[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 147 (Thursday, October 15, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H10995-H10996]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           OMNIBUS SPENDING BILL CONTAINS ANTIDRUG PROVISIONS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. McCollum) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Speaker, in the big omnibus end-of-the-year bill 
that was agreed upon today between the White House and the Republican-
controlled Congress that will be out here for a vote tomorrow are some 
very significant antidrug pieces of legislation. Ninety percent of the 
Western Hemisphere Drug Elimination Act which I authored and which was 
voted on overwhelmingly by this House a few weeks ago is incorporated 
in this bill. That means more than $2 billion of money is being 
authorized for more planes, more ships, more equipment, more resources 
necessary to fight the war on drugs and to really have a war on drugs. 
In addition to that, $690 million is included in what is known as an 
urgent supplemental appropriations bill that is included in all of this 
that will give us a jump start, a downpayment in this coming fiscal 
year for this equipment.
  What is involved? Teen drug use has doubled in the United States in 
the last 6 years. Cocaine and heroin are more plentiful and cheaper on 
the streets of the United States today than ever at any time in our 
history. All of the cocaine is produced in three countries that comes 
our way, Colombia, Bolivia and Peru and more than 60 percent of the 
heroin is produced in Colombia that comes to the United States. Yet in 
the last 6 or 7 years, we have reduced the resources going to interdict 
these drugs coming our way to stop the supply coming here, by more than 
two-thirds. There is not a single plane or ship today in the eastern 
Pacific patrolling the waters and patrolling the air looking for drugs 
that are coming up from Colombia to Mexico to the United States. That 
is wrong. It is very dangerous. It is very bad for our kids. There are 
no radar planes to speak of, or maybe one for half a day once a month 
gets to fly in the region looking for planes that are shipping drugs 
either between countries or to the United States.
  This legislation that is in the bill we will vote on tomorrow will 
provide the planes that the Customs Service desperately needs for radar 
and to track those drug traffickers who are moving drugs in this 
hemisphere and it will provide the personnel and the fuel to do that 
over a 3-year period of time, very critical for this purpose. It will 
also provide cutters and additional patrol boats to the Coast Guard and 
personnel and equipment they badly need. It will provide new equipment 
to DEA to use in the three critical countries of Colombia, Bolivia and 
Peru, and perhaps as important as all, it will provide the governments 
of Colombia, Bolivia and Peru who do want to fight drug trafficking in 
their country the equipment and resources essential to fighting the 
traffickers and the resources for crop eradication of coca and heroin 
poppy crops as well as for crop substitution which in some cases has 
been sorely lacking. These resources are absolutely essential. If we 
provide them and do the right thing that this legislation sets out, we 
have a real chance to cut the flow of drugs coming into this country by 
a very significant percentage in the very near future and give our 
efforts at treatment and prevention a chance to succeed.
  I want to yield to the gentleman from Ohio who has authored the 
companion legislation that is in here on prevention and treatment to 
comment on that legislation.
  Mr. PORTMAN. I really appreciate my friend from Florida yielding. I 
want to commend him for all the hard work he has done on this issue. He 
has really taken the lead on trying to curb the supply of drugs into 
this country which he has just said is so important. We have had a 
doubling of teenage drug use in the last 5 or 6 years. More and more 
kids are falling prey to this, ruining their lives and their dreams and 
even taking the lives of so many of our young people. What I am excited 
about in this final package we will vote on tomorrow is that we also 
have provisions to reduce the demand for drugs in this country. This 
problem I think ultimately has to be solved around the kitchen table in 
our homes and in our schools and in our streets.
  There are a number of provisions that I like. One is new provisions 
to get the drugs out of our schools, to use the drug-free school money 
better in the workplace, the Drug Free Workplace Act that the gentleman 
supported which essentially gives small businesses the opportunity to 
get up and running drug free workplace programs that will keep people 
away from drugs

[[Page H10996]]

and in turn increase productivity. It requires the Drug Czar's office 
to tell us how to streamline the effort which is so important. We now 
have 54 agencies and departments involved in drug prevention in our 
Federal Government. We have got to do better and we can and we are 
requiring under this legislation that they do that.
  The revolving door with violent crime and drugs has got to be 
stopped. We have got to get prevention into our prisons, into our 
jails. This legislation does this on a model basis, the first time this 
Congress has really taken a step in that regard. Finally, it doubles 
the funding for the Drug Free Communities Act, something this Congress 
passed. We are now stepping up to the plate and saying again we have 
got to get parents involved, school administrators involved, we have 
got to get the business community involved, religious leaders involved, 
everybody at the community level.

                              {time}  1845

  And we are saying we are not going to solve this problem here in 
Washington, it is a community problem, it has got to be solved at that 
level. But I want to thank the gentleman for letting me talk a little 
about the demand side and say that I am very excited, it is not the end 
of the road, we have got a lot more to do, but this is a darn good 
start to reducing the demand for drugs in this country.
  Mr. McCOLLUM. Reclaiming my time, I yield briefly to the gentleman 
from Mississippi.
  Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Again, Mr. McCollum, I want to commend you 
for the parts of the bill that you did pass. I also want to point out 
that we had an opportunity, since the gentleman from Ohio mentioned 
demand, to require drug testing for all Federal employees. If I recall, 
the gentleman from Ohio did not support that.
  Mr. McCOLLUM. Reclaiming my time, I must say that I wanted to see the 
drug testing, too, but this is a very excellent bill, and we very, very 
much want to see this bill pass. It will make a big difference in the 
War on Drugs and make a War on Drugs, and I thank all the supporters.

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