[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 115 (Monday, September 25, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9187-S9188]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 SAMHSA AUTHORIZATION CONFERENCE REPORT

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I want to speak today about the provisions 
in H.R. 4365--which passed the Senate on Friday, that address our 
Nation's growing problems with methamphetamines and ecstasy and other 
club drugs. I am happy to have worked with Senator Harkin and Senator 
Biden to ensure that these provisions could be included in the 
conference report. Indeed, Senator Harkin has worked tirelessly to 
address this issue, and I commend him for his efforts; without his 
involvement, this legislation would not have passed.
  I believe that the methamphetamine provisions in this report embody 
the best elements of S. 486, which the Senate passed last year, while 
casting aside the more ill-advised ideas in that legislation. The 
manufacture and distribution of methamphetamines and amphetamines is an 
increasingly serious problem, and the provisions we have retained in 
this legislation will provide significant additional resources for both 
law enforcement and treatment. In addition to creating tougher 
penalties for those who manufacture and distribute illicit drugs, this 
bill allocates additional funding to assist local law enforcement, 
allows for the hiring of new DEA agents, and increases research, 
training and prevention efforts. This is a good and comprehensive 
approach to deal with methamphetamines in our local communities.
  Meanwhile, we have not included in this legislation the provision in 
S. 486 that would have allowed law enforcement to conduct physical 
searches and seizures without the existing notice requirement, a 
serious curtailment of the civil liberties that Americans have come to 
expect. It would have also amended the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 
so that Rule 41(d)'s requirements concerning the notice, inventory, and 
return of seized property would only apply to tangible property, thus 
exempting the contents of individuals' computers from the property 
protections provided to American citizens under current law. I worked 
hard to make sure that that provision did not become law, and I had 
effective and dedicated allies on both sides of the aisle in the House 
of Representatives. Indeed, the methamphetamine legislation approved by 
the House Judiciary Committee did not include this provision.
  We have also not included those provisions from S. 486 that concerned 
advertising and the distribution of information about methamphetamines. 
Both of those provisions raised First Amendment concerns, and I believe 
the legislation is stronger without them. Once again, the House 
Judiciary Committee acted wisely, leaving those provisions out of its 
meth legislation.
  The meth bill has taken a lengthy path from introduction to passage, 
and I believe it has been improved at each step. For example, we 
significantly improved this bill during committee considerations. As 
the comprehensive substitute for the original bill was being drafted, I 
had three primary reservations: First, earlier versions of the bill 
imposed numerous mandatory minimums. I continue to believe that 
mandatory minimums are generally an inappropriate tool in our 
critically important national fight against drugs. Simply imposing or 
increasing mandatory minimums subverts the more considered process 
Congress set up in the Sentencing Commission. The Federal Sentencing 
Guidelines already provide a comprehensive mechanism to equalize 
sentences among persons convicted of the same or similar crime, while 
allowing judges the discretion they need to give appropriate weight to 
individual circumstances.

  The Sentencing Commission goes through an extraordinary process to 
set sentence levels. For example, pursuant to our 1996 anti-
methamphetamine law, the Sentencing Commission increased meth penalties 
after careful analysis of recent sentencing data, a study of the 
offenses, and information from the DEA on trafficking levels, dosage 
unit size, price and drug quantity. Increasing mandatory minimums takes 
sentencing discretion away from judges. We closely examine judges' 
backgrounds before they are confirmed and should let them do their 
jobs.
  Mandatory minimums also impose significant economic and social costs. 
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the annual cost of 
housing a federal inmate ranges from $16,745 per year for minimum 
security inmates to $23,286 per year for inmates in high security 
facilities. It is critical that we take steps that will effectively 
deter crime, but we should not ignore the costs of the one size fits 
all approach of mandatory minimums. We also cannot ignore the policy 
implications of the boom in our prison population. In 1970, the total 
population in the federal prison system was 20,686 prisoners, of

[[Page S9188]]

whom 16.3 percent were drug offenders. By 1997, the federal prison 
population had grown to almost 91,000 sentenced prisoners, 
approximately 60 percent of whom were sentenced for drug offenses. The 
cost of supporting this expanded federal criminal justice system is 
staggering. We ignore at our peril the findings of RAND's comprehensive 
1997 report on mandatory minimum drug sentences: ``Mandatory minimums 
are not justifiable on the basis of cost-effectiveness at reducing 
cocaine consumption, cocaine expenditures, or drug-related crime.''
  This is why I have repeatedly expressed my concerns about creating 
new mandatory minimum penalties, including in the last Congress, when 
another anti-methamphetamine bill was before the Judiciary Committee.
  Second, earlier drafts of this bill would have contravened the 
Supreme Court's 1999 decision in Richardson versus U.S. I, along with 
some other members of the Committee, believed that it would be 
inappropriate to take such a step without first holding a hearing and 
giving thorough consideration to such a change in the law. The Chairman 
of the Committee, Senator Hatch, was sensitive to this concern and he 
agreed to remove that provision from this legislation.
  Third, an earlier version of the bill contained a provision that 
would have created a rebuttable presumption that may have violated the 
Constitution's Due Process Clause. Again, I believed that we needed to 
seriously consider and debate such a provision before voting on it. And 
again, the Chairman was sensitive to the concerns of some of us on the 
Committee and agreed to remove that provision.
  The SAMHSA authorization bill also dealt with ecstasy and other so-
called ``club drugs.'' Ecstasy is steadily growing in popularity, 
especially among younger Americans. It is perceived by many young 
people as being harmless, but medical studies are beginning to show 
that it can have serious long-term effects on users. This bill asks the 
Sentencing Commission to look at our current sentencing guidelines for 
those who manufacture, import, export, or traffic ecstasy, and to 
provide for increased penalties as it finds appropriate. It also 
authorizes $10 million for prevention efforts. These efforts are 
particularly crucial with new drugs like ecstasy, so that our young 
people can learn the true consequences of use.
  This legislation took a tough approach to drugs without taking the 
easy way out of mandatory minimums, and without undue Congressional 
interference with the Sentencing Commission. I hope that any future 
efforts we must take to address our drug problem will use these 
provisions as a model.

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