[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 28 (Tuesday, February 23, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H680-H681]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
DRUG ABUSE IN AMERICA
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, it is ironic. Sometimes here we look more
organized than we are. I was going to speak on the drug issue. I did
not know the
[[Page H681]]
President was going to be sending over right before me his initiatives
and comments.
This is a particularly critical time in Congress as we look at
decertification questions and the cooperation of foreign countries in
the drug issue. We are going to face many issues in this Congress that
are very important, the education issue; rebuilding our national
defenses, particularly in missile defense; trying to preserve and save
Social Security; trying to make sure taxpayers can keep their own
money; trying to work with the health care problems we have in this
Nation. But drug abuse remains on the street, in our homes and in our
neighborhoods, one of the most critical problems we have.
We have heard much over the last months about the moral crisis that
our country is facing. And we do, indeed, have a tremendous moral
crisis from top to bottom of our society. There is only so much we can
do here in Washington related to that. One, we should lead by example.
Two, we should try to strengthen those institutions, whether it is in
the Tax Code or in different programs, that strengthen families and
promote strong family values and moral virtues in our society.
But in one area, in drugs in particular, the government has a direct
compelling and active interest. And it is a manifestation of the
breakdowns we have in our society that we see rising drug abuse among
junior high kids and in high schools in particular, that we see deaths
in the district of the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions) and
throughout Dallas and in the district of the gentleman from Florida
(Mr. Mica) in Orlando and in the district of the gentleman from Florida
(Mr. McCollum), where heroin deaths have overtaken the communities to
the point of having 25 deaths or more in each of those communities from
heroin in a short period of time.
Mr. Speaker, we see crack on the streets of Ft. Wayne, Indiana, and
small towns in Indiana and throughout our country. We see people
sniffing coke, LSD, methamphetamines. We are getting overrun in this
country with that.
We need and will continue to work with a multitude of strategies to
address this issue. We need drug prevention interdiction, drug
prevention and eradication, drug prevention and treatment, drug
prevention and programs in our schools, and drug prevention on our
streets to help our police force. All of that is really preventing the
drugs from getting there.
The gentleman from Florida (Chairman Mica), of the Subcommittee on
Drug Policy of the Committee on Government Reform, led a CODEL, a
Congressional delegation, of which I was a part, to the Andean nations
of Colombia, Peru and Bolivia where most cocaine and much of our heroin
is coming from, as well as Central America where we spent 3 days, among
other places, with the leaders in Mexico.
We clearly have some major problems, but what we know is this: That
in 1992 to 1994, when we backed up in interdiction efforts, and really
into 1995, when we backed up in our interdiction and eradication
efforts, this country was flooded with low-price cocaine, new sources
for heroin, and methamphetamines in quantities that drove the price
down in the streets of Ft. Wayne, Indiana, northeast Indiana, and
throughout this country.
We saw the purity go up, and the marijuana that is coming in is
nothing like the marijuana in the late 1960s and 1970s that was
glamorized in a lot of 1960s type shows. This is potent stuff on our
streets that our kids are getting. Because when they have the huge
quantities of it and it is cheap in the schools and the streets, there
is no amount of DARE programs or treatment programs or putting
policemen on the street that can stop this.
Mr. Speaker, we know where it comes from. Some of these countries
have been very aggressive for a number of years in eradicating the coca
leaves and particularly the production in the cocaine. In Peru and
Bolivia, we have seen a turnaround. We have seen their percentages
drop.
In Colombia they are at war, and we need to help the Nation of
Colombia fight this so that we do not have troops down there. We also
have our number one oil supplier on their border, Venezuela, and the
Panama Canal on the other border.
{time} 1615
That is where we have a compelling national interest. But we have
some real problems in Mexico. The Mexican leaders, their government
seem very committed to trying to change this problem. But we have deep
problems.
Everybody says we should forget the past, but it is difficult to
forget the past right now when our information has been compromised and
when we have had so much corruption.
We are hopeful, and one of the debates we are going to hear in
Congress is how we should deal with this decertification question,
because it gets inevitably wrapped up in NAFTA, trade questions, and
the fact that an important and critical part of our long-term interests
will be to work with Mexico.
But the question is, are we going to have any accountability
standards? Since most of the drugs coming into my hometown and the rest
of this country are pouring across the border from Mexico right now, we
need to see results and not just rhetoric.
Over the next few days and weeks, we are going to hear a number of
Members coming down here talking about this issue and about the drug
issue as a whole as we develop packages, as we try to work with the
administration and drug czar, General McCaffrey, to try to solve this
problem. I am looking forward to seeing if we continue to make
progress.
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