[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 18 (Monday, March 2, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1184-S1186]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             LOSING OUR WAY

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, there is an old saying that reminds us 
that

[[Page S1185]]

when you have no idea of where you're going, any road will get you 
there. Well, that wisdom explains a lot about our current national drug 
strategy. It's a poor little lamb that has lost its way. The 
administration has never made drug control a serious element in its 
policies. Oh, we have had all the right sound bites. But we have not 
had the sound efforts. Not now, not from the beginning. We are paying 
the price for this inattention. In this and a subsequent statement, I 
will explain in more detail why I believe our national drug efforts are 
in disarray. Why they need more attention, more oversight, and more 
consistency.
  I remind you, Mr. President, that this administration opened its 
doors for business with a move to gut the Office of National Drug 
Control Policy. It then began a process of cutting support to law 
enforcement, interdiction, and international control efforts. That 
process continued until the Congress reversed the trend in 1995. Even 
then, the administration did not change its tune on drug policy until 
the 1996 campaign. To those who might believe that none of this made 
any difference anyway, let me remind you of some disturbing facts.
  Let me begin with a reminder of why we have a drug policy. We have a 
drug control policy because this country has a big appetite for illegal 
drugs. We have a major problem with addiction because we have a lot of 
hardcore users and new initiates. We have the hardcore user problem 
because we ignored all the warning signs about drug use in the 1960's 
and 1970's and early 1980's. It was not until we woke up one morning to 
find many of our kids hooked and out streets war zones for traffickers 
that we understood our mistake. Although we began late, we did begin to 
address the problem of drug use, production, and trafficking.
  Despite what many believe, the war on drugs in the late 1980's and 
early 1990's was not a failure. Indeed, there is not a single other 
major social program into which we put money and effort that can 
demonstrate the significant progress we made in reducing teen drug use. 
We were less successful with hardcore addicts. But, as anyone who knows 
who has dealt with well-established addiction, there is no cure. Even 
success is measured in multiple treatment episodes.
  Treatment can stretch over a lifetime with limited results. A typical 
addict may go through treatment a dozen times, and success does not 
always mean ending addiction--only the moderation of use. Thus, our 
folly in the 1960's and after in ignoring the dangers of drug use, laid 
the foundations for an addict population that remains a problem today. 
But we had made great strides in convincing a new generation of kids to 
say no to drugs. The results were dramatic and, if sustained, promised 
to return us, gradually, to a largely drug-free community.
  But, as I have noted here before, we did not sustain the successes. 
We did not sustain the effort. The present administration shifted our 
priorities and our messages. We were told that we needed more focus on 
treatment. We were told we needed less talk about enforcement. We were 
told all these changes would be better. We were assured drug use would 
stay down. What happened? Well, the results are in. They have been 
accumulating for years.
  They tell a revealing tale: Teen drug use reversed the downward 
trend. It is now on the rise and getting worse. The age of onset of use 
dropped to younger kids. Negative attitudes about the dangers of drug 
use went south. The legalization movement found a bag man to fund its 
efforts and is active on many fronts all over the country. We now see 
Hollywood and our music moguls back to pushing drug themes in movies 
and music. We see our major companies and advertisers dropping support 
to drug-free advertising. We see our major networks give less attention 
to this advertising. And now we know what happens. The consequence has 
been a growing drug crisis among our kids. This is no accident. We saw 
decisions made on wrong assumptions that have got us to this state. 
It's embarrassing and it's frustrating. And the administration still is 
lagging behind. It is just not serious. Having said this, let me give 
you just a few examples to illustrate the point.
  I started by noting the cuts at the drug czar's office from the early 
days of the administration. That was not an isolated event. We saw the 
problem beginning with the White House's whole cavalier attitude toward 
drug use and drug testing among employees there. We saw it continued by 
the I-didn't-inhale atmosphere. As a result, we lost the ``Just Say 
No'' message from the start. But there was more than this. The 
administration also began to reduce support to interdiction and law 
enforcement. This has been well documented and I won't repeat that now. 
Suffice it to say that the administration substituted reducing supply 
reduction for reducing supply. The legacy of neglect and indifference 
continues.
  Let me illustrate my point with a number of concrete examples. What 
these various cases I am going to talk about illustrate, when added 
together, is the lack of seriousness by the administration on drug 
policy. They are illustrative of the fragmented, incoherent thinking 
that has contributed to our growing crisis of teenage use.
  In these remarks, I will focus on domestic issues. Later, I will 
discuss international problems. In either case, we have a peck of 
trouble.
  Let me begin with some of those troubles. In the past 5 years of this 
administration, drug use among kids has doubled over the levels before 
it took office. Those increases came on top of almost a decade of 
declines. Although the use numbers are from every major survey of drug 
use, many the government's own numbers, the administration continues to 
argue that drug use is down. The President did this most recently in 
releasing the National Strategy and his State of the Union Address. He 
takes credit for this. How does the administration explain the 
difference between the claims and the facts? Simple. It charts drug use 
trends from the 1980's, when the numbers were getting better, in order 
to disguise present trends, when the numbers are getting worse. It also 
plays fast and loose with the figures.
  They make the numbers work for them by doing what is called ``data 
slicing.'' What that means is that you focus on only one part of the 
data while ignoring the whole. Thus, in discussing the most recent 
teenage drug use survey, the administration makes much of the fact that 
use among eighth graders went down. What the administration did not 
say, however, is that use was up in every other category. And, it 
failed to note that the indicators of use being down among eighth 
graders was not statistically significant.
  This is what the Wall Street Journal had to say:

       Clearly, the recent data from the Monitoring the Future 
     Study are far more discouraging than the president has 
     implied. If the president and his administration insist on 
     talking credit for negligible improvements in relatively 
     small cohorts, then they must accept responsibility for the 
     overall dismal record that they have complied over five 
     years.

  The figures are there for anyone to look at. The Washington-based 
research organization, the Statistical Assessment Service, did just 
that in their annual survey of the abuse of research and statistics. As 
this research organization noted, someone has being playing with the 
numbers. I offer a Washington Post story noting their findings and ask 
unanimous consent it be printed in the Record at the end of my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, is so ordered.
  [See exhibit 1.]
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, this playing with the numbers is of a 
piece with another fact. The administration has consistently avoided 
providing Congress and the public with accountable standards of 
performance on drug control as required by law. Although the law 
creating the national drug strategy requires annual quantifiable 
performance measures, this administration has not complied with the law 
from its first day. Although the present drug czar has repeatedly 
promised such standards, we have yet to see them. And what they propose 
to send us is not a report on performance but a methodology for 
reporting on performance.
  If that system is ever put into place, we won't seek any 
accountability based on them until after this administration leaves 
office. Does this oversight strike you as paying serious attention to 
drug policy? Not to mention the law?
  But this is not all. What the administration has also proposed is a 
formula

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for downgrading the whole effort to have a national strategy. The 
administration's proposal for reauthorizing the drug czar's office 
drops the idea of a national strategy for an annual report. It proposes 
a 10-year strategy document instead. The effect of this sleight-of-hand 
is to reduce the drug strategy to a proforma exercise, which, by the 
way, is another means to dodge accountability. This administration will 
leave office without ever having provided a serious accounting for its 
drug policy. If present trends continue, it will leave office having 
presided over a renewed drug epidemic.
  It is in keeping with a number of other things the administration has 
done to signal its real feelings about the war on drugs.
  In keeping with this pattern, this administration has one of the 
worst records I know of in responding to congressional requests. I am 
not talking about responding to all the requests for information in 
response to major investigations. I am talking about responses to the 
normal business of Government. I am still waiting for the Immigration 
and Naturalization Service and the Justice Department to respond to 
questions from a hearing last May. Lest you think the questions were a 
burden, I only asked three. I am still waiting.
  We only recently received responses from the administration to a 
hearing from last October, and not even all those are in. I also have 
requests of or correspondence to the Department of Defense, Health and 
Human Services, Justice, and others that are months old. It routinely 
takes this administration, 3, 4, 5, even 6 months to answer a letter, 
respond to a request, or provide answers to complete the record of 
hearings. And the answers are often pretty slim and uncommunicative. 
This is an administration that needs to do a lot of explaining.
  The administration is now proposing to undermine the laws on cocaine 
sentencing. Let me note at the outset, that contrary to the impression 
in some quarters, the United States does not, I repeat, does not fill 
its jails with nonviolent drug offenders. It does not fill its jails 
with simple users. The majority of felons in our jails for drug crimes 
are there for trafficking and violent crimes. In the face of the drug 
epidemic, Congress passed and the public supported tougher sentencing 
for dealers and traffickers who pushed crack to our kids.
  Now, however, the administration is planning to walk backwards on 
crack. The administration plans to deal with a disparity in crack and 
powder cocaine sentencing by reducing sentencing for crack. Instead of 
lowering the boom they're lowering the standards. This is hardly a 
message to be sending at a time when use of drugs is on the rise. But 
it is in character with what we have seen.
  From our borders to our streets, we see a similar image. We see 
disarray and a lack of seriousness. Let me share with you one last 
example to illustrate why I am a little frustrated. Recently, $3.5 
million was set aside on ONDCP's budget to assist parent groups in 
prevention work with youth. Keep that number, $3.5 million in mind. 
Remember, it was intended to support parent groups. Also keep in mind 
that these groups have a long track record of working with parents on 
drug prevention. Now, here goes. Of that $3.5 million, ONDCP pocketed 
$500,000 that did not go to the parent groups. That leaves $3 million. 
So far so good. That money was transferred to the Center for Substance 
Abuse Prevention (CSAP) at HHS. Of that, it appears that CSAP kept 
$600,000, presumably for administrative costs. That leaves $2.4 million 
for parent groups. Of that, CSAP awarded a private contractor, with no 
experience in parent movements and drug prevention, some $900,000. The 
purpose was to develop a program for parent groups. Never mind that the 
parent groups were the experts. Never mind that the contractor then had 
to spend its money talking to these same parent groups on how to help 
parent groups. Never mind that the parent groups have disavowed the 
resulting study and the proposed prevention effort as unworkable. That 
left roughly $1.5 million for the parent groups. That is to be spread 
over 2 years. It is to be shared by several different groups. The 
result? Each group will receive less than $70,000 a year, hardly enough 
to cover their costs. Is it any wonder that so many prevention groups 
have a hearty dislike for CSAP. This is hardly a reassuring story. It 
is, unfortunately, not atypical. It is a small example that explains a 
lot.
  These are only some of the examples of problems in our drug control 
program. I will have more to say about failures and shortcomings in our 
international efforts later. The story there is just as grim.

                               Exhibit 1

                  Dubious Data Made Headlines in 1997

       Each year at this time, the Statistical Assessment Service, 
     a Washington research organization that abbreviates itself 
     STATS, releases its annual list of the most absurd, amusing 
     and alarming science and statistical news stories of 1997.
       Herewith, a few of the group's choices. The full list may 
     be found on the World Wide Web at www.stats.org.
 Study Links Cancer Deaths to Site--Associated Press, Sept. 
     11.
       The AP reported on a new study that linked low levels of 
     radioactivity to cancer deaths among nuclear workers. The 
     researchers found that 29 percent of all deaths among former 
     employees of the Rocketdyne Santa Susana Field Laboratory 
     were attributable to cancer.
       Sounds pretty scary, but compared to what? For the general 
     population, 35 percent of all deaths of those between 44 and 
     65 years of age are attributable to cancer, as are 25 percent 
     for all deaths of those over 44, according to the National 
     Center for Health Statistics. So the workers died from cancer 
     at about the same rate as anyone else.


                      your child's brain on drugs

       Teen Drug Use Dips Down--Associated Press, Aug. 7.
       Drug Use Rising Among Young Adults--Associated Press, a few 
     hours later the same day.
       These dueling headlines were based on the same National 
     Household Study on Drug Abuse survey, which found that 
     illicit drug use among the young was up, alarmingly in some 
     cases. The AP's first headline and the story accompanying it 
     illustrate the perils of data slicing--focusing on only one 
     segment of the study population--and a failure to appreciate 
     a concept called statistical significance. According to the 
     study, young people between ages 12 and 15 did report a 
     slight decline in the use of marijuana.
       But another age bracket, dubbed ``young adults'' 18 to 25, 
     showed a significant increase in marijuana use. More 
     importantly, the drop among younger people was not 
     statistically significant, which means there's a fair chance 
     that the apparent decrease was due to sampling error.


                        younger than springtime

       Premature Puberty: Is Early Sexual Development the Price of 
     Pollution?--E-The Environmental Magazine, Nov./Dec. issue.
       In April, a study published in the medical journal 
     Pediatrics reported that the mean age of onset of 
     menstruation occurred at 12.2 years for African American 
     girls and 12.9 years for white girls.
       As The Washington Post correctly reported, this meant that 
     American girls were ``developing pubertal characteristics at 
     younger ages than currently used norms,'' which were based on 
     a study of British girls in the 1950s.
       But many journalists interpreted the findings as an 
     alarming new trend toward lower ages for puberty.
       This produced scary headlines such as ``Girls Facing the 
     Perils of Puberty Earlier'' (Hartford Courant), ``Puberty 
     Find Could Point to Danger'' (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) and 
     ``Girls Hitting Puberty at an Earlier Age; Some Worry 
     Environmental Estrogens Could be Behind a New Study's 
     Findings'' (Des Moines Register).
       These fears of pollution-induced puberty ignored the fact 
     that, as The Post reported, ``the age at which girls first 
     menstruate hasn't changed much since 1950.''
  Mr. GRASSLEY. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. 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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