[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 3]
[House]
[Pages 3957-3960]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     DRUG WAR IN THE UNITED STATES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Reynolds). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica) is 
recognized for 30 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to come before the House tonight 
to talk once again about the drug situation in the United States and 
the various questions related to drug policy that face the United 
States Congress.
  I had the privilege to be named as the chair of the Subcommittee on 
Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources of the House of 
Representatives, which will be charged with both authorization 
responsibility as it relates to national drug policy and also oversight 
of our drug policy for the House of Representatives as we begin to try 
to fashion a coherent policy for the United States.
  It is my privilege tonight to again bring to the attention of my 
fellow Members of Congress and also the American people the situation 
we have facing us relating to the ravages of illegal narcotics.
  It is interesting that, at this hour, the President of the United 
States is in Central America, and he is there because 9,000 people died 
in a natural disaster, Hurricane Mitch. It is rightful that this Nation 
try to assist those countries in Central America, other allies and 
friends, neighbors to the south who have seen the ravages of a natural 
disaster. However, those 9,000 people killed by a natural disaster do 
not equal those killed in the United States just in 1 year due to the 
drug abuse problem and illegal narcotics.
  Drug abuse killed, last year in 1998, 14,218 Americans at a cost of 
$67 billion. These are the ravages of a war on drugs that we have been 
losing, a man-made disaster that has taken thousands and thousands and 
thousands of lives. Just during the time of the Clinton administration, 
before it expires in its 8 years, over 100,000 Americans will die 
because of drug-related deaths.
  In my area in central Florida, and I brought this little clipping 
from the newspaper, this headline of the Orlando Sentinel, ``Drug 
deaths top homicides,'' and this is from the last few weeks of last 
year, December 23, 1998, the headline disclaiming that, in peaceful 
central Florida, affluent to good economy, the drug deaths are now 
topping homicides as a cause of death in our area. That is why I 
believe this particular problem is so important to me.
  It is not just central Florida where we have a problem. A recent DEA 
report says that close to 4,000 Americans have died in each of the last 
3 years from heroin-related overdoses. We are seeing more and more 
deaths as a result of high purity, high quality heroin that is coming 
into the United States.
  Additional statistics should alarm every Member of Congress and every 
American. More than 6 percent of the population over 12 years of age, 
13.9 million people have used drugs within the past 30 days, according 
to official estimates. Rates of use remain highest among persons age 16 
to 25.
  What is so devastating about the headline that I held up, the heroin 
deaths in my area, the drug-related deaths is, most of these are our 
young people, young teenagers in many instances who find themselves the 
victims of deadly drug overdoses. This age group is the most affected 
by the drugs that we see on the street. In fact, in our young 
teenagers, an astounding fact in the last 6 years, there has been an 
875 percent increase in heroin use by teenagers, young people, again 
victims of high quality heroin and higher amounts of heroin being 
imported and transited into this country.
  The use of crack cocaine and powder cocaine rose gradually in the 
1990s as young people's views of how dangerous they were began to 
erode. In general, crack use continues to show an upward drift in the 
lower grades. Again, these are among school children in 1998. And this 
is another disturbing trend we see again in a very young group of 
vulnerable Americans.
  The combination of low price and high quality has helped drive the 
number of heroin users in the United States from 600,000 to 810,000 in 
the past 3 years. This is according to the Office of National Drug 
Control Policy, and this is just a recent release of these statistics. 
Over 210,000 additional heroin users in the United States in just a 
short period of time.
  The Office of National Drug Control Policy also estimates that 59 
percent of

[[Page 3958]]

the estimated 176 tons of South American cocaine processed in 1998 was 
smuggled into the United States through Mexico. Mexico, in fact, is the 
leading smuggler of heroin, methamphetamine, and the base ingredient 
for methamphetamine, as well as other drugs coming into the United 
States.
  We know where heroin is coming from. We know where cocaine is coming 
from. We know where methamphetamine is coming from. That is why I was 
saddened and disappointed in this administration in, again, certifying 
the country of Mexico as fully cooperating with the United States in 
eliminating illegal narcotic production and trafficking when the facts 
are that Mexico is producing more heroin than it has ever produced. 
That is also according to our DEA, our Drug Enforcement Agency.
  Additionally, not only are they producing more heroin, more hard 
drugs, more heroin and more cocaine are transiting through Mexico in 
the United States than any other country. In fact, it is estimated that 
between 60 and 70 percent of all the hard narcotics that enter the 
United States transit through Mexico today. That is an alarming fact.
  What is even more disturbing is that, even given these facts, the 
administration again has certified Mexico as fully cooperating with the 
United States in trying to stop trafficking and transit and production 
of drugs, as is a simple request in the law that was passed by this 
Congress in 1986.
  Now some people would give Mexico the benefit of the doubt in this 
situation. I chaired a subcommittee hearing recently, and we had in 
before our subcommittee the DEA administrator Tom Constantine. Tom 
Constantine testified in our hearing, and he also testified in the 
other body, and this is what he stated. He stated the corruption among 
Mexican anti-drug authority was, and let me quote his exact words, 
``unparalleled with anything I have seen in 39 years of police work.''
  He added that the Mexican Cartel spends $6 billion a year to bribe 
Mexican government officials. That is more than one-third of the total 
U.S. anti-drug budget. Now that is they spend $6 million to bribe 
Mexican officials.
  So is Mexico fully cooperating when our chief drug enforcement 
officer for the Nation says he has never seen such corruption in nearly 
four decades of police work? Additionally, the incredible amount of 
money that is being spent for bribes and corruptions.
  What disturbs me after the testimony that I heard from Director 
Constantine was that Mexico has not only been involved in corruption, 
and that is from the lowest level, the policeman on the street, to the 
highest level in the former president's office, what has taken place 
now is narcoterrorism in its embryonic stages.
  What I mean here is that complete areas of Mexico have been taken 
over by narcotraffickers. We know that as a matter of fact. We have 
testimony that says that the Baja Peninsula, the entire western portion 
of Mexico, south of the United States and California, is now run by one 
of the drug cartels, completely controlled, completely corrupt, not 
only corruption where they have been bribing officials, but now a 
corruption far beyond that that deals with narcoterrorism, patterns 
that we have seen in Colombia and other areas where narcoterrorists 
have taken over.
  What they have done should scare every Mexican citizen, should scare 
every citizen of the United States. Just a few months ago, they lined 
up 22 individuals, women and children, and they were brutally slain. 
They have also taken police officers and slain them, propped them up in 
police cars, to use as an example.
  So this fear and intimidation in the Baja Peninsula is an example of 
a country losing control of an entire state and entire region and again 
should be a tremendous concern to we who share a 2,000 mile border.
  In addition to losing the Baja Peninsula, we have been told that the 
Yucatan Peninsula has also been taken over by narcoterrorists, that the 
government of that state, that Mexican state is totally corrupt, and 
also under the control of international Mexican drug dealers.
  It is rather sad and it is rather ironic that the President of the 
United States would go to Mexico, offer Mexico additional financial 
assistance, additional foreign aid from the United States, and 
additional benefits in trade and other assistance of a good neighbor, 
international finance help, when we have, again, a country which is 
totally consumed by this narcotrafficking.
  Ironically, the conference between President Zedillo and the 
President of the United States and others in that delegation was held 
in Merida, which is the principal city of the Yucatan Peninsula. In 
addition to those areas, other areas were told of Mexico. In the 
mountains to the south and west of Mexico City and entire states and 
regions are now controlled in a corrupt and terrorist fashion by narc-
oterrorists.
  Again our DEA, administration, other international observers, and 
press accounts document that Mexico is a country on the edge of being 
lost.

                              {time}  1615

  How important is it that we get this situation under control? It is 
absolutely vital, because, again, we know exactly where the illegal 
narcotics are coming from. They are being both produced now in Mexico, 
again larger quantities of heroin being produced there, methamphetamine 
originating from Mexico and coming into the United States, transiting 
into the United States.
  How are they transiting into the United States? Through open 
commercial borders. And how did that take place? Through the United 
States extending a trade benefit to the country of Mexico through 
NAFTA, through other trade agreements, to be a good open trading 
partner.
  So in our effort to extend trade assistance and trade benefits to the 
country lying to the south of us, we are now seeing a dramatic 
increase, again with an open, nearly open commercial border, of hard 
illegal narcotics into the United States. Now, what do we get in 
return? We get in return a flow of drugs across the borders that is 
unparalleled in the history of the United States.
  Now, we have tried our best to be good partners with our neighbor, 
Mexico. Two years ago this Congress took up a resolution of 
decertification and, rather than decertify Mexico, we outlined about 
six agenda items that we would like Mexico to assist us with as, again, 
good partners. Having given them incredible finance benefits, bailing 
them out; having given them trade benefits that I have talked about, 
opening our commercial borders, we asked for a little bit of help in 
what we could see as a tide of illegal narcotics comes into our 
country. We outlined on this floor of the House of Representatives six 
simple requests and asked Mexico to assist with those items.
  Let me repeat some of those items, and, again, all passed by the 
House of Representatives some 2 years ago this month.
  First, we asked Mexico to allow our agents to protect themselves. Our 
DEA agents, our drug enforcement agents, in Mexico, to protect 
themselves. And also to authorize appropriate privileges and immunities 
for such agents. That is part of the language here.
  What have they done? Actually, they put a cap on the number of 
agents. Did they cooperate? When we found one of the most incredible 
scandals of money laundering and corruption that we have ever uncovered 
in the international scene in Mexico, with Mexican banking officials, 
did Mexico cooperate with the United States in trying to bring these 
corrupt Mexican bankers to justice? No. What they did should be 
offensive to every Member of Congress, everyone in our Federal law 
enforcement agencies. They threatened to indict our customs officials 
who uncovered this corruption.
  So was anything paid attention to by Mexico on the first item that we 
asked for some 2 years ago? Absolutely no. Actually, they took 
offensive action against the United States. They did not fully 
cooperate. In fact, they tried to block and penalize those involved in 
the investigation.

[[Page 3959]]

  We also asked Mexico to root out corruption and also to extradite 
major drug traffickers.
  Now, here we are, in March of 1999, and what has Mexico done with our 
second request, which was to extradite major drug traffickers? Not one 
major drug trafficker has been extradited from Mexico to the United 
States. Not one Mexican national to this day. So the second item of 
request, and a very specific item that this Congress asked of Mexico, 
has not been adhered to or met in any way by Mexico.
  The third request, and, again, let me take these right out of the 
resolution that was passed here in the House, we asked for assistance 
in securing a maritime agreement, a simple maritime agreement that 
would allow us to go after drug traffickers who were on the high seas 
and also in waters as Mexican nationals.
  To date, we have not had a maritime agreement signed with the country 
of Mexico. To my knowledge, there is only one other country in the 
entire region that has not signed a maritime agreement with the United 
States, and that is Haiti.
  And that is another sad example of a failure of this administration, 
which spent millions of dollars trying to build up the judicial system 
and the institutions in Haiti. Actually, we spent billions. And those 
dollars have been wasted, because there still is total disorganization 
in the Haitian government. There is corruption. It also has turned into 
a major drug trafficking area, and they have not even been able to seat 
a parliament to sign or agree on a maritime agreement.
  But, again, back to Mexico, we have a situation where, after repeated 
requests, Mexico still has not signed a maritime agreement to help us 
with international narcotics trafficking.
  Additionally, we asked in this resolution that Mexico assist with 
locating radar to the south. That is a simple request, because we know 
drugs transiting and trafficking through Mexico are coming in through 
the peninsula and it is a simple request to have them assist us by 
locating radar in the south. Have they done that? No, once again.
  Additionally, we asked them to crack down on corruption. And we have 
done everything we can to ask them to go after officials at the highest 
level and the lowest level in Mexico who are involved in illegal 
narcotics trafficking.
  And what are the comments that we get back? Again, I would defer to 
our chief drug enforcement agent when he says that he has never seen a 
situation in four decades so rife with corruption, a situation where it 
is almost impossible to trust any agency, where there is only a handful 
of people that will assist in any way in the country.
  So these are the requests that the United States Congress made of 
Mexico some 2 years ago, asking them to assist us. Even the other body 
passed a resolution asking that Mexico assist the United States. To 
date, we have not had a satisfactory response from Mexico in this 
regard.
  At this juncture we are at an important point in our deliberations, 
as far as the United States House of Representatives is concerned, as 
to what we do to get Mexico to comply. I personally would not like to 
have to decertify Mexico, however, a resolution has been introduced in 
the House of Representatives by the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. 
Bachus), and he has been joined by others, and there are more and more 
folks in the House that would like to decertify Mexico.
  We held a hearing last week and asked the General Accounting Office 
to report to the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and 
Human Resources of the Committee on Government Reform about the 
situation in Mexico. We asked the GAO to give us the straight scoop, to 
tell us what is going on in Mexico. Do they deserve certification; are 
they cooperating? The GAO testified and summarized some of the problems 
with Mexico, and let me read them for the Record.
  Number one. Mexico is one of the largest centers for narcotics-
related business in the world.
  Number two. Mexico is still the principal transit country for cocaine 
entering the United States.
  Number three. Mexico is either a producer, refiner, or transit point 
for cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine and heroin.
  Number four. Mexico is a major hub for the recycling of drug 
proceeds.
  Number five. Mexico's Juarez drug trafficking organization is as 
powerful and as dangerous as Colombia's Medellin and Calais cartels 
used to be.
  Number six. Mexico's poorest border and the dawning volume of 
legitimate cross-border traffic provides nearly limitless opportunities 
for the smuggling of illicit drugs and the proceeds of sales of these 
drugs.
  And the seventh item that GAO covered in reviewing what is taking 
place is that several years ago the United States gave 72 Hughey 
helicopters and four C-26 aircraft for narcotics operations, as a good 
neighbor, as a friend, to try to get Mexico to use these in going after 
trafficking and eradication of the crops there. Unfortunately, Mexico 
has not provided the resources to keep these helicopters and aircraft 
flying, even after a promise of using them in the future, which they 
have not done and not made an effort.
  So here we have the testimony from the General Accounting Office of 
the United States which documents very clearly all the points that I 
have made previously in analyzing whether or not Mexico is fully 
cooperating with the United States to do two things, one, to stop the 
production of illegal narcotics and, two, to stop the transiting, and 
those are really the cornerstones of the certification law.
  Many folks do not understand, even those in Congress do not 
understand, the certification law. The certification law is quite 
simple. It asks those two things: stop producing drugs; stop transiting 
in drugs. The Department of State and the President must certify to the 
Congress that a country is, and the term is, ``cooperating fully'' to 
do those two things.
  Now, what do they get in return if they cooperate fully? They are 
certified as ``fully cooperating'' and then are eligible for United 
States foreign assistance. So what they get in return for being 
certified that they are ``fully cooperating'' is United States foreign 
assistance in the form of foreign aid, in the form of trade benefits, 
and in the form of international finance support.
  So the question before the Congress in the next few days and few 
weeks is, as we conduct this investigation, this review of who is 
helping us in this war on drugs, and particularly the biggest offender, 
the biggest source of illegal narcotics, is Mexico fully cooperating?
  The evidence to date does not lead us to believe that they are fully 
cooperating. The evidence to date does not lead us to believe that they 
should be certified as fully cooperating. The evidence is pretty clear 
to date that Mexico should not receive benefits of the United States 
government because they are not cooperating, because they are the 
biggest source of deadly drugs and narcotics coming into the United 
States across our borders from Mexico.
  Again, if we review what we requested 2 years ago from the list of 
requests, can we say that they have cooperated? The answer is 
unequivocally no, they have not cooperated with any of these requests. 
They have not been a good ally. They have not been a good friend.
  And the result, as we saw, is devastating: 14,218 Americans died last 
year as a result of drug-related deaths. Over 100,000 will die. Many 
more than died in hurricane Mitch, the natural disaster that I spoke of 
as I began my talk. And they are dying today. They are dying in this 
city, in Washington, D.C.; they are dying in Orlando, Florida; they are 
dying in Plano, Texas, and across our great land.
  We have a responsibility to our people. We have a responsibility to 
the laws that we have passed. We must hold these countries accountable. 
We must find some mechanism to stop drugs at their source, to stop 
drugs where they are trafficking from, and to make certain that we take 
this death and destruction off the streets of the United States of 
America.
  As chairman of the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and 
Human Resources, we will continue our

[[Page 3960]]

review, our investigation, and our oversight of Mexico's cooperation 
with the United States, and we will find some mechanism to ensure 
cooperation. We will find some mechanism to stop these illegal 
narcotics.

                              {time}  1630

  I intend to work with my colleagues on the other side of the Capitol 
in an effort to see again that we bring this situation under control 
and that we hold those responsible accountable and that we stop this 
death and destruction that is at our doorstep, not just in my hometown 
but throughout our land and throughout our Nation. I will continue to 
come to the floor every week and discuss this situation as it relates 
to the national narcotics and drug abuse problem that we have. We will 
find solutions. Again, I have pledged that. And to work with those on 
the other side of the aisle to find solutions to this and to my 
colleagues again down the hall on the other side of the Capitol.

                          ____________________