Excerpt from questioning of Office of National Drug Control Policy Director John Walters, hearing of the House Government Reform Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources, February 26, 2002

Excerpt from questioning of Office of National Drug Control Policy Director John Walters, hearing of the House Government Reform Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources, February 26, 2002

REP. MICA: I also continue to be concerned by the medical marijuana phenomenon. This last election -- in this last election cycle more states fell prey to ballot initiatives sponsored by wealthy, out-of- state drug-legalizers. We must do more to show that inhaling marijuana is simply not good for anyone's health. Additionally, many of us here in Congress have wrangled with the previous administration for more than several years over properly equipping the Colombian Anti-Narcotics Police with helicopters and other equipment capable of conducting heroin eradication.

As President Pastrana has now stepped up his resistance, and some of that I think is long overdue. President Pastrana rightfully attempted a number of peace initiatives over the past three years, and unfortunately terrorists who were financing their illegal terrorist activity with drug money don't respect anything. But sheer force and now President Pastrana has woken up to that reality and unfortunately, the last days of his terms. We must do everything possible to assist him in his fight against narco-terrorism, another form of terrorism that's inflicted more than 35,000 deaths on a great country and great people. The previous administration's response to the heroin epidemic was more treatment dollars and expanded methadone maintenance. In reading through this new strategy, I was pleased to see the introduction of the principle of compassion and coercion, which is listed in the treatment section.

....In this, Mr. Chairman, I would also like to thank members of this committee for their support in the extension and renewal of the Andean Trade Preferences Act. We regret, as I know some of you do, that this was allowed to lapse. It's been an important way of getting alternative economic activity in some of the drug producing countries. I think, regrettably, we have been on the verge of doing more to destabilize the licit market for goods in these countries by letting that lapse than we have been on the illicit markets for drugs in this region. And I think if we want to transition people into legal activity that's good for us as well as good for them, we need to have stability and we need to have action on that piece of legislation.

REP. MICA: It would be helpful to also have some method of evaluating the effectiveness of these programs and report back. I don't know when you officially have sort of taken over that campaign. But that's something else we need to measure.

One of the problems we have too now with is some heroin use -- changes in heroin use and cocaine use among youth. We may have seen some minor fluctuation or stabilization but then you see ecstasy shooting through the roof as sort of a drug substitution program and I'm not sure if we're still being as effective as we should be and that needs to be measured.

One of the other items that you brought up is the linkage between terrorism and narcotics and whether it's Columbia or Afghanistan. Those are two great examples of terrorist activity being funded by narco terrorism.

I was pleased to hear the president during his role out at the White House talk about the need to continue the efforts and supply. If you took heroin and particular Columbia and Afghanistan, that region, those two regions account for about 95 percent of the entire world's production.

Is there any effort that you know of now that you can speak about in Afghanistan or any new support for Columbia? Again, Columbia has now taken initiatives to go after the narco terrorists and FARC in the regions that have been formally set aside. Anything you comment that may be -- do approach or part of this plan?

MR. WALTERS : Let me take Afghanistan first. The central problem that we face is not one of commitment. The new interim government in Afghanistan has committed itself to eradicating the opium trade. The problem is that the government is new. The institutions it would need to carry that out are not in place. The security of the countryside, as you know, is not in place. For both purposes of development even -- excuse me -- over the long term, feeding people as well as controlling the drug trade. We need to begin the process of establishing security in building those institutions. That's ongoing and we are still developing policies to go in behind the progress on security.

I do think we should not minimize the difficulty here. We have parts of Afghanistan were opium is essentially a currency, where it's used for trade not consumption because of its value in the market. We know that there have been reports -- although we don't know precisely yet the scope of planting but we know there's been a lot of replanting after largely eliminating large planting areas last year. So that will probably be a one year task and it will be necessary to have viable security in these areas as well as effective alternative development where people are depending on this crop literally to eat and feed their families. We can not just expect them to cooperate without giving an alternative for maintaining their lives and their well-being over time.

We're hopeful that this gives us an opportunity. And I'll say one other thing having said that it's difficult in Afghanistan. When I was last in government in the president's father's administration, that whole region of the world, Afghanistan and the opium problem was thought of as just impossible. It was too far away. It was too remote a priority. We really couldn't do anything about it and yet we knew it was part of the bread basket of opium for the world. On the upside, while the task is certainly serious, we have an opportunity to do something where we never thought we could do something before and we now are acutely aware that here and other places large amounts of money and the consequent behavior and on support, the drug trafficking does to a lot of bad things in the world and tax on democratic institutions and civilized life has to be dealt with. And we have an opportunity to do that if we stay at it and can kind effective ways. It will not be easy. It will not be quick.

REP. MICA: My question, and I'll sort of cut to the chase here. I mean, this isn't rocket science. We have spring coming up. You've got people starving in Afghanistan. We've had a war conducted there and you're saying, you know, they need alternative development. Do we have sort of a quick plan in place for helping them, maybe to develop some crop substitutes if people are -- people are going to produce opium or they are going to produce food products that can be sold. Either way they're going to try to get some cash. And in the past the cash has gone from drug production to terrorist support. Do we have -- are we looking at a plan of --

MR. WALTERS : I don't the security situation has allowed us to deploy a plan yet. What we've done is we've worked with allies mostly in European countries to try to begin with basic security then extend that security to disrupt the opium markets where we have extension and ability to do that.

REP. MICA: I think we need to -- we need to look seriously at an alternative crop project. I agree in it's not rocket scientist to get seed and some other things and some low level, not PeaceCorps, some international U.N. folks in there, someone to do that. But there needs to be some alternative. The other part of the question was Columbia.

MR. WALTERS : Yeah. The situation in Colombia in the last several days as you know has changed dramatically because of the decision of President Pastrana to take a more aggressive role against the FARC. We are now in the process of evaluating and determining what administration policy will be here. We have not made a final decision. I would say though, and take this opportunity. Not an insignificant issue in that determination is the dialogue we have to have with Congress. There has been a long history here. There have been in the current legislation and appropriations limits expressed strongly by Congress on what it does and does not want to do. We are pushing against those limits now. And if we do any more there will have to be probably some adjustment in those limits if we are going to be able to proceed.

We want a bipartisan policy I think. We want the support of the Congress and the executive branch here. This is part of broader security issue not only in this hemisphere but about terrorism and I think that what we can do, and it's fair for you to say that's -- we need to figure out what we want to do and we're doing that as promptly as we can. But ultimately I think it's also going to be a matter of having some agreements with the Congress about what you're prepared to do as a partner in our policy activity here and there's going to be tough choices, I know.

REP. MICA: But you're throwing that back to us. But I can tell you that we've been through three years of this and the country's -- Columbia's been through this for 30 years and it's time for somebody to get some starch in their shorts. I'm glad that President Pastrana and we had a prayer meeting with him in December. I'm glad that he's gone back and finally taken some action. It's nice to hold out the doves of peace and look for bipartisan solution. But I would really be saddened if this administration misses an opportunity now to back up what should have been done a long time ago and that's get tough with the terrorists and take them out. I think we need to put whatever resources here.

I'm going to try to mount with other members and I know there's the folks that they're singing "kumbuyah" and all of that around here. But we've seen the only way you can deal with terrorists is through tough measures. And he's tried the alternative and they've slaughtered people day after day after day and it needs to come to a stop. So you're hearing from me, I think Mr. Souder has, similar Mr. Gilman, others, and that you may hear from some others. You may not hear the bipartisan cause but that's sometimes part of leadership role.

REP. CUMMINGS: It was silly, about Mexico. And how these millions upon millions of dollars are being used to bribe folks and judges and if you don't accept the bribe you get killed and all that kind of thing. And I just was wondering did you -- would you have any comments with regard to Mexico?

MR. WALTERS: Yeah, I traveled to Colombia and Mexico shortly after I was confirmed given a range of issues on the international side that we have with those two countries and I didn't have much time. But in Mexico I was struck by what you've seen in the press. What many of you already know about that under very difficult situations the new administration and some key people around President Fox are trying very hard to make a difference, I think. I recognize we've had periods before where people thought a new administration was making changes and people were disappointed.

But I wouldn't claim to be the longest veteran in observing these things. But people I met working in the -- in this effort in various ministries from health to law enforcement and foreign affairs, I think, are very dedicated.

It's a thin crust of people and they are aware that their lives are on the line, I think. And they have people working for them that are obviously -- one of them I think the show talked about was murdered just a few days ago while Administrator Hutchison was in Mexico, in fact. There's no question that the Arion (ph) and Phoenix organization which was a feature of the show, is probably the most dangerous organization in this hemisphere.

The Mexicans have aggressively gone after them. They may actually have one of them while though it's not confirmed yet, was killed in a battle -- gun battle, but nonetheless if there was any question about whether drugs fund terroristic behavior -- behavior designed to destroy democratic institutions and intimidate people, I think you don't have to look any further than Mexico. You can also look at Colombia, you can look at a variety of the 12 of the 28 terrorist organizations that have been designated by the State Department that are the 12 that are involved in drug trafficking.

Well, we know this -- we know this at home as well. I mean, that in the neighborhood that we walk together in. Americans have been suffering that same kind of violence. Not always the same magnitude, not always the same way, not always against our fundamental institutions, assassinating presidents or attorneys general but, you know, it's not an accident that our government officials have security as well. And it's not just because of crazies, it's -- some of them because they're involved in this kind of enforcement.

So, there's real courage here. We're trying to build capacities to combat these organizations but we have to take these organizations down. We can be partners with these countries because democratic nations in partnership, but there is no substitute for taking these organizations down. But the president has also been very firm in this with me every time I met with him. He understands the cornerstone of that cooperation of, we have to reduce demand in our country. That we provide the incentive in the dollars that are given in buying drugs to support this infrastructure and we need to attack the infrastructure but we also fundamentally must reduce demand, and we're not going to do that without reducing demand.

So, yes, I agree with you. It's a dangerous situation and I applaud the courage of the Mexicans and frankly a lot of U.S. personnel that are working in these countries to support our allies.