<DOC> [106th Congress House Hearings] [From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access] [DOCID: f:62537.wais] OVERSIGHT OF THE 1999 NATIONAL 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 SIXTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION __________ FEBRUARY 25, 1999 __________ Serial No. 106-82 __________ Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.house.gov/reform ______ U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 62-537 CC WASHINGTON : 2000 COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York HENRY A. WAXMAN, California CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland TOM LANTOS, California CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut ROBERT E. WISE, Jr., West Virginia ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York JOHN M. McHUGH, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York STEPHEN HORN, California PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania JOHN L. MICA, Florida GARY A. CONDIT, California THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii DAVID M. McINTOSH, Indiana CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington, JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida DC STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania MARSHALL ``MARK'' SANFORD, South ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland Carolina DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio BOB BARR, Georgia ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois DAN MILLER, Florida DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois ASA HUTCHINSON, Arkansas JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts LEE TERRY, Nebraska JIM TURNER, Texas JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine GREG WALDEN, Oregon HAROLD E. FORD, Jr., Tennessee DOUG OSE, California ------ PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont JOHN T. DOOLITTLE, California (Independent) HELEN CHENOWETH, Idaho Kevin Binger, Staff Director Daniel R. Moll, Deputy Staff Director David A. Kass, Deputy Counsel and Parliamentarian Carla J. Martin, Chief Clerk Phil Schiliro, Minority Staff Director ------ Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources JOHN L. MICA, Florida, Chairman BOB BARR, Georgia PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts ASA HUTCHINSON, Arkansas JIM TURNER, Texas DOUG OSE, California Ex Officio DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California Robert B. Charles, Staff Director and Chief Counsel Margaret Hemenway, Professional Staff Member Sean Littlefied, Professional Staff Member Amy Davenport, Clerk Micheal Yeager, Minority Counsel C O N T E N T S ---------- Page Hearing held on February 25, 1999................................ 1 Statement of: McCaffrey, General Barry R., Director, Office of National Drug Control Policy........................................ 26 Letters, statements, et cetera, submitted for the record by: Gilman, Hon. Benjamin A., a Representative in Congress from the State of New York, prepared statement of............... 118 Kucinich, Hon. Dennis J., a Representative in Congress from the State of Ohio: Prepared statement of.................................... 7 Prepared statement of the family of Detective Robert Clark II............................................... 3 McCaffrey, General Barry R., Director, Office of National Drug Control Policy, prepared statement of................. 32 Mica, Hon. John L., a Representative in Congress from the State of Florida: Chart on counterdrug funding statistics.................. 25 Prepared statement of.................................... 10 Mink, Hon. Patsy T., a Representative in Congress from the State of Hawaii, prepared statement of..................... 17 Ose, Hon. Doug, a Representative in Congress from the State of California, prepared statement of....................... 23 OVERSIGHT OF THE 1999 NATIONAL DRUG CONTROL STRATEGY ---------- THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1999 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 10:30 a.m., in room 2157, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John L. Mica (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Present: Representatives Mica, Barr, Souder, Hutchinson, Ose, Mink, Cummings, and Kucinich. Staff present: Robert Charles, staff director/chief counsel; Margaret Hemenway and Sean Littlefield, professional staff members; Amy Davenport, clerk; Michael Yeager, minority counsel; Jean Gosa, minority staff assistant; and Earley Green, minority staff assistant. Mr. Mica. Good morning. I'd like to call this meeting of the Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources Subcommittee to order. Our business today is to hear from the Director of the National Office of Drug Control Policy. Before I get into my opening statement and before the regular order of business, I am pleased to recognize the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Kucinich, for a special introduction to our panel. Mr. Kucinich. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to express my appreciation to you for giving me this opportunity. The topic of this hearing, of course, is so serious, and the chairman is to be congratulated for his focus on this. I know how these issues become local. In Cleveland, OH, a police officer was killed in the line of duty while attempting to execute a drug-related arrest. The officer, Robert Clark, was a decorated police officer, a husband, and father of three. As part of the street crimes unit, he routinely participated in coordinated antidrug operations. He was shot during a drug arrest by an individual that had an extensive criminal record in several States, an individual that seemed to have slipped through the criminal justice system, but may not have had greater coordination and information been made available to local law enforcement professionals. Mr. Chairman, Officer Clark's sister, Mary, and her husband John, who is with the U.S. Custom's Office, are here today. I would ask them to stand so that I can recognize them. Stand up, please. And I would also ask for unanimous consent to submit a written statement from them into the record. Mr. Mica. Without objection, so ordered. [The prepared statement of the family of Detective Robert Clark II follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2537.001 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2537.002 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2537.003 Mr. Mica. We are, indeed, honored to have you with us and appreciate the tremendous sacrifice your family has paid in this terrible crisis that our Nation and law enforcement officials face in executing their responsibility under the laws of this country. So, without objection, we are pleased to recognize you today, and also make that part of the record. Mr. Kucinich. I would appreciate that, Mr. Chairman. And, if I could ask the indulgence of the Chair, if the Chair and those in the audience could join in a round of applause in appreciation for the sacrifice of the family. [Applause.] Mr. Kucinich. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. [The prepared statement of Hon. Dennis J. Kucinich follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2537.004 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2537.005 Mr. Mica. Thank you so much. It does bring to home the reason that we are here today trying to find solutions so that a tragedy such as that we have heard about with this family can be avoided in the future. We had a vote, and right now have the swearing in of a Member, but we are going to go ahead and proceed with our regular order of business this morning, which is, again, testimony from our Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. I am going to start with an opening statement. I will ask unanimous consent that it be submitted for the record. Without objection, so ordered. [The prepared statement of Hon. John L. Mica follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2537.006 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2537.007 Mr. Mica. Let me just try to spend a few minutes, as our members join us, to express some of my concerns outside that official statement about my review of the proposed drug strategy, the 1999 strategy that has been submitted, and some of the accompanying documents. In light of a trip that the ranking member, myself, Mr. Souder, and some of the subcommittee just took, I would like to look, just for a few minutes, at an overview of where we are and what I believe are some of the shortcomings of this proposal before us. First of all, I want to publicly acknowledge the tremendous job that General McCaffrey has done. I think he has had a very difficult assignment. I think he has handled himself in a manner to be praised by this subcommittee, by the Congress, and by the administration. That being said, I do have some so-called ``bones'' to pick with the proposal before us, and I am sure he'll have an opportunity to respond. One of my major concerns is that we look at the cost- effectiveness of our approach to this problem. We are now spending, this past year, $17.9 billion taxpayer dollars, not to mention almost a quarter of a trillion dollars in cost, just dollars and cents, to the taxpayers on substance abuse and drug expenses that our country incurs every year. So you have to look at the most cost-effective approach. Maybe some of these items are more on our minds, since we have just returned from some of the major drug-producing countries, but it doesn't take a whole lot of education or information to figure out exactly where the core of the drugs are coming from. By the estimates of this report, we have got 60 percent, maybe as much as 70 percent of the hard drugs coming through Mexico, and most of the cocaine and heroin is now produced in Colombia. We learned through our trip that Colombia has now become the major source of cocaine production, with the tremendous efforts that have been made by President Fujimora of Peru and by the President of Bolivia, Hugo Bonsar. So we know that drugs are being produced--the hard drugs, heroin and cocaine, in Colombia. We still have the problem of getting the resources-- helicopters, ammunition, eradication programs--underway in those countries. We know that 100 percent of the cocaine is being produced in Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru. Now 50 percent has switched over to Colombia. We know that heroin is trafficking up through Mexico, and that's 60 to 70 percent of it. I point this out because the strategy does not appear to me to be focused sufficiently to deal with these source countries. Now, in Peru and Bolivia a few million dollars extra could make a big difference. They have shown some dramatic intentions and actions to eliminate, not just cut back, but potentially eliminate production in those two countries. So it seems that a lot of our resources should be to stop drugs at their source. What disturbs me about the budget and the strategy is that it does not seem to focus enough attention there. In fact, I think over last year's actual total dollar expenditure we see decreases. So I have some serious concerns that we are putting a few dollars where they can do the most good, in Bolivia and Peru, and also in Colombia. What is even more disturbing is the situation with Mexico, where most of the drugs are transiting. Today's newspapers make me even more concerned, General McCaffrey. We had the testimony yesterday of Tom Constantine, the head of our Drug Enforcement Agency, and he testified in the Senate. In my lifetime, I have never witnessed any group of criminals that has had such a terrible impact on so many individuals and communities in our Nation. Mr. Constantine said they have infiltrated cities and towns around the United States, visiting upon these places addiction, misery, increased criminal activities, and increased homicide. There is no doubt that those individuals running these organized crime, drug trafficking syndicates today are responsible for degrading the quality of life, not only in the towns along the southwest border of the United States, but also, increasingly, cities in middle America. That disturbs me greatly. The headlines are, ``Drug Corruption in Mexico Called Unparalleled,'' again, by our Chief Drug Enforcement Officer of our Nation. Further, what concerns me is a lack of organization that the ranking member and I observed, first in Panama, which has been our major reconnaissance center. Today is almost the end of February. Monday is the first of March. We have March and April. It does not appear that we have any coherent plans for relocating those surveillance and incredible volume of equipment that now is in Panama. It seems disorganized, at best. It looks like we got out-negotiated by the Panamanians, and we are turning over $10 billion in assets, and you have $73 million to relocate in your budget, which, again, is probably an expensive policy failure by the administration. So I am very concerned about what we are going to do. We do not have anything in place. Our folks told us that our troops may be living in tents or in temporary quarters if and when an agreement is reached for relocating them. This also opens a huge gap in our reconnaissance, surveillance, and interdiction activities. We then went to the southwest border and met with border officials and some of our ATF folks there. We were basically told, Sir--and correct me, Mrs. Mink, if I am wrong--that there is no one in charge of the southwest border program, that it is greatly fractionalized, that there is no direction and no or, at best, little coordination. Certainly, the southwest border, given the chart that I have here, has to be one of the major entry points. The border patrol told us--and correct me again if I am wrong, anyone out on the panel--that we have not restarted our efforts of having the reserve and military do proper surveillance. They said they can detect most folks coming across the border through sensors. The local border patrol folks have requested, in fact, that that be reinstituted, but nothing in Washington has been done to, again, provide the sensors at the border which are so important. Then, I know that you and the administration have been strong advocates, and the Congress, Mr. Portman, strong advocates of education and prevention and our Drug-Free Communities Act that passed the Congress. I find that we do not have adequate resources in this budget to even fulfill the minimal needs. Mr. Portman told me last evening it took 16 months to appoint board members, and most of it was a fight. The delay was a fight between HHS and DOJ in trying to decide who would run the program. So I have some very serious concerns about what is in the proposal, about what I read in the newspaper today, about the possible certification by the administration of Mexico in the next couple of days, and that we do not have coordination and action on a couple of these fronts. Now, I do not mean that all in a critical vein, Mr. Director. I am wondering if maybe we need to give you additional authority. We certainly can do a better job from our perspective in applying the financial resources where they need to go to get the job we think needs to get done. Those are my candid, open remarks. We have learned from the past that if we do not put the proper emphasis on these areas-- multi-faceted eradication, source country programs, and international programs on interdiction, education, treatment, and prevention--that it does not work. And there is no question that it does not work if we do not have that emphasis. So those are some of my concerns today. I think we have most of the members of the panel back. I apologize for taking time. Again, I do not give that totally in a critical vein, but hopefully in a constructive vein that we can find answers to some of the problems as we move along here. With those comments, I am pleased to yield to the ranking member, the distinguished lady from Hawaii, who also accompanied us on our first initial visit. We are anxious to hear her remarks. I recognize her. Mrs. Mink. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome to you, General McCaffrey, to this hearing. I occupy a new position as ranking member of this subcommittee, and the entire subject area, although in many ways is something that I have been concerned with my entire political life, nonetheless, there is so much in this whole area that requires concentrated, detailed attention in order to understand all the inner workings and ramifications of the problem. It is an immense task that you have assumed, and I want to take this opportunity first off to commend you and your staff for the exceptional work that you have done since this organization was established. There are so many fronts to this issue, and perhaps coming onto it initially I would have underscored the particular attention we have to pay to our young people, who are the real victims of this crisis, and organize efforts to educate them and their parents and their families about the dreadful consequences of becoming a user and an addict; the cost to the family, as well as to the community and to society and the Nation, as a whole, and so we concentrate our efforts. I serve on the Education Committee, and we concentrated our efforts in the educational aspects and the prevention aspects, and then, when you look at the health area, you know that there is a whole arena of health services and treatment, and some of the debate that goes along with those issues. Then, traveling with this subcommittee to Central and South America, you understand that much of it is outside our realm of control. These source countries have total responsibility to do the things that are necessary to curb the source, to interdict the smugglers, and to do everything they can to prevent the traffic into our country. To some extent we are dependent upon their will and their determination to get at the source question and all the crime and other kinds of corruption that occur in societies that are governed by the law of drugs. We know significant achievements in some of these countries that we want to pay special tribute to for their new efforts-- Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia, in particular--and all of us are concerned about the developments in Mexico. But, in looking at this overall picture about our drug strategy, what comes to my mind as something that I would have always considered self-evident was that we knew exactly what was happening within the United States in terms of where the drug syndicates were located, who ran them, who was in charge in what city, with respect to the wholesale activities of these drugs, and managing and controlling the flow in and out of our cities and our communities. I have looked over a number of the reports and descriptions of the various functions of agencies, and I am not really quite sure that I have a grasp of what our efforts, in terms of our own law enforcement, are within this country. That is an area I would like to pay special attention to as we begin our inquiry on the scope and strategy for the eradication of the drug abuse in our country. I would like to know, frankly, where these people are and what their names are. I would like to put a face to these names. I would like to know where they are located, to what extent the intelligence within this country can identify them, know their operations, and, if so, why they have not been arrested and put in prison. That's the short view of my perspective of one small corner of this immense subject area. I would like to share those concerns with you, General McCaffrey, and hope that in the ensuing months we have an opportunity to engage in discussion about this far-reaching activity that those concerns of our enforcement part of this huge operation are fully understood, because, to a large extent, I think my community, my District that I represent has sort of given up on this thing. They say, ``Well, what can you do about it? It is there.'' We do not see many results in terms of the whole traffic. I am alarmed because my State is listed here as one of the major growers of marijuana, which is the leading illicit drug trafficking in this country, and I want to know who these people are that are bringing it in or growing it or picking it up and shipping it and where it goes and who these people are throughout the country. I think that most families want to have that information-- the knowledge, the belief that everything is being done that could be done to help engage this Nation in this very, very critical problem for the sake of our children and our families. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I ask unanimous consent that my statement be entered into the record. Mr. Mica. Without objection, so ordered. Thank you. [The prepared statement of Hon. Patsy T. Mink follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2537.008 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2537.009 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2537.010 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2537.011 Mr. Mica. I would like to recognize now the vice chairman of our subcommittee, the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Barr. Mr. Barr. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and, General McCaffrey, it is always a pleasure and an honor to have you here. You have always and continue to distinguish yourself as one of our true leaders in the antidrug movement, and I very much appreciate that, as do the citizens of the 7th District of Georgia that I represent. I think primarily, through no fault of your own but through some of the policy decisions that the administration makes, the effectiveness of your personal efforts and those of the people that serve with you, and, in particular, the brave men and women of the DEA have not enjoyed as much success as I know they would like and as you would like, and as, certainly, we up here would like to see, problems with regard to Mexico being one of the foremost problems, an effort by some, I think, in the administration not to be quite as strong on the marijuana legalization effort, as I know you are, and on needle exchange programs. I guess what I am saying is I think we would be a lot better off if you were President and not just head of ONDCP, because then you would be in a position to make the broad policy decisions and dictate many of the steps that we would like to see and that I know you, personally, would like to see. But I do look forward to the questions and answers today in your statement, and you are always very, very frank and forthcoming with us, and I appreciate that, and I know you appreciate where we are coming from in terms of sometimes some very tough questions. Again, it is always an honor to be with you and with the brave men and women that you represent in the forefront of the war on drugs. We had, through one of our subcommittees, a very interesting discussion yesterday with Mayor Guiliani of New York, and I may have a question or two to ask you, comments on some of the positions that he has taken. I think he has really done many of the things that we would like to see done. Of course, he is the chief executive for New York City and can make those decisions and dictate that they be carried out. But, again, it is a pleasure to have you here. I look forward to the testimony and to the questions and answers, and, again, look forward to working with you in fighting the war against mind-altering drugs in the coming Congress. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Mica. I thank you and now recognize the gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Souder. Mr. Souder. I just want to thank General McCaffrey for being here and look forward to getting into the questions and comments. Mr. Mica. Mr. Hutchinson, the gentleman from Arkansas, you are recognized. Mr. Hutchinson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will yield for my opening statement. I have started reviewing the report, General McCaffrey, and I look forward to your testimony. I will take the opportunity just to make one remark. I believe in the importance of educating teenagers about tobacco use and the dangers of that. I always have believed, though, that we should distinguish the case of illegal drugs, the narcotics, the methamphetamine--the message on that, you know, from the antidrug message on tobacco. Sometimes I think we just sort of meld all of that together, and so I just wanted to express that comment to you. I have raised four teenagers, and I think you have got to distinguish that message out there. Both are important, but I hope that we can really put the focus on the illegal drugs--I think that is the greatest danger in our country--and then we can have a separate message for the antismoking campaign. I look forward to your testimony, General McCaffrey, and, likewise, I thank you for your hard work for our country. Mr. Mica. The gentleman from California, Mr. Ose, you are recognized. Mr. Ose. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for this hearing and the opportunity to go with you this past week. I am very interested in hearing what General McCaffrey has to offer here this morning. Mr. Chairman, I am glad to see that the Federal funding for the war on drugs has increased for fiscal year 2000, however nominally or however much we might think it needs to be more. The questions that I have deal with how can the Federal Government assist localities and communities in reaching their drug prevention goals. It is the details of this that I am looking forward to hearing from General McCaffrey about this morning. I also want to comment on a statement that General McCaffrey made to the Community Anti-Drug Coalition's newsletter this past winter. The General commented that the responsibility of combating minor use of drugs, alcohol, and tobacco falls on communities and coalitions and not on the local police chief and sheriff. My specific question--and I hope you address this--is: how can the Federal Government encourage and equip local communities and coalitions to actually participate effectively in this effort? Again, these are just a few of my concerns. With respect to the time, I will yield back whatever I have left in favor of listening to General McCaffrey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. [The prepared statement of Hon. Doug Ose follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2537.012 Mr. Mica. I thank the gentleman. Just to make sure we correct the record before we recognize the General, on page 89 of the National Drug Control Policy I want to present a national award for graphics liberties, which is the National Drug Control budget funding trend up, which last year the total expenditures were $17.9 billion, and this year they are $17.8 billion, $109 million less, and it is cleverly done with the graphics that are represented, breaking out the supplemental as a separate expenditure. But, in fact, there are decreases in some of the areas which I pointed out and expressed concerns about, and I have this awesome chart that the staff has prepared, which I am going to ask be submitted to the record. It shows the fiscal year 2000 expenditures for international dropping 43 percent from 1999 in the proposal by the administration, for total dollars spent in interdiction, which would be down 18 percent. These are the exact figures, in spite of the classy fashion in which the information is prepared. Without objection, that will be made part of the record and tidy it up a bit, I hope. [The information referred to follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2537.013 Mr. Mica. With that, General, we are pleased to have you here. We apologize for the delay. We look forward to your testimony and look forward to working with you as we tackle this tough problem. You are recognized, Sir. STATEMENT OF GENERAL BARRY R. McCAFFREY, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF NATIONAL DRUG CONTROL POLICY General McCaffrey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to appear in front of this committee and try and not only lay out what the administration's strategy and budget entail, but also to listen very carefully to your own comments and respond to your questions. Let me also thank Representative Mink for her leadership. I look forward to working with you as a partner in the coming years in this committee, and for the many others in the committee who I have worked with over the last several years. A lot of the people who are vital to the national drug effort are here in the room with us, and I would not be able to mention all of them, but I would be remiss to not note Dr. Linda Wolfe Jones, Therapeutic Communities of America; Jennifer Collier McCall of the Legal Action Center; Sara Cason from the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence; of particular pride to have here Sue Thau representing Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America, more than 4,000 coalitions across the country; Tom Hedrick from Partnership for Drug-Free America. I will try and show a smattering of this enormous effort. Mr. Mica. General, would you mind repeating them and having each of them stand so we can recognize them. General McCaffrey. Yes, I would be glad to. Dr. Linda Wolfe Jones, Therapeutic Communities of America; Jennifer Collier McCall, the Legal Action Center; Sara Cason from the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence; Sue Thau from Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America, the umbrella organization all across the country; Tom Hedrick from Partnership for Drug-Free America. I know all of you know Jim Burk and the absolutely brilliant work they have done on the antidrug media campaign. I am always proud to have DARE America present. Jim McGivney is here representing the biggest antidrug prevention program in the country, 26 million kids and 9 million now in the international community. Susan Weinstein, from the National Association of Drug Court Professionals, is here. There were 12 drug courts 3 years ago. There are almost 500 now, either operating or standing up. Johnny Hughes is here from the National Troopers Coalition; and Dr. Bob Balster from the College on Problems of Drug Dependency. Many of the most serious academic researchers associate themselves with that program. I thank him for being here, along with Joe Peters, who has newly joined us as our HIDTA Director. He is a very experienced assistant U.S. attorney from Philadelphia, where he is chief of narcotics and organized crime, and we thank Joe for joining us. Mr. Chairman, if I can, let me ask your permission to enter into the record a written comment. Mr. Mica. Without objection, so ordered. General McCaffrey. We tried to pull together and provide you the facts that may help guide your own deliberations. Let me also run through very briefly, just laying out, so you can see it and hear it, the principal subcomponents of our national effort. [Simultaneous slide presentation.] General McCaffrey. There are four volumes, one of which you have already referred to, the national drug strategy. You just changed the law last session. You reauthorized ONDCP. The Speaker of the House was heavily involved in it, along with Denny Hastert, who was his quarterback. This now represents long-term commitment on the part of the U.S. Government, because you told me to do this with a 5-year or longer perspective. We have also now, by law--this is no longer collegial participation by my 50 associations in the executive branch. This is the 5-year drug budget that I am mandated by law to submit each year. It is still not very good, but it is now subject to your analysis and debate and the scrutiny of the news media and these other representatives from the principal national antidrug elements so that we can start getting into a dialog on prevention, treatment, law enforcement, interdiction over time. I commend this to your attention. We put enormous energy into it. We have also submitted performance measures of effectiveness. We have revised them again. Last year we thought it was a dramatic breakthrough in trying to hold the executive branch accountable over time with achieving results. There are now 12 outcomes that are defined by an algorithm, and there are 82 subordinate variables that we will measure, and I will report to this committee each year what we achieved with the money you gave us in the earlier year. The 1990 report makes the first attempt to give you a report on what we claim we have achieved, and we welcome your own questions on that. A classified volume, which is available to you in the normal controlled manner, is the national drug control strategy classified annex, which is classified ``secret'' and tries to outline the interdiction and international law enforcement policy and programs. This is the second time we have put it out. It is better. It is more useful now to help govern our own internal dialog among, particularly, the intelligence and law enforcement agencies. If I may, let me briefly show you a few charts to tell you the principal elements. The first chart, to your front here, again reiterates that we have organized this effort around five goals. There are now 31 objectives. They were designed in consultation with literally thousands of individuals and institutions across the country. We think it is a solid piece of work. As you read it, it will make sense to law enforcement, educators, health professionals, coaches, and the men and women of the Armed Forces--the Coast Guard and other agencies. We think this is a good way to organize ourselves. This is also, I underscore, not the Federal drug control strategy, it is the national drug control strategy, so I am putting a lot of effort into it, along with my colleagues, to make sure that States and local governments and NGO's see this conceptual architecture and try and talk about the issue and organize programs and budgets in some common way. We have got to acknowledge it is possible to do something about drug abuse in America. We are persuaded by Partnership for Drug-Free America data, by Columbia University, by the brilliant work at University of Michigan Survey Research Center that youth attitudes drive drug behavior. We are persuaded that the number of adolescents using gateway drugs, the degree to which they become involved in pot smoking, alcohol abuse, cigarettes, and the rest of this stuff--and when I say ``the rest of this stuff,'' I acknowledge more 8th graders than 12th graders use heroin in today's America. That is the second year in a row I have said that. It is still a minute aspect of the problem, but it is an indication that if we want to see 10 years from now what will be the drug abuse problem we are debating, watch the middle school kids. As we look at the middle school kids, we think we are beginning to see the turning point in what will have to be a 10-year struggle to grab each group of adolescents as they hit those years and persuade them that drug abuse is harmful to their own health and development. And we are starting to see youth attitudes in the 8th grade, 10th grade, and 12th grade have all definitively, from a mathematical correlation point, turned around from 5 earlier years of running the wrong way. These are modest changes in behavior and attitudes, but, if continued, and if we focus on that age group, in my judgment and the judgment of most of us--Dr. Allen Leshner, in particular, our Director of NIDA--this will be the payoff. Having said that, there may be a decade lag between an adolescent who becomes a compulsive drug user--and I know you understand this. Kids actually get addicted when they are 15, 16, 17, and 18, and some of them are completely wrapped up in drug-taking behavior; 10 years or 15 years later they are in the hospital emergency rooms or in the prison system, they are HIV positive, they dominate the crime scene. And so, if you look at the 4.1 million Americans who are chronically addicted to drugs, they are doing enormous damage. That is who is in the hospital emergency room. Social cost--there is a lot of money involved in this. These are huge dollar amounts. And I put alcohol in there to underscore the fact that in today's America we are talking about poly drug abuse. It is rare to see somebody who is in serious difficulty who is not using heroin and alcohol, cocaine and other drugs. These are poly drug abuse situations, and if the treatment system is not adequately focused on the client, you end up with one behavior being modified and the addict goes to other drug-taking methods. But $110 billion is the bottom line to the damage done in the criminal justice system, the health system, industrial accidents, et cetera. It is a huge problem. It dominates some aspects of our society, and we are going to talk about its impact on criminal justice. This assertion I would say is scientifically unarguable. If you do effective drug treatment, if you target this drug treatment on this modest percentage of the population which is addicted, 4-million-plus people--that is probably the most useful estimate of its size--their malevolent behavior, their malignant behavior, their impact on society will change dramatically. You cannot cure a 31-year-old heroin addict, but you can change their behavior, and so one of the two studies that I am most likely to cite, the DATOS and ENTIES study, both tend to show, using large numbers of the addicted, that if you get them into treatment you modify their behavior dramatically. And most of those numbers essentially say there is a 50 percent reduction in the behaviors that are most dangerous to us. The next one again talks about criminal activity, rather than just drug-taking activity. If you look at things like selling illegal drugs, shoplifting, assault, beating somebody up--down a little more than 77 percent. Treatment pays off, and there is a cost, of course, in the criminal justice system to all these deviant behaviors. Here is a point I think we need to make most strongly. Donna Shalala, our Health and Human Services Secretary, I would argue is the most knowledgeable about being opposed to the use of marijuana combined with other drugs, particularly by young people. She has seen it all her life as a college president and professor. It is inarguable that, although we do not claim causal linkages, young people who smoke marijuana a lot--and you will also find other drug-taking behavior associated with this--that their tendency to be involved in criminal behavior, deviant behavior, failure to learn, dropping out of school, sexually transmitted diseases, all of them are higher. And so we say that this is harmful to the physical, emotional, and moral development of young people. Physically attacking people, destroying property, almost across the board there is a relationship between pot use and these activities. Let me also again make the point--and this is University of Michigan data of Survey Research Center. It has been going on since the 1960's, in which we tried to follow youth behavior, self-reported, to track their attitudes. There are two attitudes that are key: to what extent do I disapprove of drug use? The second attitude is: to what degree do I fear drug use for me? When those attitudes go back, drug use goes up. When the attitudes start to change, their personal behavior begins to reflect it. What we are seeing clearly, having seen a spectacular and extremely threatening 5-year rise, these behaviors, almost across the board, most dramatically among 8th graders, least dramatically among 12th graders--which is what you would expect--the curves are beginning to turn around. It is still, obviously, unacceptable. We have got one out of four high school seniors in this country regularly using drugs, one out of four, and that is the population that will generate the chronic addicts of America 10 years out. Let me just again remind you that if you go to the serious law enforcement people--Lori Robinson, Assistant Attorney General, is the basis for a lot of our studies, along with Jeremy Travis, but also the experienced law enforcement, leadership, Louis Freeh, Tom Constantine, Ray Kelly, and others--this huge number of Americans behind bars, costing $36 billion. It is growing. It will go up another 20 percent in the coming years if we do not do something differently. If you look at that population, if you buy Joe Califano's Colombia University data, 80 percent of them are in there because their behavior is contaminated by alcohol and drug abuse. My guess is 50 percent is probably a more demonstrative statistic, but people end up unemployed, sick, and involved in criminal behavior, and then behind bars, resulting from the abuse of alcohol and other drugs. If we get at that behavior--and there really are not that many of them--1.8 million people--50 percent of them clearly are addicted to compulsive drugs. That is the population that we have to bring under control, and I think there has to be a tough love element to it. It is not enough to have a $3 billion treatment effort. It has to be linked to the criminal justice system. Thanks very much. Let me, if I may, end by also stating that our drug budget, the fiscal year 2000 budget, which was also sent over--we will have hearings on that next week. I would, however, underscore my appreciation for the rather dramatic increase in funding that the Congress has given us between fiscal year 1996 and 2000. That is the piece of it that I have focused on. In that period of time, Mr. Chairman--and I thank you for your personal support--international programs went up 120 percent. That is in raw dollars. That is not a sound bite. That is fact--a 120 percent increase in international programs. You have increased interdiction funding by 47 percent in those budget years. You have increased law enforcement funding by 24 percent. Now, in addition, I would underscore my appreciation that prevention dollars are up 55 percent, if you would take the fiscal year 2000 submitted budget. Treatment dollars are up 25 percent, and research money--most importantly, many would argue--up 35 percent. So we are moving to respond to the dictates of our own strategy, of our own rhetoric, and we think it is going to pay off over time. I would also add, however, I share--you listed six concerns, Mr. Chairman, and I think you are right on the money on all six of them. I think there are ways to put it in context, and I would appreciate the chance to lay out what we are doing, but I think you are quite correct being worried about cost-effectiveness, lack of organization, what are we going to do in the interdiction effort once we lose Panama, what are we doing on the southwest border, corruption and violence in Mexico, drug-free communities, are they adequately funded, yes or no. And your concerns about the certification of Mexico I think are all quite valid. With your permission, let me show you a minute-and-a-half of video, and I would welcome your questions on the media strategy. We went, in 2 years, from a 12-city test with 12 control cities to national implementation using Partnership for Drug- Free America material. Now we have got the big guns involved. Some of the most sophisticated people in this country are involved in the effort. We, again, are grateful that more than 200 advertising companies do this work for free. We pick up production costs, but this work is nonprofit for the ad agencies involved. The Actor's Guild wave their fees. So what we are doing with our precious dollars is targeting access where kids and adult caregivers are involved. We have made, we think, initial and rather dramatic impact. Our target was four times a week adolescents in America, with a 90 percent target penetration, would see or hear or read our material. In fact, we are about seven times a week with 93 percent target penetration. It is almost unprecedented in this area. Kids see the ads, they notice them, they are responding, the calls to community coalitions have skyrocketed, even though only 10 percent of those initial ads had a telephone number on them, and the calls into Secretary Shalala's information clearinghouses have gone up dramatically. By the end of the summer I hope we will be online in 11 languages. When we started Spanish, it went from 4 calls a day to more than 60 per hour when we got online with targeted ads. We are going to work, essentially, substrategies in 102 different media markets. We are quite proud of it. And, on top of that, in accordance with the law, we negotiated 100 percent or more matching access, and we have done it with a very conservative algorithm on measuring what constitutes matching. We actually have achieved 107 percent increase in access with the dollars Congress gave us. On that note, if you will, let me just end by showing you this video on work that is being done by the networks to reinforce our own PDFA efforts. [Videotape presentation.] General McCaffrey. Mr. Chairman, I thank you for the chance to make these statements and look forward to responding to your questions. 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Thank you, Mr. McCaffrey. I appreciate your testimony and want to take just a minute, if I can, to introduce a couple of additional guests that we have with us who are visiting from Bolivia. One is Juan Francisco Porque, who is the antinarcotics minister for that country; Naguida Nayar, who is the minister of government. If you gentlemen would stand up, I would like to recognize you. [Applause.] Mr. Mica. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, Bolivia has embarked on an unprecedented eradication and crop substitution program, through the efforts of some support from the United States and some international support. They have just done an incredible job of eliminating coca production by very significant percentage, and have a plan that we discussed with President Hugo Bonsar during our visit to try to get almost all production eliminated by the year 2002. Bolivia is a small country with a big determination and some young, aggressive leaders who show what people can do when they want to turn a situation around, a model for all of us. We are pleased to have you with us. General, I have several questions. I support the treatment effort and the prevention effort and the education effort. We put tons of money in it. I have a little chart here that shows the national drug control policy from 1991 through 1999. We have just about doubled the amount of money in enforcement. In prevention, we have gone from $1.4 billion to $2.1 billion. In treatment, we have just about doubled the money from $1.8 to $3.1. And in these three areas I notice that we have significant increases over this period of time. However, in interdiction we still are not at the 1991 levels, and in our international efforts we still are not at the 1991 efforts. Also, over the total funds that we increased last year, as I said, we have a 43 percent reduction in international and an 18 percent reduction in interdiction. The trafficking pattern, as you know, has changed. We are not seeing as much cocaine. We are seeing heroin, methamphetamines, and dramatic increases across our Nation. I think we are being engulfed in new drugs that are coming across the border, and our strategy is not flexible enough to deal with this new marketing and with the incredible volume of drugs that is coming in. Can you answer why we are not looking at putting more into international and interdiction programs? General McCaffrey. Well, I chose 1995 to 2000. If you go back to 1991, your data is entirely correct. I certainly have an open mind to hearing a different viewpoint on how we could more effectively use additional dollars in both interdiction and international programs. It is clear that Colombia, in particular, is encountering enormous difficulties, and so the support, which we doubled last year for Colombia, is going to be money well spent in standing with a fellow democracy. The one caution I would have on 1991 funding levels versus 2000 is for us to make sure we understand that when President Bush's team went after the Caribbean initiative and we first got spun up on this, a lot of that money was accounting for train-up costs for the United States Navy, who were working up for Med deployments in the Caribbean out of Guantanamo. So I am not persuaded that a lot of those dollars actually reflect smart drug policy, but, instead, are initial attempts, particularly in DOD, to respond to the President's instructions. But I think you are quite right, you know. We have a responsibility to stand, not just with Colombia and Mexico, but to continue the support to Bolivia and Peru and other nations as they succeed in their eradication program. I think your comment is a good one, as long as we spend money smartly when we do this. Mr. Mica. Well, again, we must stop drugs at their source, and it is so few millions of dollars that these partners are asking for. Some of the other concerns I have are the levels of funding, and I am not sure what you submitted to OMB or what your recommendations were, but I will give you a few areas that are of concern to me: the micro-herbicide program, the R&D program, the Customs and interdiction program, the counter- intelligence program. I have become more and more convinced that intelligence can help us in this whole effort of stopping drugs before they ever reach our country. The Coast Guard operations and maintenance budget, and the United States-Mexico border security funding, can you tell us on those areas what your recommendation was and why these are not funded at congressionally approved levels? General McCaffrey. I would be glad to submit the working documents, because I do certify agency budgets and I certify department budgets, and so that is all public record, and I would be glad to show it to you. Mr. Mica. Were your recommendations higher in these areas than---- General McCaffrey. Some are a little tough. The micro- herbicide we fully support. We are going to go at it. The problem right now is not money. I would, indeed, argue right now the problem is we have got more money than I can safely spend. In future years, we are going to have to bring that program online, ensuring that we bring along with it answers to the environmental questions and we involve the multi-national community in its execution. So we do not have a problem with micro-herbicides. We are going to move on that, a very intelligent program. Mr. Mica. Do you believe that only $29 million additional for the Mexico/Andean countries and international strategies is sufficient? General McCaffrey. Probably not. I mean, these are tight budget decisions. There are unsatisfied demands in the Andean Ridge. I would argue we have made rather substantial increases in funding, and particularly in Colombia. I would also tell you that some of the countries--Mexico is less interested in our money than in our training, less interested in equipment than in intelligence sharing. So in some cases the answer is not money. Mr. Mica. My final question, then---- General McCaffrey. The Coast Guard is another one. Mr. Mica [continuing]. Will deal with training in Mexico. I went down there and offered to extend any assistance possible, and members of our subcommittee did in our visit last week, but I have some concerns. Let me read from an account today, as reported in a magazine article, In September last year, DEA officials were snubbed by Mexican authorities when they offered their aid in investigating a vicious drug slaying in Baja, California, that left nearly two dozen people dead, including a toddler and a pregnant teen. One of the reasons for the refusal could well be that the killers, according to a U.S. intelligence document, may have been Mexican lawmen attached to one of four elite antinarcotics units trained by the DEA and FBI. They are suspected of having ditched their Elliott Ness-like untouchable status in favor of moonlighting for the Felix Brothers, the blood-drenched bosses of the Tijuana Cartel. I am concerned, and I have heard reports now that, even when we go back and see these people, that more than 50 percent of them are failing the lie detector test, and now I am concerned that people that we are training may be involved in some of the terrorism which is--we have gone from corruption to terrorism in Mexico, and this is a concern to me. Would you like to respond? General McCaffrey. I would not want to comment on our intelligence appreciation of that incident or others in a public hearing. What is unquestionable is that there is a massive threat of corruption and violence directed at Mexican institutions, in general, and law enforcement and the military, in particular. There are serious shortcomings in training and reliability, and the Mexicans are struggling to build new institutions. My own assessment, as I read Mr. Constantine's proposed testimony before they all came down here yesterday, I really did not factually have any substantial disagreement with any of them. Mr. Mica. We have 10 minutes. This, I understand, is going to be the last vote of the day. Why don't we go ahead and vote, and we will be back in exactly--well, we will try to make it 15 minutes, and hopefully finish up by 12:30 or 12:45. Thank you. [Recess.] Mr. Mica. I would like to call this meeting of the Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources Subcommittee back to order. This seems to be the day for introductions, but I would like to take a point of personal privilege and use this opportunity to introduce my local sheriff, who has done an outstanding job in heading up our HIDTA activities in central Florida. Many of you have seen--they carry around this headline, ``Drug Deaths Top Homicides in Central Florida,'' and we are trying to do something about it, and the person who is leading this charge just happens to be with us today, Sheriff Don Eslinger from Seminole County. Don, welcome. [Applause.] Mr. Mica. I have finished my questioning, at least in the first round, of General McCaffrey, and I would like to yield now to our distinguished ranking member, Mrs. Mink, for questions. Mrs. Mink. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I would like to assure your sheriff that I am going to do everything I can to get him more money. How is that? Can you top that? Mr. Mica. Working together, we can spend enormous funds, thank you, in a bipartisan effort. Mrs. Mink. Thank you. I have only 5 minutes, General McCaffrey, and there are really so many parts of your strategy that are important, and they are all inter-related. Coming new to this subcommittee, I wonder if you could just give us a brief rundown of the difference between this 1999 strategy and the one that was prepared previously. What are the significant points of differences in terms of the strategy that you--I think it was 1996 when you put out your first report. General McCaffrey. Well, of course, Madam Congresswoman, there have been nine strategies, if I remember, starting over the space of four ``drug czars.'' In 1996, we went to 4,000- some-odd people around the country. We listened carefully to them. We put together a strategy that we have been retooling over the last 4 years. Mrs. Mink. So what are the major differences? General McCaffrey. There are no dramatic changes, except, as you look at it, we have tried to tighten up the language. We actually switched two of these objectives among goals. We eliminated one objective. We were trying to satisfy the demands of some pretty knowledgeable people in law enforcement, drug research, prevention, treatment, et cetera, and I think we have gotten there. This strategy is widely applauded and accepted across this country by the people involved in this effort. Mrs. Mink. Now, going to that, on page seven of this strategy, where you have the goals of 1999, I am searching for the words in any of those goals, five goals, which relate to what I was trying to say in my opening statement, and that is emphasis on the local, national, State efforts to identify the drug syndicates, the drug lords who are operating within the United States and have--what have we done in terms of that effort, because, as I read the goals, there is not one of them that singles out that particular effort, and yet I know that a significant portion of your budget is devoted to that effort. My question really is: why is not it elaborated in one of your five goals? General McCaffrey. Well, I had an opportunity to meet with Congresswoman Mink for an hour or so this past week and took her comments to heart, and I certainly share your belief that, although prevention and education of youngsters is the heart and soul of this strategy, at the same time we owe the American people the most effective defense possible to keep drugs out of the work place, the school place, the home, and the community, and we have not adequately done that in the past. Now, having said that, it is unquestionable that--I mean, thank God for U.S. law enforcement. If they give up on us, our prevention and our treatment will fall apart. You cannot operate in a quasi-legalized fashion and succeed. I would also suggest to you that their effectiveness in going after organized crime inside the country is extraordinary. We arrested about a million-and-a-half people on a drug-related offense last year. We have behind bars--these data are somewhat soft--about two-thirds of the people in the Federal prison system, which is where most traffickers will end up, serious ones, if you look at that number it is almost 60,000, are drug-related offenses, two-thirds of it. And, of that group, 86 percent are significant trafficking offenses. Even when you go to simple possession, Federal prosecution guidelines, we will not even prosecute if you do not have more than 100 pounds of marijuana on you, so you look at simple possession--normally it is up in the ton or more if you are in the Federal prison system. Literally, we have locked up thousands of people, and it is hard to find gringos who survive long in interstate criminal conspiracy involving drugs or money laundering. Half those people we locked up in the Federal system are Americans. The other half are foreigners, roughly. And if you go to the State system, the number we use, there is about 900,000 people behind bars at State level. Probably half of them are compulsive alcohol or drug users, or more, and 22 percent of that 900,000 people are drug-related crimes. It is trafficking. It is that kind of activity. And so State-level authorities have been extremely aggressive in going after it. The shortcoming probably is--and, although we are doing better on it, it is things like money laundering. If we believe our own data, if we are really spending $57 billion a year on illegal drugs, where is the money going? And so we have done some--I would hope you would have a chance to visit the Financial Enforcement Center right outside of Washington. The Secretary of the Treasury runs it. It is an attempt to use a $200 million bank of computers up in Detroit, the Bank Secrecy Act, suspicious transaction reporting, and commercial data bases to go after money laundering. And it is really beginning to pay off. The Attorney General and the Secretary of the Treasury run a joint operation which is sensitive in New York and L.A. and in other places, targeting--one of them was in the press, Project El Dorado up in New York City--targeting money laundering. A lot of very clever things have been done. They use what is called ``GTOs,'' which restrict the use of set amounts of currency, and it is starting to pay off. I think what is happening now is these criminal organizations are trying to use other than the U.S. banking system. I mean, you can hide $1 million. You cannot hide multiple billion dollars. You have got to get it into something where there is a paper record. And they are going into other ways, trying to stay away from U.S. law enforcement. I think U.S. capabilities in the DEA, FBI, and Customs supporting local law enforcement have been extremely aggressive confronting urban and rural drug-related criminal organizations. Mrs. Mink. Our budget figures how much the Federal Government is spending in the national Federal level in terms of law enforcement. Can you give us a best estimate or guess in terms of what is being spent in the local and State areas for drug law enforcement efforts? General McCaffrey. If I may, let me provide it to you on the record. Two years ago the number I was using--and it is important that I get the question written down so that the answer matches the question--but the Federal effort, which was about $17 billion at the time, the national effort I was listing at more than $32 billion. So most of the law enforcement capability in this country against drug-related crime, the overwhelming majority of it is municipal police and sheriff departments. That is where our citizens are protected from this criminal activity. It is not Federal. Mrs. Mink. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Mica. I thank the ranking member. I am pleased to yield now to our vice chairman, Mr. Barr. Mr. Barr. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. One thing that Mayor Guiliani and those of us on the subcommittee discussed yesterday was relating not directly to his work in the city of New York as its chief executive officer and the tremendous gains that New York has witnessed through primarily his leadership in violent crime, crime, generally, and certainly drug usage, but he also touched a little bit, based on his extensive knowledge on fighting the war against drugs on all fronts, he also touched yesterday on some of the foreign policy aspects of drug control policy. And Major Guiliani, who I have great respect for, as I know you do, General, said that, in his view, at the very top, not just as a priority, but at the very top of the list of the questions that our President and our foreign policy officials ought to ask of foreign leaders in any discussions or negotiations with foreign leaders, those that are involved in the drug control business, is: where are you on helping us fight the war against drugs? And before we move on to question No. 2 or No. 3 or No. 4 or No. 8 or assistance or what not, that question ought to be answered satisfactorily; otherwise, we do not reach the other questions. I think the mayor is right on target. I think that the history of our Government's--not just this administration, but our Government's efforts in dealing with these matters, antidrug matters with foreign nations, does not follow the mayor's advice. I hope that one day it does. I think that we are witnessing very serious problems in Mexico, partly as a result of this administration's policy decision not to place that question at the top of the list, and anything that you can do to move them in that direction would certainly be appreciated. I would like to specifically, General, address an issue that we have had a number of discussions on in the past, and that is legalization efforts. The language in your report with regard to marijuana is very similar to the language in last year's report. I am somewhat intrigued by this year's report having a separate section for countering attempts to legalize drugs and countering attempts to legalize marijuana. I am wondering what sort of message that sends to people that legalizing marijuana, even though it remains a Schedule One controlled substance and is a mind-altering drug, why that is somewhat different, why there is not just a very short statement that the administration will continue to resist all efforts to legalize mind-altering drugs. I do not know why the administration has a hard time just making that statement and separating out marijuana legalization. To treat it differently I think sends a very contradictory message that is not lost on young people. They look at this report, and it will be cited by all sorts of legalization folks out there, and our delightful friends, George Sorros and so forth, who are in the forefront of the legalization movement, and I think it will undermine your efforts, the way you all have dealt with this. Why cannot the administration just come out and boldly say, ``We are against mind-altering drug legalization. We are not interested in participating in studies to see if marijuana can be legalized''? Why not have the entire burden and have it a very high burden on those that seek legalization? Why should we, our Government, which is against mind-altering drug usage, why should we spend any taxpayer dollars? Why should we even care about efforts to legalize marijuana? If somebody wants to come forward and say, with a scientific certainty, that marijuana does, indeed, have legitimate medical uses and ought to be removed from Schedule One, why not put the burden entirely 100 percent on the legalization proponents, have them propose legislation to move it off of Schedule One? Why are we involved in any way, shape, or form with these what I consider very almost contradictory statements on legalization of marijuana? For example, if, in fact, somebody comes forward or one of these studies shows that, well, maybe there is some medical benefit for the use of marijuana, which I disagree with, does that mean that the administration would seek to move it off of Schedule One, even though there are other drugs on the market and more coming on the market, as I understand the research, that can more than adequately handle the purported beneficial uses of marijuana? General McCaffrey. Thank you, Mr. Congressman. Let me join you in saying that Mayor Guiliani has been, of course, an extremely effective mayor, and there is a lot to be learned. I go up there all the time to look at what Howard Safer and the NYPD do in community policing, and there are some very effective linkages of drug treatment. New York City, of course, has a gigantic addicted population, and, whether it is from Phoenix House, Dr. Mitch Rosenthan, or from Dr. James Curtis in Harlem with his method on maintenance programs, there is just a lot of good thinking up there and I have great admiration for them. I would also agree that drug policy should be a preeminent concern of the United States dealing with our international partners. One of the challenges is that the biggest drug problems that we face--Afghanistan, Laos, Burma, eastern Colombia, some of the mountainous regions of Mexico, southeastern Turkey, the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon--it is places where organized governments have little or no control over their own territory, and where the criminal elements in the area--the FARC in Colombia is such a lethal threat to democracy that their battalions have more automatic weapons and better pay than the Colombian army. That is one of the challenges. So when you deal with the President of Colombia, you have to take into account the degree to which he can do something about it. But your point is well taken, and I could not agree more. Let me, if I can, talk about the legalization issue. I had not heard the comment about separating them and the way that one could interpret that, and I thank you for that comment. Now, let me tell you what our own intent was. We, the administration, are unalterably opposed to the legalization of marijuana, directly or indirectly, and it is clear, from listening to our repeated public statements by Attorney General Reno, Secretary Shalala, and I, in particular, but also Mr. Constantine and others, that we are adamantly opposed to the legalization of marijuana, and it is not open to debate. Now, I think what has happened is the legalization people are about as cunning a group as I have ever seen. I do not think there are many people involved in it. As far as I can tell, there are about five of them that pay for most of it, and about 300 of them on the Internet that help organize it. They have done extremely well with limited money--$15 million or whatever to intervene in California. I think it was under $8 million in the State of Washington. So now we have ended up with eight States and possibly the District of Columbia that have passed some form of medical marijuana act. In Arizona it was most sweeping. Five of them are literally the same act. It is the same TV ads that turned the States around. Added to that is the kind of clever dealings with industrial hemp, which is the other piece of this, and which, as I am fond of saying, noted agronifs like Woody Harrelson are speaking out to have industrial hemp save America's forests. So we have focused on that issue and pulled it out so that we can directly confront the notion that medical pot is off limits to this discussion. Now, why do we investigate medical marijuana's claims? I think, just as a matter of principle, starting in the 1980's, any drug that alleges it has benefit, if it can demonstrate to the NIH and the Food and Drug Administration under clinical trials that it is safe and effective for the purpose prescribed, then the door is wide open, and under that logic methamphetamines are available to physicians, cocaine products are used for eye surgery, and, indeed, in the mid-1980's, marijuana was pulled apart, 435-some-odd compounds. THC, 1 of the 30-some-odd active cannaboids in marijuana, was isolated as having potential medical benefit, and it was produced commercially as synthetic THC marinol, which is available with a doctor's prescription in a pharmacy today, and it is available for use, to include control of nausea from chemotherapy. It is not used much because it is not effective compared to other drugs, but it is there. And we have said, ``Well, we are perfectly willing to have these bright people in NIH fund controlled studies where other components of smoked marijuana could be looked at as potentially beneficial, and, indeed, if smoked marijuana can demonstrate that it is useful, then it would presumably be made available to America's medical community under controlled conditions. I do not personally believe that is going to happen. I do not believe somebody is going to have a joint stuck in their face in an ICU. My daughter works in ICUs in Seattle, and I do not believe that is going to be the pain management agent for prostate cancer 10 years from now. I think it is nonsense. But it is potentially possible that there are other compounds in marijuana that might have some payoff, and if there are, fine, provide them to American medicine. I think we have to confront this issue directly. I share your anxiety. I think your concern is valid. Mr. Barr. Thank you, General. Mr. Mica. I would like to recognize the gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Souder. Mr. Souder. Thanks. I have a series of things here, some of which can be followed up later if you want to get into more detail. Our office will be in touch with your office. I have one thing directly that came up right in my District in the Drug-Free Communities Act and leads me into some policy questions, and I am going to go through and name a couple of these different categories, even though some of them are different from each other. In the drug-free communities program, I worked aggressively with all these different groups in our District. A number of them got their proposals in. One of them was from a smaller- sized county, where the biggest city in that county is roughly 12,000 people, and they had been very active in community things and got a grant. They informed me that they have been told that their grant is going to be reduced 25 percent next fiscal year and 50 percent the following 3 years because of a policy change because we did not, in the past Congress or in your budget that is in front of us, fund it at the level that we authorized the program. Combined with that, to try to reach more different programs, now the programs that already have been told this is how much money--in the case of this one in Noble County, already hired the personnel, started the program--are suddenly faced with having to raise $25,000 to $50,000 a year additional. In this community, they do not have it. Maybe in an urban area there are those kinds of resources, but in the rural communities, if they got the grants, and probably in some inner city communities, as well, there is not, particularly once you have started the program, the ability to suddenly change that. I have some concerns about what, in effect, they are going to do, most likely, around the country is weaken the programs. And part of our problem in the drug-free schools, which I want to touch on next, is that sometimes we seem to give these schools just enough to run an ineffective program but not enough to run an effective program. It is a dilemma that we have of how to spread the reach without compromising the integrity of it. But what is particularly upsetting in this case is the program started out assuming they had that and may not have the resources to go ahead. We can followup with that with your office, but I would like to at least get a preliminary on the record as to why we changed this after we started, or should we make that a priority in our funding that this program needs additional dollars. On the Drug-Free Schools Act, I am on the Education Committee and I am going to be working with this directly and have battled the last 2 years because this program has had a very tenuous existence in our appropriations process, partly because, while you cited in your research a few studies that have suggested there has been some success, the truth is, the studies with this are very mixed. What we know is they are not doing any harm; it is just not clear how to make these programs more effective. I carefully went through your national strategy, and, while you give some things in it that you did last year, there is not a whole lot of suggestions for us to grab hold of as we retool this program, and I would appreciate working with your office as we look at this, as we go through our hearings, and try to target this program, in particular. So that is open ended. We need to work together because this is a--we are all saying we need to do demand reduction in education efforts, yet the facts are the studies are very mixed. A lot depends, even in the DARE program, which I, when I worked for Senator Coates, helped with Senator Wilson at that time do the first funding bills. It really depends a lot on the commitment of the particular officer. It is so erratic. And then we have tracked in every school in our District to see how they are using these moneys, and some of them are having health clinics and some of them are doing self-esteem courses, and some of them need to get hold of, if we are really going to turn, rather than slightly turn, and particularly in the youth, we have to have a more-aggressive strategy directly in the schools with the youth. Which then leads me, I completely agree with Congressman Barr. Unless we can get a hold of this medicinal use of marijuana, when I go into schools and talk about this you get, ``Well, it is medicine'' back in your face. And the more particular referendums we are losing, it is like, no matter what else we do, we are going to be overwhelmed with that. I have a couple of things I just want to throw out. One is that in your documents that you produced, one of my questions is you have a, ``Marijuana Facts for Teens,'' a ``Marijuana Facts for Parents,'' and I am wondering whether the question of medicinal use of marijuana is integrated in these documents in an informational way. Two, there is no doubt that the partnership ads are the most effective thing we have on the market. Has the PDFA or a combination of similar advertising experts been asked to look at printed materials that are going into the hands of kids in school, or is that something we should look at in the Drug-Free Community Schools Act and something we should be aggressive at? And how can we do creative things or integrating some of the people we see in these TV ads into a print format, rather than just have dry fact booklets or scare type booklets? Some sort of way in the schools to reach these kids, particularly--I saw we had at least one Hispanic ad there--one of our weaknesses has been how to reach the populations that are highest risk. Everybody is at risk in drugs. I understand that basic principle. But some, quite frankly, are higher risk than others. Are our programs aimed at trying to do that type of thing? I am also looking for creative ways, both in medicinal use of marijuana and in the Drug-Free Schools Act, to say, ``What about tying in not only the commercial television, but how can we use the video systems in the schools to get this information out on the partnership ads and other things inside the schools?'' Are there creative things we can do with the Drug- Free Schools Act? Also, should we have medicinal marijuana information and education parts as a mandatory component of any school that wants drug-free schools money, they have to have something? And then do we have materials to give them? I threw far more than you can probably handle here, but I threw that more out as a stimulus, and I do have a particular concern with the Communities Act that I worked with Congressman Portman to do. One other thing. I want to commend you for this drug treatment conference and prevention that you are going to work with Mexico. I think one of the ways we can--while we are not likely, in the short term, to drop certification, reaching out to these countries now that have their own treatment problems and working together in treatment and prevention is an important step, and I wanted to commend you for that. General McCaffrey. Thank you for those comments. I will try and ensure that our staff responds to each one of these concerns in turn, the four of them you have expressed. The Drug-Free Community Act, it is interesting to me to watch the reaction of that. That was a tiny program, thank God for Rob Portman and Sandy Levin and Senators Biden and Hatch and others that gave us that money. It is not much money. It is about $180 million over 5 years, and it was going to ramp up 10 million, 20 million, et cetera. It was seed money. It actually, if you look at the algorithm, it was 435 Districts times 100,000. That is sort of where we started in on it. But there was no intention to do a large program. It was an HHS block grant, one time, fund these guys, allow them to hire people, rent buildings. That was seed money to initiate a new coalition. They are fighting over it now. There was no guarantee that if you got a grant approved year one you would get it for 5 years. It was never the intention, never mind that it would remain at standard funding level. And in every case Congress wisely required matching funds, unlike most HHS programs. So we said, ``If you want to come in and get some of this startup money, you have to be--'' there were several criteria listed. You have to be in existence 6 months, you have to have matching funds, et cetera. We will sort it out, and I will certainly listen to the intent of Congress. If there is a lot more money there, we could do it a different way. But our intention was, 5 years from now, instead of 4,000 community coalitions, there would be more than 15,000, to try to incentivize getting new coalitions to stand up and not pay for manpower. I would also tell you that the drug-free schools program-- Secretary Riley and I have been working on it. We agree people are too all over the map. The law has no controls on it. There is no requirement to report what you spent the money on, there are no constraints on what you can spend the money on. Some of these programs are mismanaged. The GAO found out about that, the ``Los Angeles Times'' did, and my own view of it is that we are paying for some programs that do not work. Two years ago, Secretaries Riley and Shalala and I called in the educators of America, and we again gave them a tutorial that NIDA--National Institute of Drug Abuse--spent a half billion last year on research. We do have studies that talk about prevention guidelines. There are ways to go about this that do work. I might add, the DARE program, which I am an absolute supporter of, has revalidated their curriculum and is asking the officers to go through training and follow the curriculum, and if they do it will help. So we have got to get U.S. educators to understand and use prevention guidelines. I would also tell you I do not think we are going to solve this until the Governors get involved. We have got to have Governors figure out where this money is going and internally ensure that it is well spent, and right now Secretary Riley has tried to get, as I remember, a 20 percent set-aside to begin that process, and some States are really jumping into it, and I applaud their leadership. Pot use in schools--are we talking to kids in the classroom? Mr. Congressman, we are doing that in a big way. This is an integrated campaign. We have got Ogilve Mather doing the advertising, a firm called Fleishman-Hillard trying to integrate the thing and make sure that it is not only inside the Entertainment Industry Council, but it is inside the school, it is inside the Internet. I have Porta Novelli, which has a tremendous amount of experience in health-related campaigns, advising me personally. We have talked to the producers, the writers of the major TV networks of America. We are on Fox Family TV. We are on the Learning Channel. Secretary Riley has got an enormous amount of information going in written form, and we are supporting other institutions that are influencing that educational process. So I could not agree with you more. When they are in school, they should be subjected to a scientifically correct message about drug abuse, and it should not come from some outsider. It ought to be their own health teacher, the coach, the social studies teacher. That has to be who communicates to young people. There is an enormous amount of printed material going out, and some of it is first-rate. I, by the way, just approved the second generation and have seen the beginnings of the third generation ads, so we are going to start developing materials that are extremely effective. And I thank you for your comments on conferences with Mexico on demand reduction. We have made the argument that Mexico's drug abuse problem is a fraction of ours, but theirs is going up and ours is going down. No society is immune from drug abuse. The drug abuse problem in Caracas is abysmal, and Rio de Janeiro is disastrous, in Bogota, in Lima. The Bolivian authorities who were here have learned that the drug abuse problem down in Shapari Valley region among their own kids is skyrocketing. I think it is healthy for us to all understand that this is the important dimension to the drug program, and no one who handles this stuff gets away free. Thanks for those comments. I will try to respond practically to your concerns about the Drug-Free Community Act, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Mica. I thank the gentleman, and I would like to recognize now the gentleman from California, Mr. Ose. Mr. Ose. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Briefly, I would like to request that the record be left open so I can submit questions for the General to respond to. I do not have time to do this verbally. I am going to have to submit questions. Mr. Mica. Without objection, we will make your questions part of the record, and also submit them to the General, and the responses will be part of the record. Mr. Ose. Thank you. Mr. Mica. I am pleased to recognize the gentleman from Maryland, my former ranking member who I miss tremendously on the Civil Service Subcommittee, Mr. Cummings from Maryland. Mr. Cummings. I was just floored by your statement, Mr. Chairman. I miss you, too. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General, I first of all want to thank you for all you are doing to address this problem--and it is a major problem. And I just have a few questions. Yesterday, Mayor Guiliani came before the subcommittee and criticized the use of methadone as a long-term solution to heroin addiction. I just want to know what your view is on that and what you think of methadone maintenance therapy. And I want to--I mean, in my discussions with addicts that have recovered, I must tell you that most of them have a problem with methadone. They pretty much agree with the mayor. They feel as if it is just transferring to another drug. I was just wondering what your feelings are on that, and whether or not there are any other drugs on the horizon that might be able to address the problem. I just want to know where you stand on that right now. General McCaffrey. Mr. Congressman, the problem of heroin addiction is a pretty tough one. The number we now believe is accurate--there are probably 810,000 of us addicted to heroin, and they, indeed, cause more damage to American society, arguably, than any other group. They do not flame out and die younger, as violently as the crack cocaine or methamphetamine compulsive users, but it is just a disease. They live on until their 50's, and they steal $60,000 a year and commit literally hundreds of felonies, and they cannot help themselves, and they are in misery. They get HIV. They cost us a quarter of a million dollars a head when they go HIV positive. They are a disaster. A lot of them are not in treatment. The capacity to deal with them has been limited. It is clearly the viewpoint of the Attorney General, Secretary Shalala, and I that you have got to--and they flow through the criminal justice system. They end up clearly behind bars. And at that point we have got to get them, if we have not got them early, and get them into treatment, stabilize them. One important tool available to treatment is methadone and LAM, LAM just being a longer-acting variant of methadone. There are about 175,000 heroin addicts that are involved in about 900 nationwide clinics. Some States have no methadone maintenance at all. Other States prescribe dosage rates by law. Other States do not supervise it very well. And so you end up with just methadone. There is no assessment. I am a 16-year-old, I am a 30-year-old, I have reported into the clinic as a heroin addict, I am now under methadone maintenance, when, in fact, perhaps I should not be. Perhaps I should have gone to therapeutic communities and an abstinence-based treatment modality. So we have got to, it seems to me, have a broad-gauged approach. We do have to make methadone available, though, to that community. When people are on methadone, they use less drugs, commit less crimes, and work more, and in some cases it is dramatic ability to sustain this behavior for a good period of time. I also am very uncomfortable when I hear people talk about substituting one addiction for another. I think, both clinically and practically, that does not help. Clinically, it is incorrect. You do not substitute a heroin addiction. You are using a compound that, although it is addictive, allows you to function not in euphoric state, not stoned, dazed, incapable of relating to people you love or the work force. It is quite a different product. Now, I would also argue, you know--and I personalize it. I have a dear friend who is a very impressive artist. He is a sculptor, a painter. He is in recovery from severe alcoholism. He is clinically depressed. He is using Prozac. And those of us who admire his work and appreciate him as a friend are grateful that Prozac exists and that he is able to use it and function. And so if you ask me do I hope he gets off Prozac, I am not sure I would see that as the right question to ask me. I think in a theoretical sense I would say, yes, probably. But I am more grateful that each week he goes to work and he is living at home. And I feel the same way about methadone and LAM. It is a tool that physicians should use where appropriate, as part of a total package of therapeutic care, of social services, and of linkages to the criminal justice system. Mr. Cummings. I could go on with that, but I hear you, but we will talk about that some other time. You probably talked about this, but what are we doing with regard to treatment beyond methadone? What are we doing? General McCaffrey. Well, NIDA and SAMHSA have put out some pretty decent products. There now is scientific basis to understanding various treatment protocols. It is in writing. If you are the administrator of a plan and you look at the scientific studies that are done, you should be able to replicate, if you follow those guidelines, treatment methodologies that do work. That was a study I put up. These are thousands of people. In my view, it is inarguable, from a policy perspective, that treatment will pay off. We do not have enough of it. Though I have carefully not used the word ``treatment on demand,'' it is clear, if you are a heroin addict in Baltimore and you are waiting for a slot in treatment, you hit bottom, you are under arrest, and if you do not put me in treatment during that timeframe and tell me to come back in 90 days you do not understand the nature of addiction. So we do need to get our capacity where it can deliver services for mayors and county executives and hospitals and drug treatment providers. We have done better. We have got more funding going into it. The number is so soft I almost hesitate to use it. I say we have eliminated a 300,000 addict piece of the gap, but we essentially have still got half the people who are compulsively addicted cannot get access to treatment. If you are a doctor and you go to the Talbot Marsh Clinic, a year after treatment there is a 93 percent chance you will not be using drugs. If you are an adolescent and you can afford $14,000 for 28 days in the Hazelton Institute, where I would send my kid if they were compulsive drug users, the chances are excellent, if you go from that 28-day program to NA, AA attendance and follow-on community care, you will be drug free. That is what we need to provide. Mr. Cummings. Before my time runs out, the reports that you just mentioned--you know, in Maryland one of the things that we have been looking at is trying to figure out what is effective treatment. There is a difference. I think we have got some folks who are not being effective. I think they know they are not being effective. And I think the addict comes out worse off. And so I think what we are trying to do--as a matter of fact, the Lieutenant Governor and yours truly are going to be holding some hearings with former addicts, 10 years clean, to talk about what works and what does not work, because a lot of the former addicts are very concerned about whether money is being wasted in certain types of treatment. So I assume the reports that you just referred to analyze treatment, various types of treatment, and what is effective and what is not; is that right? General McCaffrey. Although, again, there are gaps in it-- we are doing a lot of research right now on methamphetamine addiction--there is really nothing published, per se, right now. They are using the same treatment protocol that they do for cocaine addiction. And I am not sure that we are going to get there until we have some therapeutic tools, medical tools to use on cocaine products, for example. So there is a lot of research where I hope 5 years from now we can give doctors a way to stabilize those addicted to cocaine. Catalytic enzyme blockers out of Columbia University, Johns Hopkins has some research going on--we lack some tools for the treatment community. Mr. Cummings. Thank you. Mr. Mica. I thank the gentleman. I am now pleased to recognize the gentleman from Arkansas, Mr. Hutchinson. Mr. Hutchinson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General, I know you are growing weary, so I will try to be brief, but I did want to followup on some questions. I was reading your testimony, and there were some statements on page 3 about drug availability. You do not need to turn there, but your testimony indicates that in 1992 the drug availability of cocaine was 529 metric tons. In 1997, this has been reduced to 289 metric tons but you make the statement--and that is almost a one-half decrease in the availability of cocaine since 1992--that in the 1980's it was even lower. And you go ahead and talk about the prices that are significantly lower now than in 1981. We had, I assume, interdicted, or we had done something right that would raise the price on the streets. My question to you is: that appears to me to be a drastic difference in cocaine from the present back to the 1980's. Was there something that we were doing right then that we are not doing now? How do you explain the difference in regard to that and what appears to me some statistical indications of growing success in the 1980's that suffered a lapse in the 1990's and we are trying to regain territory, but what is your analysis of that? General McCaffrey. I have some wonderful support out of the Defense Intelligence Agency over cocaine trafficking flows, and the CIA has a wonderful officer over there with a substantial amount of manpower. We spent the last 3 years where now maybe our reporting is consistent and they match up in that the drug production of cocaine matches what we claim is moving, and then matches what the DEA and others report is arriving. I am still enormously suspect of my own data. The only thing I am sure of is we have got a very good handle on coca production hectarage, and then we go in and do crop samples, and we know the alkaloid content. So we have got a good idea on what is being made, and we follow the rest of it pretty closely. Mr. Hutchinson. My question, though, is the contrast between the 1990's and the 1980's. Now, if I am understanding you right, there is a statistical variation and there is not any difference in the level of success, but I think that is contrary to the overall statistics, particularly the poll numbers on the use and experimentation of drugs by minors. So are you saying there is not any difference? That we did not slide from the 1980's? General McCaffrey. Well, let me tell you, for 8 years cocaine production went up, went down, did not vary by much. It was between 700 and 800 metric tons a year for 7 or 8 years. It did not change any. And the amount of drugs coming to the United States grossly exceeded the demand. In the last 10 years, that demand, in terms of the number of us who casually use cocaine, has gone down enormously. The number we use is 6 million down to 1.3 million, the numbers who casually use cocaine. There is another 6.3 million of us who are compulsive cocaine users, and we consume most of the cocaine in America. Supply still grossly exceeds demand. Demand is going down. The drugs are, therefore, by simple economic law, you would expect purity is up, cost is down. There is no shortage of cocaine products anywhere in America, even though the supply now is also going down. We actually, for the first time in modern history, have a dramatic reduction in tons of cocaine produced in the Andean Ridge. But if you are a police officer or a hospital emergency room physician, it is hard for you to believe that because the population that is addicted is older and sicker and as dangerous as ever. Simply put, supply grossly exceeds demand. It did in 1982, it does today, and there are less of us fooling around with cocaine today than there were 10 years ago. Now, I would bet when we come back here in 5 years, you are going to find cocaine use has continued to go down and compulsive drug users will go into treatment---- Mr. Hutchinson. One of the objects is to make the price higher so that it is less available to teenagers. General McCaffrey. In my view, not doable. What is doable is to make it less available. The casual cocaine user will respond to availability. I agree. The chronic addict will not. Mr. Hutchinson. Let me just ask a couple questions before my time runs out. I thank you for your comments. And these are sort of unrelated questions. In reference to mandatory minimum sentences, in your opinion, has the imposition of mandatory minimum sentences been helpful to our country in making strides in the war against drugs? General McCaffrey. I am basically an engineer and a systems analyst, and, from a systems perspective, in general, it has not been helpful, because we are spending more money locking people up who have compulsive drug using problems, $36 billion, than the payoff we would get from investing some money in prison-based drug treatment and had sentences where I go behind bars for a year, I am in treatment, I am out with a suspended sentence hanging over my head. And so I would argue the drug court system on the front end of it and the break-the-cycle program, which is in this 2000 budget, again, on the prison piece of it, is the way to go about dealing with compulsive drug users. At one extreme, you would have the kind of notion, the Rockefeller laws, that, as I look at them, they also--they are not dealing with compulsive drug users, by and large. They are trying to deter young men from selling drugs for enormous profits through exaggerated sentences. So I do not think they work. Mr. Hutchinson. Thank you. Do you believe that the drug war is winnable? General McCaffrey. I do not like to call it a war. I call it a cancer. I think we can reduce the rates of drug abuse in America dramatically in the coming years. Yes, I do. Mr. Hutchinson. That really sounds like a defeatist's attitude. That distresses me. I know that terminology was used before, but I was just with some gentlemen in the anteroom and they referred to a quote that was attributed to you that you did not believe the drug war was winnable. That just seems to me really the wrong message. So I would urge your office--I mean, you have got to be the cheerleader, you have got to be optimistic. We have to have hope in America. That just really is troublesome to me to term it as a cancer. I believe that we can win this. I believe that law enforcement has that commitment, and we are undercutting them when we do not have that message. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General McCaffrey. Well, let me, if I can, say I have great respect for your opinion on this. I am not a cheerleader. I never have been. I am trying to produce results. And I do believe--again, let me underscore a very optimistic message. The message is, in 15 years we have brought drug abuse in America down by 50 percent, cocaine use by 70 percent. We have got a big problem out there in our children. They are using drugs again. We never adequately got the addict population under control, which means treatment and coercive pressure. If we do those things, in 5 or 10 years when we are talking about this issue, drug use will go from 6 percent of our population to well below 3 percent. America will be happier, safer, and have less crime on the streets. Now, if you ask me the question: will there be a total victory akin to the Gulf war attack, the answer is no. But you should not be discouraged about that. I think we need to understand the nature of the dilemma we face and stay at it. I am all for vigorous law enforcement, and I am also an optimist. Mr. Mica. Thank you. I would like to yield for a couple of final questions to Mr. Barr. Mr. Barr. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General, one of the many problems that is brought to my attention back in the District, in talking with some of our local government officials, as well as our Federal and State and local law enforcement officials, is illegal aliens. I know the problem is not unique to the 7th District of Georgia, but it is a serious one in our District. Recently, we have heard and I have heard also from INS personnel that out in the field, down in Atlanta and other parts around the country, the enforcement effort is not only not being increased, which it ought to be, pursuant to congressional mandate--we have vastly expanded the number of dollars authorized and appropriated to INS for enforcement in our communities, in our regions, in our Districts, yet, not only apparently--and I have seen the figures on this to substantiate it and the memos on it that reflect it--are some of those Districts not seeing any increases, the money is not getting down there. They are being directed to cut back their enforcement effort, and this is having a very profound effect on local law enforcement, who have always looked to the assistance of INS to be able to keep and deport illegal aliens. The particular problem right now is methamphetamines in the illegal Mexican communities in our area. We also understand that the INS Director is indicating that INS will start releasing aliens, including those who are charged with drug offenses. Do you see this problem? And is there any assistance you can be, as the Director of ONDCP, in this regard? General McCaffrey. Well, I do not know the specifics, Mr. Congressman, of the decrease in budget you have commented on. I will find out and respond to your question. Nor do I believe directly that the illegal aliens, for example, crossing the southwest border represent a significant component of drug smuggling. The drugs essentially come in in 18-wheeler trucks and fast boats out of Colombia and rail cars and welded in the compartments in vehicles, along with every other way-- backpacking across the border, mule trains, the goofiest ways imaginable. But, by and large, it is not illegal migrants who carry drugs. Having said that, they are a tremendous component of local drug-related crime in some midwestern communities, and so they are a problem--and we have substantially increased funding for law enforcement. There is clearly more money in there, perhaps inadequate. We need to listen very carefully to your own ideas on it. I will make sure I will go look at the deportation statistics on drug-related crime. I hope we never release anybody drug related. Mr. Barr. But we know that Doris Meissner is proposing that. Does it make any sense, from a policy standpoint--and that is really your role as, essentially, the implementer of national drug control policy and the coordinator thereof, and INS is a part of that. Does it make any sense to you to say, ``OK, Congress, reflecting the will of the people of this country to crack down on illegal drug usage, including by illegal aliens--'' I am not talking primarily border interdiction. That effort is moving forward and is paying some results, some positive results. But in the interior of the country, Congress has appropriated substantial increases in moneys over the last few years for the interior enforcement effort by INS, and one of the components of that is for INS to assist other Federal agencies and local agencies in getting illegal aliens who are using the drugs and engaging in methamphetamine traffic, or whatever, off the streets, not in putting them back on the streets. Does it make sense, given the fact that our Government, through Congress, and laws and appropriations bills signed by the President, has directed that more money go to that effort, to see memos to INS regional and district directors telling them, ``Not only are you not getting any more money; you are to cut back overtime, you are to cut back travel, you are to cut back positions, you are to cut back cell phone usage.'' Does that make any sense? Does that seem consistent with our drug control policy and with congressional mandate? General McCaffrey. Well, I will take your words and go find out what the situation is and do something about it. Mr. Barr. Let us say hypothetically that I am correct. General McCaffrey. I do not want to answer a hypothetical question. Let us go find out what the situation is. Mr. Barr. General, it is not a hypothetical. General McCaffrey. Mr. Congressman, I have got your point. I will look into it and give you an answer. Mr. Barr. Thank you, because it is apparently a fairly serious problem. Just a couple of other quick points. With regard to tobacco, I agree it is bad for kids to smoke tobacco. I am somewhat intrigued by the section on the youth tobacco initiative. Apparently, the CDC is distinguishing itself in assisting in the tobacco initiative. I would be interested if you could get me the figures on what the CDC is doing with regard to the terrors of tobacco versus the CDC involvement in and resources directed to illicit drugs. I would really be interested to see those areas in which it is active in the tobacco initiative, because apparently they are very active in that, contrasted with their involvement in what I think probably all of us here agree is the more serious problem of illicit drug usage. General McCaffrey. I think almost all of our Nation's funding on any illegal drug program is in NIDA, and NIDA's budget has increased substantially in the last 3 years, so I think that will be the answer, Mr. Barr, that CDC does a lot of things--youth violence, youth tobacco, that kind of thing. Mr. Barr. Right. General McCaffrey. But when it comes to drug-related abuse problems, it is NIDA funding. And Dr. Leshner has tremendous support out of Congress. Mr. Barr. OK. Finally--and I think this is something that the chairman is interested in, also, in terms of the targets, the hard targets in last year's ONDCP drug reauthorization bill, could you just briefly describe how you are going to meet the current and former Speakers--Speakers Gingrich and Hastert now are very, very concerned and, as you know, very active in setting targets that can be met and that will be met, hopefully, with regard to the drug war. How are you going to meet those targets, the hard targets set by both former Speaker Gingrich as well as Speaker Hastert over the next 5 years? General McCaffrey. Well, this is one of the areas where arguably we have made the most progress. We do have some extremely well-researched and, we believe, achievable goals set out in the PMEs. There are numbers there, IOU annual targets, and I have required the administration's 50-some-odd agencies to tie their budget to those targets. Now, in addition, the Speaker and others have added congressionally mandated viewpoints, which we have cranked into the drug strategy. It is there. It is a target. Those targets Congress will use as a measurement against the funding that we request, and that it is your viewpoint that the funding is inadequate to achieve the congressionally mandated targets, then presumably you are going to change our budgets. So I think we look forward to working in cooperation with Congress and seeing what your own ideas are. If there are substantial increased resources required to hit those congressional targets, then I welcome your own involvement and advice. Mr. Barr. Would you submit to us a plan to meet those targets and that plan representing a 5-year? What would you need to meet those targets within 5 years? That seems to me the starting point for us to make a determination what resources to provide you should be, 5-year targets. Now, you have made current projections, and the targets you all are using may be 10-year, but would you provide us what resources you need, along with a plan, to meet targets by 5 years? If you can--I cannot speak, obviously, for all Members of Congress, but I think you would find considerable support in the Congress for meeting your needs if you can put together, obviously, what would have to be a very vigorous, very proactive, very aggressive campaign to meet those targets within 5 years. Will you do that for us? General McCaffrey. Let me say---- Mr. Barr. And we will take that to the Speaker and work that as a top-priority issue this year. General McCaffrey. Mr. Barr, let me invite a continuing frank dialog on this. We have got a 5-year budget on the table. That will be the administration position. And I would add that it can benefit from congressional debate. Having said that, the budget has gone up 32 percent per year in the 4 budget years I have been involved in this. There are enormous resources flowing into this across the board, and I plan on continuing to be adamant with the administration to provide increased funding, which, fortunately, I got again in fiscal year 2000. Now, I do not believe it is logical to conclude that there will be a separate budget submitted for congressionally mandated guidelines. The budget on the table is the administration position. Mr. Barr. OMB is not terribly supportive of it, I do not believe. General McCaffrey. Well, now, again, I came out of there with some substantial increase in funding over what I got last year from them. Mr. Barr. Right. But below what you requested. General McCaffrey. It was 32 percent per year over 4 budget years, so---- Mr. Barr. I understand, but---- General McCaffrey [continuing]. I am hard-pressed---- Mr. Barr [continuing]. But it was below what you requested? General McCaffrey. Sure. I can give you those figures. Again, because I certified the agency budgets, we certified---- Mr. Barr. I would appreciate it if you would send us those figures. Again, the administration may have a particular policy and that policy may be oriented toward a 10-year meeting of targets. What we are asking for--and I cannot speak for the chairman. He can speak for himself, and he may want to weigh in--is for you to furnish us--and this is not contradictory or antagonistic to any policy of the administration--we would like to see what you believe would be necessary to meet specific hard targets over a 5-year period as opposed to a 10-year period. General McCaffrey. That is on the table. We absolutely have submitted--you have now available the budget and the numbers to go with targets in 5 years. You got that in the PMAs. Mr. Barr. The targets, for example, as set forth on page 44, that is what I am talking about. General McCaffrey. There are congressional targets that do not match up with the PMA targets that are on the table. I have developed---- Mr. Barr. We want to see them matched there. That is what we would like to see. Will you send us your assessment of that? Will you submit that to us? General McCaffrey. Well, in terms of developing another 5- year budget, no. You have on the table the OMB position over the coming 5 years to achieve those targets. Mr. Barr. We are not terribly interested right now in OMB's position. We are interested in the position of the Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. General McCaffrey. I understand, and what I---- Mr. Barr. Which I much prefer. General McCaffrey. I am standing behind the OMB position. Mr. Barr. You may do that, but would you be responsive to a specific congressional request, regardless of what OMB may eventually do with it? They may say, ``This is terrible.'' That is fine. That is OMB position. But we would like to have hard targets, those reflected on page 44 of your report, matched up against a 5-year calendar. General McCaffrey. There is a 5-year calendar, again, hard targets. Mr. Barr. And what you would need to meet those. General McCaffrey. Again, Mr. Barr, I do not believe that it is logical to assume that I am going to produce another different 5-year budget to achieve a separate set of goals. The 5-year budget on the table is actually our position. Mr. Barr. And you can send that up to us and say you do not like this, but we would like to see your best judgment on how to meet these targets within 5 years. General McCaffrey. Yes. Well, I hear your concern and I look forward to learning from the staff or from the principals your own viewpoints on whether you believe the budget that was submitted adequately responds to your own concerns. I have great respect for your opinion. Mr. Barr. Are you saying that you will not submit---- General McCaffrey. Correct. There will not be---- Mr. Barr [continuing]. A response to the request we just made? General McCaffrey [continuing]. A different 5-year budget than the one that is on the table. That is it. I would be welcome to let you see the evolution of our thinking internally in the government. That is certainly legitimate. But, again, I would be cautious about some notion of arbitrarily being able to match resources with self-mandated targets. I am very uncomfortable---- Mr. Barr. Any targets in a theoretical sense are going to be somewhat arbitrary. We are projecting---- General McCaffrey. No. Ours are not arbitrary. Mr. Barr. They may not happen. General McCaffrey. Yes. The ones I have developed were a 2- year process---- Mr. Barr. Every target is, to some extent, arbitrary except yours. That is fine. All I am saying is: why would you not be able to be responsive to a request which I am making and which the chairman may make to give us your best judgment of how to meet the Speaker's targets over 5 years and what would you need to meet that? General McCaffrey. Yes. Well, I think---- Mr. Barr. Let me just ask this question. If you had the opportunity and the resources to meet goals in 10 years as opposed to 5 years, why would you choose 10 years? General McCaffrey. Of course we would not. But what we need to do is---- Mr. Barr. Then why cannot you give us your best judgment in writing as to how we could meet those in 5 years? General McCaffrey. Well, Mr. Congressman---- Mr. Barr. And then we can take that and---- General McCaffrey. Let me give you an answer to the question. The answer to the question is there are nine appropriations bills dealing with 50-some odd agencies of Government. And when you are talking about machinery, people, optempo, and dollars, and creating capacity in treatment and prevention programs involving 52 million kids, 900,000 cops, hundreds of thousands of people in the Armed Forces, I am not going to make it up on the back-of-the-envelope analysis. Mr. Barr. I do not want an---- General McCaffrey. Let me finish the response. You asked the question. I will have to lead the governmental process to give you prudent, well-thought-out solutions that I think are achievable, and that is what you have got in front of you. Mr. Barr. Do you think meeting these targets in 5 years is not achievable? General McCaffrey. The ones that Congress mandated, many of them are not achievable. Mr. Barr. In 5 years? General McCaffrey. Right. Mr. Barr. What we would like to do is help you make them achievable. You have a Speaker, Denny Hastert, who is extremely interested---- General McCaffrey. Sure. Mr. Barr [continuing]. And believes that they are reachable, and is willing, I believe, to work very closely with you and the administration in making them achievable. General McCaffrey. Yes. Mr. Barr. But if we go into this and you are saying they are not achievable and we are not even interested in working with the Congress to try to make them achievable, then maybe we have a problem. I would hope we would not. Mr. Mica. If I may, I am going to interrupt. I did promise the General that we would get him out around 1. He has another obligation. And I do want to try to conclude the hearing. First of all, I would like to ask unanimous consent to submit to the general questions from Mr. Blagojevich and also have your responses made part of the record. Without objection, so ordered. I have a statement for the record, which we will submit without objection from Mr. Gilman, chairman of the International Relations Committee. [The prepared statement of Hon. Benjamin A. Gilman follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2537.077 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2537.078 Mr. Mica. We will also, without objection, leave the record open from this hearing for a period of 2 weeks for additional comments. General McCaffrey, we appreciate your coming with us today. As we conclude, I have a couple of immediate concerns. First of all, we know where the heroin is coming from. You talked a lot about cocaine. It has really been supplanted with heroin and meth and designer drugs, and we know where this stuff is all coming from. We were in Colombia, and we found that some of the funds were diverted because of their natural disaster. We might want to get something in the supplemental, and we would like your assistance in seeing that Colombia, which is the source of a lot of these hard narcotics coming into the country and through Mexico, that we address that. Also, the ranking member has asked that we have an additional closed hearing or a closed briefing session, which I have agreed to. We will try to do that in the next 2 weeks. I think next week we are occupied. But, according to your schedule--and we will have some of the other folks in--maybe we can discuss the issues that Mr. Barr has raised about trying to speed up and adequately fund--if it takes another supplemental, whatever it will take. There are still some unanswered questions relating to the organization and disorganization on the southwest border, the Mexican question, the question of Panama, and what we are doing as far as relocating our forward reconnaissance efforts in the drug war, so I think there are a whole bunch of areas that we need to work on, plus the big problem of Mexico and its possible decertification or how we get that situation under control. So we will reconvene in a closed session at a date mutually acceptable in the next couple of weeks here to help resolve some of these, and also develop, in a cooperative fashion, a strategy and a finance plan to make these things happen on a sooner rather than later basis, if that is acceptable. General McCaffrey. I will look forward to that. Thank you. Mr. Mica. There being no further business--Mr. Ose, you did not have any comments---- Mr. Ose. No, Sir. Mr. Mica. There being no further business to come before this subcommittee, this meeting is adjourned. Thank you. [Whereupon, at 1:10 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned, to reconvene at the call of the Chair.] [Additional information submitted for the hearing record follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2537.079 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2537.080 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2537.082 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2537.083 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2537.084 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2537.085 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2537.086 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2537.087