Speech by Rep. John Mica (R-Florida), April 4, 2000

Speech by Rep. John Mica (R-Florida), April 4, 2000
DISCUSSING THE ISSUE OF ILLEGAL NARCOTICS (House of Representatives - April 04, 2000)

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The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, and my colleagues, once again, on Tuesday night I come before the House of Representatives and my colleagues to discuss the issue of illegal narcotics and helping to develop our national policy to bring under control what I consider the most serious social problem facing our Nation and the Members of Congress today.

Tonight I am going to talk a little bit about the problem, again, that we face as a Nation and as a Congress relating to illegal narcotics. I want to spend some time tonight talking about the debate that took place for 2 days last week on the floor of the House of Representatives which has consumed much of the time of the Congress in the past several weeks relating to, in particular, an emergency supplemental appropriations to provide some assistance in the war on drugs and, particularly, assistance to the country of Colombia and their effort to combat illegal narcotics.

Mr. Speaker, tonight I also would like to correct some of the misstatements that were made in that debate. I have gone through some of the Record, and I think that it is important for the future Record of the House that the facts and statistics and the history of this debate about how we deal with the problem of illegal narcotics is, in fact, documented. Those will be a couple topics of conversation.

In particular, I will focus on Colombia. I will also talk, hopefully, if we get time, about Mexico and the administration's policy towards Mexico as it is now developing in the post-certification process; but, indeed, there is no more serious problem facing our Nation.

The last statistics I have as chairman of the Subcommittee of the Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources of the House of Representatives is that in 1998, 15,973 Americans lost their lives as a direct result of illegal narcotics. It is estimated by our national drug czar, Barry McCaffrey, that, in fact, over 50,000 Americans each year lose their lives for various reasons that are related to illegal narcotics, and some of these are not counted in the statistics, the hard statistics.

In that 15,973 figure, there are individuals who we read about. Again, I point to the news of the last month or so with a 6-year-old child going into a classroom in Flint, Michigan, killing a 6-year-old with a gun. Everyone has focused in the media and the Congress and the administration on the issue of more regulation and legislation dealing with gun control; but, in fact, the article that I have here says that the child came from what is quoted as a dangerous environment, the police have said that the residence was used for drug dealing; the father was in jail.

Mr. Speaker, here is an instance in which they focused on the handgun that was taken to school and used in this murder and failed to focus on the core problem, again, illegal narcotics in this home, if you would call it a home, in this setting, this young 6-year-old was forced to deal with, where he lived in a crack house, where his father was in jail. The topics that, again, the media, the Congress, the administration does not really want to talk about. We also know this problem, and we know it too well.

Another example, and this is Lisbon, Ohio, I am sure a nice community, in the center heart of our Nation, a 12-year-old student brought a gun to school, the boy and everyone focused on this 12-year-old bringing the gun to school just recently; but the boy said, according to this news account, his biological mother was in jail, and he wanted to visit her and be with her, said the young man.

Authorities did not release the information on the mother's situation, but the Akron Beacon Journal said she was in prison on drug-related charges. Again, the focus on a young individual bringing a weapon into school, but the sad part about this story and so many others that we hear that illegal narcotics were at the root of the problem.

Here, the mother was in jail, a young 12-year-old wanted to be with his mother who was in jail, because of a drug-related offense. This is a serious situation, which has, again, impacted our country dramatically. The cost that we heard in some of the debate last week and some of the figures estimate from $150 billion a year to $250 billion a year, if we take into account the death, the destruction, the unemployment, the costs on our judicial system, the tremendous toll that this takes on our Nation and the very social fabric of our society.

So we have an annual cost, not only in lost lives, but in dollars and cents to this Nation and to our economy. It is absolutely astounding to see where we

have gone in the war on drugs. And I will talk a little bit more about the death of the war on drugs and how I believe it was sabotaged by this administration in 1993; but the effects are very far-reaching.

In 1998, there were 542,540 drug-related emergency room episodes again in that year. This also is somewhat misleading, because many of these drug overdoses never make it to the emergency room. And as I said, there are 15,973 deaths. Those individuals died and some of them are not counted in these statistics. The toll of illegal narcotics to our Nation, again, goes on and on. Illegal drug users constituted 18.2 percent of the unemployed in 1998. It was up from 13.8 percent in 1997.

In 1999, Americans spent $63.2 billion on illegal drugs. So the impact on our society is well documented, and that is not what I came here to debate or discuss tonight. It is a matter of record.

What I wanted to talk about is really part of the debate that took place last week on the floor of the House of Representatives. What does this Congress, what does this House of Representatives do to deal with the narcotics problem that is mushrooming out of control across our land?

First of all, I think it is incumbent on every Member to ask a simple question: Where are the illegal drugs coming from? What is the base of the problem? Where are these narcotics coming from? If we take two of the most abused drugs in our Nation today that have caused so much devastation, heroin and cocaine, we have only to look now at really one major producing country in this hemisphere; and that is the country of Colombia.

We have made tremendous progress in a program that was instituted by the Republican majority just several years ago by the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), the Speaker of the House, when he chaired the subcommittee that I now chair.

That particular responsibility led him to begin a program and build on a program that was formulated again after the new Republican majority to go after illegal narcotics at their very source.

The source is not very difficult when it comes to cocaine. It is three countries. It is Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia. Peru and Bolivia were producing 95 percent of the cocaine in 1992, 1993. Again in 1996, 1997, under the Republican-controlled Congress, programs were reinstituted that were cut by the Clinton administration in those early Clinton years to eradicate illegal narcotics in the countries of Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia.

I must report that, as of this year, we have been successful, particularly in Peru, with a 66 percent decline in coca production in that country and a 55 percent decline in Bolivia. Most of the production has shifted to Colombia.

So today Colombia now accounts for nearly 90 percent of the cocaine that is entering the United States. That is factual, and that is documented. That was brought out by many in the debate last week. So we know that Colombia is the major source of cocaine coming into the United States. We also know that Colombia is now the major source of heroin.

Back in 1992, 1993, there was almost zero heroin produced in Colombia. Almost no heroin came into the United States, almost no poppy production and heroin production in Colombia.

In the past 6 or 7 years, through the direct policy of this administration, Colombia has turned into now, not only the major cocaine and coca producer, but also the major heroin producer. This was not easy, but they managed to do it; and it was through a number of very specific steps that were taken. I want to outline a couple of those here.

First of all, in 1993, 1994, the administration made some of their first blunders. The blunders that they made actually were not mentioned in the debate that took place last week.

Some of the major blunders were a complete shift in policy. The shift in policy was to stop the source-country programs and to stop the eradication programs and to stop the interdiction programs, take the military out of the surveillance business, which provided intelligence and information to stop drugs at their source, stop the Coast Guard, cut their budget, and also to again cut any type of international programs or interdiction programs that had been established back in the Reagan and the Bush administration. That was the policy. They, again, put their eggs in the basket of treatment back then.

I will bring this chart out tonight to show what their policy has been. In fact, if we go back to 1992, in this area, in 1991, and we look at treatment, we see that treatment dollars have doubled. Some of the argument that was made in the debate was that treatment would be much more effective.

I went back and pulled a record, since I have served since 1993 on most of these subcommittees that deal with this issue, and was appalled and spoke out against what the administration was doing back in 1993, and pulled up some of the rhetoric that came before the National Security Subcommittee on which I served that formerly had this responsibility.

Let me just read a little bit of what was said in 1995:

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Moreover, while the subcommittee heard expert testimony in support of drug treatment, it also received expert testimony severely questioning program effectiveness. Finally, since the public rationale for the Clinton administration shift toward treatment repeatedly came back to the June 1994 Rand study, this study was reviewed and found to be a weak basis for guiding national drug policy.

This last part is an analysis of this.

But in 1995, they used the same study that they used in the year 2000 for the rationale of where we should be putting our dollars.

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Accordingly, Lee Brown, who was then Clinton's drug czar, testified that the President was seeking $2.8 billion for treatment, this was in 1995, for the fiscal year 1996 Federal budget, for what Brown said were 1 million drug users in this country who need and can benefit by treatment but cannot get it. Brown testified that the best way to reduce overall demand for drugs and related crime and violence is to reduce the number of hard core drug users, adding that treatment works. This was his testimony to us.

What is interesting is that I took some of the words from the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi): `As the distinguished ranking member referred to earlier,' and she was referring to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), who was the ranking member on the other side, when he referred to the Rand report which was put together again back in 1994. The gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) said, again on March 29, 2000, `Yes, we have an emergency in our country, Mr. Speaker; 5.5 million, as I said, Americans are in need of substance abuse treatment.'

So we have back here Mr. Brown, President Clinton's drug czar, saying that if he got this money in the budget he proposed back then, the best way to reduce overall demand for drugs and related crime was to spend the money on treatment, and he testified, `There are 1 million drug users in this country who need and can benefit from treatment but cannot get it.' And that policy has gotten us up to 5.5 million Americans, according to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) and others who testified, and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) who also testified before the House of Representatives.

So the policy that was advocated by the administration in 1994 and 1995 was followed by the Congress. We have nearly doubled the amount of money in treatment, and we have nearly five times the number of people needing treatment.

Now, what did they do that was different from the Bush and the Reagan administration? Let me just pull up this chart that I have used before. This is really the most telling chart about long-term trends in prevalence of drug use, and it shows that during the Reagan administration years a steady decline in drug use and abuse and all the way down here to 1992. This is where they changed the policy. We went up that treatment ladder, we cut source country programs, we slashed interdiction programs, we took the military, the Coast Guard out of the war on drugs, and we put our eggs in the treatment basket recommended here in 1995. And it was recommended here again in an unending debate on treatment for nearly 2 days where we heard the comments of the other side.

In the Clinton administration what took off like a rocket was drug use and abuse. It took off in every category. It is amazing how the people on the other side are in such denial. And this drives the liberals crazy, to look at this chart. Again, I did not produce these charts. They were produced by the scientific community and somebody monitoring the future. They are by the University of Michigan. Again, we look at the Reagan administration. And this is in one category, cocaine. We see what was happening here.

The Reagan administration, at the beginning, was hit with cocaine coming into the country. They took steps and they started the Andean strategy, the source eradication, the vice president's task force, and we see a dramatic reduction in cocaine use. There was less cocaine coming into the country. Less tolerated.

Then we get into the Bush era, and we see a dramatic increase. Again, he was vice president. As president, he did an incredible job in also curtailing the production of cocaine. And we see a beginning of a leveling off and then a takeoff in the Clinton administration.

This, again, is the policy that has been rejected by the other side, going after drugs at their source and stopping the flow. What we have right now is an incredible flow because this administration has, in fact, taken every step to make certain that any aid in any form to Colombia does not get there, or has not been able to get there, because of their direct policy.

These are a couple of charts and, again, if we look at what we did here with the Bush administration, this is Federal spending in international programs. That is stopping drugs at their source. This is how money was expended by the Congress for stopping drugs at their source. Dramatic cut when the other side took control, putting the money in treatment. And we can take this chart back up here, which is our treatment chart. We go up in treatment, continue to go up in treatment. We cut the international programs and, voila, what do we get? More and more drugs flooding into the country.

That is why the statement by the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) that we have now 5.5 million Americans that need treatment conflicts with just a few

years before when the administration said that we only had 1.1 that were in need of treatment and they were requesting money for that and cutting money in this.

Now, we do see, with the advent of the Republican majority, efforts to get our international programs back to the level of 1991-92. If we look at this chart, the 1991-92 levels, to get back to those dollars, we have to get to this level. So we are barely back at 1991-92 levels.

The problem we have had is that we know where the illegal narcotics are being produced. I went over this with my colleagues before. They are produced now, heroin and cocaine, in one place. Two drugs in one place. They have managed to actually narrow it down to Colombia. So that is why we are here and that is why the situation has spiraled out of control. That is why that region is now in total disruption. That is why 35,000 Colombians have died in that area. And that war that has been going on there is now financed, according to the administration's own drug czar, by narcoterrorism. They fund the violence by drug profits. Very simple.

So we know, one, that the drugs are produced there, heroin and cocaine; 80, 90 percent coming into the United States. We know this policy did not work. We know that we can, first of all, wipe out illegal narcotics at their source, and we have effectively done that. We have two great examples, Peru and Bolivia, their next door neighbors. Cocaine cannot be grown all over the place, poppy cannot be grown all over the place. Coca is a little more difficult than poppies. But we do know where it is coming from, and we know that it is financing the disruption in that region and violence to those people.

Unlike the other part of the supplemental that we were funding here at some $4 plus billion, and we have probably spent another $10 billion on, in Kosovo and Bosnia, and some of these other missions, not one American life has been lost. There has been civil conflict; there has been civil war by all kinds of factions when we stepped in. But there is a slaughter on the streets of America and yet there is a reluctance to step in.

The other side again focused for nearly 2 days of debate on treatment; we have to spend more money on treatment. And they based it all on this failed study of 1994 that Lee Brown, the former drug czar, based his request on; how he would clear that up if we just increased the money in drug treatment programs. I say to my colleagues that by the time we get to treatment, we have a very, very serious problem.

Talk to anyone involved in law enforcement. Talk to anyone involved in drug treatment programs. First of all, treatment indicates addiction. And when someone is addicted to illegal narcotics, they have had a drug habit. A drug habit results in that individual supplying a habit at a cost of anywhere from $100 to $500 a day. We have heard even higher figures from some of the addicts that we have interviewed. That means they are already committing felonies and misdemeanors and serious crimes, sometimes under the influence of these hard narcotics, committing serious crimes not only against the public but against their families. Almost all the cases of child abuse, almost all the cases of spousal abuse involve substance abuse in this country.

So, again, they put all their eggs in the basket of treatment. They cut the international programs, the programs for interdiction using the military. And, again, and we must make it very clear, some of my colleagues I do not think even understood this, our military is not a police force. Our military does not get involved in a police action. In fact, that is banned by the Constitution. Our military does not arrest anyone in the drug war. What our military does is it uses surveillance. We are continually flying planes and using resources to protect our borders against incoming potential threats.

Now, I submit there is no threat greater than a lob of illegal narcotics that has killed 15,973 in 1998 and over 50,000 each year in our country in drug-related deaths. Is there anything that is killing more Americans that is coming in from a foreign source? I submit that there is not.

So the mission of our military is to provide surveillance intelligence information, and that information is going to other countries. It is also going to some of our enforcement people to keep track of people who are dealing with deadly substances which are poised against the United States, against our families, against our children, and killing our people in unprecedented numbers. There are wars, major wars, that this Nation has fought that we have not had the casualties of this war on drugs.

Again, the other side says, well, we should only be spending money on treatment; only treat the people that are wounded; only treat the people who have been victimized; only treat the people who have been the victims and wounded by that incoming foreign substance. If it was a missile, they would speak quite differently. They would go after the target. They would want to destroy the target.

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It does not take a complicated plan to go after the target. We know where the illegal narcotics are. They will tell us it does not work. Well, it worked in Peru. It worked in Bolivia. They will say there is so much violence in Colombia that it will not work in Colombia.

I submit, any of these Members should go back and look. Because in 1990, 1991, I flew into Lima, Peru. In Lima, Peru, I flew in and the airport was sandbagged. The military was on every street. There was gunfire at night. We could not walk through the streets. The buildings were boarded up. The Indian peasant population was sleeping in the parks.

The Shining Path, as ominous a force as the FARC ever was, was slaughtering people. And there were right-wing bands also returning the slaughter on the other side roaming through the towns and villages of Peru in a slaughter across that land. So do not tell me that we cannot bring this violence under control.

Then they get into the argument, well, 75 percent of the paramilitary killed civilians in this, and the other side says 52 percent of the deaths were caused by the FARC Marxist guerrillas.

Well, I do not care if they are paramilitary, and I do not care if they are Marxist guerrillas. They are slaughtering people. They are using the proceeds from their conflict to slaughter our families here.

So that is why interdiction is so important. That is why part of our package deals with interdiction in trying to, again, bring under control some of the illegal narcotics as they leave the source and come out of the source country, the most cost-effective way we can go after these illegal narcotics. And we do not have to use one American service man or woman or put anyone at risk in this process that is providing some of the information.

What is sad is that this administration just does not learn. They shut down information going to Colombia back in 1994. And, of course, the Republicans were outraged. In 1994, we were in the minority; we could not do a whole lot. But my colleague, the gentleman from California (Mr. Horn), and I pulled this quote up from 1994. It said, `As you recall, as of May 1, 1994, the Department of Defense decided unilaterally to stop sharing real-time intelligence regarding aerial traffic in drugs with Colombia and Peru. Now, as I understand it, that decision, which has not been completely dissolved, has thrown diplomatic relations with the host countries into chaos.'

That is the gentleman from California (Mr. Horn) in 1994, my colleague. We served on the committee together.

Now, we would think that they would learn. And we were able to change this after we got support from the other side of the aisle. And even the Democrats were appalled. I brought this up before from the Washington Post: `U.S. Refusal to Share Intelligence in Drug War Is Called Absurd.'

This is the next direct step in the Clinton liberal administration towards illegal narcotics. Back in 1994, they got us in a situation where, in 2000, we are debating on the floor of the House of Representatives a billion-plus, a billion-and-a-half-plus package to bring under control the situation with illegal narcotics coming out of Colombia. These are the series of mistakes.

This is Thursday August 4, 1994. It says, `Chairman of the two House subcommittees again blasted the Clinton administration yesterday for its continuing refusal to resume intelligence sharing data with Colombia and Peru.'

Now, we would think they would have learned by the mistakes that they made. Even members of their own party in 1994 chastised them for this horrible mistake in not providing information so that they could go after drug

traffickers. But, now, these people do not learn.

This is an incredible story that just appeared a week or two ago; and in it was a report according to Claudio de la Puente, who is the charge d'affaires at the Embassy of Peru. This particular attache said, cocaine trafficking has increased due to new air trafficking routes, increased land and maritime transportation; and he said that, in 1999, there was again reduced surveillance which the United States of America, which, again, the repeated requests for assistance, repeated requests for surveillance data and information to that country have not been provided by the United States and, in fact, they are now seeing a recent increase in production of coca cultivation in Peru.

Here we have had in place a program that works. We provide information to Peru. Peru has taken action and swift action and, in fact, shooting some of the planes, drug traffickers, after numerous warnings, out of the sky. We had a 66 percent reduction in the last 4 years. We intercepted 91 aircraft involved in drug trafficking between 1992 and 1997.

And unfortunately, it says, since 1998, the Peruvian Air Force has not been able to continue its interdiction operations because of lack of U.S. monitoring provided by U.S. AWACS and other surveillance planes.

Unfortunately, the administration, starting with the Vice President, who took some of the AWACS out of the South American drug trafficking pattern and put them to check on oil spills and the President moved some of these assets to Kosovo to deal with one of his many deployments there. In the meantime, cocaine production and trafficking is up. We would think that we would learn from 1994.

Then the latest news is, and this is March 22, I believe, last week, prices of cocaine and heroin have fallen to record lows. When we have an increased supply and nothing stopping the supply, prices fall down. Easy economics. This was predicted not only by those in the Congress some years ago but those who are charged with overseeing policy for the United States in that country.

I have a report that was provided to me just a few months ago, December of 1999, asking about what United States military assets are used on the war on drugs. The report was prepared by the General Accounting Office. It says, `Assets DoD contributes to reducing illegal drug supply have declined.' Then it goes on to document that decline.

And oddly, on page 17, it has a statement from the United States ambassador to Peru. Our ambassador to Peru warned in an October 1998 letter to the State Department that the reduction in air support could have a serious impact on the price of coca.

Well, surprise, President Clinton. Surprise, administration officials: cocaine and heroin prices fall.

The other reason that we have had heroin prices fall is because the United States gave up its forward operating location, which was really the center of our entire antinarcotics effort for the whole Caribbean and South America at Howard Air Force Base.

They knew this was going to happen. We held hearings. We went down. We asked them to make certain there were in place some type of agreement either with Panama to continue drug forward surveillance operations or relocate those activities.

Unfortunately, they failed in the negotiation. They failed to keep even the presence of our antidrug monitoring activities in Panama. We were completely kicked out last May 1. And to date, and soon we will be approaching the first-year anniversary, we still do not have in place even a fraction of the capability to detect illegal narcotics coming from their source and go after

them.

We have friends and allies who will go after them. Peru will go after them. Their charge d'affaires cites that they shot down 91 planes until 1998. Their own ambassador tells them a disaster is heading our way. And they pay no attention to it.

Instead, they drag up this trivia that again that treatment is the answer, the more we spend on treatment. And again we go back to the statements of Lee Brown, our drug czar, in 1994, 1995: give us more in drug treatment. We will treat those 1.1 million untreated individuals, to the statement made to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) last week on the floor of the House of Representatives, we will treat those people who are drug addicted, all 5.5 million we are up to now, as the drugs come in unabated to the United States and the policy of the administration, the mistakes that they made in 1994 getting us into this mess, they are repeating again today, and the supply of illegal narcotics is coming into the United States.

We also had in this report that I cited, I requested an assessment of our narcotics effort with the military; and they will tell us that there has been a war on drugs. In fact, there has been no war on drugs. How can we possibly have a war on drugs when we take the assets out from the war?

This report again provided to me about the assets that were used in the war on drugs, again, I did not prepare it, the GAO prepared it just a few months ago, says that flying hours dedicated to tracking suspect shipments in transit to the United States declined from 46,264 to 14,770, or 68 percent from fiscal years 1992 to 1999.

Let us see if we can find our chart here again. This is what they did to us. From 1992 to 1999, a 68 percent decline of our assets in tracking suspected drug shipments. Look at what has happened here, a dramatic increase in drugs coming into the country.

So as they have closed down the war on drugs, now, it would not be bad enough if we just took out our military efforts to do surveillance from the air. This report also detailed to me the ship days devoted to supporting interdiction of suspected maritime illegal drug shipments declined 62 percent from 1992 to 1999.

Now, they wanted to make sure, if we closed down the war on drugs, we closed down completely, well, not completely, 68 percent as far as flight time, 62 percent as far as maritime efforts. Again, they did not talk about this last week. They talked about how the war on drugs is a failure.

I submit, my colleagues, the war on drugs is not a failure. The war on drugs was sabotaged. The war on drugs was closed down. This report unquestionably documents it.

The situation got so bad and out of hand that they have had to do something. But it was a series of very calculated moves. First, seizing the exchange of intelligence and surveillance information, and they are repeating that again. Then decertifying Colombia without a national-interest waiver. They decertified Colombia.

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By not granting a national interest waiver which they can do under the law, they really banned all assistance going to Colombia for 1996, 1997. Almost all of the aid that we have requested, and we have had repeated requests from 1995, 1996 to get aid, helicopters in particular because of the high altitude cultivation of the crop and also access to the remote areas where the narcoterrorists are plying their trade. Simple equipment requests. We even passed more than a year and a half ago an appropriation of $300 million to get assistance there.

What is funny is some of the reporters and others who report on this $300 million, Colombia is now the third largest recipient of U.S. aid. First of all, that aid has barely gotten there even at the beginning of this year, less than half of the $300 million, and most of that was in three or four helicopters, Blackhawk helicopters and several other pieces of equipment we promised 3, 4 years ago. That equipment in almost comical fashion was delivered to the Colombians without the proper armoring so it could not be used, the ammunition was delivered to the loading dock of the State Department in again a farcical move.

The equipment that we have requested, the appropriations that we have made, have been blocked from getting to Colombia. Many of those liberals on the other side of the aisle have blocked that aid and equipment. They do not want the hair on the back of one liberal Marxist leftist guerilla harmed under any circumstances. They can slaughter 32 percent or 55 percent or whatever the percentage is, but that is okay. It is the right-wing paramilitary that we have to be concerned about because they are killing, too.

I do not think we need to be in that debate. I think we need to provide the resources to stop those that are dealing with it, in both the production and transit of illegal narcotics into the United States. So yes, this has created an emergency. They are dying in our streets. People do not want to talk about it. We say treatment is the answer. More gun control legislation. We get those guns under control; we will be in great shape. But do not worry about the narcotics, just treat more people. After we get them addicted, then we can treat them.

Of course they do not tell you that 70 percent of the public treatment programs are a failure. They do not tell you the statistics we heard in Baltimore a few weeks ago that 50 percent of those that are supposed to go to treatment do not even show up for treatment and of the few that end up getting treatment and it is successful, there is still a pretty serious failure rate even with those individuals. But the answer is just more treatment.

Again, treatment assumes that we have already gotten to the point where we have failed with a human being, they become addicted and now they are telling us we have five times the number of addicted people we had when they said treatment was the answer some 5 years ago, and I presented their testimony again today. So time after time this administration and the well-intended liberals and really the saddest part about this was to see some of the minority Members of the House of Representatives here engaged in that debate, just give us more money for treatment for our people, just treat these folks and that is the answer.

They forget that in our Nation's capital we have been killing on average 400 young black African American males a year for the last 10 years. We have just first made a dent in it in the last year or two. That is 4,000 human beings slaughtered. In Baltimore, 300 on average slaughtered in that city. Until Mayor Giuliani took over in New York with his tough enforcement policy, they were killing on average 2,000 people a year. He has gotten that down to the mid-600 range. Look at the heat he has taken for a tough enforcement policy.

But here the liberals in the House and the minorities in the House are saying, just give me more treatment, more treatment money. We get those people treated and everything will be fine. But the deluge of illegal narcotics, and we know where they are coming in from, we know the source they are coming in from is Colombia, no question about it. Yet they are reticent to pass this legislation. Now it may be blocked because the hour is so late.

The submission of this is almost farcical. I asked my staff on the subcommittee to prepare a time line. July 28, 1999, the U.S. drug czar visits Colombia and declares an emergency. We will soon be up to July. The 21st of September, 1999, President Clinton meets with President Pastrana in New York City, endorses Plan Colombia. That is September 21, last fall. The 24th of October, 1999, 10 million Colombians march for peace. January 11, 2000, the White House announces the Colombia aid package. Finally, February 7, a little over a month ago, President Clinton submits the Colombia aid proposal along with his fiscal year 2001 budget.

People are saying, Why now may it be in the cycle, the regular cycle? It is not an emergency because we will only lose another, in the 16,000 range of Americans dying but they die quiet deaths in those little communities and they are buried in some little family plot, it really does not matter. And the other 50,000 drug-related deaths, we can blame it on guns.

Here, this is a great cover. We will pass more gun legislation and that will cover up the problem. And then we will come to Congress and we will ask for more treatment, because we asked for more treatment in 1994 and we told how that was going to solve the problem and we doubled the amount of money in treatment, but we can come here and do that again and that will keep our people sort of in their place.

The saddest part about this is the minorities are dying by the thousands and the percentage in jail are the minorities, the Hispanics and the blacks in this country being slaughtered with this. It is unfortunately also now in the urban centers. The latest reports are it is absolutely ravaging our rural areas.

So this is the policy of the Clinton administration, a failed policy. If I came here and just said that we had stood by and let this happen, I would be as guilty as they. We have put in place some effective programs. We have a multitiered, a multifaceted approach that involves source country eradication, cost effectively, interdiction as it is coming from the source, engaging, using our military for their surveillance.

Prevention. Prevention is a big element. We have passed under Republican leadership one of the largest prevention and education increases in the history of any Congress, and those programs are now under way. And, of course, even under the Republican control of the House since 1995, we have increased treatment some 26 plus percent. That is only the direct funds. There are many other indirect funds. But treatment again is not the only answer.

The other part of this equation, of course, is Mexico. I have been a critic of Mexico because of two things. First, United States policy towards Mexico which is a failed policy has been, is and continues to be a failed policy, and Mexico is also the main trafficking route of that illegal narcotic that is produced in Colombia. In fact, we now know there are relationships of drug traffickers for both of those countries.

What is amazing is that this administration just weeks ago certified Mexico as cooperating in the war on drugs. General Barry McCaffrey went down to Mexico City, I have a report from the news, and he told reporters that Panama in particular faced a full scale assault from narcotics traffickers since last December's handover of the canal. Where were they then? He says, `They're switching back. There's a lot more now showing up in Haiti, Dominican Republic, Jamaica. Haiti is the problem.'

General McCaffrey said in a briefing in the United States ambassador's residence in Mexico City on last Wednesday night. So he is down in Mexico, and he is saying Haiti is the problem on February 11. On February a few days later, I get the interim report from the drug czar's office, the highlights of the National Drug Threat Assessment for the year 2000, and the executive summary. Let me read some of it. It talks about cocaine.

Chicago has become a major source of cocaine, a hub for Mexican organizations. Then it goes on to heroin. It says, the average size of the heroin shipment is increasing and more Colombian heroin is being smuggled through Mexico. Then it goes on to methamphetamine. Florida has become an eastern hub for Mexican national methamphetamine organizations. Next on methamphetamine threat, it says Mexican organizations are expanding

manufacturing and distribution eastward. The next one says the average purity of Mexican methamphetamine, it goes on and talks about that.

It talks about cocaine and crack findings. Mexican and Colombian groups control most of the cocaine transportation to the United States. It goes on and says Mexico remains the primary conduit for cocaine to the United States. The next sentence, there are two primary corridors for movement from South America to the U.S. One is the Mexico-Central American corridor. The next part of the assessment, threat assessment to the U.S. The Mexico-Central American corridor accounted for 55 percent of the detected cocaine shipments for the first half of 1999. Then it goes on, Mexican traffickers generally control wholesale cocaine distribution.

Trends. Now we are up to trends. Mexican and Dominican trafficking groups are assuming a more prominent role in distribution. Trends. The DEA reports that Chicago has become a major distribution hub for Mexican organizations. It goes on.

Heroin. Mexico is one of the four major sources for heroin found in the U.S. Heroin. Heroin production for Mexico in 1998 is estimated at six metric tons. He does not tell you the figures we have gotten is that probably a 20 percent increase in heroin production in Mexico. Nearly all the heroin produced in Mexico is destined for the United States.

Mexican heroin is dominant in the West. Mexican traffickers rely on entrenched polydrug smuggling. Mexican organizations move heroin. Trends. The U.S. through Mexico. Mexican organizations. The average size of heroin shipments originating in Mexico. Projections. Mexican heroin. And then methamphetamine. It ends with Mexican national organizations.

But a few days before, Barry McCaffrey is in Mexico and he said Haiti is the problem, he said in a briefing in the U.S. ambassador's residence in Mexico. This same administration certified Mexico as cooperating. That certification gives them trade, finance, aid, and assistance, U.S. aid and assistance.

Do you know what the response from the administration is and from other groups and Mexicans? We should not have the United States certify whether we are cooperating. That should be given to another party, to a third party, to an international organization. So an international organization would decide whether or not Mexico is eligible to get continued trade, aid, and financial benefits from the United States of America.

Have we gone cuckoo? Here is the report that is given to me on the overall drug problems and trends. Mexico's name time after time, yet this President, this administration certified Mexico as cooperating and fully eligible for all the trade and finance estimates. I could blame this just on the administration, but there are too many others on both sides of the aisle who are willing to turn their back and take a dollar while illegal narcotics are pouring into our country.

The sad part about this, the saddest note about this is Mexico is slowly losing its grip on its national sovereignty. Corruption has turned to violence, and they are slaughtering in Mexico at an unprecedented rate in almost every state which is now controlled from the lowest police officer to the president's office in Mexico with illegal narcotics.

A sad tale but a tale that needs to be told to the Congress and the American people.

As of April 5, 2000, this document was also available online at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r106:H04AP0-551: