[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 6]
[House]
[Pages 8017-8022]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                           ILLEGAL NARCOTICS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Simpson). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica) is 
recognized for half of the remaining time before midnight, or 
approximately 32 minutes.
  Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to come before the House again on 
a Tuesday night to talk about a subject that I usually discuss with my 
colleagues in the House of Representatives, and that is the problem we 
face in our Nation and across our communities in America of illegal 
narcotics.
  We also have an incredibly serious problem with drug abuse that is 
affecting almost every family in our Nation. If we look at the root of 
the real problems in our society, criminal problems, disruption in 
families, serious crimes committed, we need look no further than the 
problem of illegal narcotics.
  I know much of the attention of Washington and some of the Nation was 
focused here on the events Sunday, on Mothers Day. I think that every 
American abhors violence. I think it is rightful that mothers would 
come to this city and plead for an end to violence.

                              {time}  2300

  I think that everyone who is a rational human being would be against 
gun violence, gun violence against another human being, using a weapon 
to destroy life, to harm an individual. So I think we all abhor that. 
But what we fail to address really is the core problem.
  This past Monday, I had the opportunity to attend the National 
Memorial and Recognition Service for police officers who had been 
slain. Some 139 police officers across our Nation were slain this past 
year. Talking to police officers who were visiting from my community 
and from around the Nation and speaking to police officers and law 
enforcement officials as I go about my responsibilities as a Member of 
Congress, they all tell me the same thing; and that is, that illegal 
narcotics are at the core and again the source of so many of our crime 
problems, so many of our felonies committed. So many of the people 
behind a weapon whether it is a gun, a knife, some other instrument of 
death and destruction are motivated by illegal narcotics.
  In fact, in hearings that I have conducted as chair of the 
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources, 
hearing after hearing, we have heard individuals testify that illegal 
narcotics contribute to crime, disruption of our social life. That is 
60 to 70 percent of those behind bars, and we now have some 2 million 
Americans behind bars, are there because of a drug-related offense.
  Most of these offenses are not mere possession of small amounts of 
marijuana. They are not small drug offenses, in some localities 
misdemeanors. These are multiple felonies. One really has to try hard, 
according to a New York State judicial survey of those surveying in 
that State taken last spring. That survey indicated most of the people 
in New York State prisons are there because of multiple felonies. One 
really has to try hard to get in prison in some of our jurisdictions, 
and it takes multiple and very serious offenses to be there.
  There are exceptions to that, and we have heard testimony of tough 
minimum mandatory sentencing. But for the most part, illegal narcotics 
drives crime in this country. Not only does it drive murders, but it 
drives drug-related deaths.
  In the last recorded year, 1998, we do not have the 1999 figures yet, 
15,973 Americans lost their life as a direct result of illegal 
narcotics, consuming illegal narcotics. These are not the flashy news 
reports that one sees that are publicized, say, with the action of a 
young child shooting a young child with a handgun. These are silent, 
nonetheless deadly incidents of overdose, of young people in the 
numbers three and four times those lost in one incident in Columbine, a 
horrible national tragedy. But that horrible national tragedy is 
repeated three and four times each day if we count all of the drug 
overdoses across this country.
  Our Drug Czar, General McCaffrey, has estimated that the deaths, if 
we took into account all of the causes related to use and abuse of 
illegal narcotics, would exceed some 52,000 a year, an incredible 
impact. As much of an impact as our last major conflict, international 
conflict, the Vietnam War. Again, a deadly problem for this country and 
for our society and sometimes pushed into the background.
  The march that was held on Sunday focused on violence and in 
particular gun violence. The media stories, as I have recounted over 
the past month or two, have focused on several incidents involving 
guns. A 6 year old shooting a

[[Page 8018]]

6 year old, and again the focus was the gun. But the real problem was 
the 6 year old came from a crack cocaine family. The 6 year old came 
from a family whose parent was in prison because of narcotics, serious 
narcotics offenses, an environment that was harmful, an environment 
that provided the motivation and the setting for a 6 year old to commit 
mayhem.
  Then of course the media focused on, I believe it was, a 12-year-old 
who brought a gun to school and had all of his fellow students on the 
floor and threatened them. When asked why he brought that gun to 
school, he said it was because he wanted to join his mother, be with 
his mother. She was in prison because of a drug offense. Another 
tragedy.
  Most recently, we had in Washington, D.C., during the spring and 
Easter Passover break a horrible incident when African American 
families in our Nation's capital were celebrating a day in our National 
Zoo; and what took place there was mayhem among young teenagers, I 
believe a 16 or 17-year-old teenager who fired the weapons in that 
case, wounding a number of individuals. The focus was again on the gun.
  But here is another young individual in our Nation's capital, the 
victim, not just of gun violence and participating in gun violence, but 
coming from a home of drug violence. His father is in prison because he 
was part of a Washington, D.C. drug gang. That is a sad event for our 
Nation's capital.
  But, unfortunately, that sad event has been repeated for the last 
decade day and day and day again. I cannot tell my colleagues how many 
times I have come to the capital and read on a Monday or Tuesday of the 
violence over the weekend. Some of that has been curtailed by tougher 
enforcement, by change of administration, which is long overdue in our 
Nation's capital. This year, the drug-related deaths are down. But year 
after year, 300 to 400 young African American males were slaughtered in 
this city in a pattern of violence, and almost all of those incidents 
of death brought about by involvement with illegal narcotics.
  I would venture today, if we quizzed our Capitol Police and our 
Washington Metropolitan Police Officers, they would tell us the same 
statistics prevail. Sixty, 70, 80 percent of those who are murdered in 
our Nation's capital, 60 to 70 percent of the violence, the felonies 
committed in this great city with so many great people, are caused 
because someone is involved with illegal narcotics.
  Here of course we have a city in which most firearms, individual 
possession of an unregistered firearm is not allowed. We have some of 
the tightest laws relating to weapons. In fact, most of the weapons 
that are used in these murders are stolen or illegally obtained.
  Again, I think it is important that, rather than to focus on guns, 
that we need to focus as a Congress and as responsible legislators on 
the root cause. Certainly the root cause, if we ask anyone involved in 
law enforcement, is illegal narcotics.

                              {time}  2310

  I thought I would recite some statistics relating to other types of 
violence that my colleagues may not have heard about, and how they too 
are brought about by the use of illegal narcotics. Most of the cases of 
child abuse that we read about, if we look a little further behind the 
news, at the child abuse itself, the motivation that someone has become 
involved in child abuse is because of drug use.
  A study that was recently done indicated that 80 to 90 percent of all 
referrals for child abuse to social services in Butte County, 
California, cases were, in fact, drug related. Social service workers 
estimated that 80 percent of the child abuse cases statewide in 
California, in that same study, are drug related. Social service 
workers across the United States attribute 62 percent or more of the 
child abuse cases to an adult substance abuse problem.
  Not only is child abuse driven by illegal narcotics and substance 
abuse, but the same thing applies to spousal abuse. Spousal abuse 
attributed to drug use was also reviewed by another study, and we found 
in the study recently that social service workers across the United 
States attributed a large percentage of spousal abuse cases to drug-
related causes. A full 50 percent of all domestic violence cases 
involved substance abuse in a study conducted in New York State.
  Suicide is also another major social problem, and studies have 
recently been conducted to see the impact of illegal narcotics and drug 
use as it relates to suicide. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health 
Services Administration, also known in Washington as SAMSHA, estimated 
that 90 percent of the suicide victims have had a mental and/or 
substance abuse disorder. SAMSHA, again our HHS, Health and Human 
Services agency, followed up studies of adults with substance abuse 
disorders and it revealed an inordinately high risk of suicide for 
those who were victimized by illegal drugs and by substance abuse. 
Youth who abuse substances combined with serious behavioral problems 
are much more likely to commit suicide than those without substance 
abuse problems, this study also found.
  Of course, I have related in a previous special order, after 
conducting a hearing on the problems of methamphetamine in California, 
we conducted two hearings there, our Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, 
Drug Policy and Human Resources recently, and I did provide a detailed 
report in a special order on the methamphetamine problem both in the 
Sacramento, north central area of California, and also in San Diego, 
where we conducted our second hearing.
  Some pretty startling cases of child abuse, actually beyond 
description, where children were abandoned by their parents in 
incredible numbers because of their problems of being addicted to 
methamphetamine. Methamphetamine causes some of the most irrational 
behavior in human beings I think I have ever seen recorded. The crack 
epidemic of the 1970s and 1980s is nothing compared to the 
methamphetamine problems we are experiencing.
  This past week, our Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and 
Human Resources conducted a hearing on the question of minimum 
mandatory sentencing, particularly as it relates to drug offenses, and 
there is some controversy about how those laws have been applied. But I 
was startled to learn from one of the witnesses in that hearing what 
has taken place in this country relating to methamphetamine and crack 
abuse since 1992, since the beginning of this administration.
  One of our witnesses was a United States Sentencing Commission 
commissioner. That commission has had vacancies, but they have recently 
been filled and we were pleased to have testimony from that commission 
provided to our subcommittee so that we can find out what is happening 
as far as sentencing and also the prevalence of drug abuse in this 
country.
  Submitted for the record of that hearing were several charts, and 
these charts are exactly as submitted to our subcommittee. This chart 
is entitled Predominant Drug Type by State, and it covers the period 
starting in 1992 and going up to 1995 with this series. I think if we 
look at the lighter yellow here we see crack. In 1992, there is almost 
very little crack in these States, almost no methamphetamine, which is 
in the other color here.
  In 1993, we see the beginning of methamphetamine abuse, some in the 
Midwest. We see the spreading of the crack problem. That is 1993. In 
1994, we could focus here and we see methamphetamine, crack in the 
yellow, spreading. In 1995, we see what has taken place.
  Now, this is under the policy of the Clinton-Gore administration in 
their change of emphasis to get away from source country programs; 
stopping illegal narcotics at their source. The source of crack is 
cocaine. Cocaine comes from only three countries: Peru, Bolivia, and 
Colombia. Methamphetamine, most of the precursors, the chemicals used 
in processing methamphetamine, come from Mexico.
  This is the record from 1992, untouched, submitted by this 
administration's sentencing commission. This is the rest of the story, 
so to speak; 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999. Again, we are talking

[[Page 8019]]

about crack, methamphetamine. Crack in the yellow, methamphetamine in 
this other color here. Until we get to 1999, when we see almost the 
entire Nation covered by methamphetamine and/or crack.

                              {time}  2320

  This is one of the most telling sets of graphs showing again the 
dramatic increase in these two drugs across the Nation since 1992.
  Now, I have often heard liberal commentators and liberal legislators 
talking about the failure of the war on drugs. This is a chart that I 
have not altered in any way, except we have added the Reagan-Bush era 
during their presidency and the Clinton presidency with this bar and 
just labeling here.
  The chart itself was produced by the University of Michigan, and it 
really tracks the long-term trend and lifetime prevalence of drug use. 
I have used this several times in special orders. But, to me, this is 
the most telling and graphic representation of what took place in a 
real war on drugs.
  Again, the liberals both in the media and in the House and other body 
would tell us that this is a record of failure. We have a decline in 
long-term trend in lifetime prevalence of drug use.
  And if we took up other illegal narcotics, we would see, again, we 
could go back to cocaine or to heroin or some of these other narcotics, 
methamphetamine, which was not even on the charts, but we would see a 
decline in those illegal narcotics during the Reagan and Bush era.
  Now, they will tell us that this is a failure, both failure in the 
war on drugs, the war on drugs failed. I submit that if we look at this 
point where the Clinton administration up to the Republicans took over 
the House of Representatives, we see a steady incline in the use of 
illegal narcotics, the prevalence of lifetime use. And again, we can 
bring the other charts that were just supplied by the Sentencing 
Commission or take charts relating to heroin and other narcotics and we 
show the same pattern.
  Again, this is what they are trying to tell us is a record of 
failure. This is a record of success. I submit there is absolutely no 
way the war on drugs was a failure when it was adequately conducted. 
When it was a multifaceted effort, when we had source country programs 
where we stopped illegal narcotics where they are produced.
  Again, crack and cocaine, it does not take a Harvard Ph.D., it does 
not take a rocket scientist when we know that crack and its derivative, 
cocaine and coca, are only produced in a small Andean region are really 
only capable of being produced in that region, Peru, Colombia, and 
Bolivia.
  When the Republicans took over the House of Representatives, one of 
the things that they did was try to restore some of the international 
programs that had been sliced and slashed by the Clinton 
administration.
  The Clinton administration, when it took office in 1993 to 1995 
controlled in very large majorities both this body, the House of 
Representatives, and the other body, the United States Senate. One of 
the first things that they did was to cut money on the international 
programs. That would be stopping drugs at their source. Federal drug 
spending on international programs declined 21 percent in just 1 year 
after the Clinton administration took office.
  Federal drug spending on the international programs decreased from 
$660 million in 1992 to 1993. And it is interesting, if we look at 
these years, as they cut international programs, drug use and abuse 
increased.
  The same thing happened with interdiction. Interdiction would be 
stopping illegal narcotics as they leave the source country before they 
get to our borders. The prime area of assistance is really in 
surveillance of illegal narcotics, both at the source so that the host 
country or the source country can destroy the illegal narcotics at 
their source or get the illegal narcotics as they are leaving the 
source from airfields, from waterways, from transit routes.
  The United States military has been involved in providing that 
surveillance information. Unfortunately, one of the first decisions of 
the Clinton administration, again, back here when we see the beginning 
of the end of the war on drugs and the failure of, again, fighting 
illegal narcotics, Federal spending on drug interdiction declined 23 
percent in 1 year after the Clinton administration took office, again, 
with very significant majorities of both Houses here in Congress.
  Federal drug spending decreased from $1.96 billion in 1992 to $1.5 
billion in 1993. Actually, it went down even more if we take into 
consideration several years that they controlled this body in large 
numbers.
  This is the Federal drug spending chart on international programs. 
Again, we see dramatic decreases from the Reagan-Bush era on down to 
about half. So if we want to see how we can get more drugs from the 
source into this country, we cut these international programs.
  When the Republicans took over in 1995, and it does take several 
years to get into this process, since then we have been able to get 
back to 1991 and 1992 figures. However, even with these programs, money 
which we ask to be sent, for example, to Colombia, funds never made it 
to Colombia, either through ineptness or through just pure ignoring the 
will of the Congress.
  So even though funds have been appropriated to go back to the equal 
equivalent of 1991-1992 Bush-Reagan era dollars, the actual resources 
getting into the war on drugs have not been there.
  So this is the era in which there was a dramatic decline. This is the 
era in which we had a dramatic increase in prevalence of drug use among 
our young people.
  I have a second chart which deals with interdiction, and we see the 
same pattern again of cutting interdiction, use of military, for 
surveillance information gathering. The military does not arrest 
anyone, does not become involved in enforcement. It merely provides 
that information.
  Here again, we have the same pattern of behavior. Back in 1996, the 
Republicans did up this and in 1998 we are bringing it back. Again, we 
have to use equivalent of 1991-1992 dollars. So in the past 4 or 5 
years of our control of the House and the other body, we have managed 
to get us back to 1991-1992 levels with great difficulty.
  Unfortunately, in the international area, as I said, resources have 
not gotten to the countries which are producing the illegal narcotics. 
We have had two success stories, both of those developed by the current 
Speaker of the House when he chaired the responsibility of the 
subcommittee, which I now chair, for our national drug policy.
  The gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert) chaired, again, this 
responsibility and got funds and resources into some of these programs. 
However, many of the funds and resources, again, were diverted time and 
again by this administration and did not, in fact, get to Colombia, 
which is now the main source of heroin and cocaine and illegal 
substances that are coming into this country.

                              {time}  2330


                Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Simpson). The Chair recognizes the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica) for the remainder of his hour, or 28 
minutes.
  Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I will continue part of what I am discussing 
tonight, which is the history of how we got ourselves into this fix. It 
is a very difficult situation, made even more so by, again, the 
incredible quantity of illegal narcotics coming into our borders.
  I submit, Mr. Speaker, that there is no more important responsibility 
for us to attend to as Members of Congress than, first, to keep illegal 
narcotics from coming into our borders. Stopping illegal narcotics in 
the international arena is not the responsibility of our local police 
force, it is not the responsibility of our State police, it is not the 
responsibility of the localities or the school boards. Our number one 
responsibility is to make certain that those hard narcotics are kept 
from our shores, from our borders. Once they

[[Page 8020]]

come into the United States, it is very difficult to go after them, and 
it does take a great deal of resources.
  This, again, is a record, in my estimation, of failure, the war on 
drugs being very systematically closed down. Statistics show, again, a 
record of success in the Reagan and Bush era. I have not doctored the 
figures. This is not meant to be partisan in any way. These are in fact 
the facts.
  If we see success with an increase, as the media, the liberals would 
have you know success, an increase in drug use, then in fact that is 
success. We have more heroin addicts, more people on illegal narcotics, 
more deaths, almost double the deaths. Again, if we flip the other 
charts of the changes in policy made in interdiction and international 
programs, we can almost trace again the end of any war on illegal 
narcotics.
  Again, these are the results released last week by the administration 
themselves. I do not know if we can get both of these up here, but from 
1992 to 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, what an incredibly 
graphic description of what has taken place. This is only with several 
of the drugs, the very serious narcotics that are affecting our cities 
and our communities across the land.
  Again, the situation with illegal narcotics is affecting all of us. 
Recently I participated in an International Association of Chiefs of 
Police meeting, and I asked if I could get from the Drug Enforcement 
Administration, our U.S. anti-narcotics agency, information about the 
purity levels of heroin, because I come from an area that has been the 
victim of heroin abuse, heroin overdose. Deaths now exceed homicides in 
central Florida, which is the area I represent.
  We know that we are getting more and more illegal narcotics in from 
the source countries because we do not have intervention in place, 
because we are just back to the 1992 levels and because the 
administration has thwarted our efforts to stop illegal narcotics 
coming from their source.
  One of the things that startled me in receiving this information on 
heroin trends in central Florida is, again, we have an incredible death 
rate, but that death rate is linked almost directly to the purity level 
of the heroin coming in. In the eighties and seventies the purity level 
of heroin was in single digits, sometimes very, very low purity. In 
1995-1996 that began to change. In fact, we have ranged from 71 percent 
to 60 percent on average since 1995, the purity rate in central Florida 
with the heroin that is seized there and analyzed.
  What that means is that the heroin is so pure that it is deadly, it 
is killing in unprecedented numbers, it is killing first-time users, 
and it is killing those who use heroin with other substances. The only 
reason the deaths have not gotten worse than they are, and they have 
increased in the last several years, is that in fact our medical 
personnel are able to resuscitate more of the victims of drug overdose 
in central Florida and also around the Nation, but we have a startling 
increase in number of drug overdose admissions and in emergency rooms.
  Part of it is dealing with the deadly heroin that is on the streets 
of central Florida, again between 60 and 72 percent pure. That compares 
to a national purity level of between 40 and 37 percent, still very 
deadly. But the people in my district are particularly vulnerable to, 
again, a very deadly type of heroin that is coming in.
  Now, we know exactly where that heroin is coming in. We have the 
ability through our agencies, and, again in this case, DEA, Drug 
Enforcement Agency, to analyze the heroin that comes in and other drugs 
that come into our borders. They can conduct signature analysis, which 
basically tells us almost to the field where that heroin or the poppies 
are grown and where that heroin comes from.
  Now we have some 60 to 70 percent of the heroin coming into the 
United States from Colombia. This is an incredible figure, if you 
consider that in 1992 there is almost zero heroin being produced in 
Colombia. In six or seven short years of this administration, through, 
again, neglect of getting equipment, resources to fight illegal 
narcotics, again in the source country or interdicting it as it came to 
our shores, before it came to our shores, we have turned Colombia into 
the largest producer of heroin.
  Following Colombia, is, of course, our good trading partner who we 
have given so many trade benefits to, underwritten their finances when 
they faltered, opened our borders in unprecedented fashion to trade and 
commerce and business, and that is Mexico, which has jumped, again, the 
media will not report it, but a 20 percent increase in the last two 
recorded years in heroin production, from 14 to 17 percent of the 
heroin, black tar heroin on our streets, killing our kids and our young 
adults and others, is coming from the fields of Mexico, our good 
trading partner.
  So between Colombia and Mexico, and Colombia, of course, is way out 
there with some 65 to 70 percent of the heroin being produced, none of 
that being produced some 6 or 7 years ago.
  In 6 or 7 years, through the policy of this administration, we also 
find that Colombia, which was really a single digit producer of 
cocaine, now produces some 80 percent, according to DEA and other 
estimates, of the cocaine and crack coming in to the United States of 
America.
  We are fortunate that the plan devised by the gentleman from Illinois 
(Mr. Hastert) and the Republicans 3 or 4 years ago to curtail illegal 
production of cocaine in Peru and Bolivia has stopped production in 
those countries to the tune of 55 percent reduction in Bolivia, and a 
60-plus percent reduction in Peru.

                              {time}  2340

  Those two countries were the major producers in the past. The 
production has shifted and operations have shifted to Colombia which 
formerly was just a transit country in the last 6 or 7 years. Of 
course, we all know that Colombia is a disaster. The situation in 
Colombia gets worse every week. This morning's news, President Pastrana 
of Colombia suspended a round of Colombia's peace process plan for the 
end of May, something we have all been trying to work to get 
accomplished. His action came as a result of Marxist rebels killing a 
woman in a most horrible fashion. They rigged a bomb around her neck 
and she was killed when the bomb disposal specialists of Colombia tried 
to diffuse the dynamite-packed necklace bomb which the Army said had 
been rigged by the Marxist FARC leftist rebels who demanded ransom from 
her husband. President Pastrana said to his nation, the men of violence 
have placed a necklace of dynamite around the hope of all Colombians.
  Of course, many people say well, why should we worry about Colombia; 
why should we be concerned? Of course, we know where the source is, 
again, of the hard narcotics coming into this country. We know where 
the death and violence is coming from, and that is Colombia.
  Unfortunately, the administration turned its back on this problem 
since 1993 and has very systematically kept any assistance coming to 
Colombia and, in fact, even the assistance that has gotten to Colombia 
has been almost farcical.
  Some people may say why is Colombia so important in this, other than 
the production of illegal narcotics which in itself should justify our 
involvement? But, in fact, Colombia and the region surrounding Colombia 
produces some 20 percent of our daily oil supply. Some 35,000 
individuals have been killed in Colombia through a war, a civil war, of 
various factions and that war is being financed by narcoterrorists.
  General Barry McCaffrey described Colombia as an emergency situation 
last year after, again, this region exploded not only with narcotics 
production but also violence which is now spilling over into the 
region. In fact, Colombia has become a basket case.
  Americans have already died in Colombia. U.S. contract pilots have 
been killed in Colombia, who have been on missions to eradicate illegal 
narcotics. Robert Ernest Martin was killed in 1997. Dane Milgrew was 
killed in 1998 and Jerry Chestnut, another pilot, in 1999. Also in 
Colombia we have had the deaths of five individuals on July 23, when a 
U.S. Army reconnaissance aircraft crashed into Southern Colombia

[[Page 8021]]

on a surveillance mission. The officers killed there were Captain 
Jennifer Odom of Maryland; Captain Jose Santiago of Florida, my central 
Florida area; Chief Warrant Officer Thomas Moore from Arkansas; Private 
First Class Bruce Cluff of Utah; and Private First Class Ray Kruegar of 
Texas.
  These are some of the deaths that have occurred there, including DEA 
agents, Special Agent Frank Moreno, who was killed in November of 1998. 
So indeed we have a great deal at stake in Colombia and, again, if we 
linked each of the 52,000 deaths last year related in the total picture 
of illegal narcotics and narcotics abuses and murders and suicides and 
other things that have brought about death, or the 15,973 deaths in 
1998, we could trace a vast percentage of those deaths to Colombian 
narcotics that are coming across our borders.
  So indeed this has been identified by this administration finally as 
a priority. That is in spite of blocking, at the beginning of the 
Clinton administration, Clinton-Gore, of course, slashed the drug 
czar's staff from 112 personnel to 27, and the Democrat-controlled 
Congress cut the source country and interdiction programs by more than 
50 percent. Then appointing just-say-maybe Surgeon General of the 
United States, Jocelyn Elders, who again I think said just say maybe 
and the results are very dramatic in the increases of illegal narcotics 
as they closed down very systematically the war on drugs.
  In 1994 and 1995, this administration single-handedly closed down 
information and intelligence-sharing with Colombia and Peru and slashed 
U.S. military and Coast Guard involvement in antidrug programs.
  If you are going to conduct a war on drugs and if you see why the 
liberal and Clinton-Gore program to stop illegal narcotics was a 
failure, if you look at cutting, again, the assistance in these most 
effective source country programs, the interdiction programs, the Coast 
Guard programs, taking the military out of the effort, that is why you 
had no war on drugs. Then to stop information-sharing which is so 
important to stop the drugs both at the source and as they leave the 
source and interdict the drugs before they come into our borders year 
after year, this administration blocked assistance to Colombia again 
through a bungled decertification of Colombia, a direct action of the 
President, without providing a waiver to give Colombia the needed 
assistance.
  The latest part of the fiasco, again by the Clinton-Gore 
administration, is news that we received this week. It was in the 
Washington Times and other papers across the Nation, the U.S. Sends 
Colombia Unsafe Shells from 1952. Now since I came to Congress in 1993 
we have done everything we can to get this administration to get 
resources to Colombia because we knew narcotics were going to be 
produced there more; we knew they were going to be transited from 
there. We knew it was the source of death and destruction coming to our 
shores. The latest part of the fiasco is even after the Congress 
appropriates money, the administration supplied recently, and this is 
within the last few weeks we have sent our staff down to check on the 
ammunition that is being sent there, the manufacturer actually said 
that these shells and this ammunition which was produced in 1952, which 
we have given the Colombians with some of the taxpayer money, is, in 
fact, unsafe. The story, of course, gets even worse because for at 
least some 4 or 5 years we have been trying to get helicopters, and in 
this case Black Hawk helicopters, which could be most effective to go 
into the mountains, eradicate narcotics, go after drug traffickers. It 
is very difficult in Colombia, with the high Andean regions, to go 
after traffickers without the right resources.
  This is another headline, Delay of Copters Hobbles Colombia in 
Stopping Drugs. This is 1998, and I could take these headlines back to 
1997 and 1996, time and time again.

                              {time}  2245

  Time and time again, the administration blocked equipment getting 
there. Finally when they declared an emergency last August, we were 
able to get at the end of last year three Black Hawk helicopters to 
Colombia. They were sent there without proper armoring, so just 
recently they have gotten them into the position where they are combat 
ready. Now we find the ammunition was sent down there in fact was 
outdated and may be in fact dangerous for the Colombians to use.
  This story continues to get worse. We asked the President and the 
administration to send surplus military equipment to Colombia. We had 
in mind equipment that could be used. We unfortunately learned, and we 
do have quite a bit of surplus military equipment, that Colombia was 
provided with dilapidated trucks, military trucks, and the cost of 
actually rehabilitating them was high. I think some of them were used 
in an arctic terrain and not suitable for the mission at hand. 
Unfortunately, Colombia had to turn these down because it would have 
cost them more to rehabilitate them than to use them.
  Finally, again, how important it is to have intelligence and 
surveillance information available to stop illegal narcotics. Peru has 
been great about stopping illegal narcotics. President Fujimora, who 
has eliminated 60 percent of the production in that country, has used 
in the past, when we were able to get information, surveillance 
information to him, a shoot-down policy which in fact has resulted in, 
again, that lowering of production, the lowering of transiting of, in 
this case, particularly cocaine coming out of that country.
  This is a March 13 headline from the Washington Post. ``U.S. 
Officials See Trend in Colombia: Lack of Air Support Hindering the Drug 
War.'' I have said before, there has not been a drug war in this 
country since 1993. We have tried to restart it in the last 2 or 3 
years, but every time we get on course, we find the administration 
diverts resources.
  They diverted resources to Haiti. The Vice President diverted some of 
the planes for surveillance to check on oil spills in Alaska. The 
President diverted military resources to Kosovo, to Bosnia, and to any 
one of the number of other deployments, and took them out of in fact 
action and the war on drugs.
  The inability to provide surveillance is now, for the first time, 
resulting in an increased production in Peru, according to reports we 
are getting, in cocaine. Without source country programs, without 
interdiction, without surveillance and intelligence, the missions fail.
  I do not want to just talk about the failure of the Clinton record. I 
must say that what we have done is the Republican majority in a 
positive fashion I think has been on target. We have gotten our levels 
of funding for source country back to 1991-1992 levels. We have not 
only concentrated on source country, but also on interdiction, trying 
to get those resources where they were not diverted.
  In these cases, we see in March again a third time the administration 
is making a fatal mistake and again closing down our war on drugs, if 
there ever was under this administration a war on drugs.
  The Republicans have funded a $1 billion campaign, an education and 
media campaign. Maybe Members have seen those ads on television. We 
hope they are effective. We are testing them in various markets. We are 
going to do everything to see that we reach our young people in 
education and prevention.
  That $1 billion through our efforts, and the administration, of 
course, wanted to spend the $1 billion, but we thought it was important 
to have also donated an equivalent amount, at least. So with that 
compromise we will now have $2 billion in that program, both through 
direct taxpayer funding and through private sector donations.
  We have dramatically increased the amount of money for prevention. In 
fact, one of the primary goals of this administration was to treat our 
way out of this problem. We see examples like Baltimore, Maryland, 
where they have gone from just a handful of heroin addicts to now one 
in eight in the population of Baltimore is an addict, a

[[Page 8022]]

drug addict. They could not treat their way out of the problem. It has 
grown out of control, while the murder rate has stayed dramatically 
high in that city.
  The liberals would have us believe that the war on drugs is a 
failure. The liberals would have us believe that if we liberalize the 
policy, we can just treat people out of this problem. In fact, 
Baltimore is a great example of that philosophy gone wrong. Thank 
goodness they have a new mayor, a new philosophy, and are instituting 
it at this time. I am very pleased with the action they have taken 
after we conducted a hearing in the city of Baltimore, and now we will 
have a new police chief, someone more inclined to zero tolerance and 
tough enforcement, to bring the death and destruction in that great 
city on our East Coast to a halt.
  Those are some of the things that the Republicans have done, again, 
in spite of opposition.
  I wanted to close tonight, I only have a few minutes more, and talk 
about something else we have asked the administration to do. That is 
since 1992. If we are going to go after, again, illegal narcotics and 
those who deal in death and destruction, then we prosecute those 
people.
  We have been after the administration, because in 1992 we were having 
prosecutions in Federal courts for drug offenses at the rate of nearly 
30,000. In 1996, the administration dropped to 26,000. So we have been 
hammering the administration to go after prosecution of drugs.
  This is almost an embarrassment, again, if we are going to have a war 
or serious efforts against those who are dealing in death and 
destruction, contributing to the thousands and thousands of deaths and 
mayhem around, and 70 percent of the crime, this is their record. Now, 
I will say that in 1997 and 1998 they started up, but they are getting 
just back to the level of 1992 with our hammering.
  This is prosecution. Then we found this last week when we had in the 
U.S. Sentencing Commission, the Commissioners, we found a report that 
was provided recently that shows that Federal drug offenders are 
spending less time in prison, according to a study that was released 
about the same time as their testimony. So we had prosecutions down, we 
were trying to get prosecutions up, but then we find that the 
administration is now reducing sentences and drug offenders, and this 
case serious drug offenders, are spending less time in prison. It seems 
like everything is being done to thwart a real effort against illegal 
narcotics.

                          ____________________