John Mica

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to a good friend and great American, Mr. Samuel Barnes Moody. Sam Moody, who was my very special friend and was very special to me personally, was born on June 2, 1920. Last week, Sam Moody passed away in central Florida. I first met Sam Moody in my civic activities in central Florida some years ago. However, I never really knew much about his background until some years ago when I invited Sam and several other veteran leaders to a small luncheon gathering. As we sat together, I asked each of the veterans to relate some of their military service recollections after lunch to our group. Sam Moody started off rather hesitantly but he began telling an incredible story. Let me say a little bit about Sam Moody. He joined the old Army Air Corps on November 15, 1940. After his basic training, he was shipped out to Manila in the Philippines where he arrived on Thursday Thanksgiving Day, 1941. Some 18 days later, World War II broke out. Sam Moody and his group found themselves on Bataan and eventually they ran out of food and supplies in April of 1942. Sam went on to tell the story that on April 9, 1942, he and more than a thousand others took part in the famous Bataan Death March. Over 10,000 men, women and children died. Somehow God spared Sam Moody. He was then cast on a ship, a transport. This story is relayed in his autobiography from this event entitled Reprieve From Hell, and I strongly recommend that to every American, particularly every young American. In this transport, hundreds of other Americans were crammed into the hull of a ship that was torpedoed by an American submarine. Many, many, many died. Somehow Sam survived. God spared Sam Moody. Also as a prisoner of war, Sam Moody served under incredible conditions when he arrived in Japan, under torturous and malnutrition conditions, along with hundreds and hundreds of others. Of 36,000 American servicemen, less than 10 percent survived, but somehow God spared Sam Moody. In 1946, after his release and return home, Sam Moody went back to Japan to testify for the American government at the International War Crimes trial. Sam was probably the only enlisted survivor to testify in these trials to help bring justice to those who had killed and tortured so many. At these trials, Sam Moody met Madeleine, who was working for General MacArthur. They married and have two wonderful children, Betty and Steve. Sergeant Sam Moody leaves behind a wonderful family, to whom I extend my very deepest sympathy. Sergeant Sam Moody also leaves behind a record of incredible service and devotion to our Nation and a country he dearly loved. Sam Moody also leaves behind an incredible record of his service and survival from World War II and the Bataan Death March, which I recommend again to every Member of Congress and every American. It is called Reprieve From Hell. Sam Moody went to be with his Maker last week. We will miss him.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I have come to the floor again to talk about the subject of illegal narcotics and its impact on our society, and tonight I would like to start with a small tribute, first of all, to our Drug Enforcement Administration administrator Tom Constantine who will be feted tomorrow upon his retirement, and I would like to first pay tribute to his tremendous service. Next month, in just a few days, Tom Constantine, the administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, will retire and return to Schenectady in New York where he lived prior to moving to Washington, D.C. and serving this administration. Tom Constantine has been the administrator for DEA for the past 5 years, and he had a very long and distinguished career before he came to our Nation's capital. Mr. Constantine began his career as a deputy sheriff in Erie County in New York in 1960 and became a State trooper in 1962. In 1986, he was named superintendent of the New York State Police, and he served in that position with great honor and recognition. Since Tom Constantine has taken over the DEA in 1994, the agency has added 1,200 new agents, and he is overseeing the revamping and the modernization of the agency's intelligence operations. During his tenure, he has initiated new programs to foster closer cooperation which is so important with our State and local law enforcement agencies and to enhance their ability to fight violent crime caused by drugs. Recently Tom Constantine opened a $29 million training academy for the agents of DEA and also for our foreign, State and local police that they participate in with training. The facility which can house 250 trainees is located in Quantico, VA. Mr. Constantine also was one of only 19 people ever to be named as an honorary FBI Agent, and for anyone aware of the longstanding rivalry between DEA and FBI, they really can know and appreciate the significance of this award and recognition. Over the past few years, Administrator Constantine and the FBI Director, Mr. Louis Freeh, bridged the gap between those two Department of Justice law enforcement agencies, and I believe they increased the effectiveness of our law enforcement efforts against major drug trafficking organizations. Mr. Constantine believed that if Mexican authorities wanted to hurt the drug trade, then they could hunt down and arrest their country's top smugglers and major drug lords and send them to the United States for trial, and we know how many of them have been requested for extradition from that country. As he stated in testimony before our subcommittee, the one I chair, which is the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources, there are 15 to 25 key drug traffickers who are primarily responsible for the drug trade. Cases have been prepared against them. They have been indicted in the United States, and arrest warrants have been issued, but they still have not been extradited. Tom Constantine, I believe, is one of the finest examples of law enforcement professionals to ever serve at any level in our law enforcement agencies, whether it be local, State or national. His service to the safety and the well-being of our Nation should be noted, and I know that I join many other of my colleagues tonight on the eve of his being recognized on his retirement in saluting his fine work to both the Drug Enforcement Administration and to every citizen in our Nation. Mr. Speaker, tonight, in addition to that small tribute to a great leader in the war on drugs, Mr. Tom Constantine, I would like to provide, Mr. Speaker, my colleagues and the American people with an update since my last speech last week on the floor on the topic of illegal narcotics and talk about the impact, some of the happenings and some of the tragedies that have faced our Nation and even our Nation's capital in the last week since I last talked on this subject. Then I would also like to talk about a Geraldo Rivera report which was aired, a very lengthy report, some of it accurate, some of it inaccurate, but since we have raised the question of legalization, since we have raised the question of decriminalization, since this topic is now very much in vogue in talk shows and special programs and in news reports, I think that it is important that we deal with the facts, and I would like to talk about those facts tonight. The first thing, in the update of some of the news, the news relating to the war on drugs and the situation relating to crime that emanates from illegal narcotics continues to be bad. Just in today's Washington Post, I would like to read from an editorial that said, and I will quote, the headline is, Shot, 5 months old. The latest stray gunfire victim may be the most innocent of all, a 5-month-old baby boy. He was seated with his mother and a man on an apartment stoop in southeast Washington on Friday, this past Friday, when they were shot in an attack by two masked gunmen. The man, apparently the intended victim, is dead. The mother is hospitalized. The baby, guiltless as a lamb, is in critical condition. As with hundreds of other children caught in the city's violence, the wounded baby did not elect to enter this world. Neither did he choose to live in a neighborhood where drugs, gangs or gun battles flourish. I think if we look at our Nation's capital as an example, and what a tragic example, the last week with death and mayhem in the streets of our Nation's capital, even critically wounding a 5-month-old, we see the roots of some of the problem in drug trafficking and illegal narcotics. Last week, the Nation's capital, Congress, anyone with any sensibility, was absolutely distraught by what took place with the death and killing of a 55-year-old grandmother in the District of Columbia. We saw, those of us who serve in Washington, our Nation's capital and the local residents in this area, saw the funeral and the tragedy of, again, this slaying. I thought I would read a little bit, this is from the Washington Times, about that tragedy and the root of that problem. Tuesday night, police charged Derek Terrell Jackson, age 19, with first degree murder while armed in the shooting death of Mrs. Foster- El, 55, a grandmother who was shot in the back while shielding children from gunfire. D.C. police said the cause of the southeast shooting is unusual. In drug-ravaged areas of the city, rival gangs normally shoot each other in turf wars. An open air drug market has operated for years only a block away from Ms. Foster-El's backyard in the 100 block of 56th Place, Southeast. Again, headline, a tragedy and a neighborhood filled with drugs, crime, violence. Today's Washington Post gives us a story under the crime and justice heading of Maryland, and if they are not killing each other, they are killing innocent folks with guns. This is an account from Maryland in today's paper. A 16-year-old Gaithersburg youth pleaded guilty yesterday to first degree murder in the slaying of a 15-year-old who was beaten and stabbed to death after being blamed for a bad drug deal, prosecutors said. This goes on to say that the individual charged struck the teenager in the head with a large rock and stabbed him repeatedly after he begged for his life, prosecutors said. Another tragedy in the area of our Nation's capital, a 16-year-old first bludgeoning a 15-year-old and then stabbing him to death. Another report, on the Tuinei death, this is from an Associated Press story in McKinney, Texas. Former Dallas Cowboy offensive tackle, Mark Tuinei died of a lethal combination of heroin and a form of drug called ecstasy, according to autopsy results released Tuesday. I spoke in a previous special order about the tragedy possibly being linked to illegal narcotics, and here we see that deadly combination of heroin and ecstasy. We find high purity heroin coming in from Colombia and also from Mexico, and young people and even strong athletes do not realize the deadly potential of heroin just by itself, and then to mix it with some other drug proves to be fatal, not only in Texas but as I cited in my own central Florida area where we now have the number of drug overdose deaths in central Florida exceeding the number of homicides. Further update on the news, I spoke last week of an article relating to Plano, Texas, which has also been ravaged by drug deaths. Tonight there is a story that was published, I believe, over the weekend, 6-27- 99, by Tracy Eaton in the Dallas Morning News, a rather large story about the region's heroin supply and this would be the Texas region, linked to deaths in Plano. The headline says, Mexican production driving economy in the Mexican area. The story goes on and talks about the fields now of poppies. Again, part of this administration's policy did not serve us well in certifying Mexico, and Congress must also take the blame for certifying Mexico with fully cooperating while it is increasing dramatically the production of illegal narcotics, particularly black tar deadly heroin. Let me read a little bit from this story in the Dallas Morning News. Over the past 3 years, and I think I cited this last week, 18 young people from Plano or with ties to the city have died of heroin overdoses. Plano, with its wholesome reputation and all-American city status, is not the only spot that has been hit. Oklahoma City, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Seattle, Boston and Atlanta have all seen tragic strings of heroin-related deaths as part of what United States officials call a national epidemic. Let me quote, and this is a quote, the world is awash in heroin. It is really a nightmare, said retired Army General Barry McCaffrey. He is director of the White House Policy on Drug Control and our Nation's drug czar. He goes on to say, and let me quote Barry McCaffrey, he says, ask our eighth graders are they fearful of using heroin, and around 50 percent say no. It is crazy, that is what Barry McCaffrey said, our drug czar. The article goes on to cite an interesting report this news reporter had obtained, and let me read a little bit further. It says, a confidential U.S. intelligent report obtained by the Dallas Morning News calls heroin, and again this is a confidential report that the news folks have that we do not have it, but it calls heroin, and this is in quotes, a growing national threat. An increased supply of heroin is causing prices to drop and encouraging traffickers to develop new markets. This, in turn, leads to a new generation of consumers. That is the end of this confidential report. Maybe the administration does not want this to get out. Many of these new customers are in small towns and communities, the report read, and let me read again a quote from the report. Suburban consumers age 12--now listen to this. Suburban consumers age 12 to 25 have been one of the fastest-growing user groups, the report read. Then it goes on to another quote, heroin use among women of all ages has increased significantly. So the most vulnerable in our society, our young people, age 12 to 25, are becoming our leading consumers. They go on to cite how heroin deaths nationwide have nearly doubled since this administration took office, according to the latest government statistics. I always quote the absolutely startling statistic since 1992/1993, again with the institution of this administration's drug policy, heroin use among our teenage population has soared 875 percent. This is a story today in the Dallas Morning News that I thought would be of interest and provide, Mr. Speaker, my colleagues with a little update. Let me talk a little bit more about the impact of illegal narcotics and drug deaths and what is happening. Again, a sampling, just a recent case. Just in the past few months there has been a distressing number of drug-related deaths. This is in New York. For example, heroin users in the East Village of New York City have been overdosing at an alarming pace this year, according to a report. One local expert estimates that more than 30 people have died from heroin overdoses since mid-May. It is suspected that the high purity levels are poisoning people who are not prepared for its strength. And I spoke about the Tuinei case, a very strong athlete who died from a heroin ecstasy overdose. In Orlando last March, a heroin overdose victim was left to die as his friends watched him turn blue from suffocation. The victim was left sitting on a toilet for 8 hours after he was found semi-conscious in his bathroom. He was then moved to a bedroom where he stayed for 4 hours before someone called 911. At least one of his friends played video games while his friend died in the next room. Two roommates in San Francisco died of a so-called flesh-eating bacteria, this is recently, after injecting themselves with Mexican black tar heroin. This should be good news for the heroin users out there, that this flesh-eating bacteria is now a special surprise from the Mexican heroin producers. Two others were hospitalized with the infection. The bacteria suspected in the deaths produces toxin that degrade human tissue. It is suspected that the bacteria may be in the dirt that adheres to the drug in the processing facilities in Mexico. Another report, and this is also from my area in Sanford, Florida, central Florida, a gentleman there plowed into a car driven by a pregnant woman, which caused the premature delivery and death of her twin sons. He had cocaine, Valium, and methadone in his system. The concentrations found in his blood indicated that he had probably taken one dose of each of the three drugs within 24 hours of the crash. The pregnant woman was 7 months pregnant at the time. The crash pinned her in the car. Once freed she was flown to the hospital, where doctors delivered the boys 13 weeks premature. One of the boys died the day of the crash and the other the next day. This is an example, again, that I cite time and time again of drug- related deaths. These two premature babies may not be counted in the 14,000-plus that were killed last year because of drug-related deaths. Those who were on our highways and in highway fatalities may or may not be counted. Those who were suicides may or may not be counted. Those who again have died in some other fashion may or may not be counted. Here is an example of several more lives snuffed out by illegal narcotics in probably the biggest social problem that we have facing our Nation. This month a former nurse accused of holding 2 women hostage for nearly 3 days in a hospital, then killing one and critically injuring another, had struggled with a heroin problem for more than 15 years. How will those deaths be recorded? How will those injuries be recorded? In Texas last week, a man convicted of beating his girlfriend's 4- year-old daughter to death because babysitting kept him from buying drugs was sentenced to death by lethal injection. In a murder that shocked Mexico early this month, and I think I cited this death before, and it takes quite an incident to shock Mexico, but early this month a prominent TV and radio celebrity, Francisco Stanley, was gunned down in broad daylight by two men who sprayed the victim's car with automatic fire. Mr. Stanley was carrying credentials provided by the Ministry of Interior identifying him as a Federal agent. Additionally, autopsy results indicate that he was a cocaine user. Mexican media reports have stated that he may have dealt cocaine in the show business world. The way the killing occurred has led investigators to suspect that in fact, this, too, was the work of drug traffickers. That is a little bit on some of the recent news and an update on some of the cases I have cited before. This past week our Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources conducted a hearing on the topic of the del Toro case, in particular, and the subject that we posed and the title of the hearing was ``Getting Away With Murder: Is Mexico a Safe Haven for Killers or Drug Dealers,'' and in particular, the del Toro case. The del Toro case is an absolutely heinous crime that was committed by a United States citizen. Even though his name is del Toro, he was born in the United States. He was not a Mexican national. He was born to U.S. citizens. There is no question from the testimony we had or from what law enforcement has made public that on November 7, 1997, Sheila Belush was found murdered in her home in Sarasota, Florida. She was murdered while her young children, some of them just babies, were left with her, with the body. This is a particularly heinous crime, as I said. She was shot, then she was finished off with a kitchen knife, stabbed in her own home in Sarasota. Her husband testified before our subcommittee asking for justice. Jose Luis del Toro fled to Mexico, and has used the Mexican corrupt judicial system to flee from justice from the United States. We have asked for his extradition and it has been refused. Again, the system which is so corrupt which we heard about in this hearing denied justice to Mr. Belush and the children that she left behind. This is not the only case of an extradition request being ignored by the Mexican government. It is one of dozens and dozens. In fact, in the last 10 years there have been 275 requests of extradition, and in particular, relating to murders and illegal drug dealers, drug lords. We have some 30 or 40 requests of these major traffickers and murderers that have been ignored. To date, not one Mexican national has been extradited to the United States. Only after complete disruption caused by Members of Congress and by others have we received one American. A Mr. Martin was returned several weeks ago. But this committee or this subcommittee showed that justice is not being done in the del Toro case, that the Mexican judicial system is becoming a haven for murderers and drug dealers, and that that country is not complying with simple requests for extradition. Anyone who heard the testimony of this father, this husband, and the details of how this crime was committed against his family, and to hear the pain he has suffered and they have suffered in losing the wife and mother of these children, would cry out also for justice. Again, this is not the only case. Tonight I might cite a couple of cases just for information of the Congress, Mr. Speaker. First of all, first of all, I often refer to Mexico as a haven for drug dealers. Certainly one of our major wanted individuals is Rafael Caro-Quintero. He is a drug lord who is wanted for the kidnapping and killing of our United States DEA agent, Special Agent Enrique Camarena, 14 years ago. Unfortunately, justice has not prevailed in the del Toro case, in the murder of Sheila Belush. Justice has not prevailed in the just incredible, again, heinous torture death of Enrique Camareno, who was tortured to death, and Rafael Caro-Quintero has been convicted of kidnapping and killing our United States agent. Special Agent Camareno was kidnapped and tortured by this individual and his cohorts. His cohorts, I might say, included, and we have evidence of this, scores of Mexican police and Mexican government accomplices who participated in, again, the murder and torture of our drug enforcement agent some 14 years ago. Caro-Quintero ordered the killing because raids organized by Camareno, our agent, were disrupting his drug operations. The United States would like this individual extradited so that justice can be served in the United States in the Camareno death. Again, at least this individual was responsible for organizing the death and mayhem committed against our DEA agent. This is one individual. Tonight we also have with us an individual, another individual who is a drug dealer. This is Agustin Vasquez-Mendoza. Mr. Vasquez-Mendoza is believed to be responsible for the 1994 murder of another United States DEA agent, and that is DEA Special Agent Richard Fahs. Vasquez-Mendoza is not believed to have been the actual trigger man, but he was the criminal mastermind behind the murder of Special Agent Fahs. Our special agent, DEA agent, was fatally wounded by Vasquez- Mendoza's henchmen during an undercover drug buy in Glendale, Arizona. After the murder, Vasquez-Mendoza fled to Mexico, where he is still believed to be hiding. We have indicted this individual. We have also requested the Mexican government to extradite that individual so that he also can meet justice in the United States and under our system, where we know he would be tried fairly and where we have the evidence to convict that individual. I might say, Mr. Speaker, there is a $2.2 million award for information leading to the arrest or conviction of this fugitive. Again, his name is Agustin Vasquez-Mendoza, and the date of birth is March 23, 1974, and he is suspected of being in Mexico. There will be $2.2 million for return of this individual, and also having this individual, Agustin Vasquez-Mendoza, brought to justice. Those are a couple of points I wanted to make, and bring folks up to date relating to news in the drug war and also the hearing that we conducted in our subcommittee on the question of extradition, and two of our unfortunately numerous cast of individuals who have been indicted and we have requests that have been ignored by the Mexican government for extradition to see justice in the United States. Additionally, tonight I wanted to spend some time, as I said earlier, talking about a report that aired on television. I saw it over the weekend. Geraldo Rivera had over the weekend at least a 1-hour story. There was a series of stories. He called it ``Drug Bust, the Longest War,'' and he had some information that was correct and he had some information in it that was way off base. I thought it would be important to set the record straight, particularly since so many Members of Congress and the general public watch some of these shows and obtain information about what is going on in the war on drugs from these reports. I think it is critical, again, to correct information that came out. First of all, I think Geraldo Rivera did a fairly accurate job describing the situation in Mexico, the corruption that exists, the drug lords running rampant, the problem with no extradition, the interviews relating to, again, corrupt activities and drug activities in Mexico being conducted in a routine manner and very few people being brought to justice. I think also the report did summarize that part of the problem was that the Congress, and also the administration, we must say, did not bring Mexico to task, and that has been a difficulty in trying to get Members of Congress to pay attention to this problem. The major source of illegal narcotics, some 60 to 70 percent of the hard drugs coming into the United States, heroin, cocaine, methamphetamines, come from and through Mexico. As I cited, Mexico is now a major producer, producing 14 percent of all the heroin coming into the United States. I think the report was on target about some of the problems. Also on target that this Congress has not responded, and this administration has not responded, in appropriately decertifying Mexico for trade and for financial benefits because the dollar has reigned supreme here, and both Members of Congress and the administration are afraid in any way to impact that trade, that business, that finance. That is unfortunate, that we have allowed our neighbors to the south to become close to a narco-trafficking state. It is not at the stage of a Colombia, but, if it continues, the whole system of justice, the entire governmental process, could be lost, and it could become a narco-terrorist state. That is not that far-fetched. Mr. Rivera had in his report some statements that I believe need correction. He went on to talk about waging the war on drugs and said that the war on drugs is basically a failure. In fact, I have a transcript of his report. Let me read a little bit of it. It says, ``We have always made waging the war the top priority. If only we could get more boats, more planes, more soldiers, we could win this fight.'' Then his second sentence here is, ``Drug treatment has always been a distant second place.'' Now, first of all, we have to deal with the facts. Now, I know Mr. Geraldo Rivera is not noted for always dealing with the facts, but I thought it would be an interesting approach to try to bring some of the facts out tonight that he spoke about. First of all, he thinks that the emphasis during this administration has been on getting more boats, more planes and more soldiers. Well, Mr. Rivera is wrong. In fact, I had our staff pull up, subcommittee staff, pull up drug spending for interdiction, and this would be the account under which we would get more planes, more boats, more soldiers, the military spending. If we could trace this chart before 1991, maybe we could focus on this chart here, but you would see from early 1980 when President Reagan took office a steady increase in expenditures for interdiction. This would be using the military and other sources, getting to drugs just as they came out of their source, interdicting them before they come to our borders. That certainly has to be a Federal responsibility. You would see that all the way up to 1992 with President Bush, and that was his policy. In 1993, and, again, you have to remember the Democrats controlled the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives by overwhelming majorities in the legislative bodies, and, of course, the executive agency, the presidency. They began a steady decline, and it went right to 1995, in expenditures. In fact, there are some absolutely incredible figures, and let me see if I can dig those up here, about the cuts that were made. Well, you can see right here, for example, just in military spending on the war on drugs there was a 50 percent cut during that period. Then the other part of this would be what about what is going on now? Well, I put this little cover on here to show that with the Republicans taking over Congress, we have restarted the war on drugs. The war on drugs basically ended in January of 1993 when this President took office. We restarted the war on drugs, and you can see from this period in here where the new majority took over to here, we have just begun to get back to the point where we were, and we still are not there. Even this shows a projection for 1999 to get beyond where we were. But, again, this chart shows the actual spending on boats, planes and soldiers. Now, of course, this is also shown in 1999 dollars, and we began in 1991 dollars, so we actually have a net decrease in spending. The war on drugs was closed down by this administration in the area of international programs. Now, international programs, in this category, again, if we looked at what this does, this is stopping drugs at their source. While this program dealing with the military was in the several billion dollar range, again, the military is still operating, they are operating in the Caribbean, they are operating around the world, they have been operating in Panama, they have been operating from our bases, and they have a military mission, so it is slightly different. I would have to even argue about that being a total cost. It is something that they are given as an additional mission. This budget deals with Federal drug spending for the international work. That would be at the source country. This is in the millions of dollars. Back with President Reagan and President Bush, we would have seen the same curve from the early eighties to 1992 with President Bush in office. Then we saw basically again a close-down in the war on drugs. This chart shows exactly what took place. On January 1, 1993, this President took office, closed down the war on drugs. This is particularly significant because this is stopping drugs at their source. Now, if you took cocaine, for example, 100 percent of the cocaine was grown with coca in Peru and Bolivia. This is the 1992-1993 era. We knew exactly where the cocaine was, and it can only grow at certain altitudes in the coca bush, et cetera. They closed this down. We saw huge increases in production. What happens here is when we stop spending money closest to where the drugs are produced, you have greater production, and we will talk about that in just a second. But this is the most effective way. If you could stop drugs, for example, we have been able, if you look when the Republicans took over here, working with Speaker Hastert, who was then chairman of the National Security International Affairs Criminal Justice Subcommittee which had oversight over drug policy in the prior Congress, this is where we restarted this program, and this is where we achieved in two countries that we would operate with that we had permission from the administration to operate with, Peru and Bolivia, we have now cut their production by 50 percent of cocaine. Actually, where the administration had a terrible policy in Colombia, Colombia has now become in the last six years the major producer of cocaine. They are actually growing it and producing it, processing it, the largest producer in the world. So our program in these two areas has been significant in cutting 50 percent of the supply. The administration stopped military assistance, helicopters, supplies, equipment, on sort of a human rights basis, and I could spend the rest of the evening talking about that bogus position, which has now turned Colombia into the major cocaine and heroine producing country. In 1993 there was no heroin produced really to speak of in Columbia. Now Colombia is, again, through the policy of this administration, not getting the guns, boats and ammunition to that country, the direct policy of this administration, and is now becoming the major producer. I also put a little cover on this to show what we have done in the last year to try to get us back up to the levels, because stopping illegal narcotics is far less costly, and, again, this is only in the millions of dollars as opposed to the billions of dollars on the other charts. If we can stop the supply, we can, at its source, eliminate a lot of the interdiction costs and the law enforcement costs. What is absolutely fascinating is staff produced this little graph, and this graph is very interesting, because it shows that 12th grade drug use among our young people actually mirrored the spending patterns of this administration. When they decreased the amount for international programs and interdiction, what happened is the supply increased, the price went down, it was available, and when heroin can be bought for the price of marijuana or cocaine you have developed a nice market and a young audience and consumer group that we have heard about that, again, begins using this hard stuff coming in. This is an incredible graph, because it absolutely mirrors the pattern of failure that this administration adopted. Now, again, Mr. Rivera said here, ``Drug treatment has always been a distant second place.'' This is not something I made up. I am quoting from the text which we obtained of his program. Another myth, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Rivera made, and that is borne out by this chart. This chart shows at the bottom the actual amount of dollars expended on drug treatment. If we go back to 1991 and we compare it with 1999, we see that in fact drug treatment expenditures have gone up almost every single year. There is one year in here, 1996, where it did not go up, but we have actually doubled the amount of money-plus on drug treatment. So it is not taking ``a distant second place.'' And this is the policy also adopted in 1993 by this administration, to spend more money on treatment, cut the interdiction, the source country programs, and put emphasis here. So this policy and liberalization policy which we have pointed out not only gives us more spending for treatment, but more people to treat, and we use Baltimore as a great example. It has now risen to 39,900 heroin addicts in the City of Baltimore through a liberal policy. Again, this debunks some of the statements that were made by Mr. Rivera in his recent account. It is interesting too that in today's Washington Post, and possibly in other publications across the country, our drug czar, Barry McCaffrey, made an opinion editorial piece that was published, and let me read from that and what he says. First of all, let me pick up on the part about the effectiveness of some of these programs. Drug use in this country has declined by half since 1979. The number of users dropped from 25 million in 1979 to 13 million in 1996. Again, this does not coincide with what the report of Mr. Rivera said. And again this is according to our drug czar. ``You would think that under the Republican administration there might be less spent on drug treatment.'' And again I'm quoting from Barry McCaffrey, the head of our Office of Drug Policy under the Clinton administration, and this is his quote in this op-ed today, ``In the past 4 years the administration increased spending.'' I have to beg to differ with him, but the Republican majority increased spending on prevention by 55 percent, while spending on treatment rose 25 percent. So treatment and prevention, in fact, have risen dramatically under this Republican-controlled Congress, contrary to Mr. Rivera's statement that drug treatment has always been a distant second place. Additionally, the liberal policies we found actually create a bigger dependent population. I thought it was interesting what Mr. McCaffrey said about who commits crime and who is responsible for the disproportionate share of our Nation's violence that we hear about, and these are his words: ``Drug dependent individuals are responsible for a disproportionate percentage of our Nation's violent and income- generating crimes, such as robbery, burglary or theft. The National Institute of Justice surveys consistently find that between one-half and three-quarters of all arrestees have drugs in their system at the time of the arrest. In 1997, a third of State prisoners and about one in five Federal prisoners said they had committed the crimes that led to incarceration while under the influence of drugs.'' This is, again, part of the op-ed of General McCaffrey. Then the myth about liberalization and that we should allow more folks to become addicts and hooked on hard drugs and that this is harmless, and this is what Barry McCaffrey says in today's op-ed. ``Injection drug users place themselves at great risk. A University of Pennsylvania study of Philadelphia injection drug users found that four times as many addicts died from overdose, homicide, heart disease, renal failure and liver disease as did from causes associated with HIV disease.'' Dr. James Curtis, Director of Addiction Services at Harlem Hospital Center, explains, and this is a quote from him, ``It is false, misleading and unethical to give addicts the idea that they can be intervenous drug abusers without suffering serious injury. So, in fact, the myth that we have folks behind bars, and again I appreciate the sensationalism that Mr. Geraldo Rivera tries to provide, and some of it is entertaining, but we must deal with facts, particularly on such a serious subject as what is happening in our society as a result of illegal narcotics trafficking. Mr. Rivera in his piece cited, and again from his transcripts, two women, and one with tears in her eyes testified that she had only been arrested this one time on drug trafficking and, in fact, I think she said whe was duped, she claimed, into carrying a package of cocaine for a drug dealer. That was one case. The second lady, who had received a mandatory sentence, was there because she was dealing with four ounces of cocaine. He also cited that most of the people in Federal prison were nonviolent offenders. Well, the facts are a little bit different, and I have cited this study, but a study just out from the New York State Commissioner of Criminal Justice reports that, in 1996, 87 percent of the 22,000 people in jail in New York for drug crimes were in for selling drugs or intent to sell. Of the 13 percent doing time for possession, 76 percent were arrested for selling drugs and pleading down to possession. The study further shows that the most convicted first-time drug offenders end up on probation or in treatment, again contrary to what this national report by Geraldo Rivera tried to portray. It just does not hold water. In fact, at a recent hearing we held in the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources, the drug czar from Florida, Mr. Jim McDonough, testified that in a thousand cases they looked at, only 14 out of the total were there for possession and, in fact, some of that may have been also watered down for other offenses. The facts are that, in fact, virtually all convicted criminals who go to prison are violent offenders, repeat offenders or violent repeat offenders. It is simply a myth that our prison cells are filled with people who do not belong there or that we would somehow be safer if fewer people were in prison. A scientific survey of State prisoners conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice found that 62 percent of the prison population had a history of violence and that 94 percent of the State prisoners had committed one or more violent crimes or served a previous sentence of incarceration or probation. The New York study that we cited last week and again tonight was interesting. It was a rather in-depth study, and it showed that in New York, for example, one really had to work at it to be incarcerated in prison, and that no one was there just for a minor offense or for even for a first-time felony. In California, the 1994 prison population rose to 125,000 inmates. Numberous experts and journalists insisted the State's prisons were overflowing with first-time offenders and harmless parole violators. The results of another study, this California Department of Corrections analysis of randomly selected felony offenders admitted to the state's prison and classified as nonviolent, reveals that 88.5 percent of these offenders had one or more prior adult convictions. The average number of prior convictions was 4.7. A fifth of these so-called nonviolent felons had been committed to prison once or twice before. There is study after study to refute what Geraldo Rivera would try to lead the American people and the Congress to believe. A 1996 study of individuals in prison in Wisconsin found that about 91 percent of the prisoners had a current or prior adult juvenile conviction for a violent crime. About 7 percent of the prisoners were in for drug trafficking. None were sentenced solely for possession or as a drug user, and fewer than 2 percent were first-time drug or property offenders. Prisoners served less than half their sentence time behind bars, and 82 percent were eligible for discretionary parole within a few years. So the facts are not as presented, again sensationally, by Geraldo Rivera. They do show a different picture, if we just take a few minutes to look at them. According to a study published in the Journal of American Medical Association last year, nondrug users who live in households where drugs, including marijuana, are used, are 11 times as likely to be killed as those living in drug-free households. Drug abuse in a home increased a woman's risk of being killed by a close relative some 28 times. So, again, the myths that were portrayed in this presentation tried to make us feel warm and fuzzy about releasing folks into the population. I do not want to say that we do not need to treat folks in prison and I think a very good case could be made for that, but we must have effective treatment programs, not only in prison but also for other individuals, such as those portrayed, those individuals such as the young woman who was on drugs, as a young man who went back to drugs. We must work together to find solutions to this incredible problem facing our society but we must also not just listen to the Geraldo Riveras but to the facts about drugs and illegal narcotics and their impact on our society.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I come before the House tonight on the eve of the third anniversary of the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia. Tomorrow will mark the third anniversary of the Khobar Towers bombing. Shortly before 10 p.m. on Tuesday, June 25, 1996, a van parked outside the Khobar Towers military complex in Saudi Arabia exploded. The van held an estimated 2,000 pounds of explosives which killed 19 American servicemen and injured approximately 500 other people. One of those servicemen who was killed was U.S. Airman Brian W. McVeigh from DeBary, Florida. Mr. Speaker, I had the opportunity to speak at Brian's high school graduation. I had the honor to speak at the unfortunate circumstance of his funeral and memorial service, and I was so honored to be asked to be part of that in memory of Brian after he was killed. I had an opportunity on this Memorial Day to join with citizens of central Florida and the city of DeBary and others who chipped in to create a memorial park for Brian McVeigh, in memory of Brian and other U.S. servicemen and women who served our country and lost their lives. The parents of Brian were there; Jim and Sandy Wetmore, Brian McVeigh's parents. But a park is not satisfactory. It is a nice memorial, but what I think we all demand on the eve of this horrible anniversary is justice. The investigation of this terrorist attack has included countless closed-door top secret briefings of government officials in which I have participated, and we still do not have answers. Regardless of those closed-door briefings and discussions held to date, there have been no indictments. The families who lost their loved ones in this terrible crime deserve to have justice and see those responsible prosecuted. We know where some of the responsible parties are, and we have the ability to detain and to prosecute and go after them. Why have the victims' families not received justice? While we have been informed that the Saudi Government is being extremely cooperative, they are still not producing results, while they have strong indications of who the perpetrators of this terrible crime were and are. Let us move away from international politics and bring these terrible criminals to justice. Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record the names of the service members killed in the bombing of Khobar Towers, in addition to Brian McVeigh. The list referred to is as follows: Following is the list of names of service members killed in the bombing of Khobar Towers near King Abdul Aziz Air Base, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, in June 1996: Capt. Christopher J. Adams, Massapequa Park, N.Y. Capt. Leland T. Haun, Clovis, Calif. Master Sgt. Michael G. Heiser, Palm Coast, Fla. Master Sgt. Kendall K. Kitson Jr., Yukon, Okla. Tech. Sgt. Patrick P. Fennig, Greendale, Wis. Tech. Sgt. Thanh V. Nguyen, Panama City, Fla. Staff Sgt. Daniel B. Cafourek, Watertown, S.D. Staff Sgt. Kevin J. Johnson, Shreveport, La. Staff Sgt. Ronald L. King, Battle Creek, Mich. Sgt. Millard D. Campbell, Angelton, Texas Senior Airman Earl F. Cartrette Jr., Sellersburg, Ind. Senior Airman Jeremy A. Taylor, Rosehill, Kan. Airman First Class Christopher B. Lester, Pineville W. Va. Airman First Class Brent E. Marthaler, Cambridge, Minn. Airman First Class Brian W. McVeigh, Debary, Fla. Airman First Class Peter J. Morgera, Stratham, N.H. Airman First Class Joseph E. Rimkus, Edwardsville, Ill. Airman First Class Justin R. Wood, Modesto, Calif. Airman First Class Joshua E. Woody, Corning, Calif. This information was confirmed by the Office of Assistant Secretary of Defense, Public Affairs. Mr. Speaker, that list, as I said, includes 19 American servicemen who lost their lives in service to this country 3 years ago tomorrow. All the relatives of those servicemen deserve justice, Jim and Sandy Wetmore, the parents of Brian McVeigh, deserve justice, the American people demand justice, and Congress must demand justice. On the eve of this tragic anniversary, I urge the Congress to continue its effort, I urge this administration to continue their efforts, I urge each and every agency responsible, including the Department of Justice, including the Department of State, and all of our Federal agencies, to see that justice does prevail, again, not only for Brian McVeigh, our hero, but for the parents and the families of the 18 other servicemen who lost their lives on June 25, 1996, in a terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Arkansas for yielding to me. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment offered by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul) in support of the amendment offered by the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Hutchinson) in opposition to H.R. 1658. I think the good Lord knows that, any time we have the distinguished gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde), the chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, as an advocate in alliance with the distinguished gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank), and the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Barr), we have formidable proponents for any proposition. I reluctantly rise in opposition to their proposal, H.R. 1658. I chair the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources dealing with illegal narcotics. I can only say that I have never been so inundated in the past number of months on any issue as much as in opposition to H.R. 1658 than by those in our law enforcement community. So I am reluctant to rise in opposition, but let me make a few comments. Asset forfeiture is a very critical tool in law enforcement. It allows law enforcement to take the profit out of crime and pay restitution to victims of crime. Forfeiture is a critical element in the fight against drug trafficking, and it literally ensures that crime does not pay. In the vast majority of cases, the asset forfeiture laws, as we have heard, have been very fairly applied and effectively applied for the benefit of both law enforcement and the public and our citizens. Forfeiture is an essential component on the war on drugs today. Weakening the laws or placing any unnecessary procedural hurdles in the paths of prosecutors could undercut these law enforcement efforts and could provide a windfall to criminal organizations that commit crime for profit. These are not just my words. This is what is being said about this proposed legislation, H.R. 1658, to me by those in the law enforcement community. They say that the burden of proof is too high; that H.R. 1658 forces the government to prove its case by clear and convincing evidence. The usual standard for civil enforcement actions involving property is the preponderance of evidence. Thus, 1658 makes the government's burden in drug cases higher than it does in cases involving bank fraud, health care fraud or procurement fraud, giving, in this instance, those who deal in drugs more protection than bankers, doctors and defense contractors. Again, this is what is being said to me by the law enforcement community. They also charge that this proposal could encourage the filing of thousands of frivolous claims by criminals, their families, their friends and associates. They also are telling me, again, that H.R. 1658 lets criminals abscond potentially with cash, vehicles and airplanes. The Hutchinson amendment, I might say, addresses each of these concerns that have been raised by the law enforcement community. Also, they say that H.R. 1658 allows drug dealers to pass drug profits on to their heirs, and this provision is eliminated by the Hutchinson proposal. And, finally, they are telling me that this could provide a windfall to criminals that we should eliminate.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, it is Tuesday night, and again I rush to the floor to talk about illegal narcotics and its impact upon our society and the responsibility we have as a Congress to deal with probably the most important pressing social issue. It is interesting to sit here and listen to some of my colleagues, not the last two speakers, but previous speakers who talked about the focus of the tension of this Congress during the last week and last several weeks since Columbine. The latest solution is, I guess, to control gun show sales and then also putting child safety locks on guns, both remedies that may solve some incidences and crime and the use of firearms. But it is amazing how the people who really, I think, got us into this situation we are into, with some of the disrespect for the law, some of the lack of law and order, some of the lack of discipline in our schools, the liberal court decisions and appointments that have gotten us into this situation where young people do not know right from wrong and where anything goes in our society, they come up with solutions that address a tiny part of the problem. They will go to the heart and soul of this subject, the child or the young person that is committing that crime. It is interesting. There were 10,000 murders by guns last year in this country, and there should not be one murder in this Nation by a gun or a knife or an explosive or through any other mayhem. But, again, the liberal side likes to look at these issues and address a little bit of the symptoms and not really address the root problems. One of the problems that I continually come to the floor and talk about is the problem of illegal narcotics. Certainly if we looked at the root of violence in this country and crime in this country, there is a direct correlation between crime and illegal narcotics use. Probably a vast majority of the murders committed in the United States were drug related or the individual involved was involved in some type of substance abuse. While there were 10,000 murdered by guns in this country, there were 14,000 who died from the direct cause of drug-related deaths. That does not get much attention. It is unfortunate that, again, we just address some of the symptoms, we do not address the root problems. I am here again tonight to talk about a problem that we have in our communities. As I said before in the House, we have a Columbine in our Nation every single day times three with the number of young people that are dying of drug-related deaths. I am not talking totally about the number of suicides, the number of automobile accidents, the other unreported deaths, but more than 14,000 drug-related deaths in the United States that we can trace to this very serious problem in our Nation. It is interesting, too, that the statistics show that some of the young people involved in violence in our schools and communities, and also involved with weapons, whether they be guns or explosives, also have a drug or substance abuse problem. This one study I will quote, by the Parent Resources and Information on Drugs, called PRID, reported that of high school students who had carried guns to school, 31 percent used cocaine compared to 2 percent of students who had never carried guns to school. The same relationship was found among students in junior high school in the study. The number of gang members, and again we are just zeroing in on one substance, cocaine, who reported using cocaine upon their arrest was 19 percent. Again, if we start tracing illegal narcotics and substance abuse to our young people, we start looking at the root problem. Now, we have in our Nation, across the land in jails and prisons and penitentiaries and holding facilities nearly 2 million, 1.8 million, Americans. It is estimated in the hearings that we have conducted both here in Washington and field hearings that we have conducted in our Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources of the Committee on Government Reform, that, in fact, somewhere in the neighborhood of 70 percent of the people behind bars, incarcerated in our prisons and jails, are there because of drug-related offenses. This is a startling statistic. And, in fact, what is even more startling is the more prisoners who are tested who come into our prisons for illegal narcotics, we find the percentage is increasing every year of drug offenders coming into the system. In fact, even those who are selling drugs are hooked on drugs. Eighty-one percent of the individuals selling drugs tested positive at the time of the arrest, including 56 percent for cocaine and 13 percent of them for heroin. Again, if we look behind the gun, if we look behind the crime, we see a very serious problem, and that is the problem of illegal narcotics. Now, some would say, why do we not just let these people out; they are committing harmless crimes, and they should not be incarcerated. We also hear people say, well, most of the people in jail are there because of possession, maybe of marijuana or small amounts of some illegal substance. As chair of the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources, we were able to convene, and I chaired last week, probably one of the first hearings of its type in some years in the Congress. I am not sure even if there had been a previous hearing on the subject. But it was entitled the Pros and Cons of Drug Legalization, Decriminalization and Harm Reduction. That title was chosen to get people to think and also to have people present before our committee the pros and cons of legalization, because many folks across the land are saying, again, let these folks out of jail, they are there for possession for some minor crime. Our hearing was very interesting this past week in that we debunked a number of the myths relating to those people who are in prison for a crime. We found, in fact, that they are not there for simple possession. Several studies were reported and are part of that Congressional Record, but one study that I thought was most interesting, and I pointed this out before, was one conducted in the State of New York that was just completed. It is a study just out from the State Commissioner of Criminal Justice which tells a different story about who is in prison and incarcerated there on drug-related offenses. In 1996, 87 percent of the 22,000 people in jail in New York for drug crimes were in for selling drugs or intent to sell. Of the 13 percent doing time for possession, 76 percent were arrested for selling drugs or intending to sell. And, actually, some of the final sentences were pleaded down, as they say, to possession. So they were not actually possession. So here we have a recent study from the State of New York that debunks the theory that people in our jails are there for possession of small amounts of so-called harmless narcotics. It is interesting that the question also comes before our subcommittee and before the Congress about the tough laws. Are tough laws effective, and do tough laws have any effect on these people who are involved with illegal narcotics? A Dr. Mitchell Rosenthal, head of Phoenix House, a national drug treatment center based in Manhattan, said these tough drug laws have diverted lots of people into treatment who would not have otherwise gone into treatment. So, again, some of the people who deal with people who are in prisons, people who are involved in illegal narcotics and the treatment for that, they provided testimony to our committee that debunks some of the myths about who is in prison and why they are there. It was interesting to also have in our panel of witnesses the new Florida State drug czar, Mr. Jim McDonough. He was formerly the Deputy Director of the National Office of Drug Control Policy, and has now been appointed by Governor Bush, Governor Jeb Bush, I do not want to mix him up with the man who is going to be President. In fact, Jeb Bush, our new Governor, created a czar's office and appointed Jim McDonough to head that position. Jim McDonough testified before us on his viewpoint, and he has a great deal of experience over the years not only at the national level, but dealing with this drug issue. And he said, and let me quote, ``Legalizing drugs is a notion to which I am steadfastly opposed. I came to this position after years of observation and study of the nature of drug addiction and its horrific consequences for the addicted, their families and society. The immense costs that drug addiction extract on our Nation were driven home to me during my tenure as Director of Drug Strategy for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. My recent experience as the Director of Florida's Office of Drug Control have only served to reinforce my beliefs on the subject.'' So we had a number of people testifying that, again, drug legalization does not make much sense, and, in fact, the liberalization policies do not work. And I want to talk about those liberalization policies in just a moment and give some very specific examples which we had in the hearing and I have talked about before. But, again, we had a wide variety of testimony. I was quite shocked at the testimony of a representative of Cato Institute, a fairly well- respected think tank here in Washington. The executive vice president of Cato testified before our subcommittee that he felt it was time to legalize heroin and cocaine and basically market it like tobacco and alcohol and other regulated products that we have today. Again, though, the bulk of testimony disputed what Mr. Boaz commented in our hearing, and actually the facts just refuted what he was promoting. It is important that we just look at a couple of facts that were brought out in the hearing. First of all, it is important to note that drugs are harmful, and not because they are illegal. They are illegal and have been made illegal because they are harmful, and we had scientific evidence that supported that fact; in fact, a bibliography that would probably fill the entire Congressional Record, this edition anyway, of those who have looked at these illegal narcotics and have shown us exactly what happens to the body and the mind. What was particularly interesting is some of the scientists produced X-rays of the brain, images of the brain, which showed the effect of methamphetamine on the brain and how the pattern of abuse begins to model some of the serious diseases that we see in brain scans that are done with people who have Parkinson's or Alzheimer's or other diseases of the brain. So these types of disabilities and diseases can be induced by illegal narcotics. We have made drugs illegal because they are harmful. Increasing the availability of drugs through legalization would dramatically increase the harm to all of our citizens. One of the problems that we would have with legalization is, the main targets and the main problem that we have today, is our young people. If we look at the statistics, the statistics are just mind-boggling as far as use of illegal narcotics among our young people. It has leveled off some in the adult population. But, for example, the teenage use of heroin in the last 6 or 7 years has soared 875 percent in our teenage population. So no one would be harmed more than those that we are trying to protect, and that is our young people. And the question was raised in our hearing and has been raised, too, in the Congress about the public's feeling on this subject. A 1998 poll of voters conducted by the Family Research Council found that 8 of 10 respondents rejected legalization of drugs like cocaine and heroin. So certainly the testimony provided by Mr. Boaz, or Cato, for legalizing these is opposed by a most recent poll, which states, and these numbers are provided by the Family Research Council, that 80 percent of Americans oppose legalization, and 7 out of the 10 are in very strong opposition. A 1999 Gallup poll found that 69 percent of Americans oppose the legalization of marijuana. One of the items that our hearing focused on, and one of the reasons for the hearing, was that we have lost some of the battles in some of the States around the country on the question of legalization of marijuana for medical purposes. I plan to conduct additional in-depth hearings on that subject, but it is interesting, and we sort of scratched the surface in our hearings about what has been going on, about the tens of millions of dollars that have been coming in to promote this legalization. Both our national drug czar, Barry McCaffrey, and others testified that they felt that the efforts to get a foothold on the legalization of what are illegal drugs today is being done through this highly- financed campaign to legalize marijuana for medical use. We will look, as I said, further at that question. But this poll says that 69 percent of Americans even oppose the legalization of marijuana. Proponents argue that legalization is a cure-all for our Nation's drug problem. However, the facts that were brought out in our hearing show that legalization is not a panacea. In fact, the statistics and facts that were brought forth show that legalization and liberalization, in fact, becomes a poison. Legalization would dramatically expand America's drug dependence, significantly increasing societal costs of drug abuse, and put countless more people's lives at risk, and, again, particularly our young people. The legalization of drugs in the United States would lead to a disproportionate increase in drug use among our young people. Youth drug use, as I have said, has dramatically increased. And our youth drug use is also driven by additives. When young people perceive drugs as risky and socially unacceptable, our youth drug use drops. We saw that in the Reagan and Bush administration. We had a President, a First Lady, and others who provided leadership and they started campaigns to ``just say no.'' They started really an anti- narcotics effort, a real war on drugs. And that message really got through. Because drug use went down, down, down. Only since 1993, with this President and this administration, have we seen a reversal in that trend. Legalization would send a strong message that taking drugs is safe and socially accepted behavior that should be tolerated among peers, and this would also go for children again who are most impressionable and do the most harm again among our young population. Such a normalization would play a major role in softening our youth attitudes, and ultimately I think we would see an even greater increase in drug use among our young people. By increasing the rates of drug abuse, legalization would exact a tremendous cost on our society. This is another fact that was pointed out in our hearings. In fact, if drugs were legalized, the United States would see a significant increase in the number of drug users, the number of addicts, and the number of people dying from drug-related causes. And I will have a little bit more to point out on a couple of studies that were done in just a moment that confirm that. While many of these costs would fall first and foremost on the drug user, countless others would also suffer if drugs were legalized. Contrary to what the liberal thought folks and legalizers would have us believe, drug use is not indeed a victimless crime. Legalizers will claim the fact that alcohol and tobacco, both legal substances for adults, cause so much harm to society that we should look at drugs and let drugs follow in their pattern. According to their logic, we cannot get too much of a bad thing. That analogy is false. Law enforcement experts and prison statistics indicate that drug use is directly or indirectly related to 60 to 80 percent of the crime in the United States. And then, of course, they always point to different models. We talk about European models of Switzerland; and, of course, the most well-known is the Dutch model. The Dutch adopted a soft approach to some drugs. And while they have adopted a softer approach, they have not legalized drugs. Under the Dutch system, possession and small sales of marijuana have been decriminalized. However, marijuana production and larger sales remain criminal. Drugs such as cocaine and heroin remain illegal. When the Dutch coffee shops started selling marijuana in small quantities, the use of the drug more than doubled between 1984, when they began this, and 1996; and this is particularly among the young people, 18- to 25-year-olds. In 1997, there was a 25-percent increase in the number of registered cannabis addicts receiving treatment, as compared to a mere three percent rise in the cases of alcohol use. This is interesting because it shows where they have a liberalization and legalization, they have increased addiction. During this period, the Netherlands has also experienced a serious problem with other substances of abuse, in particular heroin and other synthetic drugs, which remain illegal. The number of heroin addicts in Holland almost tripled since the liberalization of drug policies was instituted. Again, it shows that this liberal policy, when they liberalize with illegal narcotics, they pay for it on the other end. In most cases, crime does not dramatically drop off but what, in fact, happens is they create a whole new population of addicts. Let me just show my colleagues, and we have used this chart before, but this is one of the most telling charts. We brought it in the hearing and I displayed it again in the hearing. This shows Baltimore. In Baltimore, in 1950, the population was over 900,000. In 1996, it was 675,000. In 1950, they had 300 heroin addicts. And these statistics were given to me by our Drug Enforcement Agency. In 1996, as I said, the population dropped some 300,000. Although the City of Baltimore, which had a liberal policy and liberal leadership, had its heroin addict population rise to 38,985. Now, this is the statistic we had for 1996. In fact, I am told that the figure is closer to 50,000. It is almost really one per 10 in Baltimore. So not only the Dutch model which we just cited but also the Baltimore model shows us that, as we liberalize, we end up, in fact, with this incredible population of addicts. Now, and I used this in the hearing, if this model was continued in the United States and we legalized heroin, for example, we could have in the neighborhood of about 25 million heroin addicts in the United States. So it shows again, whether it is the Dutch model or the Baltimore model, that this does not work. Now, we do pay a big price for all of the use that these illegal narcotics and abuse of illegal narcotics. I try to cite every week some of the latest findings or some of the latest news. I come from the State of Florida. I represent East Central Florida. Florida has been plagued by the toll of illegal narcotics. This headline was in one of the local papers just within the last few weeks. It says, ``Illegal Drug Use Toll Soars.'' ``Drug abuse is the main force in driving up hospital charges,'' the study indicates. The hospital tab just indicated in this study was $137.5 million in the State of Florida. Let me read a little bit about what took place and what this study revealed. ``A new State study,'' and again this is in the State of Florida, Details the high cost of drug abuse to our Floridian hospitals and also to the Florida taxpayers. The hospital costs for medical conditions, including poisoning, overdoses, and heart attacks triggered by drug abuse in the State, reached about $137.5 million in 1997, with cocaine and narcotics ranking as the most destructive. Those costs covered just the hospital charges and do not include doctors' time and other services and other things, such as outpatient care and other problems a patient might incur as a result of drug abuse. In its first drug hospitalization cost study, completed in May, the Agency for Health Care Administration said a total of 39,764 cases with drug abuse diagnosis was reported by Floridian hospitals in 1997, the most recent year of statistics that are available. It is interesting also about this article, and it is a rather lengthy article and I am only citing part of it here, is that most of those affected in these cases, in fact, 59 percent of those who are hospitalized and incurred this cost were between age 15 and 39, the youngest part of our population again the victims of illegal narcotics. Additionally, I like to update my colleagues on different articles about what drug abuse and illegal drug trafficking is doing. Earlier this year, ``Florida Trend'' produced their publication with a cover ``High Times Special Report, Florida's Billion-Dollar Drug Business,'' another indication of the impact of illegal narcotics and drug trafficking in my State. This article said, ``High Times,'' that is the title, ``The illegal drug industry has become a fixture in Florida's economy and nearly as corporate as Microsoft.'' Let me just read a little bit. ``Central Florida has become a major distribution hub and tested market for methamphetamines and especially for heroin, which killed more Central Floridians last year than homicide.'' I have carried to the floor one of our headlines that said just recently that more people, particularly our young people in Central Florida, have died as a result of drug-related deaths than homicide. This study also has some information by University of Miami Business Professor Robert Gross, who estimates that cocaine traffickers in Florida, including wholesalers and low-level dealers, earn in the neighborhood of $5.4 billion in this illegal trade. And the article goes on and on, in fact it is quite lengthy, telling about the impact of illegal narcotics, the effort to dispose of some of the income, which is all in cash. For every million dollars, it is estimated around 110 pounds of cash has to be laundered. Incredible figures in this drug war. That is in Florida. Fairly recently a Texas publication, ``The Texas Monthly,'' published a riveting story on ``Teenage Wasteland'' it is called, and that cited the death and destruction that drugs have brought to Plano, Texas. I will just quote a little bit of that article. It says, ``Now heroin has hit the city hard. There have been 15 fatal heroin overdoses in the past 2 years, nine of them teenagers, all but one younger than 23. They came from good homes, and they had bright futures.'' And it goes on to details. Another story of another community. It is not just Florida our hearings have indicated. It is Texas, Minnesota, Iowa, California, the list goes on and on, of areas where we have had incredible problems from the impact of illegal narcotics. I cited a little bit earlier the Baltimore model and the Dutch model, which were brought up in our hearings and provided as evidence in our hearings relating to legalization. We do know, however, that in fact top policies relating to illegal narcotics do work. There is no more telling evidence than the evidence that is supplied by DEA on the deaths in New York City. These are the decreases in the murder rate in New York City. If we look back to the early part of this decade, they were averaging over 2,000 deaths in New York City according to this report again by DEA. The tough policies of the mayor, a former prosecutor, Rudy Giuliani, have brought the latest tally of murders down to 629, a 70 percent decrease in murders in that city. It just shows again that tough enforcement policy does in fact work and is effective in reducing murders, drug abuse and drug-related crimes. There is no question about it. The statistics speak for themselves. What I would also like to do tonight, in addition to talking about the hearing that we held last week, is talk about a hearing that we are going to hold tomorrow, and that is a hearing on extradition, and it relates to Mexico. As I have pointed out before, we know where the drugs are coming from. Let me pull up another chart here. This chart shows where heroin is coming into the United States, its origin. Seventy-five percent of the heroin comes from South America. This is a dramatic change over a few years ago, mostly brought about as a result of the Clinton policies to stop drug interdiction, to stop the crop eradication programs, to take the military out of the war on drugs; to basically close down the war on drugs, that decision was made. We now see South America as the source of 75 percent of the heroin. We see smaller amounts, 5 percent from Southeast Asia and Southwest Asia is 6 percent. If we added Mexico in, we are looking at 89 percent of the heroin coming from Mexico, in South America. The Clinton administration had a very specific policy of not providing assistance, arms, helicopters, resources in any way to Colombia. That is how Colombia got to be the number one producer of cocaine in the past 6 years. It was not even on the chart 6 years ago. The number one producer of heroin in the last 6 years. There was almost zero heroin or opium poppy grown in Colombia 6 years ago. Again, the direct result of this administration's policy was to have that country now become the major producer. That heroin and cocaine are transiting not only directly from Colombia but 60 to 70 percent of the hard drugs coming into the United States are transiting through Mexico. That includes cocaine, heroin and methamphetamines. Mexico has the distinction of being our number one producer of methamphetamines, but it also accounts for 60 to 70 percent of all the hard drugs coming into the United States and probably even a bigger percentage of marijuana. For that reason, I intend to focus attention tonight, tomorrow and in the future on the problems we have had with Mexico, because in spite of the United States providing incredible trade benefits, financial support to Mexico, Mexico has snubbed its nose at the United States. They have gotten away with allowing this President, this administration, to certify Mexico as fully cooperating, and this administration, this President, have really made a sham of the certification process, because Congress passed a law back in 1986 that said the President must certify annually whether a country is fully cooperating with the United States in order to get foreign aid, trade and financial benefits. That is the law of the land. Now, they have certified Mexico as fully cooperating, in spite of the fact that Mexico, after repeated requests, have not extradited to date one Mexican national who is a major drug trafficker. Tomorrow, our hearing will focus primarily on the question of Mexico becoming a haven for murderers and drug traffickers. According to testimony before our subcommittee by the Department of Justice recently, as of last month, there are currently about 275 outstanding requests for extradition of Mexican nationals. About 47 of these individuals are in custody in Mexico. Unfortunately, many of these individuals, including the individual we are talking about tomorrow in our hearing, who was convicted of a brutal slaying in southwest Florida of the mother, I believe, of six children, who fled this country and is charged with murder and we have had an extradition request for nearly 2 years, Mexico has ignored those requests, for 275 outstanding extradition requests and the Del Toro request. The Del Toro request again is the focus of our hearing tomorrow, a heinous crime, and after repeated requests this administration still has not extradited that individual. Tomorrow we hope to find out more of the details surrounding this case and put additional pressure on Mexico to act. Unfortunately, what we have found in just our hearings to date is that the system of justice in Mexico is nearly completely broken, that bribes are paid to judges and to prosecutors, that the system of justice is corrupt and subject to corruption and that many of these individuals who we are seeking extradition of back to the United States to face justice which they fear, these individuals are gaming the system in Mexico. Now, Mr. Del Toro, who is wanted on a charge again of this heinous murder in southwest Florida, is not a Mexican national, he is a United States citizen. He was born in the United States. His parents were born in the United States. And he fled to Mexico and has used Mexico as a cover and again the corrupt Mexican judicial system to avoid prosecution, to avoid coming to the United States through extradition. We will find out why he and others have not been extradited. In the area of narcotics violation, Mexican narcotics trafficking organizations facilitate the movement of between 50 and 60 percent of the almost 300 metric tons of cocaine consumed in the United States annually. Mexico is now the source, as we saw from the chart, of 14 percent of the heroin seized by law enforcement in this country. Just a few years ago, it was not even on the charts. Now they are becoming a major producer. And Mexico also takes the leading role and wins the Emmy award for being the chief smuggler of methamphetamine and the base ingredient for methamphetamine, as well as marijuana. What again is a slap in the face to the United States Congress who requested over 2 years in a resolution passed on this floor the extradition of major drug traffickers, to date not one major drug trafficker has been extradited. Let me just point out a few of those suspects who were most wanted and for whom we have asked for extradition. These will be a few of our most popular individuals tonight. This is Rafael Caro-Quintero. Mr. Caro-Quintero is a Mexican national and a U.S. fugitive. He is incarcerated in Mexico on drug charges and the U.S. has asked that he be extradited. He has 22 pending U.S. criminal charges against him. His organization was responsible for sending tons of drugs into the United States. If anyone can deliver him to the United States, I think there is a multi-million-dollar award for his capture. We would like him extradited. We would like him to see justice in the United States of America. Let me also bring up two more suspects we will talk about a little bit tomorrow and tonight. In fact, we have a family routine here. We have Luis and Jesus Amezcua. We have two brothers and a third here. The Amezcua brothers, there are three of them, are the chiefs of one of the world's largest methamphetamine trafficking organizations. Recently, despite overwhelming evidence, all Mexican drug charges have been dismissed. These drug dealers, and again the major identified methamphetamine dealers who are bringing that death and destruction into the United States have had their drug charges dismissed in Mexico. The Amezcuas, I believe two of them, are being held in custody on extradition orders from the United States but to date have not been extradited. Again the Mexican court, making a joke of justice even in their own country, have dropped charges against them. Another major methamphetamine kingpin, their younger brother, Adam, was released from prison in May. A Mexican appellate judge threw out trafficking and other charges against him. So we are also looking for the Amezcua brothers. I will say since we began our harangue against Mexico this year and pressure that we have brought and also legislation that has been introduced by myself, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. McCollum), the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman) and others that we are going to go after the assets of these major drug kingpins and other assets of some of those organizations that are related to these drug traffickers. We have succeeded just in the last 2 weeks in getting the extradition of William Brian Martin. He was turned over, I believe, recently at the border. He was wanted on a whole bunch of charges. This individual is an American national. Again we have waited since 1993 for that extradition. It is my hope through tomorrow's hearing that we can bring a murderer to justice in the United States and that we can shed light on how he has escaped justice and how he has used the Mexican judicial system to avoid extradition. We still have over 40 major Mexican drug traffickers. Mr. Speaker, I ask to include in the Record a list of all of the major drug traffickers with outstanding extradition requests. The list is as follows: Major Mexican Drug Traffickers With Outstanding Extradition Requests (Source: DEA) Agustin Vasquez-Mendoza Ramon Arrellano-Felix Rafael Caro-Quintero Vincente Carrillio-Fuentes Miguel Angel Martinez-Martinez Antonio Reynoso-Gonzalez Mario Antonio Hernandez-Acosta Jesus Amezcua-Contreras Arturo Paez-Martinez Jaime Ladino-Avila Jose Gerardo Alvarez-Vasquez Luis Amezcua-Contreras Mr. Speaker, again we will continue to bring to the Congress, to the House of Representatives, the problem that we face with illegal narcotics, the problem that we face in dealing with countries like Mexico where we have 60 to 70 percent of the hard drugs trafficking through that country into the United States, now becoming a source country of production and a country that has failed miserably in cooperating with extraditing both murderers and major drug traffickers to the United States. We hope additionally to get assistance from Mexico in signing a maritime agreement which we have requested for 2 years and they have ignored. We hope to get assistance from the Mexicans to aid our DEA agents to defend themselves while in Mexican territory, and there are just a handful of these brave DEA agents in that country. We hope, and we have some reports that Mexico is beginning to install radar in the south, and we hope to hold their feet to the fire because the drugs coming up from Colombia and South America transit through the south of Mexico. Finally, we want to seek the cooperation of Mexico in enforcing laws that they have passed dealing with illegal narcotics trafficking which they have really thumbed their nose at, including Operation Casa Blanca, a U.S. Customs operation where last year our Customs investigators uncovered a plot to launder hundreds of millions of dollars through banks and arrested individuals, indicted individuals, and Mexican officials knew about it and even so Mexico when these indictments and arrests were made threatened to arrest United States Customs officials and other U.S. law enforcement officers. So rather than cooperate fully as the law requires for certification, they have actually thumbed their nose at the United States. So, Mr. Speaker, with those comments tonight, tomorrow we will hear more about Mexico and how it has become a haven for murderers and for drug traffickers, and we will return to the floor with additional information both to the Congress and the American people on the biggest social problem facing our Nation and the root problem to many of the crimes, the murders, the gun offenses that we see in this Nation. That is the problem of illegal narcotics.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to come to the floor again tonight to talk about a subject that I feel I have a particularly important responsibility on and that is the question of the problem of illegal drugs and its impact upon our society. I try in these weekly talks to my colleagues in the Congress to stress some of the problems that illegal narcotics have created for this Congress, and for our American society and for millions and millions of American families who have been ravaged by illegal drugs with their loved ones. So tonight I am going to talk about, again, the impact of illegal narcotics on our society and families. I want to talk a little bit about the history of the drug war. I always think that is important. No matter how many times I have told the story of how we got into this situation with a record number of deaths and abuse, drug abuse, among our teenagers and hard drug overdoses among our young people at record levels, it is amazing how many people really are not listening to the problem that we have in this Nation. Additionally, I would like to talk a little bit about a hearing that we plan to conduct tomorrow and hearings in the future. I have the privilege and honor of serving as the Chair of the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources. Tomorrow our subcommittee will launch on a series of hearings dealing with drug legalization, decriminalization and also looking at alternatives for harm reduction, which seem to be sort of the popular rage. We are going to attempt, through those hearings, series of hearings, to bring more public light on those issues that are getting so much attention right now. Then I plan to talk a little bit about some studies, one in particular in New York, that debunks some of the myths about people who are incarcerated, or part of our criminal justice system, because of drug offenses. An interesting New York study I thought I would share with the House of Representatives tonight and talk a little bit more about some of the problems we have had with extraditing individuals from Mexico and talk about the source of most of the hard drugs coming in to the United States, which is through Mexico. Mexico does not produce all of these drugs but certainly is the transit point, and I would like to bring the House and other interested individuals up to date on what is taking place in Mexico; again with the problems we have incurred in getting their cooperation and our effort to combat trafficking and production of illegal narcotics. Finally, I would like to talk a little bit about what we are doing in a positive vein to deal with this very serious problem that has affected my community and, as I said, millions of American families, and what this new majority is doing since we have inherited the responsibility to govern, to legislate and to create a new drug policy in a void really where we had no policy. So those are some of the objectives tonight. Again, I want to go over the situation because unless we have some tragedy, an airplane crash, a Columbine, some explosion, some tremendous loss of life in one instantaneous CNN-covered event, it seems that the American people and the Congress do not pay much attention. What we have here is the slow death of thousands and thousands every month, more and more Americans dying, due to drug-related causes. Right now the hard statistics are last year over 14,000 Americans lost their lives as a direct result of drug-related causes. Most of those are overdoses. Really, what I find very interesting in just the last 8 months of assuming this responsibility, one would think we would have hard figures on all the people that die as a result of illegal narcotics, and we really do not. We are finding that many of the suicides, some of the murders, many of the other deaths that we read about, traffic accidents, are not counted in the statistics. I am told that we could easily approach 20,000-plus per year that are dying truly as a result of drug-related deaths in this country. Since the beginning of this administration, we have had over 100,000 deaths. So put that in perspective and now the problem of drug-related deaths has affected millions and millions of American families. I would venture to say if we talked to school children, if we talked to families across the country, almost every one of them can tell a story of someone they know, if not a relative a friend, who has had a young person, in particular young people are afflicted by this problem, die of a drug-related cause. So it is a silent but deadly, devastating rage and epidemic across our Nation; not only in the sheer numbers of people that have been lost but the impact on so much of our American society; on the medical system; on our judicial system; health care; on society's responsibility to help families that have lost a wage earner who is afflicted by drug dependency, who is incarcerated in our legal system. So, again, this has had a very damaging effect and it has many consequences. Let me read a few statistics, if I may, and cite them, about the problems that are occurring. For example, in 1995 almost 532,000 drug- related emergencies occurred nationwide. In 1995, the retail value of the illicit drug business totalled $49 billion. It is estimated that the problem of illegal drugs now approaches a quarter of a trillion dollars every year. That is taking into account all the direct costs, the indirect costs, incarceration, the judicial system, hospitalization, social costs, disruption in our society, lost productivity. There are incredible costs and an incredible price tag to us as a nation. Additionally, in Congress, and I only have a tiny bit of responsibility in the House of Representatives, and that is to oversee some of our drug budget, which is proposed by the administration, that totals about $17.9 billion in direct dollars that we can identify, another part of this expensive price tag that we face. According to the 1997 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, 77 million Americans, that is 35.6 percent of all Americans age 12 and older, reported some use of an illicit drug at least once during their lifetime; 11.2 percent reported use during the past year, and 6.4 percent reported use in the last month before the survey was conducted. This is our most recent survey that shows, again, the impact of illegal narcotics on our society; and again almost 36 percent of all Americans over age 12 have been involved with illegal narcotics. According to the 1998 monitoring of the future study, and this is a study conducted every year, 54 percent of high school seniors reported use of an illegal drug at least once in their lives. So we passed the halfway mark. We see, again, the statistics in deaths. We see the statistics in addiction. We see the problems that we have with our young people and we have just under 55; 54 percent of all of our high school seniors reported use of an illegal drug at least once in their lives. What is interesting is we conducted at least half a dozen hearings on the various subjects about drug abuse in the past few months, and one hearing that we held additionally in an area of responsibility was one hearing that addressed the problem of violence in our schools, and that certainly has been a topic of conversation in the Congress and throughout the country since the Columbine incident. It is interesting to note, and we had principals, we had psychologists, we had law enforcement people, but almost every one of them who testified in our subcommittee hearing said that one of the major problems that we have and at the root of violence in our schools is drug abuse and substance abuse. This was repeated over and over. It is interesting, when we talk about control of weapons and explosives that we do not address the question of control of substances that really lead to some of the problems that we have seen, and that is violence in our schools. It is sad that, again, we address sort of the periphery in Congress. We do not go to the root of the problems. In these hearings we heard time after time from expert after expert that illegal narcotics are at the root of violence in our schools and in the communities. So this is, again, the startling statistic that we have passed the halfway mark with our high school seniors. At least close to 55 percent have used illegal narcotics. Forty-one percent reported the use, in this study, of an illegal drug within the past year. That is 41 percent of our high school seniors now have reported the use of an illegal drug within the past school year. Nearly 26 percent reported the use of an illegal drug within the past month, and this is the latest study and report that we have showing, again, some startling statistics about the use of illegal narcotics among our young people. Today I had an opportunity to meet with several different representatives, of different organizations involved in combatting illegal narcotics. One of the individuals that I had the pleasure of discussing this subject with was Mr. Ron Brooks. Mr. Brooks is the President of the National Narcotics Officers Association and he is really on the frontline with many of the other narcotics officers across this country who from day to day sometimes risk their lives and deal on the street and in our communities with the problem of illegal narcotics. What is incredible is Mr. Brooks, again president of the National Narcotics Officers Association, said that methamphetamines are becoming a national epidemic in this country. We have discussed the situation that we find ourselves in with methamphetamines, commonly called meth. We have conducted also our subcommittee hearings in several locations in Florida and Atlanta and Washington, and we heard reports from United States attorneys, from police chiefs, from border patrol officers, from law enforcement officials across this Nation in surprising locales. We had a law enforcement officer from the heart of the country in Iowa testify. We had information from Minnesota where one would not think that there would be much of a methamphetamine problem; Georgia, Texas, and the list goes on and on. Mr. Brooks, and we had representatives from California talking today about the meth epidemic in that State. So we have another, in addition to heroin epidemic, which we have experienced in Florida, we have in many parts of our land a methamphetamine epidemic that really needs attention. Let me describe a little bit about meth and what it is and the problem that we face. Methamphetamine is a highly addictive drug that can be manufactured by using products commercially available anywhere in the United States. Methamphetamine is by far the most prevalent synthetic controlled substance which is clandestinely manufactured in the United States today. In 1997, it was estimated that 5.3 million Americans, that is 2\1/2\ percent of our population, had already tried methamphetamines in their lifetime, up significantly from a 1994 estimate of 1.8 million Americans. The meth problem, as I said, is epidemic. Not only can it be manufactured by commercially available products that are available in the United States, we found an interesting side note here; and that is that most of the methamphetamine and some of the chemicals that are used in its processing come from Mexico. It was startling to find officials from Minnesota, from Iowa, from Texas, and other States who actually traced the methamphetamines back to Mexico, an incredible trail, an incredible tale of this deadly substance coming across our borders, and again far flung into communities we would never expect that now are experiencing epidemics of methamphetamine use and abuse. All of this, of course, has a toll on the Congress and the American taxpayer. I cited some of the toll in dollars and cents and lost lives. One of the big problems that we have is that we have people incarcerated in our prisons, in our local jails across this Nation. It is also interesting to note when we conduct these hearings and we have sheriffs, like we had our local sheriffs testify, and I am very privileged in central Florida to have several outstanding sheriffs, Sheriff Bob Fogel of Volusia County, who has had an incredible reputation of going after drug dealers, taking a lot of heat for his aggressiveness in going after them, but done a tremendous job in directing resources of our community in Volusia County in central Florida to go after those dealing in illegal narcotics. Sheriff Don Eslinger of Seminole County. These counties are between Orlando and Daytona Beach that I represent. Don Eslinger has just done a magnificent job, not only as sheriff and chief law enforcement of our major county in my district, but also in heading up a high-intensity drug traffic area, getting that off the ground, which we designated 2 years ago. That is interesting because, under Federal law, we can designate a community as a high-intensity drug traffic area and bring in Federal resources; and that has been done repeatedly. Sometimes I would like to make the whole United States a high-intensity drug traffic area. That would be a great goal. It would be a great objective if we could do that. But right now we are limited, because we have limited resources to pick those areas that have been disproportionately impacted and that can justify additional Federal resources designating them as a high- intensity drug traffic area, then providing resources to the local community to deal with that problem. That is what we have done in Central Florida. Legislatively, I was able to achieve that with the help of Senator Graham, with the help of other colleagues in central Florida. We did get central Florida, the corridor from Daytona Beach over to the Tampa west coast, designated as a high-intensity drug traffic area with $1 million in initial contributions from the Federal Government to go to beef up these activities. This past year, we added $2.5 million. What is really fabulous is we have seen results. The headlines of the papers just in the last week trumpeted some of the success that we have had. Don Eslinger helped lead that effort, our sheriff, and the individual who helped us start our high-intensity drug traffic area. So Don Eslinger also testified before our hearings. He told our subcommittee, in hearings in central Florida that we conducted, in fact, right out of the box when I took over this responsibility of chair of the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources, in those hearings, Don testified that, in fact, 70 to 80 percent of those incarcerated and that he has arrested are there because of drug-related offenses, an incredible statistic. We find that, if we look at our Federal prisons and other penitentiaries and jails across the country in similar testimony, we see that 60 to 70 percent of those that are behind bars in this country are there because, again, drug offenses. Now we are approaching 2 million. We have 1.8 million incarcerated in jails. Just imagine what this country would be like if we could eliminate 60 to 70 percent of the crime, 60 to 70 percent of those incarcerated, how we could use those resources. Imagine the tremendous waste of human beings' life to have them sitting behind bars because they have committed a felony and drug offense. The statistics, again, are just startling about use by those in prison. A recent survey that we had submitted to us, our subcommittee, said that overall 82 percent of all jailed inmates in 1996 had used an illegal drug--up 78 percent from 1989. We had, again, a huge increase in those in prison who were there because of a drug-related crime. We also find that a large, large percentage, 82 percent of all jail and inmates, had used illegal narcotics. Eighty-one percent of individuals selling drugs test positive at the time of arrest, including 56 percent for cocaine and 13 percent for heroin. This is interesting because we have people who are selling and involved in trafficking of narcotics are also drug users and involved in the hard drugs of heroin and cocaine. A study by the Parent Resource and Information on Drug Report, which is called PRIDE, reported recently of high school students who reported having carried guns to school, 31 percent use cocaine compared to 2 percent of the students who had never carried guns to school. The same relationship was found among junior high school students. Nineteen percent of gang members reported cocaine use, compared to 2 percent among use who were not in gangs. So it is interesting that not only our prisons, those involved in felonies, involved with illegal narcotics, that even those young people who cause the disruption in our schools by bringing weapons into schools are involved with the hard narcotics and at the statistic level that we cited in this report. These are, again, some of the problems we face with incarceration. I wanted to talk for a minute, since tomorrow's topic of discussion before our subcommittee will be the question of pros and cons of drug legalization, decriminalization, and harm reduction. Tomorrow, again, is just the first in a series of hearings that we will be holding to address these issues. We will hear administration policy and pleas that we are going to lead off with our Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey, who has helped the new majority in Congress restart the war on drugs. I know he does not like that term, and I could see why, because this administration, before he assumed the responsibility of the Chief Executive Officer and Director of our Office of National Drug Control Policy, before he came on board, we basically had a vacuum. We had a closing down of the war on drugs. General McCaffrey has helped restart that. We will also hear, in addition to the Chief National Drug Enforcement Officer that controls our national policy, our Drug Czar, Dr. Alan Leshner, Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and hear what the National Institute on Drug Abuse feels about legalization, decriminalization, and how we should approach harm reduction. Then we will hear from the Deputy Administrator of our Drug Enforcement Administration, Mr. Donnie Marshall. It is sad, as I said, that we recently learned of the retirement this summer, pending retirement, of Tom Constantine. I cannot sing enough praises of Mr. Constantine. He has been the Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration. He has sometimes taken up positions that are difficult with an administration that has not always been willing to cooperate, but he has done so with great integrity, with great honesty, gained the trust of almost every Member of Congress and certainly their respect. Tomorrow we will hear from Donnie Marshall, his deputy, and see how the administration feels about these proposals again to liberalize and legalize and decriminalize some of our drug laws. I am pleased also that we will have Jim McDonough. Jim McDonough was a deputy in the National Drug Czar's Office and has moved on to direct Florida's effort under the able leadership of our new Governor Jeb Bush, who, right from the beginning, found one of the best individuals in the country to come to Florida and help us with the mounting problem that we have had there. Jim McDonough is no stranger to the Office of Drug Control Policy. As I said, he was a deputy there, admirably served, and now is serving us in Florida; and we will hear his opinion from the State level. I am pleased to welcome him at our hearing. Then we will also hear from Mr. Scott Elders, a senior policy analyst with the Drug Foundation. And then we are going to hear from Robert L. Maginnis, who is the Senior Director of the Family Research Council. And Mr. David Boaz, Executive Vice President of the Cato Institute. And Mr. Ira Glasser, Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union. This is only our first hearing on this subject. We intend to look at the medical use of marijuana. We intend to look at some of the programs across the country that have dealt with decriminalization; some of the efforts in Arizona and others that have been touted recently. As sort of a prelude to that hearing, I tried to assemble some of the most recent reports relating to decriminalization. One of the interesting things in my position is many people come to me asking why we do not look at not incarcerating people for drug use. They think drug use is something personal. If someone wants to get stoned or someone wants to walk around in a cloud, it does not do any harm. These people are sitting in our prisons. This is a waste of taxpayer money. And most of the people in prison, they would have us believe, they are first-time users or have not committed a serious offense, only personal use and possession of illegal narcotics. One of the most recent studies which I obtained a copy of is Narrow Pathways to Prison, and it is entitled ``The Selective Incarceration of Repeat Drug Offenders in the State of New York.'' This is the most recent report that I found. Rather thorough. It was produced by Catherine Lapp, the Director of Criminal Justice, in April. Just released in the last month or two. And I thought I would try to debunk a few of the myths about some of the things that have been said; that, again, these are first-time offenders; that these are people who only had personal use of some illegal substance and have done no harm. Let me just read from this report, and, again, a pretty factual and well documented report, about what they found. ``Advocates seeking to reduce or eliminate incarceration of drug offenders often focus their concerns on the following two types of offenders. First, incarcerated drug offenders with no prior felony arrest histories; and, second, incarcerated drug offenders whose only prior felony arrest, and perhaps convictions, involved drug offenses. This report helps to eliminate the circumstances underlying the incarceration of those two groups of offenders. It reveals that the vast majority of these offenders never receive prison sentences. And most of those who are sentenced to prison have failed to abide by conditions of community supervision.'' An interesting finding. Now, there are two parts to this report, and I will just read the summaries and then the conclusion. Part one. And it is entitled ``Drug Offenders With No Prior Felony Arrests or Conviction.'' Few felony drug arrestees without prior felony histories receive prison sentences in New York State. As shown in one of their charts, fewer than 10 percent of disposed felony drug arrestees without a prior felony arrest or conviction are sentenced to prison. The other 90 percent are diverted from the criminal justice system prior to conviction or sanctioned locally. These data suggest that the criminal justice system is very selective in its use of prison for first-time offenders. So this is New York. It is one very comprehensive study, just completed a few months ago, and its conclusion is that these first-time offenders are not going into prison. There is a second part to this study which is quite interesting, and the title of the second part is ``Drug Offenders Whose Only Prior Felony History, Arrest or Conviction Involves Drug Offenses.'' Now we are going to look at those who have had a history of felony arrests which involved drug offenses, and this is the second part and second conclusion. Most suspects who are arrested for felony-level drug crimes, and whose prior felony histories are limited to drug crimes, do not receive prison sentences in New York State. As shown in one of the charts they provide, approximately 70 percent of the disposed felony arrests are either diverted from the criminal justice system prior to conviction or sanctioned locally. Again, the data indicates a very selective use of prison even when the arrestee has a prior drug felony arrest history. So these folks that are sitting in our prisons are not one-time users, they are not first-time users. And the conclusion of this report is quite interesting. Again, I thought I would provide verbatim the conclusion that was reached in this New York study. This report provides an accurate and objective insight into the manner in which New York State's criminal justice system adjudicates persons charged with drug offenses. Contrary to images portrayed by Rockefeller Drug Law Reform Advocates, the drug offenders serving time in our State prison system today are committed to prison because of their repeated criminal behavior, leaving judges with few options short of prison. In the past decade, numerous alternatives to prison and prison diversion programs have been implemented to target non-violent drug abusing offenders in an effort to reduce unnecessary reliance on prison and reduce recidivism among this category of offenders. The programs range from merit time to shock incarceration, detab, and the Willard Drug Treatment Program. Our subcommittee intends to look at some of these diversion programs in future hearings and future investigations. These programs and others have yielded promising results. However, as this report clearly demonstrates, when offenders continue to flaunt the system and fail to abide by the conditions of their release, the court must take swift action and impose appropriate sentences of imprisonment in order to protect society and break the cycle of crime. This is a very interesting report, and I will make that a part of the record of our hearing tomorrow as we discuss in one of the rare times that I can recall that Congress has addressed the question of drug legalization, decriminalization. A very interesting factual report, and it blows away some of the myths about who is in prison, who is behind bars, and what brought them to prison. Tonight, again, in addition to talking about the hearings that we have held and the hearings we are going to hold tomorrow, I want to repeat a little bit of the history of how we got ourselves into this situation. I do not mean to beat a dead horse, but, again, it is amazing how many people do not know the story of really this administration and this President's direct efforts to close down the war on drugs in 1993. When they gained control, from 1993, of the House of Representatives, of the other body, the United States Senate, and of the White House, the first thing they did was dismantle the drug czar's office. Most of the people that were cut from the White House staff were cut from the staff of the drug czar's office, which has been part of the Executive Office of the President. What was sad, and I sat on the then-Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, and had been on the Committee on Government Operations prior to that, is this administration completely ignored national drug policy for 2 years. For 2 years, when I came as a freshman in 1993, I repeatedly made requests of the chairman, of the Committee on Government Operations that was responsible for drug policy oversight, for hearings. Repeatedly we requested that there be some oversight of what was happening as they dismantled the war on drugs, as they took the military out of the war on drugs, as they cut the Coast Guard budget in half in the war on drugs, as they began a systematic dismantling of the source country program, which was stopping illegal narcotics most cost- effectively in the few nations and areas where those illegal narcotics are produced. I called for and others signed letters. In fact, at one point I believe we had over 130 Members, Republican and Democrat, who asked for hearings and policy review of what was going on with the destruction, dismantling and ending of the war on drugs by this administration. During that entire time there was one hearing, which was approximately 1 hour, where they had the drug czar, Lee Brown. Lee Brown, and I say this with protection of immunity on the floor of the House of Representatives, was probably the worst public official in the history of not only this administration but for every administration of this century. He did more to oversee the dismantling and destruction of a policy that had proven effective to deal with illegal narcotics than any other human being on the face of the map of the United States. And he came and testified, I will never forget, in a hearing that lasted less than an hour, I think the record would prove, talking about that. And that was only after nearly a disruption of the entire committee process to get one hearing in 2 years on national drug policy as this so-called drug czar oversaw that effort. The results are incredible. Because from taking the war on drugs apart and dismantling that, hiring a Surgeon General who said ``Just say maybe,'' from sending the wrong message, ``If I had it to do over again, I'd inhale,'' all of these things added up to where, today, we have, since 1993, an 875 percent increase in heroin use by our teenagers. My colleagues heard the statistics on methamphetamines, the statistics on the death and destruction, particularly among our young people. This has had very devastating results, and it was due to a very concentrated effort by a few people and a majority that took control of this Congress from 1993 to 1995. What is amazing, too, is that we have known, and I have repeated this on the floor of the House, we have known the source of most of the illegal narcotics. We know that cocaine was produced in only three countries, and 90 percent of it, until this administration took control, 90 percent of all the coca in the world that came into the United States was produced in Peru and Bolivia. Now, in 6 years, they managed to shift that production to, today, to Colombia. And I will talk in a minute about how we got into the situation with Colombia now becoming the major producer of cocaine, also through a direct policy of this administration, which was to stop all resources, assistance, aid, ammunition, helicopters, anything they could stop getting to Colombia and the Colombian National Police to deal with the narcotics production and trafficking problem. That was a direct policy of this administration that failed to deal with that problem. The good news was that the House of Representatives and the other body went into the hands of the other party. And let me say that I had the honor and privilege of serving under the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), now the Speaker of the House of Representatives, when he took on the responsibility under the leadership of the new majority to put the war on drugs and begin to effectively reassemble what had been started by the Reagan and Bush administration, again a real war on drugs. The first thing that the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert) did was to work with Bolivian and Peruvian officials to aid their effort and restart the source country programs for eradicating cost- effectively drugs at their source. Again, I cited that most of the cocaine produced in the world and coming into the United States in 1993 to 1995 was from Peru and Bolivia. So the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert) went to the source. I went with him. We went out into the fields. We met with the national officials, the Presidents, and they restarted those efforts. Through that effort, in the last 2, 3 years, those two countries, Peru and Bolivia, through the leadership of Hugo Bonzer, the President of Bolivia, through the leadership of Mr. Fujimori, the President of Peru, they have cut the production of coca in half, 50 percent. And they have plans in the next 2 years to try to eliminate the production. The only problem is, while we were making progress there and asking the administration to get assistance to Colombia, which was becoming a new source of the cultivation of coca, this administration blocked all of those efforts, and we saw and we have seen in the last few years Colombia, again through a direct policy we can relate to this administration, become the number one producer of cocaine and coca, the base of cocaine, in the world. What is absolutely startling is from 1993 to 1995, if we go back and look at Colombia, there was almost no production, zero, almost nada, zip, production of heroin from Colombia. Most of it came in from Southeast Asia, a little bit from Mexico. This administration, again through its direct policies, has made Colombia the number one producer. Colombia is known for its beautiful flowers that are imported around the world and a natural place to start growing poppies, and they did because this administration stopped the resources from getting to Colombia and to the national police. Only in the last year or two has this new majority been able to appropriate over the wishes of this administration and also even see the delivery in the last few months of equipment, ammunition, resources, helicopters to the Republic of Colombia to combat those illegal narcotics that are being grown and shipped and transhipped through Colombia. So we know Colombia is the number one source. We know what the problem has been. And I think we have effectively dealt with it with, again, this new majority in Congress initiative, not with any help of the administration. Then the second area that we know there has been incredible volumes of hard narcotics coming into the United States, of course, is Mexico. The situation with Mexico gets even worse. Last week in Mexico we had the death of one of the stars of Mexico who was brutally machine-gunned downed on the streets of Mexico and come to find out even the hard-core Mexicans were shocked by this death. I believe it was in open daylight in Mexico, and come to find out it is a drug-related death, and this individual was involved with illegal substances and was gunned down, probably by traffickers. We will know more about that. The news, as I said, gets even worse about Mexico. Mexico, in a report that I just was briefed on this afternoon, it appears, and this will be in the media in the coming days, it appears that both the former President Salinas and his brother had some direct involvement in one of the, I believe, religious leaders in that country, who is also a candidate, he was brutally slain. And there are reports now from reliable sources that because this individual had that information, the former President and his brother wanted him rubbed out, and that even the military was involved in this action to gun down and murder an outstanding religious and potential political figure of Mexico. The news, as I said, gets even worse. This past week, Tim Golden reported in the New York Times, and he does an excellent job revealing and investigating what is going on with Mexico, which is involved up to its eyeballs and at every level with corruption, with illegal narcotics dealing, Tim Golden revealed that the secretary to the current President Zedillo, Mr. Sines, has managed to avoid a thorough investigation. Even our officials have turned their backs on seeing that Mr. Sines is properly investigated, highest assistant to the President of Mexico. There are some very, very serious allegations of his involvement with illegal narcotics trafficking and activity and corruption in that country that should be investigated fairly and honestly and not swept under the table by U.S. officials or by Mexican officials. The news about Mexico gets even worse. As I reported, we conducted a hearing on Mexico, and, in fact, several hearings on Mexico, and found evidence and testimony was given by one of our former Customs officials of a general attempting to launder $1.1 billion in illegal narcotics profits through legitimate U.S. sources. So again, it is a very sad situation. We fail to have the cooperation of Mexico in trafficking. And again, a majority of illegal narcotics, even those produced in Colombia, are transited through Mexico and enter the United States. They enter Mexico. They enter Florida. They enter the entire United States. We have provided through the trade benefits we have given to Mexico free and open commercial borders, and we have asked very little in return. We have just asked Mexico to cooperate in seizing heroin and in seizing cocaine and seizing methamphetamines. And what does the report show? In fact, it shows that in 1998, rather than seizing more illegal hard narcotics, the Mexicans are seizing less. Opium and heroin seizures in 1998 versus 1997 were down 56 percent. Cocaine seizures by Mexican officials over that same period were down 35 percent. So rather than help us in seizing illegal narcotics, instead of helping the United States, who has been a good ally, assisting Mexico in very difficult financial times, we underwrote the Mexican financial institutions and their currency, we opened our trade to Mexican commercial activities, and instead of cooperation, we actually have a lesser level of cooperation. And this administration has consistently certified Mexico. This Congress some 2 years ago plus passed a resolution asking Mexico to cooperate to pass a maritime agreement and enter into a maritime agreement so that we could seize drugs on the open waters. To date they have not signed a maritime agreement. We asked Mexico to extradite major drug traffickers, Mexican nationals. To date not one major Mexican national has been extradited. When we introduced just in the past few days a bill in Congress, myself and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. McCollum) and others, legislation that will go after the U.S. assets and other assets of major drug kingpins, we finally got the extradition of one Mr. Martin, a United States national who we had requested extradition on. We have requested over 275 extradition requests of the Mexicans over the past decades or less. There are over 40 major drug traffickers whose extradition we have requested. To date not one Mexican national has been extradited. What is really sad is the major producers, the major traffickers in methamphetamines were the Amezcua brothers. And recently, to kick sand in our face, to really slap the United States, Mexican judicial officials threw out the charges on two of the Amezcua brothers, and they, in fact, still have not been extradited to the United States. Indicted in the United States, requests for extradition, and again over 40 major drug traffickers, Mexican nationals, not one extradited to the United States. Also we requested radar in the South to stop the trafficking coming up through Central and South America, and that has not been done by the Mexicans. We have asked that our DEA agents, after we had the murder of one of our agents some years ago, that they be armed to be able to protect themselves. And we have a very limited number of DEA agents because Mexico has limited the number of agents. And we still to this date have not had cooperation in allowing our agents to defend themselves. So we see a situation that is very critical in the United States; incredible numbers of death, the effect on our young people, the cost to our society, the cost to this Congress, the cost to mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters who have lost loved ones. We have seen a close-down of the war on drugs in 1993 and 1995 and a restarting by this new majority where we put the resources back in. We started the source country programs, the interdiction. We brought the military and the Coast Guard back into the effort, a real effort. This new majority also passed a 190-million-plus program, unprecedented, to start dealing with demand reduction, educating our young people. And that money is matched by private sector donations, very cost-effective. So we have taken some steps. We do not want to take a step backward. Tomorrow we will hear about drug legalization, decriminalization, and harm reduction from those leaders of the administration. It is my hope again to continue this effort before the House of Representatives, before the Congress, because it is the most important social question, the most important criminal justice question, the most important societal question facing the American people and our Congress again in great cost in lives and money. And we will be back. So tonight, as I conclude, I thank those who have listened, Mr. Speaker, and who are willing to take up arms and efforts in combatting illegal narcotics. I thank my colleagues for their attention. And I promise, as General MacArthur said, I shall return and will continue to bring this topic before the Congress and the American people.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, on behalf of Members of Congress, I wish to extend sincere congratulations to the Honorable Rudy Schuster, who will be inaugurated as Slovakia's first popularly-elected president. In just a few short hours, on June 15 in Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, a dynamic new leader will assume the presidency of one of Eastern Europe's most promising democracies. This is a significant step for the Slovak Republic, a country that only gained its independence in January of 1993. For nearly 1,000 years the Slovak people have been dominated by others, so the popular election of Rudy Schuster and his inauguration is a special milestone in the history of this newly-emerging independent Nation. It has been my great pleasure to personally know this man, who will assume the Slovak presidency. Rudy Schuster has been an outstanding mayor of Slovakia's second largest city, Kosice. In that city, Rudy Schuster has worked to spur economic and community development. He championed historic preservation and restoration. He provided minority housing and promoted privatization. I have had the opportunity to see firsthand both the achievements of this dynamic leader and observe his ability to effectively govern. How fortunate the people of Slovakia and the West are to have such a capable and visionary individual helping to lead this new Nation at this time. The people of Slovakia are to be commended for looking to the future with Rudy Schuster's election. Working with the new progressive parliamentary coalition, the potential for solving some of Slovakia's difficult challenges holds great promise. As Mr. Schuster assumes the office of president, it is critical that he and his country's other leaders work together to address the problems of unemployment, privatization, and alignment with Western and European economic and security organizations. It is essential that Slovakia, which borders five European nations, now take its rightful place as a full participant in the European and Western marketplace. It is critical that in the future, Slovakia be admitted to NATO, as it now shares 87 percent of its borders with this Western security alliance. It is vital to American interests that this new democracy of 5 million people strategically located in the very heart of Europe succeeds as it makes the difficult transition from socialism to free enterprise. With the popular election of Rudy Schuster as president, Slovakia has a golden opportunity to prosper and set an example for other former Soviet bloc countries. The Slovaks have survived domination by other people, monarchies, other countries, communism, and Hitler. These resilient people have waited a long time to elect their own president. How pleased I am, as the grandson of a Slovak immigrant, to congratulate my friend and a great leader on the occasion of his inauguration, the Honorable Rudy Schuster, the first popularly elected president of the Slovak Republic. June 15 will be a great day for those who respect and promote democracy, for without intervention, without the pain and the agony that we have seen in other parts of the world recently, the people of Slovakia have demonstrated that even those who have been the most oppressed can never have the spirit of freedom and self-determination permanently separated from their souls.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Military Personnel, Mr. Buyer and the gentleman from Hawaii, Mr. Abercrombie for introduction of this amendment to provide all members of our uniformed services with the opportunity to participate in a Thrift Savings Plan. This proposal mirrors legislation that was introduced by me and the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Pickett last year and again this year as H.R. 556. It is not only reasonable but also fair that those who serve our nations armed forces should be eligible for personal savings plans available to other federal employees and Members of Congress. Today when our military pay falls behind cost of living, other federal worker pay and benefits it is essential that Congress provide our military services with additional incentives for recruitment and retention. With recruitment down, and re-enlistments dropping we must reexamine both the compensation, living conditions and benefits offered our military personnel. This action today is only one change of many needed to address problems and challenges facing our military and their dependents. It has been my privilege to work with others to help enact this savings plan and I urge its adoption as this military authorization legislation moves forward. This action will also compliment legislation that I helped to author last year that begins to open our federal employees health benefit program to our military retirees and their dependents.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker on rollcall No. 176, I was avoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no.''

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor again tonight to talk about the problem of drug abuse in our Nation and the tremendous toll that illegal narcotics have taken across our great land. It is getting so that almost every family, certainly every community across the United States, can today claim that they are victimized by illegal narcotics trafficking in their communities and their schools, among their family members. The statistics are really mind-boggling and do not make the front page of today's newspaper, Mr. Speaker, but indeed they are dramatic. Last year, over 14,000 Americans died in drug-related deaths. That is only the tip of the iceberg, because now we find that many thousands more that were killed in other accidents and suicides and other causes of death are not counted in that toll. In fact, the figure is much, much higher. I said before on the floor of the House when we had the terrible tragedy at Columbine with a number of students and faculty who were killed in that tragedy, that we have multiple Columbines across our Nation every day. They are sometimes in the silent but violent deaths of our young people through the use of illegal narcotics. Today heroin has become the drug of choice, and it is destroying lives by the thousands. I come from Central Florida and represent the area from Orlando to Daytona Beach, a relatively peaceful area. But Central Florida now has had such an epidemic, particularly among our young people, of deaths from illegal drugs and overdoses, that a recent headline in the Orlando Sentinel said that illegal drug overdoses now exceed homicides in Central Florida. That is how severe the problem is in my district. That is one reason why I chose to accept the Speaker's appointment as chairman of the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice Drug Policy and Human Resources. I had the great privilege and opportunity to serve in the last Congress with the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), someone who folks are just learning more about, who is the Speaker of the House of Representatives. When the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), the gentleman I refer to, served as chairman of the Subcommittee on National Security Criminal Justice and International Affairs, I served with him and at his side. I had the privilege of watching the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert) bring together a consensus in this Congress and in the House of Representatives to re-start the war on drugs. You must remember, and I will detail that in just a few minutes, that the war on drugs basically stopped with the election of this President and his taking office in 1993. I will talk more about that in a minute. But, again, someone who restarted our national effort now leads the House of Representatives, and I am very proud to have served with him in that effort during the past several years as the new majority gained control here in the House of Representatives. The record of death and destruction across our land we were very much aware of when we took control of the House of Representatives and we saw the change from the Reagan and Bush administration, where we saw a decline year after year in drug use and drug deaths across the Nation. What should be astounding is that since we really had this new policy with this new administration, that the figures began to really go off of the charts. In fact, I brought a chart tonight to illustrate the problem that we had. Remember what I said just a minute ago. If you look at this chart for a minute you will see these different lines of drug use illustrated in color. You see that drug use was on the decline. This shows that from 1989 on down to the 1992-93 period here, where the Reagan-Bush administration ended their efforts, the ``just say no'' campaign, the eradication, the enforcement efforts stopped, and a policy of working primarily on treatment, treating the wounded in this battle began. We saw the increases in drug use that these colored lines represent in almost every area. Only in the last 2 years, again under the leadership of Speaker Hastert as Chair, have we seen any leveling off, but we still see incredible figures, particularly among our young people in illegal narcotics usage. Let me give you one figure. Since 1993, again when this administration took control, changed the policy, the figure is this; that we have had an 875 percent increase in heroin usage by our teens. I think if we looked at the charts we would see a dramatic increase in the deaths of our teens. If we look at those more than 14,000 deaths I cited, many of them are among our young people who are now being victimized by very potent illegal hard narcotics that are coming in in an unprecedented stream. The cost of this whole drug debacle is immense to this country and to the Congress. Right now we are working in our subcommittee to try to coordinate the expenditures of $17.9 billion directly into the war on drugs. That is only the tip of the iceberg, because we spend around a quarter of a trillion dollars in a year. When you take in incarceration, the cost of our judicial system, the social cost, welfare for these drug victims and narcotics users leave a trail of social disruption that is unbelievable, not to mention the pain to their loved ones and families. So that is a little bit of the direct toll and cost in dollars and in lives, and, as I said in Central Florida we have had just a dramatic increase in deaths, particularly among our young people. In our prisons across this land we have almost 2 million incarcerated citizens and other individuals there. Seventy percent of them are there because of drug-related offenses. Our U.S. Attorneys tell us that statistics, our Federal Marshals, our DEA agents, and even in conducting hearings in my local community, our local sheriffs told us that 60 to 70 percent of those individuals behind bars at public expense are there because of drug-related offenses. So if we look at the crime in this country, we can directly relate it, 60 to 70 percent of it, to illegal narcotics. One of the interesting myths of this whole drug problem is that people behind bars are there for casual use or for possession, and that is simply not the case. I just reviewed a report from the Commissioner for Crime and Enforcement in the State of New York, and they had a very revealing report which in fact indicated that very few individuals are there for mere possession. Almost all the individuals in that State prison system that are there because of drug-related offenses are there because they were selling substantial quantities, participating in the act of a felony, when they were under the influence of illegal narcotics. So many of the crimes are not victimless. Most of them have victims and are felonies and serious offenses against our community. So we have an incredible problem, but we have also incarcerated almost 2 million Americans at great cost to the taxpayers because of this problem. Let me say that, again, the war on illegal narcotics, the war on drugs, died in 1993 with the election of this President and with a majority on the Democrat side that controlled both the House of Representatives, the other body, and the White House from 1993 to 1995. Sometimes people come to me and say the war on drugs is a failure. I say, yes, the war on drugs is a failure because it died. It not only died, it was killed in 1993. In fact, what this administration did was dealt a death blow to the real effort started under the Reagan administration. I know because back in the early eighties I worked with Senator Hawkins from Florida when we had a cocaine problem and a drug problem. Under her leadership and under the leadership of the Reagan administration, they began a series of legislative initiatives to stop drugs at their source, to have tough interdiction of drugs as they came from their source, to involve the military and the Coast Guard and other resources in getting drugs before they got to our border, stopping drugs at our border, and then tough enforcement across the land. We know that works. The statistics prove that that works. Unfortunately, this administration abandoned those policies in 1993. In 1993, and these are facts, this is not partisan rhetoric, but the other side with Democrat control in the White House and the Congress, they stopped many of the eradication programs, the source country problems. I will tell the Members, if they want to have the most effective way to stop hard drugs at their source, they have source country eradication programs, where we have those countries become involved in alternative crop production, where we have tough enforcement, and where we have eradication of the growth of illegal narcotics. Again, at their source is most cost-effective. There is no question about it. This administration, the Democratic-controlled Congress, killed those programs in 1993, or severely crippled them. What happened is we saw more and more production. In 1993, the administration took the first steps towards really cutting the military, not just as we see today and we are trying to make up for, and the many deployments in Kosovo, in Bosnia, on and on, military exercises. But they basically, under the guidance of President Clinton, took the military out of the war on drugs and really changed their mission. It was not their mission to help stop drugs once they came from the source; again, stopping the source, eradication programs, country programs, and then stopping the military involvement, then also cutting the Coast Guard dramatically. The President led the effort to cut the Coast Guard. That particularly affected my district and the State of Florida, because we had a rush of heroin and cocaine come through Puerto Rico, and Puerto Rico is really guarded. It has a coast all the way around, and it is guarded by the Coast Guard. The cuts in the Coast Guard dramatically increased the flow of heroin and cocaine and other illegal drugs into Puerto Rico, which is of course part of the United States, and the entry-way. And with no protection, those drugs started coming back into Florida in incredible quantities. The deaths we see in central Florida and throughout the State of Florida, again exceeding homicide, are drug-related, and those drugs we can trace coming through that trail. Then of course the President made a horrible decision in appointing Jocelyn Elders, the infamous now fortunately ex-Surgeon General who said, just say maybe. When we have a mixed message coming from the White House, when we have a mixed message coming from the chief health officer of the United States to our young people, our young people are not dumb, they pick this up. They get the message that maybe, just say maybe; or if I had it to do over again, I would inhale; or kids, do it if it feels good. That message went across this land. Fortunately, that Surgeon General has been replaced, and we do not have a Nancy Reagan or leadership at the national level really to bring this message of ``just say no'' and what drugs can do to our young people. Those direct actions, and again, this is not political rhetoric but those factual actions took place, and they resulted in, again, this chart we see and the dramatic rise of young 12th grade use here we see by this chart, but also in drugs by numerous strata of young people; again, not just in 12th graders. That is what we are suffering from today. Stopping illegal narcotics, hard narcotics coming into this country is not a rocket scientist's venture, really. It requires a simple review of where narcotics are coming from. Let me get another chart up here, if I may. We know where illegal drugs are coming from. This is very interesting because DEA has produced this chart, and this chart is 1997 heroin signature program results. This is an interesting program because technology is so amazing. Just like we can trace DNA to individual human beings, we can trace and DEA can trace through their labs in this case heroin, and they can tell almost the field that it came from and certainly what country of origin, or where it came from. This little pie chart shows that 75 percent of the heroin came from South America in 1997. We know that from sampling seizures across the land. We know that 6 percent came from Southeast Asia; I am sorry, 5 percent from Southeast Asia, 6 percent from southwest Asia, and 14 percent from Mexico. This is a very interesting chart because it tells us where the source of most of the death and destruction to my communities and many communities across the land is coming from. That is heroin, 1997. Let me tell the Members an absolutely startling statistic. If we took this chart back to 1993 or 1992, there was almost zero heroin coming from South America, almost none in South America 6 years ago, at the beginning of this administration. How did we get 75 percent of the heroin coming into the United States in 6 years? It is simple. It is through the policy of this administration. This administration for 6 years blocked any aid or assistance to the country of Columbia in the way of helicopters, in the way of eradication equipment, in the way of ammunition, in the way of resources to stop cocaine and heroin production. Here we are talking about heroin. Again, it would be almost zero at the beginning of the Clinton administration, and it is 75 percent now coming from South America, and almost 99 percent of that is coming from Columbia. Six years ago there was almost none. So their policy, their direct policy has resulted in these startling figures. Mexico, which on this pie chart accounts for 14 percent, was also way down on the bottom. It was in single digits as far as Mexican heroin coming into the United States. In 6 years they have managed to make Mexico not only a trafficker and conduit and transit country, but they have also made Mexico a producing country rather than stopping it. Repeatedly this administration has certified Mexico as cooperating in the war on drugs. As required by Federal law, the President must certify whether this country is cooperating, any country is cooperating to stop the production and transiting of illegal narcotics. Certainly Members can see that production is up by this chart. Again, we would be in single digits in the early 1990s, and almost no heroin coming from that area. What is absolutely startling, and this chart does not show it, and this is just an unbelievable statistic, but 6 years ago there was almost no coca, no base for cocaine produced in Colombia, almost none. In 6 years, again the policy of this administration stopping aid, stopping resources, stopping equipment in the war on drugs from going to Colombia, Colombia is now the number one producer of cocaine in the world. So we have heroin and poppies growing in unprecedented amounts, heroin coming in in unbelievable quantities in these sources from Colombia. Most of this, again, is due to the policy of this administration. I do want to say that there is some hope on the horizon. Through the efforts of the gentleman from New York (Chairman Gilman), who chairs the Committee on International Relations, through the efforts of the full committee on which I serve, the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, the gentleman from Indiana (Chairman Burton) and so many others, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. McCollum), we have repeatedly requested, we have repeatedly helped appropriate, and again, through the tremendous leadership of the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), who now presides over the House of Representatives, we have succeeded in getting the first equipment to Colombia. I participated with several of the committee chairmen recently in a ceremony at the Sikorsky Helicopter Division, where the Black Hawks are produced in Connecticut, in a contract and delivery ceremony. Soon those helicopters that will be able to get to the high altitudes to eradicate, to go after the drug traffickers at their source, will be there. We will see a dramatic decrease in the amount of heroin, the amount of cocaine coming into this country; a small amount of money, a great amount of results, stopping drugs where they are grown, where they are produced, and interdicting those illegal narcotics as they come from that source, not when they are on our streets, when it is the most difficult to get those. What I need to do tonight, Mr. Speaker, is show Members and the American people how we got into this situation. It is a direct policy of this administration and the Congress that was controlled by the other side. I wanted to also talk about the other primary source of illegal narcotics. In addition to the source country now becoming Colombia, and through the policy I described, this chart shows Mexico's statistical tables and it shows opium seizures, cocaine seizures. I believe the dark blue here shows the opium seizures for 1997. The red, the first column is opium seizures, down in 1998. The second is cocaine seizures, down in 1998. The next is the production. The red shows the yield in 1998 is up. Here is Mexico, our close ally that the United States and this Congress and this House of Representatives have done incredible deeds to assist. In financial trouble we have backed them and actually given them financial stability. In trade we have given them benefits as far as assistance. NAFTA, we gave them almost an open commercial border. We have lost thousands of American jobs to give to lower-paying Mexico jobs. We have done everything as a good ally, and what have they done? The law requires under certification that the President must certify a country as cooperating in helping to eliminate both the production and the trafficking of illegal narcotics. This administration, this president recommended to this Congress, and we have pending before us a recommendation, to certify Mexico. From 1997 to 1998, last year there were less seizures of heroin, there were less seizures of cocaine, actually reduced seizures in the country, and more production of illegal narcotics; in this case, heroin. I showed my colleagues the other chart that showed how production has risen again repeatedly over the past 6 years, and it was in single digits. So this is the result of what we get from Mexico. Let me talk a little bit about Mexico, which is the source of 60 percent of the illegal narcotics coming into the United States. We know that DEA, our Drug Enforcement Agency, has confirmed that. The hard narcotics, the heroin, the cocaine, the methamphetamine are coming in unbelievable quantities through our Mexican border. Now this Congress has, under the leadership of the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), who brought to the floor several years ago a resolution asking Mexico to take certain actions. It has been now over 2 years ago that we asked Mexico to take those actions, again, the source of 60 percent of the hard drugs, the death, the destruction, those 2 million people that are behind our bars in our prisons. We asked Mexico to help us. What did we ask for? We asked Mexico, first, to extradite to the United States Mexican nationals who are major drug traffickers, send them to the United States for prosecution. We have indicted them. We have requested their extradition. They are guilty of breaking the United States Federal law. We want to try them. We do not want them in a kangaroo court. We do not want the corrupt judicial system of Mexico to deal with them. We want to try them and bring them to justice. The biggest thing drug dealers fear in the world is being brought to justice in the United States, because they will pay a penalty for their crime here. To date, the Mexicans have not extradited the first Mexican national. Only after coming to the floor of the House repeatedly, only just before Memorial Day when I, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. McCollum), the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Gillmor), and other leaders on the issue introduced a drug kingpin bill that will tie up the assets of these drug dealers did we start to see any action. Do my colleagues know what the Mexican Government did? They extradited in the last week one U.S. national who was on our list, one U.S. national, but to date, not one Mexican national. We have requested over 40 major Mexican national drug dealers to be extradited. Instead, what they did with the Masquez brothers just a few weeks ago, and before we introduced this bill, was to kick dirt in our face by judges in Mexico releasing the Masquez brothers, who are the kings of methamphetamine production and trafficking into the United States. So until we got tough just before Memorial Day, they kicked sand in our face, allowing the kingpins not to be extradited. Fortunately, some of the brothers are still held in prison there. But we will not give up till these 40 Mexican nationals, whom we know are involved, who have been indicted in the United States, on whom we have a request for extradition pending, some for 6, 7 years, are brought to justice. So we asked for extradition, and what did we get? Nothing to date. Zero, zip, nada. We asked for the enforcement of Mexican laws. Mexico passed laws, their National Assembly, but they did not enforce the laws. They have not enforced the laws. What did the Mexicans do to the United States after we made this request again, 2 years, this House of Representatives, what did they do last year? One, the most offensive thing that has ever taken place to our law enforcement officials, what they did is disrupt Operation Casablanca Operation Casablanca was a U.S. Customs sting operation which was to identify money laundered in the United States and through Mexican banks and Mexican banking officials; and our U.S. Customs officers led that effort. I know that we informed them of what was going on. Do my colleagues know what they did? The only reason for informing them was limited, because we can trust so few of the Mexican officials; most of them are corrupt from the policeman on the beat all the way to the office of the president. I will talk about that in just a minute. But what they did was threaten to arrest our Custom officials. We knew that hundreds of millions of dollars was being serviced through these Mexican corrupt bankers. They had the audacity and nerve to threaten our officials. Only until just before President Clinton went down to meet with President Zedillo did they back off of this threat, and only just before the question of certification by this administration came up did they back off of the threat of going after our Customs officials. So we asked for enforcement of the laws. What did they do? Again, we got dirt and dust kicked into our faces, and actually threatening our officials. We had asked over 2 years ago for our DEA agents, and we have a small number in Mexico, and we did have an incident where one of our agents was brutally and savagely murdered back in the 1980s, so we want our DEA agents to be able to protect themselves, and we want assurance of protection and, in some cases, to be able to carry arms. We still have been denied that right by the Mexicans to ensure the safety and security of our drug enforcement agents in that country. That was another request that we had. We asked that the drugs that are coming in from Colombia that are produced there in South America and transiting, the 60 percent of the drugs, hard drugs, coming into the United States be stopped at the southern border of Mexico; and that could be done by installing radar and other devices at the border. To date, zero, nothing has been done to comply with our request; and that request of this House of Representatives is over 2 years old. Again, the Mexicans have ignored a simple request of cooperation. Finally, signing a maritime agreement: We know if it is not coming over land, it is coming over water. The Mexicans still deny us a maritime agreement. They refused to sign a maritime agreement, to my knowledge, in the Caribbean, in Central, South America. Only one other country, Haiti, which is still in total disruption, even after we spent 3-plus billion taxpayer dollars to improve their legislative, judicial, and law enforcement system, they have not been able to have their parliament meet and sign a maritime agreement or confirm one. But the Mexican Government still has refused to sign a maritime agreement with the United States. So here we are again, you know, with the situation. After the introduction of the bill that I described, major drug kingpins bill, which will go after the assets of these drug traffickers, we got a little attention of the administration. The Secretary of State, Mrs. Albright, was to go to Mexico. She was diverted to Kosovo. I believe they sent the Attorney General to Mexico over the weekend. We also, I believe, had our Drug Czar, who is doing the best job he can, General McCaffrey, under very difficult circumstances. Hopefully, in this high-level working group with the Attorney General, with other officers from Mexico, some additional progress will be made. But I can assure my colleagues in this Congress this House of Representatives will not sit idle until they begin an honest effort for enforcement, interdiction, cooperation on the agenda, items that are over 2 years old. So some action hopefully was taken this weekend. We do not know; it is not public yet. But we will continue to pressure Mexico because it is the source of so much of the illegal narcotics coming into the United States. We also know that in order to get from Peru and Bolivia and Colombia, where 100 percent of the cocaine and coca is produced now and where 75 percent of the heroin comes from Colombia, we know that it must transit again by land either through Panama, through the isthmus, and those Central American countries, and/or through Mexico to get to the United States. Now, what is the policy of this administration relating to stopping drugs in Panama? This is an absolutely unbelievable scenario. What was started under the Carter administration to give away the Panama Canal and 10 billion American dollars in assets, 5,500 buildings is being sewed up into a neat package by the Clinton administration and given to the Panamanians, and at the same time, we have made one simple request. Could we please continue the drug surveillance flights from Howard Air Force Base in Panama, which cover the entire South American region, which cover the area that is producing the hard drugs that I have cited here? That was our question and request. Now how could a State Department bungle negotiations for a simple request like that with the Panamanian Government? I do not know. But, Mr. Speaker, the administration's State Department managed to bungle the negotiations for having our forward drug surveillance flights go out of Howard Air Force Base. They did that in an incredibly bungling fashion, and we were basically kicked out May 1. Since May 1, there has not been one drug surveillance flight over the drug-producing or drug-trafficking area of South America from Howard Air Force Base. The United States of America was kicked out of Panama. We closed Howard Air Force Base. We had 15,000 drug surveillance flights last year from Howard Air Force Base covering the whole region. When I took over as chair of the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources in January, we went down there to Panama. We met with folks. ``Can you negotiate?'' No, they did not think they could negotiate. ``If you cannot negotiate, can we move our forward surveillance drug operations to other areas?'' ``Oh, yes, we will have it taken care of, Congressman Mica. Chairman Mica, it is going to be in place. It will all work out.'' I am here to tell my colleagues that it is June 1, and May 1 is when we were kicked out. The two other operating locations that were chosen, one was in Mana, Ecuador, in Ecuador. The other was in Curacao and Aruba, Netherlands, and Antilles. From Mana, today is June 8, not one flight has taken off for surveillance in the drug-producing areas or drug-trafficking areas from Ecuador. There is only an interim agreement in place. Aruba and Curacao, we sent staff down there this weekend to examine what is going on. At best, we might be at 30 percent capacity of surveillance flights. So we have a gaping hole in our drug surveillance program, almost no flights taking off to cover that area either where drugs are produced or where drugs are trafficking. An incredible situation, incredibly bungled, as I said, by the State Department. Now the Department of Defense is scrambling, only with an interim agreement in Ecuador, and our staff reported to me on their return from Ecuador that that airfield may take $100 million to $200 million to get it into working order. Now, is the United States of America going to invest, with an interim agreement that expires in September, any money, hard-earned taxpayer dollars, in a forward surveillance location and increasing and improving the infrastructure in that area when we have no assurances of a permanent operating base? So they bungled it in Panama. They bungled it in Ecuador. Aruba is operating at maybe 30 percent of capacity, and a gaping hole again in our drug surveillance program. So that really is where we are tonight in some of the war on drugs: Panama, a disaster. No forward operating bases. What that does, too, and what is sad about that is it denies countries that have been cooperating, like Peru and Bolivia, and now Colombia that is going to get additional equipment, it denies them the information they need to go after drugs at their source; it denies them the information they need to go after traffickers. Peru has had a very brave shootdown policy. They ask planes to identify themselves, and when they do not identify themselves and they try to scramble away, they shoot them down. And they have been provided intelligence and surveillance information by those forward operations, again out of Panama, that have been closed down. Now, it is easy for me to get up here and to criticize this administration, and I do not mean to do it in a partisan manner. I mean to do it in a factual manner. And, hopefully, we will not repeat the mistakes of this administration in this Congress or in the years ahead, because we know we can stop drugs at their source. We know we can interdict hard narcotics. We know if we give information to other countries and a little bit of assistance they can help us in a cost- effective manner before that ever gets into our streets, into our communities, into our schools and becomes a tough task for law enforcement. But let me, as I conclude, just say again what the Republican Congress has done, what this new majority has done, and under the current Speakership. And again I must give full credit to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), who is now the Speaker of the House, who chaired this responsibility and who I worked with in the last Congress, who brought together the source eradication programs that, again, were destroyed by a previously Democratically-controlled Congress and by this White House. Let me mention, Mr. Speaker, what just 2 years of effort in working with Peru and Bolivia have done. The cocaine production in those two countries is cut in half. In half. There has been tough enforcement. We must salute President Hugo Banzer, President of Bolivia, for his courageous efforts. We must help Bolivia, because Bolivia has committed in 2 years to eliminate that drug trafficking, and they have cut in 2 years by 50 percent. So this is not a ``pie in the sky'' proposal. It is something we know we can do, and with very few bucks; with very few taxpayer dollars in assisting them. So, additionally, President Fujimori in Peru, with a tough enforcement, with a tough shootdown policy, with a tough eradication and a productive alternative crop program is making great progress in that country. So we know these programs will work. This Republican administration, again under the leadership of the current Speaker of the House, when he chaired the subcommittee, has helped us now get aid to Colombia. We are reversing a failed policy there. We will stop the production of heroin and poppy production in Colombia. We will eliminate major drug traffickers. We will give the Colombian National Police, that have done a courageous job, losing 4,000 of their police officers in this battle, hundreds and hundreds of public officials have died in this war, we will give them the arms and the assistance and the aid, the resources to eradicate, to enforce and to interdict drugs cost effectively. And those Blackhawk helicopters are on their way. That is something we have done. And this Congress, this House and the American people will see a reduction in the amount of heroin coming into the United States. And also cocaine, which again they have turned in 6 years, Colombia, into the major producer of cocaine. Not just a processor or a transiter but the major producer. In 6 years they have managed to do that. We will start eliminating that through the policies of this new majority in the Congress. We have restored the cuts in the Coast Guard and we are dramatically increasing the assistance that the military provides in getting them back into the war on drugs. I know it was very nice for the Vice President to take the U-2s out of South and Central America in the war on drugs and bring them up to check on oil spills around Alaska. I know it was nice to divert the money for eradication programs of drugs at the source country, which President Clinton did, and put it in Haiti, which basically was more money down the tubes; but, in fact, we do know that getting the military involved in interdiction close to the source does work. We know that the Coast Guard protecting Puerto Rico and restoring their assets does a great job in protecting our coastlines, both of Puerto Rico and the United States, and we have brought them in 2 years back. We know that tough enforcement works. In the next week I will be holding hearings on legalization of illegal narcotics and decriminalization. There is a big wave across this country that we must look at decriminalization, make it a health problem, and we should not be tough on drugs and it will all work out. Mr. Speaker, it does not all work out. Look at the statistics in New York City. We can see since Mayor Rudy Giuliani has taken office what tough enforcement has done. The murders, which were at 2,000 when he took office, 2,000 murders in New York City a year, and most of them drug related, I would venture to say without any question, have been reduced by 70 percent. Just over 600 murders. From 2,000 to 600. It is safe to walk in New York City because Mayor Guiliani, through a tough enforcement policy, has stopped the violence, the crime, the drug trafficking and he has gone after these folks with a tough enforcement policy that works. Now, Tom Constantine, who unfortunately is leaving as the head of our DEA, and that is a very sad fact for this Congress and the American people, he produced this chart. This chart should be an eye opener for every Member of Congress and for every American. This shows the heroin addiction population in a city that decided to adopt a lackadaisical enforcement, a tolerant policy. In 1950, the population of Baltimore was over 900,000. In 1996, it was 675,000. In 1950, they had 300 heroin addicts in Baltimore. Listen to this. Three hundred heroin addicts. In 1996, through a liberalized policy, they had 38,985 heroin addicts in Baltimore. This is what a liberalized policy gives us. And on the other hand, look at New York City; 2,000 murders down to 600 murders through tough enforcement, tough prosecution. So we know this policy works. Now, we are going to have a full hearing and we are giving all sides the opportunity to be heard in our hearings next week about this process of decriminalization, about tough enforcement, about legalization. And I try, as chairman, to be fair, so we will hear from everybody, but I believe that these statistics, these facts, are irrefutable. So this new majority on our side has started a program, and again I started to mention the things that we have done in replacing the military, the interdiction, the source country, getting the Coast Guard cuts restored, but we have also put in almost $200 million in the past year in education programs, which is matched by the private sector. So it is almost a half billion dollars in education. And we are putting our money where our mouth is so our young people and all Americans know the dangers of illegal narcotics. So we, again, I believe, are taking the right steps. They took the right steps under the Reagan and Bush administration. Education, enforcement, interdiction, eradication at the source, and treatment are important, but it cannot just be treatment. This cannot just be treating the wounded in a battle. If we went to war and we did not spend any money on armaments, any money on forward surveillance, any money on eradication of the enemy, any money on ammunition, we would not have a war on drugs, we would not have a war. And if we only treat the victims in this war, it does not work. We have seen it does not work. So tonight, as I close, I ask for my colleagues' assistance to move together in a bipartisan cooperative effort. Mistakes were made in a bipartisan fashion, hopefully, we can make progress in a bipartisan fashion. It is my hope that we can get every Member on both sides of the aisle not to repeat the mistakes of the past and to move forward together. We know that these policies will work. They are tried, they are proven, they are tested. It is my hope that we can do that because I never want to talk to another mother or another father or another brother, another friend of a young person in my district who has died of a drug overdose. I talked about the cost, the people behind bars, and I talked about what Congress is going to have to appropriate, but we cannot restore a human being, a son or a daughter, to a parent who has lost that child in the war on drugs. So it is my hope that I will not have to make these speeches every week in my next term in Congress; that I will not have to come before the Speaker and the House and plead for their assistance in restarting the war on drugs. Mr. Speaker, although I have a few minutes left, I will yield back the balance of my time and pledge to be back here again next week.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker and my colleagues, again tonight I come to the floor to discuss this serious situation in our Nation relating to the problem of illegal narcotics. I was pleased in January to assume responsibility to chair the House Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources, which deals with formulating our national drug policy. I know that on the front pages of tomorrow's newspapers the stories of China sabotage and I know that illegally obtained intelligence, the fund-raising scandals, money that poured into our country through illegal foreign contributions, sabotage of our intelligence, information relating to missile technology are serious problems and will be splashed across the headlines tomorrow. I know what the headlines have been for the past several weeks since Columbine and Atlanta that the Nation's attention, the Congress' attention, has been riveted on the question of school violence. And we all are saddened by these great tragedies. But let me say tonight, and I have said it before, that for every instance of school violence, if we took all the instances of school violence and death in Paducah, Kentucky; Jonesboro, Arkansas; and Columbine and we added up all of those tragic deaths the last several years, we would still have a small figure of 30 or 40 individuals maybe maximum; and, unfortunately, I hate to use this analogy, but unfortunately, we have a Columbine times three or four every single day in the United States as a result of the use of illegal narcotics. The effects of illegal narcotics on our society are dramatic and costly. They are indeed costly to over 1.8 million Americans, almost 2 million Americans who are behind bars. Estimates are that some 60 to 70 percent of those incarcerated in our prisons and jails and penitentiaries are there because of a drug-related offense. I might say they are not there for casual use of drugs. They are there because they have committed a crime while under the influence of illegal narcotics, they are there because they have committed a felony, robbery, they have been trafficking and selling illegal narcotics. And they are the victims of illegal narcotics. But we have nearly 2 million Americans behind bars. The cost that this Congress will be considering in a few more weeks to fund the anti-narcotics effort is probably in the range of $18 billion. That is the direct cost that we will look at funding because of, again, the problems created by illegal drugs. That is only the tip of the iceberg. We spend somewhere in the neighborhood of a quarter of a trillion dollars a year in the tremendous cost of social, economic, welfare support, judicial systems, incarceration, all these costs to our society because of the illegal narcotics problem. Again, the tragedy is just immense. And again, we have the equivalent of a Columbine times three or four every single day. The sad part about all this is that many of these tragic deaths are our young people. The sad part about this is that last year over 14,000 Americans lost their lives to drug-related deaths. The tragedy is that, in the past 6 years, under the Clinton administration, going on 7, we in fact have lost almost a 100,000 people. That is the number of Americans killed in some of our wars and conflicts. That is the size of entire populations of cities. It is an incredible tragedy. And somehow tomorrow in the newspapers it will not be publicized along with the China sabotage or the Columbine problem. But what will be publicized is back in the obituaries or on the local page or the State page is a list of human tragedies. And those tragedies will be recounted in heroin overdose deaths. They will be recounted if someone would have died at the hands of someone under the influence of narcotics, someone who is committing a felony, another murder, under the influence of illegal drugs. Those are the sad statistics of this tragedy that we are facing as a Nation. I come again tonight to talk about this, Mr. Speaker, because I think it is the most important and critical social problem facing our Nation, long ignored, not talked about. As chair of that subcommittee, human resources is one of our topics, in addition to criminal justice and drug policy. We conducted a hearing this past week of over 6 hours, hearing from various school officials and law enforcement officials, some district attorneys, and other people involved with schools, psychiatrists, psychologists. And they repeatedly told our panel that, in fact, illegal narcotics and drug use are at the root of most of our school violence problems. Of course, we only see splashed across the front pages of our newspapers and on our television nightly screens one incident with a large number of casualties at one time. This is a slow and tragic death, again, thousands of them across the Nation, and an effect on our young people that is dramatic. Most of the victims of this tragedy are prime youth and are young people. Let me also talk tonight about the history of the problem. And I try not to be partisan in nature, but I do want to be factual and state that part of the reason that we have this epidemic particularly of hard narcotics, heroin, cocaine, methamphetamines, in the United States and other dramatic increases in usage of illegal drugs is really the result of the policy of the Clinton administration. If we look at the charts, and I have said this before, back in the 1980s we had an explosion of cocaine back in the Reagan administration. But we saw that the policies of President Reagan brought the statistics down, the usage down, of illegal narcotics and the deaths down from hard drugs. That continued into the Bush administration, with tough policies, tough eradication at the source, tough interdiction, use of the military, the Coast Guard, every possible resource of the United States to bring down illegal narcotics trafficking and the supply of hard drugs into this country. Unfortunately the new President in 1993 as one of his first policies adopted cuts in the Drug Czar's office, began the elimination of many of the personnel in the Drug Czar's office, and then adopted a policy which I think we are still seeing the results of today. That is cuts in the interdiction forces; that is, trying to stop drugs at their source. Cuts and elimination of the source country eradication programs; that is, stopping the growth and production of illegal narcotics at their source. Again the two most cost-effective ways of stopping illegal narcotics. And then we saw the cuts of the military, dramatic cuts of use of the United States military in the interdiction of drugs, a Federal responsibility of stopping the flow of illegal drugs before they came to the borders of the United States. And then we also saw dramatic cuts, almost 50 percent cut in some of the Coast Guard budgets that protected some of our areas and coastal regions, particularly around Puerto Rico, where we had a good barrier to stop illegal narcotics coming into the United States through Puerto Rico. Then, to top off these cuts, the President appointed a Surgeon General and that Surgeon General sent a mixed message. Joycelyn Elders did probably as much damage as any public official in the history of the United States as far as bad health policy. She sent a mixed message that even our young people repeat today, of ``Just say maybe'' to casual drug use.

Mr. MICA. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. MICA. I thank the gentleman and yield finally to the gentleman from Georgia.

Mr. MICA. The gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Speaker, might be interested in this National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration report dated August 21, 1998. I did not know the gentleman from Georgia was coming tonight to mention the ages of at least two of his children, but this is the report. For kids 12 to 17, first-time heroin use surged a whopping 875 percent from 1992 to 1996. That is an 875 percent increase in heroin use among our teenagers. So I believe that a policy has consequences, and the consequences of a bad policy of sending a mixed message and also of not having a policy in place that stops drugs at their source in a cost- effective manner results in an increased supply, a lowering of price, a tremendous availability of illegal narcotics at these sources and into the United States. In my central Florida area, a banner headline in the Orlando Sentinel shouted out recently that in fact drug deaths exceeded homicides in central Florida. So this is the type of result we are seeing from a policy that was enacted some 6 years ago and again through repeated failures of this administration.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arizona for his leadership and coming out tonight to talk about this topic that is so important to American society. I just want to continue along the line that I had been talking about, and that is the problems with Mexico. We have not had one major drug dealer extradited. Despite over 200 requests for extradition and requests specifically for over 40 major drug dealers, not one Mexican national has been extradited today as far as a major drug dealer. In addition to that, we talked about the enforcement, lack of enforcement, the corruption at the highest level, not enforcing the laws that they have on the books. In addition, this Congress asked two years ago that the Mexicans install radar to the south. It is a simple request. If we look at where the drugs are coming in, they are coming in from the south. We asked that they install radar to the south, and still no radar to the south that was promised, and again when our President met with President Zedillo in the Yucatan Peninsula earlier this year. To date, still no maritime agreement signed; there is no agreement to go after drug traffickers in these waters, particularly Mexican nationals. Finally, we had asked for protection of our drug DEA agents, our drug enforcement agents. We have a small number in that country. We had one of our agents just horribly tortured and murdered in the 1980s. We do not want to see that repeated. We want our agents to be able to defend themselves, and still we have been denied that ability for our law enforcement agents that are working in Mexico. So Mexico, what do we get? This administration ruined the certification process, made a joke of it and still continues to certify a country as fully cooperating. They are not by any measure. I might say tonight that we will have before this House in the not- too-distant future several measures that will deal with this that the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman), the chairman of the Committee on International Relations; the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton), the chairman of the Committee on Government Reform; the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss), our chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence; and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. McCollum), our chairman of the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice of the Committee on the Judiciary, have been working on with the Members of Congress. So there still will be responsibility to the country of Mexico for their involvement in illegal narcotics. This new Congress will hold their feet to the fire. I just want to talk again about another failed policy, international policy, and it is our responsibility to deal with these issues of where the drugs are coming from. It is tougher as these drugs get to the streets, but if we can stop them at their source, their transiting before they get here, it is much more cost-effective. One of the stories we will not read on the front page of the paper tomorrow is about the bungled negotiations of this administration in Panama. Now, why is Panama important? Again, I can hold this up and if we look and see Colombia through Panama up to Mexico, that is where these narcotics transit. But Panama has been the center of all of our narcotics operations, all forward surveillance operations for the United States and the Caribbean area, the south and Central America. Of course we see where drugs are coming from, which is primarily from Colombia, one of the major sources that this administration has helped make a major source. And as of May 1, 1999, just a few weeks ago, we were basically kicked out of Panama. We had 15,000 flights from Panama last year, and there were zero as of May 1. This administration bungled the negotiations, and we were told months and months ago that negotiations were going forward. When we found out earlier this year that the State Department had dropped the ball, we asked what was going to be done. The administration has scurried the last few months and signed interim agreements with Curacao, Aruba, the Netherlands and also with Ecuador for temporary bases there. We were told that on May 1 we would be ready to go. We were told on May 1 we would have flights continuing. We were told that, at the very worst, maybe we would have a 50 percent reduction in flights after May 1 in testimony before our subcommittee. What have we found out that has taken place? From Ecuador, there are zero. There have been zero flights from Ecuador, zero flights. From Aruba and Curacao, just a few limited flights. So basically this administration bungled the negotiations with Panama. We are turning over 5,600 buildings, $10 billion in assets. Already we have seen, in addition to closing down Howard Air Force Base, another scandal that should be on the front pages of the newspaper, that our two ports in Panama that we had operated out of had been given through corrupt vendors, and these are the words of our administration officials, through corrupt vendors to foreign countries; and one of them happens to be the Chinese. In both instances, I believe the Chinese Liberation army owns or has a controlling interest in the stock and ownership of those activities. So we basically turned over the Panama Canal and one of the ports to the Red Chinese Army. The other one, again also through a corrupt vendor and through a Taiwan-Hong Kong front, that second port is gone. Our major drug operation in that entire region we have been kicked out of as of May 1. The interim agreements are not signed. I believe the agreement in Ecuador is only for a few months. At the last hearing our subcommittee held, we were presented a bill for another $40 plus million for improvements in addition to $73 million which the Drug Czar put in the budget for relocating the forward surveillance operations of the United States. So basically we are wide open for the hard drugs to come into this United States. Panama is a wide open area. Again we have lost our shirt and basically been kicked out. The $73 million originally requested plus the supplemental, $43 million, which has not been given yet, is only the tip of the iceberg. I am told we may be at a half a billion dollars to replace these operating facilities. We do not have a single permanent agreement in place. I do not know how an administration can possibly bungle anything in a more inept manner than they have done with this Panama situation and basically closing down all of our forward drug surveillance operations. These surveillance operations affect the operations, for example, in Peru, where we have gotten the cooperation of the Peruvian government to go in and eradicate narcotics fields, coca fields. Basically, that information stops because we do not have the operation going forward to identify those locations. So these are some of the incredible problems that I wanted to detail tonight, both with the Mexico, with Colombia failed policy, stopping again the equipment from getting into Colombia. I do not want to leave on a note that we are only here to criticize the administration. I must say that I am very proud of this new majority and what they have done. First of all, under the leadership of the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert) who is now the Speaker of the House of Representatives, he came in several years ago and chaired the Subcommittee on National Security, International Affairs and Criminal Justice on which I serve. In that capacity, he helped put together the war on drugs. We have to remember, from the day this President got elected, they dismantled the war on drugs. I have heard people say we do not have a war on drugs. Yes, Mr. Speaker, we have not had a war on drugs. It was dismantled in January of 1993 by this President. From 1993, this President dismantled the war on drugs. The Congress, which was controlled by the Democrats in the House and the other body, by wide margins, dismantled systematically all of the programs that the Reagan and the Bush administration had put into placement and years and years of work. Some of that was bipartisan. The gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel) and other Members on both sides of the aisle put together effective drug strategy. That was dismantled. There was no war on illegal drugs from 1993 to 1995. In 1996, the Republicans, who gained control, did damage assessment and started restoring some of the funds for eradication programs for interdiction, restoring the military in this effort, and for also putting back the Coast Guard on watch and active in this antinarcotics effort. So that is some of what we have done. We have, through the leadership of those that I have mentioned, again, including the current Speaker of the House, put back last year almost $1 billion in additional funding to support these efforts. In addition to the programs that I have talked about, enforcement, interdiction, eradication, we also put $195 million in education, which is the first time that anything has been done on that scale, to start educating our young people. If it has to be a paid message, if it is not a high message setting a role model from the office of the President of the United States, then we will pay for it. That $195 million is matched by donations, at least equal to that sum. So hopefully we will, again, in restarting all of these efforts, and particularly in education, we can get out the message. The First Lady under President Reagan, Mrs. Reagan, had a simple message: ``Just say no.'' It was repeated over and over and effective, and our young people heard that message. But there has been a gap in this administration. No word, a mixed message, a mixed signal, no role model for young people to look up to. We have seen the results, and I described them here tonight. There is an 875 percent increase in heroin usage by our teenagers 12 to 17, dramatic figures that should shock every American and every Member of Congress. So we have, again, put these programs back together that work. We are overseeing those programs. We will see if they are cost effective, if they are working, and will continue to expand them. In the next few weeks when we return, we will be conducting a hearing on the question of legalization and decriminalization. I know the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth) and his State has taken action on this issue. We do not know if they are headed in the right direction or the wrong direction. We do know that tough enforcement works. The Guiliani in New York City method works. It cuts crime. It cuts murders. It cuts drug deaths. It cuts violence in our streets when one of our largest cities is one of our safest cities. We see the alternative. Baltimore, which Tom Constantine, our DEA director, who is leaving, pointed out to us just a few years ago, Baltimore had 900,000 people and less than 1,000 heroin addicts. Through a liberal policy and a permissive policy Baltimore now has a population of 600,000. It has dropped 300,000 people. It has 39,000 heroin addicts. The gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings), who is my former ranking member on the Subcommittee on Civil Service and on this subcommittee has told me privately that the estimate is probably in excess of 50,000 heroin addicts in Baltimore.

Mr. MICA. Well, only in this administration has it so politicized. The law is a simple law. The law was passed in 1986. President Reagan and the Republican Senate passed the law that just tied foreign aid and foreign assistance to cooperation in eradicating drugs and trafficking, stopping trafficking in their drugs. So the law is simple. It says that if a country is cooperating with the United States to stop illegal narcotics, then they get our finance benefits, they get our trade benefits, they get our foreign aid. Now Mexico does not get a lot in the way of foreign aid, as some Third World countries may get from the United States, but what it gets is tremendous trade benefits, a trade benefit and now we have an incredible imbalance, that many more cheap Mexican goods are pouring into the United States. We have lost tens of thousands of jobs to Mexico. We have provided most of the financing and underwriting for Mexico, including a bailout which basically saved their financial system. So in turn we ask for very little. We have asked for cooperation in going after these corrupt officials, we have asked for extradition. This is what Tom Constantine, our DEA administrator, said on February 24, 1999. He said: In spite of existing United States warrants, government of Mexico indictments and actionable investigative leads provided to Mexico by U.S. enforcement, limited enforcement action has taken place within the last year. This is Tom Constantine, and I might say that one of the saddest bits of news that I bring to the floor tonight is that Tom Constantine, who has been a shining light in this scandal-ridden administration, who has been a tough spokesperson in restarting the War on Drugs, there was no War on Drugs under this administration except for what Tom Constantine has done, Tom Constantine has unfortunately announced that he will be leaving this summer, a tremendous blow to our efforts. He is the only one who has been speaking out, the only one who has repeatedly said that we have to restore the eradication programs, the interdiction programs, the use of the military, the Coast Guard, and that tough law enforcement does work, and he has proved it time and time again before our committee with statistics, with facts. So, it is a great loss to the Congress, it is a great loss to the American people, it is a tremendous loss to the war on drugs which we have restarted under this Republican Congress, and his departure is a sad note for us this evening. I wanted to also talk tonight a little bit about some of the other things that Mexico was requested to do and has not done. First, I mentioned extradition. Then I mentioned going after these corrupt officials in enforcing their laws, and they did not enforce their laws. Even worse is we had an operation, another Customs operation in Mexico dealing with money laundering, and we found in this operation, which was called Operation Casablanca, that hundreds of millions of dollars were being money laundered, and when we discovered this, we informed the Mexicans. We know the Mexicans knew about this operation. What did the Mexicans do rather than cooperate with the United States? They threatened to indict and go after our Customs officials. So, did we have cooperation? The answer has to be no based on, again, the extradition requests, based on the failure to go after these corrupt officials, based on their coming after our agents and threatening them. So these are several areas, and I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, it is true that Baltimore has had one of the most liberal policies and has now been devastated. When any city in this Nation has 39,000 heroin addicts, we have a major, major problem. And the crime, the social disruption, the human tragedy that that has caused in a liberal policy is very serious. So I intend, as chair of the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources of the Committee on Government Reform to conduct hearings beginning in June, when we return, on this question. We will examine what is going on in Baltimore, what is going on in New York, in other countries. And we hope to also look at Arizona, which has had a decriminalization program that they have touted. And we will see whether that is successful and whether it is something we should look at as a model; whether it is something that should have the support of this Congress or whether they are headed in the wrong direction and we should not support those efforts. So I am pleased tonight to come and provide the House, Mr. Speaker, with an update on some of our activities in our subcommittee, some of my efforts to try to bring to light what I consider is the biggest social problem facing this Nation, I know in my lifetime, I know in a generation, and that is the problem of illegal narcotics. Again, over 14,000 Americans lost their lives last year. Over 100,000 have died from illegal narcotics since this President took office. It is a human tragedy that extends far beyond Columbine or Jonesboro or any of the other tragedies we have seen in this Nation. And as I said, it is repeated day after day in community after community, and we can read it in the obituaries. I am not here just to complain about the cost to the Federal Government. I am here to complain about the loss in productive lives. Even in this city, which is our Nation's Capital, of which we should all be proud, each year that I have come here in the last 10 years they have lost between 400 and 500 young people, mostly black African- American males who have been slaughtered on the streets, most in tragedies, some by guns, some by knives, some by other violent death, but almost all related to illegal narcotics trafficking. And that is the root of some of the problems in the streets of Washington, D.C., and across our country, when we have 60 to 70 percent of those behind bars there because of felonies committed under the influence of illegal narcotics or trafficking in illegal narcotics or committing felonies under the influence of illegal narcotics. So we have a serious social problem. It is ignored by this administration, it has been ignored by this President, but it is not going to be ignored by this new majority. And if I only serve the remainder of this term in Congress, every week I will be here talking about this problem and its effects on the American people and what we intend to do as far as positive programs to resolve that. And we will do that. We will succeed. I yield to the gentleman from Arizona.

Mr. MICA. Our President sets the tone. I think that as a role model, as an individual who young people look up to, when you have the President appoint a Surgeon General that sends a mixed message, our young people pick that up. When you have a President that has said, ``If I had it to do over again, I would inhale,'' our young people pick that up. Now, the gentleman told me that he had teenagers. Could he tell me the ages of them again?

Mr. MICA. I brought back tonight one of my charts to show the flow of illegal narcotics. This is a pretty simple pattern. Before the President took office in 1993, Colombia was really more of a transit country and drug processing country. Now, since we have had such good results with President Fujimori of Peru who has also had a tough enforcement program and President Hugo Banzer in Bolivia, the production of cocaine and coca is down dramatically in those countries. In the past 2 years, the Republican majority has helped those two countries in stopping drugs at the source, cutting drug production through eradication policies and alternative crop policies. Now, would you not know it, but in 1993, again there was almost no coca produced in Colombia. It was almost all produced in Bolivia and Peru. But this administration through its policy managed to make Colombia the largest producer of cocaine in the world. In 1993, there was almost no heroin produced in Colombia. Most of our heroin came in from Asia or through Afghanistan and Balkan routes. This administration managed through its policy of stopping aid and assistance to Colombia to make Colombia the source of 75 percent of the heroin. It is the largest heroin producer in the world today. They managed to do all this since 1993. The way this heroin and cocaine is now coming up, the Colombians have formed cartels with the Mexicans, and then some is coming up through and past Puerto Rico and into the United States through these routes. So the very direct policy, despite letters, despite pleas by the chairman of our Committee on International Relations, by the chairman of the Committee on Government Reform, by numerous Members of Congress to get helicopters, to get ammunition, to get assistance and resources to Colombia to stop this production and trafficking, Colombia now is the major producing area. I will say that with some of those individuals I mentioned, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman), the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton), we participated in a dedication and contract signing of six helicopters which are on their way to Colombia, these are Black Hawk helicopters, to start in an eradication program. Now, our other problem area, and this is Mexico, and despite this administration giving NAFTA approval, underwriting the finances of Mexico, Mexico is the largest source of illegal narcotics coming into the United States through these routes. Again, despite being a good ally, a good friend, Mexico has turned almost into a narcoterrorist state as a result of the amount of trafficking. So this is the pattern of illegal narcotics. Heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine coming into the United States today. What is disturbing about this pattern is that in spite of all of the assistance this Congress and this administration has given to Mexico, Mexico has really slapped the United States in the face. When both of my colleagues who are on the floor were with me 2 years ago in March, the House of Representatives passed a resolution asking Mexico to help in about five different areas. First of all, we asked Mexico to extradite a major drug trafficker or major drug traffickers, assist us in extraditing those who have been indicted in the United States, Mexican nationals, and send them to the United States. And what did we get in return? This past week, the New York Times, ``Setback for Mexico in 2 Big Drug Cases.'' Major producer, again we have helped Mexico, we are a good friend and ally of Mexico. What did they do? Let me read this: ``Mexico City, May 19. Efforts to prosecute the Amezcua Contreras brothers whom the American authorities say rank among the world's largest producers of illegal methamphetamines appear to be collapsing.'' They have in fact let these brothers who were part of this methamphetamine operation off the hook, dropped the charges against them. Two of them, I understand, are still held in detention. One has been set free. Even the Mexicans, who are corrupt from the bottom to the very top, and I can prove what I am saying with those remarks, are chagrined that even their judicial system has collapsed, even their judicial system is corrupt, and these decisions go as high as their Supreme Court in Mexico. So, it is a very sad day when we have not one major Mexican drug dealer extradited to date. We have had one Mexican national, and that is only one, and that was a minor player, but not one major Mexican drug dealer has been extradited to the United States, and again, this is in spite of the assistance that this Congress has given that country, in spite of financial aid, NAFTA trade and other benefits that we have bestowed on Mexico. And part of it is because of the failed policy of this administration. They made a charade out of the certification process, rather than decertifying Mexico and giving them a national interest waiver and holding them under the microscope of our law which says that we must certify whether a country is fully cooperating. Now I ask you: Is Mexico fully cooperating when they let drug traffickers out? Is Mexico fully cooperating when last year these statistics were provided us? Mexican drug seizures were down in 1998. Opium was down, the seizure of opium in Mexico, 56 percent. The seizure of cocaine was down in Mexico by 35 percent. The seizure of vehicles and vessels involved in narcotic trafficking was down. To top it off, we held a hearing in our subcommittee to find out what was going on in Mexico, and I talked about corruption. This is a March 16 article from the New York Times. This should absolutely frighten every Member of Congress, every member and parliamentarian in any civilized legislative body, to know that one country could be so corrupt from the bottom to the top, and particularly one that is a close ally of the United States. This article by Tim Golden details how our Customs agents penetrated Mexican military and other Mexican high officials' offices and discovered that the Mexicans, in this case a general and maybe as high as the Minister of Defense, were attempting to launder $1.15 billion. That is one individual was trying to launder $1.15 billion. That is how high the corruption has grown in this country, and that is how serious this problem is. And think about that. That is over a billion dollars that one individual was trying to launder in that country.

Mr. MICA. I am glad the gentleman asked.

Mr. MICA. The number of arrests, I believe, have gone up. The enforcement prosecution did go down with this administration. Now, we have hammered them some and there has been more prosecution. However, those statistics are dramatically impacted by New York City and several other tough Republican mayors. The statistics in New York City are so dramatic where you have had tough enforcement by Mayor Guiliani. For example, they had approximately 2,000 murders, 1,980 we will say, in the year he took office. Tough enforcement has resulted in a 70 percent drop, somewhere in the range of 600 murders in the entire population of New York City. So that type of tough enforcement, tough prosecution has actually skewed some of the national figures. But if we look at the Department of Justice under this administration, they failed to go after drug dealers and hard core drug offenders in the numbers that they should have. I also wanted to point out to my colleagues that according to the Drug Abuse Warning Network, which is called DAWN, the annual number of heroin-related emergency room admissions and incidents increased from 42,000 in 1989 to 76,000 in 1995, an 80 percent increase. This is from the National Narcotics Intelligence Consumer Committee report in November of 1998. The number of Americans who used heroin in the past month has increased steadily since 1992. The number of Americans who used heroin in the past month increased from 68,000 in 1993, the year this President took office, that was 68,000, to 325,000 in 1997. This is also according to the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse. This is the most recent data we have from 1997. Heroin users are becoming younger, they are becoming more diverse. And because the heroin that we are seeing come into the United States today has much higher purity levels, we are seeing dramatic increases in deaths, particularly among first-time users, particularly among young people who mix heroin with some other substance, alcohol, other drugs and do not know that the purity levels are absolutely deadly. So that is why we are seeing so many young people dropping like flies in Florida and in other areas of the United States.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. I yield to the gentleman from Iowa for just a moment, and I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I first want to comment and compliment my colleague, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Ganske) on his Special Order and on his proposal to deal with some of the problems we have seen relating to HMOs and health care. I do want to comment, before I get into my Special Order on the topic of illegal narcotics, about what the previous speaker has been discussing, and he did bring up towards the end some of the proposals relating to the Patients' Bill of Rights. I would like to pass on to the Speaker and my colleagues this information: In the previous Congress I had the opportunity, actually for 4 years, to chair the House Subcommittee on Civil Service. In that capacity I oversaw the largest health care plan in the country, which is made up of almost 2 million Federal employees and 2.2 million Federal retirees and some 4 million to 5 million additional dependents; about 9 million people participating in the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program. Part of my responsibilities of chair of that subcommittee was to look at that program, and I remember several years ago when President Clinton proposed a Patients' Bill of Rights to the Congress to be passed to resolve, he said, the issues and problems we have with HMOs, and it was going to be his saving grace for these programs. Well, we conducted a hearing, and I will never forget that hearing. We had the administration officials in, OPM officials in, and we asked about the President's proposed Patients' Bill of Rights. To a single individual who testified, every single individual who testified said that there was no medical benefit for the proposals under the President's Patients' Bill of Rights, but there was more reporting, more mandates, more requirements, and they possibly predicted more costs. That was several years ago when he proposed that to our subcommittee, the Subcommittee on Civil Service. Now, he could not pass his so-called Patients' Bill of Rights, and it sounds great, through the Congress. So what he did, and a lot of people did not pay attention to it but we did on the Civil Service Subcommittee, he submitted another one of his fiats. By Executive Order he imposed his Patients' Bill of Rights where he could, and that is on our Federal employees' HMO plans. Well, lo and behold, before I left that chairmanship, I conducted another hearing just at the end of last fall, and one of the purposes of that hearing was to see what had happened with the imposition of the President's Patients' Bill of Rights on the Federal employees' health care plan. Well, my goodness. We experienced over a 10 percent, on average, increase in premiums, not entirely all due to the President's Patients' Bill of Rights; prescription drugs, I must say, were part of that, but there were very substantial costs that were passed on, and they contributed to almost a record increase in employee health costs. While the rest of the industry was experiencing a 2.6 to 3 percent increase, our Federal employees, Members of Congress too, were getting a 10 percent-plus, on average, increase in their premiums. One of the things that has made our Federal Employees' Health Benefits Program so good is we have had over 350 different vendors providing a package. We sat and developed a package of benefits, and then folks bid on it, different companies, and they participated and there was good competition. Lo and behold, at our hearing, again, we got a surprise. Instead of 350 participating, competing plans, we had about 60-plus drop out. So we had increased premiums and we had lower competition. I just raise that tonight as a good example of a bad proposal by the President as far as his so-called, and it sounds great, Patients' Bill of Rights. That did not even include, his provision by Executive Order did not include the most oppressive part of his plan, which was allowing expansion of lawsuits, an additional cost through litigation and no medical benefits. So if we had adopted the whole plan, there is no telling how high the premiums would have escalated and how many more in free competition would have been forced out.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, again, that has failed to pass the Congress. I cite only, and I repeat for the gentleman, our experience with the Federal Employees' Health Benefit Program where the President imposed his own Patients' Bill of Rights by Executive Order and we did see substantial costs directly related to the program. I point that out because we do not want to make the same mistakes he has made by fiat, by legislation. Of course, that is not the only problem that we have with HMOs and we do need to address some of the mismanagement, some of the lack of access, some of the other problems that we have with it. Again, I cite it as an experience that we conducted hearings on and have very definite facts relating to in our Subcommittee on Civil Service. Mr. Speaker, my other reason for coming forward tonight is again to speak on the question of our national drug control strategy and policy. Tonight, I am very concerned that in a pattern of repeated mistakes by this administration and failure to properly manage our international narcotics control efforts, we face another disaster. We have had a series of repeated foreign policy disasters, and if I may just run through them, and again, I do not mean to do this in a partisan manner, but this is factual and we have had a history of just disastrous foreign policy decisions by this administration. I will close tonight by citing the most recent. First, of course, when I came here, President Bush had instituted a policy in Somalia of trying to provide human relief, humanitarian relief in that country that had civil conflict. It is unfortunate that this administration from the very beginning turned that humanitarian relief into a nation-building effort which turned into a foreign policy disaster with several dozen Americans slaughtered needlessly. And what is really sad, if we look at the situation in Somalia just a few weeks ago, we have had the same conflict and civil war going on, over 50 killed, and a skirmish just recently, and again disorganization and civil war in that area. It may be a lesson we should learn about. They too had atrocities committed on both sides. The next experience I had in this Congress was with Haiti, and Haiti certainly has to be a glowing example of bad foreign policy. Repeatedly I took to the well of the floor and spoke against the imposition of sanctions against Haiti, which is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, and those sanctions in fact destroyed the few jobs, maybe 50,000, 60,000 jobs, many related to United States industry, that actually fed over a million population. We spent over $3 billion on that fiasco. We have traded one corrupt government for another. There is complete disorganization in that country. What is absolutely startling is that now that country which we have done so much for is becoming one of the major Caribbean routes for trafficking in illegal narcotics. So a failed policy, an expensive lesson, and now just kicking dirt in our face by being a partner in illegal narcotics trafficking. Bosnia is another example. I served in this Congress over 3 years ago when our president said we would be there for a matter of months and be out. We are now into 3-plus years. This excursion and incursion has cost us dearly, billions upon billions, probably $10 billion plus. We still have over 6,000 troops there, 20,000 support troops. What is absolutely astounding is that now Bosnia has turned into, probably after South America, the second largest conduit and transit source of illegal narcotics coming up through Afghanistan, some through Pakistan, through Turkey, and then through the Balkans in a wide open fashion. So here we have spent an incredible amount of money going in, after a quarter of a million people were slaughtered in a civil war, and actually we went in much too late. We kept sides from properly defending themselves. We ended up with a series of graveyards across the Bosnia landscape that should be a reminder to everyone of this administration's failed policies. Not until after those graveyards were planted with the Bosnian souls in Croatia and other areas there did we ever take any action. Now we see, even with the forces that we have there, that the situation relating to illegal narcotics trafficking is disastrous. Rwanda is another example. Again I took to the floor many times trying to get this administration off center. Almost 1 million human beings were slaughtered in Rwanda. This administration not only had a failed policy, they had a counterproductive policy, a policy that actually, I think, brought on one of the true genocides of our time where almost 1 million people were slaughtered. This administration blocked in the United Nations a panAfrican, all African force, when we knew there was going to be trouble there. They actually blocked this force from going in and stopping the slaughter in advance of 1 million souls losing their lives most tragically. Then, of course, we come to Kosovo, the latest in a series of unbelievable missteps in foreign policy. This administration, this Congress, was advised that it was not the time. We were not prepared to go in. The worst time you go into the Balkan regions and into Kosovo would be when we did, when we have overcast February and March skies in that area, and it is clouded in. When you are doing an air campaign, and a surveillance campaign to make an air campaign successful, we could not have picked a worse time, taking us 4 weeks to get helicopters there, helicopters still not secured, properly trained. They knew we were short, and yet they went in; another disaster. Tonight, finally, one of the crowning disasters of this administration, I received just a few hours ago a report from my subcommittee staff. I now chair the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources of the Committee on Government Reform. I have been involved, since taking that responsibility in January, in trying to get our drug policy together. More heroin and cocaine is coming from South America than any other source in the world by far, just an incredible amount. The place that we have had as far as protection and surveillance of those activities has been Howard Air Force base in Panama. We have known since Jimmy Carter's administration that this year we would be forced to give up the canal. What we did not know is what assets we would lose in 1999. This administration has been negotiating the change in United States assets, what assets would go to Panamanians, for over 3 years. When I took over the subcommittee responsibility in January, we started, of course, examining what would happen in Panama, because all of our international South American, Central American, and Caribbean operations were housed and located and took off from Howard Air Force Base. So we went down there the first couple of months and examined what was going to happen. We were told by this administration that they were negotiating other locations. They did not believe the negotiations were going to succeed. We got advance warning of that, and we tried to do everything we could to encourage the administration, DOD, Department of State, to move forward or cut a deal. As it turned out, they failed in their negotiations. They failed in developing a treaty. We were kicked out May 1. We have known for some weeks now that negotiations by this administration did fail. We were told in hearings that we conducted, not only on our visit but on hearings we conducted, and we conducted a House subcommittee hearing on May 4, that things were in place and in order; that we would move at a cost to the taxpayers of $73 million, plus another $45 million that was presented to the committee, to Aruba, Curacao, and to Ecuador. These were the charts that were presented. The coverage with potential new forward operating locations, one in Ecuador and the other in the Curacao area, this is what we were told would be the coverage. It would give us very good coverage. This was May 4. When they came in, it was supposed to be in place. These were estimates we were given. These charts are by our SOUTHCOM. They told us that we would have, in the beginning of May 1999 estimate, a 50 percent coverage, and within our agency augments, May 1, 1999, 70 percent coverage May 1. With Curacao, Ecuador, forward operating locations we would go up to 80 percent. Then later on we would go even better if they could get Costa Rica. Unfortunately, the coverage I have been told as of today is absolutely zero, absolutely zip. Let me read this report very briefly. Mr. Speaker, in closing, let me read what we have learned again this afternoon. Representatives of SOUTHCOM, our southern command, conceded to me that our worst fears have been realized. After the United States closed down Howard Air Force Base on May 1, since May 1 there have been zero, absolutely zero counterdrug flights out of any one of the other three forward operating locations that were proposed in which the United States was to have memoranda of understanding. Despite both State Department and DOD indicating in our May 4 hearing that the transition in counterdrug overflights would be smooth and flights would just be modestly scaled back, the specific forward operating location facts are these: In Ecuador there have been, again, zero since May 1; since we got kicked out of Panama, zero counterdrug flights for the entire month of May, including the day of our hearing, May 4. We asked how many took off that day. They could not answer. I could answer today because we have had our investigators check. In Aruba, while we have two small custom Citation planes on the ground, I am told this afternoon, as well as one P-3 and one P-3 dome which arrived on May 12, there have been zero counterdrug flights by any of these planes out of Aruba from May 12 through May 17. In Curacao, while there is one F-17 dedicated to counterdrug flights, there have been zero counterdrug flights out of this location. In short, poor planning by the Department of State, Defense, and the inability to compensate for the loss of Howard Air Force Base, basically being kicked out of Panama, has already cost us dearly coverage, as follows. First, we have endangered the intelligence-gathering power of our South American allies in this war, and in particular, we basically are closing down our Peru shootdown policy, because we provide them with information that allows them that strategy and that action. This administration will bear the blame, since they have shown a 45 percent reduction in coca cultivation over the past 2 years based on intelligence-gathering. In other words, Peru is one of our success stories. Through this information that is shared, a shootdown policy and surveillance, they have eliminated 45 percent of the cocaine production. This program basically is out of order because of our inaction and maladministration. We have also eliminated intelligence monitoring and detection of drug trafficking flights out of South America since May 1. This is an incredible scandal. This is really one of the worst days and one of the worst missteps of this administration, and probably one of the worst events to ever take place in our effort to put back together the war on drugs that we started in the eighties that was dismantled in 1993 by this administration, by the Democrat House, Senate, and White House, which they did an incredible amount of damage from 1993 to 1995, which we have tried to restore in the last 2 years. All this action sends a go signal to drug traffickers. Every one of our forward operating locations are down and out. This, again, I believe is an incredible scandal. It is with great regret that I announce this to the House tonight, and to the American people. What makes this even worse is the information I was provided with, again within the last few hours, that our Southern Command could make no prediction about when these assets will come on line with counterdrug flights in the future. We have to remember that last year over 15,000 flights took off from Panama and conducted all of this counternarcotics activity. There is nothing more cost-effective than stopping drugs at their source, eradicating them at their source, or stopping them and interdicting them as they come from the source. It is much more difficult when they get into our streets, into our communities, and into our schools. So again, this unfortunately is a disastrous occurrence. I intend to hold the Department of State, the Department of Defense to account. We will conduct hearings and somehow we will restart this effort with the funds that we have restored to put this program back together that have been appropriated. We must have the cooperation of this administration in bringing back these flights and restoring a real war on drugs.