[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 27 (Wednesday, March 5, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E375-E376]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                   DRUG-FREE COMMUNITIES ACT OF 1997

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. ROB PORTMAN

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, March 5, 1997

  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, today I am pleased to introduce with my 
colleagues, the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Hastert], the gentleman 
from Michigan [Mr. Levin], and the gentleman from New York [Mr. 
Rangel], the Drug-Free Communities Act of 1997. This bipartisan 
legislation represents a new effort in Congress to rechannel existing 
Federal drug control resources into support for locally-based, 
community anti-drug efforts that are working to reduce teenage drug 
abuse around the country. Now is clearly the time for action on this 
issue.
  Tragically, after more than a decade of substantial progress in 
reducing drug abuse in America from 1979 to 1991, the trends have now 
reversed. Marijuana use alone has tripled among 8th graders and more 
than doubled among 10th and 12th graders; significantly, daily use has 
increased dramatically during this period so that today, one in 20 of 
today's high school seniors use marijuana daily. And, the marijuana of 
today--because of the chemical THC content--is up to 15 times stronger 
than the marijuana of the 1970's. Use of cocaine, crack cocaine, 
amphetamine stimulants, barbiturates and heroin among teenagers are all 
on the rise. LSD use is at its highest recorded level.
  These statistics from the University of Michigan's Monitoring the 
Future Study are quite troubling, but the anecdotal evidence in the 
field--the real human stories about drug use and the impact it has on 
the lives of our young people--is even more compelling and brings home 
to each one of us the need to do something very tangible that can help 
address this problem, community by community.
  A courageous woman from my district, Patty Gilbert, came to 
Washington, D.C. to tell me about the tragic story of her 16-year-old 
son, Jeff Gardner. Jeff combined smoking marijuana with huffing 
gasoline one day and lost his life. A whole future gone because of a 
lack of understanding of the real risks of drug use. Twenty-one high 
school students were expelled from a public school in my district for 
LSD, cocaine and marijuana use. The stories of death and lost 
opportunities go on and on. And such stories are common today in every 
area of the country.
  If we are going to design sensible public policies, we have to 
understand what is driving increases in drug abuse among our young 
people. It is a complicated issue and there are no silver bullets. Two 
key factors seem to directly correlate with increases in drug use. When 
kids view drug use as socially acceptable--when peer norms are soft--
drug use rises. When our young people view drug use as less dangerous, 
again, drug use rises. So, basically, this problem comes down to a 
problem of eroding attitudes about the acceptability and risks 
associated with drug abuse.
  The good news is that we are not powerless to solve this problem. We 
have done it before as a Nation and we can do it again. The key 
question in my mind, however, is how do we do this over the long haul, 
and bring some national leadership where it ultimately has to be on 
this problem--at the community, neighborhood and family levels.

  The Drug-Free Communities Act of 1997 is designed to do just that and 
to do it in a smart, cost-efficient fashion. This bipartisan 
legislation is built on the belief that the local community commitment 
is absolutely essential to solving the drug problem, year in and year 
out. It recognizes that community venture capital and major sector 
involvement are the keys to solving our Nation's drug problem. In order 
to receive a Federal matching grant under this program, communities 
must first demonstrate a comprehensive, long-term commitment to 
reducing substance abuse. Experience in the field, good research and 
common sense tell us that communities that have every major sector 
involved in implementing strategies to reduce drug abuse are the most 
effective. That is why this legislation supports those communities that 
have mobilized youth, parents, businesses, faith leaders, law 
enforcement, educators and other key sectors and have been working 
together for at least 6 months with a focused mission and targeted 
strategies.
  The local community must also demonstrate that there is substantial 
local will to address the substance abuse problems in that community. 
Without that local will, no program can survive over the long-run. In 
fact, one of my concerns with the CSAP Community Partnership Program is 
that grants were given to communities that did not always have strong 
non-Federal financial and other support. During its 6-year life, the 
CSAP Community Partnership Program has made at least 252 grants, 
typically ranging from $350,000 to $700,000, to local community 
programs; today, we understand that only 137 of these programs survive. 
It seems to me that the Federal Government should be providing 
important early support to communities that will continue to sustain 
the effort with our without the Federal Government.
  Another key aspect of the Drug-Free Communities Act is that it 
requires the local coalition or effort to have a system of evaluation 
in place. One of the criticisms of Federal programs that support State 
and local initiatives has been that such programs lack any 
accountability. Instead of trying to measure outcomes and do 
evaluations at the Federal level, which would require a large 
bureaucracy and would not necessarily produce any better results, the 
onus is on the local coalition to put in place a system that measures 
its progress--including outcomes, such as whether teenage drug abuse is 
declining--over time. It is our experience that those efforts around 
the country that are making a difference already have good systems of 
evaluation in place. They have to have such systems in order to justify 
their continued existence. The question is how such efforts can add 
value and a system of performance measures is critical to determining 
that.
  The Federal support provided under this program redirects, at its 
height, less than three-tenths of 1 percent of existing money from the 
$16 billion Federal drug control budget to support, dollar for dollar 
up to $100,000 per community, local community efforts. This is another 
check to ensure that there is local will. Not one Federal dollar will 
be spent under this program without a dollar or more generated by the 
local community.

  Talking to community coalitions and groups around the country that 
are successfully implementing strategies to combat teenage drug abuse 
shores up the need for the Federal Government to provide incremental 
support. A few examples.
  Ronda Kopelke from the North Woods Coalition in Marshfield, WI, 
wrote: ``If you have Federal support based on community buy-in, then it 
can help us leverage support from the community. A small grant from the 
Federal Government--even $5,000--could enable our coalition to build a 
regional youth alliance, send youth to camp to learn drug and alcohol 
strategies and to hire a part-time person to marshal the volunteers 
necessary to sustain the effort over time.''
  Marilyn Culp, executive director of the highly successful Miami 
Coalition covering 1.8 million people in Miami, FL, said that a 
$100,000 grant from the Federal Government would enable the coalition 
to leverage an additional $300,000-$400,000 from the private sector, 
expanding the effort to train parents, to communicate drug-free 
messages on billboards, and to enhance the many other activities that 
have made the Miami Coalition so effective. Ms. Culp also reports that 
under the current CSAP grant program the Federal reporting requirements 
are so cumbersome, that she had to hire a person just to comply with 
those requirements. Coalition leaders around the country have echoed 
this concern.
  Don Lynch of the Port Gamble S'Klallam Tribes in the State of 
Washington is trying to develop a comprehensive adolescent treatment 
program. While there is substantial volunteer participation in the 
effort--in fact, one of the program's mottoes is ``chi-e-che'', which 
means ``helper''--some small support from the Federal Government will 
enable the hiring of a full-time adolescent counselor and additional 
private support can be leveraged to sustain the effort over time.
  Karen Hoff, Director of the Clean Focus Coalition in Charles Town, 
WV, is implementing a peer mediation program which helps kids resist 
peer pressure to take drugs and teaches them life-enhancing decision-
making skills. This program could be fully up and running with $3,000. 
With $2,000 from the Federal Government, a locally supported parent 
education program could be expanded to reach 1,000 parents in the 
Charles Town area.
  The stories go on and on, but the point is that a small amount of 
Federal support that

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tracks strong local will can help local communities have a greater 
impact in their own regions.
  To ensure that this program maintains the sophistication to give 
support only to those efforts that are truly working, while maintaining 
the flexibility to permit communities to continue to fashion local 
solutions, an advisory commission or board of trustees is charged with 
helping to select the administrator and to overseeing the program. 
Local community leaders and experts at the national and State levels in 
the field of substance abuse prevention and treatment will be able to 
review grant applications, and policies and criteria relating to the 
program. Those who are working directly in the field--on the front 
lines of the drug problem--will be able to offer valuable input to 
those administering the program.
  The Drug-Free Communities Act of 1997 is our effort to redirect 
Federal drug control policy to help support local communities. We 
believe it is fully consistent with the National Drug Control Strategy, 
which includes as part of its No. 1 goal, support of community anti-
drug coalition efforts. We look forward to working with our colleagues 
on a bipartisan basis and with the administration to help communities 
throughout our country reduce substance abuse.

                          ____________________