[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 118 (Tuesday, September 3, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9683-S9690]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE DRUG EPIDEMIC
Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I want to talk a little bit about drug use.
You may recall that many people derided or made fun of Nancy Reagan's
``just say no'' approach to the use of illegal drugs. But I think it is
interesting that for 11 years in a row during the Reagan-Bush era drug
use among our children declined. Just saying no was a policy that
worked. It seems now that we are not saying no enough in Washington and
our children are not saying no enough in our junior high schools.
If we look at the record on drug use, it is a frightening sight as to
what is happening. Overall drug use has more than doubled in the last 4
years. Drug use among teenagers is up 105 percent in the last 4 years.
The use of marijuana among teenagers has risen 141 percent. Cocaine
usage among teenagers in the last 2 years has gone up by 160 percent.
Today 1 out of every 10 children in America between the ages of 12--
that is the sixth grade--and 17 now are using drugs at least once a
month.
How did Washington contribute to this tragedy that is occurring in
every junior high school in America? I think it started when President
Clinton took office and, in his first days, cut the drug czar's office
by 83 percent. President Clinton cut drug interdiction spending 25
percent below the level carried in the last Bush budget. Between 1992
and 1995, 227 positions at DEA were eliminated. Drug prosecutions in
1993 and 1994 declined by 12 percent, and the average sentence for
selling marijuana declined by 13 percent from 1992 to 1995.
I think if we are serious about this problem that we need to end the
debate that we have been engaged in with the administration for the
last 4 years where the President is trying to eliminate mandatory
minimum prison sentences for hoodlums who are selling drugs at junior
high schools, and we need to enact reforms that the Senate has adopted
numerous times, and yet which has not yet become the law of the land. I
have proposed 10 years in prison without parole for selling drugs to a
minor or involving a minor in drug trafficking, so every hoodlum in
America, when they are thinking about selling drugs to a child, will
understand that if they are convicted they are going to prison and they
are going to serve every day of 10 years in prison no matter who their
daddy is or how they may think society has done them wrong.
I also want life in prison for people who get out of prison having
been convicted once of selling drugs to a minor and turn right around
and do it again.
I think when we look at this data on drug use it is obvious that we
are not doing our job. I think we need to change that pattern. I want
to double the size of the Border Patrol. This last year we took a first
step. It is a major step in the right direction. Right now we have more
police officers in Washington, DC, than we have Border Patrol agents
trying to police and control the entire border of the United States of
America. It is not unusual--in fact it is the norm--to have on any
shift in a 300-mile strip from Brownsville to Laredo 87 Border Patrol
agents actually working that line. We are using in many cases near-
obsolete sensing devices, while the military has great night vision and
infrared capacity. We do not have similar capability in the Border
Patrol. That needs to change.
We need to double the size of the Border Patrol over the next 5
years. I believe that given the threat we face from armed drug gangs,
with automatic weapons, with night-vision capability, and with
sophisticated electronic communications basically invading our country
nightly, that we do not now have the resources we need and we have
certainly not committed the will to keep drugs out of our country.
We need to expand the capacity of the FBI Academy. I think we should
have a goal that within 5 years we double the training capacity of the
FBI Academy. In no other way can we give local law enforcement
personnel the enrichment of training that they need and which can, in
turn, be passed on within their police departments and their sheriff
departments.
We need to expand the size of the DEA. I think if you will look at
your individual State, you are going to find that in many vast regions
we have only two or three or four DEA agents. And let me make it clear.
I have no criticism of our Border Patrol agents, our FBI agents, our
DEA agents. They are doing their job. The problem is they are not
getting the support they need from Washington.
We need to prosecute vigorously drug felons in general and criminals
who are selling drugs to children. I would like to see us change our
building code and stop building prisons like Holiday Inns. We have at
least three Federal statutes which criminalize making prisoners work.
Prisoners cannot produce goods to be sold across State lines. They
cannot produce items to be sold within the State. We have limits on the
transport of prison-produced goods and you have to pay the union scale
if you make prisoners work. Needless to say, not many prisoners in
America are working and producing anything of value.
We took the first step in the Senate toward changing that last year.
That effort died because it was opposed in the House and by the
President. But I think we need to continue to work to change the
criminal justice system in America.
In addition to that, we have to take a zero-tolerance approach to
drugs. We need to make it very clear to young people that drug use is
not acceptable. We need to hold people who are buying drugs just as
responsible as people who are selling drugs. Whether we are talking
about a high school student or a wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys,
drug use should be a serious matter. I think we ought to call on our
professional athletic leagues, the NFL, professional baseball,
professional basketball, to set higher standards. If people
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are going to be set out as role models for our children, I think when
they have established a pattern of drug use they ought not to be
playing professional football or professional basketball.
I think these are changes that need to be looked at. If you look at
this data and you are not alarmed, then I think you do not understand
this problem. I think drug use represents one of the greatest threats
we face.
I thank our colleague from Georgia for leading this effort to try to
make the public more aware of it. I am hopeful that we will have an
opportunity in Commerce-State-Justice appropriations to look at our
priorities in terms of the Border Patrol and law enforcement. We should
pass a major new crime and antidrug bill which is aimed at getting
tough on those who are selling drugs but which also holds accountable
those who are buying drugs.
I am very proud of the provision in the welfare bill which for the
first time takes the public policy position that if you are convicted
of a drug felony, we are not going, through our welfare programs, to
give you a base pay in welfare and food stamps while you are out
selling drugs at the local junior high school; that one of the things
that is going to happen to you if we convict you of a drug felony under
our new welfare bill is you are going to lose your cash welfare
benefits and you are going to lose your food stamps.
I think that is a perfectly reasonable proposal, and I think it is
something that should be expanded. Our society should take a zero-
tolerance approach to drugs. I think that is the only way we are going
to solve this problem. When Nancy Reagan was saying no, when our
country was taking a stronger approach, drug use fell for 11 years. It
seems in recent years our Government has not been saying no, and, as a
result, drug use has skyrocketed among our children. I think we need to
do something about it.
I yield the floor.
Mr. COVERDELL addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
Mr. COVERDELL. I thank the Senator from Texas for the remarks he has
made and the contribution he has made over the years with regard to our
constant battle with narcotics. I appreciate very much him joining us
this afternoon.
Mr. GRAMM. I thank the Senator.
Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, in a moment I am going to call on the
distinguished Senator from Ohio, but I would like to take just a few
moments to put before the Senate a question I put before local
policymakers all across my State about a week ago. I went from one end
of the State to the other and in each jurisdiction I said: I want this
meeting to be a wakeup call. I want it to be absolutely clear in all of
our minds when we leave this meeting and when we leave here today that
there is a new drug epidemic in the United States. Epidemic. You will
hear these figures throughout the afternoon, but essentially drug use
among teenagers has doubled.
What does that mean? That means 2 million more teenagers are involved
with drugs today than were just 36 months ago. The increase on the part
of teenagers in the last 12 months--12 months--increased 33 percent.
You heard the Senator from Texas begin to talk about the fact that we
had to restore interdiction efforts on the border. You will hear many
other suggestions that we need to restore and reopen the drug czar's
office, that we need to double our efforts, we need to quit reducing
military capacity involved in interdiction and restore it. But that is
going to take some time. That is not going to happen tomorrow. These
systems were being shut down, and it takes a lot of funding and time to
turn them back on.
In the meantime, what I would ask is that every policymaker, be they
Federal officers, Members of the of the Senate, a county commissioner
or teacher, every policymaker at every level, every chamber member,
every business leader, every church, every family at their kitchen
table, the media, they can make an enormous contribution by being part
of the wake-up system. While we are waiting for these other systems to
be put back in gear, I would ask every citizen of this country to help
us warn teenagers, particularly young children, kids that are 8 to 13,
that drugs are dangerous, that drugs will ruin their lives, alter their
lives, change the way they are educated, where they can get a job or
cannot get a job. They are making decisions that are going to affect
them for their whole life.
For some reason--and I am sure it will be talked about here this
afternoon--we have the highest number of teenagers in modern history
who do not think drugs are a threat or a risk, so, conversely, they are
using drugs in unprecedented numbers. It is up to us, the leaders of
our Nation, to warn them, to give them the opportunity to understand
this is dangerous stuff; this will unalterably affect their lives.
Hopefully, those who are ensnared can be rehabilitated. But even if we
do, it will be at great cost and you will never be able to put all the
pieces back together for these kids.
One last thing and I am going to turn to the Senator from Ohio. The
difference between this epidemic that we are in now and the one in the
1960's and 1970's? There is a striking difference. The target audience
then was age 17 to 21. The target of the cartels today is kids 8 to
13--8 to 13. This is the first war that has ever been waged against
kids.
I yield up to 10 minutes to the distinguished Senator from Ohio.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio is recognized for up to
10 minutes.
Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I first thank my colleague from Georgia
for leading this discussion today. I cannot think of a more appropriate
forum than the U.S. Senate, nor can I think of a more appropriate topic
for us to be discussing today than what is literally the crisis that is
facing our young people.
The evidence is out. The statistics are there. We have seen the
headlines in the newspapers in the last few weeks that others have
detailed on this floor already today. But I would like to spend a
little time talking about it and maybe reflecting on my personal
experiences in dealing with this problem. I used to be a county
prosecuting attorney in Ohio. I dealt with kids who were certainly at
risk, kids who were starting out on lives of crime, kids who had
unbelievable problems. Later I served as Lieutenant Governor in a State
with a very large at-risk youth population. I worked on the education
system, but I also worked on the prison system, and I saw a lot of kids
leading, certainly what we would describe as, broken lives.
Based on that experience, I am convinced, if we truly want to save
the next generation of young people in this country, we can no longer,
as a country, pretend the problem does not exist. I am afraid, to some
extent that is what we have been doing. We have to face the problem and
we cannot do that, frankly, without Presidential leadership. Over the
last 4 years, we have basically surrendered on the fight against drugs.
A couple of weeks ago, President Clinton's Department of Health and
Human Services released a report stating the total failure of the
Clinton administration on this particular issue. The statistics are
unbelievable.
From 1992 to 1995, overall drug use by teenagers, young people age 12
to 17, has risen by 78 percent. Marijuana use is up 105 percent, more
than double what it was 4 years ago. That is after 11 years of
declining marijuana use, 11 straight years of declining marijuana use
under President Reagan and President Bush. Now we are up 105 percent in
just a couple of years. Use of LSD and other hallucinogens is up 183
percent, nearly triple what it was 4 years ago. Cocaine use is up 166
percent. If you really want to see the tragedy my colleague from
Georgia has talked about in the past, if you really want to see the
tragedy, look at the emergency rooms and look at the people who have
gone into the emergency rooms for overdose problems today.
One out of every ten children age 12 to 17 is using drugs on a
monthly basis--1 out of every 10 children. We must do something. This
administration's approach has basically been one of neglect. For years,
the Reagan and Bush Justice Departments would concentrate their most
intensive efforts on two areas of law enforcement: Gun crimes and
drugs. When President Clinton came in, this effort simply withered
away. Here are the statistics.
[[Page S9685]]
Under President Clinton, the prosecution of gun-related offenses in
Federal court by U.S. attorneys went down 20 percent--down 20 percent.
That is after an increase year after year under the Bush and Reagan
administrations. Further, under President Clinton, drug prosecutions
have gone down 12.5 percent.
It is incredible. The drug problem is skyrocketing but the Clinton
administration's willingness to fight has gone down. President Clinton
has cut 625 individuals, soldiers, out of the ranks of the war on
drugs; 625 law enforcement personnel from 6 separate Federal agencies
are gone. Under President Clinton, Federal spending on drug
interdiction went down 25 percent.
These are not just statistics, these are not just facts. This
matters. This makes a difference, because spending less on interdiction
makes a difference. According to recent Federal law enforcement
statistics, the disruption rate--that is the amount of drugs that are
blocked from coming into this country--dropped 53 percent between 1993
and early 1995. That means that an additional 84 metric tons of
marijuana and cocaine came into America and comes into America every
single year.
Since 1993, Coast Guard seizures of cocaine are down 45 percent.
Coast Guard seizures of marijuana for that same period of time are down
90 percent. That says a lot about the priorities of this
administration. Instead of cracking down on gun criminals, people who
use a firearm to commit an offense, repeat violent offenders, and
instead of getting tough on drugs, this administration has literally
taken a walk. I am sure that is one reason Democratic Congressman
Charlie Rangel--certainly someone in the U.S. Congress who is one of
the foremost leaders in this area, who has spent a lot of time battling
the drug problem--said, ``I have never, never, never met a President
who cares less about this issue.''
That sums up very well the prevalent attitude of the current
administration with regard to the war on drugs. It is an attitude of
neglect. For anyone who cares about the future of this country, this
attitude is totally unacceptable. The average young person who is using
drugs in high school ends up in trouble. That individual represents
America's future. This is something we have to get serious about. This
administration, unfortunately, did just the opposite. They cut the drug
czar's office. One of the first things they did is they cut the drug
czar's office by 83 percent. Their Surgeon General talked about
legalizing drugs. ``We should study that,'' she said. Their National
Security Council dropped drugs--this is astonishing, absolutely
amazing--their National Security Council dropped drugs from the top 3
of national priorities down to 29th, the last, 29 out of 29, when they
ranked the national priorities; dead last. That tells you something
about what this administration's attitude has been.
As a statement of our national priorities, as a statement of our
national consensus, this administration's attitude and record are
simply unacceptable. It is time for our national leadership to let the
teenagers of this country know we are serious. Drugs do kill. We have
to speak in this country with one clear voice.
In the first 9 months of 1995, President Clinton was interviewed 112
times. He mentioned drugs just once. He made 119 statements during that
period of time, formal statements. He mentioned drugs just twice.
We need an attitude of ``just say no.'' This administration, by
contrast, has just said nothing. Drugs are a threat to the future of
our children. They are a threat to the future of our country. That will
be true even after this election year. It is time, frankly, for some
followthrough in the Oval Office. We need to realize that our national
effort against drugs is really not a war. All of us, myself included,
use that term. That really is not the best of terms, because in a sense
it is something more difficult than a war. When we talk about a war, we
usually think of something where we go in as a country, we make the
commitment, we pay the price, we get the job done, and we win and we go
home, men and women go home--mission accomplished.
The antidrug effort in that sense is a not a war. Rather, it is more
of a struggle, a struggle that is always going to be with us day in and
day out and for every young person is, in a sense, a new battlefield,
and victory is never final.
We live, Mr. President, in a society where we want everything
instant, quick--instant oatmeal, instant coffee, everything has to be
resolved in 30 minutes on TV from beginning to end, everything has to
happen quickly. That is how we live our lives.
I think we have to understand and accept the fact it simply is not
true in regard to our efforts in the drug area, that we have to hang in
there, we have to stay in there, we have to talk about this problem and
fight this problem day in and day out. The good news is we can, in
fact, make a difference if we are willing to stay in there and if we
are willing to have patience and if we are willing to persevere.
Mr. President, we need to win this struggle, but to win this
struggle, we need to be focused. We need leadership. We need leadership
from the top. We need leadership all the way through the system. There
are many things that, frankly, we need to do.
We spend a lot of time debating what is more important: treatment,
education, or law enforcement. The reality is, they are all important;
we have to do them all. That is what the reality is. We have to have
education. We have to have treatment. We have to have domestic law
enforcement, and we also have to have drug interdiction that goes to
the source and goes to the transit countries. We have to do all four,
and we have to continue to do them day in and day out.
Mr. President, in a sense, this is a tall order. It is difficult to
accomplish even when we have the best of intentions. But if you turn
away from this effort, as this administration has done for several
years, if you really do not act like there is a drug problem, you send
the wrong message to the American people, but particularly to the most
impressionable, and that is our young people. You send them the message
that drugs are really not that big a problem.
My colleague from Georgia said it very well a moment ago. The most
frightening statistic in all these polls we have seen published, all
this data we have seen, is that consistently as drug use goes up, the
fear of drugs is going down, and there is a relationship--I should say
an inverse relationship--between those two. Part of that lack of fear
is maybe lack of experience. That is what we deal with when we deal
with young people, a lack of experience. But part of it also is that
the message has not been reinforced as it has to be time after time
after time after time. That is what, frankly, we need the President of
the United States to do.
So, Mr. President, I ask that we recommit ourselves, from the
President on down, to this antidrug effort, understanding that it is a
long fight, it is a struggle, and that we are going to have to hang in
there to get the job done.
I, again, thank my colleague from Georgia for taking time on the
Senate floor today. It is an appropriate forum for a very, very
critical issue that we need to be dealing with in this country. I thank
the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator from Ohio has expired.
The Senator from Georgia.
Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Ohio. I know
that he is the father of a very large family and that there are many
teenagers in that family, and this has to be an issue of personal
concern to any parent, including the Senator from Ohio.
Mr. President, I would like to, if I can, read from an article that
appeared in the Washington Post this past Friday, August 30. It is an
article about the military role in the drug war, which is now being
debated, and ought to be, because I often say that we suffer more
casualties annually in the drug war than we did during the entirety of
the Vietnam war. If you add up the collateral damage, the personal
damage, it is staggering.
But to read from this article, not in its entirety, it says:
It was the last Republican President, George Bush, who in
1989 began enlisting military forces in regular patrols of
Caribbean trafficking routes. But 4 years later, the Clinton
administration reduced the number of planes and ships
monitoring narcotics transit zones as a Democratic Congress
slashed counterdrug funds. The move came in part of a shift
in U.S. strategy that placed less emphasis on interdicting
shipments into the United States and more on assisting
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South American countries where the narcotics are produced.
Pentagon spending on antidrug actions dropped about 27
percent in 1993, from $1.1 billion to $800 million, and has
remained at about that level since.
The point I am making here, Mr. President, is that, if I can take one
exception with the Senator from Ohio, I don't believe our situation is
one of neglect, but rather one of conscious decisions made to dismantle
much of the interdiction force, just as this article has documented.
The impact of the change has been argued ever since.
Cocaine seizures in the transit zone between the United
States and South American borders declined 47 percent between
1992 an 1995.
That is by half.
A General Accounting Office report recently criticized
interdiction activities as inadequately planned and staffed.
The Senator from Texas spoke to the downsizing of the efforts at
interdiction. The article says:
A study for the White House last year by EBR, Inc., a
Virginia research firm, estimated that restoring $500 million
in military assets to blocking Caribbean routes could lower--
Lower--
the traffickers' success rate in shipping cocaine from 69 to
53 percent. But the estimate carried a high degree of
uncertainty and the administration--
The White House--
concluded the possible gain wasn't worth the cost.
My point here is that the administration made specific changes in
policy: closed the drug czar's office, cut interdiction in half,
lowered military assets across the board.
And now, Mr. President, the results are coming in. The data by the
administration itself has ratified what we have been saying for well
over a year: that drug use among our youngsters and teenagers is
skyrocketing.
I was just quoting from the Washington Post.
Here is another periodical less known. This is called the Gwinnett
Daily Post, which is in a county north of Atlanta. And they recently
published an article in our own State. This is just a suburban
newspaper and probably will not go down in the chronicles of policy
setting.
But, Mr. President, it is sort of interesting. I picked this up over
the weekend scanning through clippings. It is written by Stacey Kelley,
a staff writer for the Gwinnett Daily Post. But what she chronicles
here is very significant. It says, ``The number of drug related cases
handled by the Gwinnett County Juvenile Court has increased 738 percent
since 1992, * * * '' Mr. President, I will repeat that: 738 percent in
36 months. `` * * * with the most common cases involving marijuana and
LSD, according to court records.'' And in 1992 the juvenile court
handled 21 cases of drug-related crimes involving juveniles, kids. In
1995, 3 years later, that figure had increased to 176.
As I said to community leaders across my State--I would say it
anywhere in the Nation--do not think your community is not experiencing
these kinds of data because they are. It is everywhere. There is nobody
free of this new epidemic. Nobody is free from this. Juvenile court
deals with minors 16 years of age and under. Remember, Mr. President, a
moment ago I said this epidemic is with a different-aged audience, aged
8-13 when they are getting ensnared in this. And this documents it. You
could document this anywhere you go in the country.
We have been joined by the distinguished Senator from Idaho. I am
going to call on him in just a moment.
If I might read one other paragraph in this Gwinnett Daily Post. It
says:
Most of the drug cases that end up there [in juvenile
court] are cases of drug possession. Jackie White, Juvenile
Court Administrator, said it is rare to see a juvenile
charged with distributing drugs.
``Drug cases are growing at a rate higher than all our
delinquent cases,'' White said. Delinquent cases are those
presented in Juvenile Court which involve criminal charges.
In 1992, the Gwinnett court had 2,275 delinquent cases, and
in 1995, 2,740 cases.
If you had these kinds of records in county after county across the
country, and if you talked to local sheriffs or police officers, people
that deal with juvenile courts, youth detention, they would all tell
you the same thing. This is a massive epidemic. This is affecting a
younger and younger audience, and the consequences are stunning and
staggering.
Mr. President, I yield up to 10 minutes to the distinguished Senator
who joins us from Idaho.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho is recognized for 10
minutes.
Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, thank you very much.
Let me express my appreciation to the Senator from Georgia for
bringing about this special order in which we could discuss a topic
that has just now again burst upon the scene, at least from the
standpoint of us having new figures and statistics to be concerned
about. But many of us have recognized that it has been going on for
some time in a way that this administration and others have just either
ignored it or failed to address it.
As I came to the floor this afternoon, my friend from Georgia was
talking about national statistics on teenage drug abuse versus local
statistics and that national averages probably mean local averages if
you take a close look at the problem, because I have a feeling that
many of us have the habit of saying, well, gee, that really does sound
bad and certainly the consequence for younger Americans is tragic but
that really is not going on in my backyard. I think in a State like
Idaho that remains relatively rural and, at least from the standpoint
of metropolitan areas has few, that would be the case with many of my
friends and associates in Idaho.
Let me start my comments this afternoon by talking about my home
State of Idaho because what we are now finding in our checking of
statistics with law enforcement is that the national trends are Idaho's
trends. I think that is probably true across the Nation.
In the last 4 years we have seen a dramatic reversal in the trends
that we saw in the late 1980's and early 1990's in my home State of
Idaho according to the Idaho Statistical Analysis Center. Juvenile drug
arrests have jumped from a 9 percent decrease--a 9-percent decrease in
1991--to a 69-percent increase in 1995, an absolute flip-flop of the
record. Why is it going on?
Juvenile drug arrests in Idaho are now growing at a faster rate than
adult drug arrests. Let me repeat that. Juvenile drug arrests in Idaho
are growing at a faster rate than adult drug arrests. Teens are
experiencing drugs at younger and younger ages. And 7.1 percent of the
ninth grade females and 1.5 percent of the 12th grade females used
marijuana for the first time before the age of 13 in Idaho. And those
are the statistics that ought to be alarming all of us because those
are the same kinds of statistics that we have had reported to us by the
substance abuse and medical health services administration in their
statistics of a few weeks ago.
Illicit drug use among youth doubling since 1992. Marijuana use among
12- and 13-year-olds more than doubled since 1992, and tripling among
14- to 15-year-olds. Those are the national statistics, Mr. President.
And yet those are the same statistics of Idaho, a State of about
1,300,000 people.
Cocaine, crack, heroin, LSD use among teenagers is expected to soon
rival the highest rates of the 1970's. Why? What has changed? What in
America is different in 1995 and 1996 than was existing in 1990, in
1988, in 1987 when we actually saw peaks and then declines in the use
of some of these substances by our teenaged population? I think one
thing has changed. And while over the last several years I have been
unwilling to be bold in talking about it, clearly I think it is time to
talk about it.
I remember because I was here in the early 1980's when Nancy Reagan
said, ``Just say no.'' There were a lot of the press and a lot of the
liberal critics that said, ``Are you kidding me? Just say no? We have
to have control. We have got to have institutional programs. You can't
just argue with teenage America that they ought to just say no.''
But what Nancy Reagan knew as a mother and what a lot of citizens
know in our country, that one of the greatest areas of control is when
national leaders speak out and when in most instances there is the kind
of internal peer pressure that really does have an impact. And that
kind of national leadership, certainly that kind of internal peer
pressure that is produced as a product of national leadership has been
relatively nonexistent since the early 1990's at a time when our
President
[[Page S9687]]
openly admits he once smoked marijuana, at a time when his press
secretary says, ``Well, yes, of course I did. And I've used it from
time to time.'' In other words, what I am saying is, a national
leadership with a relatively cavalier attitude that just simply says,
``oh, so what.'' Well, the ``oh, so what'' is very simple. The ``oh, so
what'' is teenage America listening to our national leaders with a tone
that it does not really make any difference, that there is not really a
problem there, that somehow it is OK.
I am not suggesting in any sense that our President has openly said
that. But what I am suggesting is that a White House that cannot get
security clearances because of its current drug use, a White House
whose press secretary says ``so what'' a President who says, ``My only
defense against a past action is that I really didn't inhale,'' I am
sorry, that is a leadership speaking out. That is our national icon,
and the President of the United States is less than caring and less
than leading on this issue.
What remains today as the greater deterrent? A statement that was
made in the early 1980's by a lady who was openly ridiculed for making
it, ``Just say no.'' That ``just say no'' amongst teenagers today, with
high school counselors and those who associate in peer-type
organizations with young Americans is the strongest defense today
against the use of illegal drugs or substance abuse. Say no, stand up,
be an individual, speak out. But most importantly, say no. Say no for
yourself and no for your peers.
What is the rest of the story beyond that, beyond tone setting,
beyond leadership? We could pour billions of dollars into this, and we
should put more into it. We tried to put more into it. As you know, the
Clinton Justice Department issued a study recommending a reduction in
mandatory minimum drug sentences, and the Clinton administration cut
355 DEA agents and 102 persons from the Justice Department's crime drug
enforcement task force, and the Clinton administration cut the Coast
Guard drug interdiction budget by $14.6 billion. I could go on and on
and on. We do need that side of it. We must have that side of it to
stem the flow, to deter that kind of activity. Put all of that
together, and this Congress will work hard to get it back on line.
But well beyond that, Mr. President, remains the fundamental
responsibility that our national leadership must speak out that this is
no longer something that you shrug and grin and walk away from because
those who you put around you cannot meet the test, cannot meet the
standard, are violating the law by their action behind the scenes. That
is something that is unacceptable in this country.
We reap the whirlwind of inaction. We reap the whirlwind amongst our
teenagers for a failure on the part of our leadership to clearly and
openly stand out in opposition to this kind of illegal and harmful
activity. We all know what it can mean when drug abuse starts, when
substance abuse begins. One action can lead to another. The use of
marijuana oftentimes--by the admission of those who have used it--can
lead to the use of harder drugs. That can lead to criminal activity
beyond the act itself. Those are the kind of things that we need to
worry about.
Why now, then, do the criminologists of this country, why, now, do
the people who study our demographics say to us that as a society we
need to prepare for something that we are institutionally unprepared to
handle? That in the coming decade, starting now, we can anticipate a
teenage and juvenile crime wave of the kind this country has never
seen. That is the whirlwind we reap because we have failed to be
responsive in the kind of leadership necessary to deal with the current
statistics, the kind that we now see today, be they national or in my
State of Idaho or any other State in the Nation.
This is an issue that will not go away. It is clearly an issue that
this administration and that this Congress has to redress and move
forward on. I want to thank my colleague, the Senator from Georgia, for
his willingness to take this kind of leadership. What I have said today
and what he is saying is not easy to say. I do not want to be a
condemner. I want to be a supporter. I want to build up. In this area,
clearly, amongst all other areas, we would like to be proud of the
statistics that would be positive for our young people. That
is nonexistent in this area today. We must deal with it. I hope we deal
with it aggressively.
Again, it will not come by throwing money at it. It must come by a
national conscience. It must come by knowing the difference between
right and wrong. It must come from all of us as leaders here in the
Senate and in the very White House that I have spoken of. That is the
kind of leadership that we must have if we are going to deal with this
issue and convince the young of our country that their actions must be
changed for themselves and for their future.
I thank my colleague and yield back the time.
Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Idaho. He has
reinforced several points that are worth talking about a little more.
I am convinced that most parents, until very recently, did not
realize that we are in a new epidemic. I think they had heard year
after year that drug use amongst our teenagers was falling. It did from
1980 to 1992. It was cut in half, which should be a sign of optimism
for us as a people because it means that you can win this battle.
As the Senator from Ohio said earlier, it is a long struggle. It will
never be over. But we can change the behavior and relationship of
teenagers to drugs.
What we are doing here today is something that has to reverberate all
across the country. That is that we have to warn our parents that once
again their children are at grave risk of being embroiled in this
epidemic.
The second point that the Senator from Idaho makes that I think is
very important is that if you think as a parent or a policymaker that
this problem is an inner city ghetto problem, that it is just in
poverty zones across our country, you are making a grave, grave
mistake.
I do not care where you go in this country, you are going to find
data like we have been hearing all afternoon. There is going to be more
action in the juvenile court. There will be more action among law
enforcement officials and teenagers.
The article, which I will return to in a minute--the Gwinnett Daily
Post is in one of the largest suburban counties in our country, just
outside of Atlanta. In rural and inner city and suburban communities it
was consistent. It did not matter where you went or what the
sociostrata of the community was. It did not matter. This is the kind
of data that we were finding in every kind of community. No one is
exempt from this. Everybody better have that yellow light on in their
home. Every church needs to rethink what it is doing about this
problem. Every business leader needs to be thinking about what is
happening with the colleagues in that business. If you think that you
do not need a drug-free workplace program, you are making a mistake.
I was talking to an executive of a substantial company in Augusta,
GA. They make water cups. It has been a very long success story. They
bought some facilities and they doubled their production. All of a
sudden, Mr. President, there was theft of petty items, wallets, and
purses. Then suddenly more and more material was missing.
They called in outside consultants and they said, ``We think you have
a drug problem.'' They said ``could not'' then. They resisted it.
Finally, they hired an outside consultant, went to an undercover agent
and, indeed, discovered a drug ring in the company, robbing it of its
production costs and much, much productivity and many, many funds. It
was difficult to correct, but they corrected it.
The point I am making, Mr. President, is that any business, any
family, any church, any community--it doesn't matter where --better
have the wake-up bell on full. This is an epidemic, and it is in our
backyard and our front yard.
Now, it also means you are talking about a classmate, a brother, or a
sister. Sometimes we lose the proportions of this when we talk about
numbers, such as 178 percent, 141 percent, 2 million people. Just
remember, Mr. President, that every one of those numbers is a personal
tragedy, and the tragedy goes far beyond the person that has been
embroiled in the use of drugs. It is going to affect everybody around
them--their family, their workplace, their school, their church.
[[Page S9688]]
Mr. President, about 4 months ago, I guess, I visited a youth
development center. I know the chair, along with all of us, is
constantly visiting places and trying to understand how they operate
and work. Sometimes you are never quite prepared. You go to so many
meetings like that, and you never really prepare yourself for them. The
poignancy of them hits you cold in the face.
In this youth development center, I met around 12 young females.
Their average age was 14 to 16. They agreed to come and talk to me
about what happened to them. I thought that was pretty courageous. One
by one, they walked around, and they represented every walk of life,
every income level, the mix of America. And they were there for
attempted murder, assault and battery, auto theft, you name it. You can
look at these groups of innocent faces and wonder how in the world this
could happen. In a word: drugs.
Every one of them had come there through a journey of drugs. Drugs
had caused them to lose control of their lives. Three of them said that
if they had not been arrested, they would be dead. I asked them, ``What
would you say to the youth of the country if you could speak to them?''
I wish we could have filmed this and have every teenager in our country
hear them talk.
Mr. President, they said, ``Don't do it. Do not do it.'' No. 2, they
said, ``You think that you can control these drugs, and you are wrong.
The drugs will take over.'' No. 3, they said, ``Never, ever use drugs
to enter a peer group or to be a part of it. If somebody wants you to
use drugs to be their friend, they are not your friend.''
I asked each of them, ``Well, how did you get started on this, and
how old were you?'' Every one of them got into drugs between the ages
of 8 and 11. Every one of them said drugs are everywhere. There was no
problem at all getting them. And every one of them acknowledged that
their lives would never be the same if they were lucky enough to get
over it. The damage to their families, the damage to their dreams, the
damage to their hopes and aspirations had in much part already
occurred. I wish every youngster could have heard that message.
Now, the Senator from Idaho was talking about message. In the article
I just read from the Post, we talked about the fact that we had lowered
interdiction budgets. We have heard various figures about shutting down
the drug czar's office. Yes, all of those things have had an affect and
are the underlying reason for this change of attitude among teenagers.
But, in my judgment, the single most profound change that has occurred
is in the message, what these very vulnerable citizens, these
youngsters aged 8 to 13, are hearing. I think everybody admits that the
Hollywood message is very, very disruptive, the glorification of drug
use. It is a great debate in our Nation.
The Senator from Texas talked about the role models that our great
sports heroes are to a very vulnerable population. And I believe that
professional athletics is going to have to step back and take a look at
what their contribution is here. Everywhere I went, somebody in the
audience would stand up and say, ``Well, what are we going to do about
the fact that a national athlete, a $20 million baby, gets involved in
drugs, and there is nothing that really happens about it?'' What does
that say to these girls, to these 8 to 12-year olds, Mr. President?
Mr. President, on June 16, 1992, on MTV, a youth-driven
communications system, the questioner asked the President of the United
States, ``If you had it to do over again, would you inhale?'' Candidate
Clinton: ``Sure, if I could. I tried before.'' [Laughter.]
Mr. President, the message is having a more profound affect on what
our young people think about drugs than probably all these other assets
we are talking about. I don't mean to suggest that we don't need to get
that drug czar's office back in line. I think the selection of General
McCaffrey is an excellent one. I wish he had been there all along. I
wish we weren't confronted with this epidemic. But the most profound
affect is what our leaders are saying to the country about drug use.
This cavalier response, and the fact that there are contemporary
employees of the White House who have recently broken the law and have
engaged in drug use, the remarks by the press office about it, the
remarks that were made by the first Surgeon General of this
administration flirting with legalization, that message races through
the country and very quickly sanctions, becomes nonthreatening to this
very, very young target of the drug cartels.
That is why I said earlier that we need a wake-up call at every level
including the White House. All of us need to be engaged in putting that
question mark in the head of every young person in America. This stuff
is dangerous. This stuff is life altering. This will have a profound
effect on you, your family, and your future. If that message begins to
resonate, it will become the first line of defense in this struggle
that we have with this new national epidemic. Message: What we say and
how we act influences--always has and always will--the children of any
country and any nation.
Mr. President, we have been joined by my colleague from Texas. I
yield up to 10 minutes to the distinguished Senator from Texas.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas is recognized for 10
minutes.
Mrs. HUTCHISON. Thank you, Mr. President, and I thank the Senator
from Georgia for starting off after Labor Day on this very important
issue.
Many of us were stunned when the first report came out that showed
the enormous leap in drug use and drug abuse in this country in the
last 3 years. We knew that it was a problem. But I do not think we
realized how big a problem this has become. In fact, I was privileged
to be able to see Mrs. Ronald Reagan, Nancy Reagan, who started the
``just say no'' whole effort when she was the First Lady of this
country. And I think she was a leader. She was prophetic.
I remember that people sort of ridiculed her in a way when she
started the ``just say no'' program. They sort of acted like, oh, you
know--that really was not cool. Well, it was proven by all of the
studies that in fact her willingness to stand up and say we need to go
out into our schools and tell our young people to just say no was in
fact very effective because it started the thinking of our young
people--that they did not have to be with their peers. They did not
have to be cool just because their peers would ridicule people who just
said no to drugs. In fact, it worked because she started the thinking
process in their minds. And the studies showed that between 1985 and
1992 drug use did go down.
I remember the ads on television of some of our sports stars talking
about the importance of keeping your body clean. That sold to our young
people. But then when President Clinton came into office and his
administration, he slashed the Office of Drug Control Policy from 147
people to 25 people. There was not a focus on this very important
issue. So the gains that were won during those earlier years went by
the wayside.
In the study that came out just recently in September 1995--the
National Household Survey on Drug Abuse from the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services--said that since 1992 marijuana use among
young people has increased an average of 50 percent. Marijuana use
jumped 137 percent among 12- to 13-year olds since 1992, and 200
percent among 14- and 15-year olds.
Mr. President, we used to worry about our high school kids. And we
still need to worry about our high school kids. We are talking junior
high and even elementary schoolchildren who are now being introduced to
marijuana and other kinds of drugs. And worse yet, of course, they are
being introduced to it by their peers because the drug dealers have
learned that if they can get a juvenile to do this crime that the
juvenile will not be subject to the same penalties.
So, Mr. President, it is going to take a concerted effort by the
President with his leadership, and by the Congress standing with the
President and saying enough is enough. Just say no makes a lot more
sense than just say nothing. We must not let a whole generation of our
young people think that we do not care about their minds and their
futures and their potential. We cannot let that happen, Mr. President.
We have to stand up and say we are going to do something about this and
we are going to take it from every level.
[[Page S9689]]
Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who is the new drug czar, is well aware of
this. I think he is a man who can handle this issue. He, too, believes
that having an annual drug awareness day is not enough for our young
people; that we must show how serious we are by stopping drugs at our
borders, by having education efforts, by having counseling efforts, by
having peer groups work with troubled youth. And he is going to try to
turn this around. But it is going to take more than just one person. It
is going to take all of us working together to try to turn back this
terrible increase that we are seeing. The national drug control
strategy should interdict drugs in Latin America and at our borders.
I am particularly hit by this because I have seen in my State what is
happening with the drugs coming from South America through Mexico and
right into Texas as well as New Mexico, Arizona, and California. But I
happen to be closer to it because my own ranchers are devastated by
what they are seeing. And they are frankly in a war with no defenses.
We have common ranchers who are now meeting drug warlords with
automatic weapons. And if a rancher objects to a drug lord coming
across his or her property along the border they will be shot down. It
has happened. They are so scared and so defenseless that the worst of
all things is now happening. They are having to sell their property.
Who do you think is giving them 10 times the worth? The drug dealers.
They are the only ones who can afford it.
So we are seeing drug dealers buying up the lands in remote parts of
our borders so that they will have a free trail right up through South
America through Mexico and into the United States. Mr. President, we
cannot let this happen. This is a war and we must treat it as a war. If
they had chemical weapons coming across our borders we would have an
all-out alert. We would declare a war. Well, Mr. President, this is
chemical weaponry. Drugs are chemical weapons that are ruining the
people, and especially the young people of our country.
So, Mr. President, we must get serious about this. I have seen it
firsthand. We must increase the number of Border Patrol agents. We must
use all the technology that we have available that we are not now
using. We have better technology than we are using. A drug enforcer can
sit in an office and survey for 25 miles and see movement. But we do
not have the up-to-date technology on our borders that is available to
us in this country right now, and we have to do something about that.
We have to stop the money laundering.
I was talking to a Border Patrol agent who said these people are
getting so bold that they stopped a man walking down the streets of one
of our border cities with a suitcase, dragging the suitcase along. And
when they stopped the man and opened the suitcase there was $3 million
in cash. That is incredible--that people would be dragging a suitcase
with $3 million of cash down the main street of a border community
right here in our own country because that money was headed right back
into the mainstream of America. That was clearly drug money.
So they think they can get by with this--that they would be so bold.
Well, we have to tell them that the time has come and we are not going
to allow the money laundering. We are not going to allow the buying up
of our property. We are not going to allow people to just come into our
country with chemical weapons against our young people.
We cannot let that happen. We are going to have to come at this from
all angles.
I thank the Senator from Georgia for working with us to make sure
that the people of this country know the seriousness of this issue and
to let the people of this country know that Congress is going to get
serious about it. We have to be able to work with the President to take
control of this cancer on our society.
I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator from Texas has
expired.
The Senator from Georgia.
Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Texas
particularly for the personal observations with regard to the property.
I have heard of that, but I have never heard it so vividly described as
the Senator from Texas just revealed, an unbelievable condition in her
State. I appreciate her bringing that to our attention.
I yield up to 7 minutes to the Senator from Missouri.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri is recognized for 7
minutes.
Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I thank my good friend and colleague from
Georgia for the time. I join with him in thanking our colleague from
Texas, Senator Hutchison, for describing the scope of the problem.
We have all seen the numbers in recent surveys, the percentage of
adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17 who admit to using drugs
within the last month. That increase has gone from 5.3 percent in 1992
to 10.9 percent in 1995. The statistics from these surveys show that
the use of LSD and hallucinogens is up anywhere from 183 percent,
cocaine up 166 percent, marijuana use up 144 percent. But there are
other factors that give us a better idea of the pervasiveness and the
impact that drugs are having in our country. When the Senator from
Texas tells about the Texas border and other places where ranchers are
threatened by drug lords--and we have heard the same thing from the
Senator from New Mexico [Mr. Domenici], talking about how the drug
efforts are really moving a foreign, hostile nation into our borders--
we ought to be seriously concerned; the problems are very acute in the
border areas.
There are some other statistics that are very alarming away from the
borders, in the heartland of the United States. In the August 21
edition of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, we had the very frightening
news that emergencies in the medical care units in St. Louis were up an
astounding amount as it relates to drugs. The overall increase in drug-
related emergencies nationally has gone up significantly, but St. Louis
for one had an even greater increase. Since 1992, heroin-related
emergencies are up 111 percent in St. Louis hospitals and medical care
facilities. That is even worse than the national rate, which is up 58
percent. We are talking about an explosion of emergencies linked to
heroin.
Now they say: Oh, well, it may not all be exactly statistically
related to the increase in drug use. It may be some bad heroin.
When you look at the numbers nationwide and you see these
emergencies, these are not people responding to a survey about whom we
may question their veracity. These are people who are hauled in in
serious condition to an emergency room. They are not deciding whether
or not to honestly answer a question of a survey. They are hoping to
start breathing again.
Cocaine-linked emergencies were up 38 percent in St. Louis in the
last 4 years. They are up 19 percent nationwide. Marijuana-related
emergencies increased 316 percent in St. Louis in the last 4 years.
There is no question, from whatever statistics you use, whether you
listen to the Senator from Texas talk about the problems of property
being taken over on the Texas-New Mexico-Arizona borders, whether you
read the general national statistics that drug use is up, whether you
take a look at the hospital and emergency-room-related emergencies, we
see a very clear pattern that drug use is up, the abuse of drugs is up,
and the problem for our society is getting worse, not better.
I believe that the Clinton administration has had countless failures
in this area, and they have even taken actions which might be conducive
to an atmosphere of permissiveness. The former Surgeon General, as has
been pointed out here before, advocated legalization of many drugs and
also advocated needle exchange programs for heroin addicts.
I served as the ranking member on the Treasury-Postal Appropriations
Committee and wondered why, in 1993, there was so much of a problem in
getting White House personnel security clearances. Well, it has come
out that some of the officials in the White House have had recent drug
use and among the drugs used were crack, powdered cocaine, and
hallucinogens. The administration proposed and we opposed decimating
the Office of National Drug Policy. But they were bringing into the
White House people who used drugs in recent times.
We saw significant cuts in the funding for the efforts against drug
importation. We saw cuts across the board.
[[Page S9690]]
We saw Customs cut significantly in terms of the efforts. The DEA has
been cut by 227 agents. The FBI had proposed cuts of significance. All
of these areas were where we are fighting on the front line against the
importation, the trafficking and the use of drugs through law
enforcement efforts. I think a primary goal of drug control policy must
be to reduce the amount of cocaine entering the United States.
Interdiction programs target source countries in the transit zone,
about 2 million square miles between the United States and South
American borders, including Central America, Mexico, Caribbean Sea, and
the Caribbean Islands. About 780 metric tons of cocaine are produced
each year in South America, and about 30 percent is shipped through the
Caribbean into the United States, Puerto Rico, and Mexico.
Funding for interdiction declined from $1 billion in 1992 to $569
million in fiscal year 1995. There was no funding increase in source-
country activities. So the overall funding was decreased by nearly
half. As a result, cocaine seizures are down from 70,000 kilograms in
1992 to 37,000 kilograms in 1995. DOD funding for interdiction is down.
Coast Guard funding for drug interdiction is down.
I think the executive branch needs to develop a plan to implement a
national interdiction strategy. Agencies have their own plans, but they
need the coordination of the ONDP. We need to get serious once again
about the war on drugs.
I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
Mr. COVERDELL. I know our time has expired. I ask unanimous consent
for 2 minutes just to wrap up this session.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. COVERDELL. I thank the Senator from Missouri. I think he has
reinforced everything we have been saying all afternoon. It does not
matter what community you are in, whether St. Louis or Gwinnett County,
GA, we are in the midst of a new epidemic.
Just to summarize, major policy with regard to the management of the
drug issue in the United States has been changed. The message has been
either nonexistent or acquiescent, and as a result we have produced
headlines like the Marietta Daily Journal, ``Georgia Crime Rate Reaches
New High. Juveniles Are More Apt To Break the Law.'' Or, in the now
famous Gwinnett Daily Post, ``Juvenile Drug Cases Up 738 Percent Over
1992.''
The first wake-up call has to be in our communities. Every
policymaker has to get the message right. Drugs are not good and drugs
will do enormous damage. Teenagers, do not use it. Listen to those
little ladies, those friends in the Macon Youth Development Center,
when they said: ``Don't use drugs. Don't think you can control them.
Never use drugs to be a part of a clique, a group. Just say no.''
I yield the floor.
____________________