Speech by Rep. John Mica (R-Florida), September 26, 2000

Speech by Rep. John Mica (R-Florida), September 26, 2000

ILLEGAL NARCOTICS AND DRUG ABUSE (House of Representatives - September 26, 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 half the time until midnight as the designee of the majority leader.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to come before the House of Representatives on another Tuesday night to talk about one of the most serious problems facing our Nation and the American people and the United States Congress; and that is the problem of illegal narcotics and drug abuse.

I have taken probably more than 40 occasions, usually on a Tuesday, or at least once a week in the past year and a half plus to come before the House and talk about what I consider the most important social problem is facing our Nation. There is nothing bar an attack from a foreign enemy that could do more destruction or impose more tragedy upon this Nation than that problem of illegal narcotics.

I took the responsibility of chairing the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources of the House of Representatives under the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight some 18 months ago; and I took that responsibility very seriously.

I wish I could come before my colleagues tonight and say that we have solved this problem. I cannot as a parent tell my colleagues that we have solved this problem. I cannot as a Member of Congress tell my colleagues that we have solved this problem. I cannot tell my colleagues as the chair of this subcommittee that we have solved this problem. In fact, sometimes I think we make a step forward, and I think that we take a couple steps backwards.

The news, unfortunately, has been even more grim recently, and part of this, I think, is a lack of national leadership and national focus. Let us face it, the Clinton-Gore administration has not been interested in addressing the problem of illegal narcotics. It has not been one of their primary concerns.

In fact, the President of the United States, our leader, our Chief Executive only mentioned up until the passage of several months ago of the Colombia package, the war on drugs some eight times in 7 years. So it has not been in the vocabulary or part of the agenda of this administration.

I do not mean that as a partisan statement. It is a matter of fact. This administration came in with a different agenda, with a different approach. Now, some 7 plus years later, we see the results. This President has been looking for a legacy and this Vice President, his companion, have a legacy. That legacy is not printed by the media. The media will not print this story. But every family in America knows about this story.

There is almost not a family in this Nation today untouched by the ravages of illegal narcotics. Just ask one's son, one's daughter, just ask a young child, and they will tell one about drugs in their school, drugs on their street, drugs in the community. Just pick up any newspaper.

We have conducted dozens of hearings throughout the United States, field hearings and here in Washington; and countless law enforcement officials came in and told us that more than half the crimes, in my area 60, 70 percent of the crimes in my area, are related to illegal narcotics.

I held up some 2 years ago in 1998 this headline from Central Florida. And I come from one of the most beautiful areas of our Nation, a Nation that is very vast, a Nation that has a lot of diversity. I come from a district that is truly one of the blessed in the Nation with high employment, one of the highest educated populations, highest per capita income, all the things that any Member of this Congress would like.

This was the headline 2 years ago in my district: `Drug deaths top homicides.' Drug deaths exceeded homicides in my district some 2 years ago. I was appalled by this. That was one of the reasons why I took on the assignment to chair the subcommittee that deals with our national drug policy.

I wished I could tell my colleagues that this headline was limited to Central Florida; but, Mr. Speaker, this headline has now spread across the Nation.

Last week I made an announcement, and the press did not pay any attention to it because they do not like to cover this story. They do not want to print anything that would reflect in any way badly on this administration.

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But this is the legacy of the Clinton-Gore administration when it comes to the biggest social problem, the biggest problem that is imposing death, destruction, tragedy, sadness beyond belief to American families, and that is the problem of substance abuse and drug abuse.

For the first time in the history of our Nation, drug-induced deaths reached 16,926. And that is significant because in 1998, the last figure that we have for drug-induced deaths, murders were below that figure.

I will never forget what a parent who told me about this headline when we held a hearing in Orlando several years ago. After the hearing, and seeing this headline, a parent said, when I said drug deaths top homicides, I read that, he came up to me afterwards and he said, `Mr. Mica, my son died from a drug overdose, and drug deaths are homicides.'

In fact, what is absolutely appalling, and the media will not talk about it, is the murders that we see here, some 16,914. Well, they are actually decreasing, and there are reasons for that: zero tolerance enforcement. Rudy Giuliani's program alone in New York has reduced the number of deaths by murder in his area from some 2,600, or 1,400 less deaths per year on average. And that is with Rudy Giuliani as mayor with a zero tolerance.

But these deaths here, these murders, half of these are drug related. And if we added this up, we would have an absolutely astounding figure. And this does not mention another up to 52,000, according to the head of our Office of National Drug Control Policy. And our drug czar, Barry McCaffrey, has testified before us that in fact there are some 52,000. If we took all of the deaths that are related, the deaths they do not want to talk about, the deaths where they parade all the horribles about weapons, for example, the biggest threat as far as weapons in our Nation to our young people in fact are illegal narcotics.

Take the 6-year-old killing a 6-year-old. That child came from a drug-infested environment. We had another single digit 6- or 7-year-old who went in with a gun, and everyone was appalled by the story that he had his classmates, and I think the teacher, on the floor. This individual that did that, when he was interviewed later, said he wanted to be with his mother, and his mother was in jail on a drug charge.

Our Nation, our families have been devastated by illegal narcotics. And for the first time in the history of our country, in the history of statistic gathering, we have drug-induced deaths exceeding murder in the United States. And here is the chart that we can see from the beginning of this administration, the Clinton-Gore administration. And this is, fortunately, the legacy that will be printed in the statistical books.

People will look at the Clinton-Gore administration; and, of course, they will remember the scandals. And my goodness, we could spend the rest of the night talking about the scandals of this administration, but this is the scandal of death and destruction. And this is repeated year after year, from 11,000 to 13,000, to 14,000, to 15,000 and topping off at just about 17,000 drug-induced deaths.

And how did we get that way? Well, the first thing is we do not have that as part of our agenda. The first thing the administration did was to employ in the White House people that could not even pass a drug test. I remember sitting in hearings, having the Secret Service people testify before our investigative hearings, that they could not institute proper checks of security of people who were going in the White House at high positions because so many of them had failed drug tests.

So when we have drug users setting drug policy, then we end up with a result like this that the press does not want to talk about, the media does not want to talk about, and certainly those on the other side of the aisle do not want to talk about. Who would defend a record of death and destruction like this?

Then the administration hires as the chief health officer of the United States of America, who? Joycelyn Elders. The most infamous health officer. Our surgeon general who just said to our kids, `Just say maybe.' Just saying to our kids `just say maybe' has results.

Now, of course a lot of people snicker about marijuana use. And the marijuana that we have on our streets is not the marijuana of the 1960s and 1970s. This stuff has high TCL, THL contents, and it does a great deal of damage that is done to the brain, that is done to the body, and we know that. This is not the same drug that used to be on the streets.

So here we have a series of drug policy setters who in the White House, we have a change in policy, dismantling what had formerly been a successful war on drugs. And do not tell me that the war on drugs cannot be a success. In fact, we can look at the success of the Bush-Reagan era, from 1985 to 1992, where drug use in this country was reduced by some 50 percent. This is what took place with the policy of `just say maybe,' or

`If I had it to do over again I would inhale.'

I am a parent. How do we tell our children not to use marijuana or some illegal drug when the highest elected official of the United States has said to our children, `If I had it to do over again, I'd inhale.' These kids are not dummies. And this is exactly what the kids did, they inhaled. And now we have up here some 47 percent of the students that have used marijuana. And this statistic has been repeated over and over. And not just with young people. Some 78 million Americans have used an illicit drug some time in their lifetime. This is according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

This is, again, a statistic that should make us be concerned, because we have somewhere in the neighborhood of 35 to 40 percent of our population already using drugs. We have a chief executive who employs people who use drugs in a policy position. We have a surgeon general who, as part of the Clinton-Gore legacy, said `just say maybe.' These are the results.

Now, some might snicker about marijuana. Again, we have a much more deadly drug on the streets now. We cannot snicker about the death and destruction. This is the headline from a recent newspaper, August 16, from the Washington Times: `The Threat of Ecstasy Reaching Cocaine and Heroin Proportions.'

Some of the news that the drug czar recently gave to the country, along with Secretary of HHS, they took a small area of eighth grade use of marijuana and actually found some slight decline in eighth grade use of marijuana. With this they held a news conference and said, `We are doing a great job; we are doing an incredible job.' What they did not tell us is that these kids are shifting now from marijuana, which maybe can be snickered at, to Ecstasy, which basically destroys the brain. It induces a Parkinson's-like effect. It causes death and destruction.

We are seeing death by Ecstasy, death by cocaine, and death by heroin in incredible numbers; numbers that we have never seen in the history of recording any of this from all of our statistical gatherers. In fact, drug use in the United States among our youth has skyrocketed. In addition to marijuana, which the study that I reported said increased from some 14 percent of the students who were surveyed that said that they currently use marijuana in 1991, before this administration came into office, that number steadily rose to 26.7 percent in 1999, almost doubling. Again, a startling statistic.

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I want to go tonight beyond marijuana. I want to go to the inner-agency domestic heroin threat that was presented to me as chair of this subcommittee. This was produced by the National Drug Intelligence Center earlier this year. What it talked about is what is happening in the drug scene as they shift away from some of the soft drugs to the hard drugs.

The Drug Abuse Warning Network, also known as DAWN, received reports of 20,140 drug-induced deaths in the United States where heroin or related opiates were detected from 1994 to 1998. During the same time span, heroin overdose deaths increased some 25.7 percent.

Again a part of the Clinton-Gore legacy. You close down on the war on drugs, you cut the source country programs where you can cost effectively stop the production of illegal narcotics at their source.

You want to see an astounding figure? Talk about cocaine production. Where does cocaine and where does heroin come from? Tonight I am going to talk quite a bit about heroin.

In 1992, at the beginning of the Clinton-Gore administration, there was almost zero cocaine, zero heroin produced in Colombia. In 7 years, this administration, through some policy decisions that are as inept as anything that has ever been adopted by any administration, created a production facility of heroin and cocaine, coca and poppy, in Colombia.

This is the cocaine production of Colombia. In 1993, almost nothing produced, almost no cocaine produced. This is in metric tons, 65 metric tons. Under President Bush and under President Reagan, they cut drug use by some 50 percent from 1985 to 1992. They started an Andean strategy which stopped drugs at their source. It was cost effective. They engaged the military in surveillance, not in military actions against the drug traffickers but in sharing information which the Clinton administration as one of their first steps closed down.

This is what turned Colombia from a cocaine transit country where coca was coming from Peru and Bolivia into a cocaine production. Look at this production, and it is off the charts. It is swarming across the United States. It is in Europe like it has never been. And it is through policies by not providing information sharing, by stopping antinarcotic equipment getting to Colombia, in fact blocking it through policies of the United States.

This is cocaine production. Heroin production. There was almost no heroin. The only poppies you could see were grown for floral bouquets before the Clinton-Gore policy. Zero.

This is absolutely astounding that this administration, Clinton-Gore, could turn Colombia into the world supplier of heroin and poppy in 8 short years. And that is why this Congress had to pass a $1.3 billion spending bill to pull their cookies out of the gutter, so to speak, to bring this situation under control.

And this production of heroin and cocaine not only disrupted Colombia, which has had thousands of police, thousands of legislators, jurists, citizens slaughtered there, but it has helped finance that slaughter through both the right wing militias and the left wing FARC organizations who finances their activities and their war and their destruction and their total devastation of now a region.

It spilled over into the region which suddenly the President goes down for 6 or 7 hours and takes credit for solving the problem. He and his policies and the Clinton-Gore policies created this situation. And I learned in one hearing they diverted assets passed by this Congress to stop illegal narcotics trafficking production at their source. They diverted to Haiti I think some $40 million was some of the testimony in their failed Haitian nation building attempt, pouring money down a rat hole while illegal narcotics are being produced in this area.

And do not tell me that we cannot stop drugs at their source, because we can stop drugs at their source.

Here is the record of our spending programs, and we track this. I remember going down with former chair of the subcommittee. The gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), who is now Speaker of the House, was chair of this subcommittee with this responsibility. He and Mr. Zeliff and myself helped start the programs in Peru and Bolivia.

If we look at coca cultivation in Peru and Bolivia, this chart here is Bolivia. Look at this, in 1995 a policy that we adopted, we got a few million dollars down there in alternative crop programs, in crop eradication of illegal narcotics crops.

Here is Peru. And look at what has happened here. This is Colombia. This is the administration's policy of stopping sharing information, stopping resources getting to Colombia. That is why we have had to spend billions of dollars now over a billion dollars to bring Colombia under control. But this shows you that you can stop the production of illegal narcotics in those source countries

and you can do it very cost effectively.

Unfortunately again, with the Clinton-Gore administration, the news is bad. They do not want to talk about it. The deaths again have risen to a record level as a result of these polls.

This is the other chart that I continually bring out. And when I hear people say the war on drugs was a failure, yes, this is a failure in a reduction of long-term trends in lifetime prevalence of drug use. This is a failure. This is the 50 percent reduction under the Reagan and Bush administration. This was a war on drugs, a president like President Bush, who found a central American president, a leader dealing in drugs, his name was Noriega in 1989. And what did President Bush do? He did not wimp out. He sent our troops in and they captured Noriega and they tried him and he sits in prison because he was a drug dealer dealing in death and destruction that was coming into our shores.

This is the Clinton close-down-the-war-on-drugs success. You see this dramatic increase in every type of drugs, heroin, drugs that were not even on the chart, ecstasy, cocaine, methamphet-amines.

And this is not something that I make up. This chart was presented by one of the administration's agencies. We look at crack and we look at methamphetamine State by State, 1992 presented by one of the administration offices and agencies. In 1992, almost no crack, very little. You see in a couple of areas. In 1993, the adoption of the Clinton-Gore policy of just say maybe to illegal narcotics. Look at the growth here of methamphetamines, of crack.

In 1994, their policy really kicks in. They had closed down the war on drugs. They slashed the interdiction programs. They took the Coast Guard out. They stopped information sharing. This is what you get from that policy.

Look at 1995. Look at 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, the whole country. You can go anywhere in the United States of America, you can go to the West Coast in California where we held hearings and people are dying by the thousands. There they are abandoning their children on methamphetamines, again a great legacy of this administration. Just say maybe.

I heard Ralph Nader the other night. This guy is really out to lunch.

[TIME: 2320]

He is trying to tell the American people that this is just a health problem, that this can be treated. Ladies and gentlemen of the House, that is bull, because they tried just treating people, they tried a liberal policy. This is the result of a liberal policy.

This is Baltimore, a great legacy. It probably should rank up there with the Clinton-Gore administration. This is a policy of a mayor who came in for 2 terms. Schmoke was his name. He is out. Thank God that he is not in office. He left a legacy of death and destruction in Baltimore, a great historic city, wonderful people who live in Baltimore. They managed to have the population decline from nearly 1 million, it is probably below the chart we see here. These are the figures that were given to me by DEA on the deaths in Baltimore, where they said, `Just say maybe. Come and get your needles. Don't enforce the drug laws. Don't cooperate with the high intensity drug traffic areas. Do drugs, it won't hurt you. This is a health problem. We'll treat our way out of this.'

Look at the murders, steady every year in the 300 range. You have to remember, New York City with 20 times the population only had double the deaths under Rudy Giuliani who brought the deaths down from 2,000 to the mid 600 range with his policy of zero tolerance. With this policy of Just Say Maybe, Do It, death and destruction.

Do you have any idea of how many people are now addicts in Baltimore? We held a hearing in Baltimore. One of the council people we had their statement from the newspaper there, it was estimated that one in 10 are heroin or a drug addict in Baltimore. This is a legacy of a liberalized, legalized policy that failed. This councilwoman said that one in eight, her estimate is one in eight in the population of Baltimore is an addict. That is the result you get. Ralph Nader can go jump in the ocean. This does not work. Using this model, we would have in our Nation one-tenth of the population as drug addicts, and you cannot treat your way out of it. And treatment assumes something very insidious. Think of treatment, my colleagues. Treatment means that you are already addicted. I defy anyone to show me a public program that has a 60 to 70 percent success rate for treatment of addicted people.

There is nothing wrong with treatment. I support treatment. We will spend every penny we can on treatment. The Clinton-Gore strategy was just spend money on treatment. We went along with that and that is what we have done. Since 1992, this is the beginning of the Clinton-Gore administration, we spent money on treatment. Even the Republican Congress which sometimes takes a conservative approach has increased since 1995 26 percent in the drug treatment area. But you cannot fool yourself and say you can treat your way out of this problem.

What does work? I will tell you what does work. This is New York City. Look at Baltimore. We put on this chart the murder rate. Baltimore and New York City. In 1993 with Rudy Giuliani, this again was New York City. This is Baltimore. Baltimore stays the same. A zero tolerance policy. Rudy Giuliani's zero tolerance policy was so successful that it has actually impacted the national murder figures. He has been so successful in New York City with the way he has approached this, not only in his successful treatment programs which we have gone up to look at which are outstanding, far better than anything in the country but not only have they tackled murders in an unbelievable number, look at the seven major felony categories. If you feel like you are trapped in your home, fellow Americans and my colleagues, behind bars because of crime, just look at a zero

tolerance policy, from 429,000 in seven major felonies, they were murder, robbery, rape, first-degree felonious assault, burglary, grand larceny, grand larceny auto, look at the reduction, from 429,000 to 212.

They will tell you that Rudy Giuliani was brutal, that there were acts by the police department that were harsh and that they went after minorities and Rudy Giuliani was a bad guy. That is also bull. That ranks in the Ralph Nader category. This is a liberal twisting of the facts, in fact. Let me just cite what our subcommittee found. The New York City police department at the same time as this zero tolerance policy was instituted was one of the most restrained large police agencies in the Nation. For example, the number of fatal shootings by police officers in 1999, 11, was the lowest year for any year since 1993, the first year for which records were available, and far less than the 41 that took place, and they do not want to talk about this in the previous Democrat administrations, the 41 that took place in 1990. Moreover, the number of rounds intentionally fired by police declined by 50.6 percent since 1993 in New York City. And the number of intentional shootings by police dropped some 66 percent, while the number of police officers actually increased by about 38 percent, 37.9 percent. So Rudy Giuliani put in more police, and they had less incidence of firing.

What about complaints about officers? Specifically in 1993, there were 212 incidents involving officers in intentional shootings. In 1994 there were 167. In 1998 it was down to 111. In David Dinkins' last year in office in 1993, there were 7.4 shooting incidents per thousand officers. That ratio is now down in New York City under Giuliani to 2.8 shootings per thousand officers. The statistics go on to support my point.

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