[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 12916-12921]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


[[Page 12916]]

                      THE SCOURGE OF ILLEGAL DRUGS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Brady of Texas). 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 am pleased to come to the floor again 
tonight to talk about a subject that I feel I have a particularly 
important responsibility on and that is the question of the problem of 
illegal drugs and its impact upon our society.
  I try in these weekly talks to my colleagues in the Congress to 
stress some of the problems that illegal narcotics have created for 
this Congress, and for our American society and for millions and 
millions of American families who have been ravaged by illegal drugs 
with their loved ones.
  So tonight I am going to talk about, again, the impact of illegal 
narcotics on our society and families.
  I want to talk a little bit about the history of the drug war. I 
always think that is important. No matter how many times I have told 
the story of how we got into this situation with a record number of 
deaths and abuse, drug abuse, among our teenagers and hard drug 
overdoses among our young people at record levels, it is amazing how 
many people really are not listening to the problem that we have in 
this Nation.
  Additionally, I would like to talk a little bit about a hearing that 
we plan to conduct tomorrow and hearings in the future. I have the 
privilege and honor of serving as the Chair of the Subcommittee on 
Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources. Tomorrow our 
subcommittee will launch on a series of hearings dealing with drug 
legalization, decriminalization and also looking at alternatives for 
harm reduction, which seem to be sort of the popular rage.
  We are going to attempt, through those hearings, series of hearings, 
to bring more public light on those issues that are getting so much 
attention right now. Then I plan to talk a little bit about some 
studies, one in particular in New York, that debunks some of the myths 
about people who are incarcerated, or part of our criminal justice 
system, because of drug offenses.
  An interesting New York study I thought I would share with the House 
of Representatives tonight and talk a little bit more about some of the 
problems we have had with extraditing individuals from Mexico and talk 
about the source of most of the hard drugs coming in to the United 
States, which is through Mexico.
  Mexico does not produce all of these drugs but certainly is the 
transit point, and I would like to bring the House and other interested 
individuals up to date on what is taking place in Mexico; again with 
the problems we have incurred in getting their cooperation and our 
effort to combat trafficking and production of illegal narcotics.
  Finally, I would like to talk a little bit about what we are doing in 
a positive vein to deal with this very serious problem that has 
affected my community and, as I said, millions of American families, 
and what this new majority is doing since we have inherited the 
responsibility to govern, to legislate and to create a new drug policy 
in a void really where we had no policy.
  So those are some of the objectives tonight. Again, I want to go over 
the situation because unless we have some tragedy, an airplane crash, a 
Columbine, some explosion, some tremendous loss of life in one 
instantaneous CNN-covered event, it seems that the American people and 
the Congress do not pay much attention.
  What we have here is the slow death of thousands and thousands every 
month, more and more Americans dying, due to drug-related causes. Right 
now the hard statistics are last year over 14,000 Americans lost their 
lives as a direct result of drug-related causes. Most of those are 
overdoses.
  Really, what I find very interesting in just the last 8 months of 
assuming this responsibility, one would think we would have hard 
figures on all the people that die as a result of illegal narcotics, 
and we really do not. We are finding that many of the suicides, some of 
the murders, many of the other deaths that we read about, traffic 
accidents, are not counted in the statistics. I am told that we could 
easily approach 20,000-plus per year that are dying truly as a result 
of drug-related deaths in this country.
  Since the beginning of this administration, we have had over 100,000 
deaths. So put that in perspective and now the problem of drug-related 
deaths has affected millions and millions of American families.
  I would venture to say if we talked to school children, if we talked 
to families across the country, almost every one of them can tell a 
story of someone they know, if not a relative a friend, who has had a 
young person, in particular young people are afflicted by this problem, 
die of a drug-related cause.
  So it is a silent but deadly, devastating rage and epidemic across 
our Nation; not only in the sheer numbers of people that have been lost 
but the impact on so much of our American society; on the medical 
system; on our judicial system; health care; on society's 
responsibility to help families that have lost a wage earner who is 
afflicted by drug dependency, who is incarcerated in our legal system. 
So, again, this has had a very damaging effect and it has many 
consequences.
  Let me read a few statistics, if I may, and cite them, about the 
problems that are occurring. For example, in 1995 almost 532,000 drug-
related emergencies occurred nationwide. In 1995, the retail value of 
the illicit drug business totalled $49 billion. It is estimated that 
the problem of illegal drugs now approaches a quarter of a trillion 
dollars every year. That is taking into account all the direct costs, 
the indirect costs, incarceration, the judicial system, 
hospitalization, social costs, disruption in our society, lost 
productivity. There are incredible costs and an incredible price tag to 
us as a nation.
  Additionally, in Congress, and I only have a tiny bit of 
responsibility in the House of Representatives, and that is to oversee 
some of our drug budget, which is proposed by the administration, that 
totals about $17.9 billion in direct dollars that we can identify, 
another part of this expensive price tag that we face.
  According to the 1997 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, 77 
million Americans, that is 35.6 percent of all Americans age 12 and 
older, reported some use of an illicit drug at least once during their 
lifetime; 11.2 percent reported use during the past year, and 6.4 
percent reported use in the last month before the survey was conducted. 
This is our most recent survey that shows, again, the impact of illegal 
narcotics on our society; and again almost 36 percent of all Americans 
over age 12 have been involved with illegal narcotics.
  According to the 1998 monitoring of the future study, and this is a 
study conducted every year, 54 percent of high school seniors reported 
use of an illegal drug at least once in their lives. So we passed the 
halfway mark. We see, again, the statistics in deaths. We see the 
statistics in addiction. We see the problems that we have with our 
young people and we have just under 55; 54 percent of all of our high 
school seniors reported use of an illegal drug at least once in their 
lives.
  What is interesting is we conducted at least half a dozen hearings on 
the various subjects about drug abuse in the past few months, and one 
hearing that we held additionally in an area of responsibility was one 
hearing that addressed the problem of violence in our schools, and that 
certainly has been a topic of conversation in the Congress and 
throughout the country since the Columbine incident.
  It is interesting to note, and we had principals, we had 
psychologists, we had law enforcement people, but almost every one of 
them who testified in our subcommittee hearing said that one of the 
major problems that we have and at the root of violence in our schools 
is drug abuse and substance abuse. This was repeated over and over.
  It is interesting, when we talk about control of weapons and 
explosives that we do not address the question of control of substances 
that really lead to some of the problems that we have seen, and that is 
violence in our schools. It is sad that, again, we address sort of the 
periphery in Congress.

[[Page 12917]]

We do not go to the root of the problems.
  In these hearings we heard time after time from expert after expert 
that illegal narcotics are at the root of violence in our schools and 
in the communities. So this is, again, the startling statistic that we 
have passed the halfway mark with our high school seniors. At least 
close to 55 percent have used illegal narcotics. Forty-one percent 
reported the use, in this study, of an illegal drug within the past 
year. That is 41 percent of our high school seniors now have reported 
the use of an illegal drug within the past school year.
  Nearly 26 percent reported the use of an illegal drug within the past 
month, and this is the latest study and report that we have showing, 
again, some startling statistics about the use of illegal narcotics 
among our young people.
  Today I had an opportunity to meet with several different 
representatives, of different organizations involved in combatting 
illegal narcotics. One of the individuals that I had the pleasure of 
discussing this subject with was Mr. Ron Brooks. Mr. Brooks is the 
President of the National Narcotics Officers Association and he is 
really on the frontline with many of the other narcotics officers 
across this country who from day to day sometimes risk their lives and 
deal on the street and in our communities with the problem of illegal 
narcotics.

                              {time}  2130

  What is incredible is Mr. Brooks, again president of the National 
Narcotics Officers Association, said that methamphetamines are becoming 
a national epidemic in this country. We have discussed the situation 
that we find ourselves in with methamphetamines, commonly called meth.
  We have conducted also our subcommittee hearings in several locations 
in Florida and Atlanta and Washington, and we heard reports from United 
States attorneys, from police chiefs, from border patrol officers, from 
law enforcement officials across this Nation in surprising locales.
  We had a law enforcement officer from the heart of the country in 
Iowa testify. We had information from Minnesota where one would not 
think that there would be much of a methamphetamine problem; Georgia, 
Texas, and the list goes on and on. Mr. Brooks, and we had 
representatives from California talking today about the meth epidemic 
in that State. So we have another, in addition to heroin epidemic, 
which we have experienced in Florida, we have in many parts of our land 
a methamphetamine epidemic that really needs attention.
  Let me describe a little bit about meth and what it is and the 
problem that we face. Methamphetamine is a highly addictive drug that 
can be manufactured by using products commercially available anywhere 
in the United States. Methamphetamine is by far the most prevalent 
synthetic controlled substance which is clandestinely manufactured in 
the United States today.
  In 1997, it was estimated that 5.3 million Americans, that is 2\1/2\ 
percent of our population, had already tried methamphetamines in their 
lifetime, up significantly from a 1994 estimate of 1.8 million 
Americans.
  The meth problem, as I said, is epidemic. Not only can it be 
manufactured by commercially available products that are available in 
the United States, we found an interesting side note here; and that is 
that most of the methamphetamine and some of the chemicals that are 
used in its processing come from Mexico.
  It was startling to find officials from Minnesota, from Iowa, from 
Texas, and other States who actually traced the methamphetamines back 
to Mexico, an incredible trail, an incredible tale of this deadly 
substance coming across our borders, and again far flung into 
communities we would never expect that now are experiencing epidemics 
of methamphetamine use and abuse.
  All of this, of course, has a toll on the Congress and the American 
taxpayer. I cited some of the toll in dollars and cents and lost lives. 
One of the big problems that we have is that we have people 
incarcerated in our prisons, in our local jails across this Nation.
  It is also interesting to note when we conduct these hearings and we 
have sheriffs, like we had our local sheriffs testify, and I am very 
privileged in central Florida to have several outstanding sheriffs, 
Sheriff Bob Fogel of Volusia County, who has had an incredible 
reputation of going after drug dealers, taking a lot of heat for his 
aggressiveness in going after them, but done a tremendous job in 
directing resources of our community in Volusia County in central 
Florida to go after those dealing in illegal narcotics.
  Sheriff Don Eslinger of Seminole County. These counties are between 
Orlando and Daytona Beach that I represent. Don Eslinger has just done 
a magnificent job, not only as sheriff and chief law enforcement of our 
major county in my district, but also in heading up a high-intensity 
drug traffic area, getting that off the ground, which we designated 2 
years ago.
  That is interesting because, under Federal law, we can designate a 
community as a high-intensity drug traffic area and bring in Federal 
resources; and that has been done repeatedly. Sometimes I would like to 
make the whole United States a high-intensity drug traffic area. That 
would be a great goal. It would be a great objective if we could do 
that.
  But right now we are limited, because we have limited resources to 
pick those areas that have been disproportionately impacted and that 
can justify additional Federal resources designating them as a high-
intensity drug traffic area, then providing resources to the local 
community to deal with that problem.
  That is what we have done in Central Florida. Legislatively, I was 
able to achieve that with the help of Senator Graham, with the help of 
other colleagues in central Florida. We did get central Florida, the 
corridor from Daytona Beach over to the Tampa west coast, designated as 
a high-intensity drug traffic area with $1 million in initial 
contributions from the Federal Government to go to beef up these 
activities. This past year, we added $2.5 million.
  What is really fabulous is we have seen results. The headlines of the 
papers just in the last week trumpeted some of the success that we have 
had. Don Eslinger helped lead that effort, our sheriff, and the 
individual who helped us start our high-intensity drug traffic area. So 
Don Eslinger also testified before our hearings.
  He told our subcommittee, in hearings in central Florida that we 
conducted, in fact, right out of the box when I took over this 
responsibility of chair of the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug 
Policy, and Human Resources, in those hearings, Don testified that, in 
fact, 70 to 80 percent of those incarcerated and that he has arrested 
are there because of drug-related offenses, an incredible statistic.
  We find that, if we look at our Federal prisons and other 
penitentiaries and jails across the country in similar testimony, we 
see that 60 to 70 percent of those that are behind bars in this country 
are there because, again, drug offenses. Now we are approaching 2 
million. We have 1.8 million incarcerated in jails. Just imagine what 
this country would be like if we could eliminate 60 to 70 percent of 
the crime, 60 to 70 percent of those incarcerated, how we could use 
those resources. Imagine the tremendous waste of human beings' life to 
have them sitting behind bars because they have committed a felony and 
drug offense.
  The statistics, again, are just startling about use by those in 
prison. A recent survey that we had submitted to us, our subcommittee, 
said that overall 82 percent of all jailed inmates in 1996 had used an 
illegal drug--up 78 percent from 1989. We had, again, a huge increase 
in those in prison who were there because of a drug-related crime.
  We also find that a large, large percentage, 82 percent of all jail 
and inmates, had used illegal narcotics. Eighty-one percent of 
individuals selling drugs test positive at the time of arrest, 
including 56 percent for cocaine and 13 percent for heroin.
  This is interesting because we have people who are selling and 
involved in

[[Page 12918]]

trafficking of narcotics are also drug users and involved in the hard 
drugs of heroin and cocaine.
  A study by the Parent Resource and Information on Drug Report, which 
is called PRIDE, reported recently of high school students who reported 
having carried guns to school, 31 percent use cocaine compared to 2 
percent of the students who had never carried guns to school. The same 
relationship was found among junior high school students. Nineteen 
percent of gang members reported cocaine use, compared to 2 percent 
among use who were not in gangs.
  So it is interesting that not only our prisons, those involved in 
felonies, involved with illegal narcotics, that even those young people 
who cause the disruption in our schools by bringing weapons into 
schools are involved with the hard narcotics and at the statistic level 
that we cited in this report. These are, again, some of the problems we 
face with incarceration.
  I wanted to talk for a minute, since tomorrow's topic of discussion 
before our subcommittee will be the question of pros and cons of drug 
legalization, decriminalization, and harm reduction. Tomorrow, again, 
is just the first in a series of hearings that we will be holding to 
address these issues.
  We will hear administration policy and pleas that we are going to 
lead off with our Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey, who has helped the new 
majority in Congress restart the war on drugs. I know he does not like 
that term, and I could see why, because this administration, before he 
assumed the responsibility of the Chief Executive Officer and Director 
of our Office of National Drug Control Policy, before he came on board, 
we basically had a vacuum. We had a closing down of the war on drugs. 
General McCaffrey has helped restart that.
  We will also hear, in addition to the Chief National Drug Enforcement 
Officer that controls our national policy, our Drug Czar, Dr. Alan 
Leshner, Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and hear 
what the National Institute on Drug Abuse feels about legalization, 
decriminalization, and how we should approach harm reduction.
  Then we will hear from the Deputy Administrator of our Drug 
Enforcement Administration, Mr. Donnie Marshall. It is sad, as I said, 
that we recently learned of the retirement this summer, pending 
retirement, of Tom Constantine. I cannot sing enough praises of Mr. 
Constantine. He has been the Administrator of the Drug Enforcement 
Administration. He has sometimes taken up positions that are difficult 
with an administration that has not always been willing to cooperate, 
but he has done so with great integrity, with great honesty, gained the 
trust of almost every Member of Congress and certainly their respect.
  Tomorrow we will hear from Donnie Marshall, his deputy, and see how 
the administration feels about these proposals again to liberalize and 
legalize and decriminalize some of our drug laws.
  I am pleased also that we will have Jim McDonough. Jim McDonough was 
a deputy in the National Drug Czar's Office and has moved on to direct 
Florida's effort under the able leadership of our new Governor Jeb 
Bush, who, right from the beginning, found one of the best individuals 
in the country to come to Florida and help us with the mounting problem 
that we have had there.
  Jim McDonough is no stranger to the Office of Drug Control Policy. As 
I said, he was a deputy there, admirably served, and now is serving us 
in Florida; and we will hear his opinion from the State level. I am 
pleased to welcome him at our hearing.

                              {time}  2145

  Then we will also hear from Mr. Scott Elders, a senior policy analyst 
with the Drug Foundation. And then we are going to hear from Robert L. 
Maginnis, who is the Senior Director of the Family Research Council. 
And Mr. David Boaz, Executive Vice President of the Cato Institute. And 
Mr. Ira Glasser, Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties 
Union.
  This is only our first hearing on this subject. We intend to look at 
the medical use of marijuana. We intend to look at some of the programs 
across the country that have dealt with decriminalization; some of the 
efforts in Arizona and others that have been touted recently.
  As sort of a prelude to that hearing, I tried to assemble some of the 
most recent reports relating to decriminalization. One of the 
interesting things in my position is many people come to me asking why 
we do not look at not incarcerating people for drug use. They think 
drug use is something personal. If someone wants to get stoned or 
someone wants to walk around in a cloud, it does not do any harm. These 
people are sitting in our prisons. This is a waste of taxpayer money. 
And most of the people in prison, they would have us believe, they are 
first-time users or have not committed a serious offense, only personal 
use and possession of illegal narcotics.
  One of the most recent studies which I obtained a copy of is Narrow 
Pathways to Prison, and it is entitled ``The Selective Incarceration of 
Repeat Drug Offenders in the State of New York.'' This is the most 
recent report that I found. Rather thorough. It was produced by 
Catherine Lapp, the Director of Criminal Justice, in April. Just 
released in the last month or two. And I thought I would try to debunk 
a few of the myths about some of the things that have been said; that, 
again, these are first-time offenders; that these are people who only 
had personal use of some illegal substance and have done no harm.
  Let me just read from this report, and, again, a pretty factual and 
well documented report, about what they found. ``Advocates seeking to 
reduce or eliminate incarceration of drug offenders often focus their 
concerns on the following two types of offenders. First, incarcerated 
drug offenders with no prior felony arrest histories; and, second, 
incarcerated drug offenders whose only prior felony arrest, and perhaps 
convictions, involved drug offenses. This report helps to eliminate the 
circumstances underlying the incarceration of those two groups of 
offenders. It reveals that the vast majority of these offenders never 
receive prison sentences. And most of those who are sentenced to prison 
have failed to abide by conditions of community supervision.'' An 
interesting finding.
  Now, there are two parts to this report, and I will just read the 
summaries and then the conclusion.
  Part one. And it is entitled ``Drug Offenders With No Prior Felony 
Arrests or Conviction.''
  Few felony drug arrestees without prior felony histories receive 
prison sentences in New York State. As shown in one of their charts, 
fewer than 10 percent of disposed felony drug arrestees without a prior 
felony arrest or conviction are sentenced to prison. The other 90 
percent are diverted from the criminal justice system prior to 
conviction or sanctioned locally. These data suggest that the criminal 
justice system is very selective in its use of prison for first-time 
offenders.
  So this is New York. It is one very comprehensive study, just 
completed a few months ago, and its conclusion is that these first-time 
offenders are not going into prison.
  There is a second part to this study which is quite interesting, and 
the title of the second part is ``Drug Offenders Whose Only Prior 
Felony History, Arrest or Conviction Involves Drug Offenses.'' Now we 
are going to look at those who have had a history of felony arrests 
which involved drug offenses, and this is the second part and second 
conclusion.
  Most suspects who are arrested for felony-level drug crimes, and 
whose prior felony histories are limited to drug crimes, do not receive 
prison sentences in New York State. As shown in one of the charts they 
provide, approximately 70 percent of the disposed felony arrests are 
either diverted from the criminal justice system prior to conviction or 
sanctioned locally. Again, the data indicates a very selective use of 
prison even when the arrestee has a prior drug felony arrest history.
  So these folks that are sitting in our prisons are not one-time 
users, they

[[Page 12919]]

are not first-time users. And the conclusion of this report is quite 
interesting. Again, I thought I would provide verbatim the conclusion 
that was reached in this New York study.
  This report provides an accurate and objective insight into the 
manner in which New York State's criminal justice system adjudicates 
persons charged with drug offenses. Contrary to images portrayed by 
Rockefeller Drug Law Reform Advocates, the drug offenders serving time 
in our State prison system today are committed to prison because of 
their repeated criminal behavior, leaving judges with few options short 
of prison. In the past decade, numerous alternatives to prison and 
prison diversion programs have been implemented to target non-violent 
drug abusing offenders in an effort to reduce unnecessary reliance on 
prison and reduce recidivism among this category of offenders. The 
programs range from merit time to shock incarceration, detab, and the 
Willard Drug Treatment Program.
  Our subcommittee intends to look at some of these diversion programs 
in future hearings and future investigations. These programs and others 
have yielded promising results. However, as this report clearly 
demonstrates, when offenders continue to flaunt the system and fail to 
abide by the conditions of their release, the court must take swift 
action and impose appropriate sentences of imprisonment in order to 
protect society and break the cycle of crime.
  This is a very interesting report, and I will make that a part of the 
record of our hearing tomorrow as we discuss in one of the rare times 
that I can recall that Congress has addressed the question of drug 
legalization, decriminalization. A very interesting factual report, and 
it blows away some of the myths about who is in prison, who is behind 
bars, and what brought them to prison.
  Tonight, again, in addition to talking about the hearings that we 
have held and the hearings we are going to hold tomorrow, I want to 
repeat a little bit of the history of how we got ourselves into this 
situation. I do not mean to beat a dead horse, but, again, it is 
amazing how many people do not know the story of really this 
administration and this President's direct efforts to close down the 
war on drugs in 1993.
  When they gained control, from 1993, of the House of Representatives, 
of the other body, the United States Senate, and of the White House, 
the first thing they did was dismantle the drug czar's office. Most of 
the people that were cut from the White House staff were cut from the 
staff of the drug czar's office, which has been part of the Executive 
Office of the President.
  What was sad, and I sat on the then-Committee on Government Reform 
and Oversight, and had been on the Committee on Government Operations 
prior to that, is this administration completely ignored national drug 
policy for 2 years. For 2 years, when I came as a freshman in 1993, I 
repeatedly made requests of the chairman, of the Committee on 
Government Operations that was responsible for drug policy oversight, 
for hearings.
  Repeatedly we requested that there be some oversight of what was 
happening as they dismantled the war on drugs, as they took the 
military out of the war on drugs, as they cut the Coast Guard budget in 
half in the war on drugs, as they began a systematic dismantling of the 
source country program, which was stopping illegal narcotics most cost-
effectively in the few nations and areas where those illegal narcotics 
are produced.
  I called for and others signed letters. In fact, at one point I 
believe we had over 130 Members, Republican and Democrat, who asked for 
hearings and policy review of what was going on with the destruction, 
dismantling and ending of the war on drugs by this administration. 
During that entire time there was one hearing, which was approximately 
1 hour, where they had the drug czar, Lee Brown.
  Lee Brown, and I say this with protection of immunity on the floor of 
the House of Representatives, was probably the worst public official in 
the history of not only this administration but for every 
administration of this century. He did more to oversee the dismantling 
and destruction of a policy that had proven effective to deal with 
illegal narcotics than any other human being on the face of the map of 
the United States. And he came and testified, I will never forget, in a 
hearing that lasted less than an hour, I think the record would prove, 
talking about that. And that was only after nearly a disruption of the 
entire committee process to get one hearing in 2 years on national drug 
policy as this so-called drug czar oversaw that effort.
  The results are incredible. Because from taking the war on drugs 
apart and dismantling that, hiring a Surgeon General who said ``Just 
say maybe,'' from sending the wrong message, ``If I had it to do over 
again, I'd inhale,'' all of these things added up to where, today, we 
have, since 1993, an 875 percent increase in heroin use by our 
teenagers.
  My colleagues heard the statistics on methamphetamines, the 
statistics on the death and destruction, particularly among our young 
people. This has had very devastating results, and it was due to a very 
concentrated effort by a few people and a majority that took control of 
this Congress from 1993 to 1995.
  What is amazing, too, is that we have known, and I have repeated this 
on the floor of the House, we have known the source of most of the 
illegal narcotics. We know that cocaine was produced in only three 
countries, and 90 percent of it, until this administration took 
control, 90 percent of all the coca in the world that came into the 
United States was produced in Peru and Bolivia. Now, in 6 years, they 
managed to shift that production to, today, to Colombia. And I will 
talk in a minute about how we got into the situation with Colombia now 
becoming the major producer of cocaine, also through a direct policy of 
this administration, which was to stop all resources, assistance, aid, 
ammunition, helicopters, anything they could stop getting to Colombia 
and the Colombian National Police to deal with the narcotics production 
and trafficking problem. That was a direct policy of this 
administration that failed to deal with that problem.

                              {time}  2200

  The good news was that the House of Representatives and the other 
body went into the hands of the other party. And let me say that I had 
the honor and privilege of serving under the gentleman from Illinois 
(Mr. Hastert), now the Speaker of the House of Representatives, when he 
took on the responsibility under the leadership of the new majority to 
put the war on drugs and begin to effectively reassemble what had been 
started by the Reagan and Bush administration, again a real war on 
drugs.
  The first thing that the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert) did 
was to work with Bolivian and Peruvian officials to aid their effort 
and restart the source country programs for eradicating cost-
effectively drugs at their source.
  Again, I cited that most of the cocaine produced in the world and 
coming into the United States in 1993 to 1995 was from Peru and 
Bolivia. So the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert) went to the 
source. I went with him. We went out into the fields. We met with the 
national officials, the Presidents, and they restarted those efforts.
  Through that effort, in the last 2, 3 years, those two countries, 
Peru and Bolivia, through the leadership of Hugo Bonzer, the President 
of Bolivia, through the leadership of Mr. Fujimori, the President of 
Peru, they have cut the production of coca in half, 50 percent. And 
they have plans in the next 2 years to try to eliminate the production.
  The only problem is, while we were making progress there and asking 
the administration to get assistance to Colombia, which was becoming a 
new source of the cultivation of coca, this administration blocked all 
of those efforts, and we saw and we have seen in the last few years 
Colombia, again through a direct policy we can relate to this 
administration, become the number one producer of cocaine and coca, the 
base of cocaine, in the world.

[[Page 12920]]

  What is absolutely startling is from 1993 to 1995, if we go back and 
look at Colombia, there was almost no production, zero, almost nada, 
zip, production of heroin from Colombia. Most of it came in from 
Southeast Asia, a little bit from Mexico. This administration, again 
through its direct policies, has made Colombia the number one producer.
  Colombia is known for its beautiful flowers that are imported around 
the world and a natural place to start growing poppies, and they did 
because this administration stopped the resources from getting to 
Colombia and to the national police.
  Only in the last year or two has this new majority been able to 
appropriate over the wishes of this administration and also even see 
the delivery in the last few months of equipment, ammunition, 
resources, helicopters to the Republic of Colombia to combat those 
illegal narcotics that are being grown and shipped and transhipped 
through Colombia.
  So we know Colombia is the number one source. We know what the 
problem has been. And I think we have effectively dealt with it with, 
again, this new majority in Congress initiative, not with any help of 
the administration.
  Then the second area that we know there has been incredible volumes 
of hard narcotics coming into the United States, of course, is Mexico. 
The situation with Mexico gets even worse. Last week in Mexico we had 
the death of one of the stars of Mexico who was brutally machine-gunned 
downed on the streets of Mexico and come to find out even the hard-core 
Mexicans were shocked by this death. I believe it was in open daylight 
in Mexico, and come to find out it is a drug-related death, and this 
individual was involved with illegal substances and was gunned down, 
probably by traffickers. We will know more about that.
  The news, as I said, gets even worse about Mexico. Mexico, in a 
report that I just was briefed on this afternoon, it appears, and this 
will be in the media in the coming days, it appears that both the 
former President Salinas and his brother had some direct involvement in 
one of the, I believe, religious leaders in that country, who is also a 
candidate, he was brutally slain. And there are reports now from 
reliable sources that because this individual had that information, the 
former President and his brother wanted him rubbed out, and that even 
the military was involved in this action to gun down and murder an 
outstanding religious and potential political figure of Mexico.
  The news, as I said, gets even worse. This past week, Tim Golden 
reported in the New York Times, and he does an excellent job revealing 
and investigating what is going on with Mexico, which is involved up to 
its eyeballs and at every level with corruption, with illegal narcotics 
dealing, Tim Golden revealed that the secretary to the current 
President Zedillo, Mr. Sines, has managed to avoid a thorough 
investigation. Even our officials have turned their backs on seeing 
that Mr. Sines is properly investigated, highest assistant to the 
President of Mexico.
  There are some very, very serious allegations of his involvement with 
illegal narcotics trafficking and activity and corruption in that 
country that should be investigated fairly and honestly and not swept 
under the table by U.S. officials or by Mexican officials.
  The news about Mexico gets even worse. As I reported, we conducted a 
hearing on Mexico, and, in fact, several hearings on Mexico, and found 
evidence and testimony was given by one of our former Customs officials 
of a general attempting to launder $1.1 billion in illegal narcotics 
profits through legitimate U.S. sources.
  So again, it is a very sad situation. We fail to have the cooperation 
of Mexico in trafficking. And again, a majority of illegal narcotics, 
even those produced in Colombia, are transited through Mexico and enter 
the United States. They enter Mexico. They enter Florida. They enter 
the entire United States.
  We have provided through the trade benefits we have given to Mexico 
free and open commercial borders, and we have asked very little in 
return. We have just asked Mexico to cooperate in seizing heroin and in 
seizing cocaine and seizing methamphetamines. And what does the report 
show? In fact, it shows that in 1998, rather than seizing more illegal 
hard narcotics, the Mexicans are seizing less. Opium and heroin 
seizures in 1998 versus 1997 were down 56 percent. Cocaine seizures by 
Mexican officials over that same period were down 35 percent.
  So rather than help us in seizing illegal narcotics, instead of 
helping the United States, who has been a good ally, assisting Mexico 
in very difficult financial times, we underwrote the Mexican financial 
institutions and their currency, we opened our trade to Mexican 
commercial activities, and instead of cooperation, we actually have a 
lesser level of cooperation.
  And this administration has consistently certified Mexico. This 
Congress some 2 years ago plus passed a resolution asking Mexico to 
cooperate to pass a maritime agreement and enter into a maritime 
agreement so that we could seize drugs on the open waters. To date they 
have not signed a maritime agreement.
  We asked Mexico to extradite major drug traffickers, Mexican 
nationals. To date not one major Mexican national has been extradited. 
When we introduced just in the past few days a bill in Congress, myself 
and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. McCollum) and others, legislation 
that will go after the U.S. assets and other assets of major drug 
kingpins, we finally got the extradition of one Mr. Martin, a United 
States national who we had requested extradition on.
  We have requested over 275 extradition requests of the Mexicans over 
the past decades or less. There are over 40 major drug traffickers 
whose extradition we have requested. To date not one Mexican national 
has been extradited.
  What is really sad is the major producers, the major traffickers in 
methamphetamines were the Amezcua brothers. And recently, to kick sand 
in our face, to really slap the United States, Mexican judicial 
officials threw out the charges on two of the Amezcua brothers, and 
they, in fact, still have not been extradited to the United States. 
Indicted in the United States, requests for extradition, and again over 
40 major drug traffickers, Mexican nationals, not one extradited to the 
United States.
  Also we requested radar in the South to stop the trafficking coming 
up through Central and South America, and that has not been done by the 
Mexicans. We have asked that our DEA agents, after we had the murder of 
one of our agents some years ago, that they be armed to be able to 
protect themselves. And we have a very limited number of DEA agents 
because Mexico has limited the number of agents. And we still to this 
date have not had cooperation in allowing our agents to defend 
themselves.
  So we see a situation that is very critical in the United States; 
incredible numbers of death, the effect on our young people, the cost 
to our society, the cost to this Congress, the cost to mothers and 
fathers and brothers and sisters who have lost loved ones. We have seen 
a close-down of the war on drugs in 1993 and 1995 and a restarting by 
this new majority where we put the resources back in. We started the 
source country programs, the interdiction. We brought the military and 
the Coast Guard back into the effort, a real effort.
  This new majority also passed a 190-million-plus program, 
unprecedented, to start dealing with demand reduction, educating our 
young people. And that money is matched by private sector donations, 
very cost-effective. So we have taken some steps. We do not want to 
take a step backward.
  Tomorrow we will hear about drug legalization, decriminalization, and 
harm reduction from those leaders of the administration. It is my hope 
again to continue this effort before the House of Representatives, 
before the Congress, because it is the most important social question, 
the most important criminal justice question, the most important 
societal question facing the

[[Page 12921]]

American people and our Congress again in great cost in lives and 
money. And we will be back.
  So tonight, as I conclude, I thank those who have listened, Mr. 
Speaker, and who are willing to take up arms and efforts in combatting 
illegal narcotics. I thank my colleagues for their attention. And I 
promise, as General MacArthur said, I shall return and will continue to 
bring this topic before the Congress and the American people.

                          ____________________