[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 109 (Tuesday, September 14, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H7076-H7077]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             DRUG IMPAIRED DRIVING ENFORCEMENT ACT OF 2004

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of 
January 20, 2004, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder) is recognized 
during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to talk briefly about H.R. 
3922, the Drug Impaired Driving Enforcement Act of 2004 that the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Portman) introduced in this House earlier this 
year, along with the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin), the gentleman 
from Ohio (Mr. LaTourette) the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ramstad) 
and myself.
  Mr. Speaker, we often hear about drunk driving, but we have not heard 
enough about drug-impaired driving. Let me read some of the findings in 
this bill.
  Driving under the influence of or after having used illegal drugs has 
become a significant problem worldwide. 35 million persons in the 
United States age 12 or older had used illegal drugs this past year, 
and almost 11 million of those persons age 12 or older and 31 percent 
in the past year had driven under the influence of or after having used 
illegal drugs.
  This is a sobering thought when you are driving down the highway. Not 
only may somebody be high on alcohol, but they may be whacked out on 
drugs, and they may be combining the drugs, alcohol and illegal drugs 
to put you and your family at risk.
  According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 
illegal drugs are used by approximately 10 to 22 percent of all drivers 
in motor vehicle crashes. In other words, when we talk about what the 
problems are on the road, we have to have illegal drugs in that mix.
  Across the country, we do not have in many cases the ability to 
detect or prosecute, because we do not have the detection, the use of 
illegal drugs in automobile wrecks, particularly in higher incidence 
most likely of deaths than even other types of automobile wrecks. Too 
few police officers have been trained, and there is lack of uniformity 
and consistency in State laws.
  What this bill would do is provide grants and money to the different 
States for model legislation on how to do drug-impaired driving 
statutes, to ensure drivers in need of drug education or treatment are 
identified and

[[Page H7077]]

provided with the appropriate assistance, to advance research and 
development of testing mechanisms and knowledge about drug driving and 
its impact on traffic safety, and to enhance the training of traffic 
safety officers and prosecutors to detect, enforce and prosecute drug-
impaired driving laws. I hope that each Member of Congress will sponsor 
this bill and that we can move this bill, if not as part of the larger 
transportation will, as a freestanding bill.
  I also wanted to call attention and will include in the Record this 
article about a DEA exhibit that highlights, among other things, the 
drug-impaired driving accidents. This was in USA Today yesterday, 
September 13, 2004, about an exhibit that is opening in One Times 
Square, New York City, today. It will be a three floor exhibit on the 
perils of drug use and what it is doing to devastate American youth, 
adults and people in our country, as well as around the world. The 
exhibit also links terror and drug traffic.
  The picture here shows an automobile obliterated in a wreck, I 
believe in Ohio, a 1994 Ford Thunderbird, whose driver killed a woman 
and just obliterated the car.
  We have had multiple deaths in my hometown because of drug-impaired 
driving, even though we have a very limited ability to test. It has 
been clear that the marijuana in particular has been the primary 
culprit. We have had multiple deaths related to meth, and in addition 
kids using that and taking other kids out. We even had a couple of 
grizzly murders where it appears the kids were either after the Ecstasy 
or some other drug, at the very minimum, marijuana.
  In this DEA exhibit, among other things, in addition to the display 
regarding the automobile wrecks and the deaths due to drug-impaired 
driving, on the third floor they have a ``Wall of Lost Talent,'' a 
display of prom, graduation and school photos of those who have died 
because of drugs. Visitors are encouraged to leave photos of friends 
and family members who have been harmed by drugs as well.
  Karen Tandy, the Director of DEA, said, ``I want Americans to realize 
that although they may not use drugs, everyone is impacted by drug use 
in this country. That car,'' and she is referring to the devastated car 
that caused the deaths, ``represents the threat to every one of us on 
the road.''
  I am glad that the DEA administrator and the DEA is taking the 
message out to the general public that drug use is not just something 
you do at home on your own or a recreational-type thing. When you use 
drugs and you get behind the wheel, you are putting everybody else on 
the road at risk.
  Mr. Speaker, I chair the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug 
Policy and Human Resources of the Committee on Government Reform, and 
what we have heard in testimony after testimony after testimony is not 
only when you go out on the road, but even in the home, is of young 
kids terrorized by their parents, who come home and beat them or just 
ignore them but use up their food money. This article also links the 
terrorists to drug money and much destabilization in other countries.
  Mr. Speaker, it is very important that the DEA has done this, and it 
is very important that we pass the legislation in the House.

                  [From the USA Today, Sept. 13, 2004]

                   Exhibit Links Terror, Drug Traffic

                          (By Donna Leinwand)

       New York.--The crumpled green 1994 Thunderbird is a jarring 
     sight in the lobby of One Times Square. The driver, DEA 
     agents say, was high on cocaine, barbiturates and marijuana 
     when he hit and killed a 31-year-old Ohio woman. The man is 
     serving 10 years.
       The car is the opening assault in an exhibit meant to lay 
     bare the harsh world of illicit drugs from the intensely 
     personal car accident to the global financing of rebel armies 
     and terrorists.
       Target America: Drug Traffickers, Terrorists and You is an 
     expanded version of a Drug enforcement Administration Museum 
     traveling exhibit that opens here Tuesday.
       The exhibit, housed in three floors of borrowed space, is 
     designed to illustrate through graphic photos and artifacts 
     the societal costs of the production, trafficking and use of 
     illegal drugs.
       ``I want Americans to realize that, although they may not 
     use drugs, everyone is impacted by drug use in this 
     country,'' DEA administrator Karen Tandy says. ``That car 
     represents the threat to every one of us on the road.''
       The car is the centerpiece of a field of debris piled in 
     the lobby of the tall retail-and-office building. The wreck 
     is surrounded by drug paraphernalia and barrels of chemicals 
     used to make methamphetamine, as well as broken toys 
     representing children neglected by drug-addled parents.
       The overriding theme of the exhibit, visible from Times 
     Square through plate-glass windows, is the link between drug 
     trafficking and global terrorism.
       The exhibit invites visitors to trace the path of cocaine 
     and heroin from drug labs in Afghanistan and Colombia to the 
     pockets of insurgents in Colombia and Peru and to such 
     terrorist organizations as Hezbollah.
       But it also makes a more controversial link between 
     terrorism and the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and 
     the Pentagon. The exhibit includes a large display of debris 
     collected from both sites. The exhibit does not specifically 
     tie the attacks to drug trafficking, but it uses the events 
     to explain how terrorists use the drug trade as one of 
     several methods to fund attacks. It cites U.S. intelligence 
     linking the Taliban in Afghanistan, and by extension its 
     thriving heroin economy, to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.
       ``Someone who thinks he or she is making an individual 
     choice that won't harm anyone else is not seeing the larger 
     picture of where their money eventually goes,'' says Anthony 
     Placido, special agent in charge of the New York division of 
     the DEA.
       In Peru, for example, Shining Path insurgents ``killed 
     thousands of people, destroyed the economy, reduced the 
     country to rubble, and paid for it all with the cocaine 
     trade,'' Placido says.
       After 9/11, Americans shifted their focus from the war on 
     drugs to the war on terror, Placido says. The exhibit, he 
     says, will help relate the illicit drug trade to homeland 
     security.
       ``The same techniques used to smuggle in drugs can be used 
     to smuggle in weapons of mass destruction,'' Placido says. 
     Terrorists and drug criminals ``fish out of the same sewer.''
       Although the exhibit includes the events of Sept. 11, it 
     takes a broader look at the drug trade, tracing its history 
     from the Silk Road routes between China and Europe, says Sean 
     Ferans, director of the exhibit and also the small DEA museum 
     in the agency's headquarters in Arlington, Va.
       The Times Square exhibit is loaded with whiz-bang law 
     enforcement memorabilia. Visitors can beep into an actual 
     cocaine lab uncovered by DEA agents in Colombia, dismantled 
     and shipped to the USA; a Stinger missile launcher; heroin 
     tax receipts from the Taliban; Ecstasy pills; and photos of 
     arrested drug kingpins.
       On the second floor, visitors will see a replica of a crack 
     den cluttered with soiled diapers and guns. There are 
     photographs of children rescued from their parents' meth 
     labs, including one who was covered in car battery acid.
       A ``Wall of Lost Talent'' is a display of prom, graduation 
     and school photos of those who have died because of drugs. 
     Visitors are encourage to leave photos of friends and family 
     members who have been harmed by drugs.
       Parts of the exhibit have traveled to other cities, 
     including Dallas and Omaha. Sections may go on the road 
     again; no schedule has been set. In New York, hours are 9 
     a.m. to 8 p.m. daily through January. Information: 
     www.usdoj.gov/dea/deamuseum/website/index.html.
       Admission is free.

                          ____________________