Speech by Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Illinois), June 19, 2000

Speech by Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Illinois), June 19, 2000
COLOMBIAN DRUG TRADE (Senate - June 19, 2000)

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I come to the floor today having arrived back in the country in the early morning hours from a trip which I took to Colombia this weekend with Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island. I had never been to this country before. In fact, I had never been to South America. But I have come to understand, as most Americans do, that what is happening in that country thousands of miles away has a direct impact on the quality of life in America.

Senator Reed and I spent a little over 2 days there in intense meetings with the President of Colombia, the Secretary of Defense, and the head of the national police. We met with human rights groups.

It is hard to imagine, but yesterday we were in the southern reaches of Colombia in a province known as Putumayo, which is the major cocaine-producing section of South America in Colombia.

It was a whirlwind visit but one that I think is timely, because there is a request by the Clinton administration to appropriate over $1 billion for what is known as `Plan Colombia.' Plan Colombia is an effort by the President of Colombia, Andres Pastrana, to try to take the control of his country away from the guerrillas and the right-wing terrorists, and try to put an end to the narcotrafficking.

The narcotrafficking out of Colombia is primarily cocaine, but it includes heroin. It is now estimated that Colombia supplies 85 to 95 percent of the world's supply of cocaine. How does that affect America? I think we all know very well how it affects America.

In my home State of Illinois, the prison population has dramatically increased over the last few years at great cost to the taxpayers in an effort to reduce drug crime in the streets of my State. That story is repeated over and over in States across the Nation.

So what is happening in the jungles of Colombia in the cultivation of cocaine has a direct impact on the quality of life in America. That is why President Pastrana has called for a coordinated effort by the United States and the European powers as well to bring his country under control and to end the narcotrafficking. It hits quite a resounding note with most Americans.

You would not imagine what it was like yesterday flying over the jungles of Colombia to look down from a Blackhawk helicopter as a Colombian general pointed out to me all of the coca fields that were under cultivation in the jungle.

If you take a step back, we now have the capacity by satellite to take photographs of Colombia, and we can actually pick out where the cocaine fields are located by satellite imagery. When they produce these maps, which I saw over the weekend, you can see provinces such as Putumayo that are virtually covered with cocaine production.

What is the cocaine production worth to the locals? Some estimate that a given hectare, or 2.2 acres roughly, can produce

some 8.6 kilograms of cocaine during the course of a year. That involves about six harvests. A kilogram is a little over 2 pounds. So you are producing about 17 pounds of cocaine on each 1 of these hectares.

What is it worth to the local farmer? He receives about $900 for each kilogram. As you multiply it out, you realize it is a profitable undertaking for many.

Then if you want to understand the true value of the cocaine economics, consider that as it moves up the chain, it becomes more and more expensive. The guerrilla who takes the cocaine out of the fields from the landowner and the farmer is going to turn around and turn it into coca paste, a rough paste. It is now going to increase the value from $900 up to over $1,000.

The next move is to the trafficker who converts it into the white powder, and that will triple the value of it to some $3,000 for 2 pounds.

Now it is headed to the clandestine airstrip where it is going to be shipped to the United States, and in that process maybe go through Mexico, wherever it might be, on its way to the United States. Now it is up from $3,000 to $7,500 for 2 pounds. Then it arrives on the streets of Washington, DC, where it can sell for $60,000--2 pounds of cocaine.

When you look at the economics, you can understand why, starting with the peasant farmer and moving up through the chains of guerrillas, traffickers, and exporters, there is so much money to be made that they are willing to take the risk.

The World Bank estimated last week that the drug trade in Colombia generates some $1 billion a year in revenue to the guerrillas. These are not people living off the land, as we understand guerrillas. These are the folks who are in the narcobusiness big time, and with this money they can afford to literally create towns, which they have done in some of the remote parts of Colombia.

The standing joke, I guess, in Colombia is that if you want to know how well the drug lords are doing, take a look at how sophisticated the discotheque is that they have just created. In one of the towns, one of the most remote jungle areas of Colombia, they created a city and a discotheque with the most sophisticated sound equipment in the world. It was raided, taken over, and closed down. But it shows you the capacity with the money they have.

The question before the United States is, What can we do to address this cultivation of cocaine, as well as the emergence of the guerrilla groups, as well as the right wing terrorist groups who have made extortion and kidnapping and narcodrug trafficking a matter of course in this Nation?

We try to develop these counternarcotic battalions in Colombia that will attack the guerrillas, and go after them and their narcotrafficking. I visited this camp known as Tres Esquinas yesterday and saw 2,000 young Colombians who are being trained to be better soldiers and will be able to fight.

We have a debate going on as to whether we will send them helicopters. It is a big investment. The Blackhawk helicopter, I am told, runs around $10 million, $11 million, $12 million per helicopter. The so-called Huey helicopters, the older models, are slower, slightly smaller, and less expensive. But they don't believe it is up to the task they need to do in Colombia. We will debate sending the helicopters to support those troops to go after the guerrillas supporting this narcotrafficking that sends cocaine to the United States.

We are in this and we are in it big time. I came back from a meeting over the weekend, with the impression that we have to sit down at several levels and say these are the things on which we should insist. First, accountability from the Colombians. Any dollars sent by the United States need to be spent for good cause to put an end to this drug trafficking. We need to ask and demand of the Colombian military that they bring in more reform so that they end corruption. Historically, the Colombian army, in many cases, has been in league with the people who are either on the guerrilla side or the right-wing terrorist side. That is changing. I am glad to see it is changing. The new general in charge, General Tapias, is bringing reform. It is a move in the right direction.

The so-called Leahy amendment, named after Senator Pat Leahy of Vermont, says no money goes to Colombia unless their army shows progress on human rights. I think we should insist on that as part of any discussion.

In addition, we have to accept the reality that no plan is going to work in Colombia unless it starts with the peasant farmer who is trying to grow something on his land to feed his family. Growing the coca plant and selling it is profitable. We need to talk about alternative agriculture if this is going to work. We talked about the vast expanse of Colombia and that challenge. That has to be part of the program.

In addition, we need to discuss how we eliminate these coca plants. Now we are spraying them. It is called fumigation. This herbicide that is sprayed is roughly comparable to one that we are familiar with in America known as Roundup. It is a basic chemical. Once it hits the leaves of the coca plants, it destroys them. I met yesterday with some of the pilots who are on contract with the United States to destroy these coca plants. It is incredible that they can take the satellite imagery which tells them where the coca fields are, convert it through the global positioning system into exact coordinates so they can fly at night and spray this herbicide on the coca plants, killing them, by spraying within 12 inches. That is the accuracy of the spraying, even

taking into consideration wind drift. They are fast at work trying to do this. Imagine a strip of land that is some 300 miles long and 3 miles wide. That is what we are talking about in this one province, the square mileage of coca cultivation, how much spraying has to be done to kill the plants. Sometimes we have to come back the next year and do it again. The farmer tries to get around it again.

There is a lot to be done, a lot of investment to be made. Clearly, from our point of view in the United States, this is something we should take seriously. When we think of the impact of narcotics and drugs on America and what it means to the safety of each one of us in our homes and neighborhoods and communities, the fact that those who are drug addicts, desperate to buy this drug, will do virtually anything, commit any crime, in order to come up with the resources to feed their habit, we can understand why that drug coming out of Colombia has a direct impact on the United States.

Let me talk for a moment about the other side of the equation. It would be naive to believe that this is just a supply side problem, that if we eliminate the supply of cocaine and heroin that America will see an end to drug crimes. We know better. We know there are alternative drugs currently being developed in America, American-grown products that are competing with the traditional drugs. Methamphetamine was started in Mexico, went to California, and now has swept the country. In the rural areas of Illinois, in the small town farming areas of Illinois, they are discovering these methamphetamine labs that can be built with items that are purchased at a local hardware store and can be developed into a drug which is very addictive and destructive.

It is important as we look at the narcotics problem in America to establish that it is not only interdiction and elimination of supply we need to address, but also demand. That takes a lot of effort and a myriad of approaches which have been promulgated by this Senate, the House, and so many different agencies.

We should take into consideration the limited opportunity for drug addicts in this country to have access to rehabilitation. In other words, if you were a drug addict in this country and decided you were sick and tired of this life and wanted to change and wanted to eliminate your addiction, would you be able to turn someplace for help? Too many times, the answer is no. There is no drug rehab available. The addict stays on the street. He might have had a conversion at one point and wanted to change his life and found there was nowhere to turn.

Let me give an illustration. In my home State of Illinois, in 1987, about 500 people were imprisoned in our State prisons for the possession of a thimble full of cocaine, a tiny amount of cocaine; today in the State of Illinois for possession of the same amount of cocaine, about a thimble full, we have 9,000 prisoners. In 13 years, it went from 500 prisoners to 9,000. It costs roughly $30,000 a year to incarcerate someone in Illinois prisons. We are spending on an annual basis just for those 9,000 prisoners--out of a total prison population of 45,000--we are spending about $270 million a year in the State of Illinois. That story is repeated in every State in the Nation.

When we talk about $1 billion to Colombia for the interdiction of drugs, and it seems like an overwhelming amount,

put it in the context of what the drugs are doing in America. Remember, too, as I said earlier, it is not only the supply side; it is the demand side. In my State of Illinois, a person incarcerated for a drug crime serves about 9 months in prison and then they are out again. Half the people in our prison population are released during the course of a year. Those who think we will put them away and throw away the key ought to take a closer look at the statistics. Half the people in prisons are coming out each year. Who are they when they come out? We know when they went in they were criminals. In the case of addicts, we know they came into prison with the drug addiction which led to a crime, which might have led to a theft or something worse, a violent crime, and they went into prison for the average 9-month incarceration. We also know in my State of Illinois, it is very rare, if ever, that the person in the Illinois prison system has any opportunity for drug rehab while he is in prison. So he comes in an addict and he leaves an addict. In the meantime, though, he has joined some fraternities of gang members and veteran criminals who told him how to be a better criminal when he goes back on the street.

That is very shortsighted. What have we achieved? We have brought an addict in and released an addict 9 months later to go out and commit another crime. We have to look not only to the supply side of the equation and interdiction, but also the demand side: How do we start reducing demand in this country for these drugs so we can have a more peaceful and just society?

I am happy I took the weekend to be in Colombia and to learn first hand some of the things we are facing. I certainly hope my colleagues will avail themselves of an opportunity to learn of things that we should be considering as part of a plan with Colombia and as part of our effort to reduce this narcotics dependence in the United States.

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