[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 123 (Tuesday, September 21, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H8459-H8463]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      ILLEGAL NARCOTICS IN AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Isakson). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica) is 
recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to come before the House tonight 
to address my colleagues again on what I consider one of the most 
important topics facing Congress and the American people, and that is 
the problem of illegal narcotics in this country, not only the problem 
of illegal narcotics as it affects us as far as our role as Members of 
Congress in providing funding for various programs, but the effects of 
this dreaded plague on our country that have many significant 
dimensions.
  Tonight I would like to again talk to the House about this topic and 
discuss a number of areas, and first of all provide my colleagues and 
the American people with an update on some of the recent happenings as 
to how drugs and illegal narcotics destroy lives and affect the lives 
of people, not only in my district but across this Nation.
  I will talk a little bit about the situation and the policies that 
got us to where we are today with the problem of illegal narcotics. 
Then I would like to talk a little bit about Colombia, which is in the 
news.
  The President of Colombia is now in the United States and addressed 
the United Nations. He has made proposals, along with this 
administration, about resolving some of the difficulties that relate 
directly to illegal narcotics trafficking in our neighbor to the south.
  I would also like to talk a little bit about the history of the 
policy as it developed relating to Colombia, and some of the proposals 
that are on the table now to resolve the conflict that has been created 
again by these failed policies.
  But tonight I would like to start out by first providing an update to 
my colleagues on the cost of the problem of illegal narcotics. I always 
start at home and the news from my district.
  I come from Central Florida. I represent the area just north of 
Orlando to Daytona Beach, probably one of the most prosperous areas in 
the Nation. We do have our problems: problems of growth, problems of 
expansion, problems of providing education. We are very fortunate that 
we have a very high education level, high income level, a very low 
unemployment level, so we are indeed one of the 435 districts of the 
country that has had fortune shine upon us in many ways.
  We have also been the victim of the problem of illegal narcotics and 
hard drugs and the terror that they have rained not only, again, across 
the Nation, but on our district in Central Florida. Many people equate 
Orlando in Central Florida to Disney World and entertainment and fun. 
But unfortunately, we have been the victims, like, again, many other 
areas across the Nation, of the ravages of illegal narcotics.
  Let me read from an Orlando Sentinel story just in the last few hours 
that was released. It says, ``Deaths this past weekend brought the 
numbers of confirmed and suspected heroin-related deaths in Orange and 
Osceola Counties to 34.'' Orange and Osceola Counties are around the 
Orlando metropolitan area.
  ``At the current rate, Central Florida likely will break last year's 
record of 52 heroin-related deaths.'' Many of these deaths are among 
our young people. In fact, the 52 deaths in just Central Florida, in 
that little small geographic area, I found outnumber the number of 
deaths in some countries from heroin. It is really an astounding 
figure.
  Again, unfortunately, Central Florida is not the only area that is 
experiencing both the numbers of deaths and the tragedies that we have 
experienced.
  The article goes on and puts a human face on what happens in some of 
these cases. It says, ``Early Friday a 12-year-old boy found his 46-
year-old father lifeless at their home on Bayfront Parkway near Little 
Lake Conway,'' near the south of Orlando. ``A packet of heroin, a 
syringe, a spoon and matches were found near the body, according to 
sheriff's records.''
  More news from my county, also on Friday. ``A 34-year-old Orange 
County man collapsed from a suspected overdose of opiates, the Medical 
Examiner's Office reported. He died on Sunday,'' this past Sunday.
  On Saturday, ``A 30-year-old woman from Orlando died in a vacant 
house on Gore street.'' That is in the downtown area. ``She collapsed 
about 8:30 a.m. after she had smoked crack cocaine, a friend told 
deputies.''
  Again, the misfortunes of Central Florida are felt across this 
Nation. We have had over 14,000 drug-related deaths last year, and that 
is just the reported deaths in this country. Unfortunately, many deaths 
related to narcotics do not even get reported.
  Let me point out, if I may, just a news article that appeared in the 
past month that was in the Los Angeles Times. This dealt with the bus 
crash that killed 22 people on Mothers Day. Twenty-two elderly 
individuals were killed in New Orleans, and it now is made public, 
according to this news report, that the driver, who died of a heart 
attack, used marijuana 2 to 6 hours before his full bus of mostly 
elderly women veered off a highway and smashed into a concrete 
abutment.
  These elderly victims probably will not have it listed in their cause 
of death as being drug-related, but here we have an instance of 
supposed casual drug use and the taking of 22 lives.

                              {time}  2100

  Another instance that does put a human face on the tragedy of illegal 
narcotics must be the news report that we had in the last week coming 
out of Tampa. I know several years ago people from around our state and 
our area and the Nation were all bereaved when they heard the news of a 
5-month old baby supposedly taken from its parents, Baby Sabrina the 
child was known in many media accounts.
  It now appears that investigators had taped the family after the 
disappearance, and part of the conversation was released in the media. 
This is in the Orlando Sentinel, September 10, a few days ago. The 
conversation, according to a Federal prosecutor, included this quote, 
``I wished I hadn't harmed her. It was the cocaine.'' This statement 
was allegedly made in the recording by the father.
  We see so many tragedies of child abuse, of child neglect, spouse 
abuse, deaths. I am not sure how this child, this infant's death will 
be listed in the final investigation. Again, these are alleged facts, 
but again surfacing as the problem of illegal narcotics.
  The problem of illegal narcotics across our country reaches just 
every segment of activity. It is not just folks in the ghetto areas. It 
is not folks in the lower income, socioeconomic income. This problem of 
illegal narcotics use and its impact on our society is reaching all 
aspects of our American population.
  There is a report from the Associated Press last week that I want to 
quote from. Seven in 10 people who used illegal drugs in 1997 had full-
time jobs. This is a recent report that stated also, about 6.3 million 
full-time workers age 18 to 49 or 7.7 percent of the workers admitted 
in 1997 using illegal drugs in the preceding month. Workers in 
restaurants, bars, construction, and transportation were more likely 
than others to use drugs, the report said.
  Forty-four percent of drug users were working for small businesses, 
those with fewer than 25 employees down

[[Page H8460]]

 from 57 percent in 1994, but still the largest category.
  So whether, again, we see social problems such as child abuse, such 
as murder, such as robbery, theft, we also see in common ordinary 
working Americans the problem of illegal narcotics use. That does have 
a dramatic impact.
  In fact, the statistics are somewhere around a quarter of a trillion 
dollars. That is over $250 billion in lost productivity, cost to 
society, cost to our judicial system, incarceration. In fact, today we 
have nearly 2 million Americans behind bars and there because of some 
drug-related offenses.
  I know many people who I come into contact with say that we should 
release these folks because it is not good to have casual drug users 
behind bars. But, in fact, every statistic, every report that we have 
seen, every charge that we have looked behind finds that these aren't 
casual drug users that are in our Federal prisons and state prisons.
  These, in fact, are individuals who have committed felonies while 
either under the influence of narcotics or committed a crime while 
attempting to secure money or drugs and committing illegal acts. So 
there is a real myth.
  In fact, we had before my Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug 
Policy and Human Resources one of the authors of a recent study in New 
York, which debunked the theory that we have people who are casual drug 
users, in fact, behind bars. In fact, the report indicated that one 
really had to try hard, one had to commit a number of felonies to be 
incarcerated in New York and behind bars and involved with illegal 
narcotics.
  So the facts do not support that casual drug users are behind bars, 
that in fact serious offenses are committed, whether again it is 
murder, whether it is a crime to obtain drugs or cash. Again, there is 
tremendous costs on our society, somewhere around a quarter of a 
trillion dollars a year.

  In addition to the problems that I have cited about illegal narcotics 
and some of the myths that surround illegal narcotics, I wanted to also 
talk about another myth that I heard repeatedly during the August 
recess and even during the past weeks.
  I hear these media accounts that the drug war has failed, that the 
war on drugs is a failure. I do not think that people really understand 
what happened when we had a war on drugs and when we closed down the 
war on drugs.
  It is absolutely incredible that people do not realize that during 
the Reagan administration, we began a real war on drugs. That was 
continued into the Bush administration when we had a real war on 
illegal narcotics.
  What happened in 1993 with the election of the Clinton-Gore 
administration was basically a close down of the war on illegal 
narcotics, the war on drugs as we have known it. The phrase was coined 
in the 1980s, and it was indeed a war on drugs. It was a multifaceted 
war against illegal narcotics.
  I served as an aide in the U.S. Senate under Senator Paula Hawkins, 
and she was involved with the development of various laws, legislative 
strategies, working along with them, at that time the Vice President 
and members of the Reagan administration, in developing administrative 
approaches and programs to deal with, at that time, cocaine that was 
coming into the United States.
  That program, in fact, those efforts and that war on drugs were, in 
fact, very successful. There was dramatic decrease in the use of 
illegal narcotics among our teens. The Vice President, at that time it 
was George Bush, created a task force on illegal narcotics.
  The ANDEAN strategy was developed to interdict and to stop drugs at 
their source, which must really be the most cost effective way of 
stopping illegal narcotics. If we know where they are grown, if we know 
where they are produced, and we can stop them at the source, then in 
fact we can do it very cost effectively. That has been proven, and that 
has been done. It was done in the war on drugs in the 1980s, and in 
fact it worked.
  Then, of course, we had national leadership which we have not had 
since 1993 on the issue of illegal narcotics. Even the First Lady she 
took a national lead, developed a program that was really ingrained in 
our young people. It was a simple message, ``Just Say No.''
  The President appointed Drug Czars who helped formulate policy and 
programs that actually went after illegal narcotics. We had a tough 
enforcement policy. We had a tough interdiction policy. We began for 
the first time to utilize the military in the war on drugs. The Coast 
Guard was also employed and other United States resources committed in 
a war on drugs.
  Now, all that stopped, for the most part, in 1993 with the beginning 
of the Clinton-Gore administration. Let me just put up this chart, if I 
may. This first chart does not show back before 1989, but as my 
colleagues can see in this chart, this is 12th grade drug use. It shows 
lifetime, annual, and also 30-day in these colors, use by 12th graders.
  What is interesting is we can see from the start of the chart here in 
1989 that there is a decline in drug use. This is, again, when we had a 
war on drugs, when we had a national message against illegal narcotics. 
Among our teenagers and our young people, if we took this chart out, we 
would see this dramatic decline to 1992, 1993.
  Then we had the election of this President. No emphasis on national 
leadership. The first thing that this President did was in fact fire 
almost everyone. There were only a few folks left in the Drug Czar's 
office. In fact, the first thing President Clinton and Vice President 
Gore did was cut the staffing at the National Office of Drug Control 
Policy. It was cut 80 percent. The exact figures, which are public 
record, are from 147 Drug Czar employees and staff to 25.

  That was the beginning of the end of the war on drugs. There is a 
line here that delineates a success and the beginning of a failed 
policy. It could not be more graphic than this chart displays.
  I will show some even more telling graphic descriptions of what has 
taken place in just a few minutes. But, again, the leadership was lost. 
The opportunity was lost.
  What is interesting if we come back and look at this, the Democrats 
controlled the House, the United States Senate, and the White House in 
this period. They very purposely dismantled all of the war on drugs in 
a number of areas, and I will point each of them out.
  But my colleagues can see, up until when the Republicans took over 
the House and the Senate in 1995 here, 1996 my colleagues see the first 
leveling off. We have seen that, under the leadership provided first by 
Mr. Zeliff, who lead the House effort to begin to restart the war on 
drugs, and then Speaker Hastert who was Chairman of the Subcommittee on 
National Security, Veterans Affairs and International Affairs. I served 
with the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert) at that time.
  We see this leveling off on the beginning of a decline with, again, 
the Republicans taking over the issue and providing the leadership and 
trying to get a war on drugs restarted. There is no question, again, 
but this multifaceted effort of eradication, interdiction, tough 
enforcement, and also education and treatment, and I will talk about 
the education program, too, that we have started, which is 
unprecedented, all of these things have made a difference in a restart. 
This is in a shutdown.
  So anyone who tells my colleagues that we have had a war on drugs, 
please tell them that it stopped in 1993 with the Clinton-Gore 
administration.
  Now, that chart is interesting to show what has happened among our 
young people. This chart is labeled International Spending. I brought 
this chart out tonight because it graphically shows again the end of 
the war on drugs in 1992, 1993.
  This is where, again, the Democrats took over the House and the 
Senate and the White House. Of course they controlled the House before 
that, but they controlled all three bodies. They did incredible damage 
in a very short period of time.
  This chart is labeled Federal Spending: International. Now, this is, 
this goes back to the source country programs, international programs 
are source country programs; that is, stopping drugs at their source 
and in the fields where they are grown and going into the country and 
working with the country in a very cost effective manner to stop 
illegal narcotics.

[[Page H8461]]

                              {time}  2115

  The war on drugs stopped in 1992, 1993. And if we look at the drug 
use, the chart went up this way as spending on international went the 
other way. So the war on drugs, my point is, stopped. Again there were 
not the programs that were started in the 1980s under President Reagan. 
And this would be the Andean strategies, the international strategies.
  They cut the money and funding going into Colombia, and we will talk 
about the consequences of not assisting Colombia and the wrong policy 
adopted, the cost-effective programs of putting a few dollars into 
them. And these are actually very few dollars. If we look at 1991 and 
1992, we are spending about $660 million, $650 million, in that range 
of dollars. In a $17 billion drug budget, that is a very small amount.
  Actually, if we look at what Clinton and Gore did, and again with the 
control of this Congress, they reduced spending greater than 50 
percent. It gets down to $290, which is certainly less than half of the 
$633. So they reduced spending on international programs; cut these 
international program's spending to cost-effectively stop illegal 
narcotics at their source. So this is one part of the ending of the war 
on drugs, and exactly how they did it.
  The next part would be interdiction. And first of all, we talked 
about international and source country programs stopping drugs very 
cost effectively with a few dollars; working with other countries and 
stopping them at their source. Our next opportunity to stop illegal 
narcotics is as they leave the source country. And we try to get the 
illegal drugs before they even get near our border.
  Here again is a very telling chart. Again we can see in 1992, 1993, 
with the beginning of the Clinton-Gore administration, the interdiction 
programs. The war on drugs. If we want to talk about our war on drugs, 
it ended right in this 1993 period, just as the international programs 
ended, just as involvement in interdicting drugs at their source ended. 
Now, they cut the money, and that did a tremendous amount of damage. 
Because what it did was it allowed drugs to come from the source to our 
borders.
  We had previously been using the military, the Coast Guard, other 
assets that we have out there anyway involved in stopping drugs before 
they reach our borders in a cost-effective manner. What was even more 
damaging, not only did the Democratic-controlled Congress and the White 
House do this damage in stopping the war on drugs, but they did even 
more damage. They adopted policies which have caused incredible damage. 
And there is no other way to describe it.
  One of the policies they adopted, for example, was to stop 
information-sharing to our South American allies who were working with 
us, Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia. And the United States has great 
capabilities, with U2, with surveillance, with forward-operating 
locations, to obtain information. We can tell when a plane takes off. 
We can track trackers on the ground. We can really get incredible 
amounts of intelligence and information about what is going on with 
illegal narcotics.
  Well, one of the first shutdowns as far as policy in this war on 
drugs, and this is funding, closing down financially the war on drugs, 
was sharing that information with these countries. So we stopped some 
of that information sharing. We also stopped information that allowed 
these countries to identify these aircraft, warn these aircraft as they 
took off from these clandestine strips; and then these countries, some 
of them, adopted shootdown policies. They were to identify themselves. 
If they did not identify themselves, they were given warnings, warning 
shots were fired, and, finally, they were shot down.

  Of course, with the Clinton-Gore administration, we destroyed the 
first part of the policy and then the second part of the policy. And 
just in Colombia in the last year have we begun to restore that effort. 
So when someone says that the war on drugs is a failure, the war on 
drugs was a success, and it started in the 1980s under Ronald Reagan 
and it went through George Bush. The shutdown on the war on drugs took 
place in 1992, 1993. The financial reports identify this. The charts, 
as far as drug use among our children, identify this.
  This administration also destroyed what was known as the drug czar's 
office in dramatically cutting 80 percent of the staffing. Not only did 
they gut the drug czar's office, again closing down the war on drugs, 
but they appointed an individual by the name of Joycelyn Elders as the 
chief health officer of the United States. Not much more damage in the 
policy that I described, closing down on the war on drugs, could be 
done then to hire as a chief health officer for the country an 
individual who told our young people ``just say maybe'' to illegal drug 
use. Eventually, the individual was replaced, but a tremendous amount 
of damage was done.
  And the damage, again, is right here. This is not a chart I just 
pulled out of a hat. We can see Joycelyn Elders, the close-down on the 
war on drugs, just say maybe, and the skyrocketing of illegal narcotics 
use among our teenagers. So, again, to people who say that the war on 
drugs has been a failure, I say there had been a war on drugs until 
1993. Not only have we had a liberal approach from this administration 
on the subject of illegal narcotics, a total lack of national 
leadership, a close-down of the major problems, taking the military out 
of the war on drugs, stopping the cost-effective source country 
programs, if that was not enough damage in all of those ways; but they 
also had allies in this war on drugs.
  I hear so many people say, well, let us legalize drugs. It does not 
matter. Let kids smoke dope; let people use heroin, have needle 
exchanges. We need to be more liberal, more tolerant. Everybody does 
it. A third of Americans have used some kind of illegal narcotics at 
some time. Just go ahead and do it. If it feels good, do it. This 
liberal policy has caused this situation that we are in now, with my 
area experiencing 52 heroin deaths this past weekend. I just cited 
three more drug overdoses, two heroin, one cocaine. We have epidemic 
methamphetamine use.
  We had 14,000 Americans who died last year in drug-related deaths, 
and thousands and thousands more, as I pointed out just from a couple 
examples tonight, who have met their maker as a result of murder, 
mayhem, or whatever, committed under the influence of illegal 
narcotics. That alone is one reason to continue this effort.
  But let me tell my colleagues the vision of America under this 
liberal policy of if it feels good, do it, and drugs are no harm, and 
needle exchange programs, and we have to make everybody happy on drugs. 
This weekend my wife and I had an opportunity to visit Baltimore. The 
ranking member, when I chaired the Subcommittee on Civil Service, is a 
fine gentleman, the gentleman from Maryland, (Mr. Cummings), who 
represents Baltimore. I have had many discussions with him about his 
community. I really was impressed by Baltimore and the people that I 
saw when I was there Saturday. A wonderful community. It seems vibrant 
on the surface, but that does not tell all of the story. I have heard 
some of the problems described by the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. 
Cummings) and the great empathy he has for his city. But Baltimore is a 
city, and fortunately the mayor, whose name is Schmoke, is leaving, but 
he adopted a liberal policy towards illegal narcotics.

  This particular little chart was provided to me by a former United 
States drug enforcement administrator, Tom Constantine. He made this in 
a presentation to our subcommittee, my Subcommittee on Criminal 
Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources. It is a very telling story 
about liberalization of illegal narcotics. And, again, it can set the 
stage for what can happen in countless other cities as they look 
towards liberalization and our country looks towards liberalization of 
illegal narcotics.
  In 1950, the population of Baltimore was 949,000. In 1996, the 
population dropped to about two-thirds of that, to 675,000. In 1950, 
there were 300 heroin addicts in Baltimore, and that was one heroin 
addict per 3,100 individuals in that community. In 1996, there are 
38,985 heroin addicts with a population of 675,000, or one out of 17. 
Now, this is the figure that Mr. Constantine showed and gave us. The 
gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings) has told me that he believes the 
figure is closer to 60,000 heroin addicts.

[[Page H8462]]

  I have a news report from Time magazine of just last week, the 
beginning of September here, and let me read from that about the 
liberal approach, the liberal policy and what it can do, what it has 
done for Baltimore and what it can do for the rest of America:
  ``Maryland's largest city seems to have more razor wire and abandoned 
buildings than Kosovo. Meanwhile, the prevalence of open-air drug 
dealing has made `no lotering' signs as common as stop signs. 
Baltimore, which has a population now of 630,000,'' it shrunk again, 
``has sunk under the depressing triple crown of urban degradation: 
middle income residents are fleeing at a rate of 1,000 a month; the 
murder rate has been more than three times as high as New York City's; 
and 1 out of every 10 citizens,'' there is the latest we have from 
1999, ``is a drug addict.''
  This Time article from just a week ago says: ``Government officials 
dispute the last claim of 1 out of 10 citizens in Baltimore being a 
drug addict. It is more like,'' and I am quoting, ``it is more like 1 
in 8, says veteran city councilman Rikki Spector, and we've probably 
lost count.''
  This is a city that adopted a liberal narcotics policy, needle 
exchange, do it if it feels good. And if the results are not evident, I 
do not know what can be. Again, the toll in human tragedy in Baltimore 
is incredible. In 1950, there were 81 murders in the City of Baltimore 
with a population of nearly a million people.

                              {time}  2130

  In 1997, there were 312 murders in Baltimore. And again the estimates 
of drug users in that city are now one in eight by the estimate of one 
of their council members. This is again the pattern that people say we 
should go toward. The liberal policy to allow illegal narcotics and 
needle exchanges really promotes addiction and treatment. And again the 
social costs, the economic costs of this has to be dramatic but it 
could be if we tried hard enough repeated throughout the United States.
  By contrast, we have the city of New York. In the 1980s, when I was a 
staffer for Senator Hawkins, I had an opportunity to work with an 
individual who is the Associate Attorney General of the United States. 
He was not well-known at that time. He was from New York. It was a 
fellow by the name of Rudy Giuliani. I remember sitting down many times 
with Rudy Giuliani, in fact flying to Florida with him.
  Florida, as my colleagues may recall, in the 1980s had a terrible 
problem with illegal narcotics, which President Reagan and President 
Bush dealt with and developed policies toward. And the individual who 
helped develop some of those policies was the Associate Attorney 
General of the United States, Rudy Giuliani.
  He was tough on illegal narcotics and crime in the early 1980s. He 
helped develop policies that changed the direction of crime and illegal 
drugs during the Reagan administration. And again you saw the dramatic 
figures, the decline in drug use and abuse among our young people.
  Rudy Guiliani, of course we all know, went on to be mayor of New 
York. As opposed to the Baltimore model, which was liberal, providing 
again almost accommodation to illegal drug use, the mayor of New York 
City, who was elected in recent history here, and we have got an entire 
history of the murder rate of New York City, but with the election of 
Rudy Guiliani, this graphically shows the decline in the city's murder 
rate.
  And we will just take from 1990 to 1992, they were averaging about 
2000 murders. Through a zero tolerance policy, through a tough 
enforcement policy, through again a conservative approach as opposed to 
the Baltimore liberal approach, we have seen in that period of time 
dramatic decreases. The murder rate in New York dropped dramatically. 
The number of murders dropped from an average of 2,000 now down to the 
600 level.
  In a dramatic reversal of crime, drug use, and in this instance 
murder, I do not think we could have a more graphic display of how a 
zero tolerance, tough enforcement, and I will also say alternative 
program, some of which we have looked at that New York has adopted more 
effective programs in treatment, giving those who are found with an 
offense the opportunity and access to treatment and other programs that 
we examined that are very effective. But it all starts from a 
conservative and tough enforcement policy as opposed to the Baltimore 
model.
  So again we find this pattern repeated in the United States in 
jurisdictions where they have a tough zero tolerance policy, and we 
find the Baltimore model repeated, in fact, where we have a liberal 
policy.
  In addition to talking about what took place with the Clinton-Gore 
Administration and the ending of the war on drugs and with the election 
of this President and Vice President, it is important that we not only 
look at successes and failures as far as our communities but what has 
taken place in the larger picture.
  Right now, as I pointed out, visiting the United States is a close 
ally of the United States, president of Colombia, President Andres 
Pastrana. He is here asking assistance, and the reason he is here 
asking for assistance is because of the failed drug policy and foreign 
policy of this administration.
  I pointed out the dramatic decreases in source country programs under 
the Clinton Administration. Let me put that chart back up if I can. 
Again, the most effective way to stop illegal narcotics, if possible, 
is to stop them at their source.
  This administration and again this chart shows that this dramatically 
cuts spending in international or source country programs. No country 
suffered more as a result of those cuts and that policy than the 
country of Colombia. Colombia is an international disaster zone. The 
statistics on Colombia make Kosovo look like a kindergarten operation.
  Just in 1 year over 300,000 people were dislocated. Over a million 
have been dislocated from their homes in Colombia. The tragedy and 
total in deaths in Colombia is incredible. Over 40,000 individuals have 
been slaughtered in the civil war there just in the last decade. That 
includes 4,700 National Police, hundreds and hundreds of members of 
Congress, judges, Supreme Court members, journalists, prominent 
individuals who have spoken out have been slaughtered in Colombia.
  Colombia could be a very remote problem for the United States if it 
did not have as a result of the conflict some serious consequences to 
our Nation.
  First of all, as far as international security and strategic 
location, Colombia is at the heart and center of the Americas. A 
disruption in Colombia is a disruption in this hemisphere. Colombia was 
one of the most thriving economies of South America until the narco-
terrorists or guerilla Marxist forces began their insurgency against 
the legitimately elected Government of Colombia and began the 
slaughter, which is now spreading even beyond the borders of Colombia. 
It is disrupted again not only with tens of thousands of deaths in 
Colombia, but the entire region has the potential for destabilizing 
Central America. Now some of the Marxist narco-terrorist guerillas are 
intruding further into Panama. Panama is at risk because the United 
States, as we know, has been kicked out of the canal zone. And that 
action will be complete in just a few more months.
  All of our drug forward operations closed down May 1. All flights 
ended there. We have lost access to the naval ports and those went out 
on legitimate tenders and now Chinese interests control both of the 
ports in Panama. But one of the greatest threats to Panama now is the 
disruption in Colombia. So we have a disruption in our normal access to 
the canal and that strategic area of the hemisphere.
  Additionally, we have the disruption of Colombia, which Colombia and 
that region supplies about 20 percent of the United States' daily oil 
supply. So from a strategic mineral and strategic resource to the 
United States as far as military accesses also in the war on illegal 
narcotics, Colombia is now a disaster zone.
  How did we get into the mess in Colombia? That is an interesting 
history. Again in 1992, 1993, in closing down the war on drugs, one of 
the first victims of the Clinton-Gore Administration was Colombia. This 
administration, first of all, decertified Colombia in the war on drugs.
  Now, Colombia may have deserved decertification, but having been 
involved in the development of that law,

[[Page H8463]]

the law is a simple law. It says that the State Department and the 
President will certify each year to Congress what countries are 
cooperating with the United States to stop the production and 
trafficking of illegal narcotics, a simple law. And if a country is 
decertified it is not eligible for foreign aid for trade and financial 
benefits, again a simple law linking their cooperation in the war on 
illegal drugs to our United States benefits, benefits of this 
government.
  Having helped draft that law in the 1980s again when Ronald Reagan 
was president, it was a good law that helped tie our aid and our 
efforts to these countries and ask them for their assistance in 
combatting illegal narcotics, again in return for specific benefits.
  The law was developed with a national interest waiver provision that 
the President of the United States could have used to make certain that 
Colombia got the assistance it needed to continue combatting illegal 
narcotics. Unfortunately, President Clinton, through bad foreign policy 
and a bad interpretation of the certification law, decertified Colombia 
without a national interest waiver. And what we saw was the beginning 
of the end of Colombia as we know it.
  The disruption in that country went from a horrible situation to the 
current situation which may not be repairable. The failure to provide a 
few dollars then in strategic assistance is now bringing the United 
States on the verge of tremendous financial commitment requested by 
this administration to help bring stability to Colombia and that 
region.
  We are now talking the latest figure we had when General McCaffrey 
appeared before my subcommittee probably talking close to $1 billion in 
foreign assistance being requested.
  But that is only the tip of the iceberg. Again, I have described 
tonight how we have not had a war on drugs, how we closed down the war 
on drugs. And no place has had a more direct impact as far as a failed 
policy or a closing down on the war on drugs than Colombia. Again, aid 
was cut off through a policy.
  Also, as I mentioned, the strategic information that was provided to 
Colombia under the prior administrations in combatting illegal 
narcotics and even in combatting narco-terrorism and terrorist acts was 
withheld from Colombia.
  Colombia, in 1992-1993, produced almost zero cocaine. It actually was 
a transit country. It was a country that processed from the coca from 
Peru and Bolivia, and that cocaine came into Florida and the United 
States in the 1980's.
  In fact, let me put that little chart that shows the trafficking 
pattern from Colombia in the early 1990s.

                              {time}  2145

  Again cocaine was not grown, coca was not grown in Colombia before 
the 1990's in any quantities. It all came from Peru and Bolivia.
  The policy of the Clinton-Gore administration managed to change that 
since 1993, and we have reports now in the last year. Colombia is now 
the largest producer of cocaine in the world. That, again, is a direct 
link to a policy of stopping assistance, resources, equipment getting 
to Colombia during this period.
  In 1992 to 1993, Colombia produced almost zero poppies or the base 
product for heroin. The Clinton-Gore administration in, again, closing 
down the war on drugs and stopping the aid and assistance to Colombia 
has turned, in 6 or 7 years, Colombia into the largest source of heroin 
now in the United States.
  Remember, in 1992 to 1993 there are almost no poppies or heroin 
produced in that country. Clinton-Gore administration stopped the aid, 
the assistance. That is why President Pastrana is here asking for that 
to be restarted.
  The source of heroin, we know from this 1997 signature program; 
heroin can be traced just like DNA can trace a source through blood. We 
can trace through this heroin signature program the source almost to 
the fields where the heroin is grown. In 1997, 75 percent of the heroin 
entering the United States came from South America, almost all of that 
from Colombia. There is some Mexican, another 14 percent; and Mexico 
was also off the charts in 1992 to 1993. Almost all of the heroin was 
coming in through southeast Asia.
  So in 6 or 7 years through a failed policy of this administration, we 
have managed to turn Colombia into the biggest producer of cocaine, the 
biggest producer of heroin, into an international disaster zone, 30 to 
40,000 people killed, 5,000 police, complete disruption of the region, 
a million refugees in our own backyard; and this was done again through 
very direct policy decisions of the United States.
  The cost, as we will see this week as President Pastrana meets with 
myself, with President Clinton, with other leaders in Washington, the 
initial price tag that we have been given is a billion dollars. In 
addition, we have been given a price tag; we will probably spend 
another fifth of a billion on replacing Panama, our forward-operating 
locations which we got kicked out of after our negotiators failed to 
come up with allowing our forward-surveillance drug flights to continue 
from that Howard Air Force base in Panama. So we are up to 1.2 billion 
to move, again 200 million probably, to move from Panama to Manta, 
Ecuador, and to the Curacao and Aruba stations in the Antilles region.
  The cost of these failed policies continues to mount. We are left as 
a Congress with no other alternative but to probably pick up the 
pieces, try to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
  But the point of my special order tonight has been that indeed there 
are direct consequences when you close down a war on drugs. Since 1993 
with the Clinton-Gore administration there has not been a war on drugs. 
The source country programs have been cut. The interdiction programs 
using the military, the Coast Guard, other assets have been cut. The 
aid that was promised to Colombia repeatedly, not only after Congress 
begged the administration and approved funding for equipment and 
resources to go down to Colombia to fight the war on illegal narcotics 
and the narco-terrorists' disruption of that region, the equipment, the 
resources did not get there.
  All of these actions, all of these failed policies have consequences. 
The price tag is now, as I said, 1.2 billion and mounting. We hope to 
hear from President Pastrana this week on his initiatives. He has taken 
some very strong initiatives to develop an anti-narcotics force. 50 
U.S. personnel have been training that force; but he does need the 
equipment. The equipment sat on tarmacs here until just recently. Six 
Huey helicopters were finally delivered. Then to add insult to injury, 
when they were delivered, they were not delivered with all the 
equipment that made them usable in this effort.

  We have heard repeatedly in the media that Colombia is now our third 
largest recipient of aid. The Congress, in fact, appropriated $287 
million under the leadership of the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. 
Hastert), who is now the Speaker of the House, who was chairman of the 
drug policy subcommittee that was then titled National Security and 
International Affairs. I inherited that responsibility. It is now 
Criminal Justice and Drug Policy. He started really the restart of the 
war on drugs with those funds.
  What is absolutely amazing, in checking, most of that $287 million 
still has not gotten to Colombia, and they are knocking at our door for 
more funds.
  We do have a responsibility as a Congress to carefully review why the 
administration has not gotten the resources, why the policies of this 
administration have blocked equipment, resources, assistance to 
Colombia, how we have gotten ourselves into this international pickle. 
It would almost seem humorous if it did not have such incredibly 
damaging effects, and as I started out tonight speaking, the deaths in 
my hometown where a 12-year-old found his father dead from a heroin 
overdose, where another woman was found, a young woman in Orlando, dead 
of an overdose of cocaine.
  Most people do not even realize the problem that we face with the 
heroin and the cocaine coming into the United States today. Ten to 15 
years ago that heroin, that cocaine had a very low purity. Today it is 
deadly, 80 to 90 percent. It provides death and destruction. We must 
turn this situation around.

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