[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 169 (Tuesday, November 17, 2015)]
[House]
[Pages H8245-H8246]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     WEST VIRGINIA'S DRUG EPIDEMIC

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from West 
Virginia (Mr. Mooney) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MOONEY of West Virginia. Mr. Speaker, it has been nearly 4 weeks 
since President Obama visited my district in Charleston, West Virginia, 
to discuss the ongoing drug epidemic that is plaguing my State.
  West Virginia has the highest overdose rate in the country, with 29 
out of every 100,000 people each year dying from drug overdoses. This 
is an issue that affects all West Virginians.
  We all know someone who has been addicted or has been directly 
affected by drug abuse. Drug addiction knows no boundaries. It affects 
the young and the old, the rich and the poor, the Black and the White. 
That is why we have to do everything we can to fight back.
  We have to help coordinate efforts on the Federal, State, and local 
levels. One of the best ways to ensure that we have a cohesive strategy 
is to work with the HIDTA program, also known as the High Intensity 
Drug Trafficking Area.
  The HIDTA program was created by Congress to provide assistance to 
Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies operating in areas 
determined to be high drug-trafficking regions of the United States.
  The purpose of the program is to reduce drug trafficking and illegal 
drug production in the United States by doing the following:
  First, facilitating cooperation among Federal, State, and local law 
enforcement agencies to share information and implement coordinated 
enforcement activities;
  Second, enhancing law enforcement intelligence sharing;
  Third, providing reliable law enforcement intelligence to law 
enforcement agencies needed to design effective enforcement strategies 
and operations;
  Fourth, supporting coordinated law enforcement strategies which 
maximize use of available resources to reduce the supply of illegal 
drugs in designated areas and in the United States as a whole.
  One of the counties in my district, Jefferson County, has recently 
applied to the HIDTA program. It is imperative that Jefferson County 
become a designated area.
  On August 6, I sent a letter along with my colleagues in West 
Virginia, Congressman David McKinley and Congressman Evan Jenkins, to 
Michael Botticelli, the Director of the Office of National Drug Control 
Policy, urging him to make Jefferson County a HIDTA area. It is of the 
utmost importance to include Jefferson County as a Washington-Baltimore 
HIDTA-designated county to help combat the growing drug epidemic not 
only in our State, but also in our entire country.
  Jefferson County is dangerously close to three major drug markets: 
Washington, D.C., which is 60 miles away, right here; Baltimore, which 
is 70 miles away, here; and Philadelphia, which is 171 miles away. Our 
Interstate Highway System directly links all three areas to Jefferson 
County, and a traveler can reach both D.C. and Baltimore in a little 
more than an hour, making it incredibly easy to bring drugs into our 
community.
  There is also a large number of tourists that visit Jefferson County 
each year. It is estimated that around 4.3 million visitors come to 
Jefferson County annually to visit a number of tourist attractions, 
including the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, eight historical 
homes of President George Washington's family, Charles Town racetrack, 
Shepherd University, and many others. While Jefferson County greatly 
benefits from a large number of tourists, it is a growing concern that 
the ratio of police to visitors is growing too wide.
  The most dramatic reason for Jefferson County to become a HIDTA is 
the high drug use statistics of the eastern panhandle of West Virginia. 
Cocaine use the past year is 16 percent above the national average, and 
nonmedical use of pain relievers is 15 percent above the national 
average. Illicit drug use other than marijuana in the past month is 27 
percent above the national average.
  It is time to act now before the situation in the eastern panhandle 
of West Virginia becomes grimmer. Jefferson County needs to be 
designated as a HIDTA county.

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