[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 5]
[House]
[Pages 6270-6276]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     NARCOTICS IN THE UNITED STATES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. SOUDER. First, Mr. Speaker, let me thank tonight's Speaker pro 
tempore, the gentleman from California (Mr. Ose), for his leadership in 
Congress on the issue that I am going to address tonight, which is our 
narcotics problem in the United States. He has been a valuable member 
of this subcommittee from the time he got here, an aggressive member. 
We have held several hearings in California with him.
  And I want to personally thank him and tell him how much he will be 
missed, since he has chosen to leave Congress, because we really need 
people of his expertise and his commitment. Thank you very much.
  Mr. Speaker, there are a number of issues on narcotics I am going to 
talk about tonight. We have had a busy number of days here in 
Washington on this subject, and I want to start first with Colombia, 
where we have the largest investment in the narcotics effort.
  Just not that many days ago, President Uribe, the President of 
Colombia, was here. He met with leaders on both sides of the aisle. He 
met with the Speaker's Drug Task Force, which I co-chair; and we had 
the opportunity to hear what is interestingly one of our great success 
stories.
  In the area of narcotics, it is not possible ever to totally defeat 
the drug problem in America because every day new people are exposed. 
We are dealing with fundamental human weaknesses. But we can either 
make progress or we can go back. We were making progress for nearly 10, 
11 straight years when Ronald Reagan implemented a policy of ``just say 
no,'' articulated so ably by the First Lady.
  We, in fact, made tremendous progress. It was not just a slogan, just 
say no, but that was the message communicated to young people and 
people across the country. There was an aggressive effort to cut the 
sources of supply, interdiction, law enforcement, along with efforts in 
communities around the country to just say no and then help those who 
fell into drug abuse.
  As we backed off of that in the early to mid-1990s, and sent a 
different message of ``I didn't inhale,'' and cut back interdiction 
efforts, cut the drug czar's office from 120 employees down to about 30 
employees, we saw such a surge in drug use in the United States and 
narcotics in the United States that it would take a 50 percent 
reduction from the 1993-94 levels, at the peak of the kind of drug 
revival in America to get back to where we were in the 1990-91 era.
  In the latter years of the Clinton administration, and since 
President Bush has taken office, we have had a steady reduction in drug 
use in junior high, sophomore year in high school, senior year in high 
school; and we are making steady progress. We have also had dramatic 
changes in the country of Colombia.
  Let me briefly refer to this map of Colombia. Colombia is a large 
country, the oldest democracy in South America. We often hear about its 
civil war, but it is a civil war with thugs. It is not a civil war in 
the sense of a traditional type of civil war. These are people who are 
violently trying to overthrow their government. Any poll will show any 
numbers in the group, and a number smaller than our prison population 
in all but a few States even, let alone our country. They are people 
who are thugs who have not been captured, and they provide protection 
and are increasingly taking over the production of cocaine.
  Ninety percent of our cocaine comes from Colombia; the heroin, and 
most of our heroin in America comes from Colombia, and they manage a 
lot of the networks for the marijuana distribution as well. But that 
was not always the way in Colombia. Colombia has been destabilized 
because of our use of narcotics in the United States and in Europe.
  Colombia is a beautiful nation for tourism, with Cartagena and many 
cities along the coast. This is the Amazon basin here, feeding into the 
Amazon River. You have, in the darker green, beautiful areas of rain 
forest in that basin. These are the start of the Andes Mountains, 
beautiful high mountains. Up along the border with Venezuela we see 
Lake Maracaibo, the big piece of water coming in, and Venezuela there 
is one of the richest oil areas in the world, which is also true down 
in Colombia.
  We spent, with American tax dollars, millions to try to protect that 
pipeline.

[[Page 6271]]

Colombia was our eighth largest supplier of oil. More than Kuwait. But 
it was stopped as narcoterrorists came in and started breaking the 
pipelines to try to deny the government of Colombia the ability to 
function. The oldest democracy.
  Anybody who has seen the fiction movie ``Clear and Present Danger'' 
has at least a fiction version of the violence that took place there, 
and an understanding of when the Cali and Medellin cartels were 
dominating the country what that was like. They basically corrupted the 
government, killed lots of the judges, killed 30,000 policemen, which 
is the equivalent of an incredible number in the United States. But 
they had oil. They were a rich oil country.
  This area in here, and in some of the other multiple other zones, is 
of course the richest coffee area in the world. You hear about 
Colombian coffee. If you have emeralds, they come from Colombia, odds 
are, unless they are fake. Gold. They have gold there. Most of our 
flowers that we buy in the United States come from there. If you fly 
into the beautiful city of Bogota, in the lower parts of the Andes, you 
will see just acres and acres and acres of places growing flowers. Many 
of the supermarkets, the major chains bring that in. I have heard a 
figure as high as 70, 80 percent of the flowers sold in America come 
from Colombia.
  It is a stable, solid, economic country. That is not even mentioning 
textiles and other industries there. It is the oldest democracy that 
has been wrecked by us and by others. Now, as these cartels have had an 
impact, it has destabilized their political system.

                              {time}  1945

  What we have done is ramped up what we call the Andean Initiative to 
not only cover Colombia but Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador with some help 
over to Brazil on the far side and some to Venezuela on the top and 
some to Panama on the sides, but we have mostly got it concentrated in 
Colombia.
  What we have seen as Congress appropriated additional dollars, our 
peak was probably $800 million a year, of which about 60 percent was 
for eradication efforts, 40 percent was to help rebuild their 
infrastructure, police forces, law enforcement, alternative development 
and other things like that, that coca eradication in this past year, 
after several years of this aggressive pressure and with the brave 
president of Colombia, President Uribe, when I say brave, what I mean 
is this:
  His father was assassinated by the drug dealers in Colombia. He has 
had multiple threats on his life. When I was there along with the 
gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank) at the swearing in and the 
inauguration of President Uribe, they attacked us. The two of us would 
have just been a footnote if we had died because there were many others 
there, too. But, as we left, we heard this big boom. I remember the 
gentleman from Massachusetts saying, ``I've never heard of a one-gun 
salute.'' We were supposedly inside a perimeter of roughly 10,000 
soldiers protecting us, but they had launched Howitzers from about a 
mile and a quarter away.
  At first they went one way off, then they went in the other direction 
off, then they hit a housing complex and killed a bunch of people, then 
they hit the corner of the presidential palace, but by that time the 
helicopters and everybody were on them so we were spared. But they 
tried to kill him on his inauguration day. There is a multiple-million-
dollar price on his head or his family, yet he carries on.
  Vice President Santos was kidnapped by the drug traffickers. He 
escaped. He was a newspaper publisher-editor in Colombia. He escaped 
from the drug traffickers, came back and decided to run for office.
  That is what you call two committed people, when they are so willing 
to stand up to the drug traffickers. Even when they have had their 
family killed and they personally have been kidnapped and have the 
threats on their life, they are standing there fighting.
  This is not Vietnam. This is not a country where we are asking, will 
they help? Will they do their share? This is not, quite frankly, even 
what we see in Iraq right now or Afghanistan right now, where we wonder 
sometimes which side the Iraqi police are on. When we see that incident 
the other day, it is like, Why were you standing there when they were 
killing American contractees?
  That is not the case here. They are dying because of our drug use, 
and what we are doing is supplying them with the training and the 
backup to do this.
  What has happened with this, and particularly with President Uribe's 
aggressiveness, is that they are now not just eradicating the coca crop 
once, they are eradicating it three times. Because coca, and the 
equator is down more in this area, somewhere in this zone, it is just 
among the best places in the world to grow this type of crop. You have 
elevation for heroin poppy, you have lots of rain, it can grow and 
plant multiple times a year. So unless you are really committed, you 
can do this token stuff. We sprayed it, we eradicated, yeah, but they 
got two more crops in that cycle. The question is, did you hit all 
three?
  Now, with adequate funding, we are hitting all three. We are going 
after them, President Uribe is going after them, and now alternative 
development can work.
  If on a street corner of the United States you can make $400 as a 
lookout for a drug group, it is pretty tough to talk you into working 
at McDonald's for $5.50, if you can get $400 with no risk. But if there 
is a risk you might go to prison, if there is a risk you could get shot 
in a drug shoot-out or something, then maybe you will take the $5 job. 
We cannot pay everybody what the drug dealers can pay them, but with 
this pressure we are seeing alternative development start to take 
place.
  Let me give you some of the good news from Colombia.
  Coca eradication has increased 57 percent and poppy eradication 27 
percent. In some areas, they eradicate crops by hand. In other areas, 
with the assistance of the U.S. Department of State Air Wing, a precise 
aerial campaign surgically targets and destroys illicit crops. The 
chemical used is the same available to Americans for use at home from 
hardware stores.
  By the way, they use the same thing we spray with to put around their 
crops to kill weeds. So if it is a problem when we spray to kill the 
coca, it is a problem to go to any grocery store in any nation of the 
world because it is the same stuff. It is not dangerous stuff. That is 
one of the tremendously wrong rumors that spread, and it is not helpful 
for people to not tell the truth about this stuff.
  In drug seizures, coca base seizures have increased 813 percent, 
heroin seizures have increased 296 percent, drug labs detection and 
seizures have increased 321 percent. In Bogota alone, 2.8 tons of drugs 
were confiscated. These seizure statistics are exclusively credited to 
the Colombian National Police and Armed Forces. Their commitment is in 
evidence every day.
  Interestingly, even more important in one sense, it is very important 
that we control the coca and heroin, but long-term we have to have some 
stability. Quite frankly, the coca and heroin was so stockpiled that we 
have not seen all the results yet, and we need to start to see results 
on the street prices and supply in the United States.
  But we have also had other successes. Roadblock-type kidnappings are 
down 78 percent. Bank robberies are down 69 percent. Extortion 
kidnappings are down 64 percent. Massacre events and victims are both 
down 43 percent. Homicides are down 17 percent. The 2003 homicide rate 
is the lowest rate recorded since 1987. The rule of law and the power 
of the Colombian judicial system have improved markedly. Their 
commitment is in evidence every day.
  This is important, because for the first time in the populous areas 
of Colombia for decades they are getting stability. I had one meeting 
in my office with a Colombian-U.S. business group, and they got a phone 
call because at the school there where most of their children go in 
Bogota, there had been a kidnapping that day. I think it was in Bogota 
as opposed to Medellin, but whichever city it was, there had

[[Page 6272]]

been a kidnapping where the FARC and the narcoterrorists had blocked 
off a bridge and got a young mother with her daughter. They all knew 
the person, they were all relieved that it was not their family, but 
can you imagine living with that every day about the kidnappings?
  Three different groups, ELN, the FARC and the so-called paramilitary 
groups are all practicing now, managing drug trafficking and the 
kidnapping. They are finally meeting a government that is committed and 
going after them. We are supplying the assistance to do it, not boots 
on the ground in battle but providing the technical assistance to keep 
the helicopters up.
  Our total investment in this battle when it is directly related to 
the United States and our hemisphere is 400, proposed to increase to 
800. It is nothing. We have got that all over the world, and they are 
not on the front lines getting shot at. The ones that got captured were 
doing backup, and the FARC basically got them by accident, shot them, 
kept them and killed some. We are trying our best to get them out. But 
they are not out there. They are not the ones in the front lines doing 
the fighting or getting shot at like in Iraq because the Colombians 
themselves are doing it, and we have been accurately and thoroughly 
training their forces, that they have basically taken back their 
country. Seventy-four percent reduction in road attacks, 67 percent 
reduction in bridge attacks, 67 percent reduction in electric 
infrastructure attacks.
  It is pretty tough, as we are seeing in Iraq. If you cannot get your 
electric system to work, if you cannot make sure that the bridges are 
working across a river, if you cannot make sure that people can drive 
down the highway, it is pretty tough to establish law and order in a 
country. It is pretty tough to make sure that alternative developments, 
palm heart or soybeans or bananas or whatever you are growing, can get 
to market if you are going to be kidnapped, the bridge is out, the 
electric system is knocked out. So it is really important that we have 
had this type of success in Colombia, and it is something we can brag 
about.
  They now have in every single metro area now a Colombian National 
Police presence. That is an extraordinary jump from just a few years 
ago that along the Putumayo that we are finally seeing some order.
  Part of our problem, what is difficult, is that as we establish order 
in the populated areas, they are pushing into that Amazon jungle. The 
biggest threat we have to the rain forests of South America are from 
narcotics and coca and in particular labs. Because when you fly over, 
you see the chemicals pouring into the rivers. It is not timber cutting 
that is the biggest threat. It is narcotraffickers that are the biggest 
threat. Furthermore, what happens is they will move these people.
  There is a national park in Peru that is having a similar problem. 
They are worried about Ecuador. But in the national parks in Colombia, 
they will move out there with their labs, move farmers out there, often 
under forest or some with lure of high pay. They will then establish a 
colony out in the rain forest. Then when we say we want you to do 
alternative development, they will go, there is no road. Of course 
there is no road. They are carving landing strips in national parks and 
planting illegally in national parks and then they complain to us that 
we can't do alternative development. They cannot be there. That is not 
a logical market-based thing, and that is a hard thing to say when we 
deal with alternative development, but it is the truth.
  So Colombia is a success story. It does not mean every day it is a 
success. It does not mean there are not attacks. It does not mean that 
we have eliminated coca and heroin, but Colombia is a remarkable 
success story.
  If we remain firm and President Uribe remains firm, we are at a very, 
as the drug czar, the director of the Office of National Drug Control 
Policy, John Walters, says and all those involved, we are at a tipping 
point, that if we keep this pressure on, we may see successes like we 
have seen in Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru which, by the way, the old idea 
of the balloon that if you squeeze one place, it is going to pop out, 
we have squeezed it in and we may be at a historical tipping point if 
we just stay the course.
  Next I want to touch on Afghanistan. Earlier today we held a hearing 
on Afghanistan entitled ``Afghanistan: Are the British Counternarcotics 
Efforts Going Wobbly?''
  Where did we come up with the expression ``are the British 
counterdrug efforts becoming wobbly?'' Let me say a couple of different 
things.
  First off, the expression comes from this. When Margaret Thatcher 
received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from former President Bush, 
better known as Bush 41, he said about her:
  We will never forget her courage in helping forge a great coalition 
against the aggression which brutalized the Gulf. Nor will I forget one 
special phone conversation that I had with the Prime Minister. In the 
early days of the Gulf crisis--I am not sure you remember this one, 
Margaret--in the early days of the Gulf crisis, I called her to say 
that though we fully intended to interdict Iraqi shipping, we were 
going to let a single vessel heading for Oman enter port down at Yemen, 
going around Oman down to Yemen--let it enter port without being 
stopped. And she listened to my explanation, agreed with the decision, 
but then added these words of caution, words that guided me through the 
Gulf crisis, words I'll never forget as long as I'm alive: ``Remember, 
George,'' she said, ``this is no time to go wobbly.''
  The question is, as we are reaching a very critical point in 
Afghanistan, have the British gone wobbly?
  Let me say, as we have repeatedly said, the British are our best 
friends in counterterrorism; and they have been the ones who have been 
most aggressive about going after heroin in Afghanistan.
  Let me share a couple of introductory points on this. Last year's 
Afghan opium production was the second highest on record. That is a 
sobering fact if you think about it, because that means if it is the 
second highest on record, it is the second highest while we were there 
and the British were there, opium production went to the second highest 
on record. According to data and maps provided to the subcommittee by a 
U.S. intelligence agency, Afghan opium poppy cultivation is soaring and 
the estimates of hectares under cultivation are now approaching the 
highest level of past production.
  I am concerned because over 20,000 Americans die every year from 
drugs and 7 to 10 percent of heroin sold in the U.S. is traced to the 
Afghan region. We do not really know exactly how much it is. It may be 
higher than that. We know at one point it was 50 percent, but right now 
the problem in Colombia is that the heroin seems to be coming in from 
there and most of the Afghan heroin seems to be moving to Europe. But 
if this much comes to market, it will pour into the U.S. and drive 
prices down, so even if we succeed in Colombia, Afghanistan is going to 
overrun us.
  The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, UNODC, has conducted 
annual opium poppy surveys in Afghanistan since 1994. The 2003 survey 
shows that Afghanistan again produced three-quarters of the world's 
illicit opium last year. In other words, Colombia is only really 
supplying opium to us. Afghanistan is supplying the rest of the world. 
That is not true of cocaine. Colombia supplies cocaine to the whole 
world, but in heroin we get it from Colombia, it appears, and most of 
Afghan heroin covers the rest of the world.
  The UNODC concluded that out of this drug chest some provincial 
administrators and military commanders take a considerable share. 
Terrorists take a cut as well. The longer this happens, the greater the 
threat to security within the country and on its borders.
  What we focused on in the hearing this morning was that the British-
led effort on eradication of opium poppy is stalled just as the opium 
harvesting season in the south of Afghanistan is upon us.
  We also took our U.S. Defense Department to task as well because they 
have not been going after some of the storage centers and other things 
and

[[Page 6273]]

the British had complained to me in London, both in their military 
departments and in their intelligence areas, that we had not been 
committed to certain eradication efforts. At an interparliamentary 
conference twice in the last 2 years they have complained about 
American enforcement, and here we seem to have some wobbling by the 
British and we are trying to understand what exactly is happening here. 
It does not appear to be Prime Minister Blair or Mr. Straw, it does not 
appear to be the guys precisely on the ground, but somewhere in the 
middle here they have put a hold.
  What do I mean by a hold? The Assistant Secretary of State for 
Narcotics, International Narcotics and Law Enforcement, who oversees 
not only Colombia but the efforts in Afghanistan and not just the anti-
narcotics efforts in Afghanistan but this agency oversees all the law 
enforcement efforts in Afghanistan, I am going to read some of his 
testimony from today:
  Initial reports just in from the field in Afghanistan, this is as of 
even yesterday, indicate that we could be in the path for a significant 
surge, some observers indicate perhaps as much as a 50 to 100 percent 
growth in the 2004 crop over the already troubling figures from last 
year. By these estimates, unless direct, effective and measurable 
action is taken immediately, we may be looking at well over 120,000 
hectares of poppy cultivation this year.

                              {time}  2000

  ``That would constitute a world record crop empowering traffickers 
and the terrorists they feed, raising the stakes for and vulnerability 
of Afghan democracy, and raising the supply of heroin in the world 
market.''
  Assistant Secretary Charles continued: ``Even more disturbing, these 
reports indicate that the clock is ticking faster than many anticipated 
due partly to warmer than expected weather in southern and eastern 
Afghanistan. As a direct result, the time for action may be shorter 
than anyone anticipated. I,'' Assistant Secretary Charles, ``have 
recently learned in the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime that they expect 
the unusually warm weather in southern Afghanistan will result in an 
early harvest which in some provinces has already started.''
  What does this mean? It means that they were projecting we had 
several more months to complete an eradication project and they need to 
go now, not later, now; and that if we do not move now, the whole 
cycle, which normally would go into fall, is going to be moved up, and 
if my colleagues see Afghanistan there, the southern half roughly going 
up to the east side, 58 percent of opium eradication is supposed to be 
done by the British, 42 percent by us. Because the British are in the 
south in the Pashtun areas and where it is warmer and also less 
mountainous. The mountains are not as high. It is warmer. So the opium 
is flowering now. And in the north, where we are more in charge of 
eradication largely in Tajek areas, but other areas as well, starting 
May 1 we will start our operations and moving in.
  Here is some of the political dilemma. The British for some reason, 
in kind of a bizarre position, seem to be saying, and this is literally 
what we heard from Secretary Charles under questioning today, is his 
understanding was they said, Since we did not get the heroin eradicated 
earlier and it is starting to flower, we really should not destroy it 
because it will destroy the farmers' income for this period and that 
would be terrible because they have worked this whole long period to 
bring it to market.
  And we think, wait a second, this is not soy beans. First off, let us 
get this straight. Ninety-two percent of the agricultural land in 
Afghanistan is not heroin. Afghanistan does not have a heroin 
tradition. It has gone in and out. But as the former King told us when 
we met with him when he was still in exile and then when I was recently 
back over in Afghanistan again, during their kind of window of 30 or 40 
years of a benevolent monarchy and moving towards a democracy, in their 
first years of democracy, they were not a heroin country. They were the 
breadbasket of that whole zone because where they can grow heroin and 
coca, it is also great for other products. But they switched over 
partly because of the Taliban, which got 80 percent of their income 
from heroin.
  The question is who is going to run this country? Furthermore, a lot 
of the Northern Alliance groups that were aligned got their money from 
heroin. That was how they operated their country as they were war torn 
and blowing up other things in ways to make money and the regular 
farmers would get terrorized because they could get more money faster 
through heroin. It is a mess. And that as we tackle Afghanistan, if we 
are really going to try to restore order there and not have these 
terrorists and drug lords who are becoming more rapidly around the 
world the same people, we have to get at the heroin.
  Now, the argument here is we are talking about only 8 percent; so the 
market has covered 92 percent but these 8 percent, mostly in 
politically potent highly, what we would call war lord areas, is a 
problem.
  Let me finish my other point with the British in the flowering at the 
last minute. As Secretary Charles said today, this would be roughly 
akin to not apprehending a drug cartel person as they were bringing the 
money into the bank because they put up the whole network, they grow 
it, they distribute it, and now they are ready to deposit the money and 
they are nabbing them then. They should have got them at the beginning, 
not when they are getting ready to put the money in the bank. So why do 
they not just let them go? I mean, the logic of this is crazy. This 
would be as somebody does all the work to lay out a bank robbery, they 
conduct the bank robbery, they steal the money, and then we get them at 
the tail end, but they put all that work in. I do not know if we should 
stop them.
  Furthermore, this is not benign. The heroin poppy where we are trying 
to be so generous, apparently, and not eradicate because we do not want 
to deprive the farmers of their income is going to kill people. It is 
going to leave families addicted. It is going to have women being 
beaten at home and children being abused by their parents because they 
got this heroin poppy. This is not a benign flowering marigold flower. 
It is a heroin poppy that is going to kill people, maim people, lead to 
automobile wrecks, terrorism around the world. Why in the world would 
anybody think that they are not going to eradicate it when it is 
flowering? We cannot sit there with planes on the ground, twiddling our 
thumbs, while the world is about to be assaulted by the biggest crop of 
heroin in history. It is nonsensical.
  Furthermore, if we do not crack down and if the British will not be 
aggressive in the southern part of Afghanistan with the Pashtuns, how 
do we think that the Northern Alliance groups who are also growing and 
protecting some of the people are going to be if we go into the Tajeks 
and the Uzbeks and those tribal groups in the north? They are going to 
say we did not do it to the Pashtuns, and we are back to the tribal 
breakups in the country because we are discriminating between the two 
different groups.
  We have got to get this policy together. Nobody is against 
alternative development. Nobody is against better roads, building 
better hospitals, building better schools, rebuilding their legal 
system, protecting people. But we cannot not eradicate if they have 
grown something that is going to kill people. This would be akin to not 
getting a stash of machine guns because somebody built the machine guns 
or are about to get the profit and they need the income. These poor gun 
traffickers just need this money and they are trying to feed their kids 
and take care of their family and cover their health costs. We should 
not take all the gun traffickers' money away by getting their guns. 
What kind of nonsensical argument is this? We need boldness now, not 
wobbliness, out of both the United States and Britain.
  And as far as the American Government goes, we will soon be having a 
hearing with our Department of Defense because we finally got, at least 
it

[[Page 6274]]

appears, at least a regional memo in Afghanistan where they finally are 
saying if they find drugs and drug paraphernalia on people they 
capture, they should seize it. But they still have an order that says 
that they cannot use our military to eradicate. And in response to my 
question to Assistant Secretary of State Charles today where I said if 
they see stockpiled laboratories which the British have been 
criticizing us for not going after, does the Department of Defense tell 
the Department of State or DEA or anybody that they are there so 
somebody else can go get them? Because if the Department of Defense has 
decided they are too busy trying to get bin Laden, which we all agree 
that we have to get the terrorists, but we also need to get the funding 
for terrorists, we also need to establish democracy, if they cannot do 
it with the military, will they please share the information because I 
and other Members who have been over there know they can see it? There 
is no point in denying to us that they do not know where it is or that 
they cannot see it. The problem is who is going to get it? We are 
putting more DEA people in. We are getting more drug eradication groups 
in, and we need to go after it. Because if we fail to eradicate, if we 
cannot get it at the laboratory area, if we cannot get it in the 
distribution centers, it is going to wind up harder and harder to get.
  Look at these arrows coming out of Afghanistan, a similar problem 
with Colombia. If we do not get it at its source, then it gets harder 
to find the labs. Then when it starts to move up through the Stans, 
through Russia, through Turkey, into Europe, down around and up the 
Suez Canal, they cannot get it. Then it is all over our streets. Then 
in America, 20,000 deaths because of drug abuse. Terrorism in its worst 
case killed 3,000 in a year. We have to make sure that that does not 
escalate.
  Thankfully, this President has been aggressive; and we have done a 
better job on our borders, and we have shut down many of the 
terrorists' operations in the world, and we are battling them in 
Afghanistan and battling them in Iraq. Finally, Libya is cooperating 
with us, and when we met with Colonel Kadafi the first time we went in 
there, and I was with the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) in 
that tour, he did not want to be in a spider hole like his friend 
Saddam. So he figured the Pakistani people was providing nuclear 
weapons and he is cooperating with us. Now all of a sudden Pakistan is 
cooperating with us. We have had some major breakthroughs, thanks to 
this President's efforts.
  But at the same time we have to realize the nexus, the connections 
between narcotics and the stability of a country like Afghanistan long 
term. President Karsai and his leadership have been tremendous. It is a 
very difficult problem that he has got to try to establish order when 
they have this country divided up into different sections with 
different drug lords and warlords ruling that. But we have got to get 
it because he understands, in multiple meetings here on Capitol Hill 
and in Afghanistan, they cannot have a democracy in Afghanistan unless 
he can eliminate or at least greatly reduce the amount of opium poppy.
  Two other hearings we did this week in Washington: on Tuesday we had 
a hearing on measuring the effectiveness of drug treatment. Part of any 
strategy, like I said, first we have got to try to get it at its source 
because if we can get it at its source, even though it is expensive, it 
is so much cheaper than if we have to go after the labs and interdict 
it, whether it is Colombia, Afghanistan, Burma, wherever the problem 
is, if we can get it at its source. Then we try to get it as it is 
moving through interdiction if it is coming up from Colombia in the 
Caribbean or in the East Pacific. Then we try to get it at the border. 
If we fail at the border, we try to get it coming into the communities.
  I hear often on this House floor we should not lock up the poor 
individual user. But then many of those same people do not want to lock 
up the user, do not want to go after the eradication. They did not want 
to go after the interdiction. They do not want to do the other things. 
We have got to do whatever we can to try to get to the kingpins and 
that network of drugs coming in.
  We also need to work aggressively in the schools and around the 
country and with the community antidrug prevention groups. But when we 
fail, and that is what this is, a failure, and people get addicted, we 
have to figure out how best to provide treatment and how to do this.
  There were a number of interesting things that we heard. There are 7 
million people in the U.S. who need treatment for drug addiction, and 
the President's new drug treatment plan has some initiatives to try to 
address that because many people who are not getting treated for drugs 
who have a drug problem are not interested in getting treatment. But 
when somebody says they want treatment and are committed to change, we 
need to work to make sure those people can be covered.
  Charles Curie, a Hoosier and a long-time friend of mine, 
administrator of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services 
Administration for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 
HHS, testified on the access to recovery, how they are trying to put 
accountability in the system, looking at co-occurring dependencies. 
Many people who have other problems, whether they be mental or 
physical, are most vulnerable to drug abuse; and those co-occurring 
dependencies are very difficult. He is a leader in that, like he was in 
Pennsylvania, in trying to look at that problem, in trying to hold an 
accountability of what actually works. There is not a person who has 
worked in this field who has not talked to people who have been through 
five, seven drug treatment programs. Maybe they have made a marginal 
commitment, and I understand drug treatment enough to know that they 
are not going to get them necessarily completely cured, but they can 
certainly make progress. And in many cases, they are not even willing 
to have drug testing to even make progress. Part of what Director 
Walters is trying to do through the new treatment program is to make 
sure they at least have the accountability of drug testing if they want 
Federal dollars. Mr. Curie has been working with this.
  Another thing we heard about was coordinated action. One of the 
witnesses was former Judge Karen Freeman Wilson, also the former 
Attorney General of Indiana, who is now executive director of the 
National Drug Court Institute; and she pointed out why drug courts 
work. When we say drug courts work, we do not mean they work 100 
percent. We mean they work better than anything else and that they get 
some people completely off drugs, they get some people mostly off, some 
people who very infrequently relapse, and they fail on some. That is 
the real world. That is why we try to prevent it before it happens. As 
Nancy Reagan so wonderfully said, we cannot win a war by just treating 
the wounded. We have to treat the wounded. Nobody is proposing in a war 
that we do not treat the wounded. But we do not win the war just 
treating the wounded.
  ``Each drug court is required to monitor abstinence through regular, 
random, and observed drug testing. This means that most participants 
are tested at least two to three times a week.'' This is Judge Karen 
Freeman Wilson. ``Those who consistently test negatively are believed 
to be receiving effective treatment.''
  In other words, we have to have accountability in it.
  ``Another measure of effectiveness of treatment in the drug court 
context is the ability of the offender to comply with other aspects of 
the drug court program. Is the person actively engaged in community 
service? Are they actively involved in a job search, vocational 
training or school? Are they attending self-help meetings? Are they 
appearing as ordered for court review hearings and meetings with 
probation officers and other court staff? Are they paying their fines 
and fees? Is the participant attending, complying, and progressing in 
ancillary services, referred to community service providers, to address 
issues other than substance abuse

[[Page 6275]]

such as taking their prescribed medications and otherwise addressing 
identified co-occurring mental health issues?''

                              {time}  2015

  Are they attending parenting classes, anger management, life skill 
classes and other adjuncts to substance abuse treatment? Because each 
drug court participant is required to engage in treatment immediately, 
their compliance with the other aspects of the program that follow 
entry into treatment also provides insight into whether the treatment 
is effective.
  In other words, they are saying it needs to be holistic. In times 
when we do not have enough money for anything, this is a huge 
challenge.
  But let us be frank: if we are going to try to tackle these kinds of 
issues, you have to have some sort of housing options, job options. 
Tough, tough political questions.
  In Indiana, we are having a debate because in the bureau of motor 
vehicles, 10 percent of the people in Indianapolis had a former 
conviction. That sounds really terrible. But are they clean? Are they 
drug tested? Are they cured? Are they having relapses? What was the 
conviction they had? It is not necessarily evidence in and of itself 
bad.
  Now, if they continue to do it while they are employed, that is 
another problem. But you cannot say you can never hold a job if you 
have committed a drug crime or we are never going to get people 
rehabilitated. What is the point of treatment if they cannot find 
housing? Congressman Davis has a bill that I am a cosponsor of to try 
to provide targeted housing to people coming out of prisons.
  The reentry program in Fort Wayne that we have worked with and tried 
through the faith-based community and others will say, hey, one church, 
one offender, a really strong program. There are others in my hometown 
of Fort Wayne where they try to match up people coming out of the 
prison system, many of them with drug offenses, into the community, 
because if you do not get them integrated into the community, you are 
just going to keep perpetuating the cycle of crime and violence.
  We heard from many different witnesses at this hearing, and I 
appreciate each one of them, because it was very important to problem 
drug treatment.
  I want to cover briefly two more things. One, the hearing that we did 
this afternoon was on marijuana and medicine, the need for a science-
based approach. I want to read a brief comment on this.
  This particular hearing addressed a controversial topic, the use of 
marijuana for so-called medical purposes. In recent years, a large and 
well-funded pro-drug movement has succeeded in convincing many 
Americans that marijuana is true medicine to be used in treating a wide 
variety of illnesses.
  Unable to change the Federal laws, these pro-drug activitists turned 
to the State referendum process and succeeded in passing a number of 
medical marijuana initiatives. This has set up a direct conflict 
between Federal and State law and put into sharp focus the competing 
scientific claims about the value of marijuana and its components as 
medicine.
  Marijuana was once used as a folk remedy in many primitive cultures 
and even in the 19th century was frequently used by some American 
doctors, much as alcohol, cocaine and heroin were once used by doctors. 
By the 20th century, however, its use by legitimate medical 
practitioners had dwindled, while its illegitimate use as a 
recreational drug had risen. The drug was finally banned as a medicine 
in the 1930s.
  Beginning in the 1970s, however, individuals began reporting 
anecdotal evidence that marijuana might have some medically beneficial 
purposes, most noticeably in suppressing the nausea associated with 
cancer chemotherapy.
  Today, the evidence is still essentially anecdotal, but many people 
take it as a fact that marijuana is a proven medicine. One of the main 
purposes of the hearing we had this afternoon was to examine that 
claim.
  At present, the evidence in favor of marijuana's utility as a 
medicine remains anecdotal and unproven. An Institute of Medicine study 
published in 1999 reviewed the available evidence and concluded that, 
at best, marijuana might be used as a last resort for those suffering 
from extreme conditions.
  This report is repeatedly cited by the pro-marijuana movement, it was 
again today, as proof that marijuana is safe for medical use. In fact, 
the report stressed that smoking marijuana is not a safe medical 
delivery device, exposes patients to a significant number of harmful 
substances; but only in extreme conditions back in 1999, before we had 
additional advances, was it to be used.
  In contrast to its supposed medical benefits, the negative health 
effects of marijuana are well-known and have been proven in scientific 
studies. Among other things the drug is addictive, impairs brain 
function, and when smoked greatly, increases the risk of lung cancer. 
The respiratory problems associated with smoking any substance make the 
use of marijuana cigarettes as medicine highly problematic. Indeed, no 
other modern medicine is smoked.
  It is quite possible, however, that some components of marijuana may 
have legitimate medical uses. Indeed, the Institute of Medicine report, 
so often erroneously cited as supporting smoking marijuana, actually 
stated if there is any future of marijuana as medicine, it lies in its 
isolated components, the cannabinoids and their synthetic derivatives.
  Interestingly, the Federal Government has already approved a 
marijuana derivative called Marinol, but rarely do the pro-marijuana 
advocates mention this. The Federal Government has also approved 
further studies of the potential use of marijuana or marijuana 
derivatives as medicine.
  Moreover, in the United Kingdom, a pharmaceutical company has applied 
for a license to market an inhalant form of marijuana called Sativex. 
Thus, the real debate is not over whether marijuana could be used as 
medicine. The debate is over the most scientifically safe and effective 
way that components of marijuana may be used as medicine.
  The responsibility for ensuring that any drug, whether derived from 
marijuana or not, is safe and effective, has been entrusted to the U.S. 
Food and Drug Administration, FDA. Under Federal law, the FDA must 
review, test, and approve each medicine and determine what conditions 
or diseases each drug may be used to treat and at what dosage level. 
The FDA continues to monitor each drug, making sure it is manufactured 
and marketed properly and that unforeseen side effects do not 
jeopardize the public health.
  State laws purporting to legalize marijuana for medical purposes 
bypass these important safeguards. California and Oregon have adopted 
the most wide-reaching such laws. They allow anyone to possess, use and 
even grow their own marijuana, provided he obtains the written 
recommendation of a doctor. Few, if any, restrictions are placed on 
what conditions marijuana may be used to treat.
  We had both California and Oregon there today, had some discussion 
about enforcement, and they have four cases in one State, minimal in 
the other. In effect, they only enforce if somebody from there 
complains, and the people who are using it are not complaining.
  Few, if any, restrictions are placed on what restrictions marijuana 
may be used to treated. Virtually no restrictions are placed on the 
content, potency or purity of such medical marijuana.
  The laws in California, Oregon and other States are extremely open-
ended. California law even allows marijuana to be used for migraine 
headaches. One of our witnesses this afternoon also used it to treat 
ADD in two other indications and did not have any science whatsoever. 
One who just had his license taken away treated 4,000 people, and, 
according to the board in Oregon, had not even met with the people. So 
he did get a complaint.
  Only a small percentage of medical marijuana users in California and 
Oregon have actually used the drug to

[[Page 6276]]

treat the conditions for which it was publicly promoted, namely, the 
nausea associated with chemotherapy and AIDS wasting syndrome.
  In Oregon, statistics kept by the State Medical Marijuana Program 
indicate that well over half the registered patients used the drug 
simply for ``pain'' while less than half used it for nausea, glaucoma 
or conditions related to cancer and multiple sclerosis. In San Mateo, 
California, a study of AIDS patients showed that only 28 percent of the 
patients who used marijuana did so even to relieve pain. Over half used 
it to relieve anxiety or depression, and a third for recreational 
purposes.
  This raises one of the key questions we must address. If we are going 
to treat marijuana as medicine, will we subject it to the same health 
and safety regulations that apply to other medicines? We do not allow 
patients to grow their own opium poppies to make painkillers like 
morphine, Oxycontin and even heroin with just a doctor's 
recommendation. We do not allow people to manufacture their own 
psychiatric drugs like Prozac or Xanax to treat headaches. Why should 
we then authorize people to grow their own marijuana, when the 
potential for abuse is high and there is little or no scientific 
evidence that it can actually treat all of these illnesses and 
conditions?
  Why would we abandon the regulatory process that ensures that drugs 
are manufactured at the right potency level and contaminant-free? Why 
should we stop the oversight that makes sure that drugs are being 
administered in the right dosage and in the safest manner?
  In our follow up, FDA said on the record today there is no, none, 
zero, medical marijuana; and Dr. Volkow from the National Institute for 
Drug Abuse said clearly there are 400 components in marijuana.
  Now, those of us who oppose marijuana need to do some acknowledging 
here too. People have real problems, particularly in treating, that 
there are some areas in Marinol that have not worked, although it has 
been improved as well. We have to look in controlled, disciplined 
environments to figure out how to address that. And those who advocate 
marijuana need to grant smoked marijuana is very dangerous, much more 
carcinogenic than cigarette smoke. It is a huge addiction problem in 
the United States.
  As we look at how best to make it medical, it is not the marijuana 
that is medical, anymore than cocaine or heroin is medical. It is made 
up of 400 different components, and to try to treat and work with what 
we are working with here, we are already working aggressively in our 
government to try to figure out the sub-components and how they mix and 
how to do it.
  We heard all kinds of different things of where they are working and 
making progress in trying to treat this. And, interestingly, most of 
the breakthroughs are likely to be synthetic or a blend of things from 
other drugs with what the different components are in marijuana.
  It is not the marijuana. It is not the smoke certainly that helps. It 
is not the marijuana; it is components inside that, often blended with 
other things, that can help us address the problem of nausea and the 
problem of relieving pain for AIDS patients.
  Furthermore, the dosages need to be controlled with it, or you 
develop another addiction. If you take out components in the marijuana, 
give it in tablet form, you can achieve the pain reduction. But if you 
are looking to get high and want to get addicted, it will not work.
  So Canada, as they moved to this, in Vancouver, which I opposed but 
it worked with the legislators there and I talked to them about this 
thing, what they are learning is people do not want to take the pill. 
They want to get a higher dose than the pill. They wanted this ``BC 
Bud'' high-quantity level.
  We have to figure out how we are going to work this through, because 
clearly many States are adopting this. There has been a false concept 
across America. Those of us who oppose drug abuse are branded then as 
being uncaring for the sick, which is wrong.
  In fighting the whole thing we are not clarifying what we are arguing 
over here. We need to work together to relieve pain, but we also need 
to have an FDA standard, and it should not be a backdoor way to 
legalize a dangerous drug.
  In our transportation bill we are moving through, we are making our 
first steps to make people aware that more people are killed apparently 
from drug addicted driving than from alcohol. That is a huge challenge 
in this country, that it is not just ``I am relaxed and am using it.''
  Medicinal Marijuana has already challenged our transportation and 
drug testing laws in the State of Oregon, because it was supposedly 
medical. No, if you are taking a tablet form, you are not going to be 
at risk because you do not get that same dosage. It is a different mix. 
It is not marijuana. We have to figure out how to work these things 
through.
  One last comment. Yesterday, DEA broke the largest ecstasy ring in 
history. U.S. and Canadian drug agents broke up a distribution ring 
responsible for 15 percent of all the ecstasy, that is what they 
estimate, smuggled into this country. It was called Operation Candy 
Box.
  Approximately at their peak, they were doing 1 million tablets a 
month, approximately 5 million laundered dollars a month. It was in 18 
cities in the United States and Canada.
  I am grateful for the DEA's efforts and continued efforts to point 
out ecstasy is a dangerous drug. There is a program on tonight that I 
am very concerned about based on some of the statements attributed to 
Peter Jennings and in the news media. I do not know if it is correct. I 
have not seen the show. It does not air until tonight.
  But the news reports are saying and suggesting that they feel the 
Federal Government has been inaccurate in their report of ecstasy, when 
we have had testimony showing the brain damage, certainly in animals, 
but showed us charts too of the potential and some on humans. We have 
heard from parents whose kids have died at ecstasy parties and have 
gotten addicted. We heard of people who are ecstasy addicts, and I sure 
hope that we continue to combat it aggressively.
  I thank the DEA for their efforts to shut down this dangerous drug, 
and I hope that our national news media does not side with the drug 
dealers and the drug users of this country and continues to send a 
positive message.

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