<DOC>
[109th Congress House Hearings]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access]
[DOCID: f:33394.wais]
EVALUATING THE SYNTHETIC DRUG CONTROL STRATEGY
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE,
DRUG POLICY, AND HUMAN RESOURCES
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JUNE 16, 2006
__________
Serial No. 109-216
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/
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______
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
DAN BURTON, Indiana TOM LANTOS, California
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JOHN L. MICA, Florida PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
CHRIS CANNON, Utah WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee DIANE E. WATSON, California
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
DARRELL E. ISSA, California LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
JON C. PORTER, Nevada C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland
KENNY MARCHANT, Texas BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina Columbia
CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania ------
VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio (Independent)
------ ------
David Marin, Staff Director
Lawrence Halloran, Deputy Staff Director
Teresa Austin, Chief Clerk
Phil Barnett, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana, Chairman
PATRICK T. McHenry, North Carolina ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
DAN BURTON, Indiana BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
JOHN L. MICA, Florida DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota DIANE E. WATSON, California
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
CHRIS CANNON, Utah C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio Columbia
Ex Officio
TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
J. Marc Wheat, Staff Director
Dennis Kilcoyne, Counsel
Malia Holst, Clerk
Tony Haywood, Minority Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on June 16, 2006.................................... 1
Statement of:
Burns, Scott, Deputy Director for State and Local Affairs,
Office of National Drug Control Policy; Uttam Dhillon,
Director, Office of Counter-Narcotics Enforcement,
Department of Homeland Security; Joseph Rannazzissi, Deputy
Assistant Administrator, Office of Diversion Control, Drug
Enforcement Administration; and Dr. Don Young, Acting
Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, Department
of Health and Human Services............................... 18
Burns, Scott............................................. 18
Dhillon, Uttam........................................... 27
Rannazzissi, Joseph...................................... 32
Young, Dr. Don........................................... 47
Coleman, Eric, Oakland County commissioner, National
Association of Counties; Lewis E. Gallant, executive
director, National Association of State Alcohol and Drug
Abuse Directors; Sherry Green, executive director, National
Alliance for Model State Drug Laws; Sue Thau, public policy
consultant, Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America; and
Ron Brooks, president, National Narcotics Officers'
Associations' Coalition, director, Northern California
HIDTA...................................................... 65
Brooks, Ron.............................................. 168
Coleman, Eric............................................ 65
Gallant, Lewis E......................................... 79
Green, Sherry............................................ 116
Thau, Sue................................................ 144
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Brooks, Ron, president, National Narcotics Officers'
Associations' Coalition, director, Northern California
HIDTA, prepared statement of............................... 170
Burns, Scott, Deputy Director for State and Local Affairs,
Office of National Drug Control Policy, prepared statement
of......................................................... 21
Coleman, Eric, Oakland County commissioner, National
Association of Counties, prepared statement of............. 67
Cummings, Hon. Elijah E., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Maryland, prepared statement of............... 10
Dhillon, Uttam, Director, Office of Counter-Narcotics
Enforcement, Department of Homeland Security, prepared
statement of............................................... 29
Gallant, Lewis E., executive director, National Association
of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors, prepared
statement of............................................... 81
Green, Sherry, executive director, National Alliance for
Model State Drug Laws, prepared statement of............... 118
Rannazzissi, Joseph, Deputy Assistant Administrator, Office
of Diversion Control, Drug Enforcement Administration,
prepared statement of...................................... 34
Souder, Hon. Mark E., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Indiana, prepared statement of.................... 4
Thau, Sue, public policy consultant, Community Anti-Drug
Coalitions of America, prepared statement of............... 146
Young, Dr. Don, Acting Assistant Secretary for Planning and
Evaluation, Department of Health and Human Services........ 49
EVALUATING THE SYNTHETIC DRUG CONTROL STRATEGY
----------
FRIDAY, JUNE 16, 2006
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and
Human Resources,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:05 a.m., in
room 2247, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mark E. Souder
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Souder, Cummings, Watson, and
Norton.
Staff present: J. Marc Wheat, staff director and chief
counsel; Dennis Kolcoyne, counsel; Malia Holst, clerk; Tony
Haywood, minority counsel; and Jean Gosa, minority assistant
clerk.
Mr. Souder. The subcommittee will come to order. Good
morning, and I thank you all for coming. We have been looking
forward for some time now to the release of the synthetic drug
control strategy which was finally unveiled on June 1st. Today
we will hear from several witnesses as to the strengths and
weaknesses of this plan.
With the near universal recognition that methamphetamine
addiction has become an epidemic, it is imperative that the
Federal Government provide the best possible leadership and
vision on this pressing social and law enforcement problem.
State and local governments, as well as many private agencies
devoted to helping families and communities cope with this
scourge have long complained that, no matter how diligent non-
Federal actors have been or could be, nothing can fill the void
of national direction. Only Federal leadership will suffice,
and many have awaited the new strategy with guarded-only
optimism.
There seem to be ample reason for concern as to the
administration's commitment to amass strategy. We can hardly
forget a key presentation at the HHS-sponsored conference in
Utah last August 19th, which said, ``We don't need a war on
methamphetamine.'' Nor can we forget, as the New York Times
reported on December 15th, that FDA was working behind the
scenes to block the Combat Meth Act.
This strategy sets three primary goals: One, a 15 percent
reduction in methamphetamine abuse; two, a 15 percent reduction
in prescription drug abuse; and three, a 25 percent reduction
in domestic methamphetamine laboratories.
The strategy itself concedes that the first two goals may
be met without much change in the Federal response given that
recent trends already may be moving in that direction. The
third goal is likely to be achieved due to tough restrictions
on precursor chemicals set out first by most of the States and
now by Congress to the Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act
enacted this spring with virtually no support, and even some
opposition from the administration.
With the national standard for precursor chemical control
soon to be in full effect through the Combat Methamphetamine
Epidemic Act, hopes are high for significant declines in
domestic meth production, but meth will remain readily
available, unless international diversion of precursor
chemicals can be stopped. This is borne out by the increased
smuggling of meth across the southwest border, as Mexican drug
traffickers move to exploit the decline in domestic meth
production.
Accordingly, the strategy begins with this international
aspect, laying out three prongs. One, attaining better
information about international trade in pseudoephedrine; two,
swift and effective implementation of the Combat Meth Act; and,
three, continued law enforcement and border activities and
continued partnership with Mexico.
Regarding the first prong, the administration has been
taking some positive steps and recognizes that the problem
cannot be tackled until its international nature and scope is
fully understood. The challenge begins with this hopeful fact:
The main precursor chemical pseudoephedrine, PSE, is produced
in a handful of countries, chiefly in China, India, and
Germany. If exportation of PSE can be tracked and controlled
from its sources, we could go a long way in choking off the
essential ingredient needed by criminal organizations now
profiting by producing meth chiefly in Mexico and distributing
it throughout this country. Fortunately, the administration has
been making diplomatic efforts through the U.N. Commission on
Narcotic Drugs to persuade some reluctant governments that the
meth epidemic is global, and that they should get with the
program.
Though the implementation of the Combat Meth Act is the
second prong of the international meth strategy, the strategy
restates provisions of the law while not always describing how
ONDCP will ensure that implementation will be carried out by
responsible agencies.
The third prong of the international segment of the
strategy, that of law enforcement at the border and partnership
with Mexico, summarizes current bilateral law enforcement
efforts within Mexico. Efforts to train Mexican law enforcement
and significantly upgrade its quality are extensive. Mexico has
also moved aggressively to curtail illegal diversion of meth
precursors, and in some respects, it is ahead of the United
States in this area.
Although the strategy states that its intent is to
strengthen border protection, it disturbingly fails to
elaborate on this at all and is completely silent on what will
be done in this area. In fact, the strategy makes no mention of
the Department of Homeland Security, which contains multiple
agencies tasked with border security and counterdrug
activities.
This is almost shocking, considering that it now seems
universally accepted within the administration that
approximately 80 percent of the meth being consumed in this
country is coming from Mexico. Stopping meth smuggling from
Mexico is clearly imperative, and yet the strategy fails to
explain why border protection is adequate or just how such
protection will be strengthened.
The domestic aspect of the strategy leans heavily on the
requirement of working closely with State and local officials.
The strategy acknowledges that the overwhelming majority of
drug arrests and prosecutions, over 90 percent, are conducted
by State and local authorities. Nonetheless, we have been told
by people we trust that there wasn't much consultation or
dialog with State and local officials in crafting this
strategy. And while it touts the efforts of State and local
authorities, the administration seeks to drastically cut the
Federal programs which have been essential to State and local
law enforcement.
For example, the administration wants Congress to eliminate
the Byrne Justice Assistance Grants Program, JAG. In 2004, one
third of all the meth labs seized were taken down by JAG-funded
State and local drug task forces. The strategy fails to explain
how the State and local authorities can be expected to keep up
this pace of lab seizures if the administration succeeds in
gutting the very programs that make it possible. Why would you
hold a press conference about a strategy based on programs you
are proposing to eliminate?
The administration has asserted that prevention is one of
the three pillars of its anti-drug efforts. Yet, declining
funding in this area, only at 11.7 percent of the drug control
budget, casts doubt on this claim. And the strategy is thin on
prevention, with only a brief reference to research under way
at the National Institute on Drug Abuse, NIDA, and almost as
brief a discussion of the National Youth Antidrug Media
Campaign. The discussion ends by noting the importance of
voluntarily airing the ads by local radio and TV stations, yet
it says nothing about how such voluntary airing will be
encouraged.
One of the most appalling aspects of meth is its grisly
aftermath. This includes children who are poisoned due to
chemical saturation in homes where meth is produced as well as
cleanup of lab sites. And there are stories in the annals of
the meth epidemic of law enforcement personnel or firemen
wounded or killed by lab site explosions or inhalation of
chemical fumes.
While much of what is in this brief section is not
considered a part of the strategy per se, the administration
should be praised for its commitment to the drug endangered
children, the DEC program. While DEC training has occurred in
28 States, the strategy asserts that ONDCP will work to achieve
DEC training in all 50 States by 2008, with no further details
offered. Hopefully, this excellent program will find more
aggressive advocates on the Federal level.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Mark E. Souder follows:]
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Mr. Souder. We have a good mix of witnesses with us today.
Our first panel consists of the Honorable Scott Burns, Deputy
Director for State and Local Affairs of the Office of National
Drug Control Policy; the Honorable Tom Dhillon, Director of
Counter-Narcotics Enforcement from the Department of Homeland
Security; Joseph Rannazzissi, Deputy Assistant Administrator of
DEA's Office of Diversion Control; and, finally, of Dr. Don
Young, Acting Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation
at the Department of Health and Human Services.
Our second panel will give us State and local perspective.
We have Mr. Ron Brooks, president of the National Narcotics
Officers' Associations' Coalition; the Honorable Eric Coleman
of the Oakland County Board of Commissioners in Michigan,
representing the National Association of Counties; Dr. Lewis
Gallant, executive director of the National Association of
State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors; Ms. Sherry Green, the
executive director of the National Alliance for Model State
Drug Laws; and finally, we have Ms. Sue Thau, public policy
consultant for the Community Antidrug Coalitions of America.
Again, we thank you all for coming from so many places
across the country to be here today. We look very much forward
to your testimony. I would like to yield to our ranking member,
Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. Good morning,
everyone. I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this
very important hearing today to evaluate the administration's
recently announced synthetic drug control strategy.
Growing abuse of methamphetamine, other legal synthetic
drugs like ecstasy and a variety of pharmaceutical drugs
defines a major recent trend in drug abuse. The recent
enactment of the Combat Meth Act and the administration's
release of a synthetic drug control strategy earlier this month
underscore the seriousness of the problem. Meth, in particular,
has captured the attention of lawmakers and the media with the
devastating impact it is having on entire communities in many
areas of our country.
A powerfully addictive synthetic stimulant that has been
around for more than 30 years, meth, until relatively recently,
was concentrated in western States, including California,
Arizona, and Utah. The recent eastward expansion of meth
production, trafficking, and abuse has led to the drug suddenly
becoming recognized as one of the primary drug threats facing
our Nation today. Indeed, not since the introduction of crack
cocaine into the streets of major cities like my city of
Baltimore, New York, and Chicago, have we seen such an outcry
for an aggressive antidrug response by the government at all
levels.
A July 2005 report by the National Association of Counties,
the Meth Epidemic in America, identifies meth as the No. 1
illegal drug threat facing most of the 500 counties that
participated in a survey of local law enforcement agencies.
Moreover, the drug's destructive impact on families has
contributed to a significant increase in child welfare roles in
hundreds of counties across the Nation according to the same
report.
Meth is relatively unique in that it can be manufactured by
lay-people using ingredients purchased in the U.S. retail
stores and recipes available on the Internet. This has enabled
most of the production of U.S. consumed methamphetamine to
occur domestically both in so-called super labs that produce
large amounts of high purity meth, and in clandestined labs
that are small enough to be operated in homes, apartments,
hotel rooms, rented storage space, and trucks. The
environmental damage caused by meth production can be severe,
and the cost of cleaning up the toxic wastes from these sites
is immense. Because the ingredients are extremely volatile in
combination, labs also pose a grave risk of harm both to the
so-called meth cooks who make the drug and to the individuals
living in close proximity to the activity. Many labs are
discovered only after an explosion has occurred. Law
enforcement officers tasked with finding or dismantling labs
are forced to share the risk.
All too often, the collateral victims of meth abuse are the
young children of addicts and cooks. These children live with
the constant risk of harm from explosions, exposure to toxic
chemicals, and extreme familial neglect. As the National
Association of Counties report and countless news reports have
described, these conditions have led to a large number of
children being taken from the custodial control of their
parents and placed in foster care.
Sadly, the health and behavior effects that result from
prenatal exposure to meth and from severe family neglect or
abuse make the children of meth addicted parents especially
challenging for foster families to care for and difficult to
place. Absent effective treatment for the parents of displaced
children, re-uniting families torn apart by meth may be almost
impossible.
Meth abuse has not yet become a major problem in the
communities of Baltimore City, in Baltimore and Howard Counties
where I represent. But the rapid spread of meth production,
trafficking, and abuse in the United States underscores the
fact that America's drug problem affects all parts of this
Nation, rural, suburban, and urban alike, and that no community
is immune to the introduction of a dangerous new drug threat.
Drugs, unlike people, do not discriminate on the basis of
color, class, or geography.
States have been at the forefront of efforts to develop
effective policies and strategies to combat the growth of meth
abuse, production, and trafficking in the United States. States
including Oklahoma have successfully used restrictions on
retail sale of cold products containing meth precursor
chemicals to drive down the volume of meth production in
clandestined labs. Federal legislative efforts to address the
meth epidemic, including the Combat Meth Act enacted earlier
this year, similarly have focused largely on limiting over-the-
counter access to products containing precursor chemicals as
well as on limiting the illegitimate importation and
exportation of meth precursor chemicals across the
international borders.
The administration's new synthetic drug control strategy
emphasizes these objectives, and I believe Congress and the
administration should continue to pursue them. At the same
time, Mr. Chairman, I believe it is difficult to overestimate
the importance of education, prevention, and in particular,
drug treatment as we attempt to stifle this growing epidemic.
Despite some popular notions to the contrary, research from
the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment shows that meth
addiction can be effectively treated, and that the benefits of
treating meth addiction are similar to the benefits derived
from treating addiction to other drugs; use of the drug is
sharply reduced, criminal activity and recidivism declined,
employment status and housing status improve, and overall
health improves. Ensuring that people who have become dependent
upon meth have access to effective treatment is therefore
essential to stopping this problem that is creeping across our
country.
Unfortunately, it bears noting that the 53-page strategy
announced by the administration devotes just 3\1/2\ pages to
prevention and treatment combined. Indeed, several important
programs that contribute to reducing demand for meth and other
synthetic drugs are not even mentioned in the strategy, which
is incredible. In the case of Safe and Drug Free Schools State
grants, for example, this is no doubt because the problem has
been targeted for elimination in the President's budget.
This leads to the broader concern that this strategy, even
as it purports to be comprehensive, appears to reflect the same
flawed balance of priorities embodied in the overall Federal
drug control budget proposed by the President. Over the past 6
years, we have seen prevention and treatment dollars decrease
from 47 percent to merely 35 percent of the Federal drug
budget. Even programs that support Mexican drug enforcement at
the State and local levels have been targeted for elimination
or deep cuts, as funding for supply reduction efforts beyond
our borders expands without solid justification. The High
Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas Program, COPS meth grants, and
the Byrne Justice Assistance grants, all critical programs,
would be eroded or eliminated.
Given these facts, I think one of the central questions
raised by today's hearing is this: Does the strategy genuinely
reflect an ambitious forward-thinking effort to devise the most
comprehensive and effective synthetic drug strategy our Federal
drug policy efforts can muster? Or does it instead represent
mere lumping together in one document of preexisting ideas,
initiatives, and priorities inside a new glossy cover?
To help us answer these and other questions, we are
fortunate to have appearing before us today representatives of
several Federal agencies tasked with formulating and
implementing various aspects of the synthetic drug strategy, as
well as a number of outside organizations that contribute
greatly to the Nation's antidrug efforts through their
dedication and expertise. I look forward to hearing the
testimony of all our witnesses concerning the content of the
strategy, the manner in which it was formulated, and their
perspectives on whether and to what extent the strategy
adequately describes the best possible formula for beating back
the growing threats of illegal synthetic drugs and prescription
drug abuse.
Mr. Chairman, I thank you for your relentless attention to
this issue, and I also thank each of our witnesses for
appearing here today. With that, I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Elijah E. Cummings
follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Ms. Watson.
Ms. Watson. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for holding
this hearing that is critical to the understanding of the
administration's heavily anticipated synthetic drug control
strategy.
Eliminating drug smuggling and distribution throughout the
United States is vital in keeping our communities safe. There
have been several programs unveiled by the public and nonprofit
sectors throughout the United States. These programs are going
to be the next new innovation in helping us eradicate our drug
problem. Some have been good and some have been not so good.
None of them have been the ultimate problem solver. The new
strategy set forth by the Office of the National Drug Control
Policy is very ambitious but not impossible if funding and
resources are at a sufficient level.
The three goals set forth in this strategy are excellent.
If we could accomplish what the plan sets out, including 15
percent reduction in prescriptive drug abuse, 25 percent
reduction in methamphetamine labs, and 15 percent reduction of
methamphetamine use, it would be of great benefit to our people
and our streets. While they are great goals, the question of
how they are going to be met with the administration's funding
cut proposals need to be addressed. Can these goals be
accomplished when the administration wants a $23.6 million cut
in the Justice Department's community-oriented policing
services meth hot spots program? Can these goals be met when
the administration wants to eliminate the Edward Byrne Memorial
Justice Assistance grant program?
My family personally has been affected by meth use. My
niece at the end of May passed due to the abuse of this killer
drug. It affected her vital organs, she had a hole in her
heart, from age 19 to age 22. We suffered along with her. The
treatment programs we enrolled her in did absolutely nothing.
Every method that we as a family and friends used to try and
help her did not work. Prevention could have saved her. We
lived in an upscale community in Sacramento, she lived with me,
and we were right there. Did not notice until too late. Tried
to save her and failed. So a focus on prevention so users would
not have to face treatment is essential.
The administration states that prevention is an essential
component of its three pillars of antidrug efforts. The decline
of funding in this area has cast major doubts on their claim.
If the administration is serious about creating a solution to
this problem, fund each mandate sufficiently.
And so I want to thank the panelists for your willingness
to come and testify before this subcommittee so we can
understand how this new drug control strategy will be
implemented in the midst of major cuts in funding. I don't want
to see anyone suffer as my niece and her loved ones did.
We must realize that drug use is international in scope,
and for every one life that is lost to drugs, many are
affected. So, Mr. Chairman, thank you so very much for this
hearing today.
Mr. Souder. Thank you. And thank you for your continued
aggressive and active interest in this committee. It has truly
been a bipartisan effort as we move through this and other
drugs, and we are looking forward to our hearing on treatment
as well that is coming up in just a few weeks.
First, I would like to ask unanimous consent that all
Members have 5 legislative days to submit written statements
and questions for the hearing record, and that any answers to
written questions provided by the witnesses also be included in
record. Without objection, it is so ordered. I also ask
unanimous consent that all exhibits, documents, and other
materials referred to by Members and the witnesses may be
included in the hearing record, and that all Members be
permitted to revise and extend their remarks. Without
objection, it is so ordered.
Our first panel is composed of the Honorable Scott Burns,
Deputy Director for State and Local Affairs at the Office of
National Drug Control Policy; the Honorable Tom Dhillon,
Director of the Office of Counter Narcotics Enforcement,
Department of Homeland Security; Mr. Joseph Rannazzissi, Deputy
Assistant Administrator of the Office of Diversion Control of
DEA, Drug Enforcement Administration; and Dr. Don Young, Acting
Assistant Director or Secretary for Planning and Evaluation for
the Department of Health and Human Services.
As an oversight committee, it is a standard practice to ask
witnesses to testify under oath. If you will raise your right
hands, I will administer the oath to you.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Souder. Let the record show that all the witnesses have
answered in the affirmative.
Mr. Burns, thank you for joining us. You are now recognized
for 5 minutes.
STATEMENTS OF SCOTT BURNS, DEPUTY DIRECTOR FOR STATE AND LOCAL
AFFAIRS, OFFICE OF NATIONAL DRUG CONTROL POLICY; UTTAM DHILLON,
DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF COUNTER-NARCOTICS ENFORCEMENT, DEPARTMENT
OF HOMELAND SECURITY; JOSEPH RANNAZZISSI, DEPUTY ASSISTANT
ADMINISTRATOR, OFFICE OF DIVERSION CONTROL, DRUG ENFORCEMENT
ADMINISTRATION; AND DR. DON YOUNG, ACTING ASSISTANT SECRETARY
FOR PLANNING AND EVALUATION, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN
SERVICES
STATEMENT OF SCOTT BURNS
Mr. Burns. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
Cummings, Congresswoman Watson, thank you for the opportunity
to appear before you today to discuss the administration's
synthetic drug control strategy. I want to thank the
subcommittee for its strong bipartisan commitment to reducing
the illicit use of all drugs.
The Synthetic Drug Control Strategy was released on June
1st, and represents a firm commitment by the administration to
work toward ambitious and concrete reductions in the illicit
use of methamphetamine and prescription drugs as well as in the
number of domestic methamphetamine laboratories.
Specifically, the strategy aims to reduce methamphetamine
use by 15 percent over 3 years, illicit prescription drug use
by 15 percent over 3 years, and domestic methamphetamine
laboratory seizures by 25 percent over 3 years. In these
respects, it is similar to the administration's National Drug
Control Strategy in that it is both ambitious and achievable.
The synthetic strategy also recognizes that supply and
demand are the ultimate drivers in an illicit drug market, and
that a balanced approach incorporating prevention, treatment,
and market disruption initiatives is the best way to reduce the
supply of and the demand for illicit drugs.
The most urgent priority of the Federal Government toward
reducing the supply of methamphetamine in the United States
will be to tighten the international market for chemical
precursors, such as pseudoephedrine and ephedrine, as you know,
used to produce this drug. Toward this end, the Office of
National Drug Control Policy Director John Walters has met with
Ambassadors from China, India, and the European Union. The
administration worked with allies in the international
community to draft, promote, and adopt a resolution on
synthetic drug precursors, particularly methamphetamine
precursors, at the annual meeting of the United Nations
Commission on Narcotic Drugs.
Other important parts of the synthetic strategy are swift
and effective implementation of the Combat Meth Act and our
continued partnership with Mexico. Domestically, the synthetic
strategy recognizes the critical role that State and local law
enforcement as well as treatment and prevention professionals
play in addressing the methamphetamine threat. And, in fact, I
would be remiss if I did not recognize the role that State and
local policy and law enforcement officials have played in
addressing, in particular, the problem of methamphetamine
production in the United States.
The synthetic strategy contains a 10-part plan to enhance
the Federal partnership with State and local agencies related
to methamphetamine, focusing on initiatives such as helping
drug endangered children programs expand nationwide, holding
four regional and one national methamphetamine conference, and
better sharing of data and assisting States in developing their
own regional drug control strategies related to synthetic
drugs.
The synthetic strategy also addresses prescription drug
abuse. The administration's ambitious goal of reducing
prescription drug abuse by 15 percent by the end of 2008 must
balance two general policy concerns: First, to be aggressive in
reducing overall user abuse; and, second, to avoid overreaching
and avoid making lawful acquisition of medications unduly
cumbersome. The seriousness of this problem cannot be
overstated as prescription drug abuse has risen to become the
second most serious drug problem when measured in terms of
prevalence, with past year abusers numbering approximately 6
million.
The administration will continue to target doctor shopping
and other prescription fraud as well as illegal on-line
pharmacies, continue to thwart thefts and burglaries from homes
and pharmacies, focus on strategies to combat stereotypical
drug dealing, and to investigate and prosecute those in the
medical profession to be distinguished from the vast majority
that prescribe appropriately, who are engaged in illegal
overprescribing for profit.
Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Cummings, Congresswoman
Watson, I would like to personally thank you and members of the
subcommittee and the members of the House and Senate meth
caucuses for your individual and combined efforts in addressing
these issues. I look forward to working with you and members of
this subcommittee as the strategy is implemented, and
conferring along the road as we strive together to meet the
goals we have set forth on behalf of the American people. Thank
you. And I look forward to any questions the subcommittee may
have.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Burns follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Mr. Dhillon.
STATEMENT OF UTTAM DHILLON
Mr. Dhillon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
Cummings, and Representative Watson. Thank you for the
opportunity to appear before you today to testify on behalf of
the Department of Homeland Security in support of the
administration's National Synthetic Drug Control Strategy. And
I look forward to working with this subcommittee in our common
fight against the illicit use of methamphetamine and other
synthetic drugs.
As the Director of Office of Counter Narcotics Enforcement,
it is my responsibility to coordinate counternarcotics policy
within the Department of Homeland Security and between the
Department and other Federal departments and agencies.
I understand that methamphetamine abuse is a serious issue
facing our Nation. According to a recent report by the National
Association of Counties, 58 percent of counties surveyed said
that methamphetamine was their largest drug problem, followed
by cocaine, marijuana, and heroin.
Increasingly, the methamphetamine that supplies the U.S.
drug market is produced internationally, and the Department of
Homeland Security is committed to stopping the flow of
methamphetamine and its precursors into our country. The
administration's Synthetic Drug Control Strategy, like the
National Drug Control Strategy, postulates a balanced approach
by incorporating prevention, treatment, and market disruption
initiatives as the best courses of action to reduce the supply
of, and demand for, illicit drugs.
The Department of Homeland Security is in a unique position
to focus on market disruption through the strategic goals
outlined in the Department's Secure Border Initiative [SBI].
The Department of Homeland Security's Secure Border Initiative
is a comprehensive approach to border control and enforcement
through the integration of technology, infrastructure,
communications, and command and control designed to disrupt and
dismantle criminal organizations by preventing and deterring
cross-border crime including but not limited to illicit drugs.
SBI will provide a comprehensive multi-year plan for more
agents to patrol our borders, secure our ports of entry, and
enforce immigration laws as well as providing a comprehensive
and systemic upgrading of the upgrading used in controlling the
border, including increased manned aerial assets, expanded use
of unmanned aerial vehicles, and next generation detection
technology.
Through SBI, the Department of Homeland Security has
developed a Border Enforcement Security Task Force [BEST], and
now has a practical vehicle to directly partner with State and
local law enforcement officials to combat drug trafficking and
border violence. BEST is charged with sharing information,
developing priority targets, and executing coordinated law
enforcement operations to enhance border security. By
establishing a new connectivity between the Department's
intelligence community and law enforcement, BEST provides a
focused response to intelligence driven identified targets such
as criminal organizations that violate the border, and will
improve the Department's overall effectiveness against the full
range of criminal activity along the border.
The Department of Homeland Security fully embraces its
counternarcotics mission, and will do its part to ensure the
success of the Synthetic Drug Control Strategy by working
cooperatively with our Federal, State, and local law
enforcement partners tasked with combating the flow of illicit
drugs into the United States.
Thank you. And I look forward to answering your questions.
Mr. Souder. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Dhillon follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Mr. Rannazzissi.
STATEMENT OF JOSEPH RANNAZZISSI
Mr. Rannazzissi. Good morning, Chairman Souder, Ranking
Member Cummings, Congresswoman Watson. On behalf of
Administrator Karen P. Tandy, thank you for the opportunity to
testify before you today regarding the Synthetic Drug Control
Strategy. This strategy is a companion document to the
President's National Drug Control Strategy.
The unique nature of synthetic drugs warrants a targeted
response. DEA's efforts to address the synthetic drug problem
have been ongoing for decades. The strategy provides DEA and
contributing agencies a framework to continue our ongoing
efforts and to chart new milestones to achieve domestic and
international progress against methamphetamine and other
synthetic drugs.
DEA worked with DOJ and ONDCP to implement a comprehensive
innovative strategy to reduce availability of synthetic drugs
and strengthen the international and domestic law enforcement
mechanisms. The strategy focuses principally on methamphetamine
and pharmaceutical control substances and incorporates many
ongoing DEA programs that target these substances.
Methamphetamine is a unique synthetic drug. Its production
requires no specialized skills, training, and its various
recipes are readily available. Its precursor chemicals have
historically been able to obtain and inexpensive to purchase.
The diversion of controlled pharmaceutical substances also
continues to be a significant threat. Controlled pharmaceutical
substances are diverted through several means, including
illegal prescribing, theft, robbery, prescription forgery,
doctor shopping, and, of course, the Internet.
The manufacture and use of methamphetamine is not a problem
confined to the United States but has become prevalent in many
regions of the world. The DEA through our law enforcement
partnerships across the country and around the world has
initiated successful investigations that have disrupted and
dismantled significant methamphetamine trafficking
organizations, particularly those targeting the United States.
We have also taken an active role in fighting diversion of
ephedrine and pseudoephedrine through both enforcement
operations and international agreements. These initiatives
resulted in substantial reduction in the amount of precursor
chemicals entering the United States, but we have more to do
internationally.
DEA has a key role toward achieving the administration's
goals set forth in this strategy. Chief among our tasks would
be the full implementation and enforcement of the Combat
Methamphetamine Epidemic Act of 2005. Other domestic
initiatives will include a national listing on the DEA Web site
of the addresses of properties in which methamphetamine labs or
chemical dump sites have been found. In addition, construction
for a new clandestine lab training facility at the DEA academy
will begin in the fall of 2006.
A key element of the strategy for combating methamphetamine
is international cooperation, particularly in the area of
precursor chemical control. Already, DEA and DOJ have
facilitated and played a leadership role in several recent
meetings of the international community. These meetings, such
as the May 2006 National Methamphetamine Chemical Initiative
Strategy Conference where the Attorney General announced
several new anti-methamphetamine initiatives, have helped
increase awareness around the world and resulted in agreements
to monitor and track key precursor chemicals. Several nations,
most notably Mexico, also have taken independent steps to
control methamphetamine precursors.
Internet diversion of pharmaceutical controlled substances
is especially difficult to investigate and overcome. Internet-
based drug traffickers often mask their activities as those of
legitimate on-line pharmacies. DEA's approach to pharmaceutical
controlled substance abuse problems strives to balance two
general policy concerns: Reducing the prescription drug abuse
while not making the lawful acquisition of prescription drugs
unduly cumbersome.
DEA is joined by the interagency community and responsible
private sector entities in its effort to prevent pharmaceutical
controlled drug abuse and diversion by collaborating with
Internet service providers and companies, credit card and
financial service companies, express mail carriers to target
Internet-based drug traffickers, DEA is at the cutting edge of
on-line drug investigations.
Although recent DEA operations are indicative of our
ability to target the largest and most dangerous organizations,
additional tools are needed. More can be done to eliminate Web
sites that have telltale signs of their illicit nature, and
steps can be taken to ensure that the legitimate doctor-patient
relationship includes a face-to-face consultation.
DEA is fully committed in its role to meet the ambitious
goals set forth in the Synthetic Drug Control Strategy.
Chairman Souder, Ranking Member Cummings, and Congresswoman
Watson, I thank you again for the opportunity to testify, and
will be happy to address any questions you may have. Thank you.
Mr. Souder. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Rannazzissi follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Dr. Young.
STATEMENT OF DR. DON YOUNG
Dr. Young. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the
subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss the
efforts of the Department of Health and Human Services in
support of the administration's Synthetic Drug Control Strategy
focused on methamphetamine and prescription drug abuse.
I am pleased to be here to talk about the HHS contribution
to the administration's coordinated strategy for combating the
problems of methamphetamine abuse. The synthetic strategy was
released June 1st this year, although HHS has been working with
its Federal partners to develop the national synthetic drug's
action plan since October 2004.
The synthetic's strategy sets a goal of reducing
methamphetamine abuse over 3 years, a 15 percent reduction in
the abuse or nonmedical use of prescription drugs over 3 years,
and a 25 percent reduction in domestic methamphetamine
laboratory seizures over 3 years. Much of the synthetic
strategy is devoted to methamphetamine abuse. Methamphetamine
is associated with serious health conditions, including memory
loss, aggression, psychotic behavior, and potential heart and
brain damage.
HHS is engaged on these issues through a number of its
agencies. HHS brings a wide array of resources to this issue.
The HHS fiscal year 2007 budget provides $41.6 million for HHS
methamphetamine targeted treatment and prevention research and
a dedicated $25 million for methamphetamine treatment services
within the access to recovery program. The access to recovery
program is a voucher-based program intended to expand consumer
choice and access to effective substance abuse treatment and
recovery support services. The Substance Abuse and Mental
Health Services Administration and the Administration for
Children and Families work together to provide training,
technical assistance, information, and resources to local,
State, and tribal agencies to improve systems and practice for
families with substance abuse use disorders who are involved in
the child welfare and family judicial systems.
One of the key components of meth is a commonly used
pharmaceutical product, pseudoephedrine. Pharmaceutical
products containing pseudoephedrine, either alone or in
combination with other drugs, are used extensively by the
general public to treat the symptoms of upper respiratory tract
infections and allergic rhinitis.
In carrying out our strategy to end methamphetamine abuse,
we must balance the legitimate health needs of consumers to
access to medicines against the urgent needs of law enforcement
to confront a serious drug problem. We believe that the U.S.A.
Patriot Act recently enacted and signed into law achieves this
balance. It restricts the OTC sales of pseudoephedrine,
ephedrine, and phenylpropanolamine, but also enables
individuals to buy sufficient quantities for legitimate medical
use. By working together in a coordinated effective way, we can
be successful in achieving the goals set out by the synthetic's
strategy. By drawing on the resources my colleagues and I are
discussing with you today, we can be successful. Thank you for
your time. And I would be pleased to respond to any questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Young follows:]
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Mr. Souder. I thank each of you for your testimony. And the
button on the microphones are counter-intuitive. If it is up,
it is on; if it is down, it is not.
Let me make a couple of additional comments with my
frustration. That, Mr. Burns, I hope ONDCP understood a very
subtle message that Congress gave this week. And this hearing
today is going to focus mostly on meth, most likely. You will
see this committee increasingly move as we hopefully start to
turn some corner on meth, at least get an aggressive strategy
in every agency more toward over-the-counter drugs which
clearly is a steady and increasing problem in the United
States. We have had multiple hearings on OxyContin over the
years, but we focused on meth in this cycle because at the
local level, that is what we are hearing constantly. The idea
to battle meth didn't start in Congress, even though this
committee held its first hearings probably 7 years ago on this.
It is being something that is demanded at the grassroots level.
All you have to do is turn on your TV set in any market in
almost every single State now, but certainly in about 40
States, it is still coming in to the east coast, and that will
be the major story, and that demand came on the politicians.
I have been a strong supporter of the National Ad Campaign.
Last, there has been a concern that the National Ad Campaign
has been dropping in its funding by the director and by others.
I said that if the National Ad Campaign started to address some
of it, I have not opposed the marijuana initiative, but some of
it focused on meth, we could sustain the support in Congress.
We brought a resolution to the floor last year and it was
increased by $30 million over the President's request if it was
used on meth. That was ignored. This week, the Appropriations
Committee reduced it yet further to where the National Ad
Campaign is at risk. And as you full well know, in the Senate,
they have not been as enthusiastic with the ad campaign as the
House. It got reduced to $100 million. The administration came
over and asked multiple Members of Congress to introduce it.
They talked to our leadership. Not a single Member of Congress
was willing to go to the floor to defend the position of the
National Ad Campaign. Not one single Member of either party
because of the lack of responsiveness of this administration on
meth. And if that message doesn't permeate, there will be no
National Ad Campaign. That is just, that is not a threat, it is
a promise. That there has to be more responsiveness and an
understanding of what is happening.
Second, this is the second year in a row where you have
come in proposing to zero out what is the primary funding of
our drug task forces around the United States on meth. You work
with State and local law enforcement, and you know the
intensity of this. On the HIDTA question, this year it wasn't a
zeroing out of the HIDTA. I have asked repeatedly, what don't
you like about HIDTAs? Which one? And the only answer I have
gotten steadily is: The proliferation of HIDTAs has occurred in
the United States denigrating the original mission of the
HIDTAs, which was high intensity. Well, what is the
proliferation of the HIDTAs? Where are those proliferations?
Well, that would be the Missouri HIDTA, which is a meth HIDTA;
that would be in Iowa, which is a meth HIDTA; that would be the
Rocky Mountain HIDTA, which is a meth HIDTA; that would be the
Dallas HIDTA, which is focused more and more on meth. In other
words, the administration's proposal indirectly, though it has
never said directly, it has said to proliferation, all of the
new HIDTAs were meth HIDTAs.
So that to come forward with the strategy at the same time
while you are proposing to gut many of the things that are in
it, we just don't see this reconciliation.
Now, let me be honest. We were looking for a few more
specific things than today in your testimony what you chose to
highlight was the endangered children program, which is a great
program and should be expanded, and conferences. We have meth
conferences going through our ears in the United States. Any
person who is in the field who can't go to a meth conference
has--I don't know where they have been. There are conferences
all over the place. What we need are specifics. Quite frankly,
the DEA presentation today--and DEA's been the only agency that
has been very aggressive on this, as opposed to somewhat
aggressive on this--had more details than the plan, which is
astounding.
Here we wait and wait and wait, and we get a plan, and the
testimony that comes forward from one of the agencies is more
detailed with specifics and somehow to address how we are going
to deal with this on the Internet.
We all know we are going to control the mom and pop labs,
no thanks to the Federal Government. The State governments are
already doing it, and now we are going to finish the rest of
the States by October 1st. We are going to reduce the mom and
pop labs. You are going to reach your reduction figures, which
are--they are going to be done because of what other people
already did. Not necessarily on synthetic drugs overall. Over-
the-counter is going to be tougher. But the mom-and-pop labs
are going to reach that. But it is going to move to the
Internet. There were a number of things in DEA testimony to try
to address that.
Now, let me ask Mr. Dhillon, and I am not holding you
accountable, because you are new in the post. And we are glad
to have you there, and we have worked together on the Homeland
Security Committee, of which I am a senior member. Why would
the Department of Homeland Security not have been more
mentioned or--how do you see this integrated? For example, I am
making some suggestion to you and I would like to hear some of
your comments back.
DEA, Mr. Rannazzissi made some comments about how they are
looking at this. Clearly, one of the things, since you are both
in charge at Homeland Security of ICE, you are in charge of
Coast Guard, and you are in charge of CBP, three of the major
agencies with this; DEA would be a fourth that at the Federal
level provides actual ground troops. Is there an awareness in
the agency? Do you see an awareness of the agency to look at
the data that you are picking up? For example, you are going to
have the data of whether meth from Mexico is coming across from
Laredo or the west. Are you going to look at that data and work
directly with DEA or the intelligence agencies? Is ICE going to
connect up with DEA? How do you propose to do that? Is Coast
Guard going to do that? Are you going to look at--because as we
shut down the mom-and-mop labs, both the Internet and the
border are going to become the places where crystal meth is
coming in behind.
We see that in Oregon already, we see it in Oklahoma. The
States that did the pseudoephedrine control laws have already
seen the switch to crystal meth. It is coming your way. It is
coming through all of your zone. Are you going to try to
separate out the data here? Are you going to work with it? Are
you going to work with particular strategies? Are your agents?
I am less concerned about a national conference than basically
making sure that CBP and ICE understand that the meth pressure
is going to come at yours, and you are watching for that and
the patterns.
Mr. Dhillon. Chairman Souder, I believe that it is my
responsibility as the Director of the Office Counter-Narcotics
Enforcement to obtain that information, that data that you are
talking about, and to ensure that the counter-narcotics-related
components within the Department have that data and are
appropriately focused on the meth threat.
As you have pointed out, and I think as everyone has
acknowledged, methamphetamine is now largely moving across the
borders, which makes it a Department of Homeland Security issue
and, as far as I am concerned, a Department of Homeland
Security priority in the counter-narcotics realm.
So the answer to your question is, yes, we will be looking
at the data and we will be ensuring that the counter-narcotics-
related components that you have mentioned have that data, and
will be emphasizing the importance of including methamphetamine
interdiction in the overall counter-narcotics strategy.
Mr. Souder. Dr. Young, one of my concerns, and I have
talked to Director Curry about this as well, is that
methamphetamine--one of the pattern differences is it tends to
be, less so for crystal meth, but where it has been so far in
the mom-and-pop labs, tends to be in the most rural areas of
America, that where the drug treatment programs are, in fact,
the least sophisticated.
Much of the type of approaches that HHS recommends are
fairly complicated. And when Director Curry came into my
district, the only group that was implementing it was in Fort
Wayne where they have only had basically three or four cases of
meth. One of the outlying mid-sized cities had been at a
conference where that subject was discussed, and the rural area
that was hardest hit with meth had the least, the most
underpaid, the just out of school trainee who hadn't even heard
of the concept.
Is there an understanding in HHS of these two variables?
One is, is that this, the one type of phenomena tends to be a
rural phenomena often coming out of where there are national
forest areas or more rural places because of the smell of labs,
they hide out there.
And then the second, as the crystal meth comes in, you have
a different type of pressure, and that may become a more urban
pressure although some of the rural areas may pick it up. Is
there that type of sophistication and analysis internally?
And then, second, the strategy suggested that there was a
difference of opinion suggesting that meth treatment does work,
which there are a lot of conflicting opinions on how and how
well. But what are you doing to overcome that and to target it?
Are you saying that the same treatment programs work for meth
that work elsewhere? Are they particular treatment programs
with variations? And could you address some of those type of
questions?
Dr. Young. I did not. I would imagine that Mr. Curry gave
you a response to that as well.
The whole problem of health care delivery and substance
abuse treatment as a subset of health care delivery in rural
areas is an extremely difficult one. It is one both of
resources, as you point out, and how to get resources in
adequate amounts, but it is also manpower and skilled people,
which you pointed out. You can attempt to deal with some of
that through other kind of social programs, transportation
support, but that has limited value as well.
So I think, yes, there is a realization about that in the
Department. That realization goes far beyond simply
methamphetamines to other drugs but to other health care
services in rural areas, very different set of problems than in
the inner city, although the inner city has problems as well.
They are just a very different kind. So, yes, I think we are
aware of it.
On the issue of treatment, it is very clear treatment does
work. Treatment is very difficult. It is very difficult for any
substance abuse problem, and that includes methamphetamines.
But when one looks at treatment one also has to look at
treatment in the context of the individual, the family, their
life-style, where they live. If you treat an individual and
they go back to the environment that they were living in prior
to treatment, their chance of recidivism is much greater. This
has to be an integrated approach.
As I mentioned in my testimony, the problem that ACF is
dealing with and families, this is a family problem, an
individual problem, a medical problem, a social problem. It has
to all be approached together. It cannot be approached from a
single facet.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. I want to pick up where we left off there.
One of the things about meth is that it has a very traumatic
direct effect upon families and particularly children. Can you
tell me about any new programs coming up that will help these
children?
Let me tell you where I am going. I have lived long enough
and seen enough in Baltimore to now see generational cycles of
drug use. As a lawyer prior to coming to Congress, I had an
opportunity to represent the children and sometimes the
grandchildren of people that I represented when I first came to
practice with regard to drug crime. So you see these
generational cycles. So I am wondering what are we doing to try
to stop--and any of you who have anything else to add, I am
curious--to stop the generational cycles of this continuing to
go on.
Dr. Young. Your question is direct to the prevention side
or to the treatment side or both?
Mr. Cummings. You can talk about--I am talking about when
these kids are found in these houses, these labs, there are a
lot of issues; foster care problems arise. As we have traveled
across the country, so many local officials have said that we
have been overburdened with regard to kid issues.
I am just wondering--you can talk about it any kind of way
you want. I am trying to figure out--we have a major agency
here that deals with health; and I am just wondering exactly
what you all are doing about it, if anything.
Dr. Young. There are various parts of the Department, but
in the issue of the children it would be the Agency for
Children and Families that are involved. Part of what we are
doing is making sure we are coordinating across the new
research, the research which is showing more treatment patterns
and what works best with the service delivery. So one is the
integration and the coordination and the sharing of information
from those people who are doing research on what works, whether
it is prevention or treatment, and those that are running the
programs. Much of that is done with grants or it can be done
through the access to recovery program.
There will be different approaches taken in different
communities. There is no one single one way to do it or one
single program to do it. So there is discretion given to the
communities in how they carry out the individual prevention or
treatment programs and education. But under all circumstances,
though, we do everything we can to bring the newest state of
the knowledge to those folks.
Mr. Cummings. Mr. Burns, I want to go to the Synthetic Drug
Control Strategy.
Dr. Young, by the way, I will get back to you. I think I
want a little bit more information. Perhaps you can do it in
writing, but I was not satisfied with your answer. But let's go
on. We have a limited amount of time.
Can you explain to me, Mr. Burns, exactly--and I know we
are going to be talking later at another hearing about
treatment, but help me understand how only three and a half
pages of the Synthetic Drug Control Strategy was devoted to
prevention and treatment. What happened?
Mr. Burns. Well, Mr. Cummings, the strategy is balanced.
There are no monumental breakthroughs with respect to treatment
protocol.
I think one of the things that we all agree upon now, you
mentioned in your opening statement that people suffering from
the disease of addiction to methamphetamines can be treated.
There are successes every day across the country. The intent of
the strategy was not to equal the pages so that 11 pages were
for treatment and prevention, 11 for supply reduction. It was a
strategy that is comprehensive with respect to what we are
facing today.
And in that respect let me say this----
Mr. Cummings. Since we have all this balance here, why
don't you just specifically tell me what the prevention and
treatment strategies are? Go ahead. I am listening.
You said--I said three and a half pages. You said, well,
those three and a half pages out of 80 something is balanced.
Fine. Tell me what they are. What do we have new here?
The people who are looking at this right now who are
sitting in their rural homes and the mayors and city council
people are trying to figure out, to have some hope that they
can deal with a problem that is devastating their communities,
and I have one of the top drug people in the Nation, just a
wonderful expert, and they are looking to hear from your lips.
They want to get past the three and a half pages. So let's talk
about the balance. Talk to me.
Mr. Burns. The response would be a $12.7 billion request
from this President and this administration, which is $80
million more than Congress enacted last year. So that is a
start.
The second thing I would say----
Mr. Souder. On meth?
Mr. Burns. Overall Federal drug control budget. We have to
start somewhere. We have to start with the premise that the
commitment from this administration against illicit drug use in
this country is larger than it has ever been. With respect to
treatment, some $4.5 billion requested by the President in
2007.
Let me address the question about mayors and people sitting
in cities. This administration and the Director of the Office
of National Drug Control Policy for 2 years now has sent me and
other deputies and a large amount of staff to 25 plus major
cities in this country, including Baltimore, including
Sacramento, including Indianapolis; and we have sat down with
mayors and chiefs of staffs and police chiefs and treatment and
prevention folks. We have talked about, do you have community
coalitions? Do you have drug courts? What is happening with
Byrne grant money? Is there a balance in your particular city?
For the first time, we have had a national discussion about
how Federal, State and local moneys are applied against a
threat in a particular city.
Mr. Cummings. Let's put a pin right in that. When you meet
with all these wonderful elected officials and community
people, do they tell you that the HIDTA and COPS grants should
be reduced, the elimination of the Byrne grants? I mean, did
they tell you that?
Mr. Burns. I didn't hear that.
Mr. Cummings. You didn't hear that.
Mr. Burns. They did not tell us that they were in favor of
reducing Byrne grants or HIDTA.
Mr. Cummings. Did you ask them how they felt about it?
These are the people who are the front line. These are the
people that we have to face. These are the people who are
suffering and trying to keep their communities together.
And I applaud you. I really do. I think it is wonderful
that you went to the 25 areas. I think that is great. The
question is, it is not the visit. It is what is happening
during the visit and what kind of interaction there is.
Because, as the chairman has said, there are people who are
crying out, and they are asking us to do something, and we are
trying to get things done. We want to use the taxpayers'
dollars effectively and efficiently.
You are telling me you are doing these wonderful tours, but
I am wondering, No. 1, are you presenting to them--saying to
them this is what we are proposing to do and this is why we
think it is going to work. Then I want to know what they are
saying back to you, and I can guess the reason why you are not
hearing this is because a lot of them are very much opposed to
this stuff.
Mr. Burns. Let me tell you one thing that they are all
saying----
Mr. Cummings. Let me ask you one more question. Then I want
to hear your answer. It is one thing for us to--for all of us
to sit in nice offices and whatever and feel real good about
what we are doing, read nice reports and put them on the shelf
or whatever. It is another thing for that person who is out
there dealing with this every day.
Some of the testimony that we heard, as a matter of fact in
Congressman Souder's district, if I remember correctly, it was
just so alarming and the struggles these people are having. I
just want to know, how do we take your efforts out there, going
out and doing your tour, and combine them and bring back
something to your agency and the President so that we can be
presented with something that is more reflective of what we are
hearing, so that we can do for folks who are on the front line.
I am not talking about somebody in an ivory tower. I am talking
about somebody who is dealing with this every day. Help me with
that.
Mr. Burns. You are looking at the face of the
administration of a person that deals with this every day. I
don't sit in a nice office. I just spent the last few days in
Chicago meeting with people from all over the country dealing
with fentanyl. I've been to the chairman's district twice. We
talked about drug-endangered children.
Mr. Cummings. Then why are we----
Mr. Burns. Let me just finish. I met with his prosecutor
and the treatment officials, and we came up with a strategy for
that particular part of the country. And I do it every day from
California to Maine, Congressman--that is what the Office of
National Drug Control Policy does--to bring forth a balanced
strategy of prevention, treatment and law enforcement.
We may disagree on the numbers, we may disagree on the
outcomes, but I can tell you in a lot of cities what they say
is, thank God, there has been a 19.1 percent reduction in drug
use among our young people. Thank God that methamphetamine use,
as measured by the tool that we have used for a long time,
shows a 30 percent plus reduction in methamphetamines among
8th, 10th and 12th graders.
Is there more work to do? Absolutely.
Mr. Cummings. Did they say thank you for trying to cut our
HIDTA program and to cut our COPS program? Did they say thank
you for that, too?
Mr. Burns. I think I answered that.
Mr. Cummings. The answer is, no, is that right?
Mr. Burns. That's correct.
Mr. Souder. My frustration--and I'm sorry Mr. Burns--I want
to say Scott, but Mr. Burns, officially--I really appreciate
that you came to my district. When you say we came up with a
strategy, that is not the way local law enforcement would view
what would happen in my district. They were already working on
it. They don't view that ONDCP or that the meetings we held,
which were good, came up with a strategy for meth. That was a
slight overexaggeration of the meetings that we held.
And, second, when Mr. Cummings asked you what you were
proposing to do on meth treatment, you didn't say anything. You
had no answer. You filibustered for a while, but you had no
answer.
I think a better representation of what ONDCP's position
has been--not necessarily yours personally--was to say we don't
like to do strategies on specific drugs which you had in the
official testimony and because of that, it is very hard to
answer.
In a couple of weeks, we will be holding a hearing in
Montana. I venture to say that I will be able to ask every
single witness a question like Mr. Cummings just said, what are
you doing on treatment, and they will give a specific answer.
There a businessman went in to Montana who wasn't from Montana.
We're trying to figure out what impact it's had and all those
type of questions.
But bottom line is they're going to give specifics. They're
going to say, we put money in an ad campaign, we did this on
treatment, we're doing this in the schools, we're having kids
do pledges, this is our meth strategy. That is what we are
looking for here, not some compilation of what Congress has
passed and what State and locals are going to do, which, by the
way, the administration proposed to cut, and that is part of
our frustration.
Mr. Burns. Can I respond to that briefly? Because you
brought up the National Youth Media Campaign a couple of times.
Director Walters launched methamphetamine ads. As you know,
they are targeted toward 23 major markets in this country. I
think that the dialog that you and other members of this
subcommittee had with Director Walters has been positive, and
those ads are going forward today.
Mr. Souder. What was the total amount?
Mr. Burns. The amount of the money? I do not know.
Mr. Souder. I think it is less than 5 percent.
I also know that Congressman Wolf designated that in an
appropriations bill. It was not something that was necessarily
voluntarily done, in that it was opposed when he designated it.
That is part of our frustration, that when Congress takes
an action and then the administration does the minimalist
strategy with it and then claims like it is a big meth
initiative, we are not very impressed.
Mr. Burns. Can I just say, as you know, Mr. Chairman, the
National Youth Media Campaign is directed toward young people,
12 to 17 years old. Methamphetamine, the initiation age is 22.
That's been part of the discussion that we have had with
respect to how the media campaign is focused and directed. Our
intent is to prevent young people from ever starting. We know
if we can get a kid to 18 or 20 there is a 98 percent chance
they will never be addicted to any drug. That's the policy and
that's the strategy.
Mr. Souder. Ms. Watson.
Ms. Watson. From my own experience in Sacramento, I looked
for years for a program; and I think you just hit the real
concern, is that possibly there was something for teenagers but
this niece of mine died at age 22. I could not find a program
that would take her.
Dr. Young said that you cannot put them back into the same
community, to the same household where the problem existed. So
you want to have somewhere, maybe a transition, after they got
out of the hospital. And she was hospitalized almost every
other month. After she got out of the hospital, she had to come
back home. The hospital would release her, put her in a taxi
cab and put her on her mother's doorstep.
I would go from Washington, DC, to Sacramento. I represent
Los Angeles. I live in Los Angeles, but I was involved as often
as I could be.
What is missing out in the community are programs, halfway
houses, places where a person who has just been emancipated, 18
years old but still young, can go for treatment and care and
being taken out of the community. I want you to know in the
Sacramento area meth is readily available. They bring it to
you. You do not have to go to them. They bring it to you.
What I tried to do was to get her in a place. There were
none. I had to get her in something called Teen Challenge. She
was to go in on that Monday. She died Monday morning at 7:13
a.m. at age 22. I could not even get the hospitals to
understand what we needed. They say, she's been here and there
is nothing else we can do. Send her home. The last thing she
said to me, 2 weeks before she died, Aunt Diane, I need help. I
couldn't find the program. Teen Challenge, they take them up to
24, thank God. So I thought I could get her in there for 2
years at least. But there really aren't programs.
My question is, is there a way--and I have been reading
through your report, and I appreciate the statistics that I
find in here. But is there some way we can learn about programs
in our local community that will take young people who have
been emancipated, 18 and beyond?
We can go to the schools, and we can talk about it, but
there really are not any real effective programs of prevention
in schools. Because the health programs are the ones that are--
usually have very low attendance, and we cut down on the staff
and the faculty that would be providing the information. So
what we need are community based kinds of walk-in programs if
we are really going to do the job, because I think all the
literature shows that meth use is done in the suburbs and the
rural areas.
So I would like to see if you go to Sacramento, if you go
to other parts of the country and you've talked to the medical
community, law enforcement community, social services
community, programs that they provide that we can put people in
who are in great need but might not have the resources
personally to deal with their problem. That would be very, very
helpful. Then I think we could really feel the outreach.
I think it is out of control in the Sacramento area. I do
not necessarily have that problem in my district. I have a
crack cocaine problem in the central Los Angeles district, but
methamphetamines, the use attacks the vital organs and will
result in death. How can we stop it? What programs are
available? Can you get information?
You can start with me with the Sacramento area. At least I
can help somebody else in that area where I lived for 20 years,
help families and so on. So if you could provide that
information, what programs are available and what is the
criteria for eligibility for those programs and what are the
age spans, that would be very helpful to us. And I am sure in
Baltimore it would be helpful and Chicago and other areas where
the problem is increasing--not decreasing, increasing.
Mr. Burns. Let me just say this, and part of the challenge
that we face nationally--if we have 19.1 million people using
illegal drugs, we know about 7 million meet the definition of
clinical addiction and about 2 million are currently in
treatment. Part of the challenge we face nationally is getting
the 5 million that are addicted to, No. 1, understand that they
have a problem, because they don't think they do; and, No. 2,
once that realization comes about, whether it is a crash of an
automobile or an arrest at a nightclub when somebody is charged
with a criminal offense, is then getting them into treatment.
I am sorry for your loss, and I mean that sincerely.
Ms. Watson. Let me just interrupt you, because I have
another committee I must go to, but we understand all of that.
I am a former school psychologist in my other life. I
understand that. Where can we go and get the kind of
treatment--a person between these ages 18 and, say, 35, where
can we go? What is available? Is there a directory? How do we
access that information? How do we make the connection?
I could have called and said to her mother, take her here.
I got to the social worker, and they looked all over the
country, and there was nothing, there was nothing.
So your going to Sacramento, I don't know what it resulted
in, but I can tell you what--and this is just recently. She
died May 29th. You see, there was nothing except Teen
Challenge, and they stretched it to let me get her in there.
Mr. Burns. Well, I will provide for you the information
with respect to treatment that is available in Sacramento area.
Ms. Watson. That's what I need.
Mr. Burns. I just wanted to finish my point. One of the
things that we have funded and the national drug control policy
is doing--and I give this to you by way of example following my
last point of getting people into treatment--is funding what's
called a screening or brief intervention program. We have
professionals in emergency rooms and in division of family
services offices trying to identify those people that are
suffering from addiction and then get them into treatment. So
there is a national effort to help those that are undergoing
this condition.
Ms. Watson. Can you supply--and I know I have been very
personal with this, but I am sure my colleagues have the same
needs, because in our offices walks every kind of issue
imaginable. Is there a directory that is being developed that
will put it in categories where people can go, numbers to call?
Because I went to social services in the county, and I
could not find anything. So I went to a private organization,
and that is where I found Teen Challenge. So if you could
supply--and you might want to work on it nationally, wherever,
you know, we have programs under the control of your program
and Department. If you could supply it to all of us it would be
a tremendous help. We will do the leg work, don't mind doing
that, but we need to know on the other end of that there are
those resources.
Mr. Burns. Thank you.
Ms. Watson. Thank you.
Mr. Souder. We are going to be voting shortly, but I wanted
to ask Dr. Young one question. We may have some additional
written questions from each of us as well.
But we had contacted FDA about what you were doing on
pseudoephedrine and precursor chemicals some time ago and then
received a letter back saying that was DEA that is in charge of
that. But in your testimony you stated that FDA was co-chair
with DEA. You said foreign pseudoephedrine co-chaired by FDA
and DOJ; online diversion co-chaired by FDA and DEA. When we
contacted you, you said, oh, we're not involved in this. This
is DEA. What are you doing in those areas?
Dr. Young. I will have to get back to you with more
information for the record. So I will gather that together and
get back to you for the record.
Mr. Souder. OK, I would appreciate that. Because we have
this outstanding letter from a couple of months ago, and we
just heard back before the hearing that we don't do that. But
your testimony says you do, and we would like that reconciled.
Dr. Young. I will get back to you, sir.
Mr. Souder. Thank you very much.
I want to thank each of you for what I know is hard work. I
know the Department of Homeland Security will be continuing to
track in your position as we see this become more and more of a
border issue and an issue related to how it is getting into the
United States. Your agency is going to be critical with that.
As we watch this move on line, I am sure a lot of the
follow through, it is going to move and methamphetamine is
going to start to behave like crack, marijuana, heroin and
other types of drugs as it moves into these underground
networks, and we will be working with you over time.
The treatment question is coming up in another hearing; and
we will continue to work with Director Curry as well as you,
Dr. Young. I look forward to your work.
Mr. Burns, continue to go out and talk with the State and
locals. We hope the administration will hear a little bit more
of what they are saying, particularly in the budget request.
With that, we will dismiss each of you. Thank you for
coming.
Could the second panel come forward?
The second panel is the Honorable Eric Coleman, Oakland
County commissioner in Michigan, a Detroit suburb, representing
the National Association of Counties; Dr. Lewis Gallant,
executive director, National Association of State Alcohol and
Drug Abuse Directors; Ms. Sherry Green, the executive director
of the National Alliance for Model State Drug Laws; Ms. Sue
Thau, public policy consultant for the Community Anti-Drug
Coalition of America; and Mr. Ron Brooks, president of the
National Narcotics Officers' Associations' Coalition; director,
Northern California Division HIDTA.
As an oversight committee, it is our standard practice to
swear in all witnesses.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Souder. Let the record show that each of the witnesses
responded in the affirmative.
We thank you for coming; and, Mr. Coleman, we will start
with you.
STATEMENTS OF ERIC COLEMAN, OAKLAND COUNTY COMMISSIONER,
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF COUNTIES; LEWIS E. GALLANT, EXECUTIVE
DIRECTOR, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF STATE ALCOHOL AND DRUG ABUSE
DIRECTORS; SHERRY GREEN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL ALLIANCE
FOR MODEL STATE DRUG LAWS; SUE THAU, PUBLIC POLICY CONSULTANT,
COMMUNITY ANTI-DRUG COALITIONS OF AMERICA; AND RON BROOKS,
PRESIDENT, NATIONAL NARCOTICS OFFICERS' ASSOCIATIONS'
COALITION, DIRECTOR, NORTHERN CALIFORNIA HIDTA
STATEMENT OF ERIC COLEMAN
Mr. Coleman. Thank you, Chairman Souder, for allowing me to
appear this morning on behalf of the National Association of
Counties on this critical issue of methamphetamine abuse and
the recent release of the Synthetic Drug Control Strategy.
My name is Eric Coleman, and I am a county commissioner
from Oakland County, MI. In addition, I am currently serving as
first vice president of the National Association of Counties.
The National Association of Counties [NACo], is the only
organization that represents county government. With over 2,000
member counties we represent 85 percent of the Nation's
population.
Abuse of a methamphetamine or meth is a growing issue for
counties across the Nation. It is consuming a greater share of
county resources because of its devastating and addictive
nature.
In response to the administration's new Synthetic Drug
Control Strategy, I would like to make two key points.
First, NACo commends the administration for now recognizing
the dangerous threat posed by methamphetamines and developing a
synthetic drug strategy to deal with this threat. However, NACo
believes that the State and local government and law
enforcement should have been consulted during the development
of this strategy.
Second, NACo hopes that this strategy will translate into
future budget requests for programs that are critical to fight
methamphetamine abuse such as the Justice Assessment Grant
program and the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program.
To illustrate the severity of the meth crises, NACo
commissioned four surveys on the impact to county governments.
Very briefly, our results have found that meth is the top drug
threat facing county sheriff departments, that meth is leading
to the alarming number of child out-of-home placements, that
meth is the top drug seen at emergency rooms, and that the need
for meth treatment is growing. These statistics confirm that
meth is a national crisis that requires national leadership and
a comprehensive strategy to fight this epidemic.
Consequently, we would like to commend the administration
for recognizing the challenges of the meth crisis and putting
forth a plan. However, a major weakness in this strategy is a
lack of input from State and local governments and law
enforcement. We hope that this disregard for State and local
stakeholders can be remedied by the four inclusive meth summits
that are planned for 2006.
If we had been consulted, NACo would have told the
administration that their timeline to address the environmental
dangers of meth production and use is unacceptable. The
administration's plan to release voluntary clean-up standards
in January 2011, is far too late. NACo has been a champion of
the House-passed Meth Remediation Act and hopes that the Senate
will pass the bill soon. These guidelines are desperately
needed to provide direction to State and local governments and
property owners on how to clean up a former meth lab.
Additionally, the strategy fails to mention the Substance
Abuse Prevention and Treatment Block Grant, which amounts to
about 40 percent of the total public funds spent on drug abuse
prevention and treatment. NACo urges Congress to increase
funding for this important program.
In contrast, NACo views administration's commitment to
tightened control on the distribution of bulk pseudoephedrine
on the international level as a positive. As a proponent to the
Combat Meth Epidemic Act, which you sponsored, Mr. Chairman, we
applaud their players who fully implement the legislation.
Also, NACo supports the development and training of additional
Drug Endangered Children teams. These teams play a vital role
in responding to the needs of children affected by meth.
For this strategy to be an effective tool, the
administration must commit additional resources to meth-related
programs such as local enforcement, treatment and prevention.
Programs such as JAG and HIDTA are critical to the local law
enforcement's ability to tackle the meth crises. They have
proven to be effective, and we urge Congress to reject the
administration's budget proposal on these programs. Without a
change in future budget requests for meth-related programs,
this strategy will be nothing more than a government document
sitting on a shelf.
In conclusion, I would like to thank you for the
opportunity to appear before you today on behalf of NACo. We
will be conducting further surveys on meth abuse and look
forward to reporting our findings and working with you in
resolving the meth crisis in this country. Thank you, and I
will be happy to answer any questions you might have.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Coleman follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Dr. Gallant, it is good to have you back.
STATEMENT OF LEWIS E. GALLANT
Mr. Gallant. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Souder, Ranking Member Cummings, and Congresswoman
Watson, I am Dr. Lewis Gallant, executive director of the
National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors
[NASADAD]. Thank you for your leadership and seeking input
regarding the Synthetic Drug Control Strategy.
NASADAD members have the front-line responsibility of
managing our Nation's publicly funded substance abuse system.
NASADAD's mission is to promote an effective and efficient
substance abuse system.
The Association's No. 1 message is this: People suffering
from methamphetamine addiction, just like those suffering from
addiction to other substances of abuse, can recover and do
recover. This message of hope, grounded in science, proven
through data and illustrated every day by countless Americans
living in recovery serves as a linchpin of our work.
Turning to the Synthetic Drug Control Strategy, the
Association agrees with the administration's assessment that a
comprehensive approach is needed in order to achieve success
and that the manifestation of the synthetic drug problem in one
State may be very different from that in another State. I offer
to the committee five core recommendations: First, coordinate
and collaborate with single State Authorities for Substance
Abuse [SSAs]. The job of each SSA is to plan, implement and
evaluate a comprehensive system of care.
As a former State substance abuse director of Virginia, I
know firsthand the benefits of promoting interagency
coordination. From public safety to child care, transportation
to employment, State addiction agencies need to be at the table
when initiatives are developed and implemented.
Second, expand access to treatment and treatment
infrastructure. The No. 1 priority for NASADAD is the Substance
Abuse Prevention and Treatment Block Grant, the foundation of
our treatment system and a program not mentioned in the
Synthetic Drug Control Strategy. Sample data from three States
demonstrate the following for block grant support service for
methamphetamine addiction: In Colorado, 80 percent of the
methamphetamine users were abstinent at discharge in fiscal
year 2003. A 2003 study found that 71.2 percent of
methamphetamine users were abstinent 6 months after treatment,
and in Tennessee over 65 percent of methamphetamine users were
abstinent 6 months after treatment.
NASADAD is aware of this committee's interest in improved
data reporting. The Association is partnering with SAMHSA to
make excellent progress in implementing the National Outcome
Measures [NOMs], initiative. NOMs is designed to improve our
system by emphasizing performance and accountability through
data reporting on core sets of measures from all States, across
all SAMHSA grants, including the SAPT Block Grant.
Moving on to No. 3, enhanced prevention services and
infrastructure. Once again, the SAPT Block Grant is vital,
dedicating 20 percent of its funding, or $351 million, to
support important prevention services that help keep our kids
drug free.
The Association strongly supports SAMHSA's Strategic
Prevention Framework State Incentive Grants. However, we remain
concerned with the administration's proposed cut of $11 million
to the framework and extremely concerned with the proposal to
eliminate altogether the Safe and Drug Free Schools State Grant
Program.
No. 4, solid support for research is vital, especially at
the National Institute on Drug Abuse, so that we may build on
the Institute's impressive portfolio.
No. 5, enhance tools to share knowledge and best practices.
The Addiction Technology Transfer Centers [ATTCs], and the
Centers for the Application of Prevention Technologies [CAPTs],
are regional centers funded by SAMHSA that help train our work
force through distance learning and other mechanisms and share
best practices to help ensure that we are implementing
effective programs backed by the latest science.
I have run out of time, but let me say that States across
the country are moving forward to implement cutting-edge
initiatives. We look forward to working with all stakeholders
to continue the momentum and improve our collective work on
methamphetamine and prescription drug abuse. I welcome any
questions you might have.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Gallant follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Ms. Green.
STATEMENT OF SHERRY GREEN
Ms. Green. Chairman Souder, Ranking Member Cummings,
Congresswoman Watson and staff, my name is Sherry Green, and I
want to thank you very much for this opportunity on behalf of
the National Alliance for Model State Drug Laws to testify
regarding the recently released Synthetic Drug Control Strategy
plan.
I also want to take a few moments to thank Members of
Congress, particularly this committee, for your strong role in
working with State and locals on addressing synthetic drug
issues.
As you may know, my organization works with States to
strengthen their drug and alcohol laws to create a more
comprehensive, coordinated and efficient continuum of drug and
alcohol services throughout the State. We work with State and
local professionals on over 40 different drug and alcohol
issues. Over the last 2 years, the overwhelming majority of
requests that we have received for legislative and policy
assistance are unquestionably on the issues of methamphetamine
and prescription and drug addiction and diversion issues as
well.
Based on our legislative and policy work I offer the
following comments on the strategy: We do appreciate the fact
that the strategy actually recognizes the leadership role of
States in enacting measures to reduce and restrict over-the-
counter purchases and sales of pseudoephedrine products.
Despite this recognition, however, I see no description of an
ongoing mechanism to gather the valuable input of these
recognized leaders. So, apparently, under this strategy, it is
OK for State and local leaders to play a strong leadership role
when that means doing the hard work of creating and
implementing solutions to drug and alcohol problems, but it
does not mean that they should take a strong leadership role in
developing a national strategy.
Moreover, these recognized State and local leaders had to
accomplish their gains in over-the-counter restrictions without
the benefit of any comprehensive national and compiled data on
methamphetamine, including the cost related to methamphetamines
laboratories.
State and locals have repeatedly requested the need and
expressed the need for a national mechanism which would collect
available methamphetamine information, organize it in a cogent
manner, indicate the policy implications of that particular
information and disseminate the information to State
legislatures and other policymakers in a timely manner so they
can use the information to make informed, educated decisions.
Nothing in the strategy suggests a response to this need for
comprehensive, coordinated data at a national level.
Despite our great disappointment over this obvious gap, we
are somewhat encouraged the strategy at least mentions
treatment and prevention. However, the strategy right up front
admits there is a common misperception about the fact that
methamphetamine addiction can be treated. Based on our
experience, the very people who hold that misperception are
State legislators and other policymakers who are charged with
making funding, policy and programmatic decisions. But I see
nothing in the strategy that offers proactive options for
actually correcting this perception.
From our experience, the failure to actually aggressively
address this gap in knowledge leads to a further misperception
that there is no current understanding of what works in terms
of treating methamphetamine addiction. So we have found in our
work certain State and local policymakers who are actually more
inclined to try to put scarce resources in their State toward
researching what we already know, rather than providing direct
services.
So it is our sincere hope that our Federal colleagues will
actually try to address these gaps that I have mentioned; and I
would tell you that it is also our overall hope that, in terms
of any strategy that the Federal Government puts together on
synthetic drugs, that it becomes more than just 63 or 53 pages
of lip service. We are not going to know if we are actually
going to actualize that hope until we actually see a
demonstrated commitment to turning those principles and ideas
into action plans.
In closing, I would just like to thank my colleagues on the
panel for their generosity and their hard work at the State and
local level, because they have allowed us to coordinate with
them so that our work can actually reflect the valuable
experience and expertise of their constituents. And of course
at the appropriate time I am more than happy to answer any
questions that you might have. Thank you.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Green follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Ms. Thau.
STATEMENT OF SUE THAU
Ms. Thau. Chairman Souder, Ranking Member Cummings,
Congresswoman Watson, thank you for the opportunity to testify
today on behalf of the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of
America and our more than 5,000 coalition members nationwide. I
am pleased to provide you with CADCA's perspective on the
Synthetic Drug Control Strategy.
During my tenure as an OMB Budget Examiner, I analyzed many
proposed national strategies. I know firsthand that the ones
with the most impact had sufficient budgetary and other
resources allocated to them to ensure they achieved results.
The Synthetic Drug Control Strategy seems comprehensive.
However, it simply repackages the administration's existing
budget priorities. The Strategy ignores key programs that
provide the majority of the community infrastructure and core
support to local law enforcement prevention and treatment
efforts to deal with meth where it has emerged as a crisis.
Prevention is the first line of defense in protecting
communities from drug abuse, and it is not a one-size-fits-all
proposition. It hinges on the extent to which schools, parents,
law enforcement, business and the faith community work
comprehensively to implement a full array of education,
prevention, enforcement and treatment initiatives.
Unfortunately, the prevention portion of the strategy is
very weak and only highlights three programs. It totally
ignores two of the main Federal programs that have been
addressing meth, the Drug Free Communities program and the
State grants portion of the Safe and Drug Free Schools program.
These programs are vitally important because they fund
community and school-based prevention infrastructures that can
immediately incorporate meth components where meth is a
problem.
We know people do not usually start their drug-using
careers with meth, because, as we mentioned before, the mean
age at which people initiate meth use is 22. The epidemiology
of drug use indicates that use trends often spread to
adolescents. So although meth is not currently a major issue
among most school-aged youth, it certainly could become one. In
fact, in many communities where meth is a crisis, use rates for
school-aged youth are way above State and national averages.
The prevention lesson to be learned from meth use, given
its relatively late onset, is that the more successful we are
at general drug prevention, the less we will have to deal with
meth use and addiction.
CADCA knows from its members that this is already
happening. Coalitions know what their local drug problems are
and take the necessary steps across community sectors to
counteract them. The strategy itself points out that States and
cities must be organized to recognize and deal with meth, yet
it totally fails to mention the Drug Free Communities program
which has been very successful in addressing meth issues.
Communities with existing anti-drug coalitions can identify and
combat meth problems quickly and before they attain crisis
proportion.
Coalitions throughout the country have effectively
responded to the meth crises and have seen reductions in its
use. For example, the Salida Build a Generation coalition in
Salida, CO, used local school survey data to ascertain that
meth was a problem in their community. When compared to
Monitoring the Future data for the same time period, their
community's rate of lifetime meth use for 10th graders was 61.9
percent above the national rate. As a result of implementing a
multi-sector approach, the Salida coalition has contributed to
a 59 percent reduction in meth use among 10th graders, from
13.9 percent in 2004 to 5.7 percent in 2006.
School-based prevention should also be a vital component of
any comprehensive strategy to deal with meth. Where meth is
identified as an issue, schools have incorporated meth
education into their existing evidence-based programs. The Safe
and Drug Free Schools and Communities program has contributed
to significant reductions in meth use among school-aged youth
in many States hit by the meth epidemic.
For example, in Idaho, the Safe and Drug Free School
program contributed to a decrease of 51.9 percent in lifetime
meth use among 12th graders, from 10.4 percent in 1996 to 5
percent in 2004.
In addition, the 20 percent Governor's setaside for this
program has been used to address meth. For example, Washington
State has used their setaside to develop meth action teams in
every county in the State.
Communities and schools must have effective prevention
infrastructures in place to be able to address meth and
prescription drug abuse. Media campaigns and student drug
testing are beneficial but not sufficient to provide the stable
and effective community wide prevention systems required to
implement data-driven programs and strategies to deal with all
of the community's drug issues, including meth.
As my testimony has shown, communities with these
capabilities have actually beaten back their meth problems
among school-age youth before they reach crisis proportions.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify. I would be happy
to answer any questions you may have.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Thau follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Mr. Brooks.
STATEMENT OF RON BROOKS
Mr. Brooks. Chairman Souder, Ranking Member Cummings,
Congresswoman Watson, thank you for inviting me to discuss the
Synthetic Drug Control Strategy. This strategy is a welcome
development from the administration, but, on behalf of the
62,000 law enforcement officers I represent as the president of
the National Narcotic Officers' Associations' Coalition I have
concerns about serious shortcomings which may put the laudable
goals of this strategy in jeopardy.
The strategy is an important first step, but why did it
take so long for ONDCP to prepare it? Why weren't more partners
consulted in its development? The strategy is not supported by
original and meaningful recommendations for action. Without
action and, more importantly, without buy-in from key
stakeholders, the Synthetic Drug Control Strategy is in danger
of becoming irrelevant before it has a chance to succeed.
In 1995, California was inundated with meth. After I
alerted DEA and ONDCP leadership, they convened a series of
stakeholder meetings that resulted in the first methamphetamine
strategy by the Department of Justice. Collaboration continued
and progress was being made on the West Coast, but meth was
slowly creeping eastward. As meth began to overrun the Midwest
and Appalachia, by 2001 collaboration with ONDCP began to wane.
By 2004, groups across the country were calling for help from
Congress; and Congress responded to their constituents by
drafting the Combat Meth Act, which passed earlier this year.
While the NNOAC and other key stakeholders worked closely
with Congress to refine and pass this legislation, ONDCP was
absent. I personally heard complaints from staff that they
could not get assistance from ONDCP despite repeated attempts
to obtain their support.
Attorney General Gonzales broke the administration's
silence on meth on July 18, 2005, when he said, in terms of
damage to children and to our society, meth is now the most
dangerous drug in America.
Shortly thereafter, an ONDCP spokesperson wrote off the
focus on meth by saying that people are crying meth because it
is a hot new drug.
Of course people were crying meth. But those of us in law
enforcement, treatment and prevention knew that we were facing
a problem that was growing worse by the day. Cops, doctors,
treatment providers, DAs, child protective agencies and
community coalitions were being overwhelmed by meth problems in
many parts of our Nation. They weren't crying meth just to make
noise. They were asking for help. ONDCP not only ignored them,
they even tried to tell them that they didn't really have a
problem.
This is inexcusable, Mr. Chairman; and this Synthetic Drug
Control Strategy continues to reflect ONDCP's disregard for the
experience and perspective of the experts on the ground.
If the NNOAC had been consulted by ONDCP, we would have
made the following recommendations: Support law enforcement
task forces that have seized thousands of meth labs by fully
funding the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant program at the
currently authorized $1.1 billion level.
Fund the COPS Methamphetamines Hot Spot program, which has
provided resources to hard-hit areas to train, equip and
mobilize law enforcement resources to address the meth issues.
Call on Congress to authorize the Center for Task Force
Training at the Bureau of Justice Assistance, which provides
much-needed training for drug task force commanders and meth
investigators.
Ensure that the OCDETF Fusion Center is coordinated with
Regional Information Sharing Systems and the HIDTA Intel
Centers and ensure that the OCDETF Fusion Center follows the
guidelines of the National Criminal Intelligence Sharing Plan
which was implemented by the Department of Justice.
State and local drug task forces funded through Byrne were
responsible for seizing 5,400 meth labs in 2004 alone. How
effective is a strategy that establishes lab seizures as a goal
and then takes away funding from the Byrne-funded task forces
that make a large percentage of those seizures? Less law
enforcement equals fewer labs seized. That is not success. That
is surrender.
The strategy states that the administration will continue
to partner with State, county, tribal and city governments over
the next 3 years to attack the illicit use of methamphetamine.
Yet the administration has proposed in the past 2 years to
disengage from State and local partnerships by recommending
termination of key assistance and training programs such as
Byrne, JAG, COPS Hot Spots and the Center for Task Force
Training.
Paying lip service to the importance of Federal, State
local law enforcement partnerships without putting resources
and actions behind the words is a recipe for a failed Synthetic
Drug Control Strategy.
Mr. Chairman, I have always believed that treatment,
education and prevention hold the keys for reducing America's
drug problem. As long as drug traffickers ply their trade,
narcotics officers will be there to stop them. Clinically
appropriate treatment must be made available, but stopping use
before it starts should be our ultimate goal. The things I have
seen meth addicts do to themselves and others would make
members of this subcommittee cringe. Collectively, we must do
all we can to prevent first use, but the synthetic strategy
fails to address prevention in a comprehensive way.
Community Anti-Drug Coalitions are critical. Effective
school-based anti-drug curriculum is important. Aggressive
enforcement against drug producers and traffickers is
absolutely essential.
ONDCP has had an opportunity to really step up to the plate
by issuing a strategy. I am truly disappointed that it provides
little new strategic direction to address the meth problem. I
am hoping that, with the continued leadership of this
subcommittee, the strategy will be re-thought in a
collaborative environment with input from all of the key
constituents and that a new, more robust, well-thought-out
Synthetic Drug Control Strategy will be the result.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Brooks follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Well, when your panel starts out with the
Association of Counties saying ``had we been consulted'' and
finishes with the narcotics officer saying ``had we been
consulted,'' you are less impressed with the first panel's
assertion that you were consulted.
Let me ask a broad question, because I am kind of confused
that, in Mr. Burns' testimony, I felt it was very significant
that the administration says that they don't do strategies by
subgroups. In other words, we kind of have a general--I am
trying to figure out from a private business approach that--
normally, what you would have is a sweeping national strategy
of things that are in common. But I can't hardly imagine that
you wouldn't have a substrategy that would have either in two
different ways or different components that relate different
ways.
So, first, why wouldn't you have a cocaine strategy, a
heroin strategy, a prescription drug strategy, a meth strategy,
a marijuana strategy that would then take into account some
fundamental things that we are hearing here? For example,
cocaine is not everywhere, but it certainly is concentrated. It
is a major drug, and it tends to be more urban. Crack tends to
be historically younger, but I don't know. We have an
Intelligence Center that does a lot of this kind of stuff. But
heroin is a superhuge problem in some cities like Seattle
historically and less in others to varying degrees; and then we
had it pop up, as it did a few years ago, in Plano or Orlando
or different types of things. Oxycontin will pop up in
different areas. Why wouldn't you have then tailored strategies
that fit inside your national strategy as a regular course of
doing business?
Also, the HIDTAs on the law enforcement side were meant to
kind of be regionalized because some of these problems are
regional. So if meth pops up as a challenge you would have
HIDTAs that dealt with meth. I am kind of baffled by a
principle that says we don't break these out and then work in
subgroup.
Let me ask one followup with this. I made kind of a
derogatory comment about conferences. I am not against
conferences, and I just could not believe that was the primary
strategy.
On the other hand, Ms. Green, you outlined some of the--
what the purpose of these conferences were, which is hopefully
to get very specific on what is needed at the State level, what
is needed in coordination. Why wouldn't that be done before you
issued a strategy?
In other words, isn't that what you think you would do as
you approach cocaine, as you approach meth, as you approach
each of these types of things, that there would be regional
efforts to pull together the principles in wherever these are
problems? You would get them together and say what laws do we
have on this? What are you doing at the local level? What more
can be done at the Federal level? What funding sources do you
need? Why wouldn't you do what they are proposing to do after
they issue the strategy before you develop--as a process of
developing a strategy and why wouldn't you be doing this on
multiple drugs?
Ms. Watson. Mr. Chairman, would you yield for a minute to
ask a question. I will go on to the floor, and I will take it
in writing.
But in listening to this panel on the ground, those of you
who are on the ground, it occurs to me, is there an opportunity
to evaluate and assess the various programs that are being
described by the administration? Do they work? What are the
best practices?
I listened very intently to you, Ms. Green. I think you
came closer to my concerns.
And, Mr. Coleman, as heading up an organization in northern
California, I would like to hear from you as to what actually
is going on in various areas of our State, the largest in the
Union, and what is working.
Mr. Brooks, what do we need in terms of law enforcement,
what kinds of coordination? Because I join my colleagues--you
know, we sit here in Washington, and we come up with these
plans. We have a vision for where we want to go. But there
seems to be a disconnect when it gets down to the local
community, and I find my community void of the resources and
the programs. We work through our counties in California, and
they are not funded to the point they should be to address
these programs.
So, my general question, Mr. Chairman, is there some way to
evaluate the plans that are coming from the administration, the
HIDTA program and all these others so that we then can come
back and make decisions as it deals with appropriating funds to
some specific local community, their programs?
So I just throw that out. You can respond in writing. This
is who I am; and these are broad, general concerns that I have
about this whole synthetic drug control program.
Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. I am going to go on to the
floor.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
Ms. Green.
Ms. Green. Yes, Mr. Chairman.
The process that you described, if one were to use a
rational and logical process for determining what would be the
components of a particular strategy, you would follow the
particular process that you outlined. Because the purpose of
understanding the particular action plans and recommendations
and problems and concerns that are going on at the various
State and local level is to determine when you do a strategy
what it is that is common in terms of overall themes, what is
different, as you indicated. Because that difference can be
among drugs. It can be among counties. It can be in localities.
All of those would have to be taken into consideration.
Then what happens is all of that information helps you
determine what the overall themes are, and those become the
common principles of the overall strategy. Then you do in very
specific action steps and action plans lay out what needs to be
done to address the particular differences between the drugs,
the particular differences between systems. That would be the
rational process.
We have not actually been very successful in persuading
ONDCP that they should follow a particular rational process in
developing a strategy. We often do not have the opportunity,
because we have actually never been consulted in terms of the
national drug strategy at all.
Mr. Souder. But you do model State drug laws.
Ms. Green. We do model State drug laws; and part of our
process is actually to assess how these laws are working. Are
they working, are there similarities among the different kinds
of laws, are there different options that can have the same
theme but maybe vary based upon the needs of State?
Mr. Souder. Do States listen to you?
Ms. Green. Yes, actually, we work with, at any given time,
about 3 different States; and we work with all 50 States on
over 40 different drug and alcohol issues.
Mr. Cummings. Just very briefly, I want, first of all, to
thank all of you for your testimony. I think it was good that
you had an opportunity to sit in the audience and hear the
folks that came before you. I am also glad that you had an
opportunity to hear our frustration.
There was an amendment on the floor which said that ONDCP
should work with and collaborate with folks on the ground. That
is incredible. And we are going to continue to do what we can
because we realize--again, we are trying to figure out--I tell
people, you know, we do not have but so long to be on this
Earth, and we do not have time to waste time, and we do not
have time to waste money. And if you all are on the ground and
you are dealing with these kinds of things on a daily basis in
whatever arenas you may be in, it just makes sense to me that
this should not be an us and them. It should be all of us
working together to achieve these goals in some kind of way.
I just want to thank you all for your willingness to come
to the table, and now we just have to get the other folks to
come to the table so that we can achieve the things that we
need to achieve.
But, again, I want to thank you, and I will have some
followup questions, but I will put those in writing.
Mr. Souder. The subcommittee will stand in recess for this
vote. I plan to reconvene for a couple of additional questions.
Thanks.
[Recess.]
Mr. Souder. The subcommittee will come back to order.
I had a couple of questions I wanted to finish the hearing
with. I appreciate your patience. If I could return to the
question of the statewide conferences that are proposed. Is
there any assurances of, as to--I have been to many
conferences, and some conferences you go and hear speakers and
then sit kind of laissez faire how you apply it. And then other
conferences, you go, and at the end of the day, there are
resolutions that tend to be almost like us trying to negotiate
a bill going to the floor depending on how diverse the group
is. Then there are other times where it is, you have--it is
almost like you have to have a pre-conference group that sets
out some things that are more specific that can move to an
action plan.
Ms. Green, you outlined in your testimony fairly specific
goals for the conference that I didn't hear the same
specificity out of the ONDCP. On the other hand, we didn't ask
them precisely the same question. Do you believe and do the
others believe that there is a way to structure these such that
we can in fact get more specific and effective kind of regional
plans and specific State plans? Or basically, will this just be
a verification of those States that are organized? Indiana has
been getting organized; Hawaii has been organized for quite a
while. How do you see this evolving? And how can we make sure
that it then gets somehow assimilated to a very specific
national plan where the threads that are in common that are
national, such as crystal meth coming across the border, need
for certain type of treatments, can be nationalized, and things
that are regionalized and implemented at regional--can be
regionalized? I would like the input of anyone here on how--do
you sense that ONDCP is committed to having more than a hand-
holding conference? And, second, how can we make it such that
it has specific plans?
Ms. Green. Mr. Chairman, I will start since we are the ones
that the three agencies, the Justice Department, ONDCP, and
HHS, have asked to conduct these conferences.
Do I believe there is a way to make these conferences
productive and to have them come out with very specific action
plans? Yes, precisely because of the very specific process that
I outlined. Now, the key to that process, though, is to have
those individuals who actually know specifically what is going
on at the State and local level can identify the concerns, can
identify what is actually working, can identify particular gaps
that they are seeing and put that information together. Now,
the key to that is that all of the individuals that are on this
panel with me are actually going to be involved in those
particular conferences. At the same time, we are going to hold
four of them in different regions.
At the same time, we are working with certain evaluations
and certain specialists, such as Dr. Carnivalie, who has a
specialty in being able to help identify certain common themes
and certain specific differences that may, for example, apply
to one region, for example the southeast region which is more a
preventive mode as opposed to the western region which has
actually got a great deal of experience on more issues such as
clean-up and remediation of meth labs.
So we have a group of State and locals that are going to
actually discuss very specific needs, goals, what is happening,
what is not happening, what is working, what is not working.
They are going to talk to us about the information that they
actually have that indicates successes or positive benefits.
Some of the type of information that I suggest in my testimony
we can't get from the Federal level. And then we are going to
work again with a group of individuals who have a base of
experience in looking at that information and being able to
help assess, what does that mean in terms of similarities,
common themes?
Now, as to, do I believe that ONDCP is committed? My
experience is that ONDCP is never committed to action. ONDCP is
primarily committed to being able to say what they need to say
to try to be able to either checkmark something that they
believe that they are committed to do; but when it comes to me
believing that they are actually committed to action, I'd have
to say, historically, I've never actually seen that.
Individuals within ONDCP, for example, Scott Burns, yes. I
believe he is committed to action. But since he is not the drug
czar at this current moment, I couldn't tell you that my
experience with ONDCP under this particular drug czar's office
suggests that they are going to commit to any action.
Now, one of the things we are doing to offset what I
perceive may happen, which may be an attempt to either try to
sanitize what comes out of it or somehow the information to
inadvertently get lost, my staff and I are actually going to
put together the information, work with, as I said, Dr.
Carnivalie and others to see what it says. We are going to
retain that information so that we can disseminate it to all
the Federal, State and local policymakers and our partners so
that everyone is very clear about what is coming out of these.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Brooks.
Mr. Brooks. I would have to agree on that. I want to start
by saying that, first of all, they did this all backward. I
mean, the conferences should have come before the strategy. In
the old days, when we developed the National Drug Control
Strategy or the first meth control strategy out of DOJ with DEA
and ONDCP, we came together, we had plenary sessions with
experts, and then we broke into groups, and we developed action
plans in really robust facilitated focused groups that
represented all of the key constituencies, parents groups,
treatment, the lawyers side of the house, the cops, everybody.
Then we came up with strategies. These were true collaborative
strategies where people bought in as real stakeholders, where
they had a feeling of ownership and were then able to go out
and implement strategies. And had ONDCP done that, which they
haven't--this administration and ONDCP has never done. They
don't hold key constituent meetings. We have never had focused
groups and constituent meetings to develop the National Drug
Control Strategy or this strategy or the Southwest Border
Strategy.
The newly emerging Fentanyl threat is being driven by the
HIDTA directors in the Chicago and Philadelphia police
departments, not by ONDCP as it should. And let me add by
saying that ONDCP--I was cornered in the hallway, and they were
outraged at my testimony, my written statement, because I
affirmed that they had not been collaborative. They said, well,
we sent an e-mail to the HIDTA directors. And I said, you know
what? An e-mail, without knowing what you are working on or
where it is coming from, a simple one e-mail traffic is not a
collaborative process. When we sit down with all of the
stakeholders, the people on this panel and all of the groups
that they represent, that would be a collaborative process.
That would have been a strategy that we and you could buy into.
But they didn't do it.
Mr. Souder. Any other comments on that?
Mr. Coleman. Yes, I do. We think what ONDCP did was put the
cart before the horse. They should have had the meth summits
prior to listen to what was coming out of them. Now, the
counties are to be involved with the summits in which we look
at the regional plan and all of that coming at the national
plan and which will be addressing this problem. But to come out
with all these plans without the stakeholders being involved
doesn't help, doesn't solve the problem; it only creates a
problem. And then when you don't put the money with it, it also
creates additional problems. So we are looking forward to the
summits. We will be involved in that, and we will come up with
a national plan.
Mr. Souder. It is pretty massive when you look at all the
different narcotics and you look at all the different
challenges in the regional variations. But one of the things
is--with meth--that is so unusual is that we could see it
coming. And that is what is so exasperating here, is now we are
kind of maybe at least at a flattening if not a decline in the
mom-and-pop labs. But I remember years ago, the Asians in our
international narcotics legislators--anti-narcotics legislators
groups raising synthetic drugs. And the Europeans and the South
Americans and the North Americans going, well, we don't even
know really what you're particularly talking about at this
point. But in Hawaii, they did. So they have a long track
record in Hawaii. And then it hits our West Coast, and it just
marches. And in a hearing in Minnesota, I asked if it had been
in any of the Native American areas, and they said, it is
devastating them, and yet that had never come up as a
subcategory that--what I heard from the U.S. attorney who works
with the northern U.S. Indian nations that it had become a
bigger problem than alcohol. That is a pretty extraordinary
statement for the government not to be aggressive and saying
this isn't a national problem if it is in the Indian nations.
And then there was this mythology that developed that somehow--
I literally heard this at two different hearings out of the
Federal Government, more speculative as to why this was in
rural areas and not urban areas, that somehow African-Americans
wouldn't be attracted to meth. And then in one in Minneapolis,
the police chief there I believe said that in one neighborhood
the particular distribution groups switched over, and all of a
sudden, 20 percent of the cases in that city were African-
American because one neighborhood switched over from crack and
to crystal meth. And it appeared to be more of a distribution
question. Well, that is a pretty fundamental misunderstanding
in the Federal Government, to not understand the distribution
patterns of how meth goes.
And I am just--Dr. Gallant, I saw you were going to add
something here, too, in these conferences. But I am wondering
whether, what kind of early warning system do we have for
future things when--we talked about Chicago, Philadelphia. Some
of these things pop up, and you can get them down quick enough.
But this one was like a train that's been rolling for over a
decade.
Mr. Gallant. In terms of early warning, I think one of the
things that our Federal partners, particularly SAMHSA, can do
is to put into place early warning systems that are current.
Many of the early warning systems they have currently are
dated. You know, they go back 20, 30 years and really haven't
caught up with what we are facing today. So a national strategy
to get data, current data, usable data rather than just collect
data based on some mythology from the past or some issue from
the past that currently doesn't exist I think needs to be
addressed.
Mr. Souder. For drug treatment and health questions,
wouldn't we--much of the surveys I see and so often are like 3
years old. They will be 2001, 2002, 2003, and you're in 2006
trying to make legislative funding priorities. And that is
helpful because that data will be more comprehensive, plus we
have trend lines on some of that. But why wouldn't that in a
logical way be supplemented with almost, in the days of
Internet, instantaneous data on emergency room, drug court,
which are two frontline groups.
Another would be, what we are picking up on the border on a
daily basis. In other words, it is not like we are not
accounting for this when the Department of Homeland Security
picks this up if our suppositions are correct in that after
certain States in the southwest start in that pseudoephedrine
law, we should have seen if crystal meth's coming into the
United States, and in fact, 60 to 70 to 80 percent of meth is
crystal meth, and if it is coming across the southwest border
and if we are actually intercepting anything, which is
debatable, but if we are intercepting things, we should have
seen a bump up, and it should have been almost instantaneous
data that when a policeman makes an arrest on the street, that
data gets fed into EPIC. It is like, why can't you have kind of
an ongoing kind of daily tracking, which presumably some drug
intelligence centers and EPIC do, but it doesn't seem to get to
us? What we tend to get in our hearings are historical data.
Any comments on whether you see more contemporary things than
we see here?
Mr. Brooks. Well, I think, again, the issue is a great
example. As Fentanyl began to hit, as there was a seizure of
Fentanyl coming across the border in San Diego, the San Diego
HIDTA, the CBAG issued the first bulletin. It went out to law
enforcement and ONDCP. We started to see Fentanyl deaths first
in Chicago and then in Philadelphia and then in the Midwest, in
the Kansas City area. And bulletins began coming out, and it
was those emergency medical personnel and law enforcement and
treatment folks in those cities that began to collaborate. So I
think things do happen regionally. NDIC has just come out with
an excellent Fentanyl bulletin out to law enforcement that is
addressing the threat, and this is a breaking emerging tread.
So things do happen. But there is disconnect, and it is really
a shame, I think, that ONDCP is not the coordinator of pushing
out this data, because they can get it out to all the
constituent groups, to all the prevention folks, to the
community coalitions, the law enforcement. But there is a
disconnect there.
Mr. Souder. Do you get information as to, why Chicago and
Philadelphia?
Mr. Brooks. You know what, we are only surmising that there
are some distribution groups that had the ability--that were in
place there that had the ability to bring this Fentanyl from
labs in Mexico. We believe anecdotally that the labs are in
Mexico. Now, we have seen domestic labs in this country,
Fentanyl labs. We struggled with a tough Fentanyl problem in
California in the mid 1980's. I personally raided two labs back
in those days. But we believe now it is coming out of Mexico.
These tend to be controlled by drug, DTOs and families, and so
it is probably just where they ended up.
Now, it's interesting, we just had three overdoses of
Fentanyl in a California prison; one death, two recovered. So
somehow the Fentanyl made its way into that prison. But we have
not seen Fentanyl on the street in California yet. But I could
tell you that, every single day, the HIDTA directors are
communicating by e-mail not only with ourselves but with all of
the law enforcement partners that we represent every day as
this Fentanyl crisis is emerging.
Mr. Souder. I want to ask you a couple of questions leading
to one broad one. But on the community anti-drug coalitions, do
you get--how many are there? There are well over 100 now.
Ms. Thau. Nationwide, there are about--drug-free
communities funded, are like 1,000. We have about 5,000
members.
Mr. Souder. You have 5,000 members; 1,000 are funded now
through ONDCP. Now, in that thousand, do you get access to this
kind of information of what is happening regionally?
Ms. Thau. We get access to them as far as what is going on
in their coalitions. We actually collect the data, which is how
we came up with the outcomes to put in this package.
Mr. Souder. Like if Fentanyl all of a sudden pops up in two
markets, you would see your data collection pop up?
Ms. Thau. They would be, because they have police and law
enforcement--every single one of these coalitions has law
enforcement sitting there for exactly that reason; because if
you are going to comprehensively look at what you are doing in
a community, you have to talk to your emergency room people,
you have to have police at the table. And the school survey
datas may be every 2 years, but the point I was going to make
is the stuff that you hear from the Federal Government is
monitoring the future, which is a survey sample nationally,
which masks all of the richness of what is happening in regions
and specific communities in the country. And that's probably
why they haven't seen it, because they are not looking at what
communities and States are looking at, which is their data. And
as you know, the data issue is that a lot of these Federal
agencies like Safe and Drug-Free Schools don't even ask for the
data from the States and the States have it. The States that
have had big meth issues have seen, as we said, higher usage
rates among their students than States that didn't have a big
meth issue.
So the States and the communities get it, but it is never
aggregated up to the point that it comes to you, other than
these national samples that mask all of the variation in local
and regional data.
Mr. Souder. In the community anti-drug initiative, you are
not limited just to youth?
Ms. Thau. No.
Mr. Souder. One of the things that came up in the National
Ad Campaign is we addressed meth, and in your testimony, you
showed kind of the introductory process of alcohol, tobacco,
marijuana, cocaine, and how the process ages. Our National Ad
Campaign is geared toward youth. The theory was--is that, if we
tackle, kind of break--at the current time, it is marijuana.
Everything else will be controlled.
How do we do a post-analysis to say that strategy failed?
In other words, that it is hard to say how much it failed
because, in fact, marijuana use was going down, yet a
methamphetamine epidemic would hit a community and wipe it out
regardless of whether the kids have gone to Safe and Drug-Free
Schools and had the other things or not, and yet our ad
campaign was just focused on below 18. We suddenly have a
problem that is devastating our local task forces. Our
hospitals, everything, drug courts everything else are
overwhelmed when it hit a market, and yet we say, well, we
addressed this back when they were 16. Do you have any thoughts
on whether or not our policy in many areas in prevention--Drug-
Free Schools would be one example. International youth ad
campaign doesn't really tackle the richness of the assumption.
I have asked these questions for years because I have a
theory that the reason we went to youth campaigns was not just
to prevent at an early age. It is because it is easier to get
kids to agree than it is to get adults to agree. And that it
was the ease of having kids go, yes, I think drugs are
terrible. And then we move it down farther because--and yet the
tough ages are junior high and into high school, and it gets
even tougher when you are dealing with somebody on an assembly
line. A woman is trying to lose weight, and they want to use
methamphetamines. They don't necessarily remember back in fifth
grade. How do we--any thoughts on this subject? And, for
example, why weren't the community anti-drug coalition systems
oriented toward youth? If this whole thing could be solved if
we addressed youth, you obviously when you worked with the
development of this program wanted to go beyond youth.
Ms. Thau. Well, ONDCP is focused on youth. However, it is
community-wide. And what we know is that drug trends do start
in using populations, but then they go down. Like ecstasy
started in older populations and ended up in high school kids.
Part of the issue is what you said before about, how do you
do a strategy? One, do you need basic prevention for everybody?
Yes. Do you need then to hit specifically specific drugs within
that? You do. You can do the base prevention, but if we know
that risk--perception of risk and social disapproval for
specific drugs is what drives the trends on those, you can't
just think that general drug prevention is going to totally do
it. You have to build into it components for the emerging drug
trends as they are coming up. And you have to be very cognizant
of what age groups are using what substances.
Mr. Souder. Any other thoughts on this? I wanted to touch
on one other point with treatment and Dr. Gallant. And we have
heard multiple witnesses and including in my opening statement
say that a mythology developed that meth--there wasn't really a
good treatment for meth. Part of the way this mythology
developed, quite frankly, because sometimes we hold up the
grassroots as all knowing. It came from the grassroots. Because
I have conducted at least 10 hearings on meth, and I have had
at least 5 hearings where treatment experts testified at
regional level that meth was different in treatment, that it
was hard to treat, unsolvable to treat; that local places--this
was not some kind of mythology developed in Congress. This was
a mythology that developed at the grassroots. Are you telling
me that meth can be treated like any other drug? That it is
harder, easier to treat? It is like what? Because it is
important if we are going to clarify the record here to try to
figure out how to clarify the record.
Mr. Gallant. We do believe that meth can be treated like
any other drug. But one of the distinct differences in meth is
duration of treatment. And I think as, Congresswoman Watson
pointed out, when she went to the one program that she felt
might have some value for her niece, it was a long-term program
of up to 24 months individualized for the person entering in
the program. So the feature we found with the meth is that it
is such a powerful drug; it is such an addictive drug, that in
order to get the person clean and sober and into recovery, it
takes much longer than for some of the other drugs that our
system encounters.
Mr. Souder. I believe it was in your testimony that you
listed some of these drug programs that had the----
Mr. Gallant. Yes. Colorado, Tennessee.
Mr. Souder. I think one of them said in Utah, if I
remember--Utah that 60.8 percent of methamphetamine users were
abstaining at the point of discharge. Which means that 40
percent were still using meth at discharge?
Mr. Gallant. True. At some level.
Mr. Souder. Is that indicative more of what you were saying
about the length of time that they may have had short programs
or that they--because you--discharge, could discharge in that
case also mean that they were expelled from the program or
withdrew from the program? It is not completion of a program.
Mr. Gallant. Right.
The Chairman. So that helps me understand that figure
because it is a wide range. Some had--where you have 80 percent
after 6 months, that is a different standard than--but would
the word discharge, which you used in your testimony in a
number of places, does discharge usually mean that the person--
would that include withdrawal? And when you say--so let me--I
am trying to sort out the data here, because you kind of had
apples and oranges mixed here, and I am just trying to compare
them.
If Utah had a 60 percent in their State division who are
abstinent at time of discharge, that would mean everybody who
entered the program, including those who withdrew, failed, were
kicked out, maybe it was voluntary people who left. Then if you
say, in Tennessee, that 65 percent were abstinent 6 months
after treatment, that wouldn't necessarily--those would be
probably people who completed the program, and then 65 percent.
Because it wouldn't--do you know of any surveys that surveyed
the people that dropped out in trying to measure whether people
are impacted afterwards? It is usually if they've completed the
program when they do the measurement.
Mr. Gallant. The data that we presented probably would not
include those who dropped out and did not have a positive
outcome.
Mr. Souder. And in the data that you presented, I know
these are difficult questions because there are, in the
prepared testimony, a few examples, and didn't examine all the
subcomponents of that. But would this data that you had for
Colorado, Idaho--and the written testimony, Colorado, Iowa,
Minnesota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, which ranges from the kind
of the extremes of only 60 percent in effect being abstinent,
who went in, and statewide in all treatment, to 80-some percent
being abstinent at discharge, which is a 60, 80, Colorado,
Utah, to 73 percent 6 months after in Minnesota? Is that
comparable to the range of type of things we would see if this
survey had been cocaine?
Mr. Gallant. Probably. What we are trying to demonstrate
there is that treatment is effective, and it is effective long
range. At discharge, the person was clean. Six months later, we
went back and interviewed the person again to try to determine
if they had reverted to use. The data suggests that they had
not reverted to use, that they were clean 6 months post-
discharge from the program as a success.
Mr. Souder. As we move toward our treatment hearing, one of
the questions that--because I am sure at least somebody from
your association will be involved in that, if not you directly.
Could you look and see how this data that you have been
collecting on meth, how that compares to other drugs? And if it
is substantially different, meaning substantial variation,
minimum 5 percent--10 percent would be pretty significant--if
it is by 10 percent different, I mean actual 10 percent range,
that would be more like 15 percent actual over the top, if it
is significantly different--because we know there is going to
be differences, because we--where it is newer and some States
were farther along, some States were more rural than urban,
what they pay their treatment people. I understand all the
variations. That is why a normal statistical difference might
be five. I am looking for a lot more than five. If there are
statistical differences in meth effectiveness from cocaine,
heroin, marijuana, other drugs. Then, second, whether that gap
has closed in the last few years because SAMHSA has been
looking at doing more directed meth treatment.
And then, if there is a gap and it is not closing, is part
of what I suggested earlier part of this problem that rural
treatment facilities do not--where many of the meth addicts
are--are not there? And in fact, it isn't a treatment question;
it is that the longer-term, higher professional, more expensive
treatment is not available in the areas where the meth is?
Because if, in fact, it is the same, then my premise, that
there was a difference in rural health care from urban health
care, wouldn't really be there. In other words, if in fact you
are finding right now that meth treatment is just as effective
as cocaine treatment, then we don't really need to look at
whether we need special programs in rural meth treatment,
because in fact it is working as well as everything else. If
there is a gap, then we need to figure out whether we need to
do something particularly for meth. And that is going to be one
of the main focuses of our hearing, what unique challenges are
there. Because if the data is good, that is where you go. Look,
you don't need to customize everything strategy if there are
certain basic principles that work, if length of time is a
major variable, if it is training of the individual.
Now, we have had a lot of testimony particularly from
grassroots providers that meth seizes the body differently in
that it has a different impact on the brain. Do you agree with
that?
Mr. Gallant. I would agree with that.
Mr. Souder. And so that is why the treatment would be
longer?
Mr. Gallant. Well, again, I think that the addictive
properties of meth are such that it just sort of wraps the
person up. In order to get the person clean takes a longer
length of stay than you might find with other drugs.
But to answer your other question about rural versus urban,
one of the things we know we have to attend to, if we are not,
is work force development and provider development. You know,
we can get all the money in the world, but if you don't have a
competent work force to deliver the service regardless of
wherever they are, you are not going to achieve your objective.
So our goal as an association is to ensure that we work with
SAMHSA and HHS to ensure that we have a good solid provider
development program, a good solid work force development
program. They have two mechanisms in place currently that
allows them to get to that. One is the Addiction Technology
Transfer Services, and the other is the centers for the
application of prevention technologies. They are underfunded. I
think ATTSs are funded at about $11 million. That is not a good
work force strategy. You can't adequately cover the country
with a work force strategy involving $11 million. So our goal
is to look at getting a more competent work force in place,
having a variety of mechanisms to do that; you know, not only
through conferences but basic education, community colleges,
secondary; you know, universities, graduate school programs, to
help those who want to enter this field get into it and get the
skill sets they need to be competent in their work. And then
for providers. Providers sometimes get into this business
thinking that they want to do good but don't have the ability
to run a business. So we need to help them understand how you
run a business, how you access funding, how you write a grant,
how you hire people, and how you manage a facility. Those are
basic tenets of trying to run a good business. And that is one
thing that our system currently does not pay a lot of attention
to.
Mr. Souder. Let me finish with a series of questions around
this subject, because having worked with this for a long time,
it has really reared its head in the meth question, and that is
that, how do you deal with the different intensity of impacts
of some drugs versus other drugs? And even within that drug, a
disproportionate impact from one type of that drug versus the
other? So let me give you--let me relate this particularly.
Part of the reason that the politics of this are
different--and it isn't the politics just at the Federal level.
There is no question that the most important significant thing
in moving us to a national meth strategy was the National
Association of County Survey. And we can never thank you
enough. Because by nationalizing it through your county
organizations and surveying them and having them respond, which
if there is ever a doubt that, at a local level, that a survey
like this or the input works, this one did, because we
constantly heard it was a regional question. It is a regional
question. Yeah, but you know what? If you add up every region,
it's a national question. The only place it wasn't there really
was New England, and now we are learning that Florida has much
more of a problem than they thought they had, and they
supposedly in the southeast didn't have much. But as it is
rolling around, we found out, well, they did, they just weren't
paying as much of it--it wasn't as big a focus. Because part of
the difference here was the mom-and-pop labs so devastated our
drug infrastructure that the impact of the narcotic became--you
know, we would have a regional hearing. And I could see the
crowd get restless every time DEA said the basic same
testimony: That two-thirds, which is now they say 80 percent,
is crystal meth. And the local community would get all
restless. First off, they wouldn't necessarily see the crystal
meth as much. But the mom-and-pop, the Nazi lab type things
would tie up your local drug force so that you couldn't even
find out whether you had crystal meth. You couldn't find out
whether you had crack. You couldn't find out whether you had
marijuana because your drug task force in one of my counties
was sitting there 6, 8 hours at a house. So they couldn't pick
up anybody else. And so it had a disproportionate impact on the
ability of our drug task forces to work. That, we would go into
a community in--Ramsey County is one that sticks out, but I
know Lee Terry told me similar things happened in Omaha. We
heard similar testimony in Oregon, that when meth would hit a
community in the mom-and-pop labs, which would tend to be
picked up first because local law enforcement can't let these
idiots explode the buildings in their towns, blow up kids in
the house and so on, get ammonia and everything else into the
water in the community, so that obviously had to be a takedown.
So they would take down those first. So the emergency room
admissions were more likely to be mom-and-pop lab people tying
up the emergency rooms because that is who the law enforcement
were having to deal with because, like in my area, they catch a
building on fire and whatever.
California was the first State that really had this
devastating--which led to their law. Now, that disproportionate
impact we heard in Ramsey County. Then the next thing is that
they went from a standing start to, 6 months, 80 percent of the
kids in child custody were meth users, from zero to 80 percent
in 6 months, which meant that the child custody program was
overwhelmed, because when you have some idiot cooker in their
home with little kids present, you can't leave the little kids
in there that--so they are going to wind up in child custody.
So all of a sudden, kids who are in child abuse homes,
conventional child abuse, don't have a place to go because 80
percent of your people are being taken up with urgent meth
cases; that we heard in drug courts, in different cities, drug
courts would go from 10 or 20 percent to all of a sudden 80
percent. In Elkhart County in my district, the county, the jail
went from nothing to 90 percent being meth users, which meant
that you couldn't--you can talk all you want about marijuana
laws, but you can't arrest anybody for marijuana if your jail
is full. You don't have any place to put them. I mean, you can
give them a ticket or something, but you don't have any place
to put them. You don't have any place to put people who stole a
car because your jail is full of meth users.
Now my question is, do we have an adequate way in our
system to measure in our targeting that if something kind of
rips the guts out of the system, what is the point of us
funding a diverse drug task force if one drug is wiping out the
task forces? If it is hitting the emergency rooms? If it is
hitting the drug courts? And part of the political frustration
here is the politicians understood that. Because if you're a
county commissioner, you have to figure out how to pay for it;
that the police, the narcotics officers were on to this because
they were standing at a house waiting forever for DEA or EPA to
come over, to get there. And yet the political system was
saying, well, it's only 4 percent; who gives a rip if it's 4
percent? It's wiping out your budget.
How do you suggest that we kind of incorporate into our
national drug strategies intensity? Because that is really what
we are talking about here. And that is why, should there be a
measure that emergency that I just gave you, a series of
variables that potentially could do that. But that seems to be
some of what we are fencing around here, is because when they
unveiled the meth raids and they came to the meth caucus and
told the meth caucus: That problem's kind of under control; it
is declining and so on. And it is, like, where? It's certainly,
even in my district, they will say it is declining. Now,
instead of being 30 percent over budget on overtime, they are
10 percent over budget on overtime. Instead of having 60 labs,
they have 40 labs. Instead of not being able to get to all the
meth people, they are now able to get to maybe 60 percent of
it. But still in Allen County, my home, which had very little,
and in multiple other counties, we are getting--and this comes
to the treatment question--that--well, in Noble County, that
the prosecutor said he had one guy, he was up the third time
and he still hadn't been sentenced by the judge for the first
time.
Now, this is what's driving the locals crazy. And when
anybody who watches this saying, well, meth seems to be getting
under control, it is not measuring the intensity of the impact
that it is having on the child support system, on the local law
enforcement system, on the jail capacity. And even if this
declines 15 percent, 15 percent doesn't alleviate the pressure,
unless the 15 percent--or 25 percent, I guess it was for mom-
and-pop labs. I am not sure 25 percent alleviates the pressure.
It may be that we have to go 50 percent on the mom-and-pop
labs. Because if there is not an intensity measure here, it is
just some kind of number we picked out of the sky. And I want
to get your reaction to that. I know you basically agree with
that. But as you go into these conferences, one of the
questions is, how do you pick up intensity? Fentanyl is an
example. I mean, all of a sudden, a whole bunch of deaths. That
is as many deaths from one drug that nobody ever heard of than
you have in a city with all the other drugs combined for that
same period. How do you measure intensity, and how do we factor
that into our planning?
Mr. Gallant. Well, I think one way we can do it is to work
with SAMHSA and HHS to develop a national data system to
collect data regarding use, intensity of use, and so forth.
Right now, the block grant moneys that come to States we do
provide client level data, but that is the only Federal money
that comes to States that require client level data. So you
have a whole other set of dollars coming out of the Justice
Department, coming out of other agencies that don't collect or
don't provide the single State authority data that they then
can roll up to SAMHSA to give a national picture of use.
So one of the recommendations I would have is that anyone
receiving Federal dollars should be required to link with the
SSA, to ensure that SSA is collecting client level data so we
can get a whole picture of what is going on nationally
regarding use.
The other piece that I think would be good is to have data
flow up. And the National Household Data Survey, I think as
pointed out by Sue Thau, really--doesn't really give you sub-
state level indications of use. It gives you a national
picture, but it doesn't allow you to say what is going on in
the bowels of--how or what's going on in the counties of
Indiana or the cities of Indiana. That can only be done by
developing a system that allows States to take a real good
snapshot of what's going on within their areas, and then feed
that data up to our Federal partners to get a national picture.
Mr. Souder. Because in Indiana, for example, I think we
were fifth in labs, but really less than 20 percent of the
State is impacted by meth labs. In my own district, I have
three of the major counties, and then I have two counties that
don't have a single one, basically, or minimal even in the same
geographical area, and one county is next to another county.
One county had I think 80, and the other county had zero labs,
and they are both rural counties next to each other. That,
trying to understand the intensity of the panic and how to deal
with this is one of our huge challenges. Mr. Coleman.
Mr. Coleman. We agree with your statements, Mr. Chairman.
We don't have the answers and the numbers that you are looking
for, but we would be willing to work with you. We do know one
thing: It is affecting county budgets across this country
untold. The amount of cases being heard in the drug courts is
phenomenal. From 1 year to the next, it seems to be doubling
and tripling. Yet we are all looking for these answers, and we
hope that, by working together as a collective group, we can
come up with these answers and start addressing this problem
immediately, not in 2011.
Mr. Souder. And it's a challenge that isn't just meth. I
was trying to address it as we look in the overall drug
strategy, because, as you well know, that in the early 1980's,
crack is still a huge--and cocaine--is still the biggest
problem in my biggest city, Fort Wayne, which is not that far
from Detroit. And there was at one point where we were very
high in the number of crack houses, and crack was devastating
the city of Fort Wayne. And literally, the way we learned what
was leading to this huge growth of gangs was in the course of
a--the prosecutor and my then boss Congressman Coats, we put
together a thing where one of the things the prosecutor
initiated was giving a urine test to the kids at the youth
center. Found that almost all of them were tested for crack.
And it's like, crack. That was up in Detroit; that is not down
in Fort Wayne, which then, when they start to go through some
of the gang kids, realized that there was a connection to some
of the groups that were coming down. And at one point, there
were 155 crack houses in the city of Fort Wayne. Now, that
doesn't mean 155 working on a given night. What it means is
there were 155 houses where they were moving through that were
abandoned in the urban area, which then often led to a
reaction: Well, you tear all that down, and then you have all
these vacancies, and then people wonder why you can't get a
grocery store to work in a community. And we have watched in
our urban areas kind of this reaction and overreaction to how
you deal with those kind of drugs. Because when an intensity
grabs a community, whether it is meth or whether it is cocaine
or whether it is Fentanyl, it has a disproportionate reaction.
And unless we are reacting to some degree to the topic at hand,
we are not relevant. And then we can't get by into the overall
narcotics strategy, because people go, well, why are you doing
that when I have this problem here? Because ultimately you do
have to have some threat of a national strategy that is common
with all this. You can't go jerk into whatever the drug is of
the day. But if you don't have any responsiveness, local law
enforcement goes: What are you doing? This isn't my problem.
Any other comments on this on how you might address it?
Mr. Brooks. Well, I don't know exactly how to address it,
but you have hit the nail on the head. There are really two
meth problems in America. There are the small toxic labs which
are really the face of meth. I mean, when communities think of
meth, they think of all of the medical and law enforcement and
child protective services that are tied up with drug-endangered
children, with environmental issues, with law enforcement
issues. But DEA and DOJ is probably correct: 80 percent of our
meth probably is from large drug trafficking organizations,
super labs in California, and now increasingly more in Mexico.
And these are poly drug issues. I mean, when we buy meth in
California, traditionally they will say, OK, you want 50 pounds
of meth, but you have to take 3 pounds of heroin and 10 kilos
of coke, because we are a poly--you know, because that's their
business plan.
So we can't lose sight of one problem for the other. And
that is traditionally what it seems like we do, is we chase our
tail a little bit and we run around. We have to be more
flexible. And I think part of being more flexible and
responsive--and that is my frustration in this Synthetic Drug
Control Strategy, is the fact that nobody talked to the
treatment docs, to the cops, to the community anti-drug
coalitions, to the trial protective services workers. Because
if you talk to them, you will have a pretty good picture of
what is going on in America. You will understand pretty much
how we need to craft the strategy. And so if we stay--if we
keep that in sight--and I think Congressman Cummings made the
point earlier in his comments, that we have to talk to the
people that are on the ground doing the job, and be able to
respond immediately, as we are responding to Fentanyl, as we
responded to meth in the early days in 1995 and 1996 as it
became an emerging problem when DEA ramped up.
You mentioned the tribal lands issue, and I have to give
credit to the U.S. DOJ, especially the Bureau of Justice
Assistance. They are ramping up training for tribal lands' meth
issues. They have ramped up on the National Criminal
Intelligence Sharing Plan, on the risk projects that help us
share all this information and work smarter. They are working
on an incentive program that helps train us and let us work
smarter. DEA is doing an outstanding job. The Office of State
and Local Affairs at ONDCP is working diligently with the
HIDTAs to do a good job, and the disconnect appears to be at
the leadership from ONDCP.
Mr. Souder. Any other comments?
Ms. Green. Mr. Chairman, one of the things that would help,
and it relates to everything we are saying, is to have an
infrastructure. And, again, this is not my forte. But in terms
of the work that we do with all of our colleagues, it would
help to have an infrastructure that could actually pull
information on a number of different variables, meth lab
seizures, foster care placements, county budgets, treatment
admissions, community coalition information, and people who are
qualified at a national level to review all of that information
and hopefully assess what that means in terms of intensities on
the other impacts.
Some of the things that we ran into earlier on when we were
working on the meth issue is that some people would only focus
on usage numbers and completely ignore the massive drain on
system resources that were occurring in a number of the States.
So rather than get into those particular fights involving
resources, it would have been helpful to have someone who was
actually pulling all this information and saying, well, look
what's happening with treatment admissions, look what's
happening on county budgets, look at lab seizures, look what's
happening in schools. We never had that. And so we ended up
with individuals, at least in our work at State and local
levels, fighting over, well, usage numbers are really this. And
yet we had Ron and his colleagues and Sue and her colleagues
and Eric and his colleagues and Dr. Gallant, his colleagues
saying: Well, yes, but we're having a--we're feeling a
significant impact on this.
So it would be helpful to have that kind of infrastructure,
not just on meth. Because if the infrastructure is set up
properly, then it can respond quickly. Part of the frustration
for all of us on the meth is that without that kind of
infrastructure there was a lot of crisis management going. When
we were working with States on State legislation, mostly people
were not coming to us in a preventive mode with the exception
of the last year. They were coming to us in a crisis mode,
saying, we've got 1,400 labs, we've got to do something.
If there had been a proper infrastructure in place to do
the kind of early warning that you are suggesting, somebody
would have known in advance, wait, a minute, it's impacting law
enforcement, foster care placements, county budgets, treatment
admissions, communities, and schools. None of us had that
information available to us. We didn't have anybody saying that
to us. It was because we decided to coordinate with each other
and said: Well, what are you seeing? What are you seeing? What
are you seeing? What are you seeing? That is how we figured it
out. And one of the frustrations for us is that early on when
we were trying to work with State and local legislatures, part
of it was, who is just looking at usage numbers saying, you
know, really this isn't a problem is ONDCP.
Mr. Souder. I thank you all for your comments. One of the
things that--I mean, because, ultimately, this is what ONDCP is
supposed to be doing. And the question is, why aren't they? Is
it structural, or is it individual, or is it both? To the
degree it is structural, we passed our House version; the
Senate is moving it. But as we move to conference, maybe we can
look at, is there a way to build in a structural way to get the
kind of input into the ONDCP reauthorization. Individuals
change; the structure outlasts the individuals. And we need to
look at how we need to work some of these big questions through
as we are working the HIDTAs, as we are working the community
anti-drug coalitions. But then, part of it is that we've got
things in multiple agencies: DOJ; Safe and Drug Free Schools is
over in education; treatments in HHS. And how--that was why we
created a drug czar's office, was to try to at least influence
and coordinate the information as these things are in multiple
agencies. It has been pretty frustrating to me that the
Department of Justice clearly has been involved in meth longer
and at the grassroots, and yet Members of Congress basically--
and I don't know how many hearings I had, it was like, why
wouldn't the administration just come out and say that they
were involved? It was like pulling teeth. And I think part of
it is that I'm not even sure the Department of Justice was
aware at the grassroots how involved their local DEA agents
were in the task forces, how involved their--what exactly was
being done with their grants. They were anti-drug grants. And
then in the communities, when they started dealing with it, it
was meth. And the information was just seeping back to
Washington that they were up to their eyeballs in meth, and
they didn't know it. But what it meant was we didn't have any
cohesion to trying to address what was overwhelming at the
grassroots. And I think your input here has been helpful. We
appreciate that. We will have this continuing dialog. We have a
couple more field hearings coming up yet this summer. And thank
you once again.
Does anybody have any closing comment you would like to
make? Then, with that, the subcommittee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:09 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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