[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 65 (Friday, April 7, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E842-E844]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


              TIME TO ENERGIZE AND RENEW THE WAR ON DRUGS

                                 ______

                        HON. GERALD B.H. SOLOMON

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, April 6, 1995
  Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, the time has come to refocus our sites on 
the number one problem in this country, drugs. Today, I am submitting 
into the Record a recent statement by Bill Bennett and John Walters 
entitled ``Renewing the War on Drugs''.
  Fortunately, the public has more sense than to believe the nonsense 
being sent out by the Cato Institute and other pro-legalization 
organizations. They would have us believe that since we have failed to 
make progress, as measured by them, it is time to give up the fight. 
For the sake of our children and our grandchildren we must never, never 
give up.
  As the war on drugs goes on, it may be appropriate to remember the 
words of one of our greatest Presidents as he reassured the American 
people: ``* * * the crisis we are facing today * * * requires our best 
effort and our willingness to believe in ourselves to believe in our 
capacity to perform great deeds, to believe that together with God's 
help we can and will resolve the problems which now confront us. After 
all, why shouldn't we believe that? We are Americans.''--President 
Ronald Reagan.
  As Americans we must win and we will win the war on drugs. As a 
Marine I can assure you that you don't win a fight, battle or a war by 
giving up.
  The most serious problem with legalization is that it will hurt those 
communities who can least afford a significant increase in the number 
of addicts, violence and crime. But do the libertarian elites at the 
Cato Institute or the wealthy Hollywood cocaine users in Hollywood 
really care about this community? Don't kid yourself, they couldn't 
care less about the damage legalization would do to the inner-city poor 
so long as it helps them justify their self-centered and self-indulgent 
lifestyles.
  They know legalization would be luckly to get more than three votes 
in the House or even one in the other body. Legalization was jettisoned 
with Joyclyn and is not coming back. However, it is useful if your real 
purpose is to influence young people to try and use drugs.
  The message the American voters sent Washington last November had 
nothing to do with surrending the war against drugs. On the contrary, 
the public wants a Congress willing to stick with and win the war on 
drugs. This Congress should consider and enact the bold strategy for 
winning the war on drugs developed by past Drug Czar Bill Bennett:
  First, empower and demand action from the largely irrelevant White 
House Drug Policy Office; second, place economic sanctions against drug 
exporting nations; third, transfer control of drug interdiction to the 
military; fourth, identify and dismantle drug trafficking 
organizations; fifth, block grant drug enforcement funding; sixth, 
demand some Presidential leadership in the War on Drugs; seventh, close 
open aid drug markets; and eighth, expand drug testing programs.
  These are some of the legislative approaches we should move to enact 
when the Congress reconvenes. It is time to prove to the American 
people we are serious about winning the war on drugs and we now have 
the votes to make these accomplishments.


               expand drug testing in the private sector

  I will soon be introducing legislation to make it easier to drug test 
in the private sector. I will also be offering amendments to the 
appropriations bills requiring drug testing of all applicants for 
employment with the Federal Government, including summer employment and 
random testing of all federal employees. These amendments were narrowly 
defeated in the last Congress. We now have the votes to enact these 
provisions.


         deny student assistance and summer jobs to drugs users

  I will also be offering an amendment to the Higher Education 
Reauthorization Act to deny loans or grants to anyone convicted of 
using drugs. This amendment was narrowly defeated in the last Congress. 
We have just begun to use the tools at our disposal to win the war on 
drugs. What we have run out of is tolerance for policies which have 
failed.
        end tax exempt status to drug legalization organizations

  Today I am introducing legislation to end the tax exempt status of 
organizations which promote or advocate the legalization of drugs. I 
would ask all of my colleagues to join in sponsoring this bill. I will 
offer this as an amendment to the first appropriate vehicle.
  The American family, trying to raise their children in a drug free 
environment, is under attack by organizations, which actually promote 
the use of illegal drugs. To make matters worse, these organizations 
receive favorable treatment under our laws. This is dead wrong and our 
tax code must be immediately corrected to end this travesty.
  The pro-legalization message being sent out by these organizations is 
providing results. More kids are involved with drugs than anytime in 
the past 20 years. Consequently, the number of addicts on our streets 
will rise dramatically within a few more years. These organizations are 
not charitable organizations. Just the opposite. They are organizations 
which deliberately deceive the public and the media by using legitimate 
sounding names such as the Drug Policy Foundation, or the Organization 
for Responsible Drug Information. Yet, they are financed and run by 
people who advocate or condone the use of illegal drugs.
  Mr. Speaker, I would also point out that these organizations have 
knowingly and willfully violated our laws by actively lobbying 
Congress. Officials from the so-called Organization for Responsible 
Drug Information has contacted my office to state their opposition to 
my drug prevention legislation and I received a flyer just today from 
the Cato Institute advocating drug legalization. Who is contributing to 
Cato? These organizations and the individuals involved with them are 
violating United States Tax Code. They need to be investigated and 
their contributors should be required to pay taxes on past 
contributions.


                  playing abc news like an old fiddle

  A pseudo new report airing tonight on ABC entitled ``America's War on 
Drugs: Searching for Solutions'' fails the most fundamental 
journalistic standards by portraying pro-legalization groupies as so-
called ``experts.'' The public relations efforts of these concerns come 
right out of a Dale Carnegie book and the news media is certainly 
giving them credibility. Whether duped or receptive the media in this 
country is influencing a generation to try drugs. Consequently, a 
higher percentage will try and never stop. Their lives and the lives of 
their families will be destroyed.
  We have come to expect little more than violence, sex, and the 
glamorization of drugs from Hollywood but the news media should have a 
higher standard. I am submitting into the Record a statement by John 
Walters entitled ``Tonight only; ABC Does Drugs''. We would be doing 
the young people in this country a service a favor by requiring ABC 
news reporters and executives to take drugs--truth serums.


  worst of the worst--drug policy foundation--deceptive, sinister and 
                                 seedy

  The time has come to expose some of these more sinister organizations 
and the seedy individuals involved with them for what they really are * 
* * organizations engaged in immoral and unethical activity operating 
in the gray area of the law. They are sending a damaging message to the 
young people in this country and our tax law needs to more accurately 
reflect American people's tolerance level for this type of activity. 
The IRS has already threatened to revoke NORML's tax-exempt status for 
illegal activity. This is a step in the right direction.


        the truth about the drug legalization in the netherlands

  What pro-legalization organizations refuse to disclose about the 
disastrous human consequences which have occurred in the country 
[[Page E843]] where they have already tested legalization tells you a 
lot about their true intentions. You will never hear the truth about 
the failure of drug legalization in the Netherlands from Drug Policy 
Foundation.
  According to the President of the Dutch National Committee on Drug 
Prevention, K.F. Gunning, M.D. crime and drug use has skyrocketed since 
legalization was implemented in the Netherlands. According to the Dutch 
Government, the results of their decriminalization/legalization drug 
policy has resulted in: A 250 percent in drug use since 1993; a 
doubling of marijuana use by students since 1988; armed robberies up by 
70 percent; shootings are up by 40 percent; and car thefts are up by 60 
percent.
  The number of registered addicts in the Netherlands has risen 22 
percent in the past 5 years. There were 25,000 new addicts in 1993 
alone. Furthermore, the number of organized crime groups has grown from 
3 in 1988 to 93 in 1993. The drug legalization has had a disastrous 
effect in the county where it has been tested.
  clinton's legacy, a dramatic increase in drug use and drug violence

  Mr. Speaker, President Clinton is not going down in history for any 
great domestic policies or strides in economic improvement. Certainly, 
he isn't going to be known for any diplomatic or human rights 
breakthroughs. The only measurable difference the American people have 
witnessed during his tenure in office is that the crime and drug 
situation dramatically worsened. The crime and drug statistics will 
speak for themselves in 1996.
  Today, 1 out of every 10 babies born in the United States is addicted 
to drugs. How can anyone honestly believe that selling drugs is a 
nonviolent crime when even newborns are the victims. And under this 
President's watch, according to the 1994 University of Michigan study 
of 50,000 high school students, drug use is up for all grades. These 
numbers reveal that drug use is up in all these grades for crack, 
cocaine, heroin, stimulants, LSD, and marijuana.
  And let's face the facts about violence in this country. Drug users 
and drug pushers are responsible, directly and indirectly, for most of 
the violence in this country. According to the Partnership for a Drug 
Free America, drug use is related to half of all violent crime. Illegal 
drugs play a part in half of all homicides. In fact, over half of those 
arrested for homicides in this country test positive at the time of 
arrest.
  Drug use is a factor in half of all family violence and most of this 
violence is directed against women. And over 30 percent of all child 
abuse cases involve a parent using illegal drugs. The Nation's health 
care system is straining from the war on drugs with nearly 500,000 
drug-related hospital emergencies a year. Yet, under President 
Clinton's term in office, these visits continue to escalate. In fact, 
drug-related emergency room visits are up 8 percent over last year.


      legalization poses greater health risk for blacks and women

  Most of the new AIDS cases in this country are women. Legalization in 
the Netherlands led to a dramatic increase in the number of addicts in 
that country. More addicts translates into more intravenous drug users 
and more prostitution. An increase in the number of addicts in this 
country will translate into an increase in drug-related AIDS deaths for 
women.
  Drug dealers and drug users are financing the violence which 
permeates many of the cities, towns, and schools of this country.


             crime, violence--drugs--the common denominator

  Mr. Speaker, I would simply conclude by quoting the Chairman of the 
Partnership for a Drug Free America, Mr. James Burke, ``We cannot and 
will not make progress with crime, violence or other ills until we make 
a long-term commitment to addressing a common denominator in so many of 
these problems--drug abuse.''
                       Renewing the War on Drugs

              (By William J. Bennett and John P. Walters)

       Through its indifference to rising drug use and its erosion 
     of the moral and governmental foundations of the successful 
     anti-drug efforts of the past two administrations, the 
     Clinton Administration has put the nation on a dangerous 
     path. The President bears the principal political 
     responsibility for this record. And only he can use his 
     office to begin to correct it. Congressional leaders in both 
     parties should give him every possible incentive to do just 
     that. If the Clinton Administration does not see the light, 
     it should feel the political heat.
       As the past two years demonstrate, the nation cannot 
     sustain an effective anti-drug effort without leadership. 
     Congress, governors, mayors, and community leaders, need to 
     meet this challenge. There are specific roles to fill for 
     federal, state, and local governments, as well as the private 
     institutions that support our families and communities.


                   restoring effective federal action

       The cornerstone of national anti-drug efforts is to give 
     force to the principle that drug use is wrong, harmful and 
     will not be tolerated. This principle should be embodied in 
     the institutions of society, which, in turn, should be 
     organized to give force to that principle. Without the 
     federal government doing its part, this endeavor will be much 
     more difficult.
       First, while efforts by the federal government are not 
     sufficient, they are a necessary element of an effective 
     national anti-drug effort. Executive leadership begins with 
     the president and his appointees in relevant executive 
     agencies. The White House drug policy office was created--at 
     the insistence of a Democratic Congress--to organize and lead 
     the war on drugs. Right now that office is not doing its job, 
     and the Clinton Administration has made it largely 
     irrelevant. The President should give someone the 
     responsibility and the authority to get the executive branch, 
     and the federal government, back in the fight.
       Second, the world headquarters for the cocaine industry is 
     Colombia. The era of meaningful partnership with that 
     government has ended. And there are reliable press reports 
     that the current president of Colombia received campaign 
     money from the cartels. But the heart of the matter today is 
     that U.S. and Colombian enforcement agencies know who the 
     leaders of the cartels are and where they are. The Colombians 
     could arrest or force into hiding the management of the 
     cocaine industry, and disrupt the cocaine trade as they have 
     done in the past. But there is no evidence the Colombian 
     government has any intention of doing so. Occasional showy 
     enforcement operations continue, but no real efforts are 
     mounted and therefore no real progress is made. The U.S. 
     government has done virtually nothing to give the legitimate 
     interests in Colombian society reason to undertake the risk 
     and effort of making their government put the cocaine trade 
     out of business. It is time to give them such a reason. 
     During the recent embargoes on Iraq and Haiti, experts warned 
     that these measures are most effective when applied rapidly 
     and totally against a trading ally. The U.S. accounts for 
     more than 70 percent of Colombia's licit foreign exports. We 
     need to tell the Colombians, in effect: ``Stop sending the 
     cocaine, or you can keep everything else. If the cocaine 
     keeps coming we don't want your $[to be added] in coffee.'' 
     Such action against Colombia would change the priority of 
     anti-drug efforts throughout the international community.
       Third, put the U.S. military in charge of stopping the flow 
     of illegal drugs from abroad. Require federal law enforcement 
     agencies responsible for drug interdiction to operate under 
     the overall command and control of the military. This mission 
     will require continuous adaptation because traffickers will 
     inevitably try new avenues as the old ones become too costly. 
     Some in the military will object to this non-traditional 
     mission and its cost. But no law enforcement organization 
     will ever have the intelligence and operational capabilities 
     for the interdiction task that the military already 
     possesses. Over the last few years the U.S. has used its 
     military resources to protect poor and endangered citizens of 
     other countries. It is time--it is past time--to stop 
     overlooking the poor and endangered in our cities.
       Fourth, the drug trade inside the U.S. relies on 
     sophisticated senior management. Despite periodic law 
     enforcement successes, federal domestic enforcement agencies 
     have produced no serious disruption of major trafficking 
     operations. And for the last two years the Clinton 
     Administration has allowed the DEA, FBI, and other drug 
     enforcement agencies to curry political favor with local 
     authorities by assigning federal personnel to augment 
     manpower for cases with no federal significance. This might 
     be acceptable if important federal responsibilities were 
     being met. But they are not. We therefore need to establish 
     clear federal drug enforcement priorities and hold 
     enforcement authorities accountable for meeting them. For 
     example, the Attorney General should be required to prepare a 
     report every six months identifying all major drug 
     trafficking organizations known to be operating in the U.S. 
     and a plan to deploy federal enforcement personnel to 
     dismantle them. Congress should also make the funding for 
     federal drug enforcement agencies contingent on effectively 
     implementing this policy.
       Fifth, the Congress should combine existing federal aid to 
     the states and localities for drug enforcement, prevention, 
     and treatment (now, roughly $3.5 billion per year) into a 
     single block grant distributed on the basis of population. 
     Individual program mandates should be abolished so states and 
     localities can establish and pursue their own priorities for 
     fighting drug use and drug crime. Law enforcement, drug 
     treatment, and prevention education are local 
     responsibilities. Washington's bureaucratic regulation has 
     utterly failed to engender programs that foster local 
     accountability. Therefore, the new block grant should be 
     designed to restore local responsibility by phasing them out 
     after three years. In this way, communities will have an 
     incentive to use these funds for those activities that 
     demonstrate sufficient merit to deserve long-term support 
     entirely from local sources.
                    Creating effective local action

       Sixth, drug prevention is central to all effective anti-
     drug efforts. Young people who do not use drugs in their 
     teens are unlikely to ever become involved with illegal 
     drugs. 
     [[Page E844]] But each generation must be taught that illegal 
     drug use is wrong and harmful. This lesson must be taught by 
     the community as a whole; indeed, by our culture. Children 
     learn about drugs by what the adults around them as a whole 
     say and do. Parents teach by precept and example. The same is 
     true of schools and the communities. If drug use and sale is 
     not aggressively opposed and prevented, children learn it is 
     acceptable, despite what some adults may occasionally tell 
     them. Teaching drug prevention must be a part of teaching 
     children right from wrong. It will always fall to parents to 
     provide that education in the home and act to ensure that 
     schools and their communities are teaching this lesson 
     effectively. This task is easier if national leaders set the 
     right example and speak in support of parents. But since that 
     national support has seriously eroded, parents, churches, 
     schools, youth organizations, and communities are more 
     important than ever. They have always been, and will always 
     remain, the first line of defense for children.
       Seventh, open-air drug markets feed addiction and are a 
     visible sign of the toleration of the drug trade in our 
     nation. It is a national disgrace that such markets are 
     tolerated in virtually every major American city. Drug 
     pushers cannot operate effectively when law enforcement 
     personnel are present. Forcing drug deals from open spaces 
     makes their lives more difficult and dangerous and hence 
     their activities less frequent. Many communities have
      demonstrated that creating a law-enforcement presence and 
     maintaining it in response to relocation efforts by drug 
     dealers is doable--but only if closing drug markets is 
     made a priority. In the next year, mayors, city councils, 
     and police chiefs should pledge to close all open air drug 
     markets in their communities. Citizens should demand such 
     a pledge and make clear that they will insist that these 
     officials keep it. We need to stop claiming that the crime 
     and drug problem in our communities is someone else's 
     responsibility. Decisive action can be taken by local 
     officials and community members now.
       Eighth, drug testing is a proven tool to discourage drug 
     use by individuals in treatment and those in the criminal 
     justice system. Good treatment programs require regular 
     testing and apply sanctions against individuals who relapse. 
     Drug testing arrestees provides a basis for using bail, 
     sentencing, release conditions and other aspects of the 
     criminal justice system to compel individuals to stop using 
     drugs. Including an extended period of regular testing after 
     convicted drug-using offenders complete their sentences, 
     discourages a return to drug use and crime. Positive drug 
     tests must involve steadily escalating penalties (starting 
     with a one or two-day return to jail or a half-way house and 
     moving to reincarceration for an extended period). Most heavy 
     drug users pass through the criminal justice system and any 
     short-term costs of creating temporary detention facilities 
     for the enforcement of a drug testing program will save 
     larger costs to the community in repeated criminal justice 
     expenditures on the same individuals and the damage their 
     crimes do to the innocent.
       These eight steps--involving federal, state, local, and 
     individual action--will reverse the dangerous resurgence of 
     drugs that has occurred during President Clinton's watch. 
     These actions will help turn the country away from its 
     present course and go a long way toward making progress in 
     the war on drugs. And that, in turn, will help America to 
     become a safer, more decent and more civilized society.
                                                                    ____

                      Tonight Only: ABC Does Drugs

                          (By John P. Walters)

       Tonight, Jeff Diamond--the NBC ``Dateline'' producer who 
     took the blame for rigging those exploding pickup-truck gas 
     tanks--is back, and he's on drugs. Specifically, he is part 
     of the team that created the ABC News special: ``America's 
     War on Drugs: Searching for Solutions.''
       The show, hosted by Catherine Crier, begins with the usual 
     ``we've lost the drug war'' footage and rhetoric. Of course, 
     the show never explains that drug use declined steadily and 
     dramatically prior to the Clinton administration, which 
     undermined anti-drug efforts on all fronts. But this is 
     standard fare. Tonight's program is designed to break new 
     ground.
       It begins in earnest with the story of Jim Montgomery, who, 
     we are told, was sentenced to life in prison for having two 
     ounces of marijuana in the backpack of his wheelchair. This 
     is the show's illustration of drug enforcement in America. 
     Apparently, ABC couldn't find a grandmother on death-row for 
     carrying a roach clip in her purse. ABC does not just want to 
     keep alive the liberal myth that prisons are filled with 
     ``low-level drug offenders,'' ABC wants to take that myth to 
     a new level. Never mind that the Bureau of Justice Statistics 
     reports that federal inmates convicted of marijuana 
     trafficking were involved, on average, in the sale of 3.5 
     tons of pot. And forget that only 21.3 percent of state 
     prisoners are drug offenders and that more than 96 percent of 
     state prisoners have prior convictions.
       But this is all just an introduction to the ``solution'' 
     ABC wants to offer for the drug problem. That solution is, of 
     course, legalization.
       First, Ms. Crier and Mr. Diamond present a loving portrait 
     of--you guessed it--the Netherlands, especially Amsterdam. 
     Drugs are accepted, addiction is limited, and, according to 
     ABC, crime is not a serious problem. The only problem with 
     this idyllic picture is that it is
      an utter fabrication. A 1992 study found that the 
     Netherlands now ranks first in Europe in the category of 
     threats and assaults; robberies increased by more than 
     two-thirds from 1988 to 1992 (with 43 percent of burglars 
     describing themselves as drug-users); gun-related deaths 
     are on the rise (almost all involving drug disputes); and 
     out of roughly 100 ``highly organized'' criminal gangs 
     operating in the Netherlands, 73 are engaged in drug 
     trafficking.
       The Amsterdam Municipal Health Service reported a rise in 
     hard-core addicts, attributed to a significant rise in the 
     local heroin supply and a drop in price of as much as 75 
     percent in the last few years. ABC also missed the fact that 
     the Rotterdam Municipal Council has reported that cocaine use 
     has risen substantially, to 3.3 percent of the resident 
     population over age 15. And in Amsterdam, cocaine users have 
     been estimated at 5.8 percent of the population--vastly 
     higher than anything in the United States.
       After a fantasy trip to the Netherlands, Ms. Crier takes 
     her audience to England for a loving look at the 
     ``successes'' of legally prescribing heroin to addicts. ABC, 
     however, does not review what happened the last time Britain 
     experimented with legalization, back in the 1960's. As James 
     Q. Wilson has written, that British Government experiment 
     with controlled heroin distribution resulted in, at minimum, 
     a 30-fold increase in the number of addicts in 10 years as 
     heroin was diverted from patients to new users on the 
     streets. And a British Medical Journal report on the 
     ``experiment'' estimated that the number of heroin users 
     doubled every 16 months from 1959 to 1968. Now some in the 
     English medical community are trying to repeat this 
     experience, and ABC seems to think Americans should join 
     them.
       If America's drug problem were not so serious, it would be 
     possible to regard a program this bad and heavy-handed as 
     comic. But America's drug problem is no laughing matter. Thus 
     this show is not just inexcusably bad journalism--it is 
     highly irresponsible broadcasting.
     

                          ____________________