[Senate Hearing 110-870]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 110-870
COMMUNITY-BASED SOLUTIONS TO DRUG-RELATED CRIME IN RURAL AMERICA
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
DECEMBER 5, 2008
__________
ST. ALBANS, VERMONT
__________
Serial No. J-110-126
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
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COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont, Chairman
EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania
JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah
HERB KOHL, Wisconsin CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California JON KYL, Arizona
RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama
CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina
RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois JOHN CORNYN, Texas
BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island TOM COBURN, Oklahoma
Bruce A. Cohen, Chief Counsel and Staff Director
Stephanie A. Middleton, Republican Staff Director
Nicholas A. Rossi, Republican Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
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STATEMENTS OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Page
Leahy, Hon. Patrick J., a U.S. Senator from the State of Vermont. 1
prepared statement........................................... 46
WITNESSES
Baker, Angela S., Division of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Programs,
Vermont Department of Health, St. Albans, Vermont.............. 12
DesLauriers, Peter, Chair, St. Albans City Crime Task Force...... 14
Holmes, Fred, M.D., Pediatrician and Youth Advocate, St. Albans,
Vermont........................................................ 9
Manahan, Martin, Mayor, City of St. Albans, Vermont.............. 4
Taylor, Gary L., Chief of Police, St. Albans City Police
Department..................................................... 6
Welch, Hon. Peter, A Representative in Congress from the State of
Vermont........................................................ 3
SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
Baker, Angela S., Division of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Programs,
Vermont Department of Health, St. Albans, Vermont, statement... 23
Coutts, Jim, Executive Director, Franklin County Senior Center,
St. Albans, Vermont, statement................................. 27
DesLauriers, Peter, Chair, St. Albans City Crime Task Force, St.
Albans, Vermont, statement..................................... 28
Dream Program, Inc., Michael C. Loner, Executive Director,
Winooski, Vermont, statement and attachment.................... 31
Holmes, Fred, M.D., Pediatrician and Youth Advocate, St. Albans,
Vermont........................................................ 37
King, Christina M., Director, Swanton Teen Center, Swanton,
Vermont, letter................................................ 41
Lafortune, Dorothy, Biddeford, Maine, statement and attacment.... 44
LeBoeuf, Patricia, Vermont, letter............................... 48
Manahan, Martin, Mayor, City of St. Albans, Vermont, statement... 51
Miller, Marie Luise, Farmington, New Hampshire, statement and
attachment..................................................... 53
Perry, Albert, State Representative, Richford, Vermont, statement 56
Paverman, Dana, Director of Quality and Substance Abuse Programs,
Howard Center, South Burlington, Vermont, letter............... 58
Taylor, Gary L., Chief of Police, St. Albans City Police
Department, statement.......................................... 59
Troidi, Captain Dan, Commander of Troop A, Vermont State Police
Department of Public Safety, St. Albans, Vermont, statement.... 68
Vermont Association of Court Diversion Programs, Willa Farrell,
Executive Director, St. Middlebury, Vermont, statement......... 71
Welch, Hon. Peter, A Representative in Congress from the State of
Vermont, statement............................................. 73
COMMUNITY-BASED SOLUTIONS TO DRUG-RELATED CRIME IN RURAL AMERICA
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FRIDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2008
United States Senate,
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, D.C.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:07 a.m., in
City Hall, 100 North Main Street, St. Albans, Vermont, Hon.
Patrick J. Leahy, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
Present: Senator Leahy.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. PATRICK J. LEAHY, A U.S. SENATOR FROM
THE STATE OF VERMONT
Chairman Leahy. Good morning. The Senate Judiciary
Committee will be in order.
Somebody asked me earlier about this gavel, and all Senate
Chairmen get a gavel. But this was back when I was first
Chairman of a small Subcommittee many, many years ago, and our
oldest son was in shop class, and he made that for me. I have
another gavel, a huge one, that the Horrigan family gave me
that they had made for me when I became Chairman of the
Agriculture Committee. But it is so huge that security will not
let you take it on the airplane.
[Laughter.]
Chairman Leahy. Thank you for being here. This is the
second time the Senate Judiciary Committee has been in Vermont
in the last year. Now we are going to hear from St. Albans
about this community's efforts to combat the persistent
problems of drug-related crime in rural America. And I think in
Vermont we have had this civic-minded, all-hands-on-deck
experience in dealing with drug-related crime in rural areas.
The reason I have had these two hearings--we have a lot of
hearings in Washington to see what is going on in Los Angeles
or in New York or Chicago or Miami, places like that. Everybody
comes in and shows up, and they do have problems, and they are
significant. What I have tried to do is demonstrate to the
Committee--and this hearing transcript will be available to all
Republicans and Democrats on the Committee, as the Rutland one
was, to say that in rural areas, small cities, small towns, we
have problems that are very unique. And it is not just a law
enforcement problem, and it is not just a school problem or
anybody else. This is a lot different than when I was a young
State's attorney in Chittenden County. Things have changed
considerably. But what I am seeing, which is very, very good,
is that communities like St. Albans are fighting back, they are
coming together, they are finding innovative, community-based
solutions. I want to be able to show that. If somebody has got
a drug problem in rural North Dakota or Mississippi or
elsewhere, they can learn from this.
Of course, law enforcement has been and continues to be
central to combating the scourge of drugs, and there needs to
be not only State and local but the help of the Federal
authorities. And I compliment all those in law enforcement who
are here. There is not a law enforcement agency in this State,
when my office has called, that has not responded, and
responded well. But then we also know--and I think law
enforcement would tell you this first--that you have to have
community-based solutions. You cannot just ask the police to do
this alone. We have got to work on it together.
Crime in St. Albans and here in Franklin County has
increased significantly in recent years; much of it has been
drug-related. The reports I have received from the police and
others show burglaries have gone up sharply, and many of these
break-ins appear to be the result of drug users looking for
money or drugs to feed their addiction. We are seeing too many
armed robberies.
I see former State's Attorney Ron Kilburn in the audience.
This is a lot different than when he and I were co-State's
attorneys here.
We see people becoming addicted to prescription painkillers
like Oxycontin and also to traditional drugs like cocaine and
heroin. What I find very disturbing is the fact that more and
more of our children are turning to these drugs at an early
age. That has to frighten all of us, whether as parents or
grandparents or just members of the community.
But the good news is that St. Albans, like other Vermont
cities, is responding to this. Recently the Drug Enforcement
Administration assigned a full-time investigator to Vermont
focusing exclusively on the drug diversion problem, where
prescription drugs that started out legally end up in wrong
hands. Just yesterday, State authorities held a statewide
conference for investigators focusing on this.
But we have also been stretched thin in law enforcement
during the past 8 years. There have been continuous cuts in
Federal funding. Time and again, our State and local law
enforcement officers like the Vermont State Police and the St.
Albans Police Department have been unable to fill vacancies and
get the equipment they need.
This trend is unacceptable. On Monday, I am going to be
meeting with the new Attorney General-designate, Eric Holder,
and I am going to talk to him, as I have with President-elect
Obama, about the needs of law enforcement, especially in areas
where we are stretched thin, where we have to rely on
communities coming together. I want to see money restored to
the COPS and Byrne grant programs. I want to bring back the
Crime-Free Rural States grant program. These are things that I
believe in very strongly.
Now, police chiefs around the country and around Vermont
have told me we cannot arrest our way out of this problem, and
I believe that is true. But let us find out how we can work
better together.
I think the best way to prevent crime is often to provide
young people with opportunities and constructive things to do
to keep them away from drugs and crime altogether. And if young
people do get involved with drugs, many times treatment might
be the better thing to do. Unfortunately, in the last 8 years,
we have seen money being diverted to other parts of the world
and money for these treatment programs has been cut. I think
that has been a mistake. I think we pay more in the long run.
It is far better to spend the money up front than try to spend
five times that amount of money later on.
We will hear from community leaders like Dr. Holmes and Ms.
Baker and former Mayor DesLauriers, who are working
collaboratively to do this. But our first witnesses, of course,
will be my colleague in the House of Representatives, Peter
Welch, who has been a friend for so many years. We worked
together when he was in the State legislature. We have this
thing where we make sure that anything involving Vermont, the
three members of the delegation are brought together. He will
be followed by Mayor Manahan. I have to make sure I get these
Irish names right.
Peter, go ahead.
STATEMENT OF HON. PETER WELCH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF VERMONT
Mr. Welch. Thank you, Senator Leahy. It is really terrific
to have the Senate Judiciary Committee here in St. Albans on
this incredibly important topic.
Also, it is very exciting. I just want to make a comment to
the people here. As we all know, the extraordinary economic
challenges that we face in Washington are rippling into the
communities. But even as we face those, if we are going to be
ultimately successful, it boils down to what can we do in our
communities to make them safe, to make them secure, to make
them good places to raise your family, and to do your work. And
this epidemic of drug-related crime is very threatening. And as
excited as I am to have the United States Senate here, I
suspect that you would join me in being really thrilled that we
have such an incredible turnout of folks from St. Albans,
because in the end, whatever it is that we do in Washington is
helpful perhaps, we hope, but the real hard work has to be done
by local law enforcement, by local families, by folks who are
willing to work hard with kids who are having hard times and
have the ability through their example to show them another
way.
The goal of our hearing today, as I understand it, is less
to focus on the problem as it is to focus on solutions.
What are the practical steps that we can take and what is
the information that you can get from the witnesses today that
will help you as you work with the Obama administration? And I
think it is very fortunate. We have got this new
administration. There is a lot of excitement about taking a
fresh look at how we address some of our long-term problems.
And within a position as you are, chairing the Senate Judiciary
Committee, meeting, as you will be, with the Attorney General-
designate, that is going to give us a real pathway to the
highest levels of policy. And bottom line, what we ultimately
want to do is take the steps we can to protect our communities.
So I appreciate the work that you are doing, and I
appreciate the opportunity to work with you as your partner on
the House side. So thank you, Senator Leahy.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Welch appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Leahy. Well, thank you, and especially with your
position on the Rules Committee, you have already been
extremely helpful. I think you have found, as I have, that
sometimes we have to break through and remind some of our
colleagues that there is rural America. When they think of a
small suburb as being 600,000 people, we have to remind them
that is the size of our State. But if you are being
burglarized, if you are having a problem, if you have a child
and you are trying to find help for their drug addiction, it
hurts just as much whether you are in a small town or a big
city.
Mr. Mayor, you have been mayor, I believe, 3 years. Am I
correct?
Mr. Manahan. That is true.
Chairman Leahy. And I know you were formerly a council
member. I think that is probably where we first met.
Mr. Manahan. Yes.
Chairman Leahy. Of course, you have been in the business
community, a sales manager at Handy Pontiac Cadillac-Buick-GMC
for years.
Mr. Manahan. For now.
Chairman Leahy. For now. I am not trying to give you an ad,
but I mention all that because your roots are deep in the
community. Please go ahead, sir.
STATEMENT OF HON. MARTIN MANAHAN, MAYOR, CITY OF ST. ALBANS,
VERMONT
Mr. Manahan. I appreciate that. I would like to thank
Chairman Leahy and the other members of the Senate Judiciary
Committee for allowing St. Albans City the opportunity to host
this hearing.
As the Senator said earlier, I have had the honor of
serving as mayor of the City of St. Albans since March of 2006
after serving 5 years on the City Council. I am one of eight
children of John and Teresa Manahan that was born and raised in
St. Albans City. I have been married to my wife Lisa for 20
years, and we have raised our four children here as well. We
chose to raise our family in this community to benefit from the
same quality of life that it offered my wife and I as children.
However, over the last several years, that quality of life has
been challenged by the increasing crime in our community.
I feel that there are a number of reasons for the increased
crime trend, not the least of which is prescription drug abuse
amongst our youth. We have experienced an alarming trend of
property crimes that can be directly associated with illicit
drug use within our community. We have taken a number of steps
to combat this criminal element within our community.
In 2005 we hired Gary Taylor as our police chief following
an extensive nationwide search. Since that time we have
enhanced our police department dramatically. We have created a
pay grade system that allows us to hire seasoned officers and
pay them commensurate to their experience. We recently
negotiated a 10-percent base pay increase with the police
department. We now have the ability to offer sign-on bonuses
which allows us to be much more competitive and attractive to
experienced police officers as opposed to a feeder system to
larger departments throughout Vermont, which has been the case
of the past number of years.
We have worked very closely with the Vermont State Police
and the Vermont Drug Task Force which has allowed our officers
to gain experience needed to deal with the drug activity that
we are now experiencing.
We have recently given the Police Department permission to
acquire Tasers, through an equipment exchange, as a form of
less than lethal protection. We have been criticized for
bringing the fact that St. Albans has one of the highest crime
rates per capita in the State of Vermont to the forefront of
discussions in our community. We do not have a monopoly on drug
crimes; however, we are one of the few communities that are
acknowledging the issue and facing it head on. We have held two
public forums dealing with the crime within our community over
the last year and half, both of which were attended by over 150
community members. I feel that we had a choice: ignore the
problem and hope it disappeared or deal with it directly and
make it known that St. Albans City was not going to let this
criminal element steal our quality of life.
We have had community members step forward and create a
very successful Neighborhood Watch program as well as a
Business Watch program throughout the city. We have had
numerous members step up and serve on different committees such
as the Crime Task Force that I appointed to review how we
provide public safety as a whole to our community with the goal
of providing a more efficient product. We are currently
budgeted for 19 police officers while analysis of comparable
communities suggests we should have a force of 24 officers.
There are a number of ways to deal with the crime. We as a
city government have the task of dealing with it throughout our
police efforts. It is a difficult balance to provide the police
protection needed for our citizens while at the same time not
overburdening them with property taxes. We have been very
fiducially responsible in our efforts to accomplish this. So
you can imagine how frustrating it is to us while in the midst
of dealing with the criminal element, we also have to deal with
the closure of the Northwest Correctional Facility. We will now
be forced to transport individuals that are arrested in our
community to Chittenden County or even perhaps Newport or St.
Johnsbury. Over the last year we had approximately 150 lodgings
as well as 50 detox lodgings. The closing of this jail will now
force us to take officers that are needed on the street away
from our community for up to 4 hours per shift, which in turn
will cause us to call officers in at a much higher rate of pay.
So while we are trying to be sound fiduciary agents for our
community, we are being delivered a body blow by the State of
Vermont by the changing of this prison to an all-women's
facility. Keeping in mind that changing this facility to a
women's facility is not only going to create hardship on our
police department, but is also going to create additional
hardship on other social services that are provided within our
community.
So how do I feel we should approach the problems? First and
foremost, we need to replace illicit activities with thriving
businesses. The best opportunity for increasing investment
opportunities in the city is to complete the Federal Street
Multimodal Connector. This long envisioned project would serve
as a catalyst for downtown revitalization and help attract
families, professionals, and employers to this area. We also
offer a number of unique opportunities with our proximity to
the Canadian border as well as Interstate 89 and our state-of-
the-art Tech Center located at the high school. This would also
allow our large historical homes to be maintained as single-
family homes as opposed as being split into apartments.
On another front. I feel we should require pharmaceutical
companies that are profiting from this illicit prescription
drug use amongst our youth to create a fund that would allow
communities such as ours to apply for those funds to help fight
as well as rehabilitate the drug offenders.
St. Albans will continue to fight this battle and
ultimately be known as the community that faced up to the drug
challenge and won because we have members of our community that
are not allowing our community to fall prey to this illicit
criminal activity. However, this fight would be much easier
with the support from not only the State but the Federal
Government through the efforts I have outlined.
Thank you again for this opportunity to speak before you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Manahan appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Leahy. Well, thank you very much, and I know both
you and Congressman Welch have other places you have to go. You
mentioned you have been married for 20 years. In our family, we
call you a newlywed.
[Laughter.]
Chairman Leahy. Next year, Marcelle and I will celebrate
our 47th wedding anniversary.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Manahan. Thank you.
Chairman Leahy. Peter, thank you
Mr. Welch. Thank you, Senator.
Chairman Leahy. The first witness will be Chief Gary
Taylor, Chief of Police for the St. Albans City Police
Department. He has been in law enforcement since 1977. Is that
right, Chief?
Chief Taylor. Yes, sir.
Chairman Leahy. He brought his decades of law enforcement
experience here in 2005. He had served 14 years in the Criminal
Division, commander of the Essex Police Department, associate
degree in criminal justice from the Community College of
Vermont, bachelor's degree with a concentration in criminal
justice and management from Johnson State College.
Please go ahead, Chief.
STATEMENT OF GARY L. TAYLOR, CHIEF OF POLICE, ST. ALBANS CITY
POLICE DEPARTMENT, ST. ALBANS, VERMONT
Chief Taylor. Thank you. Good morning, Senator, and thank
you for the opportunity to speak here before you today.
I have been the St. Albans City Police Chief since 2005
after having spent over 28 years in law enforcement in
Chittenden County, just 20 minutes south of our community. My
wife and I have lived in St. Albans since 1986. We raised our
children in this community, and I was very familiar with the
community issues before I became the police chief. The quality
of life here in St. Albans and throughout Vermont has always
been a key consideration about where I as a police officer, a
parent, and a citizen have chosen to live and work. The
proliferation of drug use and the related violent crime in our
community has challenged the quality of life in our community
and nearly overwhelmed our law enforcement resources.
Violent crime trends in the city: Over the past 7 years, we
have seen an overall increase of 36 percent in police calls for
service; an 87-percent increase in property crimes; a 125-
percent increase in assaults and robberies; and a 186-percent
increase in drug investigations and search warrants.
It is abundantly clear that we are experiencing a dramatic
increase in criminal violence, illicit drug activity, property
crimes associated with illicit drug activity and use, as well
as ``gang-like'' activity here in St. Albans City.
Historically, Franklin County has seen little organized
criminal drug enforcement and intervention efforts. Much of
this can be attributed to the minimal law enforcement presence
throughout the county. We are located just south of Montreal,
an international border, as you know, and just to the east of
New York. Both of those areas are traditionally source areas
for us.
Shared intelligence gathering with Chittenden County police
agencies indicates that Chittenden County presently has the
largest number of drug investigators and drug enforcement
operations in the State. These efforts have pushed many of the
known drug dealers into the outlying areas that have easy
access and short commutes to Chittenden County. The Burlington
Police Department has specifically identified several of our
recent drug-dealing arrivals as having formerly been located
and operating in their city.
Cocaine, both powder and rock--or crack cocaine--marijuana,
and diverted prescription drugs are readily available
throughout our community.
Out-of-State urban drug dealers are arriving with alarming
frequency, and the resources of the police department are
stretched to its limits.
For the past 2 years, there has been a number of unsettling
reports of attempted quasi-gang organization efforts in St.
Albans. We see that in the form of branding or flagging, and we
saw a lot of that activity in our face here in the spring of
last year.
In a very large crack cocaine investigation in January and
February 2007, several males from New York City established a
crack house three doors from the St. Albans City Police
Department. They actually parked in our parking lot to walk to
the drug house.
We are working hand in hand with our law enforcement
partners in the region, none more so than the Vermont State
Police who have committed countless man-hours and resources to
helping us address both the violent crime and criminal drug
issues in our city. It is a collaborative effort with all of
the law enforcement agencies, the sheriff's departments in both
Grand Isle and Franklin Counties, Swanton Village Police
Department, St. Albans City Police Department, and the Vermont
State Police. We continue to receive cooperation from the U.S.
Attorney's Office in cases that are appropriate.
We look forward to the addition of an alternatively funded,
full-time drug investigator to deploy with other Drug Task
Force members to attack the illicit drug problem in our area.
This requires me to plead with you not to allow further erosion
of the Byrne Grant funding that we so desperately need in order
for our State to fund the very limited joint investigative
resources that are specifically dedicated to criminal drug
enforcement efforts in our State. The Byrne Justice Assistance
Grant Program, which local municipalities throughout the State
and region have relied upon to keep control of their streets,
is but a fraction of what is needed and what should be
allocated as we continue to cope with both local and interstate
illegal activities. The Vermont Drug Task Force initiative has
a demonstrated and proven track record of success, and I fear
that further parceling of those funds may undermine the very
existence of that program.
We have launched an aggressive Neighborhood Watch program
here in the city. We have held public forums. We created a
Prescription Drug Take-Back Program that started in June, and
as of today we have taken back more than 15,000 prescription
pills.
In June 2008 we held a Community Graffiti Clean-Up Day that
was followed by a community cookout, and 52 of our citizens
showed up to work hand in hand with the police and other people
here in the city to clean up ten different sites.
But law enforcement and prevention programs are only as
successful as the funding that is made available to pay for
them and, unfortunately, the funding burden is falling more and
more on the local municipalities.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Chief Taylor appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Leahy. Chief, thank you. And the funding matter is
one that we are going to have the key staff and the Senate
Judiciary Committee look at it because I am very, very worried
that we are being penny-wise, pound-foolish, because we cut it
out and then we end up having far greater costs, societal and
otherwise. All your testimony will be part of our permanent
record and will be shared with the other members of the
Committee.
I think what you said about the parking lot, I guarantee
you that is going to be a matter of some discussion among
Senators. And, again, most of us look at this not as a
Republican or Democratic matter. We look at it as something
that affects all our communities. So thank you.
Dr. Fred Holmes is a pediatrician--you have been practicing
here since 1972--a local leader in providing drug treatment and
therapy to children suffering from addiction, particularly
prescription drug abuse. Dr. Holmes' reputation goes way beyond
St. Albans. I certainly have read, approvingly, of many of the
things you have done, Doctor. You devote half of your practice
to helping teens and young adults kick their Oxycontin
addictions, one of the most frightening things we see with
young people. He has been a strong advocate for education-based
prevention efforts, treatment for young people as a long-term
solution to the problems of crime and drugs. He received his
Bachelor of Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, his
M.D. from the University of Kentucky College of Medicine.
Incidentally, normally when we hold these hearings, we
swear the witnesses in. I see no need to do that. We are family
here. And as Congressman Welch pointed out when he came in,
look around this room. People would not be here if they did not
care.
Dr. Holmes.
STATEMENT OF FRED HOLMES, M.D., PEDIATRICIAN AND YOUTH
ADVOCATE, ST. ALBANS, VERMONT
Dr. Holmes. Thank you very much.
On Wednesday, May 3, 2006, I was sitting in my office. I
had been in practice for 34 years, and a patient I had cared
for since birth walked in and asked me if he could please have
``some of that medicine'' so he wouldn't do pills. He had just
completed a stay at Phoenix House, and at that point in time, I
did not even know what a pill problem was. I did not know what
the medication was, multiple phone calls around the State,
nobody could answer the question, answer his question.
But what I did do is immediately realize that for the
previous 4 years while I had been going to special ed meetings
at BFA, he had been snorting 40 Oxy's a day--four 80s a day. He
left, came back to my office a couple of weeks ago having just
finished a stay in jail and again asked me, ``If I was to start
using, could I get some of those pills? ''
It was quite a rude awakening because I did not think I
could possibly be that naive. But after several months of
training, particularly with Maple Leaf, Todd Mandell, Julie
Rice, the Howard Center, I obtained my license to prescribe
Suboxone and saw my second patient with addiction in October of
the same year.
Two years, 400 phone calls, and 100 patients later, I now
know far more about youngsters struggling with addiction than I
would have ever thought I needed to know in the first place.
In my prepared testimony, I have included several patients'
stories: a 20-year-old who robbed his very successful family
farm of $15,000.
Chairman Leahy. Incidentally, all of the prepared testimony
will be made part of the record in total.
Dr. Holmes. Thank you. A 17-year-old who, by the time I saw
him, had been in Woodside 12 times, jail twice.
Chairman Leahy. At 17?
Dr. Holmes. At 17, 5 years of DCF custody.
Two parents sitting in my office, both very successful,
very concerned. Their salaries were such that they never
checked their joint bank balance until it was zero because
their 18-year-old had used their debit card to buy his
Oxycontin.
A 19-year-old expecting her first child. I had cared for
her since birth. She was receiving Subutex from me. She will
have to deliver through the high-risk clinic at Fletcher Allen,
and when her baby goes into withdrawal, the baby will begin a
course of methadone.
We now care for 10 young women who are single with a child,
on the Suboxone program for their opiate dependency, who are
homeless, locked into abusive relationships, no money, no job,
and the prospects of getting a job are minimal when they have a
felony conviction.
At any rate, on average, when I see the youngsters, they
are 19 years of age when I seek to stop their dependency on
prescription drugs. The youngest have tried alcohol at 7,
marijuana at 8, and most are using both by the age of 13. Their
random pill use begins at 14, dependence at 16, mean 3 years of
addiction before they seek help. Oxycontin 80s are their drug
of choice, virtually all use two a day, many as many as six. At
$100 per pill, habits cost hundreds of dollars a day. The
aggregate cost for pills for this population, that I take care
of, is in excess of $20 million. Whether or not they have been
arrested may well depend on little more than from whom they
steal; 39 percent have an officer at Probation and Parole, and
one-third come to see me already appropriately treated with
Suboxone that they ``bought on the street.''
Mac's quick stop, Pie in the Sky, Welden Theater, Champlain
Farms, the health clinic in Northfield, Hodgdon Brothers,
Quiznos, many catalytic converters, and multiple homes
throughout Swanton and down by the bay are all crime episodes
discussed in my office, frequently by the perpetrators. I now
have patients who have been beaten, robbed frequently, and
stabbed. Some visit my office with an ankle bracelet.
Ours is a very powerful, wonderful community--it has been
mine for 36\1/2\ years--where we all work well together and
refer back and forth on a first-name basis. These are not
``those kids.'' These are not ``pill heads.'' These are our
kids. They are not bad kids. Even the relatively few that I see
are good kids who made painfully naive bad choices when they
knew no better. On average, they start pills at 14. They then
knew nothing about addiction, and they certainly did not plan
on losing their adolescence trying to avoid getting ``pill
sick,'' always in search of that magic ``first two-pill high,''
or in jail. And, distressingly, the recent change to IV pill
use in this community will probably lead to the first
fatalities.
My thoughts on the problem: First of all, days like today,
conversation. The people in the community getting together to
share information in public so that the public will know what
it is that we are talking about.
All of us who work together should know what each of us has
to offer: prevention, education, treatment, and law
enforcement, and include a consideration for us all in every
conversation.
Education. Don't smoke. Look both ways before you cross the
street. Don't drink and drive. Pills are bad. All of this has
to be taught to our children before the 4th grade.
Then, finally, I would propose a big fat check from you,
sir, to Winnie at the Howard Center.
[Laughter.]
Dr. Holmes. What this community needs desperately is a
multidisciplinary, single-site center to address substance
abuse. We are woefully ill-equipped to address this problem. We
are practicing what I call ``Whack-a-Mole'' health care. We are
constantly chasing our tails, playing catch-up, and we get
together to talk only in response to the new bigger crises or
when you are coming to town.
Even with close collaboration between Probation and Parole,
Howard Center, Gary, Angela, and myself, I cannot even begin to
appropriately address the needs of a teenager whose struggles
with addiction have repeatedly led him through the courts and
jail. The case management and surveillance piece in my office
alone is more than we can do appropriately.
I well know that within the world of pediatrics, the
algorithms of the UVM programs like ILEHP and the VCHIP
program, which I know you know about, would bring to the
community a structure, a model for an interdisciplinary
treatment proposal with guidelines and quality control that
would make things much easier for us.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Holmes appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Leahy. Thank you. You know, Doctor, you talk about
having the dialogue. I look around this room and, again, it is
remarkable. When we talked about doing this hearing, we were
wondering just what the reaction might be. You know, Marcelle
and I are in Vermont almost every week. We are all over the
State like Congressman Welch and Senator Sanders. We hear
things, but you get bits here and there. And I think just this
turnout--let me just tell some of the people who are here. We
have got the 10th, 11th, 12th grades from Bellows Free Academy,
the history and civic classes, with their teacher, David Clark.
Would those students raise their hands? They are here.
Of course, the Commissioner of Public Safety, Tom
Tremblay--I was talking with him earlier--is here. Major Tom
L'Esperance I saw in the back, from the Vermont State Police;
Captain Tom Nelson from the Vermont State Police; Norm Lague
from the Border Patrol.
We have Dr. Edward Haak from Northwest Medical Center;
Patricia Brett from the Vermont Department of Children and
Families; Michael Loner, the Executive Director of Dream
Mentoring; Ethan Ready from Senator Sanders' office; Callan
Brannigan of Georgia; Gary Gilbert; Fairfax's elected
officials, Kathy Keenan, Representative-elect Jeff Young;
Representative-elect Peter Perley, I was talking with him
earlier. Representative-elect Michel Consejo; Representative-
elect Albert ``Chuck'' Pearce; Senator-elect Randy Brock; of
course, Senator Sara Kittell. Jim Hughes, the State's attorney
of Franklin County in the back. I often tell Jim he has got
the--I do not know why I ever gave up that job at Chittenden
County State's attorney, Jim. Peter Hofstetter, the CEO of
Northwestern Medical Center; Roger Marcoux, the Memorial County
Sheriff; and as I said, the AP class.
You know, think of what you have got here. I mean, Doctor,
this must give you some hope to see the community coming
together like this. You have painted a very grim--and I happen
to agree with you in your analysis and respect it, but I think
this must give you some hope that on a workday like this
everybody is showing up.
Dr. Holmes. Oh, it does. And part of the discomfort is that
I think we all tend to focus so much of our attention on the
really relatively small number of youngsters who get into
difficulty. The overwhelming majority do much, much, much
better. But I have a concern that if we know that at one point
in time children 18 to 20 number a hundred, come into my
office, who are abusing prescription drugs, where is the next
hundred in the pipeline? Are they freshmen or sophomores or
juniors?
Chairman Leahy. Exactly, and to what extent does it become
a snowballing type thing. Growing up--I was born in Montpelier,
and growing up there, you might see one or two kids get in
trouble, and everybody might, you know, stay away from them.
When it starts as something that is a pervasive thing, then you
see it spreading. I can use the cliche of a cancer spreading,
but that is really what it is. It is a cancer in the whole
area. But, again, I have to thank everybody for coming.
Also, I do not want to embarrass the media who are here,
but I want to thank them for the fact that they have taken time
to do this. You know, it is so easy to try to sweep everything
under the rug, but unless we face up to it, we cannot do it.
And, again, I cannot emphasize enough the small States--
obviously, I care the most about my own State of Vermont. But
our Committee is going all over the country on these things,
and hearings, other Senators are holding hearings all over the
place because people have overlooked the fact that something
that we know instinctively, small towns and cities are not
immune. These are not Norman Rockwell paintings. They are
personal family tragedies. And those of us who are in a
position of trust, respect, leadership in the community, we
have a responsibility to work together to help each other out
on that.
We are fortunate today to have Angela Baker with us. She
has been a prevention specialist with the Vermont Department of
Health's Division of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Program for the
past 5 years. Prior to that work, she served as the Director of
Government Relations and Tobacco Control Programs at the
American Lung Association of Vermont. She has worked
extensively in the St. Albans community to develop community-
based and education-based drug prevention programs for
teenagers. She has advocated for State and Federal funding for
drug prevention partnerships to help coordinate efforts by
local physicians and substance abuse counselors. She got her
bachelor's degree in government and sociology from St. Lawrence
University, her master's in public administration from the
University of Vermont.
Ms. Baker, thank you for taking the time. Please go ahead.
STATEMENT OF ANGELA S. BAKER, DIVISION OF ALCOHOL AND DRUG
ABUSE PROGRAMS, VERMONT DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, ST. ALBANS,
VERMONT
Ms. Baker. Good morning. Thank you very much for the
opportunity to provide this testimony. It is truly a privilege
to be able to speak to you, and I do so on behalf of all of my
prevention partners in the community. I would like to thank
Mayor Manahan, Chief Taylor, Dr. Holmes, and Peter DesLauriers
for their partnership and collaboration in our ongoing work
together to address these pressing drug-related issues in our
community.
My name is Angela Baker. I live in Fairfax, which is about
5 miles from here. My husband and I are raising our 9-year-old
daughter in this community. The work that I do here is
important to me both professionally and personally as I not
only work here but I also live here.
I am a substance abuse prevention consultant for the
Vermont Department of Health in the Division of Alcohol and
Drug Abuse Programs. I am one of ten prevention consultants in
the State. We provide information, training, technical
assistance, consultation, and community organization. I serve
both Franklin and Grand Isle and spend a lot of time crossing
the new Missisquoi Bay Bridge that connects our two counties.
I want to start my testimony by providing you with two
examples of how we currently benefit from Federal funding for
prevention efforts in our area. The first and probably most
crucial funding source is the Substance Abuse Prevention and
Treatment block grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental
Health Services Administration, also known as SAMHSA. This
grant supports much of Vermont's prevention infrastructure,
including the ten prevention consultants. This funding enables
us to work directly within the communities we serve. We provide
on-the-ground, direct assistance and work to build
relationships, which is the true foundation of any community
effort.
Franklin and Grand Isle Counties also receive Federal
funding from the Drug-Free Communities Support grant for two
anti-drug community coalitions. Franklin County Caring
Communities and the Grand Isle County Clean Team are my
fundamental partners in prevention, and both coalitions are
represented in the audience today.
We know that community-level prevention works best when our
community members are committed and involved. Our coalitions
carry out initiatives that are essential to the prevention
infrastructure, including capacity building and sustainability
for our prevention efforts.
Our prevention system also includes early intervention. We
currently have nine student assistance professionals, also
known as SAPs, in middle and high schools in Franklin and Grand
Isle Counties. SAPs provide, among other things, early
intervention services to identify students with problems and
referrals to community programs for treatment. By being located
within the school, SAPs help to build better linkages among
students, their families, school personnel, and community
service agencies. The SAPs play a key role in substance abuse
prevention efforts in our community.
Education is also an integral part of our prevention
system. Trainings are frequently held at no cost to our
community partners to help increase knowledge of the principles
of prevention and provide tools and resources necessary for
effective prevention efforts.
One of the trainings offered, in cooperation with our law
enforcement partners, is the Drug Impairment Training for
Educational Professionals, also known as DITEP. This key
training provides school personnel and others with instruction
around drug impairment signs and symptoms. It also provides
information regarding community resources for students who may
have a problem. This training is provided at no expense by drug
recognition experts.
The most important message that I would like to convey to
you and your Committee today is that community-level prevention
works. Unfortunately, prevention efforts do not receive nearly
the same amount of attention, particularly from the media, that
drug use, crime, and violence receive. However, there are many
good people on the ground in the trenches doing the important
and essential work to ensure that our youth are making healthy
decisions.
We know that there are many students who are choosing not
to use substances in our community. According to our 2007 Youth
Risk Behavior Survey data for Franklin County, 60 percent of
students have not consumed alcohol in the past 30 days; 70
percent of students have never smoked a cigarette; 67 percent
of students have never tried marijuana; and 84 percent reported
that they have never used a prescription pill that was not
prescribed to them.
We know that there is still much work to be done. We
encourage the Committee to consider the importance of funding
primary prevention and early intervention efforts. If we can be
more proactive in our efforts, we can help prevent problems
before they happen.
On behalf of my partners in Franklin and Grand Isle
Counties, I would like to thank you for your consideration of
my testimony and your support in helping us keep our community
safe and healthy for our youth and our families.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Baker appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Leahy. Well, thank you, Ms. Baker. As you pointed
out, with a 9-year-old you also have a personal interest in
that. You talk about the preventive and the outreach. Of
course, those are things we also have to have the money for to
make sure it works. Thank you.
Ms. Baker. Thank you.
Chairman Leahy. I want to come back with questions for all
of you, but I first want to here from Peter DesLauriers, the
Chair of the St. Albans City Crime Task Force. I think I first
knew Mr. DesLauriers when he was mayor here from 1994 to 2006.
He taught science to 7th and 8th graders. Is that correct,
Peter?
Mr. DesLauriers. Yes.
Chairman Leahy. For the past 5 years, he has helped foster
grassroots community rebuilding efforts to tackle crime and
drug problems, a strong advocate for education-based drug
prevention efforts, and please go ahead.
STATEMENT OF PETER DESLAURIERS, CHAIR, ST. ALBANS CITY CRIME
TASK FORCE, ST. ALBANS, VERMONT
Mr. DesLauriers. Yes, sir. Thank you, Senator Leahy, and
congratulations. I believe you are reaching a milestone on the
longest-serving U.S. Senator from Vermont. I want to
congratulate you on that. It is a point of pride--
Chairman Leahy. All you have to do is outlive everybody
else.
[Laughter.]
Mr. DesLauriers. Well, that is not easy sometimes.
I want to welcome you to St. Albans. I also want to welcome
Congressman Peter Welch, who is doing a marvelous job
representing our State down in Washington as well. Good things
are going to happen to the State with the quality of the
representation that we have down in Washington.
I want to thank you for making the trip this morning to
show your interest in the future of our community. Also, thank
you and welcome to the staff members of the Senate and the
Senate Judiciary Committee, community leaders, fellow citizens,
and members of the media.
As we face a slew of national problems with hope and
resolve, it is important that we do not ignore our community
issues, for as President-elect Barack Obama tries to reconcile
Wall Street with Main Street, it is nice that you remember the
Elm Streets, the Barlow Streets, and the Messenger Streets, for
these are the streets on which our children play, we live our
lives, and we lay our heads. These streets make up our
community. And on these streets, as you have heard, we
currently face big-city problems with small-town budgets.
This community has already responded to the problem on
several fronts. Through citizen efforts, we have put in place a
Neighborhood Watch Program, an online Internet community, a
Citizens Emergency Response Team. We have a Red Flag Book for
parents, a Task Force on Crime. Numerous community forums on
the issue have been held. We are exploring the prescription
drug issue, and we are putting in place a community outreach
program.
St. Albans understands that we are in a battle. We are
fighting for our community and the values that most Americans
live by and believe in. We are not asking the Federal
Government to rescue us; we simply want you to help us rescue
ourselves. True victories are only attained and maintained by
those with a true stake in the battle. Senator Leahy, we need
your help, but it is the citizens of St. Albans who will be the
soldiers in this battle.
So if the attitude is ``Yes, we can,'' then the question
must be ``How? ''
In enforcement, we need more police officers to make St.
Albans an uncomfortable place to work the drug business. We
could use funds as we try to organize and equip an Auxiliary
Community Citizen Surveillance Squad. This would be a group of
trained citizens who move around the community and record or
report illegal behaviors. This activity serves two purposes: It
makes St. Albans a hard place to do illegal activity since no
one knows who is watching and when; and, more importantly, it
empowers the citizenship to positively affect their
surroundings. This feeling of ``I can make a difference'' will
create longevity to our endeavors. While increased enforcement
is not the only answer, it is one of the necessary ingredients
to the full solution.
We also need consequences for drug-related crimes. What
would the speed of the average car on Interstate 89 be if every
speeding ticket written was thrown out of court? When students
see us enable a poor behavior, they think that we are approving
it, and this is a dangerous lesson for them to learn.
Crime knows no boundaries. When St. Albans City drives the
criminals out of our community--and make no mistake, we will--
and they land in St. Albans Town or Swanton, who has won?
We need help to entice local communities to join forces and
drive these thugs out of the State. Physics 101 tells us that
an object moves easier if it is already in motion. I suspect
the same is true of drug dealers.
We have several groups working on the prescription drug
issue, but it might be beyond local control. We need help in
this area. Pharmaceutical companies and the medical profession
must be held responsible for the chemicals that they are
putting on our streets.
Education: On the national level, we need to remove the
pressures of No Child Left Behind. While I do not fault the
goal of NCLB, I fear that the goals of education have switched
from one of trying to create good, intelligent citizens to one
of trying to create good test takers. If we as a school score
high on our NCAP test but do not adequately address the drug
issue, we as an institution have not served our community well.
On the local level, we understand that drug education is
not a ribbon day or a guest speaker day. Drug education must be
a recognized part of the everyday curriculum for all of our
children. We would like funds to develop alternative
educational plans in our schools to better meet the needs of
every child, be they challenged or gifted. Bored and
discouraged students often turn to drugs. Successful students,
with hope and a vision, are tough customers for drug dealers.
We must serve all types of intelligences.
We also need to provide jobs in the area for our young
people. Currently, when I talk about local jobs with my
students, someone always mentions a cousin, a friend, or
neighbor, he does not work, he has got a hot car, he has got
plenty of money, and he just hangs out on the street. While
that sounds like the perfect career, I happen to know that his
cousin is a doper. We need good honest local opportunities for
our young people. Good jobs offer hope and draw good people to
our community. It also allows people to work in the community
where they live rather than be citizens in absentia by living
here and working in Chittenden County. This builds local pride,
which is a key factor in community ownership and involvement.
Together, we can solve these issues, but we must see the
forest for the trees. This is a great Nation, and it is made up
of great communities; and if we lose those, we have lost it
all. I understand national issues are pressing. I do want our
borders to be safe from terrorists, but I also want my
grandchildren to be able to walk in Taylor Park without
watching a drug deal in the bandstand. I do want a solution for
global warming, but I also want my students to be able to go to
the school rest room without being offered drugs. I do want
strong armed forces which will protect us from foreign
fanatics, but I also want to be able to sleep at night without
wondering if I should put a gun in my nightstand to protect my
family from the growing concern of home invasion.
Senator Leahy, you have long been a friend of St. Albans.
We owe much to you. And once again we turn to you as Vermont's
elected gift to the Nation to help us rescue our community.
Thank you for caring and serving our community, our State, and
our Nation with compassion, integrity, and pride.
Thank you, Senator.
[The prepared statement of Mr. DesLauriers appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Leahy. Thank you very much. That means a lot to
me. But it is not just me. We are all in this together. We are
blessed to live in a very, very special State, and we choose to
live here because it is special. But it is also a
responsibility. It is a very small State in people. That means
everybody has to pull their load.
I was thinking, Chief, in your testimony you reported how
robberies and burglaries have gone up dramatically, not only in
St. Albans but throughout Franklin County, over the past few
years, along with assaults and narcotics cases. I will try to
just kind of summarize.
Of course, that trend is not unique here. It is not unique
just to Vermont. Other Senators tell me from around the country
they are seeing similar trends.
How much of that would you estimate is drug-related?
Chief Taylor. Most of it.
Chairman Leahy. Most of it.
Chief Taylor. Most of our very serious aggravated assaults
or robberies are driven by people who are either on the fringes
or in the full throes of being involved in illegal drug
trafficking, purchasing, and in some cases, they are coming
here and actually robbing other drug dealers.
Chairman Leahy. Would you say that it would be an
overstatement to say often in those kinds of circumstances
these are not people who are thinking these things through very
carefully or what the result of their actions might be? Is that
correct?
Chief Taylor. I think that is correct. I think that many of
these people become victims because of their association with
these individuals.
Chairman Leahy. Now, naturally, a lot of what we do--and
for somebody like myself who spent 8 years in law enforcement,
and you have spent a lot more years, you know that it has to
come from State and local for law enforcement. But there also
has to be a Federal component. Tell me about what could the
Federal Government do to help.
Chief Taylor. We received a grant a few years ago through
the COPS program to put a school resource officer in one of the
schools. We have three substantial schools in the community. I
think the COPS grants are really important to us to be able to
add school resource officers. We have gotten some Federal money
out of the COPS program for communications improvements. And I
think that the Byrne grant is absolutely one of the ones that I
can point to.
Chairman Leahy. For those who do not understand, the COPS
program is C-O-P-S, a program to bring additional law
enforcement into local law enforcement, state law enforcement,
to get specialists. Sometimes it is a case where you need a
specialist in a particular area. If the community cannot pay
for it, this can help do it. The Byrne grant is another, B-Y-R-
N-E, a grant for law enforcement.
In the past few years, the effort has been made to cut this
money out. I strongly disagree. I do not want this to sound
political, and I do not mean it that way--I have said this same
thing to President Bush and others. If we can spend billions of
dollars for law enforcement in Iraq, and half the time not know
what the law enforcement people, the Iraqis are doing with the
money, a lot of it disappears, why can't we start spending some
of that money here at home where we really need it and where it
might do some good and where you have communities and States
where people actually watch where the money goes?
And so I am hoping--and one of the recommendations I am
making to the new President-elect and his administration is to
get back to these kinds of programs that will go into the local
areas. Maybe there is not as much money available as before,
but do it in a way where people know where the money goes. One
example that is critical in Iraq, thousands of handguns went
over, and they do not know where they went, until they started
showing up being used against Americans. I would like to see us
start spending that money at home.
Dr. Holmes, you talked about helping teenagers who have
become addicted to pain medication and other prescription
drugs. It was interesting just listening to your testimony over
the course of your career, and I can almost see the bar chart
going just like this as you talked. I can imagine how
discouraging in a way that must be to you. How do these
children start doing this at such a young age? How do they
start with these drugs at such a young age?
Dr. Holmes. My impression in conversations with them is
they do it because everybody else is doing it. I think there is
a lot of peer pressure. I think there is a lot of wanting to be
like somebody who is older and they perceive as being more
important. There is really a very magic little point probably
around 5th, 6th, 7th grade, at which time somebody offers one
of these youngsters a pill, and they have seen other kids do
it. And the thing that probably intrigues me most about these
conversations is how can we prevent that initial moment of
experimentation from taking place. Two weeks out on Oxycontin,
you will be dependent. From then on it is more and more and
more and more to try to have the same effect, or it is
continued use to keep from getting sick. And these are concepts
they do not understand before they try it the first time.
Chairman Leahy. Well, let us go back to that tipping point.
In 6th grade, try one, try two. In two weeks you are hooked.
What do you do to stop the tipping point? That is what I mean,
because by the time if they are teenagers and they are breaking
in somewhere, and now it is in Chief Taylor's lap. His thing
is, okay, we are going to arrest you, we are going to bring you
to court, and then the criminal justice system takes over.
I think, Chief, you would be just as happy if that crime
never happened in the first place and you did not have to
arrest them in the first place, that they were not motivated to
be there.
Doctor, how do we keep them off the tipping point?
Dr. Holmes. My personal impression is that I did not think
I was quite so stupid 2 years ago. I have been in the community
for almost 35 years. I have seen many children a day. I have
taken care of multiple youngsters for some pretty complicated
things. So I thought I was a pretty savvy dude at that moment.
And then all of a sudden I realized that there is this piece
about this illness that affects children about which I knew
very, very little, and I can tell you that my compatriots in
this community now know far less than I do.
So my impression was that if I did not know it--and I see
kids and families all the time, and they still do not know it--
that suggests that the community does not know it and that
these wonderful families, with all their kids, do not know it
either.
So the point was through processes like this, meeting with
Gary and Marty and Angela and Peter--he is being quiet--and all
the things that we have done over the last couple years is
really public education. It is public awareness. Let them
understand what is going on. We have Neighborhood Watch, we
have Graffiti Watch. I think we should have Kid Watch.
I sit in my office, and people are constantly telling me
where the drug deals are taking place in this community. I can
tell you the stores in front of which they happen.
So my initial thought is there has to be an increasing
public awareness that this is an issue within our community.
And, again, these are not bad kids. These are good kids who
make very poor choices for all the wrong reasons.
Chairman Leahy. This is the thing, you say they are not bad
kids. Again, I do not mean this as old war stories being a
prosecutor, but I remember so many times seeing kids come into
court on things that are going to--charges that are going to be
an albatross around their neck, an anchor around their neck for
the rest of their lives, and you could always move it back just
a little bit and say, ``What if? '' What if it had gone this
direction instead of that direction? And it is always--I mean,
some of those agonized, Judge Costello and others, in saying,
``What if? '' And how do you get to that?
This is the most frustrating thing. I can help get law
enforcement money. I can help get some of these other things.
But I just want to make sure that we are doing it so that it is
somehow integrated. I hope that a lot of people here who sit
today--I bet you there are a lot of parents saying, ``What do
you mean my kid is going to be exposed to that? '' It has got
to be more than as our parents used to tell us, ``Well, if
everybody else jumped off the cliff, would you jump off the
cliff, too, just because they were doing it? '' Unfortunately,
what you are saying is when they do jump off that cliff, they
do it. Is that correct?
Dr. Holmes. Part of the difficulty that we have not
addressed is that amongst this population there is a huge
number of youngsters who have what we would refer to as ``co-
morbid problems.'' They have learning difficulties, language
challenges, ADHD, OCD, ODD. They come from perhaps chaotic,
non-supportive homes. And when they try that first pill, it may
well be that for the first time in a long time they feel
better. So there is an element of self-medication that I think
in some of these youngsters perpetuates their initial
experimentation with pills.
Chairman Leahy. Ms. Baker or Mr. DesLauriers, do you want
to add something to this? Feel free to jump in here. I have
read all the formal questions. I am more interested in hearing
what your--
Ms. Baker. I just want to follow up on Dr. Holmes' point
about where the tipping point exists and what we can do about
it. One of the strategies that we are currently working on
right now through a Strategic Prevention Framework grant is
implementing a curriculum called ``Protecting You, Protecting
Me.'' It is a grades 1 through 4 curriculum, because what we
are hearing frequently from the communities and from Dr. Holmes
and others is that junior high is too late, middle school is
too late to try and start educating kids. It needs to start a
lot earlier.
So this is a curriculum that builds upon itself. It starts
in grade 1. The second year they will have one, too, all the
way up to grade 5 so that they have five consistent years of
education around substances, and it really is about making
better choices for themselves. It revolves a lot around brain
development and how you can make good, positive, healthy
decisions.
I think that will make a difference in our community as we
start introducing that into more of our schools and providing
that foundation for the youth.
Chairman Leahy. Ms. Baker, we have so many families,
especially in today's economy, both parents working, holding
down jobs, doing extra hours, just trying to make ends meet and
pay the gasoline bill, the fuel bill, the rent, the mortgage,
food on the table, and they are stretched thin. But don't we
also have to be educating the parents at the same time, not
just the kids? We get the kids a certain period of time they
are there. In my case, when I was a kid, there was a tough nun
at the door. You do not leave once you came into class. But
they are there so you have got them, but how do you get to the
parents?
Ms. Baker. That is our biggest challenge, so if you have an
answer to that, we would like to hear it.
[Laughter.]
Chairman Leahy. I was afraid you were going to say that.
Ms. Baker. Getting parents to the table is our biggest
challenge, and so what we are really trying to do is this
community recognizing that there are a lot of other adult
mentors that exist within the community. As Dr. Holmes has
said, it takes more than one person to help with that. And so
there are a lot of stressors on the family, and so recognizing
that they are our kids and that doing what we can with the
parents, but also getting the rest of the community to
recognize that it is important to speak up and say something
and make sure that our kids are safe and healthy.
Chairman Leahy. Peter.
Mr. DesLauriers. I spoke to Dr. Holmes with regard to that,
and that tipping point, and I agree because from that point on,
you have a user, and from that point on, there is a market for
that user. And we have plenty of people willing to move into
the community and take advantage of that market. So at that
point, I think that is the area we have to focus. And the
question is: Why does that child first put the drug into their
mouth? And I think the answer is actually quite obvious, how to
stop that. Why does the kid, the student, first want a Big Mac?
It is because he sees a cartoon character when he is very, very
young, and Madison Avenue knows how to affect behaviors. They
do it over and over and over and over again. I think that this
country did a great job on the anti-smoking, and we affected
behaviors, and smoking was down when we ran that program.
Chairman Leahy. Now it is going back up.
Mr. DesLauriers. Well, it is, but we do not know-
Chairman Leahy. Especially with young women.
Mr. DesLauriers. Right, and at this point I do not think we
are putting the energy into it that we did. You can do things
that are good that change behaviors, but when you stop, another
generation is coming. I do not think there is any permanent
answer to any problem.
Chairman Leahy. This is not a scientific thing, but I
thought one of the better programs that got kids involved was
getting people to use seat belts. So kids were getting in the--
at least we got this anecdotally. Parents would sit down, and
the kids would say, ``You did not put on your seat belt,''
because it had been hammered in at school. But now we are
seeing somehow the manipulation with the advertising for young
women. Well, you can control your weight if you smoke these
cigarettes. It is not quite that blatant. And now we see this
going on, and with the rising incidence of lung cancer and so
forth.
I really feel there is a strong component of that, Ms.
Baker, as you said, but I think it has to be over and over
again. And I think--I do not know. Dr. Holmes, what about this?
We ask our educators to do everything. We ask our educators in
some ways to do all the things our parents used to do, and I
want to be fair to them because we are also in a far more
competitive world today, if you look at high-tech industries
and everything else and getting kids to learn. But how much can
we ask of our schools in this area? How much should we ask?
Dr. Holmes. Why did I get that question?
[Laughter.]
Chairman Leahy. Well, I was looking at you. You see, this
is the beauty of being the Chairman. I do not have to answer
anything. I just ask the questions.
Dr. Holmes. That debate has been going on as long as I have
been in this community and been going to school meetings: What
is the role of the school? Are they educators? Are they
surrogate parents? Are they behavior specialists? Where do you
draw the line? I think that is a huge challenge.
My personal bias is that fortunately we have schools like
BFA which, to a certain extent, do serve as surrogate parents
for some of these youngsters. The youngster that I mentioned
first in my testimony was receiving outstanding support
services from BFA and had for years, and we were all clueless.
We were doing everything we were supposed to do, all the proper
evaluations, his IEP, I was giving him medication for his ADHD.
He was obviously taking a stronger medication at home. But none
of us knew what was going on, and he did not, with all due
respect, have a family that was in tune to and supportive of
meeting his needs.
Chairman Leahy. Does anybody want to add to that?
Ms. Baker. I think it is really important to note that when
the school needs help, they reach out, and that we have really
good school and community relationships with all five of our
high schools. I spend a lot of time in those schools, as do
other service providers within the community. So I would say
that the schools feel supported by the services that do exist
within this community and real community-level organization.
Chairman Leahy. I have a lot of other questions, but some
would be redundant. Can you do this for me? Because we really
are trying to see--we are going to be revamping some of these
programs--I have talked with Senators in other committees that
have jurisdiction, as I do--and try to figure out what is best.
We are all going to be making far more recommendations to the
new administration than they could possibly respond to. I want
to make sure ours are well directed. I have been asked to do a
lot of things on rural areas, small cities, small towns, my
perspective there. Others in both parties will be doing the
same, and I know Congressman Welch has similar kinds of groups
over in the House of Representatives.
I know over the years in talking with the President-elect
about his own children how much he feels about them, and the
Vice President, Joe Biden, and we have watched his children
grow up, and we all have these concerns. I think we know there
is something at stake here.
Can I ask you to do this, all of you? Feel free after this
is over, if you think, you know, ``The thing we should have
said was. . .'' send it to me. It will be made part of the
record. But, more importantly, keep in touch with me and my
office. You get ideas. If you see something, if you see a
program going through that I might be supporting and you say,
you know, ``It may sound great but it is not going to be
good,'' pick up the phone and call me. I really want it to
work. My children are grown, but we have grandchildren coming
up, and I am not sure if I was a young parent--Marcelle and I
had our children when we were in our 20s. I am not sure what I
would think, I would be terrified to let them out the door. And
we all want to protect our young people. We also want to
protect them so you are not going to have to have the gun in
your bedside table, we are going to have to--we want to be able
to protect our family. The chief would probably like to go home
at night and not get a call at 2 o'clock in the morning where
they say, ``Hey, Chief, guess what just happened? '' Not all of
that will ever happen, but we can minimize it.
I thank you all for taking the time. You have done an
enormous public service being here today. Thank you.
[Applause.]
[Whereupon, at 11:19 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
[Submissions for the record follows.]
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