy everything, especially the children who have the
misfortune of living beneath the same roof as their drug-
addicted parents. I want to talk about some of the most
pressing child welfare issues I face.
We need to offer collective support for these children.
They need counseling that addresses their abandonment and
attachment disorders. Our caseworkers and law enforcement
officers need specialized training in dealing with these
situations. Right now, we just don't have enough to offer all
the help we need to try to get these children's lives back on
track.
I live on the Cumberland Plateau, the highlands where
middle and east Tennessee meet. It is beautiful country, and it
has long been my home. Cookville is a growing city, but it
still feels like a small town. And for the past 16 years, I
have been a Child Protective Services case worker for the State
of Tennessee trying to help some of Putnam County's neediest
and most vulnerable children.
But the meth children are far different from anything I
have ever seen before. The pressures on the State Child Welfare
System are enormous in part because of the surge in meth-
related custody cases in the past 5 years and, to a large
degree, because of the way the addiction devastates the long-
term well-being of the children who come from these homes.
These are potentially life threatening environments to which
these children are being exposed. The adults who are supposed
to be these children's caretakers have become totally consumed
by this drug and have turned their backs on these youngsters.
It is not uncommon for us to see, say, a sibling group of three
with the eldest child being 7 years of age, that 7-year-old
becomes not only the primary caretaker for his or her siblings
but the parents as well. These children's worlds have been
totally destroyed. They endure physical and sexual abuse. These
children are living in a world where they don't belong.
In addition to finding better ways to crack down on the
specific ravages of methamphetamine-related child abuse, we
have to recognize that these children require intensive and
long-term help once we get them out of these dangerous
environments. We have some good news, though. Now local, State
and Federal law enforcement officers, prosecutors and child
welfare experts routinely work together to combat this problem.
Last year, Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen assembled a
methamphetamine task force that helped identify crucial
legislation that Tennessee needed to fight the epidemic in our
State. The Department of Children Services Commissioner Viola
Miller asked me to serve on this task force. The meth problems
in Tennessee, after all, are highly concentrated in my part of
the State, so I see this firsthand.
Thanks to new restrictions on the display and sale of
ephedrine and Pseudoephedrine, I am happy to say that it looks
like meth lab busts are going down in my part of the State. But
that is not to say that we still don't have a fearsome problem
on our hands.
And the most heart-breaking part of it is the children who
live in these homes with parents who are addicts. These aren't
like other abuse and neglect cases that we see. When a child is
taken out of a meth environment, this child loses everything
that is familiar to them. They lose their clothes, their toys,
everything because it is all considered contaminated, and that
is what makes this so tragic. These children lose everything.
They have lost their parents, and now they have to start over.
In many cases, these children have raised themselves. There is
a dull affect in their expression, and there is not a lot of
emotion. There hasn't been any consistency in their lives
because they live in environments that are deplorable. Some of
these children don't even sleep in beds. They sleep on the
floor. They have terrible hygiene. Their teeth are rotten, and
no one is taking care of them.
When the Department of Children's Services caseworkers
remove them from these conditions, they become our main
responsibility as we try to address their physical, social and
emotional difficulties. We struggle to find the services to
address their needs. We do the best we can, but we just don't
have enough. The majority of the children that we remove and
place into custody are now because of methamphetamine-related
issues. The foster homes have been totally flooded with these
children. Therefore, if you remove a child for physical abuse
or sexual abuse, you are going to have a hard time finding a
placement because of all the other placements being taken due
to methamphetamine.
In closing, I would like to tell you about a case that I
worked approximately a year ago, and the child's name is
Jeffrey. He was a 17-year-old mentally limited child. He was
removed out of a methamphetamine lab. When interviewed by me,
Jeffrey was able to tell me that his mother was doing bad stuff
in the home, and it made him sick. He was able to describe step
by step how to make methamphetamine. The most difficult part of
this case was the fact that Jeffrey had just undergone a liver
transplant. But I am happy to report that Jeffrey turned 18
years of age last year. In fact, our birthdays are on the same
day, and we celebrated our birthdays together. We were able to
save Jeffrey, but there are so many other Jeffrey's out there
that we just don't know about. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Dunn follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Thank you for your testimony. Thank you for
your concern for the kids.
Chief Owens.
STATEMENT OF DONALD D. OWENS
Chief Owens. Chairman Souder, Ranking Member Cummings, and
distinguished members of the subcommittee, I thank you for
inviting me here today to discuss the challenges and problems
related to methamphetamine that we have encountered in
Titusville, PA.
My name is Donald Owens, and I am the chief of police for
the Titusville Police Department. I have been with the
department for 22 years and have been chief for the past 5
years. In my years of service, dealing with methamphetamine in
my community has been the greatest challenge that I have faced.
Prior to 2001, few people in Titusville had ever heard of
methamphetamine. Things were about to change however. That
year, the first major meth ring in Titusville was busted. The
individual thought to be responsible for bringing meth to the
region was arrested. Meth purchased from him during the
investigation was reported to be some of the purest that the
lab had ever found. In part, this probably helped build
Titusville's reputation as the meth capital of western
Pennsylvania. It was reported that individuals from as far as
300 miles were coming to Titusville to get this new drug.
In 2001, when we first realized we had a problem, four labs
were seized in the region. By 2004, the number of labs seized
had grown to 69, which was over half of the total number of
labs seized in Pennsylvania. Over a third of the 69 labs in the
region were directly tied to Titusville. In April 2001, nearly
60 individuals from the Titusville area had been arrested on
meth-related charges.
Looking at statistics on labs seized or arrests made does
not tell you the whole story how methamphetamine affects a
community. It doesn't tell you about the strain placed on the
police. It doesn't tell you about the devastating effects of
this drug to a community. The methamphetamine epidemic in our
community presents many challenges to police. Some of the more
serious concerns are manpower, money and increasing crime
rates. Since 2001, the number of overtime hours put in by
officers on the drug task force has more than tripled. When
seeking grants to help our overtime costs, hiring officers or
purchasing equipment, we find that, in the post-September 11th
America, funding is geared toward larger cities or in dealing
with threats from foreign terrorists. I would never say that
foreign terrorists do not pose a serious threat to our country.
But small town rural America is dealing with its own form of
terrorism, the methamphetamine epidemic, and it is crying for
help.
The methamphetamine epidemic has created other manpower
issues as well. The Titusville Police Department has always had
a very strong community policing policy which included
conducting walk-and-talks through the neighborhoods in the
downtown areas and presenting community education programs.
Unfortunately, since 2003, our community policing efforts have
been centered entirely around the methamphetamine issue. In
2003, we undertook a community education program to make
residents aware of the seriousness of the meth problem. And we
never anticipated the overwhelming response our education
efforts generated. The number of tips received has
significantly increased. We could assign one officer to spend
their entire 40-hour work week doing nothing but keeping up
with intelligence reports and following up on leads.
The problem is that we don't have the manpower to focus
solely on meth. We do have other crimes that we must
investigate as well. In 2001, while the State's violent crime
rate was going down, Titusville's violent crime rate doubled.
Serious crimes such as burglaries and assaults have increased.
We are finding that many of these more serious crimes are
related to methamphetamine.
The Titusville Redevelopment Authority has worked hard to
bring businesses into town but has expressed their concern that
the methamphetamine problem may have businesses hesitate to
move to Titusville. Without economic growth, the city may have
to eventually cut back on services, including police. Taxpayers
in the city are not going to be able to bear the burden as more
houses are removed from the tax rolls because they have been
condemned or torn down due to meth.
The conditions in meth houses are deplorable. We were once
told by a narcotics agent who had worked in inner city
Philadelphia and had entered some of the worst slums in some of
the worst neighborhoods that he had never seen anything as bad
as some of the living conditions in meth houses in the
Titusville area.
We have been working with Congressman John Peterson to
address the methamphetamine problem and develop strategies to
deal with it as it moves across the State. Congressman Peterson
has been instrumental in bringing agencies across our State
together to address this problem, and I would like to take this
time to thank Congressman Peterson for all of his help.
What are the solutions to this problem? I don't think there
is going to be a quick fix to this problem any time in the near
future. This drug has a stronghold on rural America. Additional
financial resources on the State and Federal level are needed.
I would certainly encourage Congress to continue funding
programs such as the COPS program through which departments
like Titusville may be able to hire additional officers to
combat the methamphetamine problem in our region.
In order to truly understand what methamphetamine does to a
community, just look how it has changed Titusville's
reputation. Titusville has been known as the birthplace of the
oil industry since the discovery of oil in 1859. The city has
always been well respected throughout the region as a good
place to live. Titusville is now better known as the meth
capital of western Pennsylvania and has become the brunt of
many jokes. In an Associated Press article talking about how
meth is becoming a major problem in Hawaii, Titusville was
mentioned as an example of meth's effects on rural America.
Rural America needs help. Rural America needs opportunities
like this to express our concerns to you, our Representatives
in Congress. Rural America needs someone to listen and to take
action before the methamphetamine epidemic completely swallows
us up.
I thank you for listening to me today, and I thank you
again for the opportunity to speak here. And if you have any
questions, I would be happy to answer them.
[The prepared statement of Chief Owens follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Thank you.
And if I can take this opportunity before we hear our
clean-up batter witness, Sheriff Shook, that I appreciate the
specifics you have. If you all have additional information, as
with each hearing, we have a hearing book associated with it,
but as we try to pull together a meth report, these individual
cases are helpful if you want to add others as well. And also
if there is a way we could get some original copies of the
pictures you have in this document if others have it as well,
it will make any report we put together more effective.
Sheriff Shook.
STATEMENT OF MARK SHOOK
Mr. Shook. Chairman Souder, distinguished members of this
committee, methamphetamine was something we heard about but
believed was a far away problem, a California problem.
In the spring of 2002, a 312-square-mile semi-rural western
North Carolina county with a population of 48,000 full-time
residents was seriously impacted by the scourge of
methamphetamine, and we were not prepared.
I am the sheriff of Watauga County, NC. I have been a law
enforcement officer for nearly 20 years, and in this time, I
have worked in many facets of local law enforcement. I have
been a patrol officer, a detective and now sheriff. During my
years of service, I have investigated murders, rapes, property
crimes and even automobile crashes. Each of these significantly
effect the people involved. The effects I've seen in our county
from methamphetamine is not localized like these other crimes.
Methamphetamine impacts in some way everyone around it.
Methamphetamine has penetrated our communities like the
disease that it is. It is our families that are hardest hit.
Methamphetamine addicts do not hold jobs. They do not
contribute to our society. These individuals are users, plain
and simple. They use our community's resources. They steal from
their family members. They break into their neighbors' houses.
They become physically aggressive to those around them, often
to the people they love, even their children. Finally, they rob
and kill because of perceived needs and paranoia.
So many times we have seen firsthand the hardest hit
victims are the defenseless, the young children who are forced
to live in conditions that are appalling by any standard. Time
and again, we have raided active clandestine methamphetamine
labs and found children living in those contaminated
structures. We have seen baby bottles soaking in sinks full of
chemical waste from methamphetamine production. I have taken
teenagers from their parents' methamphetamine lab and found
coffee filters with wet meth in their pockets, fresh from a
methamphetamine cook. I spoke with a 6-year-old boy who lived
with his mother and father in a meth lab. The 6-year old boy
told me step by step the process his mom and dad used to
manufacture meth, step by step. This child's parents had used
him many times to assist them in cooking methamphetamine.
In January of this year, two small children were abducted
at gunpoint from a foster home in Wautaga County by their
biological parents. The children were in protective custody
because their parents were operating a meth lab in their house.
These methamphetamine addicts found out where the children were
housed, got a pistol, drove there and held the foster family at
gunpoint while they took the children. Four days, an AMBER
alert and one car chase later, we recovered the children,
thankfully unharmed, in our neighboring State of Virginia. The
parents were immediately arrested and searched. Again, they
were carrying methamphetamine. The children are now back in
foster care, and the parents are in jail awaiting trial on
kidnapping, armed robbery and methamphetamine manufacturing
charges.
In our small county we have had methamphetamine-related
homicide, robberies and sexual offenses. In a county where
murders are few and far between, most of the murders that have
occurred in our county recently have had various ties to
methamphetamine. Houses, mobile homes and apartments have
burned due to the flammability and toxicity of the chemical
mixtures people use while trying to manufacture
methamphetamine. Many of these amateur meth cooks have been
badly burned while trying to cook methamphetamine.
Clandestine meth labs represent the single greatest threat
to the safety of emergency responders in our country. I have
officers in my department that have been injured investigating
meth labs. Six volunteer firefighters from one department in
our county have been injured, one seriously and permanently,
while working to extinguish meth-lab-related fires. These
injuries are not from the fire itself nor a fall. These
injuries are from the toxic fumes produced by the
methamphetamine cooking process. We have been lucky in Wautaga
County, NC. None of our responders have been killed. But around
the country, firefighters, paramedics, law enforcement officers
and many others in the public safety and public service
industry are seriously injured or killed every year from the
on-the-job exposure to these labs.
I was elected sheriff in 2002, and before my election, when
I was detective at the sheriff's office in the year before I
took office, I noticed a trend developing in cases I was
investigating. I kept hearing the word meth. I was vaguely
aware of methamphetamine from training and word of mouth, but I
really didn't know much about it. What I did know was that meth
was being identified with more and more criminal activity. A
murder I worked earlier in the year turned out to be a meth lab
dispute. Suspects in assault cases were citing methamphetamine
as a contributing factor in their behavior. I came to
understand that the community was suddenly awash in
methamphetamine. I saw firsthand the damage resulting from
people using this drug.
I knew we had to take action, and we did. We began an
aggressive campaign against methamphetamine and people
producing it. Some 80 meth labs later, officers in my
department can point to tremendous success. We have been
instrumental in passage of State laws that provide enhanced
punishment for meth producers. We have made many arrests that
lead to our serious meth producers receiving sentences ranging
from State probation to more than 40 years in Federal prison.
It is now difficult to find a clearcut meth lab in our county.
There are still a few in operation, and we are closing in on
those. We do not find dump sites where lab-related materials
are illegally dumped. But these have declined also.
We have worked hard to deter people from manufacturing meth
and to make it more difficult to get the necessary materials.
We have worked to educate our citizens, and we have developed
relationships with our retailers. We established a three-county
meth task force dedicated to the investigation and seizure of
meth labs and arresting those responsible for their operation.
We are continually fighting the methamphetamine epidemic.
Even with these efforts and the success that we have had,
the use of methamphetamine is still prevalent in our area. We
believe the majority of it is being brought in from western
States and Mexico. We are fighting a battle working every day
to rid our country of methamphetamine, and we are doing a good
job. But we need help. We need laws passed controlling the sale
of Pseudoephedrine, a necessary ingredient for meth production.
States such as Oklahoma have passed legislation making it very
difficult for meth producers to produce or steal large amounts
of Pseudoephedrine.
Laws controlling the over-the-counter sale of
Pseudoephedrine have had a significant impact and have
contributed to a substantial drop in meth production in the
States passing them. North Carolina is considering similar laws
but has not adopted them as of yet. The passage of Federal
legislation controlling sales of Pseudoephedrine will have the
single biggest impact on illicit meth producers.
One of the primary reasons for our successes are the
partnerships we have been able to develop. Gretchen Shappert
and Karen Marston of the western district of North Carolina
U.S. Attorneys Office; John Emerson and Walt Thrower from the
DEA; Mark Triplett and David Schauble from the ATF; Van Shaw,
Rick Hetzel and David Call of the North Carolina State Bureau
of Investigation; and Charlie Byrd of the Wautaga County
District Attorney's office, these are the names of some of the
dozens of law enforcement officers and agents and prosecutors
that have come to our small county and worked with us, educated
us and stood beside us seizing labs and putting these criminals
in prison.
Clandestine meth laboratories have moved east for some
years now and have made it all the way across the country. They
are a local problem, a State problem and now most of all a
national problem. I anticipate that all of us in this room
today will be discussing methamphetamine for some time to come.
Thank you for your time and service to the citizens of the
United States of America.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Shook follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Thank you.
I am going to yield to the committee vice chairman, Mr.
McHenry, to start the questioning. And I'll be back in just a
couple of minutes.
Mr. McHenry [presiding]. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
At this time, I would like to recognize the ranking member,
Mr. Cummings, for his round of questions.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much.
First of all, let me say to all of you that we appreciate
what you do every day. This problem is one that I think kind of
snuck up on a lot of folks. And you know, as I listen to your
testimony and listen to some of it, we have a TV in the back
room there. I heard all of it. It strikes me that you are
facing a problem that is much bigger than a lot of Americans
can even imagine. And you need help.
When you were speaking, Ms. Dunn, I mean about the kids,
and others of you have too, it just struck me that these are
human beings. And so you get stuck in a situation where you are
trying to take care of these children, and I guess you have but
so many resources or alternatives, and yet and still I am sure
you go home at night just, you probably can barely eat dinner
trying to figure out, well, what is going to happen to these
children. And in that vein, I just wanted to know, what is the
most important factor that needs to be addressed when trying to
reunite families that have been pulled apart as a result of
meth use in the home? I mean, what is the difficult part of
putting the family back together?
Ms. Dunn.
Ms. Dunn. Yes, sir. I think the most difficult part in
reunifying these families, in our area--and I can only speak
for Tennessee--we don't have any drug treatment. We have
intensive outpatient. Sir, that is not going to work. That is
something that we are in desperate need of, some type of
treatment. I mean, a parent can go to intensive outpatient
treatment for maybe 90 days, but that is not going to cut it.
These parents are addicted to a drug that is stronger than
anything I have ever seen. And I have been in this field for a
long time, and I have seen a lot of drugs. But I have never
seen a drug that could make a parent turn their back on their
child, never.
Mr. Cummings. Chief Byers, you were talking about C-SPAN.
You know, you're on C-SPAN right now. Congratulations.
Mr. Byers. Thank you.
Mr. Cummings. The clean-up piece, that is a--we have heard
a lot of testimony in other hearings about clean-up and how
much time it takes and resources. How many people on your
force?
Mr. Byers. Sir, we have a total of 60 sworn officers.
Mr. Cummings. So I guess when you have to clean up, there
is a problem.
Mr. Byers. There is a big problem. And the only clean-up
crews that we have who are certified to go into the labs are in
Georgia and Tennessee. So one problem we run into is, when we
discover a lab, it might be 24 or 48 hours before a chemist can
come in and check all the chemicals. A chemist has to come
first from the State bureau and check the lab, and then the
clean-up crew comes in, which is paid for by the Drug
Enforcement Administration. But still, it might be 2 days that
we have an officer or even two officers assigned to that lab,
and nothing can go on. So we are using manpower just to guard
the lab, if you will. And the danger continues as the water,
the environment continues to be plagued with that while we were
waiting on a clean-up crew, and that is just--we are thankful
that they are there. And we are thankful the Federal Government
is paying for it, because we certainly couldn't afford the
clean up. We couldn't afford it whatsoever. But it is very
time-consuming and maybe 2 days before the lab can be cleaned
up, tying up our officers as well as Federal and State
officers.
Mr. Cummings. How does that affect your other efforts with
regard to law enforcement? I mean, you know, one of the things
that--I practiced law for many years, and I think that when
people see, the criminal folk, when they see that there is an
opportunity to do their criminal act, then they take advantage
of it. And I was just wondering, you know, does that send a
message, now? They know you've got to deal with that kind of
issue. They know you've got a limited force. I mean, have you
seen problems in other areas, that is, criminal activity?
Mr. Buyer. Absolutely, Congressman. In 2004, when our SBI
and our department responded to 43 labs in Rutherford County,
crime was up double digits in larcenies, property crimes as a
whole, simple assaults and domestic violence, and all those are
directly related to meth and meth manufacturing. So, yes, we
have seen a big swing.
Mr. Cummings. How about you, Chief Owens?
Chief Owens. They would pretty much follow along the same
lines. Any time we get involved with the methamphetamine, you
see additional crimes being committed because of the drug
itself. And it is, the deplorable conditions that these people
are living in is conducive to additional problems for children
and youth, too.
Mr. Cummings. What would you all--my time has run out, but,
what would you all want to see us do as a Federal Government to
help you? I mean, if you could just answer that in just a very,
very few words. I mean, whoever, some of you may not even want
to answer that. But I am just curious.
Ms. Young. Prevention. Mass prevention efforts. The public
needs to be educated about this issue. We need to educate
pregnant women about use during pregnancy for methamphetamine
as well as all of the other substances that affect their
children. We need to make sure that obstetricians know about
this issue and that they are screening effectively and
providing intervention so that we can prevent that damage. The
public doesn't, as many Members have already said today, may
not be really recognizing what the long-term consequences are,
and mass education about this issue really needs to happen with
a doubling of our prevention efforts.
Ms. Brown. NACo actually supports four of the bills that
are circulating through the congressional levels now; some that
deal with clean up, some that deal with Pseudoephedrine
restriction. And we want you to know that we really appreciate
what you have been doing. I think that the direction of moving
in a comprehensive way is the only way that I think we can
address this problem and maybe get to a place where we feel
like we have achieved a goal at the end.
And I think everyone who has testified has said that all
levels have to be involved; not levels of government but all
departments within counties that are dealing with it, all
departments within cities, that the Social Service component
needs to be side by side with law enforcement, and that there
needs to be this understanding and that treatment is a valuable
component of that. So we would be supportive and we have a
president this year that is from Umatilla County, OR, who has
recognized the importance of methamphetamine and raising that
awareness and has made it his initiative. So you will hear much
from us in NACo about the need to look at this from all
different sectors with a comprehensive approach I think is the
best.
Ms. Baker. If I may, I would agree with the education piece
and also sort of the spirit of, all hands on deck. I mean, the
whole piece around collaboration with law enforcement and
others. It is real easy to sort of be tempted into thinking
that foster care is a premium solution, and you know, children
need to be safe and have permanency and well being in their
lives. And without treatment, without the education and
prevention piece and treatment, we may be creating another
generation of youngsters who would be well cared for by the
State, I would hope, but who deserve permanency and connections
with their families.
Mr. Cummings. Mr. Chairman, if I may I just have one
question, one more question that I think may be helpful to some
police chiefs who are watching this right now. Just recently,
in Maryland, we had a situation--it has not been a big problem
in Maryland. But we recently, I mean within the last 2 weeks,
had a situation in a rural section where a lab was discovered.
And I am just wondering, when you were talking, Chief Owens and
perhaps you can help us, Sheriff Shook and others, when, if you
had--looking back, when you first saw it, is there, are there
some things that you wish you had done and maybe just kind of--
you know, I am not saying you underestimated, I don't know what
happened--but I mean, in other words, that you wish you had
done at that moment, as soon as you, the moment you saw
something happening and that, if you were giving advice to
other chiefs, what would you say? You understand the question.
Chief Owens. I do. I think one of the things we did is we
did a community presentation. We went around the area with an
educational program, a Power Point program, went to all the
outlying areas. And we are very rural in nature. Went to the
fire departments and talked with the EMS and fire departments
and groups, and we also took it into our schools. We talked to
them at the school level. And I think when we started showing
them some of the pictures that some of the--that came across
big with them. I mean, sometimes, like they say, a picture, you
know, paints 1,000 words. But I am going to tell you, that is
pretty devastating when you start looking at some of those
pictures that were up here on the board today, and I think that
gets people's attention, so I do believe education is part of
it.
And I think you need to act as quickly as you possibly can
when you realize that you have a problem, and fortunately, we
have done that. But unfortunately, this epidemic is so
sweeping, and it takes no time at all before it is
overwhelming. It happens that quick. And it is real trouble for
people trying to deal with budgets and trying to deal with the
problem as well.
Mr. Shook. When we started finding our problem, the first
thing we did was get the education for our law enforcement, our
emergency services, our health departments, our Social
Services. We also made a pact with our Chamber of Commerce and
our retail establishments and educating them, the hotel owners
associations, the renters, because it is a community problem.
It is not a law enforcement problem. It is a community problem,
and everyone in that community has to deal with it. That is
where I am proud of our county, because we have banded
together, and we have made a difference in our county. But I
think education working hand in hand and limiting the
availability of Pseudoephedrine products will take care of the
meth problem because, without Pseudoephedrine, there is no
meth.
Mr. Cummings. OK. Thank you all.
Mr. McHenry. Thank you, Mr. Cummings.
And certainly, this is a bipartisan issue. I mean, the
concern that we have as a committee on this epidemic of
methamphetamine across our Nation, it is very serious, and this
Congress takes our job seriously in making sure that we have
the laws and everything, the resources available to combat this
problem. The interesting thing about this panel is that none of
you are from Washington, DC, but surprisingly, you make sense.
Wait a second. I guess those two things actually go together.
No, it is wonderful that we actually have these are on the
front lines here today to give us recommendations. What is so
surprising about the eight-member panel that we have here is
that you have twice as many recommendations, no actually
probably more like 100 percent more recommendations than the
first panel did. And I think it is wonderful that you all are
here to convey that.
My questions for my local law enforcement leader, Mr.
Byers, you spoke about Rutherford County. And the meth problem
is touching Rutherford County like it is many rural counties
across America. We are not exempt or immune to it. You spoke
about the economic issues in your opening statement, that you
and local law enforcement have to deal with. Can you go more
into detail about the economic impact?
Mr. Byers. Yes, Mr. Chairman.
The money is being spent in Rutherford County. Our Medicaid
budget, the local budget portion for Medicaid in Rutherford
County last year increased $700,000. That doesn't sound like a
lot in Washington dollars, but I'll assure you, in Rutherford
County dollars, that is a lot of money. And most of that money
went to those who are afflicted with methamphetamine and
methamphetamine addiction. We are seeing a tremendous amount of
money spent in our local detention facility. We have a 210-
person detention facility, and right now, our budget is at $1.7
million for that facility. And a lot of that money is going to
health care. The biggest spending that we are going to see with
methamphetamine and of course the worst thing is the loss of
life of course. That is the No. 1. But the big spending is
going to come in the future with health care costs for liver
and kidney failure, for diabetes, for heart attacks. And we are
seeing those things in our detention facility now. So the one
thing that is rising constantly in law enforcement in
Rutherford County is the medical expenses we have at our 210-
man facility, our detention facility. That is going to continue
to grow. We have inmates who are suffering from everything from
diabetes as a result of meth abuse to heart failure to kidney
and liver failure to HIV. And that is going to continue not
only in Rutherford County but with the Department of
Corrections in the Federal prison system. We might as well get
ready to spend a fortune of money for health care.
Mr. McHenry. Well, this is certainly an issue. And in terms
of local law enforcement, the resources you need, are you
getting those, the funding you need to meet the demand that
this is placing on your people?
Mr. Byers. Congressman Cummings asked earlier about what
would we do, the one thing. And I think avoiding the head-in-
the-sand mentality, if you will. You know, it was in
California. It started east. Oklahoma. Then, you know, people
in North Carolina said, it's never going to affect North
Carolina. It will never make it to North Carolina. Well, it
made it to North Carolina. We in the west were fighting it. We
were fighting it hard. And we had counties in eastern North
Carolina who were saying, it's not a problem. We don't have
methamphetamine. Charlotte-Mecklenburg, had their first meth
lab last week, their first for this year. So for Charlotte-
Mecklenburg and the chief there, it may not be a tremendous
problem, but I promise you it will be. And resources in law
enforcement, we have had to move people from other positions to
narcotics. Our narcotics division has doubled in size based on
methamphetamines and will continue to grow. And we are asking
for some additional funding.
But in a county with 9 percent unemployment, it's hard to
ask that county commissioner for a lot of money. He gives you a
long look when you ask for tax dollars when you've got 9
percent unemployment. So it is more than just local issues, for
local law enforcement dollars, not a lot of money being seized.
When we were in the cocaine business--and not that we are
not in it still, we made a lot of arrests for cocaine. I know
you were mentioning in Baltimore. But we would seize homes and
cars because it was a seller's market. We would get a little
money come back into law enforcement to help offset some of the
expenses. With meth addiction, they have nothing. They're
broke. They don't have a dime. They're stealing lawnmowers and
chainsaws to buy the ingredients to make the meth. So we are
not seizing any property. We are not seizing homes, cars. All
we are doing is spending money. So there is nothing coming back
to the coffers, and we are standing there before our
commissioners and before our State legislators and before our
Congressmen with our hands out asking for help. So it is
affecting us tremendously.
Mr. McHenry. What is the single best thing we can do in
Congress to help your fight? If you could touch on that, then
we can go to Chief Owens and Sheriff Shook.
Mr. Byers. That's a tough one for me because I have really
got a couple or three. But the first thing is to ban or
restrict--ban is not a good word--restrict the sale of
Pseudoephedrine products. And it can't be just State by State,
because, again, the people, the cooks in Rutherford County are
going to drive 15 minutes and steal or buy all they want in
South Carolina. So it needs to be a national restriction of the
sale of Pseudoephedrine products. And that would be No. 1.
And then I would have to say, looking at the borders of
Canada and Mexico, and Ice is beginning. We are going to change
in Rutherford County from a manufacturing base where we have
our cooks that go out and buy the ingredients, make the meth.
Now we have a lot of addicts running around Rutherford County;
6 percent recovery rate, so that is going to continue to grow.
And now that the demand is there, it's supply side economics.
The demand is there. The Ice from Mexico will hit the streets
wide open. Congressman, you know what that's like in Baltimore
as far as dealing with other drugs. So we need to really look
hard at what's coming in from Mexico and the Pseudoephedrine
coming from Canada.
Mr. McHenry. Thank you.
Chief Owens.
Chief Owens. I certainly agree with Chief Deputy Byers. One
of our problems is that our meth is not being imported. It is
being made locally. And that is one of our biggest problems.
What we need is manpower and money and to address the problem
from a law enforcement perspective. And that is where our
issues are.
Mr. McHenry. Sheriff Shook.
Mr. Shook. I think limiting the sale of Pseudoephedrine. We
also need manpower. Our State Bureau of Investigation is
understaffed. Their lab is unstaffed, their chemists. We need
more chemists because most of the SBI lab chemists that are
doing the DNA testing and other testing in the lab settings are
having to leave those laboratories and come out into the field
to process meth labs. So that is putting backlogs in murder
cases and rape cases and other law enforcement problems. So we
need manpower, and we need some restrictions on the main
ingredient that causes this problem.
Mr. McHenry. Thank you all so much for your testimony. I
saw a number of head noddings when we came to Pseudoephedrine
and certainly the universal issue here in the base of all that
we are talking about. So thank you so much for your testimony.
Ms. Watson.
Ms. Watson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I just want to say to the panel that we are very, very
appreciative that you came today to not open my eyes but open
our eyes as to the gravity of this problem. And it was said
from the Chair that there is no one here from D.C.; well, thank
goodness you came in from across the country just to show the
expanse of this problem.
I want to address my comments to Valerie Brown. And thank
you so much. I am personally involved in a case as we speak.
And I was listening to your recommendations as to what you need
to fight this problem. You are not helped by the fact that I
think America is a drug culture. All you have to do is put on
the TV, turn on the radio or read the paper, and they are
selling you something to put you to sleep, to wake you up, to
quell the pain, etc. So our children become used to taking
drugs. There is a case of a young woman who had been on meth
probably 10 years, and it affected her heart. It affected her
kidneys. It affects heart, kidneys. Let's see. And she's
diabetic. She flatlined three different times. She went through
the county hospital services in Sacramento. Her mother had been
in as a patient for neurosurgery. She had a baby daughter, 18
months old. This was a household heavily impacted by that one
child who was 19 at the time that she fell ill.
Now here is the question I have to ask: She went through
four different hospitals. When she was doing better, they put
her in a taxi and sent her home. Her mother couldn't take care
of her, because she was recuperating from her surgery and she
had not filed all the papers with the county, the mother for
the daughter, 19.
I got involved and had a meeting at the hospital and said,
you've got to keep this patient here, she is critically ill.
Well, they finally put her on a list for a transplant. Her
heart has a hole in it from this continuous long-term use of
meth. The problem is that she could not go into foster care
because she was over 18 years old. The hospital did not want
her to stay there because any time she goes out, she used meth
again.
And the social worker said there is no placement. We can
get a senior placed or an infant placed, but there was no place
for a person who was 18 and beyond.
If we look at this whole problem from beginning to end,
there are holes in it, because we don't know enough or we
haven't really done the national studies, I think, as to what
should be part of the treatment.
Ms. Brown, what would you suggest we do with that young
woman who is 20 now, and needs help, needs aid? She is at home
with her mother, who is incapacitated. She has a daughter. She
finally qualified for in-home support services, but she needs
to be, at this current time, institutionalized because, what I
can tell, is that the continued use over a long period of time
of meth has affected her thought processes as well.
Ms. Brown. And they, Congresswoman, are under assault as
well. Hospitals are under assault. So it seems like it doesn't
matter where you go in the health care system, it's not
providing the kind of care and treatment that we are looking
for. One of the most encouraging things I think that we have
here is actually from Paul Pastor up in Tacoma, WA in Pierce
County. And he said they had brought in a gentleman who was
talking about their treatment program, and he said, you know,
people kind of believe that methamphetamine is such a bad thing
that there is no treatment that can ever cure or help or fix
it.
We have been doing an active study. We have active data.
That data does tell that story. It says we can work with people
in the community. There is great encouragement from the
treatment of it, from the health care, all the people here.
We are having a hard time accessing a system with less and
less dollars, not only that we have available to us from our
county revenues, but from our Federal revenues. Medicaid and
foster care is under assault. Really, how can you expect to
continue to provide for all of these people that we are
currently seeing coming into the system needing care when we
don't have the resources to do it?
We are really trying, greatly, just to take care of those
that are there now, that they have become the urgent care
instead of just the urgent. So I absolutely agree with you, the
system needs to look at the treatment and the health care end
as well as the law enforcement as well as the cleanup. It has
to be total.
And just something I wanted to add that has not been
mentioned at all today. We look at cities and we look at
counties, and we look at how they're dealing with the problem.
But we have States in the Northwest that they are predominately
BLM land. And there is no one watching that store. And we find
that the mobile society of meth producers in their vans will go
anywhere that we are not.
So they will go to the back lands, into Nevada, into Idaho,
into Montana and into Wyoming. And it gets filtered right down
to Rutherford County, NC, only now it's in a form that is
salable.
There needs to be a national approach, and that is one of
the reasons we suggest we need the top priorities. We need the
national leadership that you can provide.
Ms. Watson. Let me just thank you so very much for those
comments and go back to Dr. Young. As a Director of the
National Center on Substance Abuse and Child Welfare, my
question to you is do we have a plan? Are we thinking through
how we can make our treatment programs, prevention programs
national, comprehensive? And as I said, there was a hole in the
treatment. After the hospital kicks this child out, there was
nowhere that would take her. So they sent her home in a taxicab
where she couldn't be cared for there.
So as I said, there are holes along the way. And I agree
with Ms. Brown. It has to be comprehensive. It has to be linked
across the States. And people should not be able to go from
State to State and find that they can get away with it in Utah
and not in California, but in Utah they can.
What is your thinking on that? And are we discussing it in
a commission type structure?
Ms. Young. I don't know about in terms of a commission type
structure. I do know that our organization has worked with
about eight States at present in the 2\1/2\ years that we have
been operating to create comprehensive State plans to address
the substance abuse issue in child welfare.
Those States have looked comprehensively across treatment
and intervention for children and the child welfare
interventions to put plans in place to do just what you're
talking about. I think there are communities that have been
serious about this issue for quite some time. I cite Sacramento
County in my written testimony, and you see the recovery rates
that they're achieving regardless of the type of substance that
is being used. And you see the faster reunifications that are
happening by doing some very specific things, ensuring that
comprehensive services are available very early in the case,
even before the court has taken jurisdiction in a case in which
children have been removed. They are offering services from day
one. And they have defense counsel on board to say to parents,
your best chance, your best hope is engagement in a recovery
process in order to regain the custody of your children. They
have been at this for some time. They're seeing positive
results. There are places around the country that have put
those kinds of plans in place.
Is it widespread enough? No. Probably not. Are they ready
to address the methamphetamine issue? I think that we need to
be a bit ahead of the game. You certainly recognized the
cocaine and the crack epidemic 15 years ago. I think this is
our opportunity to ensure that comprehensive family based
treatment and prevention efforts are in place for these
families.
Ms. Watson. Thank you so very much. I just want to say to
the Chair, I know I am out of time. But maybe we can ask some
of these good people to come together and give us the framework
for maybe a piece of legislation, because this is a serious
problem and it is killing our children. It is destroying our
households, and it destroys our society. So maybe we can ask,
through the Chair, for them to give us a report, what would
they like to see us do in legislation.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. McHenry. Without objection, I think the committee would
accept any further testimony you want to add or recommendations
in particular that you would like to add to your testimony
today. Without objection, that is ordered.
At this time, I would like to recognize my colleague from
North Carolina, my neighbor to the north and west, Ms. Foxx.
Ms. Foxx. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am going to ask you
all to answer, with one word, a question, each one of you. And
then I want to ask a question.
Mr. Burns said that the methamphetamine problem is not as
great as cocaine and heroin. I just want you to go down the
line and say, do you agree or disagree? I only want one word
from each one of you. So start with Dr. Young.
Ms. Young. Boy, that is so hard.
Ms. Foxx. One word.
Ms. Young. No. I would not agree. Wait. Excuse me. Would
you rephrase? Because I want to make sure I am answering the
right way. He said it was not as bad a problem? Depending on
how you phrase it, I would say no. That is not correct.
Ms. Brown. I agree with Ms. Young--Dr. Young.
Ms. Baker. Do you agree or disagree with Mr. Burns?
Ms. Brown. I disagree. I think it an epidemic of epidemic
proportions.
Mr. McHenry. One word. Mrs. Baker.
Ms. Baker. Disagree.
Mr. Byers. Disagree.
Ms. Dunn. I would disagree.
Chief Owens. Disagree.
Mr. Shook. Disagree.
Ms. Foxx. Thank you very much. So let the record show
everybody disagreed.
Sheriff Shook, could you tell us what, if any, Federal
programs or State programs have been helpful to you and what
you have been doing to fight the meth problem?
Sheriff Shook. The formation of our meth task force through
the State Bureau of Investigationis partnering with other
county agencies, city agencies, the ATF, DEA and the U.S.
Attorney's Office. We have also gotten a grant in our county,
the endangered children's grant. That has helped us team with
our mental health facilities, our Department of Social
Services, and all the community groups combined have really
made a difference because we have also gotten another grant
that our Department of Mental Health is working with, Meth
Affects Families, and they are doing a very good job working
with the parents trying to reunite them with the children.
I personally got to go to one of the counseling sessions
with one of their clients. She was asked to bring someone that
made an impact on her life with her meth problem, and she chose
me to come. That was a very big honor for me.
But just to see the communities pulling together and
getting these Federal and State grants, that is what we have to
have to fight this problem. And we all have to pull together,
local, State and nationwide.
Ms. Foxx. What you're saying is that there is an attempt at
a comprehensive approach based on the collaboration that has
gone on and that has been the message that we have been hearing
from folks?
Sheriff Shook. That is correct.
Ms. Foxx. Thank you very much.
Mr. McHenry. Thank you, Ms. Foxx. At this time, I just want
to, on behalf of the whole Committee on Government Reform and
the subcommittee here today, I would like to thank you so much
for taking time out of your schedules. It is wonderful to
actually have people in the front lines here giving real
recommendations and real policy objectives in the needs of our
local community. It is very refreshing. It is about this time
in Washington on a Tuesday when most Members of Congress are
ready to get back home and back to reality, and I appreciate
you all injecting a dose of reality to our day here in
Congress. And I sure appreciate your testimony. Thanks so much.
You're dismissed. And at this time, this meeting is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 5:21 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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