U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

57–169 CC WASHINGTON : 1999

OUR DRUG CRISIS: WHERE DO WE GO FROM

HERE?

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

JANUARY 22, 1999

Serial No. 106–12

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

STEPHEN HORN, California

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia

DAVID M. MCINTOSH, Indiana

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

MARSHALL ‘‘MARK’’ SANFORD, South

Carolina

BOB BARR, Georgia

DAN MILLER, Florida

ASA HUTCHINSON, Arkansas

LEE TERRY, Nebraska

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois

GREG WALDEN, Oregon

DOUG OSE, California

PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin

——— ———

——— ———

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

ROBERT E. WISE, JR., West Virginia

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

GARY A. CONDIT, California

PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,

DC

CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

JIM TURNER, Texas

THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine

HAROLD E. FORD, JR., Tennessee

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

KEVIN BINGER, Staff Director

DANIEL R. MOLL, Deputy Staff Director

DAVID A. KASS, Deputy Counsel and Parliamentarian

CARLA J. MARTIN, Chief Clerk

PHIL SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director

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C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on January 22, 1999 ......................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Babetts, Jeanette .............................................................................................. 126

Berger, Bill, accompanied by Marian Berger; and Michael Johnson, accompanied by Mary Trotter, executive director, House of Hope ............... 8

Cook, Colleen .................................................................................................... 119

Cooper, Tinker, Orlando, FL ........................................................................... 116

Dyer, David ....................................................................................................... 128

Goodwin, Tony .................................................................................................. 127

LaBarge, Marjorie J., senior administrator, student assistance and family

empowerment, Orange County Public Schools; Mary Trotter, executive

director, House of Hope; Larry Visser, president, the Grove Counseling

Center; and Scott Perkins, former detective, Chimera Productions, Inc. 88

Martinez, Bob, former Governor of Florida, former Director of the Office

of National Drug Control Policy; Don Eslinger, sheriff, Seminole County, chairman, high intensity drug trafficking area; and Vincent

Mazzilli, Special Agent in Charge, Miami field division, Drug Enforcement Administration .................................................................................... 26

Monroe, Sandra ................................................................................................ 126

Montaiuti, Christina ......................................................................................... 125

Pause, Mackenzie ............................................................................................. 118

Perkins, John .................................................................................................... 132

Pischetola, Vito ................................................................................................. 128

Smith, Debbie ................................................................................................... 133

Wilensky, Kerry ................................................................................................ 120

Zagorec, Shirley ................................................................................................ 131

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Berger, Bill, prepared statement of ................................................................ 11

Dyer, David, information concerning methadone .......................................... 130

Eslinger, Don, sheriff, Seminole County, chairman, high intensity drug

trafficking area, prepared statement of ...................................................... 32

Johnson, Michael, prepared statement of ....................................................... 20

LaBarge, Marjorie J., senior administrator, student assistance and family

empowerment, Orange County Public Schools, prepared statement of .... 93

Mazzilli, Vincent, Special Agent in Charge, Miami field division, Drug

Enforcement Administration, prepared statement of ................................ 44

Mica, Hon. John L., a Representative in Congress from the State of

Florida:

Additional statements for the record ....................................................... 82

Drug summit comments of Tom Constantine ......................................... 64

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 5

Perkins, Scott, former detective, Chimera Productions, Inc., prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 106

Trotter, Mary, executive director, House of Hope, prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 98

Visser, Larry, president, the Grove Counseling Center, prepared statement of ........................................................................................................... 102

Wilensky, Kerry, article dated November 9, 1998 ......................................... 123

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OUR DRUG CRISIS: WHERE DO WE GO FROM

HERE?

THURSDAY, JANUARY 22, 1999

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Winter Park, FL.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:06 a.m., in the

Lake Howell High School, 4200 Dike Road, Winter Park, FL, Hon.

John Mica (chairman of the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice,

Drug Policy, and Human Resources) presiding.

Present: Representatives Mica and Ose.

Staff present: Sharon Pinkerton, deputy staff director, Sean

Littlefield, professional staff member; Amy Davenport, clerk, Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources; and Michael Yeager, minority counsel, Committee on Government Reform.

Mr. MICA. Good morning. I would like to call this meeting to

order. I am pleased to welcome each and every one of you to this

field hearing of the Committee on Government Reform of the U.S.

House of Representatives.

I am pleased to welcome from California my colleague, Mr. Doug

Ose, who is also a member of this panel for this field hearing. We

were to be joined by two other Members, Congresswoman Brown

from Florida and Congressman Souder from Indiana, however, we

brought back from Washington a terrible head cold and a little bit

of flu, but we are delighted that Congressman Ose could join us

from California today.

We will proceed with the hearing.

We are also joined here this morning, representing the minority,

Michael Yeager, minority counsel. We are pleased to have him

here.

I also appreciate the cooperation of our new ranking member of

the subcommittee, members from the minority side, who were just

appointed on Wednesday. Congresswoman Patsy Mink from Hawaii, who I met with yesterday in Washington, is going to be our

new ranking member. Unfortunately, she could not be with us

today, however, she will be joining us in the future and I look forward to working with Mrs. Mink on this important subcommittee

assignment.

We are also joined by our deputy staff director of the subcommittee, Sharon Pinkerton.

This morning, we will begin the hearing, I will start with an

opening statement, then yield to Congressman Ose. We will also

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submit any other statements for the record, then we will go into

our first panel of witnesses who have joined us.

Again, it is my pleasure this morning to welcome everyone to

this hearing. I would like to welcome our distinguished witnesses

and again thank those who have helped make this hearing possible

today, particularly Don Smith and the staff of Lake Howell High

School who have accommodated us to hold this hearing in a very

appropriate setting, and that is this high school in our community.

In central Florida and many other communities of America, we

are facing an illegal drug epidemic. Illegal drugs have had a devastating impact on our communities, our families and on those who

fall victims to their use. Too often here in central Florida, our children are victims of heroin, cocaine and other hard drugs. Just recently we have seen incidents where not only our children but our

law enforcement agencies have been affected, even those who are

in prison and behind bars now we find have access to drugs in our

community. So this epidemic has reached every corner of our society and our community. That is why I have chosen to undertake

the chairmanship of the subcommittee in Congress that is chiefly

responsible for oversight of our national drug policy. Until last

month, this subcommittee was the direct responsibility of our new

Speaker, Congressman Dennis Hastert who has assumed a very

important position of leadership and will closely monitor the work

of the subcommittee.

Today’s hearing is the first in a series of hearings our subcommittee will conduct to deal with the drug crisis in America. We

will hear from those in central Florida and across the United

States about how drugs affect the communities we live in and the

people we love. There is no question about it—we started this campaign in our schools last year, and this says it all, drugs destroy

lives. It is a simple hard, cold fact, and that is why I am personally

committed to this fight and why I am pleased to be conducting this

first hearing in our community.

For the record, the Drug Enforcement Administration estimated

that drugs snuffed out more than 14,000 American lives last year.

Most of those individuals were our young people. We have seen

that here in central Florida. Recent reports show the number of

deaths from heroin overdoses and other hard drugs actually outpace homicide. Some of you may have seen that headline a few

weeks past. Central Florida has been ravaged by the effect of illegal drugs, there is no question about it. Whether you talk to parents, teachers, law enforcement officers or those running treatment

programs—and we will hear from some of those folks today—they

will all tell you the same thing, we have a very serious problem

here in our community and across the land.

Cheap, pure Colombian heroin and hard Mexican drugs, together

with deadly crack cocaine, methamphetamine and other designer

drugs are wreaking havoc on the lives of our children and our families. These drugs feed into central Florida’s crime statistics and

fray the very fabric of our society.

I cannot tell you how important I believe this issue is to me, and

I believe it is also critical to the future of our Nation and our very

society. That is why I have chosen to start this first hearing here

at home, and with this and other hearings, we will collect the very

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best answers, the very best information, examining what works

and what does not work from those of you who are on the front

lines across America and overseas that are in this battle. My hope

is to craft legislation and adopt measures that will deliver real solutions.

Over the past 18 years, I have seen policies that have worked

and policies that have failed. Unfortunately, the threat today is far

more serious than it was 18 years ago when I first became involved

in this war on drugs, and unfortunately today the solutions are

even more elusive. As the new chairman of the subcommittee, to

which the Speaker will look for direction, I am committed to finding real answers and effective solutions.

As an aside, I just returned from a worldwide conference on drug

abuse and crime in Vienna, Austria just a few days ago. It was attended by the head of the United Nations’ anti-drug effort—his

name is Pino Arlacchi—the British drug czar, the leaders of the

international law enforcement community, including being accompanied to the meeting by the head of our own United States Drug

Enforcement Agency, Tom Constantine. That conference was dedicated to molding a new transatlantic approach to the heroin and

hard-drug crisis. With this, and many other international efforts,

I believe we can work more effectively in the international arena

to attack our drug crisis.

Let me say one last word about the enormity of the drug threat.

These hard drugs, heroin and cocaine especially, come primarily

from Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, and Mexico. We will find a way to

stop drugs at their source. I make that commitment to you today.

With this new assignment from the incoming Speaker, it is my

hope to enlist the leaders of these countries in our anti-drug crusade. The poison that is being produced in these nations should not

reach the streets of central Florida, America or any other nation.

I believe that with the correct policies and proper funding, we can

take a four-pronged approach, including eradication, enforcement,

education, and treatment.

In the last Congress, I worked to designate central Florida as a

high intensity drug traffic area, or what is termed HIDTA. With

that designation, we are bringing every possible resource into central Florida to combat illegal narcotics trafficking. Today we will

receive an update on that effort.

To begin our planning for the national drug policy for the coming

year, I met this week in Washington with General McCaffrey, who

is the head of our national drug policy and also our National Drug

Czar. I am also pleased to announce here today that General

McCaffrey is permitting me to publicly release—and he is simultaneously announcing it in Washington this morning at 10 o’clock—

that central Florida will receive $2.5 million this year in funding

for their HIDTA effort.

[Applause.]

Mr. MICA. So I think working together with the Drug Czar, with

international leaders, with Members of Congress and others, we

can make this program effective not only in central Florida but

throughout the Nation. As a Congress, we made some progress last

year through new legislation and funding for anti-drug programs.

Congress added hundreds of millions of dollars to programs which

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were as diverse as education and treatment and aid to enhancing

our enforcement and interdiction programs, but much more must

be done. The truth, as we will hear today from our distinguished

witnesses, is that much more can be done, and for the sake of our

children much more must be done. Drugs and America do not belong in the same sentence. Illegal narcotics are not an American

value, they have no place in our society. That is why I am committed as this subcommittee’s new chairman to stopping the flow

of drugs to our cities, our towns, our schools, our communities and

to genuinely educating our young Americans about the great dangers posed by drugs to them and to our entire society.

I thank you for your attention to my opening statement. I am

pleased now to yield to the gentleman from California, Mr. Ose.

You are recognized.

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[Applause.]

Mr. OSE. Let me preface my remarks by saying that central Florida and this country enjoys a treasure in having you follow Speaker

Hastert’s tenure as chairman of this subcommittee and I am looking forward to working with you closely.

I come from Sacramento where we also have a drug problem in

the Third Congressional District. Our particular drug of choice is

methamphetamine and it is primarily manufactured in many of the

rural areas in some of the smaller counties of my district. The impact of this is that in some of these smaller counties, up to and exceeding 75 percent of the county district attorney’s caseload is directly related to drug use and abuse.

Long story short, I begged Mr. Burton to let me be on this committee. I cannot tell you how pleased I am that you and he consented to that. You said something in your remarks, your direct

quote was, ‘‘we will find a way to stop drugs at their source.’’ I just

want to repeat that, ‘‘we will find a way to stop drugs at their

source.’’ I yield back my time.

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Ose.

Again, we have other members—two other members who

planned to attend and are not able to be with us. They are at different stages of this cold and flu. But without objection their statements will be made a part of the record and in order, so ordered.

[The prepared statement of Hon. John L. Mica follows:]

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Mr. MICA.

We now have our first panel with us this morning in place and

I am pleased to welcome them. We have Mr. Bill Berger and Mrs.

Marian Berger. I happened to meet the Bergers at a dinner in

which they were honored by the Police Athletic League in central

Florida. The Bergers have taken one of the most incredible personal tragedies that any parent could possibly experience in losing

their son to a drug overdose and they have turned it into trying

to educate and inform others about the dangers of drugs. They are

trying to turn their tragedy into something meaningful for the

young people in our community. I was so impressed when they

were recognized for their efforts that I asked them if they would

come and provide testimony this morning. So, Mr. and Mrs. Berger,

I want to welcome you both.

We also have Michael Johnson, who is a resident of the House

of Hope, involved in a private sector program. The House of Hope,

as many of you know, has been honored both by President Reagan

and by Governors and others throughout the Nation for its efforts

to aid those young people. They first started out with just young

ladies and now they have expanded their operation not only from

central Florida but beyond our borders here, and also in dealing

with young men. So they help young men and women who have

drug problems.

Now, I will—I see one other person there, Ms. Trotter. She is the

executive director of House of Hope. You are going to testify in the

third panel?

Ms. TROTTER. Yes.

Mr. MICA. Let me explain to you that this is an investigations

and oversight subcommittee. Those of you who are going to testify

on this panel, I will ask you to stand and swear you in. Will you

raise your right hands, please.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. MICA. Let it be entered in the record that the witnesses testified and have sworn to the oath in the affirmative.

Again, I am pleased to welcome you all. Thank you for coming

today and offering this testimony for our congressional record. I

think we will just start off and lead with you, Mr. Berger.

STATEMENTS OF BILL BERGER, ACCOMPANIED BY MARIAN

BERGER; AND MICHAEL JOHNSON, ACCOMPANIED BY MARY

TROTTER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, HOUSE OF HOPE

Mr. BERGER. Thank you.

I would like to thank Chairman Mica and Congressman Ose, as

well as other members of this subcommittee, and of the panel today

for the opportunity to share our views on how we think drug use

is impacting our community and our State and what I believe can

be done to stop this plague.

I am sorry to say I am not pleased to be here. The reason I am

here is because on September 6, 1997, my son, Jason Alan Berger,

died of a heroin overdose. He was 22. Since that time, my wife,

Marian, who you will hear from shortly, and I have received a

shocking education on the widespread use of drugs, but specifically

heroin, throughout central Florida.

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Over 300 of our son’s friends came to his funeral. At that time,

God gave me the strength to speak at the graveside about his life

and death. I would like to share a little bit of that with you.

He was a bright, handsome and very popular young man. An

honor student in school, a student athlete and a young man who

always made me proud to be his dad. We spent time together. He

loved to play cards, monopoly, shoot pool on our porch. We swam

together, took hikes together, raised money for charity as a team.

I was his soccer coach for 5 years. We had a very positive and caring relationship. Jason was my best friend.

But when he was 15, he broke up with his girlfriend and it broke

his heart. He was depressed for several weeks, as I suppose we

have all been at one time in our teenage years, and one of his

friends repeatedly asked him to try LSD to help him get through

this terrible time. Although his background and character and his

family ties all told him no, he finally was worn down and gave in,

and within a week he became a failing student in school. He

changed his friends, he lost his interest in almost everything but

music. Today, I can tell you, these are all telltale signs of drug use;

then we thought it was just a phase.

He eventually ran away from home and lived in the woods and

in vacant houses for 6 months. The sheriff’s office brought him

home once. We hired private detectives and they caught him and

brought him home again, but he continued to run away. He did not

run away because he was unhappy at home, he ran away because

he knew how we felt about drugs and he could not continue his

drug life and still live there.

When he finally returned, he was able to graduate from high

school, but he was never a good student again. After years of being

in and out of trouble, he finally moved back home with us after he

graduated and worked as hard as he could to rebuild his life. He

held a job for 5 years and was very proud of his work, but instead

of being the architect that he always dreamed of being, he was a

busboy and had no thought of college or self-improvement.

He moved out of our house in August 1997 and he was dead of

a heroin overdose within 2 weeks. He wanted so much for himself

in his younger years but drugs robbed the world of a very talented,

giving human being. Jason did not want to die, but drugs took control of his life. He was able to go to work every day, fool us at night

into thinking he was doing OK and function like any other 22-year

old, but he was a recreational drug user on and off for 7 years and

it finally caught up with him.

In his eulogy, I quoted some statistics that Orlando’s Channel 6

news had broadcast the night before we buried our son. According

to an independent survey, in 1997, 74 percent of Seminole County

high school students had either tried, bought or sold drugs that

year—74 percent; 46 percent of the middle school students had the

same experience, and over 20 percent of all the people that were

surveyed, over 20 percent had known someone who had died of an

overdose.

What can we do to stop this? People who care must get involved.

Marian and I spoke to every Seminole County DARE graduating

class last year sharing our story, but that reaches only fifth graders. Middle school and high school students need constant reinVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:56 Nov 14, 2000 Jkt 010199 PO 00000 Frm 00013 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HEARINGS\57169 pfrm03 PsN: 57169
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forcement to stay off drugs. Our son had the right foundation, but

at 15 there were no formal drug or anti-drug programs in place.

More undercover investigators must be on the street. In the Or- lando Sentinel last week an article stated that $3 million had been

allocated for enforcement in central Florida but only $1 million had

been spent. If the fear of being caught and the subsequent penalties were severe enough, why were 74 percent of Seminole County high school students involved in drugs in 1997? In a casual conversation with my son a few years ago, he said that if you knew

what to look for, you could buy drugs on every corner in downtown

Orlando any hour of the day or night.

The penalty for selling drugs and for killing a user with those

drugs must be severe. My wife Marian has collected newspaper articles relating to heroin since Jason died. We have 20 articles from

the Orlando Sentinel and the Sanford Herald in the past year and

a half. There was one in the paper again today. If you read them

closely, you will see a common thread. First of all, obviously heroin

is newsworthy. Almost all of the headlines mention the word heroin. The penalties for selling and killing are almost insignificant.

Two articles in particular show how severe death by heroin is

treated. Pushers arrested for selling the drugs that killed are indicted for first degree murder by grand juries, then released on

bonds of $5,000, $10,000 and $25,000 respectively, all in these particular articles by the same local judge, Judge Allen Dickey. I guess

I watch too much TV, but I always thought that you could not bond

out on a capital offense. Congressman Mica said that drug deaths

have surpassed homicides in central Florida; sir, drug deaths are

homicides.

Other common themes in these articles, one in particular, is that

the same dealers who are being allowed to walk the streets almost

always are repeat offenders. They go back to their high paying jobs

as drug sales people because the penalty for getting caught for selling or killing with drugs does not scare them enough. Sheriff

Eslinger and his staff have encouraged Marian and myself to stay

involved in this fight. What they do not know is we have no choice.

Jason has pointed us to this mission. We will continue to stay in

the middle of this fight for the rest of our lives, so that his life and

his death will not be without purpose.

Some of Jason’s friends call on us from time to time, many have

learned from his mistakes but some continue to flirt with death.

We cannot be everywhere, we need help.

Thank you for being concerned enough to ask us here. Please

help us, and all the relatives and friends who have lost loved ones,

to stop this senseless loss of one more human being because of

drugs.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Berger follows:]

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Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Berger.

[Applause.]

Mr. MICA. I would like to now recognize Marian Berger. Ma’am,

you are recognized.

Ms. BERGER. Thank you.

A couple of weeks ago Sharon gave us a call at home on a Saturday and when I answered the phone——

Mr. MICA. If we can have those leaving exercise as much restraint in talking as possible. Go ahead, Ms. Berger, you are recognized.

Ms. BERGER. Thank you.

As I was saying, a couple of weeks ago I received a call on a Saturday morning and it was Sharon calling me from Washington, DC.

I was like, a call from Washington, very amazed here.

Mr. MICA. Ms. Berger, I am not sure we are not going to get an

announcement here.

Mr. OSE. That is the break.

Mr. MICA. It is just the break. OK, go ahead and proceed. I did

not want you to be interrupted.

Ms. BERGER. No problem. Anyway, she told me about this hearing and asked if either Bill or I would be able to attend or if we

would like to attend. Well, it did not take but a second thought and

I told her both of us will be there. A week or so later she let us

know that what we were going to say today had to be in writing,

which kind of blew us away because all of the talks we have had

this past year and 4 months have been from the heart and never

had to have any notes. We somehow managed to put this all down

in writing so they could have it. So bear with both of us because,

as Bill did, and I will too, we were reading because we do not want

to miss anything. Again, thank you for inviting us.

Before I start, I just wrote down some notes here. I want to steal

a phrase from John Negri, who is in charge of the DARE program

in Seminole County. He is the guy that keeps it going. He used to

say this at the end of my talks when I would talk to the DARE

graduation classes, and Bill’s as well. And he asked the fifth graders, he said what do you call it when a spouse loses another

spouse? It is widow or widower. What do you call it when a child

loses their parents? It is an orphan. And then he said, what do you

call parents who lose a child? The fifth graders just looked and

looked and no one could say anything. He said there is nothing

that you can say. There is no name for it because it is not supposed

to happen.

I am honored to be invited here to this hearing on drug abuse

and more personally on abuse of heroin. As Bill told you, our son

Jason died September 6, 1997, 22 years old. He overdosed on heroin. The night before, he called his dad and was really excited. He

had a split-shift that afternoon and called him to tell him he received his paycheck from the week before and received a double

paycheck because he worked double time because he wanted

money. He gave someone $250 that day to put down on a motorcycle. He could not afford a car because he had gotten a DUI the

year before, and the DUI primarily was caused because he was

doing drugs and drugs affected the alcohol. He felt really good

about himself on that phone call. He had moved out of the house

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and he had moved into an apartment. He was going to become

independent and make us proud. Bill told me about that call. He

called me—I was out of town that afternoon—and he just could not

believe the phone call. Jason was so excited. He was so happy. Life

was really going great for him.

He also asked Bill if he could pick up the extra comforter that

we had for his new apartment that night. He worked very late at

the restaurant. It was probably 12 or 1 o’clock before he got off. So

we left his comforter in the garage and the next morning when we

awoke, we looked in there and the comforter was gone. Later that

afternoon on September 6th, Bill and I were with friends at a restaurant—and I do not have to read this part. My pager went off.

I had just started a new job and told these folks my pager is on

24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It went off and I did not recognize

the phone number. I called that phone number and it was the

Casselberry Police Department. The officer on the other end of the

phone introduced himself and he said I’m sorry, Ms. Berger, I hate

to tell you this, but your son is dead. I thank God there were

friends there with us because that was the only way we both made

it home.

Later that afternoon, a Casselberry police officer and a CCI officer from Seminole County arrived at our home. They said they

were at the apartment when the paramedics were there. They told

us the little that they knew, but they did tell us Jason was found

on his bed. It was made, comforter on it. Jason seldom made his

bed at our house when he was living at home, he was like, I think,

many young people. But that tells you right there that he did not

want to die that night. If there was only beer in that apartment,

he would have gone to bed and awoke the next day, but there was

a drug dealer there that night and that drug dealer sold my son

heroin.

Jason, we knew from his confession the year before, had tried

drugs but now wanted to be free. He wanted to live a beautiful,

clean life. Heroin is a drug that we have found to be recreationally

addictive. No one knows when or if they will die. When they use

it, heroin can kill. Drug dealers need to be stopped. These dealers

have killed dozens of individuals who did not want to die.

I read in last Sunday’s paper the new drug task force has arrested over 50 suspects selling drugs and about $1 million of the

expected $3 million, as Bill said, for 1999 has been allocated. With

this money available though, I do not understand why the article

also said that the law enforcement officials need more money. This

money could bring more manpower and bring more arrests. It is obvious that the undercover agents can find the dealers. What is

stopping the extra allotment of money to hire more agents?

Education is also mandatory. Bill and I spoke to over 2,000 fifth

graders last year at their DARE graduation. We told them our

story about Jason in hopes that these students, as well as their

parents, would learn more about drugs and how it kills. We also

spoke to other groups and hope that these talks have saved lives.

What we really would like to see is more deputies trained for the

Seminole County Sheriff’s Department. If need be, use part of the

$3 million for this drug enforcement to hire and train these deputies to target middle schools. These students need to be reminded

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of what they learned in fifth grade. Too much time passes between

11 years old and 15 years old. If all this training were enforced

when Jason was young, he might have learned the danger of drugs.

Most parents do not have the education necessary to talk to their

children about drugs. Somehow these teens need to know that

when they get upset about something, do not let your friend convince you to try a drug. This person is not a friend, nor is trying

drugs the way to solve the problem.

We have learned much since our son died about how drugs

change people. Jason even told me after he got out of jail for that

DUI and on that year’s probation and he told us so much, he said,

mom, you look at someone in the eyes, if they are red and the pupils are dilated chances are they are doing drugs. If your teen suddenly wants to wear different clothes, they want to color their hair,

pierce their body or have a totally different group of friends, talk

to them, investigate the changes. Don’t think these changes are

just a sign your teen wants to rebel, the reason may be drugs. Periodically go through their book bag, check their room closets, dresser drawers and if they have a car, look inside. If they get upset because they say you are intruding in their privacy, tell them if there

is nothing wrong, then it should not matter. You love them, you

want them safe. It is better to have your teen upset with you than

dead.

The last Christmas that Jason was with us, which was an incredible time those few months. He was off drugs and he was back the

way he was many years before, just the most incredible laughing

fun person. Anyway, he gave us this Christmas card. It was a special Christmas card, thanks to mom and dad, and it has the usual

verse. Hallmark does a wonderful job with their thank you’s. I

would like to read what he wrote in it though, which is the most

important thing. And he printed in there these words, ‘‘I realize I

have been a screw-up and not much of a family member these past

few years. Thank you for always supporting me and never giving

up hope. I hope I am now in a change for the good in giving up

my past life. I hope you like the dog. It was a gift that I thought

will keep on giving. I love you guys lots and I am pretty sure

Sampson will too. Thank you again for everything.’’ He did not

want to die. When I look at Sampson, our dog now that is about

75 pounds and was about 10 pounds when he gave it to us, I remember even more the love that our son has for us, and I know

still he has it. I pray there will be a way to stop the selling of drugs

and other parents will not have to go through the pain that we

have.

Since Jason died, we have been invited to speak to many groups,

interviewed on the news, on TV and quoted in the newspaper, received a plaque from the Seminole County Sheriff Department for

a community service award, received a plaque from DARE—from

the DARE Association. We received the 1998 distinguished service

award from the Seminole County Police Athletic League, been

filmed for a part in a TV series on drugs that will hopefully be on

TV this spring. We will continue to talk and do whatever it takes.

None of this has brought our son back, nor will it ever bring our

son back. We only hope that we have saved lives and want to save

more.

17

Thank you for inviting us to this hearing. We need to stop the

dealers. Thank you.

[Applause.]

Mr. MICA. I thank both Mr. and Mrs. Berger for your testimony

and for your participation as witnesses today under very difficult

personal circumstances, and also for your recommendations.

I am going to now recognize Michael Johnson. Michael is a resident with the House of Hope and involved in some of their programs. Maybe you can convey to the subcommittee your personal

experience. You are recognized.

Mr. JOHNSON. I began to use drugs about—you know, whenever

I was about 12. I just started smoking weed at first. It was just

what kids were doing. I was in middle school. That is where I

started at. That was my first time. I got out of control because I

have got a background of addictive personalities and stuff like that.

By the ninth grade, I had decided I was going to quit school. I

knew not to go to harder drugs because I’ve heard stories like these

about heroin and cocaine and crack and stuff, and then on top of

that, I have seen the heads that were on the drugs. But it became

expensive anyway because I wanted to, you know, do the drugs I

used all the time, so I started stealing. I would like rob people and

stuff, other drug dealers, then I began to sell drugs. Around here

in Seminole County—I live in Orange County, but in Seminole

County around here, it is a very, very big area. We lived over in

Redline Apartments in a place in Country Lane where we stayed

at. I mean it is big, it is big stuff. Then people would be killing

each other too, you know, with the selling drugs around here.

I got involved in it too much and eventually I got caught by the

police. With no charges they put me in a detox because my dad,

he said—he knew I needed help because I was stealing his money

and leaving our house and taking off. They put me in detox and

then the detox said he needs help. They put me in a program,

which is a government program, and it could not control me and

I took off from there. I ran away and went out to do drugs more.

I ended up catching charges that were going to put me in jail. I

decided, you know, to think in my right mind for one, you know,

day at least and decided to go back to the program and get help.

When I got there, I wanted to get help but I could not. I could

not like, receive it. I do not think—I do not know, it was just—

what they were offering me was not quite doing it, and then on top

of that, the kids were bringing heroin into the program. I was sitting here in the program trying to get straight with three third-degree felonies. You know, trying to get off, you know, the street and,

you know, have a relationship with my father and the rest of my

family and stuff and it just was not working out.

The heroin—also, I have such an addictive personality that I was

hooked on it right away. You know, you can only get so much. They

could only leave the program for 1 day on a pass and they would

come back with 10 packs of it. That is $10 worth of it. It is just

a little bit, you know. And when you get tolerance to it, you will

start having to snort more. I got real addictive, I stole this other

kid’s in the program and he wanted to fight me. That caused me

a big problem because I got a knife and I was supposed to, you

know, fight with this kid with the knife. I mean, you know, 16 guys

18

living in a place, with us out of control, and all they do is tell you

you need to quit drugs. They do not tell you—they tell you why,

but it is all like real sketchy. They give you such a worldly like

view of why, the reason why society wants you to quit drugs and

stuff like that. I ended up getting arrested in there with that knife

and I’m a third degree felony. All I wanted to do was do drugs.

I know where to get heroin around here. I can go get heroin right

now. I can go get cocaine right now, go get crack right now. I can

go get any drug you want right now. I am not about that any more.

I am not saying I am still about that. I was ready to go out and

do that, then my dad put me in this other program because I was—

you know, it was very, you know, whatever you want to say, evident that I was doing drugs. You know, I was whacked and I was

showing it because I knew I needed help because I was scared. I

knew I wanted to go get more heroin because I had already gone

through the 3-day withdrawal. That’s why I had the knife because

it makes you angry whenever you quit. It’s really hard to quit heroin. It takes like 3 days of just straight sleeping. You do not go to

school, you do not do anything.

I came to this Christian program, the House of Hope. To me, it

is like a correction facility, the House of Hope, because they just

tell you what you need to know to get off of it. They give you all

of the information that you need and they counsel your family and

you. They have been bringing me up. I have been off of drugs for

9 months by my own will. I did choose to quit and when I get out

of the program I can chose to go back to it, but now I am so like—

I have been taught so much. But see, it was not that I was just

taught something, I was taught the right thing about, you know,

my life and stuff and about why I am here. I am not here to do

crime and sell drugs and just make money on this. You know, I am

here to serve God and that is basically what I have been learning.

I can go into detail and talk for like 7 hours on what I know. I am

kind of being rehabilitated, you know.

Mr. MICA. Michael, we will not give you 7 hours today. [Laughter.]

Just kidding. We appreciate your testimony. Did you have anything else you wanted to add?

Mr. JOHNSON. Yeah, I do have something I want to add to that.

She was saying drug dealers, they need to get off the street. I used

to sell drugs and my best friends sold crack cocaine. You know,

they drove Lincoln Town Cars. You know, the money thing, it’s like

yeah, we have got money, we are bad. We are drug dealers. That

is how they will be thinking. What needs to happen—see, my

charges got dropped. I did not have any drug charges because I was

smart. She said more investigators out there, just nail everybody,

just lay them out. I can get away with it, you know. I can get away

with selling drugs, it is not—you do not have to—I was burned to

death man, I could not—you know, I was in low math and everything in school when I went back, and I could get away with selling

drugs. You just got to have about this much intelligence (indicating) to be out there doing that. If you want to take it further,

then you will be able to sell larger amounts of drugs, pounds and

that sort of thing.

19

I think they need to start—do some kind of little—I do not know,

some kind of tactical force thing or something. I do not know. You

know, like come out and just sweep them out, you know what I am

saying, because it is all over the place. They make themselves

available too. I mean, I made myself available many times and I

know—see, I was not—I knew that. My friends have been to jail

and I knew that you do not go there for a long time. You get to

kind of escape and learn a little bit while you are there, but see,

also, I think they need to increase, you know, the years that you

spend. Then also, when you get to the correction facility, make sure

that they are offering you the right thing, because when they get

out they are going to go right to the same thing.

Anyone who is on drugs knows they need help, so you guys need

to be able to offer the right help and that is what the House of

Hope is offering me. To me it is a Christian thing, it is about

Christ, that has been offered to me. The way I understand his life

to be and how to get off. I do not know what you all think about

that, but that is what I have got to add.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Johnson follows:]

20

21

Mr. MICA. Thank you for your testimony. I am going to start a

little round of questions here. I will come back to you in a second,

Michael.

One of the things I heard you testify to, Mr. Berger, is that the

disparity in time that is spent in jail, and also penalties and bonds

for individuals. I think you relayed that in your individual case the

individual was—I think was identified that sold your son drugs.

What was the situation with his bond or penalty?

Mr. BERGER. It took a year of investigation to arrest him, although we had testimony from day one that he had sold the drugs

and he actually was in the apartment that night and his girlfriend

testified drugs were under the bed and another user was there

with him. So it took a year for them to nail down the case. A grand

jury indicted him for first degree murder; he spent 30 days in jail

and at a bond hearing he was released on $25,000 bond because,

according to his attorney, the family did not have the ability to pay.

The father is a prominent attorney. I am really confused about that

one.

Mr. MICA. Has he been tried or is he out now or what?

Mr. BERGER. We are awaiting trial right now.

Mr. MICA. Awaiting trial, but out on $25,000 bond.

Mr. BERGER. He not only is out on $25,000 bond, the judge at

the time said he would release him on bond as long as he stayed

in the home except to go to drug treatments, church or work. We

since have been trying on a regular basis to determine who monitors that and it has become obvious no one does. So he is doing

whatever he used to do right now as we are speaking.

Mr. MICA. Ms. Berger.

Ms. BERGER. What they told me—I had called the Victim Services—I mean some of the people were at the courthouse that day

and I said can you find out for me what part of the sheriff’s, police

department, whatever, is supposed to be checking on this young

man, because that was—I mean it was quoted in the newspaper,

everywhere, part of the bond was to stay at home. This lady that

has been talking to me has been searching everywhere and this has

been 2 weeks. I expected to get a call from her yesterday. No one

knows, and I am wondering who Judge Dickey thinks is checking

on this young man and keeping him at home instead of out

partying and selling more drugs. We have heard that sometime in

March, the attorneys will go back before the judge and find out

what date the trial will start. So it will not be before April at the

earliest.

Mr. MICA. Well given your terrible personal experience, if you

were—in fact, you are today advising Members of Congress. Where

do you think we should best place our dollars as far as enforcement, treatment programs, education, interdiction, the whole spectrum of trying to get a handle on this. How would you approach

this based on your experience, Mr. Berger?

Mr. BERGER. I think the first place we have to look is additional

education at a higher level than fifth grade. Kids at the fifth

grade—it is a wonderful foundation for no drugs in the future, but

they are not tempted in the fifth grade. Temptation comes when

they are 14, 15, 16, 17 years old and begin to think of themselves

as adults. Drug dealers focus on middle school and high school stuVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:56 Nov 14, 2000 Jkt 010199 PO 00000 Frm 00025 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HEARINGS\57169 pfrm03 PsN: 57169
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dents, but we are educating the elementary kid schools. So education in higher grades is the first place.

Second, undercover enforcement is what is going to keep kids

from selling drugs. Right now, they do it, 74 percent do it. This

young man right here says he can walk out of here and find drugs.

I bet you could find it in 2 minutes. They do it because they have

no fear of being caught, and if they do get caught, they have no

fear of the penalties, because they are juveniles in most cases that

are selling it. So as long as the penalty for doing the crime is not

severe enough or the possibility of getting caught is not severe

enough, they are going to continue to sell drugs. So we need to

make first degree murder charges first degree murder charges. We

need to make dealing drugs a felony with automatic jail time and

we need to have lots of undercover people in the schools and on the

streets grabbing——

Ms. BERGER. And downtown Orlando.

Mr. BERGER [continuing]. These kids, taking them to jail with no

possibility of getting back tomorrow to sell drugs again, which is

where they are right now.

Mr. MICA. Ms. Berger.

Ms. BERGER. What I also feel about that though, if they are arrested and it takes a year to—I mean it takes a year to get them

arrested, they need to know they need to stay in jail. There should

be no bond. When the trial comes and if the trial and the jury or

whomever decide that there is not enough evidence to keep them

in jail that is one thing, but I cannot fathom someone who is arrested for first degree being now on the streets waiting again

months to see if he is even going to be in jail. That has got to stop.

Mr. MICA. Michael, you have been in, it sounds like, several

types of programs and your recommendation, as I gathered, was to

have a program that is tough and meaningful but also compassionate. In your case, the secular program did not work as well as

the faith-based program. You also seem to indicate the same thing

that the Bergers did, that we need to really get tough on enforcement. Now that might mean in your case you might have spent

some more time in jail or some serious jail time. Are you saying

that’s what we need to do?

Mr. JOHNSON. Yeah, but at the time I would not have said that.

[Laughter.]

That is the dead truth.

Mr. MICA. So when there is no enforcement, young people think

you can get away with it and go back and do it again. When the

program has a lot of flexibility and laxness and no real core, it does

not work as well, is that pretty much your experience?

Mr. JOHNSON. That is exactly what it is.

Mr. MICA. How old are you?

Mr. JOHNSON. I am 17.

Mr. MICA. And you started when? How old were you?

Mr. JOHNSON. Twelve.

Mr. MICA. Twelve. And it has been 9 months since you have been

off of drugs?

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes.

Mr. MICA. And what did you use?

Mr. JOHNSON. Excuse me?

23

Mr. MICA. What drugs did you use?

Mr. JOHNSON. Well my favorite drug was weed. I smoked weed;

I drank lots of alcohol; I ate a lot of pharmaceutical pills, I do not

know if you know anything about that. I used heroin in the program. I smoked crack one time and I did not like it, it made me

crazy. So I did not do that anymore.

Mr. MICA. So you have tried a wide range of illegal drugs. You

also said throughout our community—are all of these—is marijuana just available or a variety of all the hard drugs? What is

available?

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, you have got to get deep into it to be able

to get good drugs. Like, if you are just some kid who just wants

it, you know, straight off the street, you want to buy $5 worth of

weed, you are surely not going to know where to get heroin unless

people are just blatantly stupid about offering you drugs. That does

happen sometimes.

Mr. MICA. And 9 months ago is the last time you dealt in drugs.

In talking to your friends and in the program, is there much of a

change? We put $1 million in here and we have beefed up enforcement, have you heard of any change or are we still about where

we were from talking to your friends?

Mr. JOHNSON. I am not really allowed to talk to anyone out

there, but I know they are still doing the same thing. The kids who

are out there are oblivious to what is going on right now. I think

they need to be made aware though. You know, saying we are coming to get you. And have people that know what they’re talking

about, who have done drugs, talk to them too because they do not—

I think they are oblivious to it. I have still got friends that I see

when I go on passes from the program, they come up, Michael,

what is up man, what are you doing? You know, do you want to

come out and chill? It is going down tonight. You know, come out

to the party and whatever. No, I do not do that anymore, man. I

sit there and I make them aware myself, but they are basically oblivious to what is going on.

Mr. MICA. Thank you for your testimony.

I am pleased now to yield to my colleague, the gentleman from

California, Mr. Ose.

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Michael, educate me, if you will, you said you could walk out of

here and quickly acquire drugs. I do not doubt that. What do you

look for? What are the characteristics of that?

Mr. JOHNSON. Well it is about who you know. I can probably go

on Lake Howell’s campus right now and talk to somebody out here

and get a bag of weed. I think these kids know that probably. I do

not know if you guys know that. It is not funny, it is the truth.

I went to Winter Park High School and it is drug-ridden. They

have got cops in there that search you at the drop of a dime if you

do one thing wrong. I mean, you know, you have just kind of—you

have got to get into the scene and that is how you become oblivious

to reality. You are just in that life and you think you are just something bad, you know, but you are really not. You are just living

waiting to get killed, arrested or you are going to quit. Those are

your three options.

24

Mr. OSE. When you buy drugs, are you buying it from an agegroup peer or somebody older, somebody younger or does it vary?

Somebody who goes to school with you, somebody from another

neighborhood?

Mr. JOHNSON. Well there is not really an age group, like big drug

dealers do not go to school. Like kids—will be pushing whatever,

ounces or something—will be in the schools doing their work trying

to get an education—there is no—it is not like you only go to the

seniors to buy some dank, if you want some dank—you know,

sometimes it is sophomores, could be freshmen, you know.

Mr. OSE. Your point is that it is everywhere.

Mr. JOHNSON. Excuse me?

Mr. OSE. Your point is that it is everywhere.

Mr. JOHNSON. Yeah, it is everyone and everywhere if they have

got knowledge of the street, and that is about what it is right

there.

Mr. OSE. Mr. and Mrs. Berger, I do not know what to tell you.

I cannot even imagine what you went through.

Ms. BERGER. Jason, 6 months before he died asked if we would

pay for a tandem jump for his birthday. He went up in those clouds

and we could not see anything of that airplane, but he came down.

This time he is up in those clouds and he is not coming down. I

do not know—I mean, we do not know—we do not know the logistics of things, but those undercover agents, they seem to find people. I think we have more headlines of not just people dying from

it, but headlines of every week an undercover agent caught another

dealer, another dealer, another dealer and another dealer. I mean,

these headlines that I have kept for a year, a year and 4 months,

primarily they are of some arrests, and then they are let go, but

mostly of deaths. I think there need to be more headlines of people

being arrested and put in jail and this needs to be on a very regular basis.

[Applause.]

Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, I yield my time back.

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Ose.

I want to again thank the Bergers for coming to be with us today

and for telling their story and also trying to make some meaning

and some purpose to your son’s life who you have tragically lost.

By serving in our community, you have been recognized for that

service. We appreciate your bringing a message, information to people who are not hearing that, particularly young people, and the

rest of the community. I know how difficult it must be. Mr. Ose,

we are going to hear in the fourth panel more parents. We could—

unfortunately we could fill the stage here with parents who have

experienced the same tragedy and they will be testifying in our

public panel, the fourth panel. But again, I thank you for coming

out and sharing with us your story.

Michael Johnson, we have scores of Michaels in our community

unfortunately. Some of them are with us, and we are pleased that

you are a survivor in this horrible situation. We wish you well and

we thank you for your courage in coming forward and being with

us today and relating to the community what is going on. Again,

you all in this panel only represent a sampling of what we are exVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:56 Nov 14, 2000 Jkt 010199 PO 00000 Frm 00028 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HEARINGS\57169 pfrm03 PsN: 57169
25

periencing and how the lives of individuals in our community have

been affected.

So with that, I thank you for your testimony and I will excuse

this panel.

[Applause.]

Mr. MICA. I would like to now call the second panel. If the witnesses from the second panel could come forward? The second

panel is entitled Drug Policy and Law Enforcement. Today we are

extremely pleased and honored to have with us as our first witness

a gentleman who is not a stranger to anyone in Florida, the Honorable Bob Martinez, who is the former Governor of the State of Florida. He was also the National Drug Czar, the former Director of

the Office of National Drug Control Policy. He has been a strong

warrior in this effort and helped craft some of our past State and

Federal drug policy. We are delighted that he has come over from

the west coast where he resides now and joined us.

We are also pleased to have Sheriff Don Eslinger. Everyone

knows him, of course, as the Sheriff of Seminole County, an outstanding law enforcement leader who has also served as chairman

of the high intensity drug traffic area group. Again, this area was

designated by Congress as a HIDTA, high intensity drug traffic

area. We put initial Federal dollars into the program last year and

we will hear from Sheriff Eslinger where we are now.

We will also hear in this panel Mr. Vincent Mazzilli. Mr. Mazzilli

is the Special Agent in Charge of the Miami Field Division of the

National Drug Enforcement Agency.

So those are our three panelists. I welcome the panelists. I also

will repeat what I have said to the others, that this is an investigations and oversight subcommittee of Congress and for that purpose

we will swear our witnesses in. If you would stand gentlemen and

raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. MICA. Welcome this morning. We are so pleased to have you

with us. These panels are not packed to the extent where we have

to use the 5-minute enforcer, but as you may know from previous

testimony before panels in Congress, we will allow extensive remarks or materials to be added to the record. I am pleased first

to recognize the Honorable Bob Martinez. Governor Martinez, as I

said, was our National Drug Czar. We are so delighted that you

took time to be with us. This high intensity drug traffic designation

does run from Tampa across the center of the State and up through

the very core of central Florida. As a resident of that community,

I know of your concern and we know of your tremendous work as

our National Drug Czar. So with those opening comments and remarks, I am pleased to recognize you, Governor, and welcome.

26

STATEMENTS OF BOB MARTINEZ, FORMER GOVERNOR OF

FLORIDA, FORMER DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF NATIONAL

DRUG CONTROL POLICY; DON ESLINGER, SHERIFF, SEMINOLE COUNTY, CHAIRMAN, HIGH INTENSITY DRUG TRAFFICKING AREA; AND VINCENT MAZZILLI, SPECIAL AGENT IN

CHARGE, MIAMI FIELD DIVISION, DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION

Governor MARTINEZ. Congressmen, Mr. Chairman, members of

the committee, I am delighted to be here at your invitation. I want

to congratulate you and the committee for making this a priority

to listen to the community, to listen to those who are in fact involved with law enforcement, to get ideas, to identify the problems

and hopefully to make the necessary recommendations that again

will make the effort to reduce the use of drugs significant in this

country.

As you indicated, I am the former mayor of Tampa where I now

live, my home city; Governor of Florida and Director of the Office

of National Drug Control Policy under President George Bush. In

1988 while serving as Governor, I created a drug coordinator office

to work with the citizens of Florida to develop a Florida drug policy.

In addition to my business interests, I am involved in numerous

community organizations and serve on the boards of the University

of Tampa, Hillsborough Education Foundation and the District VI

Juvenile Justice Faith Advisory Council. I say this because I remain active with the young people of the State of Florida in one

fashion or another.

I know that in recent years we have had tremendous discussion

about the use of tobacco and what it does to people that use tobacco, and certainly it does. I have never smoked in my entire life

and I know there are long-term consequences for use. My concern

during this whole period of debate is that little was said about the

controlled substances. Little was said about the danger of cocaine

and heroin and marijuana. Certainly it has not been, I think, in

the news media like it should be. And, of course, these are instant

lethal consequences, not long-term consequences. It can happen

any day when you overdose. It can happen any day that is a result

of the use of drugs that you engage in crime. It happens on any

day the disruptiveness that comes to family units and to neighborhoods; therefore, I believe that this is a kind of issue that needs

to be in the forefront at all times in a very visible way.

It is always hard to talk about law enforcement solely because

in my view education and prevention works if law enforcement

works. If law enforcement is not effective, there is no way for a

message by a parent, by a school or by anyone else to take hold

because merchants are out there making a sale. You have to remember this is a marketplace. You just do not get up one morning

and say you know what, I am going to use drugs. There is someone

out there that is making it available. There is someone out there

that is selling it just like Coca Cola sells Coca Cola. It is an organized effort to do so. We all know as adults how we can be persuaded to purchase a certain type of automobile or go to a certain

restaurant or whatever it is because of peer recommendation or because of its availability. So you can imagine what a youngster who

27

perhaps is even more impressionable than we are, when they walk

through a school building or walk in their neighborhood and are

being approached openly without consequence by those who sell. So

for that reason, a key element, I think, is that if law enforcement

is effective, a chance for stopping first-time use of drugs, which is

in my mind a very important factor, first-time use of drugs. Once

you break the barrier, once you use it once, there are some quite

frankly that get quickly addicted to the recurring use of it.

In the area of law enforcement—and I cannot praise DEA

enough. I had the opportunity to work with DEA for a good number

of years; the Customs Department which also carries a major effort

in the area of drug interdiction; the U.S. Coast Guard which continues to work tremendously; the Department of Defense with its

resources, provides necessary information so that DEA and others

can carry out their mission. But the national policy—there should

be a national policy, not a Federal policy. By national, I mean it

has to include the sheriffs of all the counties across this great country and the police chiefs and other enforcement agencies that exist

in the 50 States of our Nation. There has to be coordination, the

sharing of information, the sharing of resources for it to be effective.

Starting with the DEA with its mission of not only dealing with

core organizations, the heartbeat of the drug trade, the business

merchants, the ones in charge of going to source countries developing the drug, providing for its transportation, providing for the

laundering of its money. Here you can tackle it by going after kilos

instead of grams, after tons rather than grams. Interdiction is important. Working with source countries is extremely important. An

unfettered drug organization able to manufacture and ship and

money-launder is going to flood whichever country they target. Intelligence is a must, working with the source countries to be cooperative is a must. Training their personnel and selecting their personnel is extremely important. You know, it is a lot better to know

which container on a freighter has the drugs than searching

through 500 containers. Have you ever been to a free trade zone

and looked at the thousands of containers that are there? You can

send the National Guard, the DEA to search some containers, but

if someone has not provided you the information on which container, the chances of finding it are not quite good. So, it has to

be beefed, it has to be effective.

You have to go after the secondary organizations that have the

single purpose, whether it is to transport, to acquire the chemicals

required to make coca leaf into cocaine, or in charge of enforcement

of the system, and when you disrupt, it does cost them money.

When you disrupt, you do reduce the supply, and if you disrupt

enough, you drive the price up. If you disrupt enough they have to

cut its potency, but if you do not do that, it is cheap, cheaper than

a six-pack of Coke. Any elementary child will carry that kind of

pocket money. So, it is an integrated effort before it gets to the

streets.

When it gets to the streets and the sheriff and all his people and

police chiefs all across the country have to deal with it, now they

are doing, you know, house-to-house warfare. Now you are dealing

with grams, now you are dealing with a disruptive neighborhood

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where people want to move out and cannot because nobody wants

to buy the house. Where you would like to go for a walk but you

cannot because you do not feel safe. Where outsiders come in because the drug dealers are on the street and that’s where they

come to buy. They may live 20 miles from that neighborhood, but

that is where it is sold and that is where it is bought. So who is

in jail here? Is it the dealer or the people who live there who live

behind bars. You have seen those neighborhoods and you go by and

you see a lot of wrought iron bars keeping people out of their

homes. That is no way to live. It is no way to live when like this

youngster, I believe his name was what, Michael Johnson, when a

career is destroyed. So for those who say we spend too much money

on law enforcement, perhaps we are not spending enough money on

education, prevention and treatment, not that we are spending too

much money on law enforcement.

I think in recent years, the emphasis seemed to me—from what

little I was able to gather in the media, the emphasis was more on

treatment. Treatment is important. Effective treatment is important, not feel-good treatment. Effective treatment is important.

But, that is treating the casualties, and they have to be treated

when you have a casualty, but a good offensive reduces casualties

and that is education and that is law enforcement. That is prevention and that is law enforcement and that is what has to work to

reduce casualties. I do not think we have done enough to do that.

Maybe we got complacent because we saw numbers were going the

right way some years ago and now we see numbers are again beginning to spike upward. As early as the 1990’s, predictions were

already out there that heroin was going to become a drug of choice,

because as they made it pure and it became snortable, even associated with a dirty needle, a different class of people would access

it, and it has happened. So now it is not just cocaine, but now it

is heroin.

You know, Mayor Giuliani in New York City has been given a

great deal of credit for what has happened in New York City and

rightfully so. I think he has done a tremendous job. He took care

of small things, cleaning up the streets, picking up the litter and

cleaning up the graffiti. While that may not be glamorous it cleans

up an environment and when you clean up an environment people

are willing to hold it that way. But if you walk out of your house

every darn day and all you see is the drug pushers in the neighborhood, how do you get them to clean up their environment?

So I urge you—and I will be delighted to answer, you know,

questions—that we go back and put more emphasis on these core

organizations to be sure they do not flood us with the drugs as they

have done. That we go after those secondary organizations that

transport at will and launder the money and support the local organizations so that education and prevention has an opportunity to

take hold before the pusher takes hold. If we can do that, I think

we can make some progress.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. I will

be delighted to answer questions.

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Governor. We appreciate your testimony.

We are going to defer questions until we have heard from all of the

panelists. I would like to recognize now our sheriff, Don Eslinger,

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who is also head of our local high intensity drug traffic designation.

Sheriff, you are recognized.

Sheriff ESLINGER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Congressman

Ose.

Late yesterday afternoon I received a fax and I would just like

to read it, if I may. It says

Dear Sheriff Eslinger, my wife Mona Tatje has spoken with you on occasion about

the followup on seeking the individual involved with the heroin overdose of our

daughter Christina. With the Congressional hearing coming up tomorrow, I just

wanted to say that if I can do anything more or if anything more can be done to

stop the senseless waste of our youth, please make the extra effort. I write this with

a broken heart, but as a parent and a citizen, I promise to help in any way possible

to educate parents, youth and whoever will listen. This hideous drug is destroying

many of our youth in central Florida. Sincerely, David Tatje.

Their daughter Christina was dropped off after she graduated

from high school in Eustis last year, 1998. A so-called friend

dropped her off at South Seminole High School—I am sorry, South

Seminole Hospital where she died several hours later as a result

of a heroin overdose. Many agencies are currently working this investigation, including the Central Florida HIDTA Heroin Task

Force, and hopefully we will have results on that investigation.

As we heard this morning, family and friends of overdose victims

are shattered by the loss of loved ones. Problems associated with

drug abuse in our community are far reaching. We are all affected

and victimized by the presence of illegal drugs in our community

even though we may not have a direct relationship to the abuse or

loss of life.

Congressman Ose pointed out that in the Third Congressional

District of California, the DA estimates 75 percent of all reported

crime he is handling is either drug or alcohol related. I estimate

in Seminole County 80 to 90 percent of all reported crimes are directly related to drug and/or alcohol abuse. This crisis is adversely

affecting the safety and the quality of life in our community. Law

enforcement administrators are seeking innovative and progressive

methods to deal with this problem. It should be very clear that this

crisis is not just an enforcement related problem, but rather should

be our Nation’s top social priority. All of us must realize that criminal behavior, including drugs and alcohol abuse are not just—are

symptoms rather of a much more complex problem that we are experiencing in our society.

Kids and adults do not refrain from the use of drugs because it

is illegal. As Michael testified, they abstain because they have

made smart choices based on proper values and positive family influences. It is a moral choice. There is a dilemma that in our government we cannot legislate, regulate or mandate proper parental

involvement, guidance or even effective parenting skills. We should

do everything we possibly can do to prevent people from ever becoming involved in illegal drugs. Our demand reduction strategy

should continue to be all inclusive. The family, church, school, business community, neighborhoods and the entire criminal justice system must become more of a positive influence in the lives of our

children.

Our newly elected Governor, Jeb Bush, has renewed Florida’s

war on drugs. A counter offensive to eliminate illegal drugs and

their negative effect on our communities is being initiated on four

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fronts—drug awareness, coordination and leadership; drug enforcement; prevention and treatment.

The first front must be to re-establish a clear, simple, consistent

and direct message that drugs do destroy lives. It is imperative

that our communities become more aware of the peril caused by

the presence of illegal drugs. A State drug commissioner, drug action councils and enhanced partnerships with the Federal Government is recommended to ensure high level, high profile attention

to the drug crisis facing our State.

The second front calls for an intensified involvement of all entities within the system. There are a number of initiatives within the

State that will enhance our enforcement efforts. In addition to

these efforts, punitive sanctions for those who choose to engage in

this activity must be more severe. What Michael and the Bergers

were speaking of was a State system and they characterized it very

accurately. With a new Governor and new administration and a

new way of thinking, bringing back minimum mandatory sentences, this will change. The Federal system is totally opposite of

that. What a deterrent effect—great resource for us to use, and

quite regularly the local law enforcement and State officials in the

middle district of Florida use the Federal system and the U.S. attorney’s office to effectively prosecute those who chose to be involved in this activity.

On two separate occasions, two separate school years, members

of our organization, undercover agents, attended school. We sent

three agents to three different high schools in two separate school

years, and you never know, there may be one here today. They

yielded over 80-plus arrests. Michael is right, there is a total void

of consequences relating to that activity in this State’s system. I

have to share with you that it is my opinion that there is no difference between a heroin trafficker that continues to deal despite

the loss of life than that of a murderer who places a gun to the

head of their victim and pulls the trigger.

The third front focuses on drug prevention. The Governor clearly

states that the war on drugs is won or lost during the formative

years of development. Along with a host of other community-based

prevention initiatives, we must also continue to emphasize prevention by establishing drug free schools, drug free work places and

blocking the legalization of marijuana.

The fourth and final front involves the treatment of substance

abusers to interrupt dependency which will reduce the demand for

our drugs or drugs in our community. Expanded drug courts for

adults and juveniles, drug treatment and after-care for inmates

and utilization of proven effective treatment processes will result in

the need for less drugs within our community. Quite simply, without the demand for drugs, the supply will be eliminated or at least

adversely affected.

I have to share with you that in 1998 the average age of a victim

of a fatal heroin overdose victim was 29 years of age. The majority

of these victims were addicted to the substance. Adequate, accessible drug treatment programs are lacking. To have any positive effect, this needs to be a priority. I know it may not be popular to

some, but I have to tell you it is important.

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Governor Bush is sending a strong message that our comprehensive drug control strategy is a top priority for the State of Florida.

A drug summit involving leadership from all four fronts will be

held on February 12th. At this summit, we will collaborate to build

effective integrated solutions which will address all aspects of the

drug crisis in our community.

I ask each of you to look at this process and strategy carefully.

We would strongly appreciate Federal funding assistance be given

to implement these critical strategies. I also urge you to give serious consideration to adopting these initiatives as a national model.

To further enhance our efforts, I suggest that we better utilize

existing resources to aggressively seek out the trafficker, dealer

and those responsible for distributing illegal drugs within our community. As well, we should encourage more multi-agency initiatives.

I would like to thank you Congressman Mica for your commitment to seek solutions to this crisis and for your leadership in the

establishment of a central Florida HIDTA. The HIDTA enforcement

efforts began in June 1998. Currently 26 agencies are involved in

seven different multi-agency operations. Collectively, local, State

and Federal agents have made 938 arrests. Agents have seized 6

pounds of heroin, 74 pounds of cocaine, 14—a little over 14 pounds

of methamphetamine, which is a significant problem in the Tampa

area, over 17,000 pounds of marijuana. They have also seized in assets $1.2 million in currency, 32 vehicles and 43 firearms. We must

continue to assist smaller police agencies so they too can join the

HIDTA effort. I would ask for your consideration to expand the

geographical HIDTA designation to include Brevard and Lake

Counties.

In spite of this great challenge, I am still optimistic. You see, we

have allowed an environment to develop in which illicit drugs have

flourished in our society. One might say that we have done this to

ourselves. What we have done, we can certainly undo. What is very

clear is what we do about the drug crisis today will determine our

future and success for this generation and generations to come.

I want to thank the committee for their time and interest in addressing this serious matter. Thank you.

[Applause.]

[The prepared statement of Sheriff Eslinger follows:]

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Mr. MICA. Thank you, Sheriff. We appreciate your leadership on

this issue, it is good to hear from you this morning.

We are going to suspend questions until we hear from our last

witness, and that is Mr. Vincent Mazzilli, and he is the Special

Agent in Charge of the Miami Field Division of the Drug Enforcement Agency.

Thank you for coming, welcome, sir, and you are recognized.

Mr. MAZZILLI. Thank you, Chairman Mica, members of the committee. I appreciate the opportunity to appear here today to discuss

what is our drug problem and our drug crisis.

Although a wide spectrum of drugs affect the Orlando area, I

think we all recognize that heroin is the most destructive. My comments today will be limited to giving you a brief history and an objective assessment of the heroin problem which is currently facing

not only Orlando, but the United States.

As many of you are aware, heroin trafficking and abuse is not

a new issue to law enforcement. The heroin epidemic originated in

the United States during the 1950’s and 1960’s when 95 percent of

the heroin that was smuggled into this country entered through

New York City. Most of the heroin was distributed throughout the

United States under control of traditional organized crime. In the

1970’s, criminal elements within the organized crime began to relinquish their control and influence over the heroin trade to criminal groups from southeast Asia, southwest Asia and the Middle

East, who began to emerge as the preeminent force in heroin distribution, production and trafficking.

Recently, the heroin market has experienced a familiar shift,

from the domination of southeast Asian heroin just a few years

ago, to the increased penetration of the wholesale and retail markets by South American criminal organizations.

In recent years, law enforcement investigations and various indicator data that have been collected by law enforcement began to reflect that the Nation’s largest heroin markets were dominated by

South American heroin traffickers. During the same timeframe, purity of this South American produced heroin was reaching record

highs. A combination of higher purity, lower prices and ready availability has taken a toll on cities such as Baltimore, Plano, TX, and

our very own, Orlando, FL. Today’s heroin mortality figures are the

highest ever recorded. Close to 4,000 people have died of heroin

overdoses in each of the last 4 years.

The situation we face today was brought about by a strategic

management decision made by both Colombian and Mexican-based

trafficking organizations to increase their respective shares in the

lucrative U.S. heroin market.

In the early 1990’s, independent traffickers from Colombia began

to supply retail level outlets for heroin distribution, primarily in

the northeast cities, with high quality, high purity heroin. By supplying heroin dealers with high purity heroin to be given away as

free samples and by establishing a brand name for heroin, in essence marketing heroin, the Colombian traffickers quickly gained

a foothold in the burgeoning heroin markets along the east coast.

These traffickers in South American heroin have virtually squeezed

the ethnic Chinese criminal networks out of the market in the

northeast, by offering not only high purity heroin, at competitive

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prices, but frequently providing easier terms for the purchase and

payment. Colombian traffickers also began using Puerto Rico as a

major transshipment area for the distribution of their products to

places such as Florida and Louisiana.

The use of couriers traveling on commercial airlines is the primary means by which Colombian-based groups smuggle their heroin into the United States. In the continental United States, the

principal cities of importation are Miami and New York. Couriers

employ a variety of means to smuggle heroin, which includes the

use of false bottom suitcases, body pack and internal body carries.

Once the heroin enters the United States, it is transported

through a variety of methods, such as domestic flights to other

areas, private vehicles, trains, buses to reach retail markets.

With an influx of high purity heroin from South America, Orlando and other cities in the United States began to experience a

dramatic shift in user populations. As recently as the early 1990’s,

the heroin problem in Orlando, as with much of the rest of the

United States, was typically associated with a limited part of the

addict population. The introduction of high purity heroin to the

abuse population has enabled users to administer the drug by

snorting or smoking rather than injection. This has drawn many

new users, in particular young people, into the use and abuse of

heroin. The glamorization of the use of heroin by the media has

also contributed to the rise in its abuse. This has fueled a mistaken

belief that heroin administered by snorting or smoking is not addictive, nor as deadly as intravenous use. This is wrong—heroinrelated deaths more than doubled from 1990, where the death

count was 1,980, to 1996, where the death count has risen to

3,980—virtually double.

Colombian-based trafficking groups have successfully exploited

the existing and highly efficient retail drug distribution networks

predominantly controlled by the ethnic Dominican criminals operating in the northeast. DEA investigative reporting and indicator

programs have tracked this increasing dominance of South American heroin since 1993. Reportedly heroin purity in Orlando has

reached as high as 92 percent at street levels.

Several initiatives have been undertaken by DEA to address the

problems, which are noteworthy. In February 1997, DEA hosted a

National Heroin Conference in Washington, DC. Attendees at this

conference included 300 participants from throughout the Nation

and around the globe, who gathered to address the rising heroin

abuse and trafficking trends.

Additionally, DEA also participated in a regionally based conference held right here in Orlando to discuss heroin trafficking and

abuse. This was in August 1997.

In addition to the collective efforts of the law enforcement community to identify and address the heroin epidemic, Congress has

also recognized this emerging threat and responded with additional

resources. Beginning with the 1998 budget, the DEA has been allotted 268 positions, which includes 119 special agent positions, all

of which are dedicated specifically to address the developing heroin

situation.

In response to an increased availability of heroin and the high

rate of heroin-related overdose deaths in the Orlando area, DEA,

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along with our State and local counterparts, have increased our efforts to target, identify and arrest local heroin distributors. As a result, the Orlando resident office was recently upgraded to a district

office status within DEA, which will allow it to function at higher

levels of efficiency, adding an additional five special agents and one

intelligence analyst. Since 1996, the Orlando DEA resident office

has tripled the number of heroin investigations.

In 1998, the Central Florida area was designated as a HIDTA,

high intensity drug trafficking area, by the Office of National Drug

Control Policy. In an effort to address the heroin problem in Orlando, a heroin initiative was also approved. Under the guidance

of DEA, a Heroin Task Force Group was initiated which is comprised of DEA special agents and State and local officers from nine

other local enforcement agencies. The Heroin Task Force Group’s

sole initiative is to address the growing heroin threat in the six

county Orlando area. The Heroin Task Force also works cooperatively on a daily basis with local drug investigators and homicide

detectives to investigate and bring charges against groups or individuals who provide heroin to a person which causes death or serious injury.

DEA’s commitment to the heroin problem continues in other ongoing initiatives. The office in Orlando participates with 20 other

DEA offices in cities across the Nation experiencing significant heroin problems in what we call the domestic monitoring program.

This program provides Federal, State and local enforcement officials with information regarding the nature of domestic heroin trafficking and domestic problems.

In conclusion, what I would like to say is that drug traffickers

that control drug production, specifically heroin, in the marketing

and distribution in the United States know no national boundaries.

They are not bound by fiscal constraints and they utilize the latest

technologies and delivery systems available to enhance their illicit

activities. It is critical that intelligence gathering and resulting investigations into these monolithic trafficking organizations continue to be coordinated and developed to assist us in meeting the

challenge of this ever-increasing threat.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I once again

would like to thank you for inviting me here today and whatever

questions you have, I will be glad to answer.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Mazzilli follows:]

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Mr. MICA. Thank you for your testimony. I would like to start

with a few questions and I would first direct a few questions to

Governor Martinez.

You were head of our National Drug Control Policy Office as the

Drug Czar under I guess it was the Bush administration, and I

think if you look at the charts, in those days you at least had a

gradual decline in some of the use and some of the deaths and destruction wrought by illegal narcotics, and I think you said that we

have changed the policy and started dealing with the casualties

more just in treatment.

What happened, in your opinion, and where do we need to

change that?

Governor MARTINEZ. I think when in essence you do not have an

effective demand control, in essence you are sending out a message

that it is no longer important, it is no longer illegal, there are no

sanctions, that in essence it will go unrecorded and unpunished. In

society, often without sanctions, compliance will not occur among

a certain population. Overwhelmingly, American people voluntarily

comply with either statutory law or a value law—thou shall not

kill, so to speak.

There is a number that no matter what law you pass or how

hard you try to enforce it, either they are totally unaware of the

effort or could care less that this is taking place. But there is a significant number of people that comply with rules and laws based

on sanctions. I am sure that if by April 15, those who report taxes

do not report taxes, there is a sanction. And I suspect if you had

no sanction, that tax returns on April 15 may not be as compliant

as they are today. I suspect that if the State of Florida did not have

sanctions for not renewing your driver’s license, your auto tag, that

compliance with that, with a certain part of the population—not

the majority of Floridians or majority of Americans—most people

want to comply. But the more you, in essence, excuse or do not enforce, there is this population group that will creep on you doing

the wrong thing.

If in fact, we are not enforcing sufficiently; if in fact you are telling the source countries we do not have the resources nor the desire to deal with the problem that you have got with the organized

crime organizations that exist there, you are welcome to shift because we are going to take care of those who may use it, I think

you will aggravate it. And I think we have aggravated it. Maybe

I will say something that you are not able to say, and I am glad

to see what Congress has done in 1998 by beefing up again. But

in my view, if you look at the budgetary process used over the last

6, 7 years, I do not believe the enforcement side was able to keep

up with the necessary resources to deal with a multi-national type

effort with limitless resources and technology to carry out their

mission. And if you want to reduce the supply, you not only need

a good supply reduction program—you obviously need a good demand reduction program, but you need a good supply reduction

program like this youngster said, you know, once you fall into the

culture, you know where to get it. And if it is cheap to get, unfortunately you will get it.

So, I would say this, bring balance to the program. Do not say

treatment is not important because it is important. Do not say deVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:56 Nov 14, 2000 Jkt 010199 PO 00000 Frm 00056 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HEARINGS\57169 pfrm03 PsN: 57169
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mand reduction and prevention and education is not important—

it is. But you have got to make enforcement as important as it used

to be.

[Applause.]

Governor MARTINEZ. There are laws in the Federal statutes,

there are laws in the States all over this country. Enforcement is

part of it. In some cases, toughening the penalties that come with

the law that is already on the books is important.

But I will tell you what I think you need more than anything

else, Congressman, and you are doing this here, you and your committee, by being here—it needs energy. The war against drugs

needs energy, it needs to mobilize again. It has to show the parents

of these youngsters that somebody cares in the place of authority,

that for their efforts there will be sanctions for those who violate

them. And the marches against drug use become against something

that is not rare and that the employers of this country begin going

beyond what they have already done with the drug-free workplace

and the drug-free school zones mean something, like getting locked

up if you violate them.

So, it is energy that is needed so that people will mobilize and

they do not feel that this is a lonely effort that only my family or

my neighborhood is involved in because the rest of the Nation is

not tied into a system of action.

I think of all the things that I have said, I believe this whole

thing of them not having a sufficient pulpit, a sufficient energy to

drive volunteerism, to drive law enforcement to carry out the mission, is what is truly missing to make all this work.

Mr. MICA. Thank you.

Sheriff, you had recommended the expanding of the Central Florida HIDTA to include, you said, Brevard and Lake Counties?

Sheriff ESLINGER. Yes.

Mr. MICA. Can you tell me why? Also, since we are dealing with

a limited number of Federal dollars, both that you received initially

and you are going to get $2.5 million this year, is that going to disburse the money over a wider area less effectively? Maybe you

could tell us your recommendation.

Sheriff ESLINGER. Quite simply, we would like to do Brevard

County because it is a port of entry, we would like to get their

agents from those agencies actively involved. Lake County, they

have a tremendous problem and we also would like to provide those

resources to them.

The Heroin Task Force, for example, we need additional manpower there and I am certain that we will use the additional

money wisely there, not only for enforcement efforts relative to

traffickers and smugglers, but also to assist local agencies as liaison agents to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Federal prosecution of

the individuals responsible for the death of these 52 people. That

is a quite serious top priority of ours.

For those two reasons, I would like to see that those two additional counties be included in the HIDTA designation.

Mr. MICA. Thank you. You have had less than a year really to

deal with the organization of the Central Florida HIDTA and also

the Federal law and regulations that oversee establishing a

HIDTA. My colleague and I will go back and see what needs to be

54

changed in the law and procedures for HIDTAs as we reauthorize

the program.

Also, I am interested in addition to any recommendations you

have about how that is operated. I am particularly interested in

have you had the cooperation and is this working with Federal,

State, local prosecutors, other folks? Is everyone working together?

So two part question, if we could.

Sheriff ESLINGER. I will address the level of cooperation first. I

am exposed to a lot of different State and local law enforcement organizations throughout the country as a result of my involvement

with the National Sheriffs’ Association as well as the Community

Policing Consortium out of Washington, DC. The level of cooperation between local, State and Federal agencies in this area is unparalleled. I have to tell you that it is just the best I have ever seen

or been a part of or ever been exposed to. I can pick up the phone

any time day or night and talk directly to the heads of the Federal

agencies here locally, special agents in charge, as well as any of our

agents and members of other local organizations. They are a tremendous resource to us. We have many initiatives that we work together, including HIDTA. I have to tell you that as well, the U.S.

Attorney’s Office has been a tremendous resource to us and other

local agencies for enhanced enforcement and prosecution of some of

these individuals. It has been remarkable.

As far as ONDCP, they have been very responsive. We began on

HIDTA processing January 1998, when the executive committee

first met. We got on line enforcement-wise probably around June

1. We started receiving funding in August of last year. The level

of cooperation between the agencies that are involved—I think 26—

I would like to make it more inclusive. There are approximately 60

to 70 different agencies involved or rather are in the HIDTA region

currently and I would like to solicit more involvement from local

agencies. I think we can better utilize existing resources if we have

the proper mechanism in place. As far as ONDCP, they have been

very responsive to us.

From a personal and professional viewpoint, it is a little bureaucratic, I guess I am not used to the Federal system like many others are who are involved in the process, but they have been very

responsive to our needs, our questions and we do have a good relationship with them.

Mr. MICA. Are they heavy on the paperwork reporting?

Sheriff ESLINGER. I think—and that is what is missing sometimes in a lot of these initiatives, a lack of accountability. We need

that. You particularly, as establishing policy throughout the country—it is one thing giving an agency money, but they had better

produce when they get that money. I think that is awfully important and ONDCP does a good job in the accountability area.

Mr. MICA. And it is not overdone, it is something you can live

with?

Sheriff ESLINGER. Yes.

Mr. MICA. OK. I would like to ask about your opinion, I think

that the Governor has talked about the Giuliani zero tolerance policy and we are also seeing some startling statistics out of New York

City with dramatic drops in crime and drug abuse cases. Is that

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something you think we should adopt for the local community or

the State? If so, why; and if not, why not?

Sheriff ESLINGER. Essentially what the Police Commission in

New York adopted is a social theory, we have trained all our deputies on that same social theory, by the way. But what we are talking about is zero tolerance. Zero tolerance, we have adopted that

policy for any child under the age of 18 that knowingly possesses

any alcohol or controlled substance, they will be incarcerated and

transported to our juvenile assessment center. All seven municipalities as well in Seminole County have adopted that same policy.

That sends a clear message that we are not going to tolerate it—

we are not. But I caution you on that, that you have to have a coordinated effort in the entire system in order to implement such a

program. We have a number of punitive sanctions and programs,

initiatives, that takes care of that—Operation Right Track and a

host of others that we could work with the Clerk’s Office and the

State Attorney’s Office and get these children into those programs,

those prosecution alternative programs, for those minor offenses.

Governor Martinez began in several different areas minimal

mandatory sentences, the last administration, Tallahassee eliminated the majority of those minimal mandatory sentences, and I

am certain Governor Bush and the leadership of Senator Jennings

will bring that issue forward in this legislative session. So you will

see a significant change in the way that the sentencing guidelines

are currently structured.

Mr. MICA. Glad to hear that. I will be testifying or participating

in the summit next Friday that the Governor has called, and also

meeting with our delegations, legislative delegations, and recommending that we toughen some of the State penalties. I think you

have expressed, we have heard others express that the Federal

penalties are tough and we need to mirror that at the State level;

otherwise, we are going to have these folks back out on the street

and the penalties are kind of meaningless.

Sheriff ESLINGER. Void of consequences. There is absolutely no

deterrent, which is a certainty of apprehension followed by swift

and sure punishment, in the State system, it is a void. Hopefully

this session, you will see a remarkable change from that.

Mr. MICA. Thank you.

Mr. Mazzilli, the number of DEA agents that we have assigned

to Florida, how many, do you know?

Mr. MAZZILLI. For the entire State, sir, it is——

Mr. MICA. I know you are from the Miami Division and you cover

central Florida, is that correct?

Mr. MAZZILLI. That is correct, sir, we cover the entire State of

Florida and the Bahamas.

Mr. MICA. How many folks do you have in that whole—under

your supervision in that whole area?

Mr. MAZZILLI. The table of organization ceiling calls for 425 special agents.

Mr. MICA. And is that adequate to conduct the area that you are

charged with enforcement responsibility?

Mr. MAZZILLI. Well, sir, we can always use more resources, we

can do more with more. But we have been able to adequately adVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:56 Nov 14, 2000 Jkt 010199 PO 00000 Frm 00059 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HEARINGS\57169 pfrm03 PsN: 57169
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dress the problem with the current ceiling of agents that we do

have on board.

Mr. MICA. Now with the introduction of the HIDTA, have you

added agents—what is the complement, if I go back and look at the

statistics a year ago for assignment in the central Florida area

versus now, what are we looking at, the same numbers?

Mr. MAZZILLI. Sir, I can speak to what we have on board in the

Orlando area right now. The Orlando area’s table of organization

calls for 28 special agents. We currently have approximately 23 on

board. This is complemented by approximately 22 deputized State

and local officers, they are deputized as task force agents working

alongside with our agents and helping us out in the Orlando area.

Mr. MICA. Are these—have you been given new positions?

Mr. MAZZILLI. Yes, sir.

Mr. MICA. And there are five vacancies?

Mr. MAZZILLI. Well, the five vacancies, approximate five vacancies, are due to the creation of five new positions in Orlando.

Mr. MICA. But are you able to fill those? What is the problem

with having five vacancies, is it just because the openings have occurred so quickly?

Mr. MAZZILLI. Well, yes, sir, the process takes some time to implement the placement of agents at their duty site.

Mr. MICA. Are you going to take them from the force or are you

hiring somewhere else in the system? Are you hiring new ones?

How soon can we expect them to be on board?

Mr. MAZZILLI. Well, the five agents that we will actually get in

the Orlando area will be additions to the Miami field divisions and

additions to the Orlando office, and as far as how long it will take

to bring them into the Orlando area, it is usually between 90 and

120 days, 90 at the earliest.

Mr. MICA. One of our major concerns of course is heroin, you also

referred to it and we have got our task force on that. I am a little

bit concerned and we have to give consideration that we have only

been in operation really since last June, but I am not sure if we

are making a dent in the quantity of heroin that we are seeing on

the streets or coming into the area. Now the Sheriff did give I

think a pretty good rundown, but do you think—are you getting an

indication that we are impacting the quantity or is this—and

where are we in stopping this flow?

Mr. MAZZILLI. Well, sir, the initiative of this task force to attack

heroin is at its infancy. As you know, it was started during the

summer. Since the summer, the agents and officers assigned to the

task force have arrested 58 major heroin traffickers in the Orlando

area. Out of the 58, 11 of these defendants were directly implicated

with overdose deaths that occurred as a result of their drug dealing. So have we made an impact? I would say certainly. Do we

have a ways to go? Certainly.

What we plan in the near future is to subdivide or even possibly

form a second group working in this task force to attack the heroin

problem that will deal exclusively with overdose deaths that have

occurred from heroin. This will enable the other side of this task

force group toward traditional heroin investigations rather than to

divert their efforts to work homicide type investigations. So I think

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we will get better efficiency if we can do that and we plan to do

that in the near future.

Mr. MICA. Administrator Constantine discussed that you can

trace almost to the field where the heroin is grown these days

through technical and chemical analysis. It is still sourced out of

Colombia, is that correct?

Mr. MAZZILLI. That is correct, sir.

Mr. MICA. OK, and what is the traffic pattern now? We had a

lot coming, transitting through Puerto Rico; is that still the case or

have we—we appropriated pretty substantial dollars to put the

Coast Guard ring back around Puerto Rico last year. Is that having

an impact and are we seeing a change in the pattern from the

source?

Mr. MAZZILLI. I think we are still seeing the majority of the heroin that is being trafficked in the Orlando area coming through

Puerto Rico. Has that increase in resources had an effect? Yes, possibly, but it takes time to assess what effect additional resources

have on a specific program.

What I will say is that heroin violators, drug violators, are a very

wily group. If you choke off, for instance Puerto Rico, they will look

for another avenue to get it in.

Mr. MICA. How are they bringing it in?

Mr. MAZZILLI. Well, a great deal of the heroin is being brought

in by couriers, either body carrying it, concealed in false bottom

suitcases or a very traditional way that they bring it in is actually

having couriers swallow the heroin and actually digest the heroin

and later pass it and put it out on the market. That is a very, very

common way that they do it and it is very difficult to detect.

Mr. MICA. Now some of these folks are coming from Colombia

and Puerto Rico or the Caribbean region. Do you have enough

agents as far as language skills to deal with these folks and undercover folks? Is there any problem in recruiting people who can go

after this stuff?

Mr. MAZZILLI. Again, Mr. Chairman, we can always use more. Is

there a problem recruiting? Because of the standards that we have

when we recruit, it takes a long period of time between the actual

recruiting and the backgrounds and the time that we hire them. So

it does take time. Can we use more? Certainly.

What I wanted to say before about the Caribbean situation, that

is a large ocean and the amount of resources that we have in that

could never really address an ocean of that size. So our interdiction

efforts have to be based on intelligence. It is like fishing for a needle in a hay stack to try to catch a freighter in the Caribbean coming toward the United States. We have to couple our interdiction

effort with good, hard intelligence, whether it is from human

source or other sources, it has to be done that way to be effective.

Mr. MICA. What about bringing drugs in from other sources other

than Puerto Rico, could you tell me where else we are looking at

trafficking patterns, whether it is heroin, cocaine or other drugs?

Mr. MAZZILLI. Well, the one area that directly affects Florida is

the Bahamas. There is a great deal of contraband being brought

through the Bahamas, and that is a traditional route that has been

used for decades for drug smuggling.

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Mr. MICA. Are they still using the Jamaican canoes and then

using the fast boats off the islands?

Mr. MAZZILLI. They will use any combination that your imagination would produce. They air drop to boats, they go from freighter

to go-fast, there are even some instances where they have these

large ocean-going go-fasts that are able to make it to U.S. shores.

Your imagination is the only bounds.

Mr. MICA. One of my emphases—and we worked back in the

1980’s on establishing an Andean strategy, which was to stop them

at their source and we know that the heroin is coming from Colombia, and we know that cocaine is coming from Peru and Bolivia, 90

percent of it. Is it a wise expenditure to reinstitute those Andean

and source-country eradication and drug source-country programs?

Mr. MAZZILLI. I think everyone on the panel here today, as well

as yourself, realizes that fighting the drug problem here in the

United States has got to be attacked on many fronts, and it is as

strong or as weak as every link in that front. We have spoken

about prevention, education, treatment, and it also applies to law

enforcement. Law enforcement has to attack the problem at every

level, there has to be a strong initiative on every level of the traffic,

whether it is the guy down by the school yard selling the grams

of coke or heroin to the guy—to the chemist in Colombia making

it up. It has to attack every level of the traffic to be effective. If

you eliminate just one area, you are not going to be effective,

whether that is the street dealer on the corner—if you allow him

to sell, it is not going to be effective; or whether it is the chemist

in Colombia producing it, it is not going to be effective.

Mr. MICA. Thank you. I will yield now to my colleague, the gentleman from California, Mr. Ose, you are recognized, sir.

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Sheriff, when you have people out under cover, I presume, buying and arresting, as the days go by, one of the things that I have

discovered in the short time I have been able to visit with various

sheriffs is that oftentimes the sheriffs or their deputies easily identify the person on the street, they make a $1,000 or $2,000 buy—

if I understand correctly, they are then required to arrest that person and thereby lose the chance to go up the chain.

Sheriff ESLINGER. I am not sure if that is the case in California,

but it is certainly not the case in Florida.

Mr. OSE. OK, so you have the ability to, if you will, use smaller

buys to seed the opportunity to get up the chain?

Sheriff ESLINGER. Yes, and it is done, and the objective in virtually every undercover case is to identify all source of supply connected to that organization.

Mr. OSE. Has it been successful? At some point, it is a huge

amount of money that is laid on the table to make a buy.

Sheriff ESLINGER. Yes, that is when we bring DEA in, but yeah,

we are successful in many areas. But again, it has got to take the

entire system to send a strong deterrent message. The State system in the last 4 years, in our State, the ability to have adequate

punitive sanctions have dwindled and with this new administration, this new session, I think that will turn around. We often use

the Federal system as a resource in certain investigations to assist

us in that manner.

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Mr. OSE. One of the other things that has occurred, at least in

the Sacramento area, is that the district attorney and the sheriff

have gotten together to create what they call a drug court, where

all of the cases dealing with drugs go, trying to separate them out

of the system. Do you have that here and has that proven effective? Sheriff ESLINGER. In certain judicial circuits, there is that initiative and that is more the Governor’s initiative to bring that statewide and make it available to more judicial circuits throughout the

State of Florida.

Mr. OSE. What has been the experience? Sheriff ESLINGER. I understand it is working relatively well in

some of the larger counties. Governor Martinez may have some direct information and knowledge of that. Mr. OSE. OK, I appreciate your feedback. You know, the criminals that are involved in this—Mr. Mazzilli,

you probably have a better understanding of this—the criminals

who are involved in this activity—they are after the money—it is

not like they are doing it to further capitalism. [Bell rings.]

Mr. OSE. I know it is my turn, so—[laughter]—how effective are

we at attracting the actual physical cache that comes out of these

transactions?

Mr. MAZZILLI. I think we are very effective in doing that. We

have several major initiatives that are currently ongoing throughout the United States to track money proceeds, commonly called

money laundering investigations, and we have been very successful

in doing that. An example of that is a recent case—it is not too recent, but recent notoriety of the investigation, the Nassie David

case where, together with some local law enforcement agencies

here in the State of Florida as well as the Swiss authorities, we

were able to seize $190 million of Nassie David’s illegal assets deposited in European bank accounts. So, you know, we have had

some tremendous successes in this arena and we continue to use

this method of investigation throughout the United States on a national effort.

Mr. OSE. Are there countries of preference, if you will, that people who are engaged in this criminal activity use to ultimately deposit their ill-gotten gains? Mr. MAZZILLI. Yes, there are countries that, because of their

banking laws, enable traffickers to use that particular country as

a transshipping area for the money through bank accounts ultimately to end up in South America where these traffickers—where

the heads of these organizations live and thrive. However, that is

not the only way they are getting money from the United States

market to South America. They are actually physically transporting currency out of the United States by various different

means into the country of origin, which in most cases is Colombia

and Mexico. So the shipment of cash, smuggling cash out of the

country, is as much of a problem as smuggling drugs into the country. So we are looking at that also together with the Customs Service.

Mr. OSE. I will have to think about that a little bit more, but I

want to go back to the countries that might serve as the depositories for these currency flows. Do we know which countries are

preferred depositories for such flows and are our treaties with

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those countries adequate to allow us investigative opportunities to

identify and recover such funds?

Mr. MAZZILLI. Sir, that is a complicated question that I will get

into generally today and will provide you with more specific information later on. In the past——

Mr. OSE. Let us do that later on then. If you can briefly do that,

I don’t want to spend the chairman’s limited time on that—briefly

touch on that, if you will.

Mr. MAZZILLI. In the past, the countries of Panama, Belize, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and there are others that do not come to

mind immediately, have been instrumental in the laundering of

money. And I do not mean to say that the countries themselves or

the governments themselves sanction money laundering—that is

not what I mean to say. But as you put it, the country of preference

to move money through bank accounts, happened to be those countries at the time. Now as of late, we have been able—the U.S. Government has been able to enter into agreements with these countries to tighten up their banking laws and to work with us in investigations to help track this down. And I will say it for the last time,

the trafficking groups are a very wily group. If you shut it down

in Panama or in Switzerland, they are going to go to either another

country or they are going to go to another technique to get the

money out of this country. And that is what they do.

Mr. OSE. They are still criminals.

Mr. MAZZILLI. That is correct.

Mr. OSE. I have two other items, Mr. Chairman, if I may.

I see in this material that I believe in 1996 now under Speaker

Hastert’s direction, that with respect to Colombia, we authorized

the provision of some helicopters to that country for the purpose of

going to high elevations and attempting to destroy the poppy fields

that are there. Those helicopters, if I am correct, were delivered in

October 1998?

I look at the numbers in here and I see that we have an average

of 4,000 heroin deaths a year that have grown from approximately

2,000 heroin deaths a year in 1990, so roughly we have 1,000

deaths a year on average more now than we had in 1990.

Mr. MAZZILLI. Roughly 2,000 more.

Mr. OSE. I know, but over that 7-year period, it increased.

Mr. MAZZILLI. Correct.

Mr. OSE. I am kind of curious—over 2,000 a year, if you take the

actual numbers, it is 4,000 additional deaths because we could not

get those helicopters, for instance, to Colombia to spray these fields

and kill this crop. Now obviously that is not the only source.

How much money are we talking about having been involved?

Mr. MAZZILLI. I do not know, sir, I really do not know. I will have

to get back to you with that. A lot of that is not handled by DEA

field personnel or DEA, a lot of that funding for foreign government

initiatives against drugs is handled by the State Department, sir.

Mr. OSE. OK. I am told that we have about $100 million to do

that, so for 4,000 lives, we have now managed in 2 years to get a

program implemented that will hopefully help save the next 4,000.

That is like $25,000 a life, so we have been delaying this program

on that basis—I mean that is the consequence? I am asking, I do

not know.

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Mr. MAZZILLI. I do not know, sir, either. I mean, we really do not

get involved in that and I would have to defer.

Mr. OSE. Thank you.

My last question, Governor, from your experience as the Director

of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, do we know who

these people are who get this money, who are at the far end of the

chain?

Governor MARTINEZ. You have reasons to suspect based on intelligence. Without intelligence, you really cannot confirm. You may

suspect, but you cannot confirm exactly which bank or which company or which group, and whether it is Panama or Colombia or

Switzerland, whatever, is doing the laundering.

But I can recall going into Panama and Bogota and all you saw

were tower cranes under construction.

Mr. OSE. Official bird of the country.

Governor MARTINEZ. Yeah. And you wonder how in the world

could a country of that size, of that wealth, have so many high-rise

buildings going up at one time. Well, to a drug pusher, you can

take a loss on a resale, you can control construction, transportation, materials and you are dabbling out the money in smaller

sums and putting it through the legal system and then you sell the

property at a discount to some legitimate realtor perhaps and then

it becomes a legitimate deal. So there are all kinds of ways of doing

it, but you do need this information. And at one time, I think we

emphasized that more.

You have to get the cooperation of these countries. They are sovereign nations and therefore the only ones who can deal with another sovereign nation is the U.S. Government. And therefore, the

carrot and the stick will have to be applied to those countries that

we know for a fact are producing the product that is coming here

and killing our young people. Either we take an action or we do

not take an action. The truth of the matter is we know where it

comes from, we often know which groups of people are involved, engaging in that practice. So the question is how is it that we encourage that government to do more than they are doing and we gain

greater cooperation from that government. And I think that is

something that needs to really be strengthened.

Often what would happen is that the U.S. policy for these countries obviously had more than one issue, it is not just drugs, there

are other issues, and therefore, there are times where you may be

asked, well, we cannot do this because we are trying to deal with

them on this other subject. And if in essence we squeeze here on

the drug issue, it may somehow interrupt or interfere with that

other mission, whether it is a trade agreement, whatever it may be,

that we are dealing with.

So at some point, you have to say look, this is serious enough

where it is going to take more than just some other issue dealing

with one of these countries that is going to postpone an action by

the United States in terms of enforcement and cooperation in that

source country.

But without that cooperation, they are still a sovereign nation

and we cannot send the DEA with guns out and take over the

bank. So it has to be done with greater finesse than that, greater

cooperation, greater persuasion. But it can be done; you know, you

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can trace money, they do it all the time. The question is do they

have the resources to do more of it and when you get to the end

of the line, what do you do to that person or that bank or that company that has got it.

Mr. OSE. I know that we got some people in the late 1980’s,

whose names escape me, who were doing this, particularly

Medellin and Cali. Apparently I am aware that there are statutory

prescriptions that prevent us from doing this. These are our kids,

our young people. I do not understand.

Governor MARTINEZ. I am with you, Congressman. I think much

more can be done, whether it takes a sitdown with a tougher bilateral agreement with each of these countries that in essence you

have needs, you like to trade with us, you would like to sell your

products to us, you would like to have favored nation status with

us; and there is a condition for that and the condition for that is

we need greater cooperation from your government so that that

kind of trade does not penetrate our borders and therefore becomes, frankly, a front burner issue rather than a reserve issue.

Mr. OSE. Policy decision.

Governor MARTINEZ. Policy decision.

Mr. OSE. Made by one person or another, whether they are in

Congress or elsewhere.

Governor MARTINEZ. Right. And that is—I will go back to what

I have said, that at some point publicly, not only by law, but publicly it needs to be known in a very vocal and a very visible way

that this concern of ours with the use of drugs and the sale of

drugs in the United States is of sufficient importance to us that we

are going to demand more than we have had in the past in terms

of cooperation.

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MICA. Thank you.

Governor, I was involved in the drafting of the drug certification

law which ties our foreign aid and foreign assistance to efforts by

countries to eradicate, eliminate drugs. If they cooperate, they are

certified to be eligible. That law has come under great attack in the

Congress, some want to eliminate it, think we are interfering in

the affairs of other countries. None of you share that view. That

is one proposal I think the administration last year floated an idea

moving the certification by the President to international organizations. What do you think about that?

Governor MARTINEZ. I think we need to seek the assistance of all

organizations, but I personally believe that the interests of the

United States is best served by the United States and that cannot

be jobbed off or contracted out to any other body.

Mr. MICA. So, the Organization of American States should not

decide which countries get U.S. trade assistance, financial assistance or foreign aid.

Governor MARTINEZ. That is correct, it is still American resources that are being sent out as aid and it ought to be American

policy that makes that decision. And it ought to be American decisions as to which countries get the aid.

Mr. MICA. I am glad to hear your opinion in that regard. Sometimes it is a little bit tough keeping some of the tougher statutes

in place and we are probably going to face that challenge again.

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One of the reasons for conducting this hearing is that there is a

process in law that these countries must be certified and the President will act to either certify or decertify them, the Department of

State makes recommendations. That process must be completed by

March 1 and report to the Congress and the Congress has the opportunity to act after that. So it has been important that we start

our congressional oversight hearings in an expedited fashion here.

With that, I do have additional questions for the panelists, we

will have additional questions for both Sheriff Eslinger in regard

to the effectiveness of our HIDTA, the resources that are necessary

in the coming year—Sheriff, the good news is that we got the

award for $2.5 million, the bad news is that we now have to start

finding out what we are going to do for the next year. We are always a little bit behind the curve and even though we get into this,

we are into this fiscal year. So we look forward to working with you

and the HIDTA and those interested, and we will take under consideration your recommendations that it be expanded.

And we always are most pleased with the response we have had

from the Drug Enforcement Administration and Tom Constantine,

the Director, is just a star in this entire effort to bring the international and national drug enforcement efforts to a coordinated

and effective operation. He does an outstanding job. He made a

presentation which is about half an hour at this drug summit I attended with him this past weekend and it was absolutely outstanding and I would like to ask unanimous consent that the

record include the DEA Administrator’s comments from that

record. Without objection, so ordered.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. MICA. At this time, since we are running a little bit behind

time, we will not ask you any further questions formally, but we

may informally, as we keep the record open here, submit some

questions to your panelists for your response. I want to thank each

of you for being with us today for your testimony and particularly

for your cooperation at this very pivotal time as we discuss our new

national drug strategy. Thank you, gentlemen.

[Applause.]

Mr. MICA. If people want to take a break for a couple of minutes,

we can get the other panel up, just 2 or 3 minutes. If the other

panelists would come up and allow someone, if they need to, to

take a quick call.

[Recess.]

Mr. MICA. I would like to call, if I may, the hearing back to

order.

Our third panel today is entitled Drug Education and Treatment.

We are pleased today to have Mary Trotter, executive director of

the House of Hope and I think she sat next to the young gentleman

that testified in the first panel. We also have Scott Perkins, who

is a detective, former detective, with us. We have Larry Visser,

president of the Grove Counseling Center; and we have Marge

LaBarge, a good friend, and senior administrator of the Student

Assistance and Family Empowerment [SAFE] program, in Orange

County Public Schools. Pleased to see her back among us today.

The purpose again of this panel is to assess where we are in

some of our drug treatment and education programs. We have

again today the opportunity only for a sampling; however, I know

we have others who have indicated some interest in submitting

statements to the record, and without objection, that will be so ordered. They can do that and we will keep the record open until

February 1 for that purpose.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. MICA. With that, I would like—well, let us start with Marge

LaBarge today. She is one of our—she is not only a senior administrator, but a senior worker in this field and tireless in her efforts.

Marge, welcome and you are recognized.

STATEMENTS OF MARJORIE J. LABARGE, SENIOR ADMINISTRATOR, STUDENT ASSISTANCE AND FAMILY EMPOWERMENT, ORANGE COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS; MARY TROTTER,

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, HOUSE OF HOPE; LARRY VISSER,

PRESIDENT, THE GROVE COUNSELING CENTER; AND SCOTT

PERKINS, FORMER DETECTIVE, CHIMERA PRODUCTIONS,

INC.

Ms. LABARGE. Thank you. I was afraid you were going to say I

am a senior citizen, because that is probably true.

Mr. MICA. We are both getting there, Marge.

Ms. LABARGE. I would like to thank Congressman Mica, who I

have a great deal of respect for, and feel that he has been one of

the foremost Congressmen in doing something pertaining to

the——

Mr. MICA. Ms. LaBarge, you might want to pull that mic a little

bit closer.

Ms. LABARGE. OK. I would like to thank Congressman Mica and

also Congressman Ose for being here. I have known Congressman

Mica for a long time, because I have been involved in fighting this

battle since 1971. I have given 28 years of my life in trying to do

something to stop the deaths that we are seeing from young—with

young people using drugs.

We are dealing with a very critical issue, an issue that is affecting the youth of our community, affecting it to the point they are

not able and do not have the opportunity to live a positive, productive life.

Two years ago, I, along with others in the community, met with

members of the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice along with representatives and with members from the county commission office

and city government. We also met with, at that time—and I guess

still is, sorry—Director of the Office of National Drug Policy, General Barry McCaffrey.

When we met, we asked as a group to see what we could have

done at a Federal, State and national level to help us impact the

growing drug problem that is devastating our youth in our country.

We asked for additional funds for prevention and education, because this is where it has to start. The battle with drug abuse, as

with any other battle, must begin with prevention, it must begin

in the early years, and it must continue all the way through, even

into adulthood. It is not a one-pronged battle, but it is a battle that

we must unite on. We asked for additional funding for Safe and

Drug Free Schools, we asked for additional funding for treatment,

for community-based treatment, we asked for additional funding

for law enforcement, for DARE programs and for school resource officers in our schools to help us. This did not happen. This is something that I am coming back today and asking for again.

I just would like to tell you what my week has been. I have, in

the last week, had a call from a parent whose 18 year old daughter

died 3 months ago from heroin, the parent was from Mount Dora.

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I also have been working with another parent whose 17 year old

daughter is in need of treatment for heroin addiction. We have an

18 year old student in one of our high schools who has already

gone through heroin treatment, but is now in need of outpatient

services. We cannot provide outpatient services in our school district, nor can we provide the type of support that a heroin addict

who is in recovery needs.

I also have been working with another parent, a single parent

holding two jobs, who was just ripped off by her 30 year old son

who is a cocaine addict and who before ripping her off had charged

$10,000 worth of charges on her Visa card, which she has to pay

because it was done from her home phone.

Last night I went to bed after working a suicide case, a suicide

attempt of a 13 year old, and this morning, I was awakened at 5

this morning by a parent who said to me, ‘‘I hate to wake you up,

but my daughter’’—and this is a parent in an area called

Windemere, which is a fairly affluent area—‘‘my 18 year old daughter has been on a cocaine binge for 2 days. She is home with us

right now and is asking for help. If I do not get her help now, I

do not know whether when she comes down, will she still want

help or will she leave here and then go on to continue to use cocaine’’—a high school graduate, a college student at Valencia Community College.

I called a detox center to ask them if they would take this 18

year old right away, this was at 6 a.m., because I was concerned

that if we did not get her in immediately, then she would not still

be willing to get help. The detox center told me that they were not

open until 8 and so we would have to wait. Why? Because they do

not have enough staff to staff the center to be able to get services

to a young person when they need it.

And I can tell you, whether it is heroin or any other drug, young

people will not get the help they need until they realize they need

the help and they ask for it and want it.

As we are looking at the problems, it is not just heroin that we

need to face, it is the problems of dealing also with cocaine and

also with ecstasy. We have young people in our schools who are

using ecstasy that is cut with heroin and they do not think there

is a problem because many of them do not believe or realize that

heroin is in the ecstasy. We have young people who feel that if they

use heroin and they snort it, that it is not going to hurt them, or

smoke it, because all we have shown in many, many of our PSAs

coming from a national level and other levels is someone who is a

heroin addict with a tourniquet around his arm and is shooting up

and is in some desolate area where it is not the type of heroin user

we are seeing today.

As part of our efforts in Orange County, we have a strong zero

tolerance for drugs and alcohol policy, as well as violence in our

schools. This is supported very strongly by the Orange County

School Board and the Superintendent of Schools. We have a strong

drug education curriculum program, pre-K through fifth grade, that

is research-based and has behind it the principles of effectiveness.

We also, in the programs that we have, do talk to young people

about the dangers of heroin and LSD as well as other types of

drugs. We also survey our students every other year and as a reVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:56 Nov 14, 2000 Jkt 010199 PO 00000 Frm 00093 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HEARINGS\57169 pfrm03 PsN: 57169
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sult of the survey, we know what type of programs we need to emphasize, we also know what type of problems we have.

Interestingly enough, a lot of people do not realize that the No.

1 reason our students—and we surveyed 5,000 students in a 2-year

period of time—are saying they use drugs is because they want to

feel good, not because of their peers, but because they want to feel

good. And that is a very sad statement to make in our society

today, that kids have to use a drug to get to a point where they

feel good.

The second thing that is very important is when we ask them

why they do not use, the No. 1 reason they do not use is because

they do not need it. Young people who feel they are focused, they

know what they want out of life know many times that they need

to get by without using drugs. They do not need it because they

are getting highs in different ways and it is not drugs. They second

reason they say that they are not using drugs is because of religious reasons, and this came up 10 percent from 2 years ago. And

that is a very positive statement. They also say they do not use it

because of their parents and because of education.

As we go on and look at the surveys, we found out that 25 percent of our students are not using heroin as an experimental drug.

This was a decrease from the year before; 25 percent of students

report that they were not experimenting with heroin. This is a very

positive statement and it shows that we have made a difference in

getting the message out. However, 1 percent of the students reported that they were using heroin up to 20 times within a 3-

month period. So within our high schools, we do have students reporting that they are using heroin up to 20 times in a 3-month period. What this tells us is that we can make a difference in the

front end of education with prevention and information programs,

but we cannot make the difference with a young person who is already addicted. We do not have the resources nor should we be

held accountable to make a difference with a heroin addict or a

user who is using to the point that what they do need is outpatient

treatment and residential treatment.

What we know has to happen and what we feel must happen is

we must all join together and form campaigns that will continue

to emphasize the dangers of drugs. I cannot tell you how much I

respect Governor Martinez and also the campaign that former first

lady Nancy Reagan did. In the 1980’s, when I started out in 1971,

one of the things that I saw—one of the highlights of the work that

I have done in the field of treatment and prevention and also I was

Drug Prevention Coordinator for the State of Florida for 2 years,

was during the time that Nancy Reagan was campaigning against

drugs. People laughed about ‘‘Just Say No’’ and red ribbon campaigns, but I can tell you, we saw a decrease in drug use during

the time that this occurred. And we will see it again once we come

together and if you at a national level and we at a local level and

a State level, which I believe Governor Bush will do, will come together bringing together members of the community, the media,

law enforcement, the faith communities, schools, business, treatment people, health organizations and parents—and parents are

crucial, crucial, to the success of it, as well as you.

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We must develop a strategic plan that is funded for 5 years, a

plan that is not just here today and gone tomorrow, based on the

funding grants that come down from Washington and from the

State of Florida. The strategic plan must include short and longterm goals, it must include funding for education that mandates,

and I say mandate—and this is not a popular word for an educator

to say, but we must mandate drug abuse, drug prevention curriculum, pre-K through 12th grade because as it stands now in

many school districts, test scores and reading and math have taken

over to a point that curriculums dealing with drug education and

violence prevention are being pushed aside and not occurring.

We must also include funding through Safe and Drug Free

Schools for intervention programs to occur within the schools

where we can provide support groups for students within a school

setting and we can bring people in from treatment agencies to do

programs for students who are in the beginning and experimental

use of drugs. We must also fund more school resource officers and

DARE type programs in the schools.

And I never thought I would live to see the day that I am a very

strong supporter of bringing in dogs to the schools to try to find

drugs that are there, as well as undercover agents. Last year, the

Orange County Public Schools, working with the Orange County

Sheriff’s Department and Captain Scott, who I have a great deal

of respect for, he is the head of the narcotics for Orange County

Sheriff’s Department, we brought in three undercover agents to

three of our schools and the good news is that they did not find

drugs on campus, the good news is that they did make a difference

in coming in because they also were able to tell the principals of

the schools areas that needed more security. The bad news is no

one knew that it happened. I believe that if students knew that

this could happen, it would be a deterrent. It may push the drugs

out into the community, but it will not leave the drugs in the

schools where it is easier for students to get.

Our drug survey also shows that only 1 percent of students are

saying they are using drugs at school. The majority of the time

young people use drugs is after school when they are latch-key kids

or they are just hanging around, and on the weekends.

We also must enforce a policy where law enforcement and the

school district work together in setting up strategies that will continue to support the zero tolerance policy.

In the area of treatment, we desperately need more treatment

beds in Orange County, as we do in Seminole County. We need

beds for our students, our young people who are in need of residential treatment, who are 16, 17, 18 years old, as well as for the number of heroin addicts who may not have died had they been able

to get treatment. If you will look at the statistics, you will see that

the majority of deaths this year, unlike 2 years ago, of heroin addicts was from 18 on up, we did not have any students die from

heroin addiction this year, whereas 2 years ago, we had five students who died who were honor students, who were student leaders

and who came from very strong families, very supportive families

who were there for them.

As far as law enforcement goes, we need strong services, we need

strong commitment from law enforcement, which we do have but

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we need funding for law enforcement. Law enforcement must be

given some more support for community policing as well as to do

interdiction.

As we are looking at what you can do, I say to you, I urge you,

I beg you to increase funding for Safe and Drug Free Schools for

the United States, making sure that those people who are receiving

the funding are held accountable. We must put in accountability.

Programs that are in place in school districts, as well as treatment

centers, must be research-based and must adhere to principles of

effectiveness. We can no longer afford to put money into programs

that are not shown to be effective and are not research-based.

In closing, I would like to thank you for allowing me to come before you. I am committed to continuing to do everything I can as

a parent, as a member of the community, as an individual and as

a person representing a school district.

I also want to close by saying that I believe in the philosophy,

‘‘By the grace of God go I’’ and I never say never, because there

is no one here in this room that can say it will never happen to

them. We do not know who it happens to or why it happens sometimes, but we do know that it can happen to parents, whether they

are good parents or they are not good parents.

Thank you again for allowing me to come before you and present.

Mr. MICA. Thank you for your testimony.

[Applause.]

Mr. MICA. I would now like to recognize Mary Trotter, who is the

executive director of the House of Hope, and it is my understanding

you do not receive any Federal funds.

Ms. TROTTER. We receive no government money at all.

Mr. MICA. If you could provide us with your testimony, you are

recognized.

[The prepared statement of Ms. LaBarge follows:]

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Ms. TROTTER. My name is Mary Trotter, I have been with House

of Hope for 5 years and I serve as its executive director.

We are a faith-based program receiving no government funds,

but that does not mean we do not need government help. We just

look for it in different ways. We recognize the fact that we do work

in coordination with our school system and need to work—our 1999

goal is to get more involved in government because it is a sad case

when out of nine of our current boy residents, eight of them have

been involved in drugs. Out of our current 25 girl residents, 22

have been involved in drugs. It is a sad thing.

I had a statistic come across my desk yesterday and this came

from Family First organization, and it said of the 10,990 juvenile

offenders committed to DJJ last year, 1,189 of them or 10.8 percent

came from two-parent homes. That means that 89.2 percent came

from single-parent homes. That goes right with what Marge was

saying, the problem may not be in the schools, the problem is latchkey kids. So we need to address that.

But what grieves me more than that is the fact that what should

be the parents’ responsibility, education should be first, scholastics

should be first in school, but we are having to put a drug program

to educate children in school—that should be a parent’s responsibility, and it is not.

So now we have to look at where we are at and put these programs in place to help save the generation that is suffering from

it, which is our teens.

One of the things that Michael did not tell you when he spoke

before you earlier is Michael did not read his testimony because of

drug damage from acid, Michael still is recovering from some residual effect of drugs where he cannot focus very long. If he seemed

to wander back and forth in his thoughts, that is still a result of

acid. He is doing much better than when he first came in. He

would sit at his desk probably about 2 minutes, in our on-campus

school, and now he is actually hitting the books again, he is educating himself again. That is common with what we see. The reason I sat up here with Michael is not because I do not trust Michael, but because our program licensing requires us to be a certain

distance. Actually this is too far, Michael is in the front row, that

is too far. But more than that, my heart for Michael is, with Michael being involved in the drug scene, his life is at risk yet, because of all the involvement in robbery and stealing and bad drug

deals that he did. So my commitment goes beyond what our licensing requires, our commitment is to protect him as an individual because he is determined to try and make a difference now. He is

going to begin speaking next month in Polk County at the Juvenile

Detention Centers there and that is where he is going to get involved and that is what House of Hope had realized last year and

we have a new program in place and I will explain that in a moment, that is going to start utilizing the graduates of our program

to give back part of what they received.

I do believe that what Marge said, that they do not ask for help,

is true, they do not know that they need it. They really believe that

they have no other purpose in life and that is one thing that House

of Hope focuses on, is to try to teach them that they do have a purpose in life, they were created for a purpose, they were not created

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just to attend parties all the time, as fun as it may have seemed.

None of our families escapes this. I would love to sit here and say

because I am in a drug prevention program, drugs has not been a

reality in my family—it has. I have one nephew in prison, I have

one in juvenile detention right now and another one that I do not

even know really where he is, he is on the streets. So it hits all

of us.

I have been in the business now for 5 years, I know all the right

things to do, but there is a stronger influence that hits them. Our

biggest frustration as a program, and we did not realize this until

we started phase three of our program last year, and that was how

uneducated we really were to what was going on on the streets

today. Our counselors go meet their criteria, every day they are updating their education, but by the time it hits the textbook, it is

too late, that is not what is actively going on in the street.

It was just by a chance coincidence that I happened to see a segment on the news where Scott Perkins, who is going to be speaking

later—they did I believe it was like a 5-minute flash on one of our

local news scenes and in preparation for phase three of our program, my husband caught my attention and said we need him to

come to House of Hope to educate your staff. So I contacted Channel 9, I believe it was, and then we got ahold of Scott.

Scott came and talked to our parents, it made an incredible difference. We knew nothing about GHB and I believe in north Florida, it was GHB. We knew nothing about the kind of drugs that

were being served at the Raves. He had infiltrated the Raves, so

he had this information. This is not the education that our counselors receive when they go to meet their requirements.

This is a very important position and I believe that where the

funding could benefit programs that are faith-based like ours that

do not receive government funds is part of the local government

could take on someone like Scott, with knowledge like that. House

of Hope would host it and have all of the area programs get to

come and have their education renewed for street education. He

went into detail and I will let him do his own speech, but he will

probably tell you about the disguising of drugs. We had no idea

about that.

The reason we needed to know that is phase three of our program, the Last Wave, is going to be an alternative to the Raves

that are still in so many lives. And our teens that have gone

through our program and are committed to take back what was

stolen from them, and that is the drug free life, are going to be the

ones that go in and actually minister to their peers, if you will.

They are going to go in and they are going to say this is not the

right life. Come over here, we can still have fun, we still have

games, we still have music, we still have videos, we have updated

technology, but we can do it drug free. But to be able to do that,

we needed to know what drugs were out there and what drugs

were actually causing the problem.

Mr. MICA. Thank you. We will withhold questions until we finish.

I would like to now recognize, if I may, Larry Visser, who is the

president of the Grove Counseling Center; also involved in—

whoops.

Mr. VISSER. Technical difficulties.

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Mr. MICA. Cannot wreck the equipment, Larry.

Mr. VISSER. Sorry, I am a mechanic at heart.

Mr. MICA. Well, we are pleased to have you testify, and I would

like to recognize you at this time.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Trotter follows:]

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Mr. VISSER. Thank you. I would like to thank Congressman Mica

personally and publicly for taking the chairmanship of this committee. It can be very tiring and frustrating work out here in the

front lines. I was having one of those days when I heard that you

had taken this chairmanship, and I know that there were other opportunities that you had to forego to do this and I really appreciate

the personal commitment that you have made by doing this; and

thank you also, Congressman Ose.

In its 1997 assessment of central Florida human service needs,

the Heart of Florida United Way found that substance abuse was

the No. 1 concern of all three of its major informant groups. We

all saw the report in the Sentinel last week about the fact that heroin deaths in Orlando have reached an all time high in 1998. Nearly 50 percent of teenagers identified drugs and drinking as the biggest problem facing their generation.

Teens in our own treatment programs caution us that students

do not respond very honestly to formal surveys and from their own

personal experience, they tell me that out of a typical class of 30

students, about 15 students use drugs and alcohol regularly and

probably 5 or 6 are in trouble with drugs.

Although our rhetoric is tough on drugs, our culture is much too

soft. We do not walk the talk. I do not mean to offend anyone in

particular, so I will offend each of us equally. All too often we hear

stories from teens in our treatment programs about using drugs

with parents or with parents of a friend, of coaches who allow substitutes to drop clean urines for dirty athletes, of club operators

who are forewarned of police raids, middle and high school students with far too much unsupervised time on their hands; and

yes, even of drug treatment professionals who use drugs themselves. It does not escape any of us.

The costs to society are well documented and overwhelming. The

cost effectiveness of education and treatment are equally well documented.

A 5 year followup study recently done in Washington State found

that after receiving substance abuse treatment, individuals incurred only half as much Medicaid expense as others who needed

substance abuse treatment but did not receive it.

Numerous studies have documented remarkable decreases in

drug use, criminal activity, high risk sexual behaviors, unemployment and other problems as a result of drug treatment.

Researchers agree that for every $1 invested in education and

treatment, there is a return of $7 to $10 to society.

Our own data locally show that at 12 months post-discharge, 70

to 80 percent of our treatment completers are still drug free, crime

free and either employed or in school.

Accountability has grown to the point that we routinely track results on over 120 different performance and outcome measures for

various funding sources.

The Physician Leadership on National Drug Policy has determined that drug dependence meets the criteria for a treatable,

chronic medical condition in terms of diagnosability, heritability,

and response to treatment. Addiction treatment outcomes are comparable to those associated with other chronic illnesses. Comparisons of medical and behavioral compliance reveal that addicted paVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:56 Nov 14, 2000 Jkt 010199 PO 00000 Frm 00103 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HEARINGS\57169 pfrm03 PsN: 57169
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tients have compliance and remission rates comparable to patients

receiving treatment for other chronic illnesses such as diabetes,

asthma and hypertension. And yet public policy continues to be

dominated by criminal models of addiction.

Ironically, the growing body of evidence on the effectiveness of

education and treatment has done little to increase public confidence or investment in them.

According to the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse

nearly two-thirds of people needing drug treatment do not receive

it.

There is not a single detoxification bed located within Seminole

County. You heard from Marge how difficult it is to find a bed in

Orange County.

In spite of waiting lists, we have had to reduce the capacity of

our own adolescent residential program this year from 28 to 20

beds due to the lack of funding.

The available drug treatment and capacity in our local jails, detention centers and commitment facilities only reaches the tip of

the iceberg. You hear stories from many teens about teens and

adults who wait a long time under lock and key before they are

able to access treatment.

Until your announcement this morning, Congressman Mica, we

have not seen the first dollar spent on treatment or prevention as

a result of our designation as a high intensity drug trafficking

area. We hope that you will use this opportunity to begin to integrate treatment and education into the formula.

In order to put a team of 15 prevention specialists in schools and

community centers around Seminole County, we have had to patch

together 7 distinct funding sources plus donations. Each has its

own set of outcome measures and reporting requirements, each has

its own expiration date. It is a real challenge to keep the initiative

going. We could use twice as many prevention specialists.

To counter the insidious nature of alcoholism and drug dependence, our prevention and treatment strategies must address every

opportunity to reach those affected and those at risk. Progress will

depend on Federal leadership in the following areas.

First, expansion of substance abuse prevention, treatment and

research through Safe and Drug Free Schools program, the Substance Abuse Block Grant, and Knowledge Development Grant programs.

You heard it from the Bergers this morning, I will say it again;

for many students, their recollection of drug prevention is the

DARE program in fifth grade and an annual drug awareness week

thereafter. We need to be far more aggressive in the middle and

high schools with drug education, life skills development, family

education and supervised activities. We need to do a better job of

coordinating treatment programs with academic programs and vocational training and transitions to work.

The second area of recommendation is the elimination of discrimination against individuals with alcoholism and drug dependence by making sure that Federal policy affords the same protections and benefits afforded to individuals with other disabilities.

Third, improvement of treatment compliance rates by expanding

the funding of drug courts and providing incentives for welfare reVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:56 Nov 14, 2000 Jkt 010199 PO 00000 Frm 00104 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HEARINGS\57169 pfrm03 PsN: 57169
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cipients, drug offenders and others who participate in treatment

and submit to urine monitoring.

Fourth, removal of barriers to treatment and research resulting

from the public stigma associated with substance abuse and ignorance of its medical etiology.

I think we have heard a number of examples this morning about

how drug abuse—and it is not just the stereotype, it is not just the

stigma, it affects all of us.

Fifth, and very important, is I think the unification of strategy

across interdiction, law enforcement, treatment and education at

both the national and local levels, to better coordinate initiatives

and resource allocation, which is far too fragmented at present. I

think we have a uniquely close cooperation here in Seminole County and in central Florida among treatment programs, schools and

law enforcement, but even in Seminole County, there are so many

different things going on that it is often hard to keep track of what

is on first and what is on second.

Most importantly in my mind, the Federal Government can play

a role in mobilization of leadership from all segments of our culture

in a sustained initiative to reduce attitudinal and behavioral tolerances to substance abuse. We need to bring parents, ministers,

teachers, policemen, doctors, entertainers and all of us together in

dialog and have us stand side-by-side, shoulder-to-shoulder and

take a stand personally, everyone in his own life, everyone amongst

his peers, that we are not going to tolerate this.

Substance is a biopsychosocial issue, it is not just a legal issue,

it is not just a medical issue, it is not an economic or moral problem, it is all of those and more. We cannot legislate it away, although legislation will help. We cannot buy our way out of it, although funding will help. We cannot medicate it away, although

medical research and treatment will help. We need tenacious intolerance, driven just as much by laws as by the innate parental instinct that places the wellbeing of children above all else.

Thank you.

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Larry. And again, we will withhold questions. We have one other witness, our final witness on this panel

is Mr. Scott Perkins and I think he is also an author, I see his publication, ‘‘Drug Identification Designer Club Drugs Quick Reference

Guide.’’ We are pleased to have you with us today and recognize

you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Visser follows:]

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Mr. PERKINS. Thank you, Congressman. Thank you for allowing

me this opportunity to address the committee.

I was involved in drug enforcement from 1991 to 1998. During

that time, I was assigned to the Orlando Police Department’s Undercover Drug Division and SWAT Team. I was dedicated to fighting the war on drugs and received several awards for my efforts,

including being named narcotics officer of the year for the State of

Florida. My career ended as a result of a gunshot wound sustained

during the successful rescue of two small children who were taken

hostage by a drug user and murderer. I traded my career that day

in exchange for the children’s lives. However, I was able to stop the

suspect from killing the baby girl.

My focus is now on drug education. It is apparent that the

United States is 5 to 7 years behind on drug education. Our Nation

has been inundated by a new wave of designer and club drugs.

These drugs are being consumed by an astronomical amount of

young Americans and can be found in every school, nightclub and

Rave event throughout the United States. The one place you will

not find these drugs is in the current curriculum of our drug educational programs. Parents, law enforcement officers and educators

must be able to advise and educate others on ecstasy, GHB,

Ketamine, crystal meth, heroin, Rohypnol and LSD. These are the

most commonly abused drugs in our school and social activities.

Parents are advised to talk to the children about drugs, which is

great. However, we fail to educate these parents on what to say

and how to recognize obvious indicators of drug use. Parents must

know that Vicks inhalers, bottles of water and baby pacifiers,

among items, are all used as drug paraphernalia, along with bags

of skittles, tootsie rolls and bottles of bubbles are used to transport

and sell various drugs. Being familiar with such terms as ‘‘landing

gear’’, ‘‘poly drug abuse’’ and ‘‘rolling’’ may enable a parent to save

their children’s life.

The majority of parents, law enforcement officers and educators

do not know these drugs and their indicators. However, I do know

that the youth majority knows exactly what I am talking about.

They, along with others throughout the United States, are confronted with these drugs on a daily basis. Drug dealers assure

these individuals that these drugs can be consumed safely and will

produce a wonderful high. I am here to testify that the people are

listening to the drug dealers and consuming a variety of designer

and club drugs.

While working undercover, I witnessed that the norm is to start

the evening by consuming ecstasy, cocaine and then crystal meth.

After about an hour, marijuana is smoked, followed by LSD. Ecstasy is then repeated to allow the high to continue for at least 2

days. GHB, Ketamine, heroin and Rohypnol are all used as what

is called ‘‘landing gear.’’ The landing gear is consumed to enable

the person to sleep after being unable to sleep because of the large

amounts of amphetamines in their body. This is how the majority

of the overdoses occur. In the party and drug scene, it is their belief

that the authorities should not be called when overdoses occur.

This is done for several reasons.

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They believe that the drug overdose can be slept off; they believe

the victim will accumulate large medical bills and/or they will be

arrested.

The latest club remedy for a GHB overdose is to give the victim

sugar. As extreme as this situation seems, it is very prevalent.

These events usually have several thousand attendees and I would

estimate that about 90 percent are using the drugs. By attending

these events and observing such actions, I stay current on the drug

trends.

It is obvious that the problem is out of control. However, an opportunity has presented itself that would allow the mindset of the

younger generation to be drawn away from massive drug consumption. My methods and techniques are very unique and effective. I

am willing to share these methods with our government in an attempt to combat this drug epidemic.

Again, thank you very much for allowing me to address the committee.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Perkins follows:]

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Mr. MICA. Thank you for your testimony and I thank all of our

witnesses today on this panel for participating.

During the last several years we have tried to dramatically increase the amount of money that is available for treatment and for

education. Today’s testimony makes me a bit concerned that the

money is not getting to some of the programs that may be most effective. The administration had requested and we funded also a

$190 million ad campaign which I think they have done some test

programming of and I think we are tentatively scheduled to get

back the initial results of those tests. I heard, Ms. LaBarge, you

mention those ads briefly but I would like to hear your comments

on the inability to get dollars to these local programs. Is it that

they are going somewhere else in the State or the Nation? And

what the problem is there; and then second, what about the tremendous amount of money that has been put into these drug ads

at the request of the administration.

Ms. LABARGE. As far as the drug ads go, there has been a tremendous increase in the drug ad campaign, and right away the one

that comes to mind is the little girl who is being asked all these

things or telling what her mother has taught her and then the

question is ‘‘And what has your mother taught you about drugs?’’

And she goes blank. The ads, I feel have been very, very effective.

My only concern is sometimes these PSAs are shown at 3 a.m., and

maybe the type of person who is up at 3 viewing PSAs or programs

is not the one that is really concerned about whether they talk to

their kids about drugs or not—I do not know. But I think it is not

just sufficient to have the PSAs. They are excellent, but we also

have to have more cooperation with the media as to when the PSAs

are shown.

The second area that you addressed as far as the funding, Safe

School funding has increased, but it is also, from what I understand, this year going to decrease, where they are cutting part of

the Safe School funding to put it into other specific programs which

address the middle school area, which is a very important area.

However, from what I understand of the budget that is being proposed for the grants that are coming down in March, April, and

June, that the funding will not be as much as it was this past year

for Safe and Drug Free School funds. That is what I have been

told, that the funding will be different and it will not be as strong.

I am not sure whether that is the case, but I do believe it is.

Also with the Safe and Drug Free School funding, I think it is

crucial and I do believe Secretary Riley is very strongly in support

of this, that funding be tied to principles of effectiveness and to research-based programs. Funding has gone into California and other

places and has been used for a yo-yo, someone coming into the

schools and showing how a yo-yo can keep you off of drugs or jump

roping or many other areas that are not proven to be researchbased. There may be funding out there that is not getting to the

right places or not being funded for programs that are effective. I

think that is something that really needs to happen. So as far as

I know now, there is supposed to be a decrease coming down, I am

not sure whether it is or not, but this is what we have been told

for Safe School funding.

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Mr. MICA. Again, the totals are increasing. In education there is

a 9-percent increase; in HHS treatment, there is 12 percent; and

I have got the record of levels of funding 1981 to 1995, all of those

years have been increasing. It was $2.6 billion for treatment, I

think we are going to be up in the $2.8 billion range. Most of the

increases in most of the Federal programs have been limited pretty

much to cost of living. There are exceptions to that 3 percent of

whatever we have been running, in that range, sometimes 4 percent.

I am a little bit disturbed to hear that we are appropriating more

money and it is not getting to the programs that are effective. So

we will—in fact, we will ask staff to conduct a little investigation

of where that money is going.

We also have the problem of block granting, or the question of

block granting versus getting the money to specific programs. And

the Congress has been trying to block grant and put not as many

strings and get the money to the State. I think we need to look at

the amount of dollars coming into Florida, and you are telling me

also that you think California and some other areas have gotten

more, is that what——

Ms. LABARGE. No, what I am saying is I know that some programs, the Safe and Drug Free School funding has been criticized

in some areas and in some papers, for example, out of the Los Angeles area, because they said they did not use the funds to do programs that were research-based and showed the principles of effectiveness.

As far as funding coming down in block grant, I feel that Safe

and Drug Free School funding needs to go directly to school districts and I think it needs to be tied directly to doing programs that

affect drug education and drug prevention. There are many school

districts that do not use their funds in the way that I believe it is

intended for them to be used. And that certainly is the case in central Florida.

Mr. MICA. Let me sample some of the other panelists. Mr. Perkins, what about the money we are spending on the drug ads and

the increases in treatment and other areas? What would be your

emphasis, how would you recommend we spend these dollars?

Mr. PERKINS. I would be more target-specific on the PSAs, you

are missing a whole generation. There is a generation out there

that is doing what is called poly drug abusing, all the drugs I listed, ecstasy, GHB, Ketamine, euphoria, meth and a variety of

inhalants. They are doing them every single night in abundance.

We need to address those issues and tell the kids and young

adults that these drugs can kill you and will kill you. GHB, I was

at a Rave event 2 weeks ago and after the event was over, I walked

the parking lot—this was the next day, they last 20 some odd

hours—the next day, I walked the parking lot and was talking to

a couple of individuals and I asked each one of them who does

GHB and the majority of them said we do. And I started talking

to them about it and I asked each one of them, I said what is in

GHB and every single one of them said amino acids. And in 1990,

they would have been correct. GHB was banned by the FDA in

1990. GHB that is being sold on our streets and in our clubs and

in our Rave events, the active ingredients is engine degreaser, muVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:56 Nov 14, 2000 Jkt 010199 PO 00000 Frm 00113 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HEARINGS\57169 pfrm03 PsN: 57169
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riatic acid, vinegar and distilled water. I told those young guys and

girls that and they were floored, they could not believe it.

The misinformation that is out there is unbelievable. Like I referred to landing gear. Landing gear is what brings these young

guys and girls down after they have been up for a couple of days

because they cannot sleep. Come Sunday night, they have to sleep

either to go to work or go to school the next day and they will be

sold GHB, heroin and Ketamine to allow them to sleep. And what

we are not telling these guys and women is that, look, you have

all these amphetamines flowing through your body, when you dose

that heroin the dealer is going to give you to make you sleep, you

are not going to feel the results you desire, but in reality, your

body is actually having the results. So they always redose and then

you have your overdose.

We need to get the message out to call the paramedics, call fire

rescue, call the police officers, because it is the norm, I see it all

the time, they leave them laying where they lie, put them in a car,

put them in a bed and just let them alone. We need to start being

very target-specific.

I went to a Zen fest in Pasco County, there were 14,000 people

there, I was there. And I am here to tell you, 90 percent of the people were on some type of hard drug. We had 35 overdoses, all treated with advanced life support. So we are missing the boat on our

target audience with PSAs.

Mr. MICA. Ms. Trotter, you said that your goal in 1999 is to try

to do more with the government entities, I guess particularly the

public programs. How can we assist you—one of the problems that

we have is that when you do a Federal program or participate in

it, is all the reporting and the red tape and the other things. How

can we assist you without getting in your program and running it

and controlling it in an effective manner and not lack accountability?

Ms. TROTTER. The best way to assist a faith-based program that

does not take funding and therefore sets up the accountability that

way is to provide forums for speaking and platforms for speaking

so young people like Mike can get up and say this is where I was,

this is where I am today; as well as information. When I talked to

our counselors just before coming here, I asked them what their

biggest frustration was as counselors and they said there is not

enough emphasis put on prevention, that most of it comes from the

place of crime prevention. So we need both, we need laws set up

that once the law is broken, there is severe penalty, but we need

also the venue on the front side to educate families and to educate—and I am telling you when we had Scott come and talk to us,

our families were blown away at what their children were involved

in. They had no idea. And every one of those children, when Scott

asked, responded that they knew exactly what Scott was talking

about.

So the best way to assist a program like ours would be to allow

the platform; one for education, maybe the Sheriff’s Department

has someone who goes around and speaks to programs—to educate

on what is on the streets today. We do not want to wait for it to

hit textbooks, then it is too late. And also to allow the platform for

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speaking so that we can give back to the community. That is really

our heart in it, is to give back to our local community.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Visser, you said that you have actually had to reduce I guess your beds or the size of your program. Where do you

see the Federal and State money going? Is there some lack of attention to these basic programs that you are conducting? Do you

see it going in other directions? How do we—what do we do and

where are the funds most effectively used in your opinion?

Mr. VISSER. Well, I think what we see on a regular basis over

a period of years is base funding, which, you know, we call our

foundation of major State and—generally State funding—is it

erodes each year. Since 1990, probably 6 out of the 8 years, we

have gotten some kind of a percentage decrease in our core State

funding. Now the funding that comes to us—the Federal money

that comes to us in the form of block grant is mixed in that formula

somewhere too, so whatever you are sending us in block grant offset by State reductions has not kept up with maintaining the status quo. The other types of Federal money that are available to us

of course are in grant programs and I guess, if anything there, my

observation is it is splintered. You know, we have put together

funding in programs from Departments of Community Affairs, Departments of Education, Departments of Children & Families, Departments of Juvenile Justice, Departments of Corrections, Governor’s Office—all that gets very complicated—Medicaid. Each one

has its own body of rules and regulations and reports and, as you

can imagine, at the program level, it is complicated and expensive

to do that, let alone at the administrative and governmental level

that has to filter all that stuff down to us. And you know, in a way

I suppose we could be thankful that some kind of prevention and

treatment money has infiltrated that many departments of government but we have got to unify that somehow and coordinate that

and begin to unify procedures.

I do a background check on my employees and I have got to go

look at what the funding source is in order to determine who to

satisfy with the background check. And you know, we are all trying

to protect the same children but they have different requirements,

is just one small example.

Mr. MICA. Sounds like administration and red tape is taking

quite a bite out of it, not to mention the paperwork and all you

must face. That may be an area that we need to pay a little bit

more attention to as far as trying to streamline that process, although it is very difficult from our level. Any time you try any consolidation, you run into great opposition, any time you try to reduce

the administration or levels in this programs that sometimes start

in Washington, go to Atlanta regional office, Tallahassee and then

down to the local level, you have all these layers of opposition to

make any changes.

Mr. VISSER. I will say, Congressman, that the recent boost in

Federal block grant funding, we received an additional $24 or $28

million coming to Florida, does look like it is going to make a difference in the communities, and you must have surprised somebody

with that one, they did not find a way to absorb it in some other

pool before it got to us.

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Mr. MICA. It is very difficult from our standpoint, but we are trying to turn this around and also provide the flexibility so that these

programs can operate locally and even participate with some of the

private sector programs to give them whatever support we can because they also have been very effective.

I have more than exceeded my time, let me now yield to my colleague, Mr. Ose.

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I would be happy to yield

additional time.

Mr. MICA. No, no, we are behind schedule.

Mr. OSE. A couple of questions, if I may.

Detective, what happens in a Rave? Just take me through——

Mr. PERKINS. At an event, sir?

Mr. OSE. Yes.

Mr. PERKINS. OK, what a Rave is, a Rave is typically an all night

dance party where people go to enjoy a variety of music—house,

break beat, ambient, jungle and cosmic.

Mr. OSE. Ambient, jungle, costumes?

Mr. PERKINS. Cosmic.

Mr. OSE. Speak English to me here.

Mr. PERKINS. It is just the various music that they go to listen

to. At the event, deejays, they spin the music——

Mr. OSE. The music type.

Mr. PERKINS. Yes, sir.

Mr. OSE. OK.

Mr. PERKINS. And you have anywhere from 4 to 5, maybe even

10,000 people at these events and when they are there, they do a

variety of drugs at these events to enhance the Rave experience.

And what has happened along the way is misinformation has guided the people who have just come up into this arena down the

wrong path of poly drug abuse and dying and having overdoses by

the dozens at every event.

I was involved in this since 1991 and in 1991, that was not the

case. And as you read in my statement, I mention it, there is an

opportunity right now to sway the mindset of the younger generation, if it is done properly, away from this massive drug consumption, because right now there is a solid division in the community

where people are getting sick and tired of the drug overdoses and

other people who are still misinformed. So if you use the proper

technique and vessels to get your message out there to the target

audience, I think you would be very effective.

Mr. OSE. So you are saying, back to Chairman Mica’s question,

that these PSAs are currently missing that part, I believe was your

phrase.

Mr. PERKINS. It is not even coming close, sir.

Mr. OSE. All right. Let me go on, if I may, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. LaBarge, you referenced California receiving a substantial

amount of the Drug Free and Safe School Act money. That was a

$5.7 billion bill and I am here to confirm that much of the money

spent in the LA School District was used, for instance, on trips to

Disneyland, magicians coming to the high school, presentation by

a member of the Globe Trotters and the like. And I have yet to divine the connection between what we are trying to accomplish and

the expenditure of those funds.

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So if I could reference, for the staff’s purpose, there was an article last spring in the LA Times about this particular expenditure

pattern and I would be happy to have my people track it down and

I am sure it is on the Internet.

Ms. LABARGE. I can tell you that we have never spent funds for

incidents like that. And this is what I am saying, that you have

got to have accountability, because it is not fair to other school districts that are doing the job.

Mr. OSE. Ms. Trotter, I have to say you stunned me, because in

my experience in my district, I thought Families First was an organization based largely in the Central Valley with whom I have

been working for a number of months and visiting with Evelyn

Crall there, who runs Families First, her advice was that the connection between the various local government agencies such as

CPS in one instance, juvenile authorities in another, the school districts, sheriffs, many times is lacking. I am wondering if that is the

case. Have you experienced that and is there some means by which

we can assist that collective effort actually being made a little bit

more efficiently?

Ms. TROTTER. It is definitely our experience here, that there is

such a separation between all organizations and if there could be

a cooperative effort to bring them all together. And with Families

First, one of the premises there is the separation just within the

family. If it exists within the family, it definitely exists throughout

our society, because the family is supposed to be the closest unit.

We do need a coordinated effort. I am really not prepared to speak

on that yet, I have some ideas that we run across with our families.

One of the successes of House of Hope is that we mandate family

participation, it is not optional. We never take what we consider

throw-aways. That is a standard that we have within the course of

the program, ending up with a child that we consider or term a

throw-away because the family has just totally removed themselves

from the program. That is definitely the exception and not the rule.

So we work the families as hard as we do the residents in the program. They are in counseling as well.

So coordinated efforts like that, what we would like to see is to

be able to coordinate more with the school, the school programs in

particular. Mike went and spoke to his local high school at risk

class not long ago and as a result of that, eight of them requested

from their probation officers time off of their home arrest to be able

to come to one of our Last Wave events as an alternative to the

Rave. So I think that there could be a coordination between programs.

Mr. OSE. My major concern is the challenge that the confidentiality provisions impose as these agencies try to get together and

work on a situation. So if you have thoughts about that, I would

welcome having you call my office or give me your card.

Ms. TROTTER. That would be wonderful.

Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, two more questions, if you will, please.

I have read the material for the years that we have been dealing

with this, particularly in the nineties, and I have tracked the nominal amount of money we have spent on treatment as opposed to

interdiction and how that mix has changed over the years. And I

have to share with you, and I may be completely off base and I am

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happy to be corrected, I have to share with you that as I see treatment dollars going up relative to the overall budget, I am also

struck by the material here, for instance, for Florida, an increased

usage, whereas we have a relative reduction in the amount used

for interdiction, we have a relative increase in the amount used for

treatment and we have a relative increase overall in the amount

of usage. There’s something disconnected there and I am trying to

figure out what the proper balance is.

Mr. VISSER. Well, you know, I have people ask me that question

a lot from the public, saying hey, we heard there was more money

in treatment this year or funding has gone up, have you felt the

difference. And my typical response to that is we are scratching

such a small—reaching such a small tip of the iceberg that, you

know, a pretty sizable increase is not something we would be able

to identify a change in terms of our local program statistics in

terms of whether it is reducing the demand or anything, and we

read the same——

Mr. OSE. It is empirical data is all that I am looking at.

Mr. VISSER. Right. We read the same things in the paper that

you do and the same things in the research that, you know, experimentation usage has gone up. My believe with that is that some

of that had to do with letting up on the prevention side and in my

mind I attempted to differentiate some between treatment, prevention and enforcement as we do here on this panel.

But, you know, there was a heightened level of spending as well

as level of public interest in the late eighties with drugs being the

problem and with prevention, and I think we were getting the message out at a number of levels. We had the ‘‘Just Say No’’ campaign

and a number of things. People get tired of hearing the same thing

over and over and the more we talk about getting tough, the more

I think we begin to redefine the problem somewhat. In our own experience of our own organization, the opportunities for growth in

programs have not been so much in substance abuse as they have

been in juvenile justice and other areas that are related to youth

problems. And in a sense, in my mind, we have redefined the youth

problem more in terms of a criminal justice, a youth criminal justice model than we have in substance abuse, and so in our own organization’s mission we go into juvenile justice because we know

that is where the drug abusers are.

I am with the rest of them, one of the things that we hear over

and over in our treatment programs from our kids is we need to

get tougher on drug users and dealers and so we are getting tougher on them, but we need to make sure in the meantime that we

are not losing the focus. We can’t just lock them up, you have got

to lock them up and treat them and have other sanctions.

Mr. OSE. It is that balance, I am trying to find that point.

Mr. Visser, I would like to come back privately and have you explain to me your phrase ‘‘criminal models of addiction’’ that you

used earlier.

My final question, Mr. Chairman, is: Detective, we have a serious

Colombian heroin problem here in central Florida—this is probably

too generic a question—but what is the attraction for the kids, is

it price or is it purity or——

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Mr. PERKINS. No, sir, not at all. The attraction for the young

adults, like I just told you, is being able to bring you down after

you have been up for several days, but what they do not realize is

that even though they snorted, they no longer have to inject it, it

is still a very addicting drug. You and I go out this evening and

if we do ecstasy and meth and all that and we stay up a couple

of days, we are given heroin to come down so we can go to school,

but what we do not realize is that by ingesting that heroin in powder form to bring us down, that we are going to become addicted

that way and now you progress up and start to shoot it. That is

why you get all your young addicts.

Also, it is very glamorous. I do not know why it is glamorous, but

in the Rave community, in the younger communities, it is very

glamorous, everybody is talking about how cool it is to do heroin.

You know, they need to be told exactly how deadly heroin is. You

have to realize that not many people die from heroin overdoses. For

every one death, there are thousands of users. On Semoran Boulevard, every morning, you go out there, we used to go out there and

make heroin arrests, dealers selling to dealers, dealers selling to

users, right in front of the McDonald’s where the little kids were

playing with their moms. The heroin problem in Orlando is out of

control.

Mr. OSE. Do the people who are using the heroin understand the

difference between heroin say from the late eighties versus the purity levels that they get now?

Mr. PERKINS. I do not know. I do not even think they care.

Mr. OSE. They are just trying to get down so they can go to work

or to school.

Mr. PERKINS. Yes, sir.

Mr. OSE. Thank you.

Mr. VISSER. I will give you a reaction from a group of kids I

talked to yesterday in my treatment program in preparation for

this, about that fear factor. I said, you know, do you not see people

overdosing, do you not see people withdrawing, do you not know

that you cannot tell what you are buying. The answer to that is

yes, on all fronts. They see that stuff happening, they are scared

of it, but the fear of it is not enough to keep them from using it.

They will buy garbage and drink it down by the cupfuls and not

even know what the effect is going to be and they will see somebody next to them dropping out on an overdose and they believe

that they will recover and wake up. The fear alone is not enough

to keep them from doing it.

Ms. LABARGE. If I may, I think it is also important to note that

in the PSAs—and this is something that Scott alluded to earlier—

if they see a heroin addict shooting up and then they smoke it and

they snort it, then they cannot relate the danger. And that is one

reason why the PSAs have got to be realistic.

And if I may just make one comment. A little while ago, you

asked a question and I had a senior moment—I do not know if you

ever had a senior moment——

Mr. OSE. I have junior moments. [Laughter.]

Ms. LABARGE. When you asked the question about the Florida

Safe—not Florida, but the Safe School money, the funding. The difference has been that about 2 years ago, they attached violence to

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it, so now we have to use the Safe School funds not only in the area

of drug prevention, but it’s Safe School and Violence—it is for drug

and violence prevention. So the funds that we were using before

which was totally used for drug prevention now are being divided

so that the law states it’s a Safe Drug Free School and Violence

Prevention Act. And we have to do violence prevention which is

getting more play than the drug prevention is, under that funding.

Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, you have been very gracious to this

freshman and I appreciate it.

Mr. MICA. Well, thank you.

I want to thank our panelists. We would love to spend much

more time with each of these witnesses that we have had today.

As you can tell, we have to do sort of a sampling, and it is unfortunate sometimes to the public that Federal hearings are conducted

in this manner, but there are certain limits to the number of folks

that we can have testify.

I am going to excuse this panel, but you are welcome to stay

seated and I am going to open up the hearing to our fourth panel,

which is the public. And we have had some requests, we are going

to try to accommodate them for individuals who would like to make

some statement or comment.

The first individual that we are aware of in the audience who

wanted to speak is Tinker Cooper from Orlando. And Tinker had

a son, 26 years of age, who died in a 1996 heroin case. If you could

come up, identify yourself and you are recognized. And I also understand that you, with some other parents who have been so affected in your lives, have banded together and produced a video

and also some other education and information resources that you

wanted to make us aware of.

So you are recognized for an introduction and comments and we

will view that.

STATEMENT OF TINKER COOPER, ORLANDO, FL

Ms. COOPER. My name is Tinker Cooper. My son, Joe Stevens,

died at 26 from a heroin overdose 3 years ago.

A couple of months ago, Captain Ernie Scott from the Orange

County Narcotics Division called and asked if I would help make

a video on the drug overdoses in Orlando and the central Florida

area. I took my friend along, Jackie Thompson, and we made this

video.

In working with the families, notifying the families of children in

the video, Captain Scott realized what a mess everybody was, so

together we started a support group for families, not just for mothers, but for families of overdose victims. It is not just a support

group, we plan to go out and take this video everywhere we can

get it—schools, private and public; rehabs; Narcotics Anonymous;

Alcoholics Anonymous; doctors offices; businesses; anywhere we can

get this thing in. We were interviewed Tuesday, Jackie and I, by

CNN. They did not see the video because it had not been released

yet.

Hank Curtis from the Orlando Sentinel is starting to write articles about it. I understand Newsweek is supposed to get ahold of

me. So we are starting to get the word out.

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Today, we have the video. It is an edited version because a few

families have not given consent to having their children’s pictures

in it. So bear with us, there are a couple of little blips of black, one

period is a pretty long black area where Jackie—there is a voice

over of Jackie talking but there is no picture because we have not

gotten permission from the family yet, but we felt this was a very

important forum to present the video and get people’s reaction. At

the end of the video, there are some phone numbers for the Narcotics Division, Center for Drug Free Living, as well as the Speak

Out Hotline, if you want to write those down. Any way to contact

us, we also plan to get very involved politically, we are going to get

our face in front of every politician we can possibly get to, to get

something done about the drug problem here in central Florida.

The video is called ‘‘The Party is Over.’’ We are not doing the

whole thing, there are some pictures in the beginning, there is a

speech by Kevin Beary that we are not using because we are short

of time right now. So we are just starting with the meat of the

thing, and hopefully you will play the entire thing.

Thank you.

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Ms. Cooper, and if the staff will go ahead

and play the tape.

[A videotape was shown.]

Mr. MICA. I would like to thank Ms. Cooper for providing the

committee with that tape. It certainly demonstrates the incredible

personal tragedy that you have experienced, many others in our

community, and the absolute horror of this whole drug epidemic we

are seeing in our community. It also impresses upon me the enormity of the task that we have on our subcommittee in launching

an effort, which we hope will be effective, so that we do not have

to see instances like were so graphically displayed here today. So

I appreciate what you have done in bringing this to the attention

of our community and to others and also to this subcommittee of

Congress.

Ms. COOPER. I would just like to say one more thing about that.

It is very graphic, these are actual crime scene photos and some

of them are very bad. But just maybe if a kid is approached about

drugs, these pictures will flash through his mind, whereas I do not

think this is an egg—this is your brain on eggs, I do not think that

is going to really stop them from doing drugs. But maybe these pictures will. This is death by drugs, it does not look like a good time.

I know it is graphic, but we do want to get it in as many places

as we can.

Mr. MICA. I can assure you that whatever we can do that will

be successful, we are going to look at what we have had successes

with and what we are doing, what we have done in the past and

what we can do in the future that will ensure success. And we

thank you. We cannot do it all from the Federal level, it is going

to take local heroes like you that have had unfortunately personal

tragedies to help get this message to every corner of our communities across the Nation.

So thank you.

Did we have anyone else that wanted to make a public comment

or presentation? Yes, come up.

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And if you would, for the record, if you could identify yourself

with your name, where you are from, and if you represent an organization.

STATEMENT OF MACKENZIE PAUSE

Ms. PAUSE. My name is Kenzie Pause and I am representing——

Mr. MICA. Could you spell it, please?

Ms. PAUSE. K-e-n-z-i-e P-a-u-s-e.

I am representing the Tatje family, who lost their daughter

Christina this past July.

Mr. MICA. What was the name of the family?

Ms. PAUSE. Tatje. The Sheriff spoke about them earlier.

Mr. MICA. Right.

Ms. PAUSE. The morning of July 31st I will never forget. I got

a call from the Tatje family and Christina had overdosed on heroin

and we had tried to help her for the past few months. I went to

the family, she was a close friend of mine—I went to the family

and tried to help her. We took her to Life Streams which is an organization in Lake County, which is actually the only one I know

of. I used drugs for 4 years, part of that time with Christina. Fortunately I came out of it OK.

When I came out of it, I tried to help Christina and she went to

Life Streams and, you know, your House of Hope sounds great and

I really hope it is helping a lot of people, but I think there needs

to be more places like this. Life Streams did not help Christina actually. She went there, her parents believed me that she was using

drugs out of hand. She went to this place, they gave her drug tests

and she passed, and I know she was using cocaine and heroin. But

drugs like that get out of your system pretty fast, I mean unless

you are using it every day. I guess within 72 hours, they can be

completely not detected by a test.

Well, they counseled Christina and she told them—of course, a

normal drug user would—told them she was not a user. They continued to release her and led the Tatje family to believe that Christina was OK.

A few months later, she left her home to live with a boyfriend

and friends that got her into heroin and then she overdosed with

a mixture of a few drugs.

Basically, like Lake County is one of the places that the Sheriff

said needed to be added, and being from there and when I was in

high school, I know from personal experience that small towns like

are in Lake County are just amazing how many drugs you could

find there. Most people would not think of that, they think cities,

but I think because there is nothing to do there, these places are

just as important as getting out the education and, you know, prevention there also. It is pretty easy to find anything you want. I

could find ecstasy especially in high schools, you could find that

probably more easily than anything, more than alcohol or marijuana, you could find heroin or ecstasy, which I think is pretty sad.

And basically my first recollection of myself with drug education

is the third grade, and in third grade, I was about an 8-year old

or 9 year old, whatever, you are very easily influenced at that age

and you will believe anything anyone tells you. And I remember an

officer coming with the Just Say No program and of course all the

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kids then were like yeah, just say no. And they really did not tell

you what drugs did to you, they kind of showed you a few drugs,

said drugs are bad, do not do them, and that was it.

As I got older, I do not remember, and there is not any other

education that I received, and when I did ecstasy and I did other

drugs, I did not know what it was doing to myself. I had no clue

actually. And when I quit, I began reading stuff and finding out

what these drugs did to me, and I had no clue. And I just knew

then what I know now, you know, it could be so different.

And I think there should also be—I want to start going to schools

and speaking about what happened to me and I think there should

be more things like this, maybe volunteers. If there is stuff out

there, I have not seen anything that lets me know that there is

something I can do like that. I am going to have to find that myself. I think if there was more advertisements to get people involved that, you know, want to get involved, because I want to get

involved, and there is nothing I know of to do. So I have to look

into it myself.

People that have had first-hand experience, all the parents that

shared their stories today and people like myself that have had—

I know tons of people that know friends that this happened to and

if they could get out there and speak their stories, I think that this

is the best drug prevention anywhere. And the pictures, the more

graphic, the more reality that is shown to children in middle

school, high school age, I think the more that it will get out there

to these kids.

Mr. MICA. Well, I want to thank you for your testimony and for

your recommendations. I think it gives us some good insight into

what you faced and what is going on in our community and also

what we need to do. So thank you so much for coming forward.

Ms. PAUSE. Thank you.

Mr. MICA. I am going to excuse my colleague, Mr. Ose, who has

to go all the way to Sacramento, CA in a few minutes, catch a

flight, and we will see you back in Washington soon.

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MICA. But we will continue and it all becomes part of the

record.

Could you identify yourself, please?

STATEMENT OF COLLEEN COOK

Ms. COOK. My name is Colleen Cook.

Mr. MICA. Colleen Cook?

Ms. COOK. Uh-huh.

Basically a lot of what MacKenzie said is very true. A lot of the

things that were said today about we need to help young people.

But the big focus that you guys were saying is ‘‘we,’’ and when you

said ‘‘we,’’ what you meant is adults, people in suits.

But a lot of the people that were here earlier—I am 18 years old,

I lost a friend to heroin. That is not how it is supposed to be. You

should focus ‘‘we’’ to be a larger group.

The young people today, we can and we want to help ourselves.

Nobody is going to reach out to the kids as much as people our own

age. I mean when we are standing there in auditoriums with 300

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riod, we are not going to listen to the police officers that are saying

drugs are bad. They are going to listen to the stories brought from

kids their age who have been in the circumstances and understand

it.

I think you should focus, like Mackenzie was saying, there is not

a lot of programs really. I want to get out in the community, I have

done a lot of public speaking in the past before this happened to

me, and I am willing to tour to go to public schools like throughout

the State. I am in college and I live in Tallahassee. I would love

to go to the high schools and explain the story, what it is like to

wake up and know your friend is dead, what it is like to wake up

and have to call your other friends that morning and tell them

their friend is dead, what it is like to call and hear their screams

because they know their friend is dead. If kids heard that instead

of drugs are bad, they would listen, they would not finish their algebra homework, they would not take a 10-minute nap during the

lecture. There is not enough in schools.

We all had the Say No to Drugs in fifth grade, that is all we had.

Ninth grade, they kind of did a little thing there, but there is the

little drug week where they pass out stickers that say do not do

drugs and everyone wears them and the drug addicts cut the

‘‘don’t’’ off and make ‘‘do drugs,’’ but that is not what we need. We

do not need stickers, we need people coming to the schools speaking to the kids and we need people with stories and pasts similar

to theirs.

Mr. MICA. I want to thank you for coming forward and also sharing with us your experience. I think that some of what we have

heard today looks like we need to increase some of the programs

in the schools and do a little bit more effective job. And we appreciate your willingness to even participate, not only here but in the

community.

Ms. COOK. Thank you for listening.

Mr. MICA. Thank you so much. They are going to take your

names and addresses, those who are commenting.

Yes, sir. Could you identify yourself?

STATEMENT OF KERRY WILENSKY

Mr. WILENSKY. My name is Kerry Wilensky, W-i-l-e-n-s-k-y. I am

a treatment professional here in central Florida. I work for the

State of Florida Department of Corrections in one of the local State

jails doing treatment, substance abuse treatment for hard core

criminal addicts.

My background is fairly unique. I have a B.A. degree in psychology, I have a Masters of science degree in counseling and psychology, I have a Juris Doctorate degree in law. I am a certified

addiction professional by the Certification Board of Addiction Professionals of Florida. I am also certified in clinical hypnosis.

But in addition, I personally am a survivor. I had a 20-year history of addiction, and also had 5 years of heroin addiction, which

resulted indirectly in 21⁄2 years in the Federal penitentiary. So I

think that personally and professionally I am qualified at least to

address some of these issues.

My feeling, because I work in this particular area, is that the

focus that we have done has been a little backward. My recollection

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was that the budget, the Federal budget, for this year was $15 billion. Of that $10 billion was for the supply, interdiction and only

$5 billion was from the demand side. I will tell you, Congressman,

that you cannot prevent drugs from reaching those people. In this

country today, the largest per capita drugs are in the penitentiaries. And if you cannot keep them out of an environment like

that, I do not think you can keep them out of the environment in

our streets.

But I will tell you if we can focus on the demand side, how long

would you say Toyota would continue to manufacture cars and ship

them to this country if nobody purchased them? They would find

another market for them. And as Governor Martinez said earlier,

these international cartels are so well funded and so good that they

will find a market for them. Let them find another market other

than our country.

The other issue I wanted to raise is I have a 19 year old stepson,

who at 10 last night, I picked up from the county jail here in Orlando, who was incarcerated for charges as a result of drug use. I

have very good insurance working for the State of Florida, yet I

could not afford, and if I could afford, I probably could not find,

treatment for that boy. However, once he becomes involved in the

criminal justice system, there is plenty of treatment for him. And

I think that is what Mr. Visser was referring to about his criminalbased treatment.

I think that it is a sad state when we have to have our young

people get involved in the criminal justice system just to get some

treatment or some help. My feeling is that if the Federal Government, with all of the money that they have appropriated now,

would kind of look to put money into treatment and prevention

rather than waiting for the criminal justice system to get involved,

it would certainly benefit us individually.

As a taxpayer, I find it a little disheartening that we lock some- body up for a year and it costs anywhere from $25,000 to $40,000

a year, depending on the State, to keep an individual incarcerated.

Yet it is only $12,000 a year to put them in residential treatment.

It certainly is much more cost-effective.

In addition, recently the Department of Justice has published a

10-year outcome study of the drug courts that have been involved

in this country. And my understanding, as I recall that particular

publication, was that they have been 80 percent effective by getting

these people before they get involved in the criminal-justice system.

So in my opinion, if we, as citizens, could focus on this rather

than having to stand up and worry about bringing the drugs in, it

would certainly be a lot more effective.

Last, I have an article here that I had published in the Orlando

Sentinel on November 9 in the ‘‘My Word’’ column, which made the

analogy of heroin as a serial killer. And I would like very much if

this could be made a part of the permanent record.

Mr. MICA. Without objection, so ordered. Thank you.

Mr. WILENSKY. Thank you very much. And I do appreciate the

opportunity to address you.

Mr. MICA. Thank you. Just a comment. The percentage of money

spent on international programs, source country; for example, the

1998 enacted was 3 percent of the entire budget. It had been—that

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is 1998 enacted, 3 percent of the entire budget. Back in 1991 when

he was Drug Czar, it was 6 percent, so it has been cut by 50 percent. And treatment and demand reduction is now 34 percent; in

1991, it was the same 34 percent. And law enforcement is 53 percent and then interdiction is 10 percent. So those are the figures

according to the National Drug Office. Thank you, sir.

Mr. WILENSKY. Thank you, sir.

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Mr. MICA. Yes, ma’am, if you could please identify yourself.

STATEMENT OF CHRISTINA MONTAIUTI

Ms. MONTAIUTI. My name is Christina Montaiuti, spelled M-o-nt-a-i-u-t-i, and I serve as the clinical director of a treatment program here in Orlando that is called SAFE, Substance Abuse Family Education.

I would like to just present a couple of scenarios to this panel.

One is of a young woman who recently died. She was a client of

ours up until 2 years ago. She got caught after she got out with

250 pills of Tylenol II, and never got—got arrested for a few days,

got off, never got charged because of some powerful attorneys. Because of that, she went back to the streets right away, started

dancing at Rachel’s and died. My question about that was how

could a child—well, she was not a child then—how could anybody

get off after having done such a thing, without any legal consequences.

And to that extent, working with adolescents all the time, I

would like to ask a question. How come so many of the kids that

we work with get off so easily and do not even get any consequences for their behavior once they get caught with paraphernalia?

Another small scenario that I wanted to present was that one of

our counselors and myself served as volunteers at a local middle

school and led a group for the school of young boys. We found out

that several of these boys were already involved in heavy drug use,

but because of confidentiality, we could not tell their parents. So

really we know where these kids are headed, but we cannot address the issue with the parents.

I just wanted to make a comment on the advertising and what

our kids say about it. They come in and I think the advertising,

as I have seen it, against drug use, is effective for people that do

not use drugs and will not, because it is effective with me, I remember it. But most of the kids who are going to use drugs are

not going to look at something so unsophisticated as an egg on a

frying pan. They want to look at something that will challenge

them like the video games that they use all the time, something

that is more stimulating to them and that would actually take

their interest and hold it for awhile.

The last thing I wanted to say was that we offer, like the House

of Hope, some public community education training and they are

free. And they are actually some of the testimonies of the kids who

have commenced the program, are still in the program or graduated from the program. And a lot of times, we find resistance in

high schools because they say they are drug free high schools and

they might be in a very wealthy area and so they have a hard time

admitting that drugs might be a problem. We are not able to offer

the service.

So those are the scenarios that I do not really have any answers.

The last thing I wanted to do was introduce a couple of the parents of the clients that we have in treatment. I am not sure if one

or both wanted to share with you just a minute. Thank you for

your time.

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Mr. MICA. Thank you. We would welcome their comments. If you

would identify yourself, please.

STATEMENT OF SANDRA MONROE

Ms. MONROE. My name is Sandra Monroe and I am the parent

of a teenage drug addict.

Mr. MICA. You will have to speak up as close as possible.

Ms. MONROE. OK. I am the mother of a teenage drug addict. We

are currently in this program called SAFE, and if it was not for

SAFE, my son would be dead, I would be sitting in the same chair

that the lady was there just before, who did the video.

I would just like to share with you, as Ms. Montaiuti did, the resistance, because my son and I now are far enough in the program

that we can go out and talk to the community, and we do find resistance. The schools, they do not want to hear it.

I would love to see that it is mandated in these middle schools

that not just the kids be talked to, the parents, because just like

Detective Perkins said, if I had known—I had no clue what GHB

was and my son did heroin. He has done every drug that you have

listed, he has been at the Raves, started at 16, 14. Had I been educated, I cannot say I could have stopped it, but I certainly would

have been helped.

And every time my child got into trouble, he was turned right

back to me and said you deal with it, it is a parenting problem.

Yeah, it is, and I made mistakes along the way, but there is nobody

out there to help me and educate me. And the parents out here

need help. These drugs are killing our kids. Let us talk to the parents too, not just the kids. I want my son to give back to the community and talk to the kids, but I also want to give back to the

parents who have no clue what is going on. And we need your help

there, we need you to tell the schools to let us in and have the parents there.

Thank you.

Mr. MICA. Thank you for your comments. I am glad that has

been raised. I think the last time we came into the community, we

heard the same thing and now maybe we can, at least in my position now, I will try to weigh in and see if we cannot get some of

those programs into the schools and started a little bit better organized and on a more frequent basis.

Yes, ma’am. Would you identify yourself, please?

STATEMENT OF JEANETTE BABETTS

Ms. BABETTS. Hi, my name is Jeanette Babetts. I am also a parent of a child in the SAFE program. My daughter was put into

treatment when she was 13, she is 14 now.

I would just like to reiterate what Sandra Monroe said about

making it mandatory in the schools that parents know about the

drugs. I was naive and as a parent, I did not want to admit my

child could be doing drugs, just based on her behavior alone. So

again, I would just like to reiterate what Sandra Monroe said, and

thank you for your time.

Mr. MICA. Thank you for your comments.

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STATEMENT OF TONY GOODWIN

Ms. GOODWIN. Congressman Mica, I have met you before, my

name is Tony Goodwin. This is Jonathan Goodwin. I spoke to you

at another meeting.

Mr. MICA. Yes, and can you also repeat your name?

Ms. GOODWIN. Tony Goodwin and this is Jonathan Goodwin.

He died on June 30, 1996 of a heroin and Rohypnol overdose. I

spoke to you before, you shook my hand, looked me in the eyes,

said you were sorry for my loss and you would try and do something.

It has been 2 years, I have been away from the central Florida

area and I am back now. And I have to admit to you that nothing

has changed. The only thing that has happened is more people

have died and become addicted. And as a human being and a parent, you know, something else has to be done. It is really sad to

think that these parents have to let pictures of their dead children

go on the news, and that is the only thing that is probably going

to reach these kids. It has come to that, it has come to showing

dead bodies, it is coming to tell the stories of how my son was with

his friends, they gave him the heroin and they sat there and they

watched him and they figured after 4 hours, he was not getting

back up, and they were right. He is still dead and things are still

going on, more people are still dying.

And I really feel sorry about that whole thing, and I want to do

what I can but it is going to take a whole community.

Another thing, when you have a meeting like this, Congressman

Mica, I think you need to have it at night so that parents can bring

their kids in. This should not be empty, this should be full of people because there are a lot of people hurting. And what is wrong

with that? And I will put it to you the same way my son would

put it to me—what is up with that? What is going on and why has

this not stopped.

And that is really all I have to say, and I pray for all these kids

out there and all the parents and just God bless us all because we

are in a world of hurt right now as a Nation.

Thank you.

[Applause.]

Mr. MICA. Thank you. I will say just for the record the reason

I am here and the reason you came back is because neither of us

are satisfied with what has been done. The Speaker asked me to

take on this assignment. For 6 years I wanted to be chairman of

another subcommittee, but I felt that this was absolutely the most

important thing I could do. I put my wishes and my past work on

transportation aside and chose to accept the challenge he gave me.

We have done some things, but as I said in my opening statement,

not enough. And I hope as chairman—this is my first week

chairing this subcommittee—that we can raise this not only to a

community level, but to a national level. So that is why I am back

here with you today, because I am not satisfied with where we

have been, what we have done and where I saw we were headed.

So we will be in this together, and I thank you for coming back and

that may be what it is going to take, every one of us. Thank you.

Yes, sir, you are recognized.

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STATEMENT OF VITO PISCHETOLA

Mr. PISCHETOLA. My name is Vito, V-i-t-o, last name is

Pischetola, P-i-s-c-h-e-t-o-l-a.

Mr. MICA. Thank you, sir.

Mr. PISCHETOLA. Thank you.

I would like to say that I am here because I am a recovering alcoholic and addict also. And I work as a paraprofessional in the

field and I work for a company called SAFE.

I suffer from the most deadly self-inflicting disease there is short

of suicide and I would like to know how anybody can put a price

on someone else’s life when the money is there.

And another statement I want to make is it takes people a long

time to make that transitional change. I have been using or abusing drugs for 20 years. I have seen people get court ordered to

treatment for 30 days. Thirty days does not do nothing for nobody

but clear the fog, if possible. I just want to know how they can just

stipulate 30 days, 90 days, when it takes a lot longer, and it is a

life long battle.

I am a survivor, but I keep on fighting every day.

Thank you for hearing me.

Mr. MICA. Thank you, sir, for your comments.

Yes, sir—ma’am, go right ahead.

STATEMENT OF DAVID DYER

Mr. DYER. My name is David Dyer, from here in Orlando and I

am just here because I am an interested citizen. Let me give this

to you.

Mr. MICA. Is this a formal statement?

Mr. DYER. No, that is not a formal statement, it is something I

happened to have in my pocket and I heard you discussing with the

former Governor earlier, Mayor Giuliani’s stance on the methadone

programs and that just happens to be an argument or an article

concerning the fact that Mayor Giuliani has just reversed his

stance on methadone treatment centers in New York City.

I happen to be a former investigator for the Texas Department

of Health. I spent 3 years inspecting methadone treatment programs in the mid and late seventies, all in the State of Texas

under contract from FDA for compliance with Federal regs. And I

can tell you first hand that what these people are doing is the right

way to approach this drug problem, which is to put 90 cents into

prevention and 10 cents into law enforcement, and this problem,

through education and treatment will go away much quicker. I

think these people probably agree with me.

The answer is not going from 55,000 people in prison to 455,000

people in the last 10 years; the answer is prevention, education and

in addition, doing away with some of the hysteria surrounding this

problem. It is just like this sign, 99.9 percent of drugs save lives.

The discussion here is about 1 percent or less of the drugs out

there that are being abused and used irresponsibly by a small percentage of people. They need to be educated.

Written on that piece of paper that I would recommend to you

and to the reporters here in the audience as they begin to write

their articles is a book called ‘‘Drug Crazy’’ by a fellow named Mike

Gray. Mike Gray is the author of ‘‘The China Syndrome’’ that came

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out and was a movie just before the Three Mile Island incident.

Mike Gray has done 6 or 7 years worth of research into the drug

history in the United States and the history of the drug war and

it would be well worth reading by anyone who is interested in a

rational explanation of this problem, and some of the potential solutions in light of the fact that what we have been doing for the

last 25 years apparently is not working.

Thank you very much.

Mr. MICA. Thank you. Sir, you referred to this Giuliani article

here, ‘‘Reverses Himself on Methadone,’’ did you want that in the

record?

Mr. DYER. It should be in the record.

Mr. MICA. OK, without objection, so ordered. Incidentally too, I

will be meeting with Mayor Giuliani next week and he will also be

testifying before our subcommittee on the week of the 21st I think

of February. So we are going to look at what he has done, we are

going to look at all these programs and assess them, evaluate them

and try to adopt what is effective and whatever it takes to solve

this problem.

So I thank you, sir, for your time.

Mr. DYER. If you go back and take a look at the history of the

approach to drugs taken by Nixon in the first 3 or 4 years of the

seventies when the methadone treatment programs first became

popular and were being implemented and look at the progress that

is being made until the point in time that Nixon did not need that

as a political issue any longer and reversed himself and started

interdiction, and compare these two periods, I think you will be

quite surprised at what you will find.

Mr. MICA. Thank you for your comments, sir.

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Mr. MICA. We have a lady here that wanted to comment.

STATEMENT OF SHIRLEY ZAGOREC

Ms. ZAGOREC. My name is Shirley Zagorec, spelled Z-a-g-o-r-e-c.

I came basically because of the article that was written in the Orlando Sentinel. I am a citizen, do not represent anyone but myself,

I came because I care.

I do not think it is right to judge everybody, and everybody is

like back and forth. I sat back there—I am a free lance writer, I

do novels, I do not do political writing, so my heart is pounding

1,000 miles an hour, but I sat back and listened because this is my

first public hearing and I wanted to give—you know, I care.

My question as I sat down and wrote a lot of things was I hear

everybody, I hear the statements, analyze who is better than the

others, I hear a lot of facts, you know, numbers do not mean anything to me—give me the price of a car, tell me what my payment

is. But people like, you know, Mr. Perkins, you know, those things

touch my heart more because those people are out in society really

helping. I think his statement was compassion, you know. I am a

single person—I am not married, let me put it that way, I am 39

years old. These young kids come up here and just pour their heart

out, you know. I have never done drugs in my life, never had a reason to, never saw it, came from a small town. My parents were

great. So did I miss that scene? Yes. Was it an individual choice?

Yes. I did not need it. You know, life can be up and down, there

are a lot of problems. You know, the context of not Christian or

whatever, I do think faith is something that we really need to work

on. Education or whatever, I think those are essential things.

You know, I do not know if everybody is familiar with Danielle

Steele, she is a novel writer, but her—she just put a book out, her

son, 17 years old died, he was a manic depressive. You know, she

raised nine kids during this process and the whole thing was she

knew there was something wrong, the doctors said no, it is just

growing up, it is part of being a child. For years, this went on and

on and on. You know, finally there was a lady who cared—key

point. I think when we start caring, we start wanting to do something.

I basically came here thinking OK, I am listening, now what can

I do as a citizen. I have never done it, I cannot experience it, you

know. This detail was very graphic and understandable, it helps

me understand. In 1981, I was 20, people said they were smoking

roaches, I thought ‘‘those bugs on the ground?’’ Oh, my God. Yes,

I know—I am still naive about drugs. I have to read about it to understand it. You know, I have never done it.

Some of the things that I saw, you know, that was talked about,

I do not think there is a right or wrong—well, yes, there is a right

and wrong, but I do not think that one person is better than another, I think the money does need to go somewhere, I understand

that. I heard a lot about money, money, money, but you know

what, the bottom line is money does not buy the kids life. You cannot buy happiness.

I read recently, it was very interesting, we prepare for war all

the time, we take money and build weapons, we prepare for war

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on a daily basis. But how do we prepare for peace? You know, that

is a different concept. What would we do.

So how can we help these kids? How can I help these kids, what

can I do as a citizen, you know. I do a lot of volunteer work, I see

the drugs, I see a lot of invalids, people who are left at home—that

is awful, you know, devastating. The world needs help from a lot

of volunteers who care and I think that is where it comes from, is

my heart.

So am I stronger at some point like these people that say compassion? Yes, I believe that too. I do not think money is going to

solve all the problems, I think it will help. You know, I think the

people who are really sincere, it comes from the heart.

That is just a personal point of view, you know. I was encouraged

by this. It was interesting and I learned a lot from it. I would encourage more people to come out and listen; if they care, that is

what they will do. It is just that if you are not immediately involved in it, you do not do it. If you have never done drugs, you

do not understand. I came because I do care and I came asking

what can we do.

Mr. MICA. Thank you and maybe you have gained a little bit of

insight as to what may be done in our community and across the

country.

Sir, you wanted to testify?

STATEMENT OF JOHN PERKINS

Mr. PERKINS. Mr. Chairman, my name is John Perkins.

Mr. MICA. Perkins?

Mr. PERKINS. Yes, sir.

Mr. MICA. Thank you.

Mr. PERKINS. Mr. Chairman, I am a retired police captain from

Tampa, I am also an educator and I know both sides of the

issue——

[Interruption from public address system.]

Mr. MICA. I am sorry, would you start over?

Mr. PERKINS. My name is John Perkins, I am a retired police

captain from Tampa and I am also an educator, head of the—Director of the Police Program at Brevard Community College. So I have

covered both aspects of this.

There is a saying going around that if you arrest a murderer, you

take a murderer off the streets. If you arrest a drug dealer, you

create a job opening. And there are dozens and dozens of drug dealers out there waiting for that corner to open up. So there certainly

needs to be a lot of emphasis on drug enforcement.

But I really think that if you harken back to what most of the

parents have said here today, it is education, the parents did not

know. They do not know what is out there, they do not know what

their children are exposed to. There is emphasis today on the question as to are the PSAs working. Well, if you will notice, most of

the PSAs, the message is parents, talk to your children about

drugs. But what these parents are telling you here today, Congressman, is they do not know what to say to their kids about

drugs. There is no education out there for the parents to intelligently discuss the possibilities of what could happen to them if

they use these drugs.

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As my son—and that is my son up there—as he said earlier,

there are people out there that will talk intelligently to these children about drugs and that is the drug users and that is the drug

dealers. And I think if you put the emphasis on education and

treatment, I think that way you will eliminate the job possibilities

of the drug dealers.

Thank you.

Mr. MICA. Thank you, sir, we appreciate your comments.

We have another lady here. If you could, ma’am, identify yourself

for the record. Thank you.

STATEMENT OF DEBBIE SMITH

Ms. SMITH. My name is Debbie Smith.

Mr. MICA. Did you say Debbie Smith?

Ms. SMITH. Yes.

Mr. MICA. OK, thank you. Just take your time and tell us what

you would like.

Ms. SMITH. I am sorry, my daughter died.

Mr. MICA. You had a daughter that died from a drug overdose?

Ms. SMITH. Two months ago.

Mr. MICA. Two months ago.

Ms. SMITH. I just happened to see the announcement on Channel

2 that this meeting would be today and I told my family, I have

got to come. I brought my sister and I am sitting back here trying

to get my nerve together.

Mr. MICA. Well, we appreciate your coming out and I know how

difficult it must be for you.

Where are you, what city, ma’am?

Ms. SMITH. I live at Ormond Beach.

Mr. MICA. Ormond Beach, and you took the time to come over,

which we appreciate that. We have heard today that almost every

community in central Florida has lost children, young people and

adults to heroin, to cocaine, to other drug abuse. We know how difficult it must be for you and appreciate your coming forward.

Do you have any specific recommendations?

Ms. SMITH. Yes, I do. My daughter, Jacqueline Smith was 24

years old, she was a nurse, she had a house, she had a job. She

fell in with the wrong crowd at a depressed time when her boyfriend left her and within a year she was dead. She lost her house,

she lost her car, she lost everything.

One thing you ought to talk about today and I have not heard,

she was 24, she had no insurance. I could not get her service anywhere, I took her to the State, they sent me from department to

department. I went all over the Justice Center in Daytona Beach

trying to get that girl some kind of service, they said I am sorry,

you are too old, you do not qualify, I am sorry, you do not have a

child. If you were pregnant or if you had a child, we could give you

anything you need. She said do I need to get pregnant? They said

we would prefer you do not. I taught that kid all of her life, I said

you act responsibly about your body and what you do with it.

She went—finally we got her into a treatment center, they would

not give her mental health counseling because the two of them are

not combined together—they should be. I got her to a counseling

program, they would not treat her, they would not talk to her on

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the phone, they sent me back and forth for months before I could

get something coordinated for this kid.

She had a bad moment, she fell off the wagon, she felt she could

not recover herself and she was dead within a week. She had been

coming back, she had been looking forward to the future and just

like was in the video—it is not too graphic, we look at Terminator

II all the time, movies are much worse than that. I have a shirt

in my laundry room that has got blood on it. I never understood

what the blood was from, now I know from the video what exactly

happened to her. I have not gotten my crime scene photos back yet

and she has been dead for months. I cannot get a report from MV,

I cannot get a report from the Sheriff, nobody is going to help me

do anything, I am caught in the middle. I have not found anybody

in Volusia County that can help me as a parent, as a victim or—

what am I? They came to my door and said I am sorry, your daughter is dead, goodbye. They can give you a counselor or a—no, not

a counselor, a preacher, we will be glad to help you. Well, I have

not heard from anybody and it is 2 months, my whole family, we

have been trying to come to grips with the whole thing.

To me, where we are is insane. I keep calling these people saying

why am I caught between you two people, can you not tell me anything? There is nobody, to me, that is helping me coordinate what

has happened to my daughter. They know the people, they know

the situation—it is what was in that video. And she was never

raised that way, to be like that. She fell in with a group that let

her lay there for multiple hours, play the situation out. And they

cannot decide what to put on the death certificate, they do not

know if it was a suicide or it was an actual overdose. I am caught

between the two. That is a fun thing to live with through with the

holidays.

So all I would like to say is I would like somebody in our neck

of the woods, even in the State, to coordinate the mental health

and the drug rehab thing and get it so we can have access to it

over there.

Thank you.

Mr. MICA. I thank you for coming out and I know how difficult

this has been for you personally. I think you have also commented

here today on the need for better coordination and we will look at

that. We heard the same thing from some of the panelists, so we—

our job is to look at what is being done, what is not being done and

then see if we can improve the situation. But there is no question

the incredible impact this scourge has had on so many families and

parents and loved ones in our community.

I do not see any further requests for testimony at this time.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank each and every one

of you who has remained through the full hearing and who have

participated in the hearing, whether in the audience or coming forward today to provide testimony. It is my hope that we can turn

this whole situation around. We have seen in our community the

ravages of illegal narcotics and drug abuse and the need for better

programs, better emphasis, better utilization of our resources and

also making this whole situation public and that is part of the reason for the hearing and one of the reasons that I wanted to start

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here in our own community before we get wound up with the hearings in Washington and across the country.

So again, I thank those who participated, our staff from Washington and others who have been with us.

There being no further business to come before the subcommittee, I hereby adjourn this meeting.

[Whereupon, at 2:53 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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