[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 113 (Monday, September 12, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9902-S9908]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
MAKING APPROPRIATIONS FOR SCIENCE, THE DEPARTMENTS OF STATE, JUSTICE,
AND COMMERCE, AND RELATED AGENCIES FOR FISCAL YEAR 2006--Continued
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Amendment No. 1648
Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 1648 on the CJS
appropriations bill.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the pending amendment is
set aside. The clerk will report the amendment.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Oklahoma [Mr. Coburn] proposes an
amendment No. 1648.
Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of
the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
(Purpose: To eliminate the funding for the Advanced Technology Program
and increase the funding available for the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration, community oriented policing service, and
State and local law enforcement assistance)
On page 170, between lines 9 and 10, insert the following:
Sec. 304.(a) Notwithstanding the provisions in title III
under the heading ``National Institute of Standards and
Technology'' and under the subheading ``industrial technology
services'', none of the funds appropriated in this Act may be
made available for the Advanced Technology Program of the
National Institute of Standards and Technology.
(b) Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, the
amount made available in title III under the heading
``National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration'' and under
the subheading ``operations, research, and facilities'' for
the National Weather Service is increased by $4,900,000 and,
of the total amount made available for such purpose under
such subheading, $3,950,000 shall be made available for the
Coastal and Inland Hurricane Monitoring and Prediction
Program and $3,950,000 shall be made available for the
Hurricane and Tornado Broadcast Campaign.
(c) Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, the
amount made appropriated in title I under the heading
``Office of Justice Programs'' and under the subheading
``community oriented policing services'' is increased by
$72,000,000 and, of the total amount made available under
such subheading, not less than $132,100,000 shall be made
available for the Methamphetamine Hot Spots program.
(d) Notwithstanding any other provisions of this Act, the
amount made appropriated
[[Page S9903]]
in title I under the heading ``Office of Justice Programs''
and under the subheading ``state and local law enforcement
assistance'' is increased by $48,000,000 and, of the total
amount made available under such subheading, not less than
$578,000,000 shall be made available for the Justice
Assistance Grants program.
Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, this is an amendment to start us down the
way of reprioritizing our spending in this country.
With the events of the last 2 weeks, the tremendous deficit we face
already, and the significant problems we face in this country,
especially in terms of methamphetamine, the Weather Service, and the
Byrne Justice Assistance Grants, this is an amendment that will
eliminate the Advanced Technology Program.
There is no question that the ATP has done some good in its history.
It has $140 million in budget authority and has, this year, $22.4
million in outlays. But there has come a time when we need to make
decisions. One of the things I have been consistent on in terms of my
time in the Senate is insisting that we start reprioritizing the things
that work and the things that do not work.
The Advanced Technology Program was scrutinized at a hearing of the
Federal Financial Management Subcommittee of the Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs Committee this year and had good testimony. I will
not demean some of the positive things that have come from this
program. There is no question certain positive things have come from
it.
However, GAO and the Comptroller General noted that 63 percent of the
requests for grants through ATP never sought funds anywhere else. ATP
is supposed to be the source of last resort on technology.
I have put up a chart to show the American people who has actually
been getting the funding. It has not been small businessmen. It has not
been new ideas, innovation coming from small entrepreneurs. What it has
been for is the major corporations in this country that have billions
and billions and billions of dollars worth of sales every year, and
billions in profits. Yet we are now asking the American taxpayer to
take 30 to 40 percent of this ATP money and fund the likes of General
Electric, IBM, Motorola, and 3M, just to name four.
The fact is, good ideas will usually get funded. There is venture
capital all across this country looking for good ideas, private capital
that will fund great ideas. In this time of fiscal constraint, it is
time we reprioritize what we do with this money.
This amendment is intended to take the savings from ATP and put it in
three different programs. One of the programs is the Byrne Justice
Assistance Grants Program, which is markedly needed today in terms of
drug courts, in terms of drug busts, in terms of helping the district
attorneys and State attorneys general accomplish the very laws we put
on the books in front of them.
It transfers funding to the COPS Methamphetamine Hot Spots Program.
There has never been a more devastating drug to our society than
methamphetamine. It is growing like wildfire. As a matter of fact,
attached to this bill is a methamphetamine bill that limits and
restricts the sale of pseudoephedrine throughout this country. It is a
compromise worked out by many of us on the Judiciary Committee, along
with Senator Talent and Senator Feinstein, to put the brakes on the
accessibility of pseudoephedrine in the manufacturing of
methamphetamine.
It also helps fund the National Weather Service for two hurricane and
tornado monitoring and broadcast programs. Goodness knows, we need
that. Different outlay rates for the different programs result in only
$124.9 million of the original $140 million being transferred.
In March, during debate over the budget resolution, Senator Levin
offered an amendment supporting ATP. One of the reasons for that is
last year Michigan got $31 million out of the $140 million. I can
understand his desire to support that. But I would also note that
methamphetamine is a growing epidemic in Michigan. Law enforcement and
the Hot Spots Program to fund the breaking down, the taking of children
out of areas that have been exposed to this tremendously derelict drug
that is infecting and ruining the lives of hundreds of thousands of
Americans is important.
It is interesting to note that for every State in the United States,
the average funding from ATP has been less than funding for the Byrne
JAG Program. The results of this will place $48 million additional into
the Byrne Justice Assistance Grants Program, $72 million into the COPS
Methamphetamine Hot Spots Program, and $4.9 million into the National
Weather Service.
It is interesting to note, also, that many of those who oppose this
bill are the ones who seek and have received the most in terms of the
grants from the ATP program. If you look at California, where Senator
Feinstein will be supporting this CJS bill, California actually
received $31 million as an average from 1990 to 2004. However, with the
Byrne JAG Program being reduced, their average of $58 million for that
program will be reduced.
ATP was created by Congress in 1988 to improve the global competitive
position of high-tech industries in the United States. Very few of the
things that came out of that ATP program accounted for the tremendous
resurgence in the economic activities of the 1990s. Very few of the
things have come out of the ATP program, although there have been some.
One in Oklahoma in particular, Pure Protein, a company in my home
State, had an ATP program. But they also have venture capital funding
that would have funded that research anyway.
Many of the program's most vocal supporters believe without Federal
funding provided by ATP, countless research projects would receive no
money at all, and that ATP exists to remedy the failure of the market
to fund research and development. There is no evidence, however, that
would support those claims.
Time after time, ATP has been shown to fund initiatives that have
already been undertaken by the private sector. Year after year,
multibillion-dollar corporations, as noted here, receive millions of
dollars from ATP.
Regarding the claim that ATP primarily funds research that does not
already exist in the private sector, the U.S. Government Accountability
Office found in a 2000 report ATP-funded research on handwriting
recognition that began in the private sector in 1950. GAO found that
inherent factors within ATP made it unlikely that ATP--and this is a
quote--``can avoid funding research already being pursued by the
private sector in the same time period.''
A 2002 report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta found that ATP
launched major efforts to fund Internet tools companies during periods
when venture funding was markedly increasing its flow to these sectors.
Furthermore, according to a program assessment and rating tool used by
the Office of Management and Budget, ATP does not address a specific
need and is not designed to make a unique contribution.
The Byrne Justice Assistance Grants, through the Edward Byrne
Memorial Justice Assistance Grants, the Bureau of Justice Assistance
provides leadership and guidance on crime control and violence
prevention and works in partnership with State and local governments to
make communities safe and improve the criminal justice system. The JAG
Program was created in 2004 through the merger of two Federal grant
programs, the Edward Byrne Memorial Drug Control and System Improvement
Grant Program and the Local Law Enforcement Block Grant Program. The
JAG Program allows States and local governments to support a broad
range of activities to prevent and control crime and to improve the
criminal justice system.
The program focuses specifically on six separate purpose areas: law
enforcement programs; prosecution and court programs; prevention and
educational programs; correction and community correction programs;
drug treatment programs; planning, evaluation, and technology
improvement.
I want to tell you, as a physician, incarceration does not solve drug
addiction. It makes it worse. Drug treatment programs solve drug
addictions. If we are going to cut the money going to drug treatment
programs, we are making a vital mistake, a mistake we will pay
additional dollars for in the years to come.
[[Page S9904]]
The procedure for allocating JAG funds is a formula based on
population and crime statistics in combination with the minimum
allocation to ensure that each State and territory receives an
appropriate share.
Traditionally, under the Byrne formula and LLEBG Program, funds were
distributed 60-40 between State and local recipients. This distribution
continues under the JAG Program.
The community-oriented policing services' Methamphetamine Hot Spots
Program address a broad array of law enforcement initiatives pertaining
to the investigation of methamphetamine trafficking in heavily affected
areas of the country. This is the largest growing area of drug abuse in
our country. It has a tremendous impact not only on the drug user but
on their families because of the danger associated with it. We have
seen a marked increase of infants who are delivered whose mothers are
addicted to methamphetamine with tremendous negative consequences.
Earlier this year, 53 State attorneys general, including American
Samoa and North Mariana Islands and District of Columbia, signed a
letter to congressional leadership asking us not to reduce the funding
for the Byrne Jag and COPS Program. The letter asked Congress to
restore the reductions in these law enforcement programs to a level
that allows the States to build on the results of the past, law
enforcement partnerships represented by the Byrne JAG and COPS
Programs. I will not go into the National Weather Service.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record
a fact sheet on Ohio, an article by the Cleveland Plain Dealer on the
meth epidemic striking Ohio, a fact sheet on Virginia, and a fact sheet
on Minnesota.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Ohio Fact Sheet--Coburn Amendment #1648 to H.R. 2862
This amendment eliminates funding for the Advanced
Technology Program (ATP) and shifts the funding to three
separate programs: Byrne Justice Assistance Grants (JAG),
Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), and the National
Weather Service (NWS).
Specifically, funding for ATP is reduced by $140 million,
funding for JAG is increased by $48 million, funding for
COPS/Methamphetamine Hot Spots is increased by $72 million,
and funding for NWS is increased by $4.9 million.
Since 1990, ATP has funneled more than $700 million to
Fortune 500 companies that do not require government
assistance. For example, GE (revenues of $152 billion in
2004) has received $91 million from ATP, IBM (revenues of $96
billion in 2004) has received $126 million from ATP, and
Motorola (revenues of $31 billion in 2004) has received $44
million from ATP since 1990.
Since 1990, Ohio has received an average of $6.1 million
from ATP each year. In fiscal year 2005, Ohio received $15.5
million from Byrne JAG funding alone.
Even though ATP was created to fund research that cannot
attract private financing, a Government Accountability Office
study found that 63 percent of ATP grant recipients never
even sought private financing. Quite simply, ATP funnels
taxpayer money to billion dollar corporations that do not
need government subsidies for research and development.
The National Association of Attorneys General, National
District Attorneys Association, National Narcotics Officers
Association Coalition, and National Sheriffs Association have
all expressed support for the Coburn amendment.
Earlier this year, Jim Pero, the Attorney General of Ohio,
co-signed a letter to Congressional leadership stating that
funding cuts for law enforcement grants ``will devastate
state law enforcement efforts--especially drug enforcement--
if they are not restored.'' In the absence of this amendment,
Byrne JAG funding will be cut by $6.5 million relative to
2005 levels.
An August 2005 news article in The Plain Dealer, a
newspaper in Cleveland, states, ``A scourge on the West Coast
for nearly two decades, methamphetamine has established a
destructive toehold in Ohio, infecting rural outposts, big
cities and middle-class suburbs and consuming thousands of
lives.''
A July 2005 survey of law enforcement agencies conducted by
the National Association of Counties found that ``Meth is the
leading drug-related local law enforcement problem in the
country.''
According to the same survey, 70 percent of responding
officials stated that other crimes, including robberies and
burglaries, had increased because of methamphetamine use.
The Methamphetamine Hot Spots program, part of COPS,
addresses a broad array of law enforcement initiatives
pertaining to the investigation of methamphetamine use and
trafficking, trains law enforcement officials, collects
intelligence, and works to discover, interdict, and dismantle
clandestine drug laboratories. This amendment would ensure
that this program receives the funding it needs to tackle the
serious problems associated with methamphetamine use and
distribution.
This amendment also increases funding for the National
Weather Service, and directs the additional funding towards
the Inland and Coastal Hurricane Monitoring and Prediction
program and the Hurricane and Tornado Broadcast Campaign.
____
[From the Plain Dealer, Aug. 7, 2005.]
Meth Epidemic Strikes Ohio
(By Mark Gillispie)
A scourge on the West Coast for nearly two decades,
methamphetamine has established a destructive toehold in
Ohio, infecting rural outposts, big cities and middle-class
suburbs and consuming thousands of lives.
Like moonshine, but far more addictive, methamphetamine is
a home-cooked concoction that can be brewed in kitchens,
hotel rooms, back yards and trunks of cars.
And its destructive surge eastward--reinvigorated by
Mexican drug cartels--has been driven largely by waves of
hometown cooks, who pass the finished drug and their favorite
recipes to family, friends and customers. In Summit County, a
now-entrenched culture of meth-cooking has been traced to one
woman--Debra Oviatt--who has spent the last eight years in
prison but is still known today as Akron's ``Mother of
Meth.''
``There's no doubt in my mind that Debbie got the whole
thing started,'' said Larry Limbert, a retired narcotics
detective with the Summit County Sheriff's Office.
Summit County has since become Ohio's meth capital.
Narcotics officers dismantled 104 labs there last year--far
more than in any other county--and are on pace to exceed that
total this year. Common wisdom in law enforcement holds that
for every one lab busted, 10 remain undiscovered.
Nationally, the number of labs and other meth sites found
last year topped 17,000, according to federal statistics, up
from just 327 a decade ago.
As authorities in dozens of states try to shut down local
cooks, evidence is mounting that ``ice,'' a more potent form
of meth, is being shipped in from Mexico and California to
fill entrenched demand. In Summit County, meanwhile,
officials say the Department of Children Services has removed
dozens of children from homes where parents cooked and used
meth in recent years. One-third of juveniles enrolled in a
Summit County drug-court program reported having tried the
drug, also commonly known as ``crank,'' ``crystal,''
``speed'' and ``tweek.''
The number of methamphetamine users who sought help at
Oriana House, a drug-treatment organization in Summit County,
jumped from 30 in 2001 to 386 last year.
``There's definitely something going on out there,'' said
Oriana executive vice president Bernie Rochford.
Police and narcotics agents in Lake County have found 15
labs since September but only a handful before then. Portage
County has dismantled at least five labs since April.
Police in Ashtabula County have been finding nearly one lab
a week. The Children's Services agency there has had to close
an adolescent group home and shift resources to pay for the
care of children removed from parents who cook and abuse
meth.
Methamphetamine use also is rising in Cleveland and its
suburbs, where the drug had been confined mostly to gay bars,
bath houses and strip clubs, says Lt. Michael Jackson of the
Cuyahoga County Sheriffs Office. Experts predict the problem
will get worse before it gets better.
``You've heard about crack, you've heard about heroin,''
said Akron police Lt. Mike Caprez. ``I've seen all those
things take their course, and this has them both beat.'' Like
crack in some ways, meth is more dangerous.
Like crack in some ways, meth is more dangerous.
Comparing meth to crack cocaine is apt on a number of
levels.
Both are stimulants. Both are highly addictive.
While methamphetamine can be snorted, injected or eaten,
more than half of those who sought treatment for meth
addiction in 2003 said they smoked the drug--which is how
crack is ingested.
Smoking meth produces the same strong, instantaneous
``rush'' that crack smokers achieve.
Methamphetamine floods the pleasure centers of the brain
with large amounts of the neurotransmitter dopamine. It also
affects other body chemicals that govern sleep, thirst,
hunger and sex drive, making a person feel energetic, wakeful
and hypersexual.
But meth remains in the body 10 times longer than crack,
which can make meth cheaper to use. And while crack is
obviously dangerous, methamphetamine causes even more
physical harm.
A strong neurotoxin, methamphetamine damages the brain and
other vital organs in a way that crack does not. And
recovery, while possible, can be more difficult and take
longer.
It can take several years of abstinence before meth
addicts' body chemistry straightens out and they can feel
``normal'' again. Early studies show some of the brain damage
is reversible.
The drug also rots teeth, a condition known as ``meth
mouth.'' Users develop ugly sores caused by incessant picking
and scratching at phantom ``crank bugs'' they feel under
their skin.
[[Page S9905]]
And when the dopamine ``buzz'' wears off, meth users are
left wide awake for hours on end feeling angry and depressed.
The quick fix is more meth, which can trigger a vicious
cycle of addiction. Hard-core meth users, known as
``tweekers,'' sometimes go days, even weeks, without sleep.
That's when they become especially dangerous to themselves
and others. Meth-driven psychosis--chiefly paranoia and
hallucinations--combined with severe sleep deprivation can
result in bizarre and violent behavior. James Trimble's
attorney has claimed in court filings that his client was in
the throes of methinduced psychosis when he killed three
people in Portage County's Brimfield Township in January.
Because it is cheaper to use than crack, and because some
start using it for reasons other than getting high, meth has
also had a broader appeal among potential abusers.
Women, who abuse meth at about the same rate as men, often
report that they began using the drug to lose weight.
Blue-collar and construction workers use methamphetamine
for an energy boost to get them through long days of hard
labor.
An epidemiologist recently reported that in North Carolina,
hunters and fishermen are using meth to stay awake.
Gay men everywhere use meth for its ability to enhance sex.
Stepped-up meth use is being blamed for dramatic recent
increases in infection rates for HIV and other sexually
transmitted diseases.
``There isn't a specific demographic that I associate with
meth,'' said Dr. Alex Stalcup, a drug treatment specialist in
San Francisco. ``It's essentially a universal drug.'' Three
abusers: three different stories.
Three abusers: Three different stories.
Margaret, 27, of Summit County, felt self-conscious about
her weight after giving birth to her second child. Her
boyfriend coaxed her into trying meth two years ago as she
did the laundry at their apartment in Mogadore.
``I remember I felt like my eyeballs were going to come out
of my head, it burned so bad,'' Margaret said. ``But then, I
had all of this energy. So much energy I didn't know what to
do.''
She said she stayed up for five days straight, calling off
work, scouring and scrubbing virtually every inch of her
apartment.
``I loved to clean when I was on it,'' she said.
She did indeed lose weight. But then she lost her job, and,
because of bad luck, a vengeful boyfriend and the bag of meth
police found in her purse, she lost custody of her two
children, too.
Margaret is now in a community-based corrections facility
in Akron working to put her life back together.
``I can't believe I let this happen to me,'' she said.
Chad, a 20-year-old recovering addict, said he became
instantly addicted to meth after someone gave him a few lines
to snort at the Streetsboro manufacturing plant where he
worked. He said many of his coworkers used meth to endure the
grind of 12-hour days on the factory floor.
``That was my excuse, to get through the shift,'' Chad
said.
Max, 34, of Cleveland, said he and numerous gay men he had
sex with in West Side bath houses would use meth. Most
preferred not to use condoms, he said, and few asked him
about his HIV status. He is positive.
Max said he has been drug-free since April, when he and
other members of a group calling itself the ``Gay Mafia''
were arrested in a sweeping methamphetamine bust. Federal
authorities say the group sold meth brought here from
Phoenix.
``Had I not gotten busted, I would still be doing it,'' Max
acknowledged. ``I don't think there's anything wrong with
it.''
While crack use increased rapidly, peaked in the late 1980s
and then fell off as people became wary of its effects, meth
use has been rising steadily.
From 1993 to 2003, the number of people seeking treatment
for meth addiction jumped five-fold.
Also in 2003, 14 states reported that more people entered
treatment for methamphetamine than for cocaine and heroin
combined. A survey that year estimated that more than 600,000
people recently used meth, about the same number as used
crack. But experts now believe that meth use has exceeded
crack.
Unlike crack, methamphetamine--often referred to as ``poor
man's cocaine''--has swept through rural communities across
the country, including in southern Ohio.
But it has long been popular in big cities as well,
especially out west, where places like San Diego, Phoenix and
Portland, Ore., report high rates of meth addiction.
Police in Los Angeles say meth has become that city's No. 1
drug.
And police in other western states say methamphetamine is
not only their top drug concern, it's their top crime problem
as well.
Walt Myers, the recently retired police chief in Salem,
Ore., said meth use drives at least 85 percent of the crime
in that city. Police in Tucson, Ariz., attribute dramatic
recent jumps in thefts and burglaries to a worsening
methamphetamine problem.
And identity theft is emerging in many communities as a
crime of choice among meth addicts.
Bob Brown of the Colorado Bureau of Criminal Investigation
said his agency has investigated numerous rings of meth users
producing high-quality counterfeit checks and identification
cards.
``They don't sleep and they're high,'' Brown said of the
meth-driven counterfeiters. ``They're staying up late at
night when the rest of us are sleeping, and they're cranking
this stuff out.''
Nearly 60 percent of county sheriffs said in a recent
national survey that the meth epidemic is their worst drug
problem--three times the number mentioning cocaine.
``It's not like the crack epidemic,'' said Richard Rawson,
a drug treatment expert at UCLA. ``It's not a flare-up and
flame-out. It's a gradual infestation and it stays there.
That's not a very positive perspective on the future.''
The making of Summit's Mother of Meth'.
The infestation in Akron can be traced to when Debra Oviatt
returned to Ohio a second time from California, bringing
along her favorite recipe for home-cooked meth.
Oviatt, 52, grew up in Wadsworth but moved as a young adult
to California, where she was arrested numerous times for auto
theft and was sentenced twice to prison.
She returned to Ohio after being paroled in 1986 and
apparently brought a meth habit with her.
Postal inspectors arrested her in 1991 after a package
containing methamphetamine was mailed from California to her
brother-in-law's home in Richfield. Oviatt received six
months in state prison.
She fled to California three years later when one of her
customers was arrested after a 3-ounce package of meth was
sent to his home.
When she came back to the Akron area in 1996, Oviatt
brought with her a deadly legacy: the ability to make her own
meth and a willingness to pass on the recipe.
Methamphetamine is manufactured using a witch's brew of
solvents and chemicals to change the molecular structure of
pseudoephedrine, the active ingredient in popular over-the-
counter cold remedies such as Sudafed and Actifed.
Meth labs are typically lowtech affairs. The tools of the
trade--glass jars, plastic soda bottles, coffee filters and
aquarium hoses--can fit inside a typical suitcase. The
flammable and combustible nature of the ingredients makes the
process potentially dangerous, but not difficult to learn.
``There's definitely a science in making it, but it's not
rocket science,'' said Michael Fox, a drug counselor with the
Community Health Center of Akron. ``With a little bit of
training, anybody can make it.''
Meth cooks typically attract a small coterie of friends and
addicts who gather ingredients, such as cold pills, in
exchange for a share of the finished product.
When those friends and addicts learn the recipe themselves,
they often form their own co-operatives, which leads to more
cooking, more drugs and more addiction.
That's essentially what happened with Oviatt, authorities
say. And the result was a dramatic increase in meth abuse in
southern Summit County.
How many people she eventually taught to make the drug is
in dispute.
Although she declined twice to be interviewed, Oviatt
claimed in a letter to have taught only two. Police think
it's many more.
Among her students, they say, was Oviatt's son, Christopher
Shrake, who is serving a second prison sentence for meth
manufacturing.
Legendary cook undaunted by charges.
It was Shrake's carelessness that led to the discovery of
Summit County's first known methamphetamine lab nearly 10
years ago.
About 7:30 a.m. on May 5, 1996, the Green Fire Department
got a call about a fire at a home on East Turkeyfoot Road.
Shrake apparently started the fire while mishandling some of
the ingredients.
The home sustained extensive damage. Firefighters' initial
suspicions were confirmed when members of a Summit County
drug unit arrived and revealed that they had been
investigating reports of a meth lab in the home.
A Summit County grand jury indicted Oviatt and Shrake. But
that didn't slow Oviatt down.
Police say that after a friend made and sold enough meth to
post her bail, Oviatt set up a shifting string of labs in
people's homes and in hotels along Interstate 77.
Detectives said Oviatt sometimes enlisted the help of her
6-year-old daughter to scrape methamphetamine residue from
filters, telling her it was bird seed.
Oviatt initially was selective about whom she taught,
sometimes sharing only a portion of the recipe in exchange
for cash or meth-making ingredients, a former student said.
That changed when it was clear she was headed to prison.
``Debbie wanted to teach anybody and everybody so this town
would be flooded and nobody would make any money,'' the
student said.
Before she could settle the charges from the Green
incident, Oviatt was arrested in August 1996 at a hotel in
Wadsworth.
Police, who had been called because of a fight between
Shrake and his girlfriend, found methlab components in
Oviatt's room.
Oviatt agreed to a plea deal on charges from both arrests.
But before sentencing, she fled in February 1997 with the 6-
year-old and a pregnant 16-year-old daughter.
Detectives spent five months chasing her around Ohio, West
Virginia and Pennsylvania.
``She bounced from apartment house to apartment house,
hotel to hotel,'' said Limbert, the retired detective. ``They
would
[[Page S9906]]
make enough dope in those places that they would be OK.''
Oviatt's meth-cooking career ended on June 22, 1997. That's
when her younger daughter called 9-1-1 from a hotel in
Springfield Township and asked to speak with Limbert and
Detective Bruce Berlin. Oviatt, who had left the hotel, was
arrested later that evening.
She pleaded guilty to various charges, including
racketeering and kidnapping, and received a 2-year sentence.
Police believe that by the time she went to prison, dozens
of others had learned how to make methamphetamine, either
directly from Oviatt or from one of her students.
South Akron is hotbed for meth
Oviatt and her proteges helped make mostly white, blue-
collar Akron neighborhoods like Kenmore and Firestone Park--
along with nearby Barberton and Springfield Township--the
epicenter of meth making in Summit County.
It's in that general area that most of Summit County's meth
labs have been found, including a would-be meth school
operated by Brian Matheny, who police believe learned and
improved on Oviatt's recipe.
A nurse by training, Matheny set up a lab in the basement
of his Kenmore home, selling meth to support a substantial
heroin habit.
Using a camera he had received for Christmas, he made an
instructional video on meth manufacturing.
Police found the tape during a search of the basement in
September 1997.
It shows Matheny coughing and exhaling hydrochloric gas,
which is used in one step of the cooking process.
Penny Bishop, 43, got hooked on meth about the same time,
and in the same general neighborhood, and eventually learned
to cook as well--out of economic necessity.
Bishop says a friend introduced her to the drug in 1997,
and she liked it immediately. In about two months, her habit
grew from $100 a week to $400 as she switched from eating
meth to smoking it.
``I had to have it just to get out of bed,'' Bishop said.
``If I didn't have it, I wasn't moving.''
Bishop depended on the drug to allow her to work long hours
managing a gasoline station. But when her habit quickly
exceeded her salary, the friend who first sold her meth began
giving her money to buy cold pills.
She started shoplifting the pills so she could keep the
cash and, as many meth addicts do, learned to make the drug
herself.
Bishop, a high school dropout, said she caught on quickly.
``It was amazing I could take all these chemicals and make
a drug, but I can't grasp simple things to get my GED,''
Bishop said.
By the late 1990s, many stores had begun limiting how many
boxes of cold pills a person could buy at one time. (It takes
about 1,100 standard-strength pills to make a 1-ounce batch
of meth, roughly 280 doses.)
Meth cooks have generally sidestepped such measures by
sending out groups of people to buy cold pills from as many
stores as necessary to acquire the amount needed for the next
batch.
Laws cripple cooks, but meth keeps coming. But in the last
two years, authorities have gotten more aggressive in trying
to squeeze the cooks.
About 40 states have passed laws to restrict the sale of
pseudoephedrine products or are considering them.
In Ohio, legislators are considering a bill that would
restrict sales of pseudoephedrine products.
The Oregon legislature agreed last month to make it a
prescription drug. And Congress is considering a bill that
would follow Oklahoma's lead by requiring buyers of the pills
to show identification and sign a log book.
A number of national retailers have voluntarily moved cold
tablets to more-secure areas of their stores. And drug
manufacturers are gearing up production of cold pills that
contain phenylephrine--which cannot easily be converted into
meth--instead of pseudoephedrine.
Since Oklahoma's pioneering law took effect last year,
methlab seizures there have plummeted.
But not all the news is good. Narcotics detectives say
there is more meth than ever in Oklahoma. And the quality is
better.
With local cooks being shut down, the state's entrenched
meth demand is now being met by Mexican narcotraficantes who
have stepped up production, mostly south of the border, to
supply a growing U.S. market.
Seizures of ``ice''--the nearly pure form of meth churned
out in Mexican super labs--have jumped nearly five fold in
Oklahoma since its pseudoephedrine law took effect in April
2004.
Ice, which resembles shards of glass, ``is like meth on
rocket fuel,'' said Mark Woodward, a spokesman for the
Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.
Because of its purity and strength, he said, it's more
addictive and more dangerous than the home-cooked meth it's
replacing.
As long as the demand for meth highs persists, the future
does not look bright. There are no signs that meth use is
dropping in the West, Midwest or Southeast--areas of the
country where meth use has become entrenched.
More Californians were treated for methamphetamine
addiction than alcoholism in 2003. And meth has started to
make inroads into Pennsylvania, Maryland and rural
communities of New York--the outskirts of the Northeast
Corridor, which is home to 60 million people, one-fifth of
the U.S. population.
Vermont and Maine have been bracing for an upswing in meth
use and manufacturing. Two labs were recently found in
Connecticut.
``Their numbers [of meth users] are going to go up,'' said
Special Agent Michael Heald, a methamphetamine expert with
the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
Heald acknowledged that law enforcement's ability to stop
the eastward surge of meth is limited. Prevention and
treatment, he said, are the best weapons in this particular
battle in the war on drugs.
``Until we teach people that drugs are absolutely
destructive to ourselves and society, we can arrest all the
people we can'' and still not win, Heald said.
``We can't do this alone.''
____
Virginia Fact Sheet--Coburn Amendment #1648 to H.R. 2862
This amendment eliminates funding for the Advanced
Technology Program (ATP) and shifts the funding to three
separate programs: Byrne Justice Assistance Grants (JAG),
Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), and the National
Weather Service (NWS).
Specifically, funding for ATP is reduced by $140 million,
funding for JAG is increased by $48 million, funding for
COPS/Methamphetamine Hot Spots is increased by $72 million,
and funding for NWS is increased by $4.9 million.
Since 1990, ATP has funneled more than $700 million to
Fortune 500 companies that do not require government
assistance. For example, GE (revenues of $152 billion in
2004) has received $91 million from ATP, IBM (revenues of $96
billion in 2004) has received $126 million from ATP, and
Motorola (revenues of $31 billion in 2004) has received $44
million from ATP since 1990.
Since 1990, Virginia has received an average of $3.4
million from ATP each year. In fiscal year 2005, Virginia
received $9.7 million from Byrne JAG funding alone.
Even though ATP was created to fund research that cannot
attract private financing, a Government Accountability Office
study found that 63 percent of ATP grant recipients never
even sought private financing. Quite simply, ATP funnels
taxpayer money to billion dollar corporations that do not
need government subsidies for research and development.
The National Association of Attorneys General, National
District Attorneys Association, National Narcotics Officers
Association Coalition, and National Sheriffs Association have
all expressed support for the Coburn amendment.
Earlier this year, Judith Williams Jagdmann, the Attorney
General of Virginia, co-signed a letter to Congressional
leadership. The letter stated that funding cuts for law
enforcement grants ``will devastate state law enforcement
efforts--especially drug enforcement--if they are not
restored.'' In the absence of this amendment, Byrne JAG
funding will be cut by $6.5 million relative to 2005 levels.
In Virginia, at least 7 percent of high school students
have admitted to using methamphetamines at least once. A July
2005 survey of law enforcement agencies conducted by the
National Association of Counties found that ``Meth is the
leading drug-related local law enforcement problem in the
country.''
According to the same survey, 70 percent of responding
officials stated that other crimes, including robberies and
burglaries, had increased because of methamphetamine use.
The Methamphetamine Hot Spots program, part of COPS,
addresses a broad array of law enforcement initiatives
pertaining to the investigation of methamphetamine use and
trafficking, trains law enforcement officials, collects
intelligence, and works to discover, interdict, and dismantle
clandestine drug laboratories. This amendment would ensure
that this program receives the funding it needs to tackle the
serious problems associated with methamphetamine use and
distribution.
This amendment also increases funding for the National
Weather Service, and directs the additional funding towards
the Inland and Coastal Hurricane Monitoring and Prediction
program and the Hurricane and Tornado Broadcast Campaign.
____
Minnesota Fact Sheet--Coburn Amendment #1648 to H.R. 2862
This amendment eliminates funding for the Advanced
Technology Program (ATP) and shifts the I funding to three
separate programs: Byrne Justice Assistance Grants (JAG),
Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), and the National
Weather Service (NWS).
Specifically, funding for ATP is reduced by $140 million,
funding for JAG is increased by $48 million, funding for
COPS/Methamphetamine Hot Spots is increased by $72 million,
and funding for NWS is increased by $4.9 million.
Since 1990, ATP has funneled more than $700 million to
Fortune 500 companies that do not require government
assistance. For example, GE (revenues of $152 billion in
2004) has received $91 million from ATP, IBM (revenues of $96
billion in 2004) has received $126 million from ATP, and
Motorola (revenues of $31 billion in 2004) has received $44
million from ATP since 1990.
Since 1990, Minnesota has received an average of $4.6
million from ATP each year. In
[[Page S9907]]
fiscal year 2005, Minnesota received $6.9 million from Byrne
JAG funding alone.
Even though ATP was created to fund research that cannot
attract private financing, a Government Accountability Office
study found that 63 percent of ATP grant recipients never
even sought private financing. Quite simply, ATP funnels
taxpayer money to billion dollar corporations that do not
need government subsidies for research and development.
The National Association of Attorneys General, National
District Attorneys Association, National Narcotics Officers
Association Coalition, and National Sheriffs Association have
all expressed support for the Coburn amendment.
Earlier this year, Mike Hatch, the Attorney General of
Minnesota, co-signed a letter to Congressional leadership.
The letter stated that funding cuts for law enforcement
grants ``will devastate state law enforcement efforts--
especially drug enforcement--if they are not restored.'' In
the absence of this amendment, Byrne JAG funding will be cut
by $6.5 million relative to 2005 levels.
In Minnesota, at least 5 percent of high school students
have admitted to using methamphetamines at least once. A July
2005 survey of law enforcement agencies conducted by the
National Association of Counties found that ``Meth is the
leading drug-related local law enforcement problem in the
country.''
According to the same survey, 70 percent of responding
officials stated that other crimes, including robberies and
burglaries, had increased because of methamphetamine use.
The Methamphetamine Hot Spots program, part of COPS,
addresses a broad array of law enforcement initiatives
pertaining to the investigation of methamphetamine use and
trafficking, trains law enforcement officials, collects
intelligence, and works to discover, interdict, and dismantle
clandestine drug laboratories. This amendment would ensure
that this program receives the funding it needs to tackle the
serious problems associated with methamphetamine use and
distribution.
This amendment also increases funding for the National
Weather Service, and directs the additional funding towards
the Inland and Coastal Hurricane Monitoring and Prediction
program and the Hurricane and Tornado Broadcast Campaign.
Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota is a co-sponsor of this
amendment.
Mr. COBURN. This is an area where there will be some controversy. I
don't know if we will win the vote on this amendment. If we start
looking at the human faces of what we, as Government, can do versus
what business on its own can do and venture capital on its own can do,
what we will see is that our parochialism needs to stop in terms of
benefits to limited numbers, and we need to increase benefits to the
masses. What I am asking by this grant is to eliminate a program that
is marginal at best and put the money where it is going to make a
tremendous difference in people's lives, born and unborn. It is my hope
the Senate will concur with the amendment and that we can have a
bipartisan vote to do it. It is also my hope that this is the first of
many amendments, as we continue the appropriations process, where we
will start making the hard choices--not easy, not black and white, but
gray--that are necessary for us to meet the growing needs of the
Federal Government in this time of tremendous tragedy along our gulf
coast and in a time of tragedy for our budget.
It is my hope we won't vote this based on what we feel our own State
gets but what is best for the country and how we move forward.
I yield the floor.
amendment no. 1668
Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to speak on behalf of my
amendment that would allocate $2 million for methamphetamine education
programs in our Nation's schools. I am very pleased that this measure
has been included in the underlying bill, and I would like to take a
moment to explain why this amendment is so important.
Over the August recess I traveled throughout New Mexico to discuss
the challenges local communities are facing in confronting problems
associated with meth. I met with law enforcement, health officials,
prosecutors, citizens, and State and local representatives. At each
place I visited--Moriarty, Roswell, Farmington, Belen, Santa Fe, Taos,
and Albuquerque--the message was clear: methamphetamine is the most
serious drug threat that we are facing and we must do more to fight the
spread of this epidemic.
Indeed, the National Association of Counties recently released a
report that found that 58 percent of counties surveyed viewed meth as
their largest drug problem, and 70 percent of law enforcement reported
that robberies and burglaries have substantially increased due to meth
use in their communities. And according to the DEA, there were some
16,000 meth lab seizures last year, up from 912 in 1995. In New Mexico,
the number of labs seized increased fivefold from 1998 to 2003. The
drug is particularly harmful because of its impact on the user, the
likelihood of exposure to chemicals during the drug production process,
and the high cleanup costs associated with dismantling labs.
We must address this issue in a comprehensive manner by reducing
domestic production, providing law enforcement with the tools they need
to fight the meth epidemic, disrupting the importation of meth or its
precursor chemicals into the United States, and by developing effective
education and treatment programs.
With regard to limiting domestic production, I am proud to be a
cosponsor of the Combat Meth Act, which was introduced by Senators
Talent and Feinstein, and included in the CJS appropriations bill. The
bill would curb production by moving pseudoephedrine, the primary
ingredient in meth and a common ingredient in cold medicines, behind
the pharmacy counter. After Oklahoma enacted a similar law meth
production dropped by over 80 percent in 1 year. The bill also provides
additional funding for law enforcement and creates a research and
training center aimed at developing effective treatments for meth
users.
I am also pleased that the CJS appropriations bill provides funding
for the COPS meth program to assist local law enforcement obtain the
equipment they need to safely and effectively clean up meth labs. I was
very disappointed that the President proposed cutting the total COPS
program by 96 percent and the meth portion of the program by 62
percent. Fortunately, the Appropriations Committee rejected the
administration's proposal and included over $60 million for the COPS
meth program, which is about $5 million more than last year. Since
1994, New Mexico has received over $68 million in COPS grants and more
than $860,000 specifically under the COPS meth program. The
administration also proposed cutting the HIDT A program by more than 50
percent, from $226 million to $100 million. These cuts, if enacted,
would have significantly impacted our ability to fight the importation
of meth from countries such as Mexico. Thankfully the Senate rejected
this proposal as well.
However, I believe that we should also be focusing more on prevention
by educating youth on the dangers of using meth. Along with enhanced
law enforcement, prevention and education are key to combating meth. My
amendment would provide funding for grants to law enforcement and
health and school officials to carry out meth education prevention
efforts in schools across the country. This funding could be used by
local officials to tailor curriculum to the needs of their local
comminutes and purchase the materials they need to educate youth on the
dangers of meth.
According to ONDCP, there is a 95-percent chance that a first-time
meth user will become addicted. Once kids get addicted there aren't a
lot of treatment options and they often face tough criminal sanctions
for using the drug. We need to emphasize education prevention efforts
so we can stop people from going down a hard-to-reverse path riddled
with crime and devastating health effects.
Because the consequences of meth use are so visibly evident, such as
rotting teeth and open sores, students will likely be more receptive to
such information than with other drugs, such as marijuana, that are
normally the target of drug education prevention efforts in schools.
The ingredients used in the production of meth, such as battery acid,
antifreeze, kitty litter, lithium batteries, also create an opportunity
to make children understand the dangerous nature of this drug.
According to a report issued this month by the Substance Abuse and
Metal Health Services Administratior, SAMHSA, there were 583,000
current users of meth in 2004 aud 1.4 million persons ages 12 and older
have used meth in the past year. By providing additional resources for
prevention and education, I believe that we can make considerable
headway in fighting this terrible epidemic, and I am glad that the
Senate has acted on this important measure.
[[Page S9908]]
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
____________________