Speech by Rep. Mark Souder (R-Indiana), March 29, 2000

Speech by Rep. Mark Souder (R-Indiana), March 29, 2000
Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

I really appreciate the passion of my friend from California. Even when he is incomplete in his arguments, he certainly is moving. There is no question that we have to have a multifront war. It is a war and a cancer.

I would have voted for a treatment amendment had that amendment been allowed. I am a cosponsor of the gentleman from Minnesota's bill to cover drug treatment. I am working in the Committee on Education and the Work Force on prevention programs.

But let us not overstate the data on treatment and prevention programs, either. The data is mixed. The Rand study itself is mixed, 88 percent recidivism. People get partially better, but treatment is a struggle. Drug courts are a struggle. Prevention programs are a struggle.

We should be treating, and we have a massive problem in this country as we have locked up more kids and adults in our prisons and do not focus on making sure they get educated and they get in treatment programs. We absolutely have to deal with that. But the plain truth of the matter is our local police department, our local schools, our local treatment centers cannot handle the amount of new people coming in to drug addiction if we do not get it at the source and at the border as well.

We have to have a comprehensive program. What we are dealing with today is a Colombian amendment. The reason we have not put in all these dollars into Colombia over the years is because we had a legitimate human rights objection to how their military was being handled and because drug money had gotten into the previous government of Colombia.

We have been putting roughly $300 million into just the Colombian National Police and not into the rest of Colombia while we were putting $3.2 billion into treatment. We are behind in Colombia.

Where we were putting the effort in Peru and Bolivia, we have had progress. The facts are real simple. In 1992, which may just be a happenstance date, 1992, 1993, two things happened in this country. One, we relaxed our attitudes on Just Say No but the other thing is we cut our interdiction budgets. We had made progress steadily on drug abuse, on addiction, on treatment, on prevention. But when the drugs soared into this country, the prices on the street dropped again. We saw a direct correlation between price, demand, purity, and usage. In that period when we cut back, to get back to 1993 where we were, would take a 50 percent reduction right now. Interdiction is only part of this effort. But we have to work at the source.

Let us go to some of the particulars in Colombia. First off, what is the clear, compelling national interest in Colombia versus other parts? We put $8 billion into Kosovo, and we did not have a clear compelling national interest.

In Colombia, it is the longest standing democracy under siege, under siege not because there is a civil war, only 4 percent of the people support the FARC, there are that many drug dealers in our home States. It is under siege because of money from this country fomenting a civil war in that country where people are dying.

Drugs are the leading cause, drugs and alcohol, of every crime in my hometown and in every town in this country. Every police chief will tell you 70 to 85 percent of all crime, child abuse, domestic violence, everything is drug- and alcohol-related. It is our number one problem in this country.

Thirdly, Colombia is our eighth largest supplier of oil. They are going to be a net importer in 3 years as their oil fields have come under pressure. Furthermore it is right now up against the Venezuelan border, our number one supplier of oil.

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That is another compelling national interest.

Furthermore, on top of that, they have moved into the Darien Peninsula in Panama, threatening potentially the Panama Canal, a vital trade link. Compelling national interests means drug crises on our streets; trade, energy, these are compelling national interests in our own hemisphere.

In Colombia, it is not Vietnam. Mr. Chairman, 71 percent of the people say they trust most of the Catholic church, 69 percent the Colombian National Police, 68 percent the military, 4 percent the FARC. There is not a division of opinion. We have a stable democracy that even goes through transition of power. We have a national police and a military that is willing to fight. What we have been unwilling to do is give them the weapons and training with which to do that. It is only a part of the drug war, but it is a part.

We have patriotic Colombians who are sacrificing their lives because of our abuse, and what they are asking is for us, for the first time since the Leahy rule no longer applies to their military, as they have cleaned house and as this President has relaxed with the new President. President Pastrana has reached out for peace with the FARC and been slapped on one cheek, turned his other cheek, slapped on the other cheek; turned his cheek and was slapped again.

What we have are people who are saying, we will fight your drug war, part of it, in our country if you will at least provide some training and some dollars for helicopters, for our soldiers. We will clean up our human rights problems. We will reach out with peace overtures. But what we say is no, we are not going to help you unless you do it in exactly our way all the time.

We know we need more money for drug treatment. We know we need more money for prevention. We know we need more money for interdiction at the borders, for our prisons, for education systems. But we also need more for interdiction, because we have not even given a drop compared to other things in the battle in Colombia where our cocaine in every one of our hometowns and States is coming from, where our heroin in every one of our hometowns and where our potent marijuana is coming from. And the least we can do, and I am particularly disappointed in some of my conservative friends who are being penny wise and pound foolish, this problem is not going to go away if we defeat the funding so necessary for this push in southern Colombia.

Mr. Chairman, we must take action and defeat the Pelosi amendment.

As of March 30, 2000, this document was also available online at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r106:H29MR0-173: