[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Pages 11188-11190]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                          COLOMBIAN DRUG TRADE

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I come to the floor today having arrived 
back in the country in the early morning hours from a trip which I took 
to Colombia this weekend with Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island. I had 
never been to this country before. In fact, I had never been to South 
America. But I have come to understand, as most Americans do, that what 
is happening in that country thousands of miles away has a direct 
impact on the quality of life in America.
  Senator Reed and I spent a little over 2 days there in intense 
meetings with the President of Colombia, the Secretary of Defense, and 
the head of the national police. We met with human rights groups.
  It is hard to imagine, but yesterday we were in the southern reaches 
of Colombia in a province known as Putumayo, which is the major 
cocaine-producing section of South America in Colombia.
  It was a whirlwind visit but one that I think is timely, because 
there is a request by the Clinton administration to appropriate over $1 
billion for what is known as ``Plan Colombia.'' Plan Colombia is an 
effort by the President of Colombia, Andres Pastrana, to try to take 
the control of his country away from the guerrillas and the right-wing 
terrorists, and try to put an end to the narcotrafficking.
  The narcotrafficking out of Colombia is primarily cocaine, but it 
includes heroin. It is now estimated that Colombia supplies 85 to 95 
percent of the world's supply of cocaine. How does that affect America? 
I think we all know very well how it affects America.
  In my home State of Illinois, the prison population has dramatically 
increased over the last few years at great cost to the taxpayers in an 
effort to reduce drug crime in the streets of my State. That story is 
repeated over and over in States across the Nation.
  So what is happening in the jungles of Colombia in the cultivation of 
cocaine has a direct impact on the quality of life in America. That is 
why President Pastrana has called for a coordinated effort by the 
United States and the European powers as well to bring his country 
under control and to end the narcotrafficking. It hits quite a 
resounding note with most Americans.
  You would not imagine what it was like yesterday flying over the 
jungles of Colombia to look down from a Blackhawk helicopter as a 
Colombian general pointed out to me all of the coca fields that were 
under cultivation in the jungle.
  If you take a step back, we now have the capacity by satellite to 
take photographs of Colombia, and we can actually pick out where the 
cocaine fields are located by satellite imagery. When they produce 
these maps, which I saw over the weekend, you can see provinces such as 
Putumayo that are virtually covered with cocaine production.
  What is the cocaine production worth to the locals? Some estimate 
that a given hectare, or 2.2 acres roughly, can produce some 8.6 
kilograms of cocaine during the course of a year. That involves about 
six harvests. A kilogram is a little over 2 pounds. So you are 
producing about 17 pounds of cocaine on each 1 of these hectares.
  What is it worth to the local farmer? He receives about $900 for each 
kilogram. As you multiply it out, you realize it is a profitable 
undertaking for many.
  Then if you want to understand the true value of the cocaine 
economics, consider that as it moves up the chain, it becomes more and 
more expensive. The guerrilla who takes the cocaine out of the fields 
from the landowner and the farmer is going to turn around and turn it 
into coca paste, a rough paste. It is now going to increase the value 
from $900 up to over $1,000.
  The next move is to the trafficker who converts it into the white 
powder, and that will triple the value of it to some $3,000 for 2 
pounds.
  Now it is headed to the clandestine airstrip where it is going to be 
shipped to the United States, and in that process maybe go through 
Mexico, wherever it might be, on its way to the

[[Page 11189]]

United States. Now it is up from $3,000 to $7,500 for 2 pounds. Then it 
arrives on the streets of Washington, DC, where it can sell for 
$60,000--2 pounds of cocaine.
  When you look at the economics, you can understand why, starting with 
the peasant farmer and moving up through the chains of guerrillas, 
traffickers, and exporters, there is so much money to be made that they 
are willing to take the risk.
  The World Bank estimated last week that the drug trade in Colombia 
generates some $1 billion a year in revenue to the guerrillas. These 
are not people living off the land, as we understand guerrillas. These 
are the folks who are in the narcobusiness big time, and with this 
money they can afford to literally create towns, which they have done 
in some of the remote parts of Colombia.
  The standing joke, I guess, in Colombia is that if you want to know 
how well the drug lords are doing, take a look at how sophisticated the 
discotheque is that they have just created. In one of the towns, one of 
the most remote jungle areas of Colombia, they created a city and a 
discotheque with the most sophisticated sound equipment in the world. 
It was raided, taken over, and closed down. But it shows you the 
capacity with the money they have.
  The question before the United States is, What can we do to address 
this cultivation of cocaine, as well as the emergence of the guerrilla 
groups, as well as the right wing terrorist groups who have made 
extortion and kidnapping and narcodrug trafficking a matter of course 
in this Nation?
  We try to develop these counternarcotic battalions in Colombia that 
will attack the guerrillas, and go after them and their 
narcotrafficking. I visited this camp known as Tres Esquinas yesterday 
and saw 2,000 young Colombians who are being trained to be better 
soldiers and will be able to fight.
  We have a debate going on as to whether we will send them 
helicopters. It is a big investment. The Blackhawk helicopter, I am 
told, runs around $10 million, $11 million, $12 million per helicopter. 
The so-called Huey helicopters, the older models, are slower, slightly 
smaller, and less expensive. But they don't believe it is up to the 
task they need to do in Colombia. We will debate sending the 
helicopters to support those troops to go after the guerrillas 
supporting this narcotrafficking that sends cocaine to the United 
States.
  We are in this and we are in it big time. I came back from a meeting 
over the weekend, with the impression that we have to sit down at 
several levels and say these are the things on which we should insist. 
First, accountability from the Colombians. Any dollars sent by the 
United States need to be spent for good cause to put an end to this 
drug trafficking. We need to ask and demand of the Colombian military 
that they bring in more reform so that they end corruption. 
Historically, the Colombian army, in many cases, has been in league 
with the people who are either on the guerrilla side or the right-wing 
terrorist side. That is changing. I am glad to see it is changing. The 
new general in charge, General Tapias, is bringing reform. It is a move 
in the right direction.
  The so-called Leahy amendment, named after Senator Pat Leahy of 
Vermont, says no money goes to Colombia unless their army shows 
progress on human rights. I think we should insist on that as part of 
any discussion.
  In addition, we have to accept the reality that no plan is going to 
work in Colombia unless it starts with the peasant farmer who is trying 
to grow something on his land to feed his family. Growing the coca 
plant and selling it is profitable. We need to talk about alternative 
agriculture if this is going to work. We talked about the vast expanse 
of Colombia and that challenge. That has to be part of the program.
  In addition, we need to discuss how we eliminate these coca plants. 
Now we are spraying them. It is called fumigation. This herbicide that 
is sprayed is roughly comparable to one that we are familiar with in 
America known as Roundup. It is a basic chemical. Once it hits the 
leaves of the coca plants, it destroys them. I met yesterday with some 
of the pilots who are on contract with the United States to destroy 
these coca plants. It is incredible that they can take the satellite 
imagery which tells them where the coca fields are, convert it through 
the global positioning system into exact coordinates so they can fly at 
night and spray this herbicide on the coca plants, killing them, by 
spraying within 12 inches. That is the accuracy of the spraying, even 
taking into consideration wind drift. They are fast at work trying to 
do this. Imagine a strip of land that is some 300 miles long and 3 
miles wide. That is what we are talking about in this one province, the 
square mileage of coca cultivation, how much spraying has to be done to 
kill the plants. Sometimes we have to come back the next year and do it 
again. The farmer tries to get around it again.
  There is a lot to be done, a lot of investment to be made. Clearly, 
from our point of view in the United States, this is something we 
should take seriously. When we think of the impact of narcotics and 
drugs on America and what it means to the safety of each one of us in 
our homes and neighborhoods and communities, the fact that those who 
are drug addicts, desperate to buy this drug, will do virtually 
anything, commit any crime, in order to come up with the resources to 
feed their habit, we can understand why that drug coming out of 
Colombia has a direct impact on the United States.
  Let me talk for a moment about the other side of the equation. It 
would be naive to believe that this is just a supply side problem, that 
if we eliminate the supply of cocaine and heroin that America will see 
an end to drug crimes. We know better. We know there are alternative 
drugs currently being developed in America, American-grown products 
that are competing with the traditional drugs. Methamphetamine was 
started in Mexico, went to California, and now has swept the country. 
In the rural areas of Illinois, in the small town farming areas of 
Illinois, they are discovering these methamphetamine labs that can be 
built with items that are purchased at a local hardware store and can 
be developed into a drug which is very addictive and destructive.
  It is important as we look at the narcotics problem in America to 
establish that it is not only interdiction and elimination of supply we 
need to address, but also demand. That takes a lot of effort and a 
myriad of approaches which have been promulgated by this Senate, the 
House, and so many different agencies.
  We should take into consideration the limited opportunity for drug 
addicts in this country to have access to rehabilitation. In other 
words, if you were a drug addict in this country and decided you were 
sick and tired of this life and wanted to change and wanted to 
eliminate your addiction, would you be able to turn someplace for help? 
Too many times, the answer is no. There is no drug rehab available. The 
addict stays on the street. He might have had a conversion at one point 
and wanted to change his life and found there was nowhere to turn.
  Let me give an illustration. In my home State of Illinois, in 1987, 
about 500 people were imprisoned in our State prisons for the 
possession of a thimble full of cocaine, a tiny amount of cocaine; 
today in the State of Illinois for possession of the same amount of 
cocaine, about a thimble full, we have 9,000 prisoners. In 13 years, it 
went from 500 prisoners to 9,000. It costs roughly $30,000 a year to 
incarcerate someone in Illinois prisons. We are spending on an annual 
basis just for those 9,000 prisoners--out of a total prison population 
of 45,000--we are spending about $270 million a year in the State of 
Illinois. That story is repeated in every State in the Nation.
  When we talk about $1 billion to Colombia for the interdiction of 
drugs, and it seems like an overwhelming amount, put it in the context 
of what the drugs are doing in America. Remember, too, as I said 
earlier, it is not only the supply side; it is the demand side. In my 
State of Illinois, a person incarcerated for a drug crime serves about 
9 months in prison and then they

[[Page 11190]]

are out again. Half the people in our prison population are released 
during the course of a year. Those who think we will put them away and 
throw away the key ought to take a closer look at the statistics. Half 
the people in prisons are coming out each year. Who are they when they 
come out? We know when they went in they were criminals. In the case of 
addicts, we know they came into prison with the drug addiction which 
led to a crime, which might have led to a theft or something worse, a 
violent crime, and they went into prison for the average 9-month 
incarceration. We also know in my State of Illinois, it is very rare, 
if ever, that the person in the Illinois prison system has any 
opportunity for drug rehab while he is in prison. So he comes in an 
addict and he leaves an addict. In the meantime, though, he has joined 
some fraternities of gang members and veteran criminals who told him 
how to be a better criminal when he goes back on the street.
  That is very shortsighted. What have we achieved? We have brought an 
addict in and released an addict 9 months later to go out and commit 
another crime. We have to look not only to the supply side of the 
equation and interdiction, but also the demand side: How do we start 
reducing demand in this country for these drugs so we can have a more 
peaceful and just society?
  I am happy I took the weekend to be in Colombia and to learn first 
hand some of the things we are facing. I certainly hope my colleagues 
will avail themselves of an opportunity to learn of things that we 
should be considering as part of a plan with Colombia and as part of 
our effort to reduce this narcotics dependence in the United States.

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