[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 12815]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1830
                     INTERDICTION OF ILLEGAL DRUGS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CUMMINGS. Madam Speaker, as chairman of the Subcommittee on the 
Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation and co-founder and chairman of 
the Congressional Caucus on Drug Policy, I rise today to commend the 
United States Coast Guard and the United States Navy for their ongoing 
efforts to combat the flow of illegal drugs into the United States.
  On Monday of this week a Coast Guard C-130 aircraft using long-range 
surveillance technology identified a self-propelled semi-submersible in 
the Eastern Pacific suspected of carrying illegal drugs.
  The U.S. frigate McInerney, which has been on a counternarcotics 
patrol effort since April and whose personnel include a Coast Guard law 
enforcement detachment--attempted to intercept the submersible.
  Unfortunately, before U.S. authorities could arrive at the 
submersible, its crew had sunk it. However, the Coast Guard reports 
that all four individuals who had been on board the submersible were 
rescued from the water, and one of them subsequently confessed that he 
and the other individuals were using the submersible in an effort to 
smuggle between five and seven tons of cocaine.
  In 2007, the Coast Guard removed 355,000 pounds of cocaine with an 
estimated street value of more than $4.7 billion from circulation. 
This, Madam Speaker, was a stunning new record of drug seizures by the 
Coast Guard in a single year, and it included the seizure in August of 
last year of a semi-submersible vessel loaded with cocaine estimated to 
be worth some $350 million.
  I commemorated these achievements in December of 2007 with an event 
in my district in Baltimore, a city that knows all too well the scourge 
that illegal drug abuse creates in a community. Put simply, every ounce 
of cocaine seized at sea is an ounce that cannot reach our Nation's 
streets and that cannot destroy a life.
  It is estimated that in my own hometown of Baltimore, 60,000 of 
city's 650,000 residents are currently drug dependent, mostly abusing 
heroin and cocaine. In 1996, Baltimore had the highest rate of drug-
related ER visits in the Nation, and AIDS became the leading cause of 
death among African-American men and the second leading cause of death 
among African-American women.
  However, in 2006 The Washington Post reported that the number of drug 
overdose deaths in Baltimore had fallen to the lowest level in some 10 
years. These drops have been made possible by ongoing efforts at the 
Federal level, and all levels of government, to interdict drugs and to 
provide treatment to enable drug users to overcome their addictions.
  Unfortunately, the use of submersible vehicles to smuggle drugs is 
increasing and represents the ongoing efforts of drug runners to 
develop new smuggling techniques that can enable them to evade 
detection.
  On April 24, 2008, the House adopted the Coast Guard Authorization 
Act, H.R. 2830, by a vote of 395-7. This act includes a provision 
adopted as an amendment during floor consideration that would make it a 
crime to operate a submersible vehicle for the purposes of trafficking 
drugs.
  This act awaits consideration by the Senate which I hope will move 
quickly to pass this legislation to strengthen the Coast Guard and to 
respond to the emerging threats we face, including new methods of drug 
smuggling.
  I again commend the United States Coast Guard and the United States 
Navy, and especially the crew of the McInerney, for their tireless 
efforts to stem the flow of illegal drugs into our Nation.

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