[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 14]
[House]
[Page 19598]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        CONFIDENTIAL INFORMANTS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Tennessee (Mr. Cohen) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to congratulate 
the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Jolly) on his statement. I thought that 
showed some courage. It reflects the values of a lot of people here in 
this House and in the United States of America. It needed to be said.
  Mr. Speaker, some of us on both sides of the aisle have been working 
hard to reform our marijuana laws to allow more State flexibility in 
how marijuana is regulated and treated commercially and medically.
  What binds us together across a broad ideological spectrum is our 
strong belief that we must be able to distinguish between marijuana and 
seriously dangerous and lethal drugs: meth, heroin, crack, cocaine, and 
prescription drugs as well.
  People don't rob corner groceries and liquor stores to get money to 
supply their habit of marijuana. They do that for meth, crack, cocaine, 
heroin. It is a different, different drug.
  The movement that is occurring here in this Congress and around our 
country is ongoing and growing rapidly, thanks to open minds, common 
sense, and some people having the courage to stand up for things they 
know are true because they, themselves, their friends, their family, 
and others have smoked marijuana, and they have seen that it is not a 
great problem.
  Sunday night, I and millions of Americans watched a disturbing ``60 
Minutes'' piece on the issue of confidential informants. Lesley Stahl 
was the host. It focused on how local law enforcement appears to be 
increasingly using young people as informants without regard to their 
rights or their safety.
  It is being done without distinguishing between marijuana and the 
dangerous drugs that affect our society and our safety: heroin, meth, 
crack, cocaine, opiates.
  Here is how it works. A young person is cited for violating drug 
laws, usually possessing a small amount of marijuana and perhaps having 
sold some to a friend, which happens regularly in high school and 
college--not that high school kids should be doing it, but it is a 
fact, and so are college kids. The police tell them that, unless they 
agree to wear a wire and implicate a number of their friends, often 
close friends, they could be sentenced to a long prison term, the 
maximum permitted by law.
  They are cornered, frightened. Any person in that situation would 
take that deal. Most of them do it under supreme duress, and they do it 
without the presence of a lawyer or the knowledge that they have a 
right to a lawyer.
  Most of them seem to do it without even telling their parents because 
the police tell them: Don't tell anybody. This is just between you and 
me. You need to do this or you are going to prison for a long time.
  In the case of Rachel Hoffman and Andrew Sadek, it cost them their 
lives. Rachel had dealt a small amount of marijuana. They got her into 
dealing with people that dealt heavy drugs and guns and got her to try 
to make a big purchase. They didn't do a very good job of covering her. 
Rachel was murdered.
  Mr. Sadek was murdered, also, as a confidential informant, without 
police protecting him.
  The underpinnings for this counterproductive and dangerous behavior 
by some of our police are the very drug laws that many of us are trying 
to reform. This is wrong. I hope my colleagues will work with me to 
help stop it.
  President Eisenhower warned us about the military industrial complex 
and its effect on our country and our budgets.
  We need to be warned about the law enforcement-marijuana industrial 
complex, which is driven by monies that they get from busts and 
perverts justice and ruins people's lives and takes away their college 
scholarships, their opportunity to have housing, on occasion, and their 
opportunities to get jobs and, indeed, their liberty.

                              {time}  1015

  In the meantime, it is time for the Department of Justice to take a 
close look at how this behavior not only threatens to ruin young lives 
but, in some cases, to end those lives.
  As the Department of Justice, in the aftermath of all too many 
instances of police overreach and overreaction, works with local 
communities to educate law enforcement on more just and humane 
practices, the issue of forcing young people to be confidential 
informants should be added to its list.
  Mr. Speaker, we will be working on legislation. I hope we have people 
to join us. This is just part of the scourge that has come across this 
Nation, ruining people's lives because of the misunderstanding of 
marijuana starting in the 1930s with Harry Anslinger and continuing in 
the 1970s with Richard Nixon, who used it as a political tool. It needs 
to stop.

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