[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 162 (Tuesday, November 16, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H12101-H12105]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    ILLEGAL NARCOTICS AND DRUG ABUSE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Cooksey). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica) is 
recognized for the time remaining until midnight.
  Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to come before the House. 
Although the hour is late, I think the subject is extremely important, 
and some of it will continue upon a dialogue that was begun in the last 
hour by the gentleman from California and the gentlewoman from 
Wisconsin on the subject of Colombia.
  I do chair in the House of Representatives the Subcommittee on 
Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources, and have attempted 
this year, almost on a weekly basis, to come to the floor of the House 
and spend part of a Tuesday evening, when we have the extensive time 
granted to Members to discuss issues up until the magic hour of 
midnight. I have used that time to speak on what I consider the biggest 
social and criminal justice and health policy facing our Nation, and 
that is the problem of illegal narcotics and drug abuse.
  Just as a wrap-up tonight, discussing some of the activities of our 
subcommittee, and I think it has had a very effective and also full 
schedule during 1999, we have held almost 30 hearings, and almost 20 of 
them on the topic of drug policy.
  I remember coming to Congress in 1993. From 1993 to 1995, when the 
other side controlled the House of Representatives, the White House, 
and the other body, during that period of time only one hearing was 
held in an oversight capacity on the topic of our national drug policy, 
and that is part of how we got ourselves into the situation we are in 
today with the dramatic increases in drug-induced deaths resulting from 
illegal narcotics and also from the incredible numbers we have in 
prison and also the societal problems and costs that we see that are 
incurred not only by Congress but to American families and parents 
throughout our land.

                              {time}  2310

  So we have had, as I said, a full list of hearings. We have tried to 
cover a number of topics starting last January in my own district to 
assess the problem in central Florida and the area that I serve.
  I have repeatedly mentioned that central Florida is a very prosperous 
area of our Nation and it has been ravaged by illegal narcotics. Their 
headlines have blurted out this past year that drug deaths now exceed 
homicides. And the situation continues to be critical in spite of some 
of the solutions that we have put in place and steps that we have 
taken. It is a very difficult problem to solve. We have seen that.
  We do know that in some jurisdictions through some efforts there have 
been successes; and, in others, there have been failures.
  In February of this year, we asked one of those success stories to be 
heard before our subcommittee and we conducted a hearing that featured 
New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. And certainly of all the examples of 
successes in this country, no one has been more successful or more 
effective in curtailing illegal narcotics, crime, and certainly 
bringing the murder rate under control than Rudy Giuliani.
  In fact, when he became Mayor of New York some years ago, the average 
annual murders were around the 2,000 mark, in fact, in excess of 2,000. 
A 70 percent decline in the murder rate there has been achieved through 
a zero-tolerance and tough enforcement policy that has worked. 
Hopefully, the success story that we heard about there is being 
replicated. And we know that it is being replicated in other 
communities; and where it is, we have seen also some dramatic decreases 
in crime, violence, and narcotics use.
  Also important to our subcommittee and in developing the House's 
strategy for dealing with the problem of illegal narcotics, narcotics 
trafficking, is looking at the areas that bring drugs forth into our 
country into our borders; and we have spent several hearings back in 
February looking at the situation as far as Mexico.
  Seventy percent of the illegal narcotics coming into the United 
States transit through Mexico. We conducted a rather thorough review 
and oversight of our policy toward Mexico in advance of the President's 
requirement under law to certify Mexico as cooperating under again a 
Federal law that requires that certification that Mexico is cooperating 
with the United States to stop both the production and trafficking of 
illegal narcotics.
  In return for that certification and cooperation, a country under 
that law, whether it is Mexico or other countries, is eligible to 
receive benefits of the United States, either foreign assistance, 
financial assistance, financial support, votes in international 
organizations, and also they receive certain benefits as far as trade 
from the United States. That is once they are certified as fully 
cooperating.
  We did review the previous year's experience with Mexico and found 
some of their efforts lacking, in fact, reductions in seizures of both 
heroin and cocaine, and not really addressing some of the requests that 
the Congress had made some 2 years ago, including extraditing major 
drug kingpin traffickers; signing a maritime agreement, which they 
still have not done; allowing our DEA agents to protect themselves in 
their country, and that was based on the experience we had with one DEA 
agent murdered some years ago; and also enforcement of Mexican drug 
laws that were passed and money laundering laws that were passed that 
were, unfortunately, passed but not fully executed.
  We looked at all of the range of requests that this Congress had made 
2 years ago to see if Mexico, in fact, had complied; and we found, in 
fact, their cooperation lacking. In fact, one of the most disturbing 
reports that we had from that hearing was, in fact, that Mexico, 
according to our United States Department of State, continues to be the 
primary haven for money laundering in Latin America.

  One of the things that was most disturbing about the actions of 
Mexico was that, while we had asked them to execute and enforce the 
laws that they

[[Page H12102]]

had passed dealing with money laundering, we found instead hostility 
towards an investigation that the United States began in that country.
  That investigation was probably the largest money laundering 
investigation in the history of the United States Customs and certainly 
on the international scene and involved hundreds of millions of dollars 
that we know came from drug money laundering. This undercover operation 
was the largest money laundering sting in the history of the United 
States.
  As it ended up, 40 Mexicans and Venezuelan bankers, businessmen, and 
suspected drug cartel members were arrested and 70 others indicted as 
fugitives.
  The United States officials at the time of our preliminary work on 
this investigation and during the investigation, did not fully inform 
Mexican counterparts of the operation because they feared Mexican 
corrupt officials might endanger our agents' lives. However, they were 
kept abreast generally of the operation.
  Three of Mexico's most prominent banks, Bancomer, Banc Serfin, and 
Banc Confia, were implicated in this investigation. This investigation 
also revealed some startling facts about what is going on in Mexico.
  One of our senior United States Customs agents who led the Casa 
Blanca probe declared that corruption had reached the highest levels of 
the Zedillo government, the current government, when he implicated the 
Minister of Defense of Mexico, Enrique Cervantes.
  In June of 1998, the Mexican Government advised the United States it 
would prosecute United States Customs agents and informers who took 
part in Operation Casa Blanca. So rather than cooperate with the United 
States, Mexico threatened to indict and arrest the United States 
officials involved in that operation.
  In February of this year, 1999, a Mexican judge denied the 
extradition of five Mexican bankers that the United States had 
requested for their role in operation Casa Blanca.
  In fact, extradition continues to be a very sore point in relations 
between the United States and Mexico.
  Last week, I reported that we met with the attorney general and the 
foreign minister of Mexico here in Washington in what was, I believe, 
the seventh high level working group that included our drug czar, other 
high level officials in our administration, the secretary, under 
secretary for international narcotics matters, and officials from 
various United States agencies and numerous Members of both the House 
and the other body.
  At the top of our request list again to Mexico was a question of 
extradition, not only in the Casa Blanca case, but to date United 
States officials have 275 pending requests for extradition with Mexico.

                              {time}  2320

  To date, Mexico has not extradited a single kingpin drug or illegal 
narcotics trafficker despite requests. Mexico has only approved 42 
extradition requests since 1996. Of 20 of the extradition requests that 
Mexico has approved, there has only been one of those who has been a 
Mexican citizen. No major drug kingpin from Mexico who is a Mexican 
national again has been indicted to date.
  In June of this past year, our subcommittee did hold another hearing 
on Mexico's cooperation on the question of extradition. The title of 
that hearing is, Is Mexico a Safe Haven for Murderers and Drug 
Traffickers? Particularly we looked into the case brought to the 
attention of the subcommittee and the Congress of a suspected murderer, 
Mr. Del Toro, who was suspected of murder, very heavily implicated in 
the death of a Sarasota, Florida, woman, a terrible death in which this 
woman was murdered and the body was left with her two young children. 
That individual, even though his name is Del Toro, was a U.S. citizen, 
fled to Mexico and was granted temporary refuge there. I am pleased 
that after our June 23 hearing, that Mexico did extradite Mr. Del Toro 
and he is now sitting in jail in Florida awaiting justice in our 
system. We have made some progress, but again to date not one single 
major drug kingpin who is a Mexican national has been extradited.
  This is all in spite of the fact that on November 13, 1997, the 
United States and Mexico signed a protocol to the current extradition 
treaty. Now, this protocol, basically the outline and agreement for 
extradition, has been ratified by the United States Senate but is 
currently still being delayed by the Mexican Senate. They have failed 
to act on that and, as I said, they also have failed to act on the 
signing or reaching a maritime agreement of cooperation.
  I am pleased that this year we have some indication of increased 
seizures of cocaine and heroin by Mexican officials, in cooperation 
with the United States officials. That is some good news. Some bad news 
is that we have just received additional information on the signature 
heroin program. I have had before this chart that showed, and I think 
we can see it here, 14 percent of the heroin coming into the United 
States, was coming, in 1997, from Mexico. We know this is pretty 
accurate, because these tests that are done by DEA are almost a DNA 
sampling and can almost trace this heroin to the fields from which the 
heroin originates. Unfortunately, I just received this chart last week 
of the 1998 seizures of heroin in the United States. This shows that 
Mexico has jumped from 14 to 17 percent of the heroin entering the 
United States, comes from Mexico. That does not sound like much, 14 to 
17 percent, but it is about a 20 percent increase. What is startling, 
too, is in the early 1990's, we were in the single digits in 
production, primarily black tar heroin from Mexico. The other scary 
thing, of all the heroin that is coming into the United States is the 
purity levels that were in the low teens, as far as the purity of 
heroin is now coming in from both Mexico, South America and other 
sources is a very high purity level, sometimes 80, 90 percent. So what 
we have is more production from Mexico, more production from South 
America, in particular Colombia, and more production of a very deadly 
heroin, and that is one reason why we have the epidemic of heroin 
deaths both in my district and throughout the United States.
  We do have some serious problems with Mexico. We will continue from 
our subcommittee to monitor their cooperation. We have that 
responsibility. Our primary responsibility, of course, is stopping 
drugs at their source, interdicting drugs before they come into the 
United States. That really is something that we have tried to closely 
examine, how effective that has worked.
  In the past, and I have held up some of these charts before, 
particularly in the Reagan administration and the Bush administration, 
the United States Federal Government, as we can see by this chart, up 
to 1993 with the Clinton administration, had continually addressed 
proper funding and spending for international programs. International 
programs are stopping drugs at their source. Basically what happened is 
the War on Drugs was closed down in 1993 when the other side took over 
the House, the Senate and the White House, and Clinton policy really 
gutted all of these programs. That meant crop alternative programs, 
stopping drugs at their source, anything that dealt on the 
international level which again is a primary responsibility of the 
Federal Government was either slashed dramatically or these programs 
eliminated. Only now, in 1995, with the advent of the new majority have 
we really gotten ourselves back to the Reagan-Bush dollar levels of 
funding for the international programs. We can see some immediate 
success in several areas, particularly Peru and Bolivia where they have 
cut production of cocaine in Peru by some 60 percent, in Bolivia by 
over 50 percent just in several years. The one area where we have not 
had a reduction in narcotics trafficking and production, of course, is 
Colombia.
  The previous speakers, the gentleman from California, the gentlewoman 
from Wisconsin, talked about Colombia, and I think in somewhat 
nostalgic terms. I believe at least one of the speakers had 
participated in our Peace Corps and both are familiar with Colombia. We 
have a very serious problem with Colombia today. That problem did not 
happen overnight. That problem is a direct result of a policy, I 
believe, and we held a number of hearings in our subcommittee on the 
subject, and in the Congress there have been some 16 hearings on that 
subject

[[Page H12103]]

that I am aware of, both in our subcommittee and other committees, 
including International Relations, on the problems relating to 
Colombia. Colombia is another example of the United States changing 
policy with the Clinton administration, ending the War on Drugs. They 
stopped the international programs, they stopped the interdiction 
programs, and this would be stopping drugs from the source to the 
United States borders. Again, we do not see a change in this policy 
getting us back to the level of funding that we had under the Reagan 
and Bush administration until up to the new majority taking control. 
Otherwise, we see a complete slash in stopping drugs at their source. 
And also interdicting drugs as they came from their source.

                              {time}  2330

  In fact, one of the first actions of the Clinton administration was 
to cease providing intelligence information to Colombia on May 1, 1994. 
That was the beginning of our problems with Colombia, and from the time 
of this bad policy adoption, things have gone dramatically downhill in 
Colombia.
  That policy change created a gap that allowed drug flights and 
transit areas that were once denied to drug traffickers to open wide 
open. Only after the United States Congress intervened and identified 
this misstep did the Clinton administration, after some very harmful 
delays, resume intelligence-sharing.
  What is interesting, the next step was removal of some of the 
overflight and surveillance information, and I believe the Vice 
President was involved in some of those decisions to take some of our 
AWACs planes and other information, surveillance aircraft, and move 
them to different locations. Some, of course, went to other deployments 
of the Clinton administration. It is my understanding one AWACs was 
sent by the Vice President over Alaska to check for oil spills, as 
opposed to taking care of providing information to go after drug 
traffickers.
  In addition to going after drug traffickers, the other important 
thing has been to stem some of the violence, the narco-terrorist 
violence in Colombia. It is important that we pay attention to human 
rights, and that human rights violations do not go unpunished.
  President Pastrano, the new president of Colombia, has made 
incredible progress. Very few human rights violations by the military 
have been reported. The United States is also providing training to 
their military so that they are aware of human rights violations, and 
that they do conduct themselves as far as their military activities in 
compliance with international standards and basic human rights.
  However, the human rights of 30,000 Colombians were ignored in this 
period of time. That is how many Colombians have met their fate and 
their death as a result of narco-terrorism in their country, so tens of 
thousands have died. Over 4,000 police, public officials, and everyone 
from Members of their Congress to their Supreme Court, have been 
slaughtered, murdered, in what has taken place as lawlessness, and this 
terrorist insurgency has taken hold.
  What is even sadder is that 80 percent of all cocaine and 75 percent 
of all the heroin in the United States today comes from Colombia. If we 
looked at a chart back in 1992, 1991, we would see very little cocaine 
produced in Colombia. This administration, through its policy, again, 
of stopping information, of stopping resources getting to Colombia, and 
of denying assistance to Colombia to combat illegal narcotics, has 
allowed in some 6 or 7 years for Colombia to now become the largest 
cocaine producer in the world.
  It also went from almost a zero production of heroin or poppies to 
now providing, and I think the charts show, some 60 percent to 70 
percent of all of the heroin coming into the United States we can very 
definitely identify as coming from Colombia. All this took place under 
the Clinton administration, and in spite of repeated pleas from both 
the minority, when we were in the minority, and since we have taken 
over, the majority to make certain that resources and assistance got to 
Colombia.
  What is absolutely incredible, as I stand before the House tonight, 
we still find ourselves faced with aid that we requested some years 
ago, with assistance that we appropriated in the previous fiscal year, 
still not getting to Colombia.
  If I have heard one thing once, I have heard it a thousand times. I 
have heard that the country of Colombia is the third largest recipient 
of the United States foreign aid. That is based on a supplemental that 
was provided last year by the Republican majority, initiated by, in 
fact, the former chair of this subcommittee, the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Hastert), who is now Speaker of the House.

  I worked diligently to make sure Colombia had the resources, and we 
passed, under our watch, a supplemental to make certain that the 
resources got to the source, the primary source, of illegal hard drugs, 
cocaine and heroin, coming into the United States.
  It is absolutely incredible, again, to report that the House, the 
findings from closed-door sessions we held for the last 2 weeks, we 
find that in fact it was not $300 million in total that went to 
Colombia. That got whittled away. So $42 million ended up actually, of 
$230 million, $42 million went to Peru and Bolivia.
  Additionally, we have been requested or we were requesting since 1995 
that helicopters which have been requested by Colombia be sent to 
Colombia to deal with eradication and to deal also with the insurgency 
that was financed in cooperating with narcotics, illegal narcotics in 
that country.
  What is again absolutely incredible is that to date, we have in 
Colombia six of nine Huey helicopters that are operating. We expended 
$40 million on that, so two-thirds of what we requested as far as Huey 
helicopters are operating, so that is six total Hueys at a cost of $40 
million.
  One of the other helicopters that has been requested was Black Hawk 
helicopters, which have both combat capability and also high altitude 
capability, which we need, and flexibility for Colombia, which has 
mountainous ranges where coke and poppy are grown and also trafficked.
  What is absolutely incredible is that out of the three or out of six 
that we funded for Colombia, only three have been delivered. Of the 
three that have been delivered, in fact, none of them are operational 
at this point because all three of them lack proper floor armoring, and 
additionally, they do not have ammunition.
  Now the ammunition we requested, and I know I have been involved in 
that for several years, and mini-guns to go to Colombia, we had 
testimony, again behind closed doors, that in fact, as of November 1, 
that ammunition and those mini-guns had been shipped, but we did not 
have confirmation as of last week whether or not they had been 
delivered.
  So we have actually only six operating Huey helicopters out of nine 
and six would be 15 requested, and three of the Black Hawks are not 
operational.
  Now, if we also look at the dollars involved, we take out $42 million 
for Peru and Bolivia and we are down to $190 million, and we find that 
the Black Hawk helicopters really accounted for a great deal of the 
balance of the residual funds, the super Hueys and several other 
activities.
  What in fact we find out is that of the $232 million above, there was 
$176 million in fact set aside for Colombia, but only one-half of this 
has actually been delivered or is operational.
  What is even more startling is the administration announced with 
great fanfare that the President was going to take surplus equipment, 
again in the previous fiscal year, in 1999, and we are now in 1999-
2000, but this is called 506 A drawdown. It is off-the-shelf equipment.
  To date, not one single piece of equipment or assistance has been 
provided to Colombia at this juncture. However, the administration 
admits now that we have an emergency situation. General Barry 
McCaffrey, who is head of our antidrug effort and our national drug 
czar, described Colombia as, and I will quote him, as an ``emergency 
situation'' at a hearing before our Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, 
Drug Policy, and Human Resources on August 6 of 1999.

                              {time}  2340

  Now, I believe that the administration is somewhat embarrassed to 
come to the Congress in these final days as

[[Page H12104]]

we debate the 1999-2000 normal budget and request additional funds. 
Anyone who looks at this, and details the amount of money appropriated 
by Congress initiated in the House of Representatives for Colombia and 
then sees what has actually been delivered would be shocked and I think 
somewhat embarrassed to come here and start asking for a billion to $2 
billion.
  And I might say that we are not opposed to additional funds on our 
side of the aisle for Colombia. We have a situation out of control. We 
have a region that is in danger. We have a neighbor that is just a few 
hours away from Miami. We have an instability that is being created now 
all the way up to the Panama Canal over into the Caribbean and through 
Central and South America by this situation that has grown out of 
control.
  General McCaffrey also went on to state, ``The United States has paid 
inadequate attention to a serious and growing emergency.'' That 
probably will go down in history as one of the understatements, 
particularly given the latest information that we have and, again, the 
disruption to the whole region that we see.
  Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to note too that General Serrano, who 
is the Chief of the Colombian National Police, he stated to our 
subcommittee that 90 percent of the anti-drug missions the Colombian 
National Police must conduct are required to be conducted by 
helicopter, again, given the terrain of the country. I know it is nice 
to think that just good things will happen if we wish and hope, and I 
respect the opinion of the other Members who spoke in here before on 
the floor. But I think we know that some tough measures are needed and 
that this insurgency must be brought under control by President 
Pastrana, or there never will be peace in Colombia or there never will 
be peace in this region.
  The latest information that we have just a few months ago is that the 
FARC, which is the guerrilla forces financed by illegal narcotics 
activities, earn up to $600 million per year in profits from the drug 
trade. United States officials believe that the area under drug 
cultivation in Colombia has spiralled from some 196,000 acres last year 
from 79,000 acres, and this, again, is a problem I think created by 
inattention by this administration by stopping the resources, by 
decertifying Colombia in the improper manner in which it was 
decertified without a national interest waiver to make certain that 
these long-sought-after pieces of equipment and in some cases 
ammunition, helicopters, arrived there to help in bringing this pattern 
of devastation and left-wing guerrilla activity under control.
  A recent United States-based General Accounting report said cocaine 
production in Colombia has increased by 50 percent just since 1996, 
making it again the number one cocaine producer in the world. It is 
interesting to note that the year before the administration began its 
efforts to make certain that none of the equipment and resources that 
the Congress was trying to provide got to Colombia.
  So, again, the history of Colombia is interesting. Even this past 
week and, in fact, in the newspaper, we have a report of the Colombian 
rebels making certain demands to the current government. And this story 
is dateline Bogota, Colombia. The country's largest guerrilla group 
said it would reject a year-end truce offer unless the government 
stopped extraditing drug suspects to the United States. That is one of 
the major conditions they put forth.
  And I will say that last week Colombia, as opposed to Mexico where we 
have had inaction, did vote for the extradition of major drug 
traffickers. Now we have the Marxist guerrilla group financed by drug 
traffickers threatening to hold the peace process in abeyance if 
Colombian officials go forward with the extradition of the major drug 
kingpin traffickers.

  We will be back, I am sure, next year to the topic of Colombia, even 
though we wind up in the next few days here our budget in Washington.
  Mr. Speaker, let me turn a moment to the situation in Washington. As 
most people who observe the Congress know, we are in the process of 
winding up our year-end responsibilities and that is funding all of the 
activities of the Federal Government. That process takes place through 
the adoption of 13 bills, each of which funds our Federal Government.
  Today, we have passed about eight of those and we have about five in 
contention. One of those in contention is the District of Columbia. The 
President has vetoed the appropriations measure for the District of 
Columbia. What is really interesting at this juncture, we have passed a 
balanced budget. The new majority brought the country's finances into 
order. We have a basic agreement. We set up terms of that agreement so 
that we must stick to the budget agreement in terms. We are doing 
pretty much that, even within the District budget.
  Mr. Speaker, we have to remember the District budget, when we took 
over control of the House of Representatives after 40 years of control 
by the other party, the District of Columbia was in shambles. The year 
we took over, they were short in debt just for one year about three-
quarters of a billion dollars. That means the taxpayers from across the 
country were underwriting the largesse and wild spending not only of 
the Federal Government and its agencies but also the District of 
Columbia.
  That situation has been brought under control by the new majority, 
just as we brought into balance the Federal budget. We did that by 
eliminating some of the employees. They had the largest number of 
employees of any governmental body probably outside the former Soviet 
Union. They had 48,000 employees, which meant that about one out of 10 
in the District of Columbia worked for the District of Columbia, not 
mentioning the contracts that were let.
  We got that down I believe to around 33,000. The issue is not about 
spending this year, because we have brought into control the operations 
of the District. We brought in new management. Fortunately, one of 
those individuals is now the Mayor. And the District, just like our 
national budget, on an annualized basis, of course we have debt, but on 
an annualized basis is in fairly good order.
  The reason the President has vetoed the bill is not dealing with 
dollars and cents, it is dealing with policy. The Clinton 
administration has championed a needle exchange program for the 
District of Columbia.

                              {time}  2350

  That has been one of the bones of contention. The other, of course, 
is a liberalized drug policy with regard to referendum to legalize 
certain drugs in the District of Columbia.
  So part of the fight on the floor of the House has been about policy 
and liberalization of drug policy. I have shown many times this chart 
of Baltimore where Baltimore went in 1996 from 38,000, almost 39,000 
heroin addicts to today above 60,000 heroin addicts. That is just in 
this period. That is through adoption of a liberal policy, a needle 
exchange policy and liberalized drug policy.
  Deaths also remain constant in Baltimore, 312 murders in 1997 and 312 
in 1998. A liberal policy of failure. I have said, if we have to have 
this bill vetoed, the District bill, with liberal provisions on drug 
policy 10 more times, so let it be. But that is part of what the debate 
is about here.
  That is in spite of people like General Barry McCaffrey who is our 
national Drug Czar appointed by the President, he said ``By handing out 
needles, we encourage drug use. Such a message would be inconsistent 
with the tenure of our national youth oriented anti-drug campaign.'' So 
the Drug Czar himself has said that we should not liberalize the policy 
in the District. He does not support this move.
  We have others who have attempted a needle exchange and found that 
they did just the opposite of what they intended to do. A Montreal 
study showed that IV addicts who use needle exchange programs were more 
than twice likely to become infected with HIV as IV addicts who did not 
use needle exchange programs.
  Another study in 1997 in Vancouver reported that, when their needle 
exchange programs started in 1988, HIV prevalence in IV drug addicts 
was only 1 to 2 percent, and now it is 23 percent.
  Again, we believe, at least on our side of the aisle that these 
issues, these policies are worth fighting for. It is unfortunate that 
the Congress just a few days before the Thanksgiving holiday

[[Page H12105]]

is here. But, in fact, it is important that we are here. It is 
important that we do not allow our Nation's capital, which should be 
the shining example, to return to its former state or to adopt a failed 
policy of liberalization. If the Nation's capital does not set the 
example, then who does?
  We have taken the District a long way in 4-plus short years. It was 
not a shining example when we took over. It was a great example of big 
government going bad. That is the same problem we have with many of the 
other programs.
  Public education. There has been a tremendous amount of discussion 
about improving education across our land. The Federal Government today 
only provides 5 cents of every dollar towards education. Most of it is 
provided by local real estate, property, and State taxes, about 95 
percent from local and State sources, 5 percent by the Federal 
Government.
  There has been a debate in the Congress here and one of the reasons 
we are here is how additional money would go to education. Should it be 
through more Federal programs? We had 760. We have gotten that down to 
700 since we do not want to spend money on administration. We want to 
spend it on the classroom.
  The question of spending it in the classroom, 80 to 90 percent of the 
money under the Democrat regime went for everything except basics, 
except for the classrooms. We have tried to turn that around and say 
that we want at least 90 percent of that money in the classrooms.
  The biggest problem we have in addition to liberal policies being 
promoted in the Washington arena with drugs is just the same problem we 
face in education where they want the control, they want the ability to 
dictate, they want the ability to administer and maintain control in 
Washington. That policy has just about been the ruination of public 
education and also made it most difficult for the teacher to teach in 
the classroom, to have control over the classroom, to have some say 
over the classroom and over the students.

  So with 5 percent of the money, the Federal Government has given us 
80 percent of the regulations and 90 percent of the headaches. Again, 
we do not want that policy adopted either in education programs that 
come from Washington or in programs that dictate how the District of 
Columbia will operate in the future.
  As I close tonight, I think that it is important that we realize, and 
this may be the last special order on the drug issue, but we realize 
again the impact of illegal narcotics on our society, not only the 
15,700 who meet their untimely death by drug-induced deaths, and that 
is the latest statistic, in the last, 6, 7 years since I have been in 
Congress, there have been 80,000 and 90,000 people that meet their 
death and final fate through drug-induced deaths, a startling figure, 
almost as many in any recent war of this Nation's history.
  The statistics go on to relate the problems that we have. I share 
with my colleagues some of them as I close, and these are from our 
National Drug Control Policy Office. According to that office, each 
day, 8,000 young people will try an illegal drug for the first time. 
For many of them, it will be the last time. Because of those 15,700 
deaths, many, many of them are young people, even teenagers today who 
fall victim to these high purity hard narcotics and unfortunately do 
not survive.
  According to the Office of National Drug Policy Control, 352 people 
start using heroin each day across the United States. Today, we have 
seen also, according to the same office, a record number of heroin 
deaths, not only in central Florida, but throughout this land, and 
again, particularly among our young people. So we face a great social 
problem, a great challenge.
  I am pleased that we have been able to conduct during the past year a 
number of hearings. We are up to some 18 hearings on the narcotics 
issue and some 30 hearings we will complete by the first week in 
December with our subcommittee. I appreciate the fine work of staff and 
Members.
  Tomorrow, our subcommittee will hold a hearing at 10 a.m. on the 
subject of Cuba and its involvement in illegal narcotics trafficking. 
The administration this past week and the President did not include 
Cuba in the list of major drug traffickers in spite of some evidence to 
the contrary.
  We will hear both the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton), chairman 
of the Committee on Government Reform and the gentleman from New York 
(Mr. Gilman), chairman of the Committee on International Relations on 
investigations they have conducted by their respective committee staffs 
on the question of Cuba's involvement and complicity in international 
drug trafficking, and also the designation by the White House of those 
countries who have been designated as major drug traffickers, again 
with the exception of Cuba and with specifically excluding Cuba from 
that list.
  So that will be our responsibility. Then next year, we will continue 
on our quest to find some answers to very serious problems that the 
American people and certainly the Congress of the United States face.

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