[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 126 (Monday, September 21, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10652-S10653]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         DRUGS IN THE HEARTLAND

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, during the last week of the August 
recess, I traveled around Iowa launching a statewide antidrug coalition 
effort. I have been working on putting this program together for the 
last 2 years. It is an effort to bring together elements from all 
across my State from all areas of life to deal with the growing drug 
problem. I have spoken often about this problem here and in many of my 
public speeches. While we often hear about drug use in our inner 
cities, we are, perhaps, a little less prepared to learn about major 
drug use problems in our rural areas. Well, it's here and it is every 
bit as serious as drug use in our major urban centers. On my trip 
around Iowa, a young man named Josh, all of 15 years old, joined me.
  Josh began using drugs at 11 and was an addict before he was a 
teenager. He began using marijuana. His friends told him it was 
``cool.'' He moved from that to just about every drug you can name. His 
story is becoming all too common. Last April, I held a field hearing in 
Cedar Rapids. The star witness at that hearing was a young woman of 17 
who was a methamphetamine addict at 15. She was not only a user, she 
was also a pusher.
  Today, methamphetamine use in Iowa is twice the national average. 
Iowa is the target for Mexican criminal gangs pushing this drug every 
bit as much as San Diego or Los Angeles. Iowa and other States in the 
Midwest are also becoming home to an epidemic of meth-producing 
laboratories.
  Many of these are located on farms or in small towns little prepared 
to be drug-producing emporiums.
  If you talk to local sheriffs or police officers in even tiny towns, 
the story is shocking. I had a letter recently from a policeman in 
Ottumwa, Iowa, the home of Radar O'Reilly. What he tells me is that 
meth is now a major problem in this community of 30,000. It's not just 
a problem of users. It is increasingly a problem of producers. Many of 
the meth addicts have gone into the business of making their own. It's 
all to easy. If they can't get advice on how to make meth from their 
friends or contacts, why, they can simply pull it down off the 
Internet. Try it, if you don't believe me, it's that easy. You can put 
a small lab together in your kitchen.
  You can use common household chemicals or chemicals used in 
agriculture, a frying pan, coffee filters, and a microwave.
  Police have found labs in trailers, in vans, and sport vehicles. 
According to the policeman from Ottumwa, hardware stores there are 
having a problem keeping supplies of drain cleaner in stock because it 
is popular with the kitchen-lab crowd. Farmers across Iowa are having 
trouble with people stealing anhydrous ammonia. Anhydrous ammonia is 
used as a fertilizer to help fix nitrogen in the soil to grow corn. It 
is also used to produce meth. Local addicts and producers are stealing 
it from farms. County farm bureau organizations are having to issue 
advisories to farmers how to spot these thefts. This is only one of the 
chemicals. Many of these are carcinogenic. They are all dangerous and 
polluting.
  This means the lab sites are toxic and dangerous and expensive to 
clean up. In many cases, the toxic waste materials are dumped into the 
ground or poured down the kitchen sink.
  One of the major farming magazines in Iowa, Wallaces Farmer, devoted 
most of its September issue to this problem. Wallace Farmers does not 
normally deal with drug questions. But the most recent issue has a 20-
page special on how meth is tearing apart the heartland. This should 
tell us something about what's happening. This story is increasingly 
common not only in Iowa but throughout the Midwest and the West. It is 
a problem moving eastward.

[[Page S10653]]

  Along with cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and inhalants, we are seeing a 
resurgence in drug use in this country. I will have more to say on this 
later. Like our earlier epidemic, most of this increased use is 
occurring among the young, between the ages of 12 and 20.
  Drug use among this age group has doubled in the past 5 years. We are 
well on our way to recreating the drug epidemic of the 1960's and 
1970's.
  There are some people who seem to welcome this development. The 
financier, Mr. Soros, is spending some of his fortune to promote drug 
legalization. He has convinced others to join him. He has a lobbying 
group that uses funds to promote legalization in the States, 
internationally, and to give the idea intellectual legitimacy. He is 
joined in the argument to make drugs legal and therefore available by 
worthies like Milton Friedman and William F. Buckley, Jr. Hollywood, 
TV, and our recording industry recognize the market potential of this 
and have begun pushing drugs in movies, music, and entertainment.
  Now, many of these people will tell you that they don't mean to sell 
drugs to our kids. They mean it for adults. I have a problem with that, 
but it's not the central concern. The chief problem is, few adults 
actually start using drugs. That's a risky behavior we find almost 
exclusively among young people before the age of 20. By divorcing this 
reality from the argument to legalize, these people are little 
different from tobacco company executives. At least, privately, the 
tobacco companies were prepared to acknowledge that the primary market 
for new smokers was teens and preteens. They did not hide behind polite 
fictions and intellectual smoke screens.
  What we are seeing in my State today and across this country is the 
fruits of these labors. The most recent reports on teenage drug use 
continue a disturbing cycle. That is why I began work to fight back. 
While I think there are many things government can and must do to deal 
with this problem, it is not solely or even wholly something that 
government can do. We need parents, schools, business, and other folks 
at the community level engaged in dealing with this problem. We need to 
be doing a lot more. This is not just a money problem. Resources are 
necessary but they are not sufficient. This is a people problem and we 
need to engage people to fight back. If we don't we are going to find 
ourselves in a drug problem every bit as serious as our last one. We 
are perilously close to that now.
  In closing, let me read something that Ben Stein, host of a TV game 
show, wrote recently about his young son. He took him to what he 
thought was a safe retreat in rural Idaho, far from his native Los 
Angeles, for a summer vacation. What he discovered there was that his 
11-year-old was being exposed to drug use every day. The source of that 
was other kids. The users and pushers were kids telling kids that drugs 
were cool. After all, that was the message everywhere. They were also 
providing the drugs. Stein wrote how it made him feel:

       I don't like being under siege about my boy's future. . . . 
     I wish I had some help here from my Hollywood, my home, my 
     workshop. I'd like some help from ``The Simpsons'' and 
     ``South Park'' in telling my son that dope smoking is for 
     losers and fools, that being high is stupid and unnatural and 
     unhealthy, and that the cool people take life as it comes, 
     sober and healthy and in some control of their own destinies.

  There are a lot more people out there under siege. We need to be 
doing something about that.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Collins). The Senator from New Mexico is 
recognized.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Parliamentary inquiry, are we in morning business?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate is considering the bankruptcy bill, 
S. 1301.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to proceed 
for up to 10 minutes as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, first, I say to my good friend, Senator 
Grassley, I was here for most of his speech and discussion. I commend 
him for not only what he said today, which many, many people ought to 
read, but because of his constant effort in the Senate and, obviously, 
back in his home State directed at trying to get our young people some 
help with reference to this siege that is upon them with reference to 
illegal drugs. I commend the Senator from Iowa for it.
  (The remarks of Mr. Domenici pertaining to the introduction of S. 
2503 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced 
Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. DOMENICI. I 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. DOMENICI. 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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