[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 54 (Tuesday, May 5, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H2777-H2778]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


     SOUTH DAKOTANS SEND MESSAGE OF ZERO TOLERANCE IN WAR ON DRUGS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from South Dakota (Mr. Thune) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. Speaker, I would like to follow up this evening for 
just a moment on the discussion that the gentleman from Florida started 
earlier, having to do with the whole war on drugs.
  When we discuss the war on drugs in America today, we hear a lot 
about the phrase ``zero tolerance.'' I think zero tolerance means 
different things in different places. What I would like to do today is 
talk a little bit about the definition of zero tolerance in my home 
State of South Dakota.
  We are fortunate in South Dakota to have a relatively low crime rate 
compared with other parts of the country. In fact, we never really 
thought that we had a drug problem. Drugs were something that were 
dealt with in the metropolitan areas of this country and, frankly, we 
did not think much about drugs in rural America.
  But that is changing, due in part to a new drug called 
methamphetamine, or ``meth,'' or ``crank'' for short. In 1997, meth 
seizures in South Dakota doubled. Oftentimes this drug makes it into 
the Midwest from Mexico via the interstate. It is becoming a heartland 
epidemic in neighboring States like Iowa and Missouri as well.
  Last year South Dakota joined Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, and Missouri in 
being designated as part of the high-intensity drug trafficking area. 
The drug lends itself to rural areas. Manufacturing methamphetamine is 
a messy and smelly process. Cooking up meth creates a pungent, easily 
detectable odor.
  As a result, many meth manufacturers choose to set up in rural areas. 
They find an old building on a abandoned Midwestern farmstead and they 
are in business. If they have access to an interstate highway, they 
have a way to ship it out. Once they are in business, the rural nature 
of our communities make it very difficult to catch the dealers. In 
fact, it is pretty hard. My colleagues can imagine trying to get an 
undercover narcotics agent slipped into a town of 300 people, 
unnoticed.
  The close-knit neighborliness, which has so long insulated us in 
rural areas

[[Page H2778]]

from drug problems, is now working against us as we fight this drug. 
But we are fighting it. In South Dakota, zero tolerance means zero 
tolerance.
  Just yesterday, drug agents in Lincoln County, South Dakota brought 
drug dogs in to do an unannounced search of cars parked outside a high 
school. The drug dogs inspected 21 cars. Officers searched 7. Marijuana 
or drug paraphernalia were found in 5. All five students are charged in 
either adult or juvenile court. Now, school administrators said they 
were not notified in advance about the search, and they say if they had 
been notified, they would have invited the officers inside to search 
not just cars but lockers, too.
  Law enforcement officials in South Dakota tell me that school 
officials do not just give lip service to the phrase ``zero 
tolerance.'' They back it by cooperating with and inviting law officers 
in for random unannounced searches. As a result, school searches have 
increased from 43 in 1995 to 103 in 1997.
  And school officials are not the only ones who support it. Law 
enforcement officers tell me that students support it as well. The vast 
majority of kids in America do not want to be offered drugs in the 
hallways of their schools. The vast majority of kids want to feel safe, 
secure, and free from peer pressure when they go to their lockers to 
get their books. Most kids know it is easier to say no if there are no 
drugs in school to start with, in the first place, to say no to. And 
most kids are fully behind the zero tolerance policy.
  And so are their parents. When South Dakota law enforcement officers 
bring those dogs into the school, they know they are doing so with the 
full support of parents, teachers, and students. That allows them to 
bring meaning back into the phrase ``zero tolerance.''
  We will not achieve zero tolerance unless we have everyone's 
cooperation and support. Parents say they want drug free schools, but 
are they prepared to face up to the fact that their child may be the 
one who is dealing drugs in school? Are they prepared to look for the 
signs of drug use and take action when they see them? Are they prepared 
to lead by example?
  Less than a week ago a 24-year-old woman, with four children under 
the age of 7, was arrested for selling methamphetamine to two 17-year-
olds, a 16-year-old and a 15-year-old. She was indicted on eight felony 
drug charges, including distributing methamphetamine to children while 
raising four children of her own.
  Another law enforcement officer said he recently arrested a 15-year-
old girl on drug charges. She was buying the drugs from her boyfriend. 
She was buying them for her mother. These parents are not sending the 
right message to the children of America. The message of zero tolerance 
is the message we ought to be sending.
  There is a serious cultural breakdown in America today in the message 
that we are sending to our young people. Now, students can say they 
want drug free schools, but are they prepared to stand up to the peer 
pressure and say no when push comes to shove? Are they prepared to take 
a stand personally, irrespective and regardless of the consequences?
  We are all responsible for ridding our schools and communities of 
drugs. Parents have to teach kids how to say no. Kids have to put the 
training to work. And teachers and law enforcement officers have to do 
everything in their power to keep those drugs from entering our schools 
in the first place. We need to stop this problem. It is one we have to 
work together on.

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