[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 143 (Wednesday, October 22, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10922-S10923]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          DRUG-FREE IOWA MONTH

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, as chairman of the International 
Narcotics Control Caucus, sometimes called the drug caucus of the U.S. 
Senate, I periodically report to the Senate on trends in the use of 
drugs and the dangers thereof that go on in our society.
  This month of October in my State of Iowa is called Drug-Free Month. 
I want to bring my colleagues' attention to this fact and the reason 
for it. Iowa has only 2.8 million people. As you know, it is largely a 
rural State. Des Moines, our largest city, numbers fewer citizens than 
one of the suburbs of some of our Nation's big cities. There are more 
people in the Los Angeles area or Chicago than in all of my State of 
Iowa. We are a closely knit community, proud of our commitment to 
families and the virtues of self-reliance, hard work and personal 
responsibilities.
  These facts, however, do not mean that Iowa is isolated from the 
mainstream or provincial in its thinking. This also does not mean that 
Iowa is free of the problems that beset States with larger cities and 
more people. We, in Iowa, unfortunately, see our share of gang violence 
and teen drug use. Indeed, Iowa shares in the growing drug problems 
among the young, the same that troubles the rest of the Nation. The 
fact that this problem reaches beyond our larger States and beyond our 
big cities into our rural heartland should tell us something about the 
far-reaching nature of our national--and I emphasize national--drug 
problem.
  According to recent numbers from my State of Iowa, as many as 11 
percent of our high school seniors are regular users of marijuana. This 
number is up dramatically from just a few years ago. This number is 
growing as more kids at even younger ages no longer see using heroin as 
risky or dangerous. In the last few years, the number of regular users 
has grown steadily, whether it is in Iowa or across the country. In 
addition, we know from experience and research that as marijuana use 
goes up, so does drug use of other varieties.
  We now have a major problem in my State of Iowa in methamphetamine. 
This problem has exploded in just the last few years, paralleling the 
trend in the West and the rest of the Midwest. Reports of treatment 
episodes for meth problems in my State of Iowa soared over 300 percent 
between 1994 and 1995. The trend continues. Just as troubling is the 
effort by the criminal gangs to site the labs that produce and sell 
this poison to our kids in Iowa. This is something that we are seeing 
through the West and Midwest, and the problem is moving eastward.
  The lab problem is a double whammy. The labs produce a dangerous drug 
that poisons the hearts and souls of our kids and then they create a 
very dangerous environmental hazard requiring cleanup wherever the labs 
are found. Cleanup is risky, dangerous, costly. Many of our local fire 
and police departments lack the resources or the training to deal with 
the problem of cleaning up meth labs.
  This problem and the trends that I have noted are not unique to Iowa. 
They are indicative of what is happening across the country. They are 
happening because we have lost our fear of drugs. We have let our guard 
down. Into that environment drug pushers and drug legalizers have 
stepped in to do their own song and dance. They are making gains; we 
are losing ground. And it is the kids who are paying the price.
  Two very important concerns are being missed. The first is the 
serious nature of the growing drug use among kids. The second is the 
growing tendency to regard this trend with complacency, or worse, to go 
along with the drift into a de facto legalization of dangerous drugs. 
The last time we as a country did this we landed ourselves into the 
midst of a major drug epidemic. We were just beginning to dig ourselves 
out from the 1970's and 1980's. Now it seems the earlier lessons are 
forgotten.
  There is no way to put a happy face on what is happening. It is not 
hard to describe. It is not difficult to understand. It is not beyond 
our power to do something about it. Yet what is happening is happening 
right under our very noses, and to date what we are doing about it is 
not working. This is what is happening:
  Between 1992 and 1995, marijuana use among kids aged 12 to 17 has 
more than doubled--from 1.4 million to 3.1 million. More than 50 
percent of the high school seniors have used drugs before graduation; 
22 percent of the class of 1996 were current users of marijuana. LSD 
use by teens has reached record levels. Evidence indicates that the 
current hard-core addict population is not declining.
  Hospital emergency room admissions for cocaine-related episodes in 
1995, the last year for which there is complete information, were 19 
percent above the 1992 levels. Heroin admissions increased almost 60 
percent. Drugs of every sort remain available and of high quality at 
cheap prices while the social disapproval has declined, especially 
among policy leaders and opinion makers.
  Hollywood and the entertainment industry are back in the business of 
glorifying drug use in movies and on TV. There is a well-funded 
legalization effort that seeks to exploit public concerns about health 
care issues to push drug legalization, most often under the guise of 
medical marijuana.
  Opinion polls among kids indicate that drugs and drug-related 
violence are their main concerns. They also make it clear that drugs 
are readily available in schools, and the kids as young as 9 and 10 
years are being approached by drug pushers in school or on the way to 
school.
  This is only part of what is happening. Taken together, what these 
things indicate is that we are experiencing a rapid increase in teenage 
drug use and abuse. This comes after years of progress and decline in 
use. These changes are undoing all of the progress

[[Page S10923]]

that we had made during the 1980's. If the trend continues, our next 
drug epidemic will be worse than the last one. We will not only have 
the walking wounded from our last epidemic--there are over 3 million 
hard-core addicts--we will also have a new generation of substance-
dependent kids moving into adulthood. As we learned, or as we should 
have learned during the last time that we went through this, this 
dependence is not a short-term problem. For many addicts, it is a 
lifetime sentence.
  For the communities, families, and the Nation that must deal with 
these people and with the problems associated with it, it is also often 
an open-ended commitment.
  Along with this comes all the associated violence that has made many 
of our inner cities and suburban neighborhoods dangerous places. Not to 
mention the medical and related costs in the tens of billions of 
dollars annually. And all of this for something that advocates reassure 
us is purely a personal choice without serious consequences. This is 
one of those remarks that should not survive the laugh test.
  The fact that it does, however, and people can somehow make light 
that personal choice of drug use is not something to worry about and 
doesn't have serious consequences is an indicator of our problem in 
coming to terms with the drug use.
  In the last 5 years, the record on drugs has gotten worse. Pure and 
simple. It's not because we are spending any less on the effort. 
Indeed, the drug budget has grown every year. One of the first acts of 
the Republican Congress was to increase the money devoted to combat 
drugs. Yet, the numbers on drug use grow worse.
  One of the leading causes of that is a lack of leadership at the top. 
The President and First Lady in previous administrations were visible 
on the drug issue. That is not now the case. The present occupant of 
the White House has put a great deal of emphasis on tobacco but he has 
been the Man Who Never Was on illegal drugs. More than this, the 
message about both the harmfulness and, just as important the 
wrongfulness of illegal drug use has been allowed to disappear. I leave 
to others to determine if the President's absence is because his 
advisors believe he has no credibility on the issue or simply do not 
care. Whatever the explanation, the result is an ambiguous message or 
no message.
  If we could have the same message coming out of the White House on 
illegal drugs as we do on tobacco, I think we would be much further 
along on the road to victory on the war against drugs.
  We need to be consistent in our no-use message on illegal drugs. To 
be ambiguous or complacent or indifferent sends the wrong message. The 
recipients of that muddled message are kids. The consequences of 
garbled messages can be seen in changes in attitudes about drugs, and 
in drug use numbers among kids at earlier and earlier ages. We cannot 
afford this type of unmindfulness.
  That is why we are having Drug-Free Iowa Month. We need to come 
together as a community to recognize the threat and deal with it. We 
need community leaders involved. We need our schools, politicians, 
business, entertainment, sports, and religious figures to be aware of 
the problem and engaged to deal with it. We can make a difference, but 
that begins with awareness. It requires an effort. It requires 
sustaining that effort.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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