[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 13]
[House]
[Pages 19565-19568]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                    ILLEGAL NARCOTICS AND DRUG ABUSE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica) is recognized 
for half the time until midnight as the designee of the majority 
leader.
  Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to come before the House of 
Representatives on another Tuesday night to talk about one of the most 
serious problems facing our Nation and the American people and the 
United States Congress; and that is the problem of illegal narcotics 
and drug abuse.
  I have taken probably more than 40 occasions, usually on a Tuesday, 
or at least once a week in the past year and a half plus to come before 
the House and talk about what I consider the most important social 
problem is facing our Nation. There is nothing bar an attack from a 
foreign enemy that could do more destruction or impose more tragedy 
upon this Nation than that problem of illegal narcotics.
  I took the responsibility of chairing the Subcommittee on Criminal 
Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources of the House of 
Representatives under the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight 
some 18 months ago; and I took that responsibility very seriously.
  I wish I could come before my colleagues tonight and say that we have 
solved this problem. I cannot as a parent tell my colleagues that we 
have solved this problem. I cannot as a Member of Congress tell my 
colleagues that we have solved this problem. I cannot tell my 
colleagues as the chair of this subcommittee that we have solved this 
problem. In fact, sometimes I think we make a step forward, and I think 
that we take a couple steps backwards.
  The news, unfortunately, has been even more grim recently, and part 
of this, I think, is a lack of national leadership and national focus. 
Let us face it, the Clinton-Gore administration has not been interested 
in addressing the problem of illegal narcotics. It has not been one of 
their primary concerns.
  In fact, the President of the United States, our leader, our Chief 
Executive only mentioned up until the passage of several months ago of 
the Colombia package, the war on drugs some eight times in 7 years. So 
it has not been in the vocabulary or part of the agenda of this 
administration.
  I do not mean that as a partisan statement. It is a matter of fact. 
This administration came in with a different agenda, with a different 
approach. Now, some 7 plus years later, we see the results. This 
President has been looking for a legacy and this Vice President, his 
companion, have a legacy. That legacy is not printed by the media. The 
media will not print this story. But every family in America knows 
about this story.
  There is almost not a family in this Nation today untouched by the 
ravages of illegal narcotics. Just ask one's son, one's daughter, just 
ask a young child, and they will tell one about drugs in their school, 
drugs on their street, drugs in the community. Just pick up any 
newspaper.
  We have conducted dozens of hearings throughout the United States, 
field hearings and here in Washington; and countless law enforcement 
officials came in and told us that more than half the crimes, in my 
area 60, 70 percent of the crimes in my area, are related to illegal 
narcotics.
  I held up some 2 years ago in 1998 this headline from Central 
Florida. And I come from one of the most beautiful areas of our Nation, 
a Nation that is very vast, a Nation that has a lot of diversity. I 
come from a district that is truly one of the blessed in the Nation 
with high employment, one of the highest educated populations, highest 
per capita income, all the things that any Member of this Congress 
would like.
  This was the headline 2 years ago in my district: ``Drug deaths top 
homicides.'' Drug deaths exceeded homicides in my district some 2 years 
ago. I was appalled by this. That was one of the reasons why I took on 
the assignment to chair the subcommittee that deals with our national 
drug policy.
  I wished I could tell my colleagues that this headline was limited to 
Central Florida; but, Mr. Speaker, this headline has now spread across 
the Nation.
  Last week I made an announcement, and the press did not pay any 
attention to it because they do not like to cover this story. They do 
not want to print anything that would reflect in any way badly on this 
administration.

                              {time}  2300

  But this is the legacy of the Clinton-Gore administration when it 
comes to the biggest social problem, the biggest problem that is 
imposing death, destruction, tragedy, sadness beyond belief to American 
families, and that is the problem of substance abuse and drug abuse.

[[Page 19566]]

  For the first time in the history of our Nation, drug-induced deaths 
reached 16,926. And that is significant because in 1998, the last 
figure that we have for drug-induced deaths, murders were below that 
figure.
  I will never forget what a parent who told me about this headline 
when we held a hearing in Orlando several years ago. After the hearing, 
and seeing this headline, a parent said, when I said drug deaths top 
homicides, I read that, he came up to me afterwards and he said, ``Mr. 
Mica, my son died from a drug overdose, and drug deaths are 
homicides.''
  In fact, what is absolutely appalling, and the media will not talk 
about it, is the murders that we see here, some 16,914. Well, they are 
actually decreasing, and there are reasons for that: zero tolerance 
enforcement. Rudy Giuliani's program alone in New York has reduced the 
number of deaths by murder in his area from some 2,600, or 1,400 less 
deaths per year on average. And that is with Rudy Giuliani as mayor 
with a zero tolerance.
  But these deaths here, these murders, half of these are drug related. 
And if we added this up, we would have an absolutely astounding figure. 
And this does not mention another up to 52,000, according to the head 
of our Office of National Drug Control Policy. And our drug czar, Barry 
McCaffrey, has testified before us that in fact there are some 52,000. 
If we took all of the deaths that are related, the deaths they do not 
want to talk about, the deaths where they parade all the horribles 
about weapons, for example, the biggest threat as far as weapons in our 
Nation to our young people in fact are illegal narcotics.
  Take the 6-year-old killing a 6-year-old. That child came from a 
drug-infested environment. We had another single digit 6- or 7-year-old 
who went in with a gun, and everyone was appalled by the story that he 
had his classmates, and I think the teacher, on the floor. This 
individual that did that, when he was interviewed later, said he wanted 
to be with his mother, and his mother was in jail on a drug charge.
  Our Nation, our families have been devastated by illegal narcotics. 
And for the first time in the history of our country, in the history of 
statistic gathering, we have drug-induced deaths exceeding murder in 
the United States. And here is the chart that we can see from the 
beginning of this administration, the Clinton-Gore administration. And 
this is, fortunately, the legacy that will be printed in the 
statistical books.
  People will look at the Clinton-Gore administration; and, of course, 
they will remember the scandals. And my goodness, we could spend the 
rest of the night talking about the scandals of this administration, 
but this is the scandal of death and destruction. And this is repeated 
year after year, from 11,000 to 13,000, to 14,000, to 15,000 and 
topping off at just about 17,000 drug-induced deaths.
  And how did we get that way? Well, the first thing is we do not have 
that as part of our agenda. The first thing the administration did was 
to employ in the White House people that could not even pass a drug 
test. I remember sitting in hearings, having the Secret Service people 
testify before our investigative hearings, that they could not 
institute proper checks of security of people who were going in the 
White House at high positions because so many of them had failed drug 
tests.
  So when we have drug users setting drug policy, then we end up with a 
result like this that the press does not want to talk about, the media 
does not want to talk about, and certainly those on the other side of 
the aisle do not want to talk about. Who would defend a record of death 
and destruction like this?
  Then the administration hires as the chief health officer of the 
United States of America, who? Joycelyn Elders. The most infamous 
health officer. Our surgeon general who just said to our kids, ``Just 
say maybe.'' Just saying to our kids ``just say maybe'' has results.
  Now, of course a lot of people snicker about marijuana use. And the 
marijuana that we have on our streets is not the marijuana of the 1960s 
and 1970s. This stuff has high TCL, THL contents, and it does a great 
deal of damage that is done to the brain, that is done to the body, and 
we know that. This is not the same drug that used to be on the streets.
  So here we have a series of drug policy setters who in the White 
House, we have a change in policy, dismantling what had formerly been a 
successful war on drugs. And do not tell me that the war on drugs 
cannot be a success. In fact, we can look at the success of the Bush-
Reagan era, from 1985 to 1992, where drug use in this country was 
reduced by some 50 percent. This is what took place with the policy of 
``just say maybe,'' or ``If I had it to do over again I would inhale.''
  I am a parent. How do we tell our children not to use marijuana or 
some illegal drug when the highest elected official of the United 
States has said to our children, ``If I had it to do over again, I'd 
inhale.'' These kids are not dummies. And this is exactly what the kids 
did, they inhaled. And now we have up here some 47 percent of the 
students that have used marijuana. And this statistic has been repeated 
over and over. And not just with young people. Some 78 million 
Americans have used an illicit drug some time in their lifetime. This 
is according to the Department of Health and Human Services.
  This is, again, a statistic that should make us be concerned, because 
we have somewhere in the neighborhood of 35 to 40 percent of our 
population already using drugs. We have a chief executive who employs 
people who use drugs in a policy position. We have a surgeon general 
who, as part of the Clinton-Gore legacy, said ``just say maybe.'' These 
are the results.
  Now, some might snicker about marijuana. Again, we have a much more 
deadly drug on the streets now. We cannot snicker about the death and 
destruction. This is the headline from a recent newspaper, August 16, 
from the Washington Times: ``The Threat of Ecstasy Reaching Cocaine and 
Heroin Proportions.''
  Some of the news that the drug czar recently gave to the country, 
along with Secretary of HHS, they took a small area of eighth grade use 
of marijuana and actually found some slight decline in eighth grade use 
of marijuana. With this they held a news conference and said, ``We are 
doing a great job; we are doing an incredible job.'' What they did not 
tell us is that these kids are shifting now from marijuana, which maybe 
can be snickered at, to Ecstasy, which basically destroys the brain. It 
induces a Parkinson's-like effect. It causes death and destruction.
  We are seeing death by Ecstasy, death by cocaine, and death by heroin 
in incredible numbers; numbers that we have never seen in the history 
of recording any of this from all of our statistical gatherers. In 
fact, drug use in the United States among our youth has skyrocketed. In 
addition to marijuana, which the study that I reported said increased 
from some 14 percent of the students who were surveyed that said that 
they currently use marijuana in 1991, before this administration came 
into office, that number steadily rose to 26.7 percent in 1999, almost 
doubling. Again, a startling statistic.

                              {time}  2310

  I want to go tonight beyond marijuana. I want to go to the inner-
agency domestic heroin threat that was presented to me as chair of this 
subcommittee. This was produced by the National Drug Intelligence 
Center earlier this year. What it talked about is what is happening in 
the drug scene as they shift away from some of the soft drugs to the 
hard drugs.
  The Drug Abuse Warning Network, also known as DAWN, received reports 
of 20,140 drug-induced deaths in the United States where heroin or 
related opiates were detected from 1994 to 1998. During the same time 
span, heroin overdose deaths increased some 25.7 percent.
  Again a part of the Clinton-Gore legacy. You close down on the war on 
drugs, you cut the source country programs where you can cost 
effectively stop the production of illegal narcotics at their source.
  You want to see an astounding figure? Talk about cocaine production.

[[Page 19567]]

Where does cocaine and where does heroin come from? Tonight I am going 
to talk quite a bit about heroin.
  In 1992, at the beginning of the Clinton-Gore administration, there 
was almost zero cocaine, zero heroin produced in Colombia. In 7 years, 
this administration, through some policy decisions that are as inept as 
anything that has ever been adopted by any administration, created a 
production facility of heroin and cocaine, coca and poppy, in Colombia.
  This is the cocaine production of Colombia. In 1993, almost nothing 
produced, almost no cocaine produced. This is in metric tons, 65 metric 
tons. Under President Bush and under President Reagan, they cut drug 
use by some 50 percent from 1985 to 1992. They started an Andean 
strategy which stopped drugs at their source. It was cost effective. 
They engaged the military in surveillance, not in military actions 
against the drug traffickers but in sharing information which the 
Clinton administration as one of their first steps closed down.
  This is what turned Colombia from a cocaine transit country where 
coca was coming from Peru and Bolivia into a cocaine production. Look 
at this production, and it is off the charts. It is swarming across the 
United States. It is in Europe like it has never been. And it is 
through policies by not providing information sharing, by stopping 
antinarcotic equipment getting to Colombia, in fact blocking it through 
policies of the United States.
  This is cocaine production. Heroin production. There was almost no 
heroin. The only poppies you could see were grown for floral bouquets 
before the Clinton-Gore policy. Zero.
  This is absolutely astounding that this administration, Clinton-Gore, 
could turn Colombia into the world supplier of heroin and poppy in 8 
short years. And that is why this Congress had to pass a $1.3 billion 
spending bill to pull their cookies out of the gutter, so to speak, to 
bring this situation under control.
  And this production of heroin and cocaine not only disrupted 
Colombia, which has had thousands of police, thousands of legislators, 
jurists, citizens slaughtered there, but it has helped finance that 
slaughter through both the right wing militias and the left wing FARC 
organizations who finances their activities and their war and their 
destruction and their total devastation of now a region.
  It spilled over into the region which suddenly the President goes 
down for 6 or 7 hours and takes credit for solving the problem. He and 
his policies and the Clinton-Gore policies created this situation. And 
I learned in one hearing they diverted assets passed by this Congress 
to stop illegal narcotics trafficking production at their source. They 
diverted to Haiti I think some $40 million was some of the testimony in 
their failed Haitian nation building attempt, pouring money down a rat 
hole while illegal narcotics are being produced in this area.
  And do not tell me that we cannot stop drugs at their source, because 
we can stop drugs at their source.
  Here is the record of our spending programs, and we track this. I 
remember going down with former chair of the subcommittee. The 
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), who is now Speaker of the House, 
was chair of this subcommittee with this responsibility. He and Mr. 
Zeliff and myself helped start the programs in Peru and Bolivia.
  If we look at coca cultivation in Peru and Bolivia, this chart here 
is Bolivia. Look at this, in 1995 a policy that we adopted, we got a 
few million dollars down there in alternative crop programs, in crop 
eradication of illegal narcotics crops.
  Here is Peru. And look at what has happened here. This is Colombia. 
This is the administration's policy of stopping sharing information, 
stopping resources getting to Colombia. That is why we have had to 
spend billions of dollars now over a billion dollars to bring Colombia 
under control. But this shows you that you can stop the production of 
illegal narcotics in those source countries and you can do it very cost 
effectively.
  Unfortunately again, with the Clinton-Gore administration, the news 
is bad. They do not want to talk about it. The deaths again have risen 
to a record level as a result of these polls.
  This is the other chart that I continually bring out. And when I hear 
people say the war on drugs was a failure, yes, this is a failure in a 
reduction of long-term trends in lifetime prevalence of drug use. This 
is a failure. This is the 50 percent reduction under the Reagan and 
Bush administration. This was a war on drugs, a president like 
President Bush, who found a central American president, a leader 
dealing in drugs, his name was Noriega in 1989. And what did President 
Bush do? He did not wimp out. He sent our troops in and they captured 
Noriega and they tried him and he sits in prison because he was a drug 
dealer dealing in death and destruction that was coming into our 
shores.
  This is the Clinton close-down-the-war-on-drugs success. You see this 
dramatic increase in every type of drugs, heroin, drugs that were not 
even on the chart, ecstasy, cocaine, methamphet-amines.
  And this is not something that I make up. This chart was presented by 
one of the administration's agencies. We look at crack and we look at 
methamphetamine State by State, 1992 presented by one of the 
administration offices and agencies. In 1992, almost no crack, very 
little. You see in a couple of areas. In 1993, the adoption of the 
Clinton-Gore policy of just say maybe to illegal narcotics. Look at the 
growth here of methamphetamines, of crack.
  In 1994, their policy really kicks in. They had closed down the war 
on drugs. They slashed the interdiction programs. They took the Coast 
Guard out. They stopped information sharing. This is what you get from 
that policy.
  Look at 1995. Look at 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, the whole country. You 
can go anywhere in the United States of America, you can go to the West 
Coast in California where we held hearings and people are dying by the 
thousands. There they are abandoning their children on 
methamphetamines, again a great legacy of this administration. Just say 
maybe.
  I heard Ralph Nader the other night. This guy is really out to lunch.

                              {time}  2320

  He is trying to tell the American people that this is just a health 
problem, that this can be treated. Ladies and gentlemen of the House, 
that is bull, because they tried just treating people, they tried a 
liberal policy. This is the result of a liberal policy.
  This is Baltimore, a great legacy. It probably should rank up there 
with the Clinton-Gore administration. This is a policy of a mayor who 
came in for 2 terms. Schmoke was his name. He is out. Thank God that he 
is not in office. He left a legacy of death and destruction in 
Baltimore, a great historic city, wonderful people who live in 
Baltimore. They managed to have the population decline from nearly 1 
million, it is probably below the chart we see here. These are the 
figures that were given to me by DEA on the deaths in Baltimore, where 
they said, ``Just say maybe. Come and get your needles. Don't enforce 
the drug laws. Don't cooperate with the high intensity drug traffic 
areas. Do drugs, it won't hurt you. This is a health problem. We'll 
treat our way out of this.''
  Look at the murders, steady every year in the 300 range. You have to 
remember, New York City with 20 times the population only had double 
the deaths under Rudy Giuliani who brought the deaths down from 2,000 
to the mid 600 range with his policy of zero tolerance. With this 
policy of Just Say Maybe, Do It, death and destruction.
  Do you have any idea of how many people are now addicts in Baltimore? 
We held a hearing in Baltimore. One of the council people we had their 
statement from the newspaper there, it was estimated that one in 10 are 
heroin or a drug addict in Baltimore. This is a legacy of a 
liberalized, legalized policy that failed. This councilwoman said that 
one in eight, her estimate is one in eight in the population of 
Baltimore is an addict. That is the result you get.

[[Page 19568]]

Ralph Nader can go jump in the ocean. This does not work. Using this 
model, we would have in our Nation one-tenth of the population as drug 
addicts, and you cannot treat your way out of it. And treatment assumes 
something very insidious. Think of treatment, my colleagues. Treatment 
means that you are already addicted. I defy anyone to show me a public 
program that has a 60 to 70 percent success rate for treatment of 
addicted people.
  There is nothing wrong with treatment. I support treatment. We will 
spend every penny we can on treatment. The Clinton-Gore strategy was 
just spend money on treatment. We went along with that and that is what 
we have done. Since 1992, this is the beginning of the Clinton-Gore 
administration, we spent money on treatment. Even the Republican 
Congress which sometimes takes a conservative approach has increased 
since 1995 26 percent in the drug treatment area. But you cannot fool 
yourself and say you can treat your way out of this problem.
  What does work? I will tell you what does work. This is New York 
City. Look at Baltimore. We put on this chart the murder rate. 
Baltimore and New York City. In 1993 with Rudy Giuliani, this again was 
New York City. This is Baltimore. Baltimore stays the same. A zero 
tolerance policy. Rudy Giuliani's zero tolerance policy was so 
successful that it has actually impacted the national murder figures. 
He has been so successful in New York City with the way he has 
approached this, not only in his successful treatment programs which we 
have gone up to look at which are outstanding, far better than anything 
in the country but not only have they tackled murders in an 
unbelievable number, look at the seven major felony categories. If you 
feel like you are trapped in your home, fellow Americans and my 
colleagues, behind bars because of crime, just look at a zero tolerance 
policy, from 429,000 in seven major felonies, they were murder, 
robbery, rape, first-degree felonious assault, burglary, grand larceny, 
grand larceny auto, look at the reduction, from 429,000 to 212.
  They will tell you that Rudy Giuliani was brutal, that there were 
acts by the police department that were harsh and that they went after 
minorities and Rudy Giuliani was a bad guy. That is also bull. That 
ranks in the Ralph Nader category. This is a liberal twisting of the 
facts, in fact. Let me just cite what our subcommittee found. The New 
York City police department at the same time as this zero tolerance 
policy was instituted was one of the most restrained large police 
agencies in the Nation. For example, the number of fatal shootings by 
police officers in 1999, 11, was the lowest year for any year since 
1993, the first year for which records were available, and far less 
than the 41 that took place, and they do not want to talk about this in 
the previous Democrat administrations, the 41 that took place in 1990. 
Moreover, the number of rounds intentionally fired by police declined 
by 50.6 percent since 1993 in New York City. And the number of 
intentional shootings by police dropped some 66 percent, while the 
number of police officers actually increased by about 38 percent, 37.9 
percent. So Rudy Giuliani put in more police, and they had less 
incidence of firing.
  What about complaints about officers? Specifically in 1993, there 
were 212 incidents involving officers in intentional shootings. In 1994 
there were 167. In 1998 it was down to 111. In David Dinkins' last year 
in office in 1993, there were 7.4 shooting incidents per thousand 
officers. That ratio is now down in New York City under Giuliani to 2.8 
shootings per thousand officers. The statistics go on to support my 
point.

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