[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 5]
[House]
[Pages 6987-6992]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




  AMERICA'S NATIONAL DRUG POLICY AND THE ROLE OF CONGRESS IN REDUCING 
                         DRUG USE BY AMERICANS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Green of Wisconsin). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. 
Mica) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority 
leader.
  Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I come before the House again tonight to talk 
about the subject of our national drug policy, and what Congress can do 
to improve the situation relating to the abuse and misuse of illegal 
narcotics, not only by our young people but by all Americans.
  I come before the House as chair of the Subcommittee on Criminal 
Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources, which has been charged with 
trying to help develop a better policy, better legislation, and better 
action by Congress to deal with the growing social problem that we 
have.
  Tonight I am sure that the eyes of the Nation are focused on Kosovo, 
where we have a very difficult international situation, and probably 
rightfully so. We have thousands of our troops in potentially harm's 
way. We have our pilots and other dedicated military involved in that 
conflict.
  I believe that the focus of attention tonight also is on the tragic 
shootings in Colorado. I believe some young people were involved there. 
A large number of young people were killed in that tragic incident.
  Rightfully, America should be concerned about Kosovo. America should 
be concerned about international situations and also about a situation 
where we have death and mayhem of young people in our Nation. It is a 
very serious situation. I know that both the Colorado situation and 
Kosovo will capture the attention of the Nation for the next number of 
days.
  As a courtesy to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo), who has 
expressed concern about what has happened in that State, Mr. Speaker, I 
yield to him at this time for his comments on that, again, tragic 
situation.


 Pray For Parents and Children, Victims In Tragic Colorado High School 
                               Shootings

  Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, I come here tonight to ask everyone 
listening, watching around America, I come here to ask you for your 
prayers for those parents who have lost children in this incredible, 
horrible, devastating event.
  There are no words any of us can utter from this position, even in 
this House, that can ever soothe the hearts of the people who have lost 
their family members. But it behooves us all to think about how 
precious life is and how quickly it can be taken away any time, any 
place, anywhere.
  It must make us all think again about turning to God and asking for 
his counsel and for wisdom which we all need in order to address these 
kinds of issues and others that will confront us.
  So I have no other speeches to make. I have no other words to utter 
than to simply say again to everyone, please pray for the grieving, 
pray for the lost,

[[Page 6988]]

and pray that this never, ever happens again.
  Mr. MICA. Again, my prayers are with the gentleman from Colorado and 
with the families who have experienced this great tragedy in their 
community. Again, it is something that will be reflected in the news 
reports for the coming days just as Kosovo and other tragic events of 
our Nation.
  Tonight I came to the House to really address another social tragedy 
that is facing our Nation. As I said, I chair the House Subcommittee on 
Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources and trying to 
formulate some legislative efforts, some actions by this Congress to 
deal with a situation that has taken last year the lives of 14,000 
Americans.
  We have an illegal narcotics and drug abuse problem in this country 
that is reaching unparalleled proportions, particularly among our young 
people. I want to review again, and I did this last week, and I have 
done this a couple of times before, the situation that led I believe to 
the current problem we see with epidemic narcotics use by our young 
people across the Nation and the drug situation that faces almost every 
community across our land.
  In 1993, when I came to Congress and I was in the minority, the 
majority party at that time, the Democrats that controlled both the 
House, the other body, and the White House, I think that they made some 
very tragic mistakes at that point in, first of all, cutting the 
resources of the drug czar's office, almost eliminating all of the 
staff in the drug czar's office.
  The next step that was taken was to appoint a Surgeon General that in 
fact did not take the drug situation seriously, that helped advocate a 
policy of ``just say maybe'' to our young people, and this of course 
eventually has had consequences as we see in the drug statistics which 
I will cite.
  Unfortunately, the administration also, and the majorities of 1993 to 
1995, with the concurrence of the administration, they held majorities 
again in this body, the other body, they cut the source country 
programs where drugs are produced, slashed some of the funds to 
countries. I for one believe it is most cost effective if we stop 
illegal narcotics at their base of production, in the country of 
origin, in the fields where they are produced. I think that the cuts 
that were made back then had some tragic results, and we will talk 
about them.
  The next thing that the administration did, and the Democrat-
controlled Congress, was to take the military out of the drug war, to a 
large extent cut the Coast Guard resources. The Coast Guard is 
important in protecting our shores. Even the Commonwealth of Puerto 
Rico was protected up until that time by our Coast Guard.
  Again, this theme of ``just say maybe'' and tolerance to illegal 
narcotics has eventually found its way into the minds of our young 
people, and we are now suffering with tremendous problems, particularly 
in the abuse of heroin.
  Let me cite some statistics, if I may, tonight. The number of 
Americans who used heroin in the past month increased since 1992. The 
number of Americans who used heroin in the past month increased from 
68,000 in 1993 to 325,000 in 1997. This is from a national household 
survey on drug abuse.
  Now, I come from Florida. I come from central Florida. Florida has 
been particularly hard-hit by this epidemic of illegal narcotics, and 
in particular heroin. Heroin deaths in Florida increased by 51 percent 
from 1997.
  I reported this last week to the House and my colleagues, and I 
thought that these statistics were quite remarkable and should get 
everyone's attention. There were in Florida 206 heroin deaths in 1997. 
I also thought that that was a very startling figure, and I have some 
additional information tonight I would like to reveal.
  Orlando's 36 deaths yielded the highest death rate. So although we 
had, maybe, a lower number of heroin deaths in central Florida than 
larger populations, south Florida areas, we ended up with 3.6 deaths 
per 100,000 population, the highest death rate in Florida.
  Heroin deaths again have just blossomed and mushroomed out of 
proportion. We have a new drug czar who was the deputy director of the 
Office of National Drug Policy, Jim McDonough. Jim McDonough stated in 
the Miami Herald that the drug problem in Florida, and his quote is, 
``is totally out of control.'' That is from the Miami Herald comment 
and quote from him, April 7, 1999, recently.
  What is interesting is that change in the pattern of drug trafficking 
in central Florida. A recent article in the Orlando Sentinel pointed 
out that $20 hits, $20 doses of heroin were being sold in central 
Florida last year that were considered as much as 90 percent pure 
narcotic. That means the purity level was 90 percent.
  Ten, 15 years ago, the heroin that we saw on the streets in the 
United States was 10, 12 percent pure. The heroin that we are seeing 
today is particularly deadly. Ninety percent pure is what they are 
seeing. Formerly on the street, this article says that the product of 
heroin that was found there had a much less deadly content; and that is 
one of the reasons we are seeing so many tragic deaths in central 
Florida.
  According to Tim Moore, the director of the Florida Department of Law 
Enforcement, at these purity levels heroin is killing many of our 
first-time users. I quoted again how dramatically the number of deaths 
have increased in the State of Florida and in central Florida. 
Unfortunately, the news in Florida is actually worse than was reported 
for 1998.
  I bring to the floor a copy of an article that appeared this week. 
The headline is, ``News on Heroin Gets Even Worse'', and it is from 
this Monday's Orlando Sentinel.
  This report indicates that in some counties up to 20 percent of the 
people who died after taking heroin did not make the statewide list 
that I cited last week and again tonight of 206 deaths which were 
released several weeks ago. This is because the State Medical 
Examiner's Commission tracks only what it considers to be fatal 
overdoses. College students who drop dead after drinking beer and 
taking heroin were not counted. The same was true for motorists killed 
in an automobile accident while stoned on heroin. This is also part of 
this report revealed in an Orlando Sentinel article this week.
  In contrast, the Florida medical examiners have a long-standing 
practice of reporting in Florida every cocaine-related death. State 
officials reported 1,128 such fatalities. That is deaths by cocaine in 
Florida in 1998. That is a startling figure by itself.
  But we see that the figures that I have been given previously on 
heroin deaths were not accurate. They are even higher, and the 
situation gets much worse. Again, in the Orlando area, which has the 
highest rate of heroin deaths in Florida, State guidelines prompted the 
Orange-Osceola medical examiners, our local county examiner's office, 
to disregard eight heroin deaths. The office reported 36 deaths in two 
counties, not the 44 that actually took place.
  In Daytona Beach, the Volusia County medical examiner discounted one 
of five heroin deaths. So, again, this practice is not common just to 
central Florida and Orange County and Osceola, but Volusia County. In 
West Palm Beach, the medical examiner's office reported 19 heroin 
deaths. The office spokesman said two more deaths from 1998 had been 
confirmed and 19 more cases were still pending.
  So the epidemic that we have heard about is even worse than what has 
been initially reported. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is 
now asking the State's 24 medical examiners to expand the way they 
track the drug deaths. Florida has also asked the medical examiners to 
create a separate category for users who die after taking one or more 
drugs, which is a problem that appears to be on the rise.
  In the Orlando area and somewhere else, the trend appears to be abuse 
of heroin and cocaine with alcohol, all of which, I might tell my 
colleagues and those listening, has a very deadly effect again with 
this high purity, high content of heroin. Even small doses of heroin 
can be fatal when taken with beer, wine, or whiskey. The research

[[Page 6989]]

clearly shows this. Alcohol increases the odds of a fatal heroin 
overdose by a factor of 22. The three heroin deaths that were 
discounted in Orlando in 1998 involve victims who died after taking 
heroin and alcohol, according to this report.
  Mr. Speaker, I have talked about what has happened in central 
Florida, what has happened in our Nation. From 1993, when we had this 
change in policy, when we had this lack of direction by the 
administration, the lack of attention to the national drug problem, 
heroin use among our teens has increased in a 5- or 6-year period 875 
percent.

                              {time}  1900

  I have mentioned the deaths in central Florida. Up dramatically. 
Actually undercounted, as we reported from this article released this 
week in this investigative report by the Orlando Sentinel, a situation 
totally out of control with, again, our young people.
  I want to do something tonight to show my colleagues and to show the 
American public and those listening that we have a very serious 
situation. We have thousands of deaths in Florida. We have hundreds of 
deaths in central Florida. We have over 14,000 deaths across the Nation 
from drug overdoses or drug-related deaths.
  This situation is not making the front page every day across our 
country, even though we have a heroin epidemic, a methamphetamine 
epidemic across this land, and other hard drugs. But these heroin 
deaths and these other deaths have a face and a name on them; and 
tonight I want to share with my colleagues just for a few minutes a 
photograph that I hope will be riveted in everyone's mind forever.
  I want to show my colleagues that this death and destruction has a 
face on it and it is a face one can never forget. It is a face that was 
provided to me by a mother who lost a son to heroin in central Florida. 
It is a face that this mother and other mothers who gathered together, 
dozens of mothers in central Florida and parents who gathered together, 
some of whom I met with, related their stories of how their young 
people did not realize the purity of heroin, they did not realize the 
effects of heroin, they did not realize the impact of heroin or hard 
drugs on their bodies and their minds.
  What I am going to show my colleagues should happen to no parent and 
should happen to no young person in our Nation. This is a picture of a 
man who is 26 years old. He was loved by his parents, the Stevens 
family. Loved by his family. He had a life to live. He was loved by his 
parents, and this young man died tragically of a drug overdose of 
heroin. I am going to show this picture only for a few seconds because 
it is quite shocking.
  If there are young people watching, I do not want them to look if 
they do not want to. But this is the face of these 14,000 people who 
are dying of drug overdoses. This is the tragedy that we see. This is 
how this mother found her son and this is the sad effect of heroin on 
our young people across this Nation.
  The glory that is portrayed by drug use and abuse in Hollywood and 
pop songs, this is the result; and this is what happens to those young 
people, and this is a face, a very tragic face.
  This is how that young man ended up, on a sofa, and then in a morgue. 
The mother gave me permission to show this and has also put other 
pictures of her loved one from these police reports in a videotape, 
along with photos and evidence gathered from other scenes of tragic 
deaths of young people in central Florida, because they want to let the 
parents know what is happening. They want to let the young people know 
what is happening. They want the people who are considering using 
heroin and other hard drugs to know what is going to happen to their 
loved ones, to their bodies.
  I had described to me a scenario of what happens when a person 
ingests heroin into the body, and I will describe that, if I may, 
tonight, to give those who are listening, my colleagues, a flavor of 
what happens and the horror of the death that these young people, 
thousands and thousands of them, have experienced across our Nation.
  Heroin is ingested into the body. There is a period of time, usually 
within 30 seconds, where the drug hits the nervous system. Euphoria and 
a warm sensation overcomes the user. The user is beginning to feel the 
effects of the respiratory system breaking down and the user's 
breathing becomes labored.
  As the respiratory system breaks down, the breathing becomes very 
slow. A corresponding drop in the body temperature begins and the heart 
becomes irregular. If the user is conscious at this point, this is the 
stage where fear grips the user.
  Soon, the body is demanding more oxygen, and the user's respiratory 
system cannot accommodate the growing need for oxygen. The user feels 
cold. Fluid begins to enter the lungs. This is the beginning of the 
drowning stage.
  So first there is the choking stage and the drowning stage.
  Sometimes, during this phase, blood vessels and capillaries begin to 
rupture, as evidenced by the photograph that we saw of the young Mr. 
Stevens. The blood on the face of the heroin user is a result of blood 
vessels rupturing. It is not a very pretty sight. It is not a way for 
anyone to meet their Maker.
  Entering into the final phase, the user is now in great distress and 
experiencing severe pain throughout the chest and throat, much like a 
heart attack. The user's head is splitting with pain. The amount of 
fluid in the lungs has increased. The user is now in excruciating pain 
and begins to drown as his lungs fill with fluid.
  The pain is now overwhelming and the user becomes fitful, jerking 
wildly and thrashing at the air. This continues for a time until the 
user becomes unconscious and begins seizures. Death is slow and 
inevitable.
  And this is how these young people end up, unfortunately. This is how 
a young person in central Florida ended up paying with his life for 
this use and abuse of drugs. And, in particular here in central 
Florida, as I have said, we have this incredible epidemic of heroin 
use.
  The high purity in this heroin, mixed sometimes with alcohol, mixed 
sometimes with other drugs, the results are inevitably fatal. And this 
has been repeated over and over and over and over again, to the tune of 
thousands and thousands of people across our land.
  So I bring a message tonight that is not very pleasant, but a 
message, I think, that is very necessary about what is going on and 
about how people end up who become the victims of this surge of heroin 
that we see coming into our communities.
  My next point to my colleagues, Madam Speaker, is where is this 
heroin coming from? I submit, my colleagues, that we know exactly where 
this heroin is coming from. And let me point out tonight how we know 
where heroin and other hard drugs are coming from, and let us take just 
a moment to look at this chart.
  Our Drug Enforcement Administration has a very sophisticated system 
of tracking illegal narcotics, and in particular in this case, heroin. 
It is almost like a DNA tracking where they can trace a DNA back to an 
individual. This is so sophisticated, this heroin signature tracking 
program, that they can tell exactly where the heroin came from, what 
country, almost what field.
  Seventy-five percent of the heroin entering the United States in this 
1997 analysis came from South America. Seventy-five percent came from 
South America; another 14 percent from Mexico. Add those up and we have 
89, nearly 90 percent of the heroin coming into the United States, this 
highly deadly, very pure heroin is coming in from two places, South 
America and from Mexico.
  We know about 90 percent, 99 percent of this heroin that is now 
coming from South America is coming from Colombia, one country, and we 
know the balance is coming from Mexico. We have 6 percent from 
southwest Asia and 5 percent from Southeast Asia. But through the 
sophisticated tracking and analysis program DEA can tell us exactly 
where these narcotics are coming from, and this deadly heroin that I 
spoke of.
  Now, the question is, what has the administration done about stopping 
this? We know this heroin is coming in. I have shown very graphically 
what the

[[Page 6990]]

heroin does to our young people. I have cited 14,000 deaths in the last 
6, 7 years of this administration. Nearly 100,000 Americans have met 
their death through these sorts of drug-related incidents, and no one 
is paying attention to this.
  The Clinton administration does not pay attention to where these 
drugs are coming from. In fact, as I said, most of the heroin is coming 
from South America and, in particular, from Colombia.
  What is absolutely amazing, if we were to look at this chart for 1992 
and 1993, we would see almost zero percent of heroin coming in from 
Colombia. There is very little heroin produced in Colombia, and there 
was a small percentage of heroin coming in from Mexico, much smaller 
than the 14 percent we see there.
  Over the history of this administration, what has this administration 
done to keep illegal narcotics from coming, and in particular deadly 
heroin and cocaine coming from Colombia? We know it is produced there, 
and heroin is now produced there.
  Actually, what they did is, they blocked all of the aid, all of the 
assistance to Colombia on a repeated basis.
  I cannot tell my colleagues, as a member of the committee with 
jurisdiction, working with other Members of the Congress, how many 
times we wrote, requested, how many times this new majority has funded 
equipment and ammunition resources to go to Colombia that we have been 
blocked repeatedly by this administration.
  So now, today, I am here. And instead of being a small producer of 
cocaine, Colombia is now the largest producer of cocaine. Previously, 
the cocaine came from Bolivia and from Peru. Now we have the 
distinction of Colombia winning this award, this deadly award, for 
being the biggest producer of cocaine. Because, again, this 
administration blocked any type of assistance to stop the production 
and growing of coca.
  Additionally, and of even greater concern, is the heroin production, 
again of incredible proportions, that has grown up as an industry in 
Colombia since 1993. Again, the administration failed to get equipment, 
helicopters, parts, ammunition, assistance, resources to Colombia to 
deal with this problem.
  Additionally, they cut the source country programs of eradication of 
coca and poppies at their source, the most cost-effective programs, to 
stop narcotics.

                              {time}  1915

  So this is where heroin comes from. This is where the bulk of heroin 
and cocaine comes from. And the administration has not acted properly 
to assist the biggest producer, which is Colombia.
  Now, the biggest source of these narcotics coming into the United 
States in this past 5 or 6 years is Mexico. Mexico has become the major 
transit center of illegal narcotics, hard narcotics, heroin and 
cocaine. Not only are they the major transit center, as we can see now 
from the signature program on heroin, they are also getting into the 
big league of producing very deadly, very pure heroin in Mexico. And, 
again, they were a very small player just some short years ago.
  What has the administration done to deal with Mexico? Well, 
repeatedly they have certified Mexico as fully cooperating in the war 
on drugs. We have on the books, on our Federal legal statutes, a 
requirement that the President and Department of State every year 
certify every country that is a drug-producing or drug-transiting 
country, that the administration must certify that they are 
cooperating, taking positive steps to stop the production and 
trafficking of illegal narcotics. It is called drug certification.
  What do they get in return? If they cooperate, they are eligible for 
trade assistance, for foreign aid, for international financial 
assistance and other resources that we make available as a Congress and 
also as a government to our allies.
  We have had no greater friend or ally or closer neighbor than Mexico. 
There has been no ally that we have assisted more in trying to maintain 
their financial stability, treating them as an equal trading partner, 
granting them NAFTA trade status, assisting them again as a good 
partner and much to our advantage.
  We now have a big trade imbalance. They are shipping more goods, 
dramatically more, into the United States. And they are also the source 
of illegal narcotics. This Congress and I were part of that effort 
several years ago when the administration certified Mexico as fully 
cooperating. We knew they were not fully cooperating. And we passed 
about 2 years ago, March 13, 1997, by a vote of 251-175, a resolution 
that asked that the President be responsible for reviewing the progress 
of Mexico in helping with some specific items.
  First of all was to allow the United States law enforcement agents in 
Mexico to carry firearms and also to protect themselves in defense and 
also to increase the numbers in Mexico and the cooperative effort in 
going after illegal narcotics dealers. Basically, nothing has been done 
in that regard. Our agents are still at risk. Mexico still refuses to 
cooperate. And this is a request of the Congress from 2 years ago.
  We asked, secondly, that Mexico take concrete measures to find and 
eliminate corruption in Mexico, particularly among law enforcement and 
also among military, and to cooperate fully with the United States law 
enforcement personnel on narcotics control matters. Now, they have not 
complied with this second request. Mexico has not complied.
  In fact, when we conducted an investigation of money laundering in 
the hundreds of millions of dollars, the Mexican officials in this 
operation, called Casablanca, instead of assisting the United States 
Customs officers who were involved in it, threatened to indict and 
prosecute and go after our agents. Is this fully cooperating?
  So, again, this request of 2 years ago of Mexico still has not been 
attended to by Mexico. In fact, they slapped us in the face, our 
enforcement officers in the face, with their actions.
  We have asked, thirdly, and we continue to request, we asked 2 years 
ago that Mexico extradite one major drug trafficker. Have they done 
that? Not really. We want, again, cooperation in extraditing those 
identified drug traffickers, major drug traffickers, to the United 
States for prosecution who are under indictment and under request. Have 
they complied with that? No, not really. They have actually, just close 
to the decertification time here, extradited one individual and not a 
major drug trafficker. They know who they are.
  What is even worse is, I accompanied some of my colleagues and met 
with Mexican officials, the attorney general and others, and we know 
that the Yucatan Peninsula was completely controlled by drug lords, 
including the corrupt governor of Quintana Roo, the Yucatan Peninsula 
state. We know the Baha Peninsula is completely controlled by drug and 
other narco-traffickers. We know that other states in Mexico are 
completely overrun by drug dealers and they control the political 
apparatus, judicial apparatus.
  Not only have they not cooperated on extradition, they promised when 
we were there that they would seek the arrest of the governor of the 
Yucatan Peninsula, who they knew was involved in drug trafficking, who 
our agents had the goods on, who internationally is renowned for drug 
trafficking, who turned the Yucatan Peninsula in a narco-terrorist 
state.
  Unfortunately, in Mexico they have a law that does not allow them to 
really go after folks in office and it makes it difficult to prosecute. 
So we were told that as soon as the governor of the Yucatan Peninsula 
leaves office, he will be arrested and he will be made responsible for 
his actions, which everyone knew were corrupt.
  And what happened 4 or 5 days just before the governor was to leave 
office? He fled the country, I believe on a banana boat, and is on an 
island off of Cuba we are told. So again the Mexicans failed to 
extradite, they failed to keep their commitment to go after corrupt 
officials.
  And what is also a request that has been pending for over 2 years now 
is

[[Page 6991]]

that Mexico sign a maritime agreement with the United States, that it 
allow us to halt and hold drug traffickers and pursue them into Mexican 
waters. This request was made several years ago, has been made 
repeatedly, and still the Mexicans have not complied with the simple 
request of trying to bring this situation under control.
  Now, if this is not bad enough, if all these requests that were made 
by this House of Representatives and this Congress 2 years ago, a 
little over 2 years ago, March 13, 1997, are ignored, just toss it, 
forget about it, if this was not bad enough, listen to what the 
Mexicans have done in trying to assist us with stopping the huge 
quantities of illegal narcotics coming into the United States. These 
are the statistics we have for Mexican drug seizures, opium, heroin.
  From 1997, the number of metric tons that have been seized by Mexican 
officials, heroin, again killing our young people, a 56 percent drop in 
drug seizures from 1997 to 1998 of heroin by Mexican drug officials. A 
56 percent drop. And this stuff is flooding into our communities in 
unprecedented quantities, in unprecedented levels of purity.
  Cocaine. What did they do to stop cocaine coming into the United 
States? How much cocaine did they seize in 1997 versus 1998? A 35 
percent drop in the metric tons of cocaine that was seized in Mexico. 
Have they been fully cooperating with the United States? I say not.
  The vehicles seized by Mexico. These are actually vessels seized by 
the Mexican Government. The boats, in 1997 they seized 135. In 1998 
they seized 96, a 29 drop in the number of vessels seized. My 
colleagues can see why we want a maritime agreement because they failed 
to even interdict. These are these folks who are dealing in huge 
quantities of deadly drugs.
  According to again the DEA, 14 percent now of the heroin in the 
United States is of Mexican origin. That was a very small figure some 
years ago. So what Mexico is doing rather than being a small producer, 
is now even a large producer in producing deadly heroin into our 
communities and across our open commercial borders with Mexico.
  So these are some of the things that the administration has done in 
the past several years in dealing with Colombia, a major producer of 
death and destruction through cocaine or coca production and poppies 
and heroin production. This administration failed to respond, failed to 
aid, failed to stop it.
  Mexico, they certified them even though Mexico is kicking dirt in the 
face of every Member of Congress in the United States of America by 
their lack of cooperation on the basic items that we have asked for and 
their lack of effort in trying to seize illegal narcotics, particularly 
heroin, cocaine, and now the rage is methamphetamines.
  I conducted a hearing yesterday on INS and illegal immigration in 
Atlanta, Georgia; and the district attorney in the Atlanta region told 
us that methamphetamines are becoming a serious problem in that 
community. And also in hearings we have heard across the Midwest, 
places like Minnesota, Iowa, and again the western part of the United 
States, where endemic levels of meth, which is very deadly, and 
designer drugs are now making their way from Mexico into these parts of 
our country.
  Now, my colleagues might say, this new majority Chair up here 
talking, what has he done? What has the new Republican majority done? I 
might say that under the leadership of the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. 
Hastert), who is now the distinguished Speaker of the House of 
Representatives, who had this responsibility for putting back together 
the last 2 years our drug policy, we have made great progress.
  Through his leadership and the work of the gentleman from New York 
(Mr. Gilman), chairman of the Committee on International Relations, and 
other chairs, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Portman) who has worked on 
the demand side in the community programs dealing with drug abuse and 
community efforts in that regard, and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. 
McCollum), who works on legislative efforts particularly as they deal 
with the criminal justice system and also helping to restore some of 
our international efforts, these individuals, part of the new majority, 
part of the new team, with the leadership of the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Hastert), put nearly a billion dollars into various 
programs, additional dollars into programs, raising our expenditures on 
this drug issue to $17.9 billion.
  Now, this administration, ironically, proposed a $100 million cut in 
the drug budget and they portrayed that as an increase. I do not know 
when $100 million less can be an increase, but somehow they are trying 
to suggest that to the Congress.
  But again, we put money into education, into interdiction, money into 
stopping drugs at their source, starting with these source countries, 
getting aid to Colombia, helicopters, equipment, resources, the 
manpower necessary to support their effort to eradicate the poppy 
fields, the coca fields, the drugs at their source, which I guarantee 
is the most cost-effective way.
  The gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman), the chairman of the full 
Committee on International Relations, and myself have talked for many 
days about this situation with Mexico.
  The situation with Colombia is a little bit different. We do have the 
cooperation of the new government, President Pastrana. We are getting 
aid and assistance there. This Congress has provided that assistance, 
again, under the new majority leadership.
  The situation with Mexico is much more difficult, and we have 
discussed this with leadership and with others. We took the 
unprecedented steps 2 weeks ago, the gentleman from New York (Mr. 
Gilman) and myself and other Members of the House, to extend the period 
of decertification consideration by the House of Representatives 
indefinitely until we come up with some additional concrete solutions, 
until we come up with cooperative efforts, until we come up with some 
concrete cooperative measures that we can take working with Mexico to 
gain their cooperation, to seek their real actions in stopping illegal 
narcotics at their source, stopping the tracking through their country, 
working on a maritime issue, allowing our agents to be armed and to 
protect themselves when they are working on these problems in their 
country, working on real extradition, and identifying these individuals 
that are major drug traffickers that are under indictment from the 
United States and extraditing them to the United States and seeing that 
they are prosecuted and serve time and are taken out of the streets, 
and also enforcing the laws that Mexico has passed.

                              {time}  1930

  They have passed some laws, I will give them that credit, but they 
are not executing those laws.
  So we need the cooperation of Mexico. We will find a way, working 
with Mexican officials and with Members of this Congress, to gain their 
cooperation because they are an important ally, they are an important 
trading partner, but we cannot sell our souls and the lives of our 
young people for the sake of trade, for the sake of dollars, for the 
sake of doing business with a narcotrafficking state.
  And we would hate to see Mexico become a narcotrafficking state, and 
I am quite concerned, Madam Speaker, that we may be on the verge, after 
having seen Mexico lose the Yucatan Peninsula, after seeing Mexico lose 
the Baja Peninsula with hundreds of deaths, narcoterrorist deaths, in 
that state right across our border, some of them heinous, lining up 
women and children and machine-gunning them. Again, narcoterrorist drug 
trafficking that has taken over a great deal of Mexico.
  We must work together and find some solutions to stop these hard 
drugs, heroin, cocaine, methamphetamines, other illegal narcotics 
coming into the United States and restore the programs that again are 
cost effective, that have unfortunately been ignored by this 
administration, but will be passed by this Congress, were passed in the 
last Congress, to restore effectiveness in dealing with these problems.

[[Page 6992]]

  Again, the toll is tragic. Over 100,000 Americans have lost their 
lives in the years since this administration took charge, due to the 
problem of illegal narcotics, and the problem is growing worse 
particularly among our young people.
  Tonight I did detail one tragic death, a young person who lost his 
life, whose family now is bravely portraying the horrendous death that 
he died to set an example for others, particularly young people who may 
not know that there is not glory, that there is not celebrity status in 
using narcotics, that the narcotics out there today are very deadly 
when mixed with other drugs or with alcohol, or sometimes for first-
time users with 90 percent purity. These individuals meet very tragic, 
painful, ugly deaths that are just too horrible to describe in 
additional detail.
  But we want the Members of Congress to know what is taking place 
across this land, we want the American people to know that there is an 
effort in Congress to correct this situation and that, although the 
tragedies, as I said at the opening, that have occurred in Colorado and 
have taken the lives of numerous young people, although Kosovo is a 
serious situation and there has been ethnic cleansing, we still have a 
number one social problem in this country that took 14,000 lives last 
year, is taking lives as I speak tonight, and will continue to take 
them until we get this situation under control, until we make a 
commitment to just say no, until we make a commitment to make certain 
that our young people are educated about the potential tragedy of using 
illegal narcotics and until we restore those source-country programs 
that were cut and get the military and whatever other agencies we need, 
including resources to law enforcement, and to cooperative countries 
like Colombia, Bolivia and Peru to stop drugs at their source, again in 
a cost-effective manner. All of us, particularly those who pay the 
taxes, their hard-earned tax dollars, want an effective program that 
deals again with the major social problems.
  So tonight, as I conclude, I look forward to working with my 
colleagues on both sides of the aisle to correct the problems of the 
past. Hopefully, we will not make the same mistakes to draw the 
attention of the Congress to this problem, to draw the attention of the 
American people and particularly our young people about illegal 
narcotics and what it can do to their lives. We do not want anyone else 
to end up like this young person did on this sofa, so badly mangled, 
his life destroyed, his family's future destroyed in a body bag in 
central Florida or in any other community.
  So that is why we are here, that is why we will be back next week. It 
may get to be a somewhat repetitive message, and people may get tired 
of hearing me. But I guarantee for the next number of months that I 
continue to chair this drug policy subcommittee we will call this to 
the attention of the Congress. The American people seek our help and 
support, every Member, until we get this situation under control.


                ANNOUNCEMENT BY THE SPEAKER PRO TEMPORE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Biggert). Members are reminded to 
direct their comments to the Chair and not to the television audience.

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