U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

66–900 CC WASHINGTON : 2000

RESPONDING TO THE DRUG CRISIS IN NORTHERN

CALIFORNIA

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE,

DRUG POLICY, AND HUMAN RESOURCES

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

MARCH 6, 2000

Serial No. 106–156

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

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

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

HELEN CHENOWETH-HAGE, Idaho

DAVID VITTER, Louisiana

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

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

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

KEVIN BINGER, Staff Director

DANIEL R. MOLL, Deputy Staff Director

DAVID A. KASS, Deputy Counsel and Parliamentarian

LISA SMITH ARAFUNE, Chief Clerk

PHIL SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE, DRUG POLICY, AND HUMAN RESOURCES

JOHN L. MICA, Florida, Chairman

BOB BARR, Georgia

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

ASA HUTCHINSON, Arkansas

DOUG OSE, California

DAVID VITTER, Louisiana

PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

JIM TURNER, Texas

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois

EX OFFICIO

DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

SHARON PINKERTON, Staff Director and Chief Counsel

MASON ALINGER, Professional Staff Member

LISA WANDLER, Clerk

CHERRI BRANSON, Minority Counsel

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on March 6, 2000 .............................................................................. 1

Statement of:

Ayala, Dr. Jorge, superintendent, Yolo County Office of Education ............ 10

Bruce, Gilbert, Director, Drug Enforcement Administration, San Francisco, CA ......................................................................................................... 89

Denney, Jim, sheriff, Sutter County, CA ........................................................ 75

Parker, Clay, sheriff, Tehema County, CA ..................................................... 70

Ruppel, Raelyn, El Dorade County resident .................................................. 8

Ruzzamenti, Bull, director, Central California Valley HIDTA ..................... 84

Saunders, Larry, tactical commander of the Narcotics and Gang Division . 47

Scott, McGregor, district attorney, Shasta County ........................................ 63

Seave, Paul, U.S. attorney, Eastern District of California ........................... 106

Shadinger, Gerald, sheriff, Colusa County, CA ............................................. 83

Webber-Brown, Ms., coordinator, Drug-Endangered Children Program ..... 13

Letters, statements, et cetera, submitted for the record by:

Bruce, Gilbert, Director, Drug Enforcement Administration, San Francisco, CA, prepared statement of ................................................................. 93

Denney, Jim, sheriff, Sutter County, CA, prepared statement of ................ 78

Parker, Clay, sheriff, Tehema County, CA, prepared statement of ............. 72

Ruzzamenti, Bull, director, Central California Valley HIDTA, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 85

Scott, McGregor, district attorney, Shasta County, prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 65

Webber-Brown, Ms., coordinator, Drug-Endangered Children Program,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 16

(1)

RESPONDING TO THE DRUG CRISIS IN

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA

MONDAY, MARCH 6, 2000

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE, DRUG POLICY, AND HUMAN RESOURCES, COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM, Woodland, CA.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9 a.m., in the Yolo

County Board Chambers, 625 Court Street, room 206, Woodland,

CA, Hon. John L. Mica (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Mica and Ose.

Also present: Representative Herger.

Staff present: Sharon Pinkerton, staff director and chief counsel;

and Mason Alinger, professional staff member.

Mr. MICA. I would like to call this hearing of this Subcommittee

on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources to order.

Good morning. I am John Mica, chairman of the subcommittee,

which is a subcommittee within the Government Reform Committee of the House of Representatives. We are in California today,

and appearing here with this hearing at the request of Congressman Doug Ose, who is one of the most active members on our subcommittee and the Government Reform Committee, and has been

a leader in attempting to help us develop a strategic and effective

national drug policy.

I was speaking with one of the supervisors just before we began

started today, and he was telling me that this area has had significant problems with illegal narcotics, just like the rest of the country. My area, which is central Florida, has had a record number of

heroin overdose deaths, primarily with the young people.

In fact, a recent headline in our newspaper proclaimed that heroin overdose deaths now exceed homicides in central Florida. And

I know this area has been hit by its own unique problems with illegal narcotics, and hopefully our subcommittee, through Representatives Ose and others’ efforts, can assist us in responding and working with the local and State officials in doing a better job with this

horrible problem.

This is an investigations and oversight subcommittee of the U.S.

House of Representatives. Our format for this hearing will follow

our Washington format. We will have opening statements by Members, and they will be recognized. We then will have today two panels. We will hear from all of the witnesses on the first panel and

then have a round of questions, and then will go to the second

panel and do the same. That will be the order of business today.

2

I will start with my opening statement and then yield to committee members. Our subcommittee is conducting this oversight field

hearing as part of our need to understand fully our Nation’s drug

crisis and how it impacts different parts of our Nation, and what

effective drug control efforts are underway, and which of these

should be supported by Congress.

Today, we will learn about the impact of the manufacture, use

and trafficking of illegal drugs in northern California. We are privileged to have with us today congressional leaders who strongly

support efforts to protect our communities from the ravages of illegal narcotics. As I said, I know that Mr. Ose, who invited us to this

community, and who is a member of our subcommittee, has been

very active in our subcommittee drug control oversight and policy

issues.

We also are very privileged to have with us Mr. Wally Herger.

I believe he is a member of the Ways and Means and Budget Committee of the House of Representatives from the neighboring district just, I believe, north of here. And I want to thank him for his

continued efforts to ensure that the drug problems of north California are efficiently and effectively addressed.

I wish to thank all of the Members and participants for their

presence here today. Mr. Souder has come from Indiana. He is also

a member of our subcommittee. I welcome and thank him. I appreciate your dedication to this issue, which is of critical importance

to our Nation.

We are very honored to have testifying before us today a number

of regional and local officials and citizens who are actively engaged

in responding to the drug crisis and the terrible consequences of

this epidemic on a daily basis. These individuals serve on the front

line. They are preventing drug abuse in our schools and communities. They are enforcing our laws and are most in need of our effective and efficient support in the systems.

This subcommittee is particularly interested in how communities

and regions are dealing with the critical responsibilities of implementing successfully not just the Federal, but our national drug

control strategy. After all, law enforcement and drug control are

primarily State and local responsibilities. In Congress, we try to

ensure that the Federal Government is doing everything possible

to assist you, both in reducing the supply of drugs in our communities as well as the demand for drugs in our communities.

In a recent hearing of the subcommittee, we learned that the estimates of Americans in need of drug treatment range from 4.4 to

8.9 million. Yet, less than 2 million people have reportedly received

treatment. It is our intention to see that this gap is addressed. Our

subcommittee will continue its oversight in this area and seek to

improve our Federal programs that support both State and local

drug treatment prevention efforts.

Today, we are focusing on regional challenges and threats facing

northern California. As we will hear, illegal drug production, use

and trafficking pose special dangers and challenges to schools and

communities and law enforcement and public officials in this area.

This region of California continues to be a primary manufacturing, distribution and consumption area for methamphetamine. But

in the last several years, this area has experienced dramatic inVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:14 Dec 28, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\66900.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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creases in the number and scale of clandestine methamphetamine

manufacturing labs. These labs are operated by multi-drug trafficking organizations we know that are based in Mexico, but which

now infest many areas of California. These organizations tend to

locate their labs and so-called super labs in close proximity to the

State’s precursor chemical supply and also closely located to the

companies that produce this on the major interstate highways including California’s Interstate 5 and Highway 99.

Large scale sophisticated methamphetamine labs are set up long

in advance of use, are well concealed, heavily guarded, and can

produce from 20 to 200 pounds of high purity product per cooking

cycle. In response to this growing methamphetamine problem as

well as continuing problems with a host of other illegal drugs, part

of central California has been designated by the White House National Drug Control Policy as a High Intensity Drug Trafficking

Area, commonly referred to as HIDTA. Under Federal law and either designation by Federal legislation, specific legislation, or

under a general law, an area can request and become part of a

High Intensity Drug Traffic Area, which makes it eligible for substantial Federal assistance and better coordination of antinarcotics

efforts.

Our subcommittee is responsible for authorizing and overseeing

the Office of National Drug Control Policy and the HIDTA Program. Today, we will learn more about the effectiveness of the

neighboring HIDTA, which covers nine counties, including what

progress the HIDTA has made in combating drugs in this area, and

how it may help others in northern California even more.

I applaud the continuing dedication and professionalism of our

witnesses today, and their willingness to share their ideas and

needs with us. I can assure you that this subcommittee and your

local representatives here today will do everything possible to assist you in ridding your communities of these deadly menaces, and

in fact doing everything they can to protect your loved ones.

We all recognize that this drug crisis demands full utilization of

available resources in close cooperation and a comprehensive regional approach. After all, that is what HIDTA’s are designed to do,

and it is our job and responsibility in Congress to monitor and ensure their success. If obstacles are identified, then we must move

decisively to overcome them. This community and this region of

California and this Nation cannot afford to wait or delay. The drug

crisis demands promising approaches and decisive action, and the

time to act is now.

I want to thank all of our witnesses for appearing before us

today, particularly again I thank Mr. Ose for requesting this and

for his tremendous service on our subcommittee, not only as a local

and regional leader in this issue, but a national leader who I have

counted on as a close ally as chair of this subcommittee.

So with those comments, I am pleased now to yield to the gentleman from California, our host here, Mr. Ose.

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First let me express my appreciation to you for coming out here. I know that you have probably endless demands on your time, and for you to take the opportunity to come is something that we all appreciate here in the 3rd

District. Your leadership, as you very briefly covered in your openVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:14 Dec 28, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\66900.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
4

ing remarks, is remarkable. You picked up where Danny Hastert

had ended his service as chairman of this committee, and there has

been no drop in the intensity or continuity. I just want to make

sure that you understand that we all appreciate that.

I also want to make note of the hosts here. We have supervisor,

Tom Stollar, who joined us. The Yolo County’s Bill Oden has been

very kind in letting us convene here. Mayor Woodland is also with

us and Donald Soya is here. I appreciate your great hospitality.

One of Tom’s colleagues is in the back of the room. She is so quiet,

but she gets so much done. That is Lanelle Pollack in the back. So

thank you, all three of you. I also want to make mention of three

other people, a couple of whom will be testifying. We have three

sheriffs with us today. Clay Parker has come all the way down

from Tehema County, in the back. We have Jim Denney from the

Sutter County. And we have someone from Yolo County and Glenn

County in the back also. Gentlemen, I appreciate you guys coming.

I also want to extend my appreciation to Mr. Souder for traveling

all the way from Indiana. Mark is—you don’t see Mark in the

media or in the paper. He just gets stuff done. It is really a pleasure to work with you. And my good friends from the north and

east, the gentlemen who plays the drum for us. That is Congressman Herger. You have some folks from Butte County here, and I

appreciate your taking the time to come down also.

Mr. Chairman, the reason I am focused on this is I am not quite

sure of a more pressing or compelling concern for which people run

for Congress than to try and find some means in bringing a measure of relief to this issue. Each year, drugs kill 15,000 Americans.

That is not our figures. Those are figures from Barry McCaffrey of

the ONDCP, the Office of National Drug Control Policy. 15,000

Americans are really dying of drugs every year. In every community across America, there are drugs. We need to face up to it. They

are destroying our youth and our communities. They are derailing

academic achievement that we all so desperately want for your

children. They are breaking up families and these drugs are contributing to crime.

In this region, the largest problem is methamphetamines. It reflects the excellent transportation corridors we have in the larger

rural areas that are immediately available to some of the cities.

Meth is particularly a dangerous drug with significant disastrous

side effects. Violent crime, domestic and child abuse, and interestingly marked severe environmental damage are just a few of the

impacts that come from the production of methamphetamine. Locally or at least in this area, we have seen the effect of

methamphetamines here in the last few weeks. We had an instance

here—I meant to mention Dale back there, the chief of police here.

We had an instance here in Woodland with a tragic outcome traced

largely to drugs. We have a situation up in Shasta County that I

think Congressman Herger is more familiar with in terms of someone in a position of respect and trust that may be involved in distributing methamphetamines. I won’t even cite the name involved.

Today, I look forward to hearing from our witnesses. I know you

all took time out of a busy day to come down and visit with us. You

all have had first hand experience dealing with the challenges of

drugs amongst our youth and in society. I do appreciate it, because

5

I know how hard it is to come out of your normal regime to come

over here and testify. This is an important hearing and I appreciate you taking the time. With that, I will give it back to the

chairman.

Mr. MICA. I would like to yield to the gentleman from Indiana,

Mr. Souder, at this time.

Mr. SOUDER. I thank the chairman for holding this hearing, one

of the most valuable things we do in this committee and have been

doing over the last number of years. And we were concerned about

the lack of focus in Congress and oversight function on the antidrug issue. Chairman Mica and I have been involved in this, both

as staffers years ago on the Senate side, and then since the Republicans took over the House and he in particular pushed for oversight hearings and getting out into the field. We have been down

in central Florida a number of times and in Dallas, TX after they

had a number of the heroin overdose problems there. Down in

Nogales and Phoenix, on the border there, and basically around the

country as well as the East and the Midwest. It helps not to just

hear and read in the paper in Washington. Congressman Ose and

Congressman Herger are going to aggressively advocate the California interest. But to be here and hear firsthand in more detail.

Furthermore, we are not being buzzed to go running to 18 million

votes and hearings, so we can actually sit through and all be here

to listen and appreciate that. Congressman Ose has not only been

a leader in Washington in making sure that California is heard. He

went with the chairman and myself and some others down to South

America to look firsthand at where the cocaine and much of the

heroin and the hardcore marijuana was coming in. But as he and

I well know, in Indiana the interdiction efforts that have been so

destroyed over the last few years, which is why we saw the surge

in cocaine and heroin purity go up and the price go down—as we

get that up, methamphetamines are our grassroots threat all over

this country because it is something that can be done domestically.

Wherever you have national forests or wherever you have a lot of

open land, it is very easy to get the labs that produce and send to

the rest of the country. So it is good to be here focusing on that.

We also know that wherever you have HIDTA, that while the

focus is intense there, it spreads to the areas around that. In the

Midwest, I have Chicago and Detroit on each side and the more

pressure you put there, the more it squeezes out the counties

around that don’t necessarily have the manpower or the intensity

that you would have right in the heart of the HIDTA, and we have

to figure out how to not have it corrupt all the youth and the communities around it as well. So we are looking at hearing that impact here.

I also want to pay tribute to Congressman Herger, who thought

I was a little too conservative when I came to Congress, so he tried

to make me a little bit more moderate. But I really appreciate his

conservative Republican leadership in Washington in making our

conference. We work not only on the anti-drug issue, but a lot of

other issues of very much concern to the West. He has been one

of the leaders in our conference in trying to make us more aware

and more sensitive to Western concerns, and we appreciate that

very much.

6

Mr. MICA. Thank you. Now I would like to recognize a gentleman

who is not a member of our subcommittee, but we are delighted to

have him here today. He has been a leader on this issue in the

Congress and a very good personal friend.

Mr. Herger, you are recognized.

Mr. HERGER. Chairman Mica, I want to join in thanking you for

leaving your Florida district and coming out—— Mr. MICA. Where it is much warmer and sunnier.

Mr. HERGER. But coming here and having this hearing on this

incredibly and crucially important issue to those of us who live

here in northern California. Congressman Souder, I am not sure if

I ever thought you were too conservative. Actually, I think you

voted just right. But I thank you for your leadership, and again

journeying out here from Indiana. We are all very grateful to you.

And of course to my very good friend and colleague and my neighbor, Congressman Doug Ose, thank you. You are, of course, the one

who talked to Chairman Mica and persuaded him to have this important hearing here which is so important to all of us here in

northern California. Thank you very much.

I, as many of you may know, represent 10 rural counties in

northern California directly north of here that border the Nevada

and Oregon border basically from Marysville, Grass Valley north.

And we would like to think that our beautiful, pristine communities in northern California did not have a problem with narcotics

or with illegal drugs, and specifically with methamphetamine,

which happens to be the drug of choice in our area. We wish that

were not the case. The fact is that it is. And one of the most important reasons that it is so important to be having this hearing, this

congressional hearing here, is to make people aware of just how serious this problem is even in our own beautiful, rural, pristine communities. This is not just a problem of the inner city. It is not just

a problem of Los Angeles, New York, Chicago. This is a problem

even here in northern California. So I want to thank each of you,

particularly those who have come out from our counties here just

to the north, to help not only this committee, which ultimately will

give recommendations on hopefully expanding the HIDTA Program

into our other areas here in northern California, but also to the

Congress and also to our own communities of how serious this challenge is. So that we can all begin more working together unitedly

to take this incredible problem—take the bull by the horns and

begin to turn it around.

So with that, again I thank you, and I look forward to our witnesses and to the hearing.

Mr. MICA. Thank you for your opening statement and comments

from all of our Members this morning. We are going to turn now

to our first panel of witnesses. The first panel is Ms. Raelyn

Ruppel. She is an El Dorado County resident. Dr. Jorge Ayala, superintendent of the Yolo County Office of Education. Ms. Susan

Webber-Brown, coordinator of the Drug-Endangered Children Program. And we have—is it Lieutenant Larry Saunders?

Mr. SAUNDERS. Yes.

Mr. MICA. And he is the tactical commander of the Narcotics

Gang Division. In a minute, I will yield to our members for introduction of these individuals.

7

Ladies and gentlemen, this is an investigations and oversight

subcommittee of Congress. In that capacity and for that responsibility, we do swear in all of our witnesses. So if you would please

stand at this point. Please stand and be sworn. Raise your right

hands.

Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you are about to give

before this subcommittee of Congress is the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

Witnesses answered in the affirmative.

I might also point out in addition to swearing our witnesses as

an investigative panel, we do have a procedural method that we

follow in conducting these hearings. We allow you approximately 5

minutes for your oral presentation. Upon request, we will by unanimous consent submit for the record, and it will be part of the

record in this congressional hearing, additional lengthy statement

and background material or data that you think is pertinent to the

hearing today. So that is how we will proceed as we begin. We will

also suspend questions until all of you have given your opening 5-

minute verbal testimony to this subcommittee.

At this point, for the purpose of introduction, let me yield to my

colleague, Mr. Ose. I think he is going to have some comments of

introduction on the witnesses. Mr. Ose?

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am a little curious about

something. I saw a group of young people come in here. Is there

a high school civics class in the room? Welcome. I saw some sitting

here along the wall. I am very pleased to have you before our subcommittee today, particularly the students. Hopefully, this will be

a good experience to see how the government does operate. Thank

you for coming.

First of all, I want to introduce Raelyn Ruppel, who is a former

user of some of the material we are going to be talking about. I

want to make sure she understands that we appreciate the challenge that you faced up to, and we welcome you today.

Dr. Ayala has been a good friend. He is the superintendent of

Yolo County Office of Education. He and I have visited a couple of

schools together and had the opportunity to interact with young

people across this history. He is responsible and has oversight—it

is interesting, everybody has got oversight here. We have oversight

at the national level. Dr. Ayala has oversight in terms of the county school districts as well as the—you are involved with the Drug

Court Program too, if I am correct.

Dr. AYALA. To some degree.

Mr. OSE. Ms. Webber-Brown has come down from Butte County,

if I am correct.

Ms. WEBBER-BROWN. That is correct.

Mr. OSE. She is actually a constituent of Wally’s. I am kind of

stealing your thunder here, Wally. She has some very striking testimony, if you will, about the impact of drugs on young children in

particular. You have a video you are going to share with us?

Ms. WEBBER-BROWN. Hopefully someone has it here.

Mr. OSE. OK. And the program that she runs, the Drug Endangered Children’s Program, provides a comprehensive system to help

children who are basically existing within a drug environment. She

coordinates with law enforcement at both the State and local level,

8

interacting with District Attorneys and fire departments and social

service agencies. So we certainly appreciate your coming.

My good friend Lieutenant Saunders from Sacramento. I cannot

say enough—I mean, I want to make sure I explain this correctly.

My interaction with the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department

has been remarkable. These are the people who put their lives on

the line every day. They go into situations to try and cure a problem that you and I would more than likely shrink from, and they

do it day after day after day. Lieutenant Saunders and his people

in the Narcotics Bureau are just doing a remarkable job, and I certainly appreciate it. I may have told you that Sheriff Blanas, who

is on his way—I don’t see him in the crowd. When he gets here I

want to—if he is able to join us, I want to make sure I recognize

him too. So, Larry, thank you.

Mr. SAUNDERS. Thank you.

Mr. OSE. With that, Mr. Chairman, I will give it back to you.

Mr. MICA. Thank you for the introductions. I would now like to

recognize our first witness this morning, and that is Ms. Raelyn

Ruppel, a resident of El Dorado County. Welcome.

STATEMENT OF RAELYN RUPPEL, EL DORADE COUNTY

RESIDENT

Ms. RUPPEL. Hi. My name is Raelyn Ruppel, and I am 19 years

old. I have been in recovery since February of—— Mr. MICA. Ms. Ruppel, you might pull that microphone just a little bit in your direction. Thank you so much.

Ms. RUPPEL. I have been in recovery since February 1997. I am

16 months clean and sober. I started drinking in eighth grade

when I was 13 years old. Alcohol was easy to get, because I stole

it either from my parents or from my friends’ parents. I had older

friends who would also buy it for me. I could also buy it from the

liquor store off Madison Avenue in Orangevale. They never asked

for ID from anyone.

I got into drugs in my junior year at Oakridge High School in

El Dorado Hills. I smoked pot and did acid a few times. I could get

drugs every day at any time. I bought it at school on a daily basis

from people I knew who dealt. It was incredibly easy to buy drugs

at Oakridge. Just look around the quad, find the guy, walk over

and hand him money, and he slips you a bag.

Smoking weed became an everyday occurrence for me very quickly.

I started getting in trouble from school authorities and from my

parents on a regular basis. I also started getting incredibly depressed, to the point of being suicidal. My parents started sending

me to a therapist and they got my school counselor involved because at this point I was failing my junior year. I was diagnosed

as being clinically depressed. I was prescribed Prozac and started

taking that on top of all the drugs and alcohol I was already consuming.

I was put into a special program at school for emotionally disturbed kids, and this enabled me to get rid of a bunch of detentions

and Saturday schools that I had accumulated. I was able to change

my classes into easier ones and erase all of my failing grades.

Being labeled as clinically depressed, I had an excuse for all of my

9

out-of-control behavior. I never related what was happening in my

life to my drug use. Nobody knew about my drug use, and they

never pushed the issue because we had an answer to the problem.

I had clinical depression.

I kept doing drugs and I kept getting worse. One day, I tried to

commit suicide. A friend called the cops and I was taken to Heritage Oaks Mental Hospital in Sacramento. There, I was diagnosed

as being bipolar. My parents transferred me from there to a rehab

in San Diego called Vista. It was there that I was introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous. I stayed in that

rehab for about 21⁄2 months. I turned 17 there. I came home and

went to AA and 4 months later I relapsed. I had known some people in AA who had gone to treatment at this place called the Messenger Clinic. I decided to go there because I knew I needed something more than just AA and NA. My parents paid for it, and I

went for 2 years from September 1997 until I graduated in August

1999. I went 4 nights a week for 3 hours a night, Monday through

Thursday.

The director of the clinic, Tom Hills, suggested that I might not

be bipolar. He urged me and my parents to get me off all the medications I had been taking. I got off all the medications I was taking

and I was fine. I was misdiagnosed as being bipolar. I did not have

that disease at all. The bottom line is I am just a drug addict. I

had been taking all sorts of medications that I never needed. I have

seen this a lot in addicts and alcoholics being diagnosed with mental disorders that they do not have, all because society would rather have someone be bipolar or have depression than be addicted to

crank or heroin or marijuana. It is more socially accepted.

I had been at the clinic for 61⁄2 months when I relapsed again.

I relapsed with a friend of mine that was also attending the clinic.

This time I started doing crank. Crank was also easy to get. My

friend had friends who dealt it. One phone call and about 30 minutes to an hour later and we would have a sack. I could get it

whenever and as much as I wanted. It was so easy that one time

my friend and I were calling our dealer from a pay phone in Roseville and this guy overheard us talking about drugs. He asked us

if we were looking for coke, and I said, no, crank. He told me he

knew a house where they sold it and he got in my car and took

us there. I bought $100 worth of crank that night.

My friend and I ran away that night and went to Bakersfield. My

friend used to live there and she had a few connections down there.

Not knowing the town, I could still just as easily as if I were at

home get drugs. Anything I wanted from pot to prescription pills

to acid to heroin I could get. I stayed down there for a week and

came back home. I got back into the clinic in recovery.

I relapsed one more time, 61⁄2 months later. This time I started

doing coke. A friend of mine knew some coke dealers and we

dropped by their house and got hooked up. Coke was as easy to get

as any of the other drugs I had ever done. Another example of the

accessibility teenagers have to get alcohol is this. One night, my

friend and I drove to a bar and my friend talked to some guy who

was totally drunk and told him we would give him a couple of

beers if he would come with us to 7–11 and buy us alcohol. The

guy got in the car, we drove to 7–11 and he bought us a couple of

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12 packs. We gave him two beers and drove him back to the bar

and we were set for the night.

About a week later, I got back in recovery and have been clean

and sober ever since. That was October 24, 1998. I was able to get

treatment for my disease pretty easily. I had parents who were

willing to pay for it. It is not that easy for a lot of people. I mean,

there are quite a few treatment facilities in the Sacramento area,

but only a handful that are really good. But they all cost a lot of

money. If you do not have money or health insurance that will

cover it, you have only one resource, AA and NA. Don’t get me

wrong, AA will work. But the thing is, I am a chronic relapser. I

needed more of a strong foundation and intensive treatment than

AA has to offer. AA is what I do to stay sober now, but the Messenger Clinic is what gave me my foundation.

Staying in recovery is not always an easy thing. I have had a

pretty difficult life for the last 16 months. I had two roommates

who went back to using while they were living with me, and I

ended up having to kick them out. My mom was diagnosed with

cancer a little over 2 years ago, and 2 months ago she passed away.

I have stayed sober through her being very sick and her dying. Recovery has been the best thing that has ever happened to me and

the greatest accomplishment. Many addicts and alcoholics do not

make it. They die out there. I just happen to be one of the chosen

ones. Thank you.

Mr. MICA. Thank you for your testimony, Ms. Ruppel. I would

like to now turn to Dr. Jorge Ayala, who is superintendent of the

Yolo County Office of Education. Welcome and you are recognized.

STATEMENT OF DR. JORGE AYALA, SUPERINTENDENT, YOLO

COUNTY OFFICE OF EDUCATION

Mr. AYALA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to address this congressional

field hearing on drug trafficking, interdiction efforts and efforts to

reduce drug abuse among teenagers. On behalf of the Yolo County

Office of Education and the Education System in Yolo County, I

want to welcome you to our community and to thank you for your

commitment to and interest in this subject of primary importance

to all of us.

As a lifelong educator, teacher, vice principal and principal and

now superintendent, I will focus my remarks on drug use among

the young. With more than 20 years of experience in our public

schools, I have seen firsthand the damaging effects of drugs and alcohol abuse among our young people.

Two factors have remained constant. Drug use among youth as

a trend has not significantly diminished despite the good intentions

and funding of any number of programs. If anything, the problem

has become worse. And two, the deleterious impact on the lives of

young people and their families has proven time and time again to

be damaging, destructive and at times deadly. Studies on domestic

violence, teen suicide and juvenile crime draw parallel conclusions.

Ironically and sadly, our Nation mourns the death of one young

first grader in a related situation in Michigan. One lost her life and

the other is scarred for life.

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I will summarize in three sentences what I am going to speak

about. We need to have comprehensive and sustained programs

that address the child’s developmental stages, culture and gender.

Programs that are monitored for continuity and connectivity that

incorporate the family. Drug and alcohol abuse and use are most

often symptoms of deeper problems rooted in a lack of self esteem,

dysfunctional family environments, peer group influence, and inappropriate societal pressures, including the mass media. Because of

the clear relationship between drug and alcohol abuse and other

factors in a child’s life, it is essential to select methods of prevention, intervention and treatment that are holistic in nature and

provide a child with tools necessary to resist destructive impulses

and behaviors. Part of the selection process should be to mesh prevention and treatment agencies and strategies with development

stages, culture and gender of a child.

The DARE Program, which is Drug Abuse Resistance Education,

is primarily in the elementary level. Beyond the elementary level,

there is a patchwork of different programs that are available within Yolo County through the State.

But consider some of the evidence. Teen focus groups in Yolo

County recently identified drug and alcohol abuse as the greatest

problem facing local youth. A local Healthstart grant survey recently identified drug and alcohol programs for teens as a primary

issue. The California Safe Schools Assessment recently published

by the California Department of Education demonstrates the correlation between substance abuse and age.

But what about our adolescents? What happens after the primary grades? We have State of California requirements which are

providing different programs to bring drug awareness to ninth

grade primarily. Beyond that, we have a hodgepodge of different

programs. We have the Friday Night Live Program, which has suffered from erratic program quality and is now almost non-existent.

We have Every Fifteen Minutes by the California Highway Patrol

which focuses primarily on teenage drinking and driving.

Youth in Conflict courses at Woodland High School are voluntary. Woodland Reaching Out and Karing, called WROK locally,

is an excellent program, but it is small in nature, 130 students per

year. It does bring in the family, which is important to any drug

rehabilitation. The counselor has found that when kids suffer severe and direct penalties from their first offense and subsequent

interventions, this can significantly have positive results reaching

nearly a 90 percent success rate. However, the same counselor reports that increases in drug referrals have been paced by increases

in the tolerance level of such behaviors. Amazingly, much of the

tolerance resides in the child’s home atmosphere, where parents

often look the other way as the child indulges in alcohol and other

drug use. This lack of support undermines programs in schools.

Zero tolerance policies at school are often marred with inconsistencies and lack of alternatives for behavior changes.

We do have at the Yolo County Office of Education, in conjunction with the courts here in Yolo County, the Drug Court Program,

in which students are directed to take specific courses in drug prevention. We have the Yolo Youth Academy, which is a partnership

with the National Guard in which students participate in a variety

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of different activities, not necessarily directed to drug prevention.

We are able to connect with youth.

There is a multitude of remaining programs that exist, a patchwork in fashion. Tracking their success rate is difficult because

there is no logical interface between them and school, and there appears to be virtually no outreach that is conducted in a systematic

fashion for teens.

Minority youth are disproportionately the majority in alternative

schools, handed harsher sentences and dealt different consequences

for the same offenses, meaning the school and community systems

are not reaching these youth.

There are community service programs. The Woodland Police Department has a diversion program which is in place today.

Recommendations. I have 14 listed in my document. I am not

going to go over the 14, but I would like to highlight 3.

Bring into the home prevention strategies and emphasize the

need for everyone in the family to avoid substance abuse. Rely on

comprehensive approaches that recognize the interrelationship between substance abuse and other issues in the child’s family. Effective methods would include a combination of information, skill development, community service, an emphasis on academic progress

and achievement, mentoring, intervention and counseling.

There is a use of overlap of approaches. Universal, those that

reach the general population. Selective, those that specifically target at-risk kids. Indicated, those that are designed for youth already engaged in substance abuse or indulging in risky behavior.

Obviously, any approach or initiative will take a sustainable

commitment of time and dollars to be truly effective. Where we

spend our money dictates our priorities. Fortunately, in this chaotic

sea of modern life, there are many children who acquire the resiliency characteristics that allow them to wedge through these complexities into healthy, balanced and successful adulthood. What are

these characteristics and how can we capitalize on the influence?

We do have that knowledge. Creative, relevant and safe structures

are needed to connect with all youth, especially the high risk children. Strategies must be flexible and have high and doable expectations. We must generate results from a small to large scale. We

must apply some intensive services with differentiated approaches

tailored to the child’s strengths and needs.

We know what doesn’t work. We have scientific knowledge for

what can work. By working together, we can make real progress

on an issue that should be foremost on our national agenda. If children are our greatest asset, then why is the funding not there to

save them. I encourage you to act in the interest of our youth, in

the interest of our families, and in the interest of our Nation.

Thank you.

Mr. MICA. Thank you for your testimony.

Now I would like to recognize Ms. Susan Webber-Brown, the coordinator for the Drug Endangered Children Program. Welcome

and you are recognized.

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STATEMENT OF MS. WEBBER-BROWN, COORDINATOR, DRUGENDANGERED CHILDREN PROGRAM

Ms. WEBBER-BROWN. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me to

speak at this very important hearing. I have been a DA investigator for 17 years, for the past 9 years on a special assignment as

a detective with the Butte Interagency Narcotics Task Force. During this time, I have participated in over 200 meth labs investigations and arrested hundreds of persons for meth related violations.

This testimony is a summary of the detailed statement you have

before you.

You have very knowledgeable experts here today who will each

tell you of the methamphetamine plague in the North State. They

will say it is an insidious drug that is taking over the country.

They will state that over 80 percent of the crime rate involves

methamphetamine, and there are thousands of users, distributors

and manufacturers who go undetected or who repeat a criminal behavior upon release from jail, and they are right.

What I am here to talk to you about are the children, from newborn to teens, who have been lost in this country’s drug epidemic.

In particular, I am speaking of the children that are found by law

enforcement at the scene of a drug house or meth lab who have

never been recognized as the true victims of this drug war. For

years, children have been overlooked as victims and simply discarded as an inconvenience to deal with. Generally when law enforcement were at the scene of a drug raid and children were discovered, they would simply be viewed as a hindrance by those officer attempting to deal with arresting and incarcerating their parents. It was and still is to a great degree easier for the officers to

give the children to a neighbor, relative or friend.

When first assigned to the task force, I would see children living

in homes with drugs and needles and syringes lying about, no food

in the house, dog feces everywhere, and oftentimes numerous containers of hazardous chemicals used in the manufacturing of methamphetamine. All over the State, children who are virtually eating,

sleeping and playing in a meth lab are left unattended with no concern for their medical or psychological needs. No risk assessment

is done.

In 1993, the Butte Interagency Narcotics Task Force took a bold

step forward in dealing with children from drug homes and labs.

As a matter of protocol, we started a program which was later

named the D.E.C. Program for Drug Endangered Children. This is

a multi-agency team to ensure the safety and well-being of drugendangered children. Simply, the narcotics unit has a CPS worker

and part-time deputy district attorney assigned to the team.

In a county where the seizure of meth labs has increased from

23 labs in 1993 to 45 labs seized in 1999, per capita we rank each

year in the top three counties statewide for lab seizures. Of the

more than 601 children we have detained, 162 of those children

were removed from meth labs. In November 1994, we began obtaining urine screens obtained on all children detained from drug

homes; 14 children tested positive for methamphetamine during an

18-month time period; 8 of those kids, and the remaining 6 were

from secondhand meth smoke.

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From the start of the D.E.C. Program, our goals have been to

rescue children from unsafe environments, improve the safety and

health of drug-exposed children by providing appropriate services,

hold parents accountable for their actions, improve the community

response to these children, and establish a consistent response

from law enforcement and Social Services. With the exception of

Butte County, the concept of children as victims of the methamphetamine epidemic was not addressed until 1997, when the Office of Criminal Justice and Planning issued grants to four counties

to implement the D.E.C. Program modeled after Butte. In May

1999, three additional counties were funded for a total of seven

funded D.E.C. response teams. They are Butte, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Diego, San Bernadino and Shasta. And of particular note, these grant funds enable one team in each county to

work D.E.C. cases, but those funds are not sufficient to adequately

address the problem. And these grant funds terminate September

30, 2000, this year, with no anticipated continued funding.

The life of a drug-endangered child, of the 600 children’s names

and faces that I have seen, all are different. But each story is the

same. One would think that 9 years later with hundreds of suspects arrested and countless doors kicked in and the writing of

thousands of reports that I would grow callous. But upon entering

the bad guy’s house again and seeing those small round innocent

eyes look up at me saying finally someone came to save me, I turn

to marshmallow. I don’t have to make up stories or use the same

photographs or tell the worst of the worst. They are all bad. The

yard is covered with garbage, old bicycles, toys and rusted car

parts. Three or four dogs run into the house or aggressively approach. Inside, the house is dark with no electricity. The stench of

rotten food, animal urine and feces and soiled diapers permeate the

house. Chemical odors irritate my nose and eyes. We fumble down

hallways and bedrooms, stepping on filthy clothes and debris. The

children are startled when a flashlight shines their way. They are

sleeping on soiled mattresses with no sheets or blankets. They

slept in their clothes for the third day in a row, haven’t had a bath

in days and can’t remember when they last ate. They rarely attend

school due to lice infestations, and cockroaches have become their

pets. The children draw pictures for me of mommy’s methamphetamine pipe and show me bruises where mom’s boyfriend hit them.

The oldest child comforts the oldest sibling and is obviously trying

to parent. None of the kids cry or for that matter show any emotion

at all. They exhibit a classic attachment disorder. Methamphetamine packages and small clear baggies are lying on a corner table

next to a methamphetamine pipe with residue and scales. The oldest girl asks if she can take a bath and wash her hair when she

gets to a new home. She starts to cry when she asks if her brother

and sisters can all be placed together. Because of their environment and drug exposure, these children have learning disabilities,

are behind in school, are laughed at and ridiculed because of their

appearances, and they are the school dropouts, drug and alcohol

users, physical abusers, and most have lifelong problems. This is

learned behavior. It will be repeated behavior and it will produce

our future felons if we don’t make a difference in their lives. The

problems are society-based now, but often stem from influences

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from the home. Children’s struggles in schools often stem from

problems in the home. Where parents spread their criminal conduct into the lives of their children, the parents conduct must be

addressed as would any other crime. Whether it is use, sales or

manufacturing, methamphetamine destroys children’s lives, future

and health. Children living with methamphetamine users and

cooks cannot compete in school, are inhibited socially and learn

criminal behavior. To improve their chances, intervention must

occur. Cooperate efforts from law enforcement, CPS and prosecution protects the welfare of these children while ensuring public

safety and benefit the community as a whole.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Webber-Brown follows:]

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Mr. MICA. Thank you for your testimony. I would like to recognize our last witness on this panel, Lieutenant Larry Saunders,

who is the tactical commander of the Narcotics and Gang Division.

Welcome, you are recognized, sir.

STATEMENT OF LARRY SAUNDERS, TACTICAL COMMANDER

OF THE NARCOTICS AND GANG DIVISION

Mr. SAUNDERS. Thank you, Chairman. We at the Sacramento

County Sheriff’s Department are committed to do whatever is necessary to reduce the effects illicit drugs have on our communities.

We see on a daily basis that manufacturing and trafficking in these

substances increases crimes in our communities and pose a great

risk to our youth.

I have personally and professionally witnessed the tragic effects

of methamphetamine. As the tactical commander for our agency, a

large percent of our squad and the hostage negotiator call-outs that

we respond to involve the use of drugs, mostly methamphetamine.

Many of the suspects involved in these crises are in fact under the

influence of illicit drugs, mostly methamphetamine. Many times

these call-outs involve children who are being subjected to violent

behavior that the suspects display during these type of situations.

Sometimes the children are used as hostages as these drug users

try to escape capture. We have seen too many children seriously

hurt and killed by people under the influence of illicit drugs.

It is only through prevention, education and aggressive, no-tolerance policies in our communities that we can be successful in our

efforts.

The Sheriff’s Department is happy to be the lead agency in a

Central Valley HIDTA team. This team named SAINT, for the Sacramento Area Intelligence Narcotics Task Force, will concentrate

their efforts on identifying methamphetamine and other drug traffickers and trafficking organizations. They will then pass along

that intelligence in a partnership with other local investigative

teams.

This past weekend, the SAINT HIDTA team did exactly that, resulting in the disruption of a major methamphetamine operation in

Sacramento County. The results were the confiscation of 13 pounds

of methamphetamine, $55,000 in cash, numerous weapons and the

arrest of at least five suspects. We are encouraged by this operation and look forward to the HIDTA Program as a viable method

to stem the transportation and distribution of illicit drugs into the

Central Valley. An expansion of the HIDTA program further north

would be an asset to the Central Valley if additional funding could

be appropriated. I encourage all of you to explore this option.

Along with the HIDTA Program, the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department and the Board of Supervisors of Sacramento County has instituted three outstanding and effective programs in an effort to forge positive ties with our youth in several areas.

The first program is the School Resource Officers Program. These

officers work on the high school campuses Monday through Friday

in a non-traditional law enforcement method. They mentor students, form positive relations with staff and school children.

The second program is the Youth Services Officers that we have.

They are assigned to the patrol districts and work in concert with

48

the School Resource Officers on matters such as truancy, child

abuse, and other issues that contribute to the kids’ failure to attend school.

Training for both these programs involves at least a 40-hour

comprehensive course with emphasis on interacting with students.

Our third program that we have that is very effective is the

State Schools Program. The Sacramento Sheriff’s Department has

enjoyed a longstanding relationship with the San Juan Unified

School District to provide traditional law enforcement to all respective campuses in the San Juan District in grades K through 12. All

programs emphasis a ‘‘no tolerance’’ policy involving drugs and alcohol on campus.

We look forward to this cooperative effort to make our communities a safer place in which to live. Thank you.

Mr. MICA. Thank you. We have a video I think that was going

to be played now by Ms. Webber-Brown. Without objection, we will

play that and also make a transcript of that a part of the record.

So ordered.

Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, if I might interrupt here for a moment.

There are a couple of distinguished visitors from—— Mr. MICA. Let me go ahead and play the tape first and then we

will make the introductions.

Mr. OSE. OK. Sure.

Mr. MICA. Thank you.

[Video tape is played.]

Mr. MICA. Thank you. I would like to now recognize Mr. Herger

for the purpose of an introduction.

Mr. HERGER. I would like to recognize several that are in the audience. One that will be on our next panel, our district attorney

from Shasta County, Mr. McGregor Scott, who has been a leader

on working in this area in Shasta County in the northern area.

And also we have a Sheriff from Siskiyou County, which is up on

the Oregon border, Sheriff Charlie Byrd in the far back. Charlie,

if you would raise your hand up real high. Anyway, thank you both

for being here. I am sure there are other constituents from our district. I am sorry, I am not recognizing you, but I want to thank all

of you for being here at this very important hearing. Thank you,

Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MICA. Thank you. I’d like to begin our first round of questions. I might say again for the witnesses, this is—maybe you have

seen how we operate on C–Span in a congressional Hearing. But

the purpose of this hearing, again, is to come out into this community and this area of our country and try to gain from you some

insight as to the programs that we have at the Federal effort, our

efforts, and how effective they are and how they can be improved.

So that is the purpose of the hearing. Then take this back and try

as an oversight and investigations subcommittee of Congress to see

that those positive changes are made.

With that in mind, first of all Congress is now spending some- where in the neighborhood of $1 billion on a media education program. Ms. Ruppel, have you seen any of those ads that we have

on television or radio or newspaper?

Ms. RUPPEL. For the methamphetamine abuse?

Mr. MICA. Well, any anti-drug abuse?

49

Ms. RUPPEL. Yes, I have.

Mr. MICA. You have. What is your opinion of them? Be honest

and candid. This is important to us.

Ms. RUPPEL. They are striking, but I don’t think that people——

Mr. MICA. Would they make any difference?

Ms. RUPPEL. Well, the people that are using drugs, I don’t think

that you can scare them out of it. You know? So I don’t know if

they are necessarily making a difference to people who are already

using methamphetamines.

Mr. MICA. You testified that you—and I think your words were

that there were a handful of good programs, treatment programs?

Ms. RUPPEL. There are a handful of good treatment programs.

Mr. MICA. How would you determine what is—one of the things

is that we have basically doubled the amount of money in treatment in the last 6 or 7 years. We are spending more than $3.2 billion on treatment programs just from the Federal level, and we are

not certain what works and what doesn’t. In your estimation, what

works and what doesn’t? What are the good programs that you

have seen?

Ms. RUPPEL. There are, I believe, in-patient programs, 28-day to

3-month programs around the area that seem to be helping people

out.

Mr. MICA. Did you experience private and public programs or

just public operated? Both?

Mr. MICA. AA and NA are public, I believe. The outpatient place

I went to is privately owned, but it was a very well run outpatient

program.

Mr. MICA. Which is the most effective for you?

Ms. RUPPEL. I needed both. I needed both.

Mr. MICA. And how would you describe any of the programs that

aren’t effective?

Ms. RUPPEL. I was living in a halfway house kind of transitional

living called the Madison House. It was for people who were in recovery. A lot of parolees lived there. And this place didn’t have any

rules. It didn’t have any rules. It didn’t have the funding that it

needed to have in place so that drugs were coming in and out of

there on a daily basis. It was supposed to be the place where I was

supposed to live in a safe environment, and it wasn’t. You know,

there are a couple of different transitional living places like that

in the Sacramento area.

Mr. MICA. Thank you. Dr. Ayala, you mentioned the two 6-yearolds, one a victim, that we read so much about last week. From the

information I have received, that 6-year-old that found the gun

came from a split home. The father, I think, was in jail. And the

living conditions were appalling. It was also, I guess, the site of a

crack house. We just saw a very vivid portrayal of a 4-year-old

being scalded to death through the violence of a methamphetamine

situation. And you testified that the family—we have to have comprehensive programs for the family. I know you are a public educator, but how in heaven’s name do we turn this thing around where

these young people—this witness has testified that there were 600

children you dealt with. In what geographic area is that?

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Ms. WEBBER-BROWN. That is just in Butte County. That is just

by seven agents that are assigned to the task force. It doesn’t even

encompass the entire county.

Mr. MICA. With those figures for one area, and we see conditions

that these children come out of, how in heaven’s name does a local

school district or State government or Federal Government deal

with the deterioration of family to that degree?

Mr. AYALA. It is a very complex question, and one that I don’t

have one answer to. But I do strongly feel the family needs to be

included in any type of drug prevention rehabilitation program. As

Ms. Ruppel said earlier, her family was involved. I think it is important that when we do create programs that a unit within those

programs is incorporated dealing with family and educating family,

not only on drug abuse but also how to understand and how to

communicate with their children. You mentioned earlier the TV

ads or the media ads. I think they address adults more than they

address children. Children look at them and see that the adult is

not reacting to the media message that is there and pretty much

ignores it. I think what we need to have is a community-based program that reaches out to the parents. It is only a beginning with

the DARE program in the elementary schools. But the stressful situations for children are beyond the elementary into adolescents

when they are trying things out and experimenting. The support

system kind of fades in the transition from elementary to middle

school. And you can see the trend increasing in drug use as they

go up the grades. I think we should not drop the ball. I think we

need to have programs that do address children at every level.

When I say comprehensive, I don’t mean just drug-oriented programs. I also mean community-based programs where activities

that are diversions to drug use are created. There is a connectivity

with the community. They could be teen centers. They could be activities that are provided by the community with an emphasis on

having the family and the child communicate.

Mr. MICA. As a superintendent with education responsibilities, I

think you are aware that we have tried to turn this situation

around at the Federal level, where we have mandated and regulated so much that very little money actually got to the classrooms

and the student and the teacher. We do have problems, I think,

with the new majority in mandating additional programs. If we

gave funds, additional funds, which is probably the best thing we

can do to States; we are trying to get away from providing a lot

of strings attached. What assurance do we have that this money

will ever reach the local level for these programs that you talk

about to avoid the patchwork approach?

Mr. AYALA. I think there needs to be an agreement to how the

program is to be assessed between the local entity and the government. And there needs to be some dialog about what the community consists of and the issues within the community. I think that

needs to be tailored to the community versus a one-program-fitsall that this government wants to provide. Accountability is a key

factor. Once the agreement is made, then there needs to be a measurement. What is the results? What is the impact on the children?

What is the impact within the home and in the community?

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Mr. MICA. Ms. Webber-Brown and Lieutenant Saunders, it appears that this region has a serious meth epidemic. From what you

have described, we are looking at a very serious situation here, is

that correct?

Mr. SAUNDERS. That is correct.

Ms. WEBBER-BROWN. Yes, that is correct.

Mr. MICA. And I am not sure of the geographic area of the current HIDTA. I know Mr. Herger and Mr. Ose have talked about expanding that into this area. What do we have, about nine counties

currently in the HIDTA?

Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, there are eight or nine counties, the

northern most of which is Sacramental County. There are no counties north of Sacramento that are presently included in the Central

Valley area.

Mr. MICA. Both of you would support expansion of the HIDTA to

include the areas to the north?

Ms. WEBBER-BROWN. Yes.

Mr. MICA. What type of money does the current HIDTA get?

Lieutenant Saunders, are you aware?

Mr. SAUNDERS. I believe it is between $1.2 and $1.6 million. And

I feel that to increase the counties north, which I definitely support, I think would take more appropriations than we currently

have.

Mr. MICA. I heard someone, and I am not sure—I was trying to

look through my notes—80 percent of the crime is meth-related.

Was that you, Ms. Webber-Brown?

Ms. WEBBER-BROWN. Yes, that is correct.

Mr. MICA. Is that 80 percent of the crime—where, in this region

or country or what?

Ms. WEBBER-BROWN. In Butte County.

Mr. MICA. In one county?

Ms. WEBBER-BROWN. In Butte County. As well 90 percent of the

referrals that come into Children’s Services Division in reference to

children with general neglect issues are drug-related, specifically

methamphetamines related.

Mr. MICA. That is an astounding figure.

Ms. WEBBER-BROWN. It is astounding.

Mr. MICA. Well, I have no further questions at this time. Mr.

Ose, you are recognized.

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Raelyn, I want to come back

to your testimony. I have two specific questions that I need to ask

from you. As a parent—if we look around this room, there are a

lot of parents here. How do we help our kids when they are moving

from elementary to middle school and from middle to high school

and they are asked, ‘‘Do you want a joint’’ or ‘‘do you want a hit’’

or ‘‘do you need blow?’’ How do we help them?

Ms. RUPPEL. I think my parents did the best that they could. But

I think more attention needs to be paid toward kids in that area.

Kids are either going to turn to drugs or they are not. I am not

exactly sure how—I think more involvement in your child’s life.

More programs that you bring your kids to. I am not real sure.

Mr. OSE. The other issue I wanted to talk to you about was the—

Judge Mica mentioned it. The programs that are successful, what

52

differentiates those, in your experience, that are successful from

those that aren’t?

Ms. RUPPEL. It could be the people that run them. I think that

the outpatient clinic I was in was run very well. The transition living place I was involved in wasn’t run very well at all. It is mostly

who is running it and how they are running a program.

Mr. OSE. Dr. Ayala, I know that you are going to submit for the

record the 13 recommendations that you mentioned. You talked

about an increased tolerance on everybody’s part of inappropriate

behavior. It is not just the public, but people accepting giving a kid

a drink or what have you. Could you expand on that a little bit as

it relates to your experience?

Mr. AYALA. In my experience with high school and the ‘‘continuation’’—alternative—high schools, there is a degree of acceptance of

behavior. ‘‘That is the way it is. We can’t help it. There is nothing

we can do. It is a family situation, not a school situation.’’ Those

types of thinking or those dimensions of thinking really create or

increase the problem. And when we talk about zero tolerance here,

one dimension is zero tolerance and the other dimension is turn the

other way. When you have zero tolerance, there is also a skeptical

belief that there is nothing to support it. There are no teeth in

what happens with that child once that child is caught. And as one

of the counselors mentioned in my report says, if we can make sure

that that child is thrown the book at and the parent along with it,

90 percent of the time you will have a chance of success. Now turning the other way happens at home as well. When a child comes

home stoned or a child comes home under the influence—stop it or

don’t do it anymore will not work. There is a lack of communication

happening at the home. The same as at school. There is a lack of

communication if the message is out there for zero tolerance and

stop it, and there is nothing there to support or there is nothing

there to connect with that student. I think what was said earlier

kind of exemplifies it. It is who is on the other end providing the

help that needs to make that connection and needs to understand

the child and needs to understand the circumstances and provide

concrete measurable types of programs or assistance that will bring

that child in through incremental steps out of the drugs and into

something more productive.

Mr. OSE. When you have a family where you have a child who

is using drugs of this sort and the child comes to school, do you

have any statistical information about the impact in a classroom of

having a child who is under the influence actually in the classroom,

whether it be added costs or added time requirements? I am going

to ask Ms. Brown the next question, which is if it is manifesting

itself in the schools, her testimony about needing some degree of

intervention to be much more readily available—I am going to

segue from your answer to that question of hers. I tell you why I

ask that question, if I may. It is that I have sat in on some of these

truancy hearings where the child has a pattern of truancy and the

law now exists where the parent can be held accountable for that

child not going to school and actually prosecuted, if you will. And

I am not trying to open the door or lead you in any particular way,

but I wonder whether or not that is a fact that offers some measure

of relief.

53

Mr. AYALA. If a parent is held accountable for the child’s behavior, as they should, then if there is a program to sustain that assistance by the parent and by the school system, then I think it is

money well spent. Too often, though, there is only a program that

is very limited. It addresses the issue at the moment and it looks

like it has been solved. But if we take a look at how long this took

for that moment to occur and how long it takes for us to solve that

problem, there is quite a discrepancy between both moments. I

think there needs to be sustainability, and through that there

needs to be a connection with the child and the child’s development.

Mr. OSE. Ms. Brown, what about an intervention? When you talk

about 601 kids and the 8 that tested positive versus the 6 that

don’t.

Ms. WEBBER-BROWN. Actually, they all tested positive. It is just

that eight came from meth labs and the others came from the secondhand meth smoke or meth environment. And I add that scores

of kids have tested positive since that time from various scenarios.

With methamphetamine residue on coffee tables and nightstands,

with babies picking up meth pipes and putting them in their

mouths. The intervention part of that for me is a lot different, coming from a different perspective. In conducting the criminal investigations, the majority of the time are because of the parents who

are meth users and abusers. And we are taking these children out

of the home as victims. With the program that we have currently,

we are able to handle those children that we are currently detaining within our task force, but not county-wide. And that intervention is whereas before parents would be arrested for the drugs,

they are now being arrested for child endangerment on every single

case where we can prove and we are able to collect enough evidence

of that. And that is where in my opinion as a law enforcement officer that parents need to be held accountable. So instead of just arresting them for the narcotics violations or the stolen car they have

in their backyard or the illegal weapons they have, is to charge

them with felony child endangerment. Detain those children and

place them appropriately, hopefully with a relative. In Butte County, about 50 percent of the children are placed with relatives and

about 50 percent of them are in foster homes. And then those children remain out of the house for at least a year. And during that

time period, it enables Children’s Services Division and Probation

to work together to try to reunify. Many times that doesn’t happen,

but the goal is to reunify. And that is that parents have to drug

test clean once a week. They have to go to parenting classes. They

have to go to Narcotics Anonymous. They have to go to inpatient

counseling, and they have to follow all the rules of the probation

status, which works together with Children’s Services. So the hope

is that we return these children to drug-free families. And if not,

then they are in a better place.

Mr. OSE. Butte County operates clearly under State law as it relates to family reunification.

Ms. WEBBER-BROWN. Correct.

Mr. OSE. Are there things we could do to improve that law? Obviously, I am a Federal officer, so to speak. But suggestions that you

54

might make that I could carry to some of my friends who serve in

the State legislature?

Ms. WEBBER-BROWN. Actually, I think the new existing laws that

were just placed with the fast tracking if there is ongoing criminal

behavior, you know lengthy criminal behavior and they have had

prior children detained if the children are under certain years of

age. I don’t really think, to me, that part of the program is working

well. The biggest obstacle is having enough foster homes to place

these children in. And then the other one is in most of the State

of California, as well as across the United States, because I have

been to at least five others doing training on drug-endangered children, is you don’t have a good working relationship between law

enforcement and Children Services Division. And that is primarily

because law enforcement obviously have a completely different

background than Children’s Services. There has been a lack of response on Children’s Services part. And because law enforcement

is so strapped for financial dollars to pay overtime and so forth and

just not enough dollars for law enforcement, you now have law enforcement on the scene of a meth lab or a drug home at 3 a.m.,

with three officers waiting 2 or 3 hours for a CPS worker to respond. And that was the whole purpose of assigning somebody to

our team. They paged out when we paged out.

Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, you have been very generous with your

time. I want to make sure and compliment Lieutenant Saunders

for the great work that the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department on this recent meth bust, and I want just a short yes or no

answer. I want to make sure I understand. The Sacramento County

Sheriff’s Department supports an expansion of the HIDTA north if

sufficient resources can be found to fund it properly?

Mr. SAUNDERS. Yes, that is correct.

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MICA. I recognize the gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Souder.

Mr. SOUDER. I have a series of questions as well. Lieutenant

Saunders, could you tell me are most of the labs you deal with,

meth labs, small labs in the homes like were referred to or large

labs?

Mr. SAUNDERS. In Sacramento County at least, most of our

labs—we did over 30 labs this past calendar year—they are of the

smaller variety. Occasionally, we get to the mid-level lab. I don’t

think we find all our labs, though. I am sure there are several

large labs out there. This last year we just didn’t find any. But we

had over 30 labs and most of them were small.

Mr. SOUDER. Is a small lab basically self consumption and small

income? What constitutes where you would cross over?

Mr. SAUNDERS. No. When I am talking about small labs, I am

talking about one that in one cook they can make 1 to 2 pounds

of methamphetamine. So it is being distributed at that level.

Mr. SOUDER. I don’t have a concept. Does that mean it is regional

within a section of Sacramento? Can that go beyond? Another question is how much is consumed within your HIDTA and how much

is exported?

Mr. SAUNDERS. Those smaller labs are being consumed on a regional basis. This particular case I mentioned earlier was not involving a lab. That was involving a trafficking organization probVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:14 Dec 28, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00058 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\66900.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
55

ably from Mexico. And we do have a substantial problem in that

area in addition to our lab problem.

Mr. SOUDER. Could you explain that once? When you say trafficking, are they trafficking in—are they converting it or are they just

being a distribution point?

Mr. SAUNDERS. They are using it as a distribution point. And

also what we found in this one last weekend with the 13 pounds

of meth, that a subsequent search warrant revealed a location that

had extensive packaging material and the cut to dilute it and then

it would be distributed from there. At this point, we are not exactly

sure where all that methamphetamine was going, but that is what

they were doing with that particular case.

Mr. SOUDER. Do you know whereabouts it came from Mexico?

Mr. SAUNDERS. From talking to the supervisor on this thing, we

feel it did have Mexican ties, yes.

Mr. SOUDER. Thanks. Ms. Webber-Brown, on the—how many— you said parents are—they have a drug testing once a week and

parental counseling and the goal is family reunification. How many

parents successfully do this?

Ms. WEBBER-BROWN. Out of 35 families last year, only 4 families

reunified with their children at the end of the year.

Mr. SOUDER. What is the primary reasons for failure? Is it the

drug testing part or is it the failure to—— Ms. WEBBER-BROWN. That is a big—part of that, and a number

of other things. Their drug is more important than their children

or than reunifying with their children. Many of these parents had

already lost children previous to these kids in Butte, some in other

counties, adjoining counties. The methamphetamine has a hold on

them, and it is just much easier to continue to find their next bag

of dope than to go through all the steps necessary to reunify.

Mr. SOUDER. Is there a process where rights become terminated

so it can move to adoption?

Ms. WEBBER-BROWN. That is correct. The majority of our children are permanently adopted, especially all the children—I have

had a number of children who have been seriously injured as a result of methamphetamine. They have long term learning disabilities, and the majority of those children have been adopted.

Mr. SOUDER. I mean not likely. I know the answer probably to

my question. But you said some of these parents have had this

occur before where they have lost their children.

Ms. WEBBER-BROWN. That is right.

Mr. SOUDER. Does Child Protective Services notify a county when

a child checks into school that a parent—they get the parents address that this is a potential problem coming?

Ms. WEBBER-BROWN. No, that is not happening.

Mr. SOUDER. Is tracking possible? Is there that sophisticated a

system? I mean after it happens, clearly you’ve found out.

Ms. WEBBER-BROWN. That can happen if the parents obtained

the necessary transfer papers for the child when they left that

school district and went to the other school district. Or if there was

a way in which the schools communicated, yes. Certainly that could

be accomplished.

Mr. SOUDER. I have a few questions. I want to start first with

Ms. Ruppel before I move to the superintendent. We are in the

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process within the next 30 to 60 days of moving through the Education Committee the Safe and Drug Free Schools Bill as part of

the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. We have been working on this for a couple of years, and it is very controversial and

very difficult. We had the original Drug-Free Program, which has

had mediocre success. We added it to Safe and now we may add

21st Century Schools to this as well and include mental health.

The question is, is there any anti-drug program left? But first, let

me ask you, did you ever go through any anti-drug program at

school? Any kind of prevention programs? Did they have school assemblies? Did they have the DARE program? Did you do any?

Ms. RUPPEL. I went through DARE in sixth grade. That was the

only program that I can remember in school going through.

Mr. SOUDER. That is the only thing you remember in anti-drug

education?

Ms. RUPPEL. Yes.

Mr. SOUDER. What kind of impact did that have on you? Obviously you have had problems since then. But do you believe that

would have worked better had you had a junior high and high

school followup? Did it not have much impact at all? Did you think

that is what square kids do?

Ms. RUPPEL. I can’t say that the DARE program had any impact

at all. The next year is when I started doing drugs and drinking.

Mr. SOUDER. Did you get any signals out of your school that

there would be any consequences? One other thing that struck me

is you said you could get drugs every day at any time. Were any

of those from students?

Ms. RUPPEL. Yes, that was from students.

Mr. SOUDER. On school grounds?

Ms. RUPPEL. Yes.

Mr. SOUDER. Had there been a drug testing program at your

school, what do you think you would have done?

Ms. RUPPEL. If there had been a drug testing program?

Mr. SOUDER. Yes, there is—we allowed in the 1989 Safe and

Drug-Free Schools Act an amendment that—at that time, I was

working for Senator Dan Coates and we put that in. And every single school in the country that has put that in, while it is not an

ultimate solution, has had a dramatic drop in drug use each year.

And I wondered what you would have done had you had a drug

testing program that was random at your school.

Ms. RUPPEL. I probably would have gotten caught and somebody

would have found out. There would have been some sort of interaction between my parents and the school. Because my parents and

the school officials never found out that I was using drugs until I

went into a mental hospital because of it.

Mr. SOUDER. That was an extraordinary thing because at one of

the high schools in my district, I meet with high school seniors

whenever I can. And the student council president and vice president were very much against drug testing. Then some students

started speaking out for it. When we got done, the superintendent

and principal told me that every single student that had spoken

up, several who had self-acknowledged that they had a drug problem and everybody against the drug testing hadn’t had a drug

problem. But the kids who had spoken up for drug testing, one of

57

them got caught in an athletic program and it changed his life. The

problem is that many people who are against drug testing have

never abused drugs. It is one of the frustrations here. It is not to

be mean. It is to try to figure out who needs the help. Twice you

said that you came back after you had gone through the first treatment program and then you had—the first time you went away for

3 hours. Let’s see, the first time you fell, you came back. What

caused you to come back?

Ms. RUPPEL. My parents intervening.

Mr. SOUDER. Was that the same thing the time after Bakersfield?

Ms. RUPPEL. Yes.

Mr. SOUDER. Did you get—when you say your parents intervened, how did they find out?

Ms. RUPPEL. The last time I relapsed and came back, I was going

to get caught in a drug test. Inside, I was dead. So I knew that

I wasn’t happy using it and I wasn’t happy not using it. But I was

worse using drugs, and I couldn’t do it anymore. I came back on

my own, but I also got drug tested that week and it came up positive for cocaine a day after I had told people that I had been using.

Mr. SOUDER. If there hadn’t been a drug test, do you think you

would have told them?

Ms. RUPPEL. Yes.

Mr. SOUDER. You were clearly wrestling with this, and you said

now you have actually—that is terrible about your mother and that

is a very moving story and you deserve tremendous credit for making it through this period. What other things happened that you

haven’t relapsed? What is different this time?

Ms. RUPPEL. Yes, it is different. I started becoming honest. I

started doing the things that other people in rehab suggested.

Mr. SOUDER. Why?

Ms. RUPPEL. Because I was tired of being sick. I was tired of

using drugs. I was tired of relapsing and getting kicked out of my

parents’ house and trying to find places to live until I could move

back in. I was tired of getting in trouble. I was tired of the way

that drugs made me feel.

Mr. SOUDER. Do you think we can actually be successful in treating until the person is tired and really ready to make a commitment?

Ms. RUPPEL. Sometimes. I think that if you have a teenager in

your house who is using that parents have a lot of different options

that they can take to help steer their child away from drug use.

Mr. SOUDER. I thank you. I found your misdiagnosis extremely

depressing myself in how it was used and I may do some written

followup with you. Because as we try to zero in on this, you have

raised so many different questions that challenge our assumptions

of how we do that. If I could yet, I wanted to ask Mr. Ayala, you

made several statements in your—I read through your written

while you were also giving the verbal. It is something that I have

raised for a long time. I think we do a great job of concentrating

for the most part on anti-drug education when the kids are totally

agreeable. Yes, I won’t ever do drugs. And it is before they do junior high. Now partly we have done that because the junior high

and high school programs weren’t working very well. And when

58

you get these negative stats back, then your funding gets cutoff.

But in fact, I know we do, so this is a leading question—give

schools this option? In other words, we don’t say you have to use

it for first to sixth currently. Why don’t more schools use it for junior high and high school? And I grant in my district that most of

it is driven down to junior high or below junior high.

Mr. AYALA. I think you touched upon it, which is that we find

success there. And also you can prove to some degree that you have

reached students. But again, I think, that that is an age that would

be agreeable anyway, and they are not into it primarily. They may

live within a home that does have drugs, but the utilization of

drugs at that age is not really happening. It is when they reach

the secondary level. The transition becomes extremely difficult

from a self-contained environment to one where it is fragmented in

different disciplines. Just as a point, I think when those students

who do get caught, that is just the tip of the iceberg. If you multiply the number who get caught times 1,000, you are probably

more accurate. I think the stats when you survey students are fairly accurate. You find more students utilizing drugs at every level,

particularly it increases as they go higher up into education. The

zero tolerance you mentioned and the drug testing, I think it is a

great idea. But I think the parent needs to buy into it. I think drug

tests need to be made available at no cost to parents who wish to

help their children. It is extremely expensive to go through drug

testing every time. Having it at school as a rule is another one of

those one-fits-all systems. I think that the family needs to be

drawn in as a critical component. The family is not in the school

itself. And for the most part, particularly secondary, there aren’t

that many family members participating there. The numbers dwindle once they are beyond elementary.

Mr. SOUDER. Well, first let me say I actually had a number of

amendments that have become law on family involvement, and I

am really strong for family involvement. What we just heard,

though, is only 4 of the 35 in her case that family members were

really at all interested in the kids versus the methamphetamines.

One of the big problems that we have here is that while we should

encourage that and certainly exhaust it, the fact is that as the families break down in our society, the schools become the local parents even more. Schools are very uncomfortable with that. Your

primary goal is education, but it is tough to educate if the system

is broken. And one of the difficult things—without getting—I want

to move to one other question, so I don’t want to get on drug testing heavily here. But it is random. You can’t do uniform drug testing unless it is random. And in fact then once you have a history

of a problem, you can do the drug testing. One of the most controversial things happened in Michigan, and you have eluded to it

in about two or three different ways in your testimony. It is how

can you simultaneously target but not discriminate. Because high

risk populations tend to be concentrated in places where either

there is an education level lower or there is a family composition

area that is different or a past criminal record that is different.

Now in different areas, that will mix out differently as to who that

impacts. But it is certainly a targeting question. In Michigan, they

didn’t want to label the child who was the killer. You have a refVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:14 Dec 28, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00062 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\66900.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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erence in here that in fact kids are treated differently in court

based on minority background often from those who are of an

Anglo background. Often, quite frankly, because of either sometimes discrimination, which I will grant, and maybe even more

than sometimes. But other times because of family composition and

income levels, where the parents actually will come and do an investment. It is not just discrimination. How do you and the superintendent propose that we try to get into this problem. Because the

buzz word is target, yet targeting means making decisions that involve the word discrimination. Not necessarily racial. I am not talking about that. Income, education and so on. How do we balance

how to target without discriminating?

Mr. AYALA. I think when you are dealing with at-risk families,

that when the target is to assist them, that it becomes a community effort versus one component, which may be the courts, law enforcement or education and the schools. It needs to be unified. I

know in Yolo County some of the courts are working on family

unity. When they bring in a youth, they also bring in the family.

The family is involved in a variety of different malfunctions. It is

a difficult question you’ve asked. I don’t have an answer for it. But

I think that we need to truly believe that these families can be

helped. And I think that if we turn the other way, as sometimes

happens in schools and in the family, and say ‘‘that is the way it

is’’ and ‘‘they are never going to come out of it, there is no way.’’ I think we are shooting ourselves in the foot when we come to that.

The family unit is an important component, but it is one portion

of it. The other is in the school systems themselves there are excellent programs run by individuals who have their heart in the right

place. Who have the energy beyond their school day to do other

types of activities for youth, knowing that that is connecting and

that is bringing them in. Even though the family may be dysfunctional. And these are the programs I think we need to support and

bring to the limelight. I think we need to unify more readily those

types of programs that are there that are working for individual

youth.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you very much. And just for the record,

while I propose zero tolerance in the regular school system, I voted

against legislation that results in mandatory expulsion and just

turning these kids on the street. We have to have alternative

schools and alternative solutions. Because putting them on the

street doesn’t solve anything.

Mr. AYALA. If I may comment on that. I believe zero tolerance

is the first step. What happens after that is the most critical part.

And I don’t think we have enough programs to sustain zero tolerance. Thank you.

Mr. MICA. I now recognize Mr. Herger for questions.

Mr. HERGER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think we are beginning to get a feel for the magnitude of this problem. It is a major

issue. I served for several years on a then Select Committee on

Narcotics Abuse and Control, and I think it is becoming more apparent that so much of our challenge is just trying to get hold of

this, trying to determine the scope of it. Then we need to find out

or identify those programs so we can begin to make a difference.

And I think certainly, Dr. Ayala, you have mentioned several of

60

them that I have noted. Just connecting and bringing in the family

and doing all of these areas are certainly what we have to go after.

And reminding ourselves, we are never beat until we quit. Again,

this problem seems so overwhelming. It is real easy or comfortable

for us, I think, to try to put it under the carpet and not think about

it. But the fact is we have to be aware of it and we have to be

thinking about it.

So I thank you.

Mr. AYALA. You are welcome.

Mr. HERGER. Ms. Webber-Brown, I want to thank you for your

involvement and the time you spend. I believe just a week ago we

spent about an hour in my office in Chico on a Saturday afternoon,

you and your husband. I thank you for sharing with me at that

time. As you mentioned then, really the program that you are

working on, as I understand it, is really just a pilot program. It is

not something that would seem so basic as working with these children and as horrendous as this filmstrip that you showed us, the

video.

Ms. WEBBER-BROWN. Correct.

Mr. HERGER. And the incredible dangers that we see and the

horrendous life of the young children that are living within these

homes is really an aspect that in the past I don’t know if we have

been that much aware of and dealing with. It is more the interdiction as it comes in and treating it when it is here or education. But

the fact of trying to work with these young children was really an

eye opener to me. If you could just tell me how you feel the success

rate has been in this Drug-Endangered Children program that you

work in. If you could tell us a little bit about that and how it is

working and what it looks like in the future for this program that

you are involved with.

Ms. WEBBER-BROWN. It is extremely successful for rescuing the

children. And that was my whole goal when I started it in 1991 unofficially. And then 1993, it became official and was to me real simple and something that should have been done across the country,

similar to domestic violence. When domestic violence became such

an issue that it was across the Nation. The same thing with these

children. And we are not really just talking about children in meth

homes but all drug homes who were easily left behind. And the

reason for that in my opinion was myself as a police officer having

tunnel vision. Being trained to go in and look for drugs and paraphernalia and assets and evidence and seize those things. And children were a nuisance initially. And it was easier to pass them off

to a friend or neighbor or relative. And then when realizing that

we would be back there in 6 months or 3 months or 2 weeks and

those kids would be back in the same filthy conditions and the

same environment, and we were doing nothing to help them. So for

Butte County, the program has been extremely successful.

In short, we went to the Office of Criminal Justice and Planning

in 1995 and said Butte County is real small compared to the rest

of the State and we have a small number of meth labs compared

to the rest of the State—L.A., San Bernadino and a number of

other places. There must be thousands of children left in these

homes with nothing being done. And a study was conducted by the

Department of Justice and that in fact was occurring. And Office

61

of Criminal Justice provided moneys from their Burn grant funds

from OCJP to help participate in funding these seven counties— four initially and then the other three. But my concern now is that

those moneys go away in September, and that we are not going to

abandon our program certainly, but we are not going to be able to

do what we have been doing with it because we won’t have the resources in order to do that. And then we are being inundated with

requests from other States that are having huge meth problems as

to what to do with their children that they are finding and how do

they implement that with no resources available.

Mr. HERGER. So this program working with the children within

these families where the meth labs are is something that was pretty much started with Butte County?

Ms. WEBBER-BROWN. Yes, it started in Butte.

Mr. HERGER. And I think you mentioned that you have actually

been asked to go to some other States to share the program with

some of them?

Ms. WEBBER-BROWN. Right. Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Utah,

Washington, DC, and several others that I just haven’t had the

time to go to.

Mr. HERGER. Well, thank you. Something else I was concerned

with when we were visiting was your pointing out that this is a

problem that really we are not that much aware of. That we are

becoming more aware of it, at least to the degree that it is a problem. And I believe you mentioned that if we had programs like this

in some other areas that we would see how widespread it perhaps

is. I think you used the number of 600.

Ms. WEBBER-BROWN. Right.

Mr. HERGER. And was that just for Butte County?

Ms. WEBBER-BROWN. Yes. 601 actually as of last week.

Mr. HERGER. Would you think there would be a corresponding

number for adjoining counties if we had a program like this?

Ms. WEBBER-BROWN. I am certain of that. In the adjacent counties—for instance, Yuba and Sutter Counties just to the south had

44 labs in 1999, this past year. They have no Drug-Endangered

Children Program in place. They do not have a CPS worker assigned to their narcotics officers. And they do not have a protocol

in place. And just as an example, a year ago we had a meth lab

in Butte County which led to search warrants in Yuba County, just

over the line. We had 10 kids in two structures in a meth lab that

were not detained and no program in place in that county in which

to deal with those children.

Mr. HERGER. And unless there is future funding, this program

will terminate in September.

Ms. WEBBER-BROWN. Or diminish a great deal.

Mr. HERGER. Lieutenant Saunders, my colleague and friend,

Congressman Ose, asked a couple of times some questions about

perhaps a need that we have of expanding the program that you

are doing and working so well on and leading in some of the counties to the south of us perhaps in our northern California areas. I

have a sheriff, Charlie Byrd, who I introduced earlier. I was just

in a meeting with him as a matter of fact in Yreka here just on

Saturday evening. The sheriff made it a point to come up to me

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tant this was up in their county. That he knew of the program

going on in Shasta County and Butte, but that he wanted—he was

asking that we not forget about him and not forget about them and

their families and their problem up there. I am sure that he is

speaking for all our adjoining counties. So I am wondering if—I believe you mentioned you have a budget of—I forget, $1.6 million or

whatever that you mentioned. Do you have any idea what it would

take to expand it up into Congressman Ose’s—I believe he has 8

counties and I have 10 counties up to the north. Any ballpark?

Mr. SAUNDERS. You know, we just started a program within the

last few months, so I would think it would take at least that much

money to go to the next level to the north, and I certainly support

that. Because the drugs—we have seen a lot of them coming from

Mexico and the distribution points are all over the State. It seems

to me in my opinion that if we are effectively going to fight this

problem we have, that we would have to do it not only statewide,

but even up into Oregon and Washington or north of that. And I

would think that it would take at least as much money to do the

next northern counties up there as we have down here.

Mr. HERGER. And again, I am asking the questions. I am sure

you are just getting going in your own program. But just off the

top of your head, would you think maybe an expansion of the current HIDTA we have or an additional HIDTA for that area? Do you

have any—— Mr. SAUNDERS. I think if you are looking at eight counties, I

think a new HIDTA up there would be fine. If not, an expansion

of the current one down here with the appropriate funding for that

HIDTA would work. And once again, I think our budget from our

HIDTA currently in Sacramento is about $1.2 to about $1.6 million.

Mr. HERGER. Very good. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Mr. MICA. I would like to thank each of our witnesses for appearing on the first panel today and also providing this insight testimony to our subcommittee. I will yield a second to Mr. Ose.

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to move that

the witnesses written testimony be made a part of the record.

Mr. MICA. Without objection. So ordered.

Mr. OSE. And then also would it be possible to leave the record

open for 2 weeks for additional questions?

Mr. MICA. Without objection. So ordered. And we may be submitting additional questions to the witnesses or if we have additional

testimony or information that you would like submitted to the

record upon request, that will be so ordered.

I would like to again thank each of the witnesses, particularly

you, Ms. Ruppel. I am sure your mother would be very proud of you

in hoping to take what has been a family tragedy and turning it

into something positive for your future. And also hopefully today,

you helped affect the lives of other young people who are facing

this challenge. So we are very pleased that you joined us and gave

your personal testimony. Thank you so much and we wish you well.

And to the other witnesses, we thank you for your information.

If there is background you would like to submit for the record and

we may have additional questions and we will do that. So at this

point, I will excuse this panel and call the second panel.

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Staff will go ahead and give out the name tags. The second panel

today consists of Mr. McGregor Scott, the district attorney at Shasta County. Another witness on that panel is Sheriff Clay Parker of

Tehema County, CA. We also have Sheriff Jim Denney, sheriff out

of Sutter County, CA. Another sheriff is Gerald Shadinger of

Colusa County, CA. A personal witness, Mr. Bill Ruzzamenti, and

he is the director of the California Central Valley HIDTA. Also testifying is Mr. Gilbert Bruce, Director of the Drug Enforcement Administration located in San Francisco, CA, and Mr. Paul Seave, the

U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of California.

As I explained to the other panelists we had in our first panel,

this is an investigations and oversight subcommittee of Congress,

and we do swear in our witnesses. So if I could ask the witnesses

to please stand and raise your right hands. Do you solemnly swear

that the testimony you are about to give before this subcommittee

of Congress is the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

Answered in the affirmative.

I would like to welcome each of the witnesses on this panel. It

is a rather large panel. We are asking that you do limit your oral

presentation to the committee to 5 minutes. If you have additional

lengthy statement or documentation you would like to be made

part of the record upon request, it will be entered into the record.

With that, I am pleased to recognize the first witness today, Mr.

McGregor Scott, who is the district attorney of Shasta County. Mr.

Scott, you are recognized.

Mr. SCOTT Right here, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MICA. Yes, sir. Thank you. Welcome, and you are recognized.

STATEMENT OF McGREGOR SCOTT, DISTRICT ATTORNEY,

SHASTA COUNTY

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you. I want to thank the members of the subcommittee for coming to the North Valley to hear this testimony

today about the epidemic of methamphetamine in our communities.

I have submitted to you a formal statement with specific information and statistics. In particular, my formal statement provides you

with details about the Shasta County Methamphetamine Task

Force, a community-based coalition, which I believe can serve as a

model for other communities in the battle against methamphetamine.

In addition, my formal statement provides you with the details

of the high level of cooperation and teamwork which exists between

local law enforcement agencies and State law enforcement agencies

in the methamphetamine fight.

The points I wish to convey to you today in this brief opening

statement are fourfold. One, we have a tremendous problem with

methamphetamine in the North State. Two, we as law enforcement

are all working aggressively to combat the problem. Three, we

come from communities which are committed to working together

to combat this problem. And four, we need the help of the Federal

Government in this fight.

There are two specific actions which I believe the Federal Government can take to join in the fight. First, a regional office of the

Drug Enforcement Agency should be opened as soon as practical in

the North State. Second, the Central Valley HIDTA should underVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:14 Dec 28, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00067 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\66900.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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take an additional initiative to expand into the North State. I look

forward to our dialog here today, the result of which hopefully will

be these two actions.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Scott follows:]

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Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Scott.

I now recognize Sheriff Clay Parker of Tehema County, CA.

STATEMENT OF SHERIFF CLAY PARKER, TEHEMA COUNTY, CA

Mr. PARKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I also want to

thank all of you for allowing me to testify here today before you

to discuss a problem that as you can see doesn’t just face northern

California. It is a national problem as well. I want to take this opportunity to provide you with information on the North State and

what we have been doing for the past 20 years regarding the methamphetamine problem.

I appear before you not only as the sheriff of Tehema County, but

as a past narcotics officer and task force commander, and I have

actively been involved in methamphetamine investigations for the

last 10 years and actually methamphetamine cases for the last 20

years.

I have seen the adverse effects of persons making, using and

dealing methamphetamine, and what it does to the families and

communities. I do need to make something very clear at this point,

though. And that is that the problem is not limited to a select few

counties in the North State. This is a problem of the whole North

State.

Before I came to you, I thought what we needed to do was point

out what we have done on a local level, and what we have done

is, as you have heard already, we have had DARE programs and

there is curriculum now in the middle schools and high schools

which we are expanding up in our counties already. We have done

undercover operations, childcare programs, reverse stings, asset

forfeiture, and Mr. Scott just mentioned about a DEA office up in

the North State. Right now mainly when we do asset forfeiture

cases on the Federal level, the DEA doesn’t handle it. An IRS agent

out of Redding does. And we personally would like to see a North

State office of DEA be added.

On a local issue, in 1990 we didn’t have a sustained effort

against methamphetamine and other drugs because none of the

local agencies had the manpower or resources to put it together. So

in 1990, we formed a local task force, which consisted of the Sheriff’s Department, Probation, DA and all the police departments in

the county. As we worked that task force, we saw that there was

a major problem with the kids, and the kids’ access to drugs

throughout the community, and we also saw that a lot of the parents in our communities were ignoring the problem and in fact saying there was not a drug problem in our local schools.

Well, in 1995 and the first part of 1996, we did an undercover

buy program in the Red Bluff Union High School District, and we

ended up arresting 52 people that were dealing and using the kids

of our schools with methamphetamine. It was an extremely successful program and it kind of woke up our communities. The other

thing through that time is that we have seen that it is just not a

local county problem or a North State problem. We see with Interstate 5 and 99—again, this has all been brought up—that a lot of

these narcotics and methamphetamine are coming from the major

metropolitan areas such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego.

And again, it is more of a regional problem. When I talk regional,

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I am talking about this Central Valley HIDTA that needs to be extended into the North State.

Currently, we have in Tehema and Glenn County what is called

TAGMET, which is the Tehema and Glenn Methamphetamine Enforcement Team. And what we did was we saw that we couldn’t

just do it on our own in counties. We then formed TAGMET, and

now we have the California Department of Justice Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement, an agent in charge, and then we have the

Sheriff’s Department and Probation Departments, DA’s from Glenn

and Tehema on this, along with the CHP, California Highway Patrol from Willows and Red Bluff, and the local police departments

from Red Bluff, Corning, Willows and Orland. And we have seen

that that has been very beneficial. In 1999 alone, the TAGMET

agents seized 27.5 pounds of meth, 4.5 pounds of cocaine, 48

pounds of marijuana, and 4,300 marijuana plants, 5 grams of heroin, and 124 liters of meth in solution, which probably would have

worked out somewhere between 45 and 85 pounds of finished methamphetamine. The street value of these substances seized was in

excess of over $10 million if it actually had made it to the street.

The other thing you have to look at when I give you these stats,

compared to larger counties it doesn’t sound like much. But you

have to remember that Tehema County is 55,000 is our population.

Glenn County is 27,000. So this per capita, there is definitely a

major problem.

We are constantly in contact with special agent in charge, Jack

Nair, the California Department of Justice Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement, and Jack is here. He has 10 northern California counties including Tehema. He has got Lasson, Modock, Pumas, Glenn,

Trinity, and Siskiyou also. He can validate and talk to you about

the problem we have in the North State and how we need to get

Federal intervention to help us.

We believe through our cooperative efforts at this time that we

have done everything possible that we can do on a local level. And

again, what I am requesting and what we are requesting in the

North State is that a DEA office be opened in the North State,

hopefully in Redding. And that at some time that we also be considered in probably expanding the Central Valley HIDTA into the

North State.

We talked about the education of the youth, and I preach this

every time I go to a school or anything else. And that is that the

youth of today are our leaders of tomorrow. So we need to do everything in our power today to help them so that they will become productive members in the future. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Sheriff Parker follows:]

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Mr. MICA. Thank you for your testimony.

We will now recognize Sheriff Jim Denney of Sutter County, CA.

You are recognized, sir.

STATEMENT OF SHERIFF JIM DENNEY, SUTTER COUNTY, CA

Mr. DENNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning. My

name is Jim Denney. I am the sheriff, coroner, and public administrator of Sutter County. For your information, Sutter County is a

small rural county, probably one of the smallest counties in the

State, located in the heart of the Sacramento Valley and immediately north of Sacramento County. The county encompasses 608

square miles and holds nearly 77,000 residents. The county has an

agriculturally based economy and unemployment runs as high as

18 percent during the non-growing season. Our county seat is Yuba

City, which is located on the west side of the Feather River, directly across from the city of Marysville, which is the county seat

of Yuba County, population 69,000. Combined, both cities make up

the twin cities for the Sutter/Yuba County region.

This region shares many services, which includes a two-county

drug enforcement task force known as the Narcotic Enforcement

Team or NET–5. The team is comprised of law enforcement officers

from the two sheriff’s departments and two police departments in

the region and is supervised by an agent from the California Department of Justice, Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement. NET–5 is

one of the oldest DE task forces in the State of California, and I

have two deputies assigned to that unit.

I am here today to present to you from my perspective the methamphetamine problem in the Sutter and Yuba County region of

northern California, and what I believe is needed to address that

issue. My expertise in this issue is that of a career law enforcement

officer with 28 years of experience, the last 241⁄2 years with the

Sutter County Sheriff’s Department. From 1987 through 1989, I

was assigned as a detective sergeant to the NET–5 task force as

second command of that unit.

The methamphetamine problem has been a longstanding issue in

Sutter and Yuba Counties since early 1980’s. Back then it was

manufactured by mostly outlaw motorcycle gangs like the Hell’s

Angels and loose knit associates with little or no organization.

Rarely was large quantity manufacturing occurring on a regular

basis, and most seized methamphetamine labs consisted of quantities measured in ounces.

Today, organized Mexican crime groups have largely taken over

the major manufacturing of methamphetamine, moving chemicals,

finished product and money back and forth across our border with

Mexico. Back in 1988, NET–5 seized a total of five methamphetamine labs in the Sutter and Yuba County region. Fast forward 11

years to when NET–5 seized 43 meth labs last year alone. I might

also add that this year, since January 1st, in the first 2 months of

this year we have already seized 16 labs in the region. At that rate,

we will be up close to 100 labs by the end of the year.

I admit that most of these labs were of the local variety, commonly known as Beavis and Butthead labs, but an alarming number of sophisticated laboratories are emerging. Last year, NET–5

conducted a multi-agency undercover operation known as OperVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:14 Dec 28, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00079 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\66900.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ation Reunited, which targeted the drug activity in the Sutter and

Yuba region. A total of 16 local, State and Federal law enforcement

agencies participated in the 4-month operation. This intensive operation resulted in 259 arrests, 15 methamphetamine laboratories

seized, and over $43,000 in U.S. currency and two vehicles taken

for asset forfeiture. Nearly 8 pounds of methamphetamine and

three-quarters of a pound of tar heroin was seized during this operation including a small quantity of cocaine and marijuana. The

combined street value of all drugs seized at this time totaled over

$270,000.

During this operation, a major methamphetamine laboratory was

established in my county by an organized Mexican crime group

from the San Jose area. This resulted in round-the-clock surveillance by various agencies involved in Operation Reunited over a 2-

month period. The surveillance would not have been possible by

local resources had Operation Reunited participants not been in

the area. When the lab was seized, in addition to several pounds

of chemicals and various apparatuses, it included eight 22-liter

round bottom flasks, which are considered to be significant in the

manufacturing of the methamphetamine. This lab was capable of

producing 100 pounds of methamphetamine per cooking operation.

The street value of 100 pounds of methamphetamine after being diluted and packaged for sale on the street would exceed $3 million.

The question is how do we fix this? In my humble opinion, what

we don’t need is another task force at the Federal level to which

I would be required to assign personnel from my existing staff. I

presently assign two deputies to the local drug task force in our

area, one of which is funded by the Federal anti-drug abuse enforcement funds or the Edward Burn Memorial Fund. The other

deputy is funded out of my existing budget. I do not have the luxury of having another one or two deputies to send to another task

force like a HIDTA unless full funding for these positions is included. What I need is additional long-term full funding for increased manpower and resources to address this problem. I am not

talking about a Cops Fast or a Cops More or any other limited

term funding which pays only a portion of the annual salary and

terminates after 3 years. This leaves the local agency with the option of covering the full cost of the law enforcement officer or laying

the officer off. What I need is permanent funding that pays the full

salary of the additional personnel and is guaranteed to continue for

a long time to come. I also do not need to send local law enforcement personnel to work on a regional task force that involves several counties. I have enough problems to deal with in my own county and I need all my resources to stay locally to address that problem.

What I am saying to this honorable committee is that if you want

to address the drug crisis in northern California, then give us the

long-term funding that we need to fund additional personnel to enhance our current operation and make it more effective. Additionally, I strongly recommend enhanced funding for programs supported by the national organizations like Fight Crime and Invest

in Kids, of which I am proud to say that I am a State advisory

panel member. This group advocates increased support for early

childhood and after school intervention programs for at-risk youth

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to deter them from criminal activity later in life. Combined with

strong law enforcement, problems like drug manufacturing and distribution can be impacted. I thank you for your time and consideration on this issue.

[The prepared statement of Sheriff Denney follows:]

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Mr. MICA. Thank you for your testimony. I now recognize Sheriff

Gerald Shadinger with Calusa County, CA. Welcome. You are recognized.

STATEMENT OF SHERIFF GERALD SHADINGER, COLUSA

COUNTY, CA

Mr. SHADINGER. Thank you. Honorable Members, good morning.

I appreciate being here. I am largely here to support my neighboring sheriffs in Sutter today and the Glenn County Task Force. I

come from a little different perspective, and my perspective is this.

I will give a little background. We are a very small county north

of this county along I–5. I have some things that will be passed up

to the Members later, but this is an example of what is in my evidence room right now. These are tubs of methamphetamine and cocaine that aren’t my problem from a smaller world perspective.

These were taken off of Interstate 5 by our officers, CHP, and the

task force itself made the seizures. But I am stuck with a bill of

$200 a pound to dispose of this stuff and I have got hundreds and

hundreds of pounds in these tubs.

I think largely what should be brought to the attention of this

committee is that the drugs that I do have or that we have seized

are largely an Oregon and Washington problem. North of here, you

have all the freeway systems that come together and that channel

for the next 200 miles to the Oregon border. On Interstate 5, 80

percent of the arrests that we make are from Washington residents

and Oregon residents.

We have been innovative in the past in supporting the task force.

We have actually gotten people to turn around and we follow them

to Oregon and dealt with the Oregon authorities and nothing materialized to it on the last two occasions. But again, we find a lack

of effort of coordination. And from a small county perspective, I

have to say that we do need a DEA presence in the North State.

I would like to see the Central Valley HIDTA extended all the way

to the Oregon border for the purposes of being able to call the folks

up when these drugs are headed to Oregon and Washington.

To me, that would say it all as far as in a context of this is a

Federal interstate problem. It isn’t necessarily to us a regional

problem in my county.

I will say that in 1993—and the reason I bring this up is a preface to my next thing—but 1993, was when a couple of sheriffs went

back and visited with Janet Reno when the Burn Fund was at risk

back in Washington. We have these hearings periodically and everybody wants to know what is funded and we get new Congressman and so on. The Burn Fund was at great risk. We met with

the sheriff’s throughout the southwest to keep the Burn Fund intact. That is the only thing that runs my task force. I am not State

funded. I don’t have a State officer in my task force. It is strictly

Burn Federal money that keeps me currently going.

I think in rural counties what you have to realize is we don’t

have the resources unless the program is funded largely by the feds

and pass-through money to the State of California such as OCJP.

We would be non-existent in any of our efforts. So, therefore, I

have to reiterate that we are asking for a coordinated effort to exVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:14 Dec 28, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00087 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\66900.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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tend the HIDTA to the Oregon border, and that would be specifically six counties north. Thank you.

Mr. MICA. Thank you for your testimony. We will now hear from

Bill Ruzzamenti.

Mr. Ruzzamenti is the director of the California Central Valley

HIDTA.

STATEMENT OF BULL RUZZAMENTI, DIRECTOR, CENTRAL

CALIFORNIA VALLEY HIDTA

Mr. RUZZAMENTI. Mr. Chairman and distinguished committee

members, I too appreciate appearing before you today to talk about

the newest HIDTA, the Central Valley HIDTA in California. I

would also like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the northern California sheriffs, which were an integral part in making the

Central Valley HIDTA possible. They joined with the sheriffs from

the Central Valley and were very active and instrumental in assisting us in bringing about the Central Valley HIDTA, and for that

we very much appreciate it.

The Central Valley HIDTA is a methamphetamine HIDTA,

which means its sole narcotic focus is the methamphetamine problem in the Central Valley. And because of that, there are several

unique characteristics to the HIDTA and requirements to membership in the HIDTA that are mandated by ONDCP and which we

deal with in operating the Central Valley HIDTA.

Our initial budget was only $800,000. And we have currently a

supplemental budget of $687,000, which looks good for fiscal year

2000. That is not finalized, but I am very hopeful and it does look

good that we are going to get those funds. However, that being

said, that is still only $1,487,000 to spread amongst nine counties

involved in the HIDTA. We have all the counties, as was said here

before, from Sacramento south to Kern County and all those that

border the 99 and Highway 5 corridor down to Kern County. So the

resources we have are incredibly limited.

ONDCP itself has indicated that their perception of minimal

funding for HIDTA operations is $2.5 million. We are still way

below that, even with the supplemental that we currently have. I

have submitted my testimony and I would be glad to answer questions when the time is appropriate.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ruzzamenti follows:]

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Mr. MICA. Thank you.

We will now recognize Mr. Gilbert Bruce, Director of the Drug

Enforcement Administration of San Francisco. Welcome. You are

recognized, sir.

STATEMENT OF GILBERT BRUCE, DIRECTOR, DRUG

ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION, SAN FRANCISCO, CA

Mr. BRUCE. Thank you. Chairman Mica, Representative Herger

and Representative Ose and Representative Souder, I too appreciate the opportunity to speak before you today and discuss this crisis in northern California.

With the committee’s permission, I would like to summarize my

rather lengthy testimony that was submitted for the record.

Mr. MICA. Without objection. All of the complete written statements will be made part of the record.

Mr. BRUCE. Thank you, sir. This crisis stems primarily from the

regions sustained growth in methamphetamine production and

trafficking and the continuing abuse of this illicit drug. But methamphetamine is not the only illegal drug adversely affecting California’ northern counties. There is a robust production and trade

in marijuana, a resurgent trafficking in cocaine and crack cocaine,

and the persistent market for black tar heroin. The consequences

of the abuse, production and trafficking of these drugs is enormous.

Individuals who abuse any one of these drugs usually creates havoc

within families and within our communities as we have heard this

morning. The production techniques of drug manufacturers pose

immediate risks for their neighbors’ health and to the environment.

The often violent tactics of traffickers endangers the safety of all

of us.

Methamphetamine production, trafficking and abuse pose the

most serious drug threat to northern California. The vast majority

of methamphetamine available in the United States is produced

and trafficked by Mexican groups that operate large laboratories

both in California and in Mexico. However, domestic production of

methamphetamine by U.S. citizens is also a significant and growing problem. The production level of these laboratories, often described as mom and pop labs, is relatively low. However, each represents a safety and environmental hazard.

Methamphetamine is a very simple drug to produce. A recipe can

be downloaded off the Internet. A user can go to retail stores and

easily purchase the vast majority of these ingredients necessary to

produce it. Precursor chemicals such as pseudoephedrine can be extracted from common over-the-counter cold medications. The proliferation of these mom and pop laboratories has imposed terrible

burdens. There is an increased abuse and trafficking of methamphetamine. There is also the fact that the highly toxic and flammable chemicals involved in making these rudimentary laboratories ticking time bombs requiring specialized and expensive

clean-ups.

Each pound of methamphetamine produced in a clandestine laboratory generates up to 5 pounds of toxic waste. Clandestine laboratory operators routinely dump these wastes into backyards,

open fields, sewage systems and streams to cover up the evidence

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of their illegal operations. The poisonous sludge from these sites

seeps into streams, rivers and drinking water sources.

Just in the eastern district of California, 486 laboratories were

seized in 1999. This total includes 9 laboratories in Shasta County,

14 in Sacramento, 18 in Sutter, 21 in Yuba and 32 in Butte County

as reported to the Western States Information Network.

Both production and trafficking and the abuse of methamphetamine generate an intolerable amount of violence within our communities. There are thousands of incidents of domestic and child

abuse prompted by one person’s methamphetamine habit. For instance, advocates for children remind us that substance abuse and

in particular methamphetamine abuse puts young children in danger constantly. And for methamphetamine, as for most every other

type of illicit drug, there is the violence propagated by traffickers

as they conduct their illicit business. This happens at all levels of

trafficking, but most noticeably at the street level.

Marijuana cultivation and trafficking is flourishing in northern

California as well. The region is ripe with indoor and outdoor

growths producing high grade cincemia and commercial grade

marijuana. There is also the continuing influx of marijuana imported from Mexico. This production and trafficking of marijuana

has been propelled in part by passage of the 1996 California Proposition 215. Many marijuana traffickers have claimed protection

from prosecution under this law, despite the fact that under Federal law where marijuana is listed as a Schedule 1 drug, there is

no basis for distinguishing medical marijuana trafficking from

marijuana trafficking generally. Marijuana trafficking is a violation

of Federal law.

Indoor and outdoor growths of marijuana are found throughout

northern California. DEA helps fund and is a participant in the

Campaign Against Marijuana Planting Program in California. And

in 1999, the CAMP Program eradicated over 3,500 indoor and outdoor marijuana growths and destroyed nearly 1 million marijuana

plants.

With the strong soaring popularity of cheaper methamphetamines, some experts just a few years ago heralded the demise of

cocaine. These predictions were overstated. While methamphetamine clearly has eclipsed cocaine as the drug of choice, there has

been a recent resurgence in the demand and supply of cocaine and

crack cocaine. Today, cocaine is readily available in much of California. Cocaine is trafficked primarily by drug organizations based

in Mexico, but there is some direct involvement by Colombianbased organizations also. Cocaine is primarily being shipped from

Mexico to northern California via Interstate 5 and Highway 99

from the Los Angeles Basin.

There is also a persistent market for Mexican black tar heroin

in northern California. Black tar heroin is the dominant type of

heroin trafficked in the region. Southeast Asia, Southwest Asia and

Colombia heroin are rarely encountered in the area. Black tar heroin is usually trafficked by organizations based in Mexico. Much of

the black tar heroin is thought to originate in the state of

Michoacan, Mexico, where heroin processing laboratories are believed to exist. Sacramento and other northern California cities are

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destination and trans-shipment points for this heroin as it moves

up from Mexico and southern California.

There is an emerging concern over the import of opium from

Southeast Asia also. Between January 1998 and July 1999, more

than 1 ton of opium in or destined for northern California was

seized. The majority of these seizures were made from parcels originating in Laos or Thailand and sent to California addresses in

Redding, Madeira, west Sacramento and other northern California

cities.

Other drugs threaten the livelihoods and lives of people residing

in the northern counties. Supplies of LSD are available in northern

California. The increasing popularity of this drug among youth remains a significant concern. There is also abuse of MDMA or

ecstacy and GHB, gammahydroxybuterate, especially at grave parties that take place in almost all of our cities.

DEA’s goal is to disrupt and ultimately dismantle the major drug

trafficking organizations operating in northern California. We focus

our energies foremost on the burgeoning plague posed by methamphetamine while continuing to target marijuana, cocaine and

heroin trafficking organizations. In pursuing this goal, DEA continues to work closely with other Federal, State and local law enforcement agencies throughout northern California through the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force, the Central Valley

High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area [HIDTA], and State and local

task forces. In particular, we continue our close cooperation with

California’s Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement. DEA continues to

pursue methamphetamine manufacturers and traffickers operating

in the northern counties. Parallel to these efforts, we continue the

aggressive targeting of major road chemical supply houses and

pseudoephedrine suppliers operating in northern California. We

continue to target and investigate indoor and outdoor marijuana

growths throughout the northern counties of California. These efforts involve close coordination and cooperation with our State and

local counterparts. Our continued efforts to reduce the threat posed

by cocaine and crack cocaine in northern California involve identifying, targeting and dismantling the transportation cells moving cocaine throughout the area. We continue to target and investigate

organizations trafficking in black tar heroin or producing or selling

LSD, MDMA and other dangerous drugs.

DEA specifically targets drug-related violence through our Mobile Enforcement Team Program. The MET is a special DEA enforcement group trained to assist local communities in fighting

drug-related violence. DEA has advertised the MET program to

local law enforcement officials in each of California’s northern

counties and is prepared to respond to a community’s call for assistance. Already the MET has been deployed to Yuba County as

part of the Operation Reunited that the Sheriff talked about. This

3-month deployment, which concluded on July 2, 1999, resulted in

the arrest of 26 individuals and seizure of 71⁄2 pounds of methamphetamine, 25 pounds of processed marijuana and small quantities of cocaine and heroin and nine weapons.

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This concludes my remarks. I would like to thank you for allowing me to testify today and I would certainly be open for any questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Bruce follows:]

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Mr. MICA. Thank you.

And we will suspend questions until we have heard from our

final witness, which is Mr. Paul Seave. He is the U.S. attorney in

the Eastern District of California. Welcome. We recognize you.

STATEMENT OF PAUL SEAVE, U.S. ATTORNEY, EASTERN

DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

Mr. SEAVE. We are the 10th largest by size; we are the 8th largest by population. And perhaps surprisingly, we have the 17th

worst crime rate among the four judicial districts. In California, we

have the worst crime rate among the four in the State.

I would like to briefly outline the methamphetamine problem

which others have mentioned, and then highlight two of the various strategies that we are pursuing to respond to the meth problem here.

Meth poses the primary drug threat in California and almost

every State west of the Mississippi. Historically, as has been mentioned, meth use was found primarily in California produced by

outlaw motorcycle gangs within the State. Approximately 6 years

ago, however, poly drug organizations in Mexico moved into this

market. They possessed the resources to finance and staff methamphetamine laboratories that could produce quantities far in excess of the multi-gram and pound laboratories of the past. These

super labs can manufacture 10 pounds, 50 pounds and even 100

pounds of methamphetamine per production session. It is estimated that well over half, perhaps as much as 75 percent of the

methamphetamine used nationally is manufactured in California.

These super labs are located primarily in the southern half of this

district and the Los Angeles area.

Not surprisingly, California is now referred to by law enforcement across the Nation as the source country for methamphetamine. California’s methamphetamine is primarily manufactured

with chemicals purchased domestically from American businesses.

The main precursor chemical is pseudoephedrine. This chemical,

which is also a main ingredient in over-the-counter allergy and cold

tablets is imported from Europe, India and China by large East

Coast companies, manufactured into pills and then sold to wholesalers across the United States. These wholesalers in turn sell to

retailers such as small convenience and liquor stores, and these retailers sell cases of these pills to the operators of the methamphetamine laboratories. The wholesalers also mail cases of these pills

directly to meth traffickers.

Alarmingly, the quantity of pseudoephedrine imported into the

United States has nearly tripled between 1990 and 1996. Meaning

that unless the citizens of this country are tripling the incidence

of colds and allergies, we have a pretty good idea that all the

pseudoephedrine is going to meth labs and to meth users in the

United States.

I would like to highlight two aspects of our anti-meth strategy.

The first has been to focus on the businesses that distribute

pseudoephedrine and other chemicals to the manufacturers of

meth. Criminal prosecution of these businesses requires proof of intent. For example, that the defendant knew or had reasonable

cause to believe that the chemicals would be used to manufacture

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methamphetamine. Prosecuting these businesses civilly requires a

lesser quantum of proof, such as that the defendant distributed the

chemicals with reckless disregard for the illegal uses to which they

would be put, or that the defendant failed to report a suspicious

transaction, or that the defendant failed to document the purchaser’s identity. It is important to remember that such enforcement actions, criminal or civil, can be difficult because those who

sell these legal chemicals for illegal purposes go to great lengths to

enhance their appearance as legitimate business people. Notwithstanding these difficulties, experience has convinced us that prosecuting a chemical trafficker reduces methamphetamine production

and distribution to a far greater degree than the traditional prosecution of those operating clandestine labs. Indeed, the price of

pills containing pseudoephedrine has skyrocketed since we implemented this strategy and the purity level of meth has plummeted.

And I might just mention that right now in Federal court in this

district, there are two trials going on. These are the two most significant cases that we have charged to date in this area.

A second aspect of our strategy has been to enhance our capacity

to collect drug-related intelligence from the more than 100 police

agencies in this district, to analyze that information, and to make

that information and analysis available to all agencies. For example, it is critical that law enforcement comprehensively collect discarded pill bottles from meth labs and dump sites, determine the

distributors of those bottles, and notify the distributors so that they

can take preventive measures or face future enforcement action.

This is a resource intensive and complex project requiring the participation and coordination of numerous agencies. We are well on

our way to implementing that strategy.

In conclusion, methamphetamine, unlike most other illegal

drugs, is produced primarily within our borders and primarily

within our State. This means that the so-called legitimate businesses that supply the chemicals needed by meth manufacturers

are within the reach of U.S. law enforcement. We are now focusing

on these businesses and thus far we have met with some success.

Again, thank you for allowing me to address you, and I look forward to any questions you may have.

Mr. MICA. Thank you. And we will start with some questions.

First, Mr. Scott, did you have to leave early?

Mr. SCOTT. I’ll have to depart here soon.

Mr. MICA. OK. Well hopefully we will be through by that time.

I just wanted to make certain that we didn’t detain you. I have

some questions. First of all, on the expansion of the HIDTA, you

have a current request in for what? $2.5 million for the existing

HIDTA?

Mr. RUZZAMENTI. The existing HIDTA, currently the budget will

be $1.487 million for 2000. We have not put in our 2001 request

yet. I have been advised by ONDCP though that next year’s funding will be level funding and not to anticipate any more than we

got this year unless there is another enhancement, in which case

we could get more than the $1.4.

Mr. MICA. And you are saying it takes somewhere in the range of $2.5 million to operate just the HIDTA that you have now adequately?

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Mr. RUZZAMENTI. That is ONDCP’s estimate.

Mr. MICA. Right. I mean for your side of it. Are you requesting $1.4 and getting $1.4, or are you requesting more?

Mr. RUZZAMENTI. Well, I would anticipate that what—logistically

the way we would do this is we will put in the request because we

have been mandated by ONDCP to request level funding of $1.4.

And then I will do a supplemental requesting that additional $1

million.

Mr. MICA. Describe for me how you are spending the money that

you are getting. Is there administrative costs and is it distributed

to the different agencies? How is it broken down?

Mr. RUZZAMENTI. Currently, we have three enforcement initiatives. One in Bakersfield, one in Fresno and one in Modesto. And

they are all enforcement methamphetamine task forces that are involved in complex methamphetamine—— Mr. MICA. Are they getting money?

Mr. RUZZAMENTI. They are getting money.

Mr. MICA. How much of the $1.4?

Mr. RUZZAMENTI. They get right now roughly $200,000 and some

each. It varies from—— Mr. MICA. OK. That times three is $600,000 or $700,000.

Mr. RUZZAMENTI. It is about $750,000.

Mr. MICA. OK. Where is the balance going?

Mr. RUZZAMENTI. Then we have the intelligence task force in

Sacramento.

Mr. MICA. How much?

Mr. RUZZAMENTI. It is getting about the same, about $250,000.

Mr. MICA. OK. We are up to $1 million. The balance?

Mr. RUZZAMENTI. And then the balance, we are setting up an intelligence center in Fresno which will coordinate the intelligence

amongst the HIDTA activities going on in the other initiatives.

That is being set up and that again is about another $250,000 for

this year’s funding. And then the rest is administrative and operational funding.

Mr. MICA. Are there any amounts of money going to the individual sheriff’s departments for employing additional personnel?

Mr. RUZZAMENTI. No, not at this time. We have funding going to

the sheriff’s departments to pay for overtime.

Mr. MICA. Well, you’ve heard that Sheriff Denney says that he

just doesn’t want to send more folks to another task force and

meetings and deplete what he has now. If we expand this, we are

going to need additional money and we don’t want to divide this

up to a lesser amount. Sheriff Shadinger has spoken about his only

help is the Burn Grant.

Mr. SHADINGER. The Burn Grant is how we operate. There is no

general fund money in small counties. That is the problem.

Mr. MICA. OK.

Mr. SHADINGER. And if I could just make a comment?

Mr. MICA. Go ahead.

Mr. SHADINGER. In talking with a couple of Central Valley sheriffs that are already participating in the Central Valley HIDTA,

they are at a point where they know it is going to cost them money

now out of their budget.

Mr. MICA. To participate in that.

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Mr. SHADINGER. The $1.4 is not adequate. If I didn’t make it

clear before, I don’t want to encroach upon that $1.4. We need additional money for it to be expanded.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Bruce, you described and I have heard described

today that a lot of the trafficking in meth and other substances is

coming out of Mexico. What are we doing to stop this stuff before

it reaches our borders?

Mr. BRUCE. Again, a lot of that addresses our situation now in

terms of resources. Because over the last few years, between the

governments Southwest Border Initiative and the Caribbean Initiative, a great many of our resources at DEA have been dedicated to

those initiatives. And I think we are—— Mr. MICA. Have you remained level in funding and personnel or

increased? Give me a snapshot over the last 4 or 5 years?

Mr. BRUCE. Well, DEA has gotten substantial—— Mr. MICA. Your resources here.

Mr. BRUCE. Here in the division?

Mr. MICA. Yes.

Mr. BRUCE. Virtually been flat. Some increases, very small increases.

Mr. MICA. So we are going tomorrow to San Diego and do a border hearing followup to this hearing. So I will be anxious to see

where the resources are. Finally, Mr. Seave, what priority do you

place as far as your district here on the drug enforcement prosecution? And what are we doing at the Federal level to curtail the

problem that we could be doing better? I believe we have the role,

first of all, of stopping the stuff before it ever gets to the border

and then tough prosecution. Is prosecution a high priority and

what aren’t we doing?

Mr. SEAVE. Yes. Prosecution of meth in particular is probably the

top priority of our office. I know we prosecute more meth cases

than any other U.S. attorneys offices and we get the highest sentences.

Mr. MICA. What could we do to do a better job at the Federal

level to help bring the situation under control?

Mr. SEAVE. As far as resources go, I would harken back to what

everyone on the panel has said. We need more DEA agents in this

district, and particularly in northern California. This district relative to the rest of the country is significantly underserved if you

measure the agents by agents per population or agents per number

of cases brought and so forth. So as far as resources go, at the Federal level that is what I would like to see.

From a tactical level, what we are starting to do again is to go

after the people who sell these chemicals.

Mr. MICA. Are the laws adequate in that regard? Federal law,

particularly with some of the precursors or chemicals used in production of methamphetamine?

Mr. SEAVE. I believe that the laws are adequate. What we need

more resources or more effort focused on, is tracking the chemicals

when they hit the border or when they hit the East Coast and

where they go from there—how you track them and where are they

going—so we can more effectively focus our enforcement efforts.

Stopping chemicals and drugs coming across the border is very,

very difficult. But the beauty so-called of meth is that it is being

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produced here. And that is why going after the chemical people

strikes me as the most effective strategy. I mean, they are here.

And if we can track them more effectively than we do now, and we

are trying to do as good a job as we can, we can drive up the price

even more than we have now.

Mr. MICA. Thank you. Mr. Ose.

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If I may diverge for a moment. I want to make sure I recognize one gentleman who has already left, but also one who has joined us. Sheriff Blanas from Sacramento County joined us for a few minutes and unfortunately he

had to go on. Also the District Attorney of Yolo County is here, Mr.

Dave Henderson. Dave, thanks for joining us.

I wanted to highlight for the record that when the issue of the

Central Valley HIDTA came up, up and down my particular district and I am sure in Wally’s, there was an immediate response

from my sheriffs as to we would like to be included. And the question became one of funding. And the thing I wanted to highlight

was that without exception from north to south, every one of my

sheriffs said if all we have got is enough money to set up one in

the nine counties, what became the Central Valley HIDTA, we

need to do that. We need to not let perfect be the enemy of the

good. And without exception from north to south, even those who

aren’t here, spoke out with let’s get the Central Valley HIDTA set

up. So I want to particularly pay my respects to the gentlemen

here because they were very vocal about that as well as their colleagues.

But I am interested specifically as to what the House of Representatives in its fiscal capacity can do to assist with creating or

expanding the current Central Valley HIDTA to address the issue.

And my rationale is as follows. As the Central Valley HIDTA comes

into existence and becomes more and more effective, those who

would otherwise traffick in methamphetamines or other things are

going to go to an area where there is less attention being paid,

which naturally would lead them further north on I–5 or 99 into

my area. When they get here, I want to be ready. I want to deal

with it now, but I don’t want to open the door if you will.

So my question again gets back to the fiscal reality we face. And

that is how do we in Congress provide—Mr. Bruce, how do we provide you the resources to address this? And my specific question is,

I think, as I understand it the current HIDTA, according to the

gentleman McCaffrey, requires $2.5 million to operate and be

staffed effectively. Is that accurate?

Mr. RUZZAMENTI. Yes.

Mr. OSE. If we were to expand that current HIDTA, what would

you need in terms of fiscal support from the Federal Government

over and above the $2.5?

Mr. RUZZAMENTI. If we in fact got $2.5 for fiscal year 2001, we

could do some limited expansion with that. In other words, we

could probably incorporate another initiative if we got a full $2.5.

Mr. OSE. In addition to the three you have at this time?

Mr. RUZZAMENTI. In addition. Realistically, it won’t be anything

extravagant. But we could probably support another initiative if we

got the full $2.5 million funding. If you are talking about all the

northern counties, then that would be significantly more appropriaVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:14 Dec 28, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00114 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\66900.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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tions. I would think just roughly you are probably looking at least

$5 million.

Mr. OSE. From the Federal Government?

Mr. RUZZAMENTI. Yes.

Mr. OSE. OK. Mr. Bruce, do you agree with that?

Mr. BRUCE. Yes, I do. One thing—and you get into the conversations of adding on initiatives to the already formed HIDTA as opposed to—I know that came up earlier as opposed to a totally separate HIDTA. With that, of course, you have all the same commensurate administrative set-up and expenses and things, which take

a substantial amount of funding also. But my understanding is— and I came into the process rather late when the Central Valley

HIDTA was being formed—that from the initial aspects of it as you

mentioned was that they would be all-inclusive throughout the

eastern district at the point it could be. But funding and resources

are always the bottom line. Whether it is deputies in Sutter County

or whether it is DEA agents or whether it is funding to put initiatives together. It all gets down to resources, and it is tough. I

mean, the competition right now is very, very tough. Whether it is

for Burn Grants or whether it is the competition I am in with 20

other domestic divisions and the foreign offices for agent resources

in my organization. It is a tough thing.

Mr. OSE. If I may, Mr. Chairman. If I understand your point ear- lier, the $1.487 million that you have got now, you’ve got some

going to setting up an intelligence center and some to actual intelligence in the field, three initiatives and then administrative costs.

If we expanded the HIDTA, we would not need a new intelligence

center. So that is not going to be a mirror image. So we wouldn’t

have that. We would arguably need the intelligence resources in

the field, so we might still have that quarter remaining. The administrative costs might go up some, but not on a dollar-for-dollar

mirror. Is there administrative capacity to run an expanded

HIDTA in the Central Valley?

Mr. RUZZAMENTI. I wish I could tell you yes. Right now, we are

just setting up. So basically the entire administration of the

HIDTA is sitting here.

Mr. OSE. You are doing fine.

Mr. RUZZAMENTI. I just hired an administrative assistant who

starts to work today. So we have got that working. And we just

hired a fiscal person who just started work about a week ago. So

we are building that sort of structure. With the increase in counties

and the increase in the funding for the projects that we have going

on, that is somewhat labor intensive as far as making sure the

money is spent appropriately and audited appropriately and those

kinds of functions. So there would be additional administrative

costs, but I don’t think they would be excessive. Right now, each initiative compartmentalized, we are looking at about $250,000,

and all that covers—this doesn’t cover it all—overtime for the police officers and the sheriffs department and some moneys for purchasing evidence and paying informants, but very minimal, and

that is about it. That really is the bulk of where the money is

going. So it is somewhat of a shoestring operation.

Mr. OSE. I appreciate your comments and I know my good friend

has questions as to who makes the decision as to whether or not

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to expand the HIDTA, assuming Congress provides the resources.

But I do not want to get away from your point, Sheriff Denney,

about providing the fiscal support rather than local resources. We

will come back to this, Mr. Chairman, if you will allow a second

round of questions. With that, I will give it back.

Mr. MICA. Thank you. I yield now to the gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Souder.

Mr. SOUDER. First I wanted to say to Sheriff Denney, you have

the most interesting job title I have heard of—sheriff, coroner and

public administrator. I assume if you come to someone’s door, they

certainly hope you are coming as a public administrator.

Sheriff Parker, I had a question. In your data, you start off with

the methamphetamine seizures, but in fact you seize almost twice

that in marijuana as well as other drugs. Is the percentage of meth

increasing? Is that why you stressed that more? Why is there so

much discussion? Because in the other statistics we heard as well,

marijuana is still a greater problem than methamphetamine.

Mr. PARKER. I talked about meth because TAGMET mainly deals

with the meth problem. I didn’t even mention the amount of marijuana that both Glenn County and Tehema County Sheriffs Department seized.

Mr. SOUDER. Well, you have in your written statement, at least,

that TAGMET agents seized 27.65 pounds of methamphetamine

and 47.65 pounds of marijuana. Even the TAGMET interdicted

twice as much marijuana.

Mr. PARKER. Yes, marijuana is a big problem in the North State.

And like I said, we have our own marijuana eradication team.

Mr. SOUDER. In addition to the TAGMET?

Mr. PARKER. Oh, yes. And so does Glenn County.

Mr. SOUDER. And is the marijuana staying the same level problem vis-a-vis methamphetamines or do you see the ratio shifting?

Mr. PARKER. Actually, I see marijuana has increased in the last

few years, and unfortunately part of that problem is probably the

teen, which has to be addressed sometime. But still we have a

major problem with methamphetamine, and it is not just being

shipped in by I–5. We have a lot of labs in our own county that

is producing it. It is a major problem.

Mr. SOUDER. Then on behalf of Indiana, I want to say that your

problem in California has unfortunately spread to the rest of the

country by implying it is a health issue, when we could probably

find a health subcomponent of tobacco and we could probably find

a health subcomponent of alcohol and we could find a health subcomponent of a number of things. By putting the term medicinal

in front of marijuana, we have really weakened our ability to communicate messages in the schools and elsewhere.

Mr. Scott, in your testimony, you said that from the Shasta

Interagency Narcotics Task Force that meth arrests accounted for

76 percent of arrests and that 72 percent of the kids on probation

tested positive for meth. Would marijuana have similar figures? In

your county is it a different mix?

Mr. SCOTT. Well, with respect to the arrests, our sheriffs department has the marijuana eradication team which handles the bulk

of the large growths and things of that nature. I don’t want to say

exclusively on methamphetamine, but in terms of cocaine, heroin

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and methamphetamine, there is no comparison. There is simply no

comparison between the amount of methamphetamine that it handles in relation to the other ‘‘hard drugs’’.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Ruzzamenti, if the No. 1 problem is marijuana,

why is your HIDTA only focused on methamphetamine?

Mr. RUZZAMENTI. Well, the Central Valley HIDTA is focused on

methamphetamine because that is by far and away the No. 1 problem in the nine counties that are overseen by the Central Valley

HIDTA.

Mr. SOUDER. You are saying that more people use

methamphetamines than marijuana or more arrests in those nine

counties?

Mr. RUZZAMENTI. It is a much more insidious drug as far as the

violence incurred and as far as the organization structure of the organizations that are marketing it and transporting it through the

areas. It has a more significant impact on the sheriffs departments,

both manpower and time as far as lab clean-up sites and environmental hazards. It is the most significant drug in those counties

from a law enforcement standpoint.

Mr. SOUDER. Could you explain that a little more? In other

words, the potency of the meth as opposed to the potency of the

marijuana, cocaine and heroin?

Mr. RUZZAMENTI. Well, it is just a totally separate drug. Methamphetamine is not only being used, but the resulting problem like

the lady was talking about endangered children. That is a problem

for the family. It is just impacting the areas in a number of different fashions. And that is not saying that these areas don’t have

problems with marijuana and they don’t have problems with heroin, because they do. But the most significant problem is methamphetamine, and that is what the HIDTA is targeted to go after.

We have limited resources and we had to—decisions had to be

made and that was the decision to take it in that direction.

Mr. SOUDER. Did you say this is the only HIDTA that is targeted?

Mr. RUZZAMENTI. No. The new HIDTAs that came about in fiscal

year 1999, of those I think two of them were methamphetamine

specific. And then the other ones were general in nature.

Mr. SOUDER. If you expanded this HIDTA, would you—do you

know which counties you would propose including?

Mr. RUZZAMENTI. No. We would have to sit down with each of the

sheriffs and the law enforcement administrators in the counties.

Sit down with them and see what their problems were and how we

could best——

Mr. SOUDER. I believe you made an allusion before to the fact

that the way you chose the counties you have in it were based on

the percentage of methamphetamine usage. In other words,

wouldn’t that criteria have to be there if you expanded your

HIDTA?

Mr. RUZZAMENTI. Not specific usage but the laboratories.

Mr. SOUDER. The labs.

Mr. RUZZAMENTI. The major labs are in those nine counties, as

far as the labs that are the super labs, if you will, that are producing the 100 pounds of methamphetamine at a time or 50 pounds

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of methamphetamine at a time. These kinds of super labs are primarily in and around Fresno and in that area.

Mr. SOUDER. And that is the kind of criteria you would apply as

you added counties?

Mr. RUZZAMENTI. If it was to continue to be methamphetamine

specific, I think you would have to be consistent with that kind of

criteria. You would have to look at the counties consistently and

what is their methamphetamine problem.

Mr. SOUDER. And if it wasn’t methamphetamine specific, you

would have to go up to the $2.5 million base. Part of the reason

you have the $1.487 is because you are specific and not a broad

based HIDTA?

Mr. RUZZAMENTI. That is correct.

Mr. SOUDER. And so then you would have to start with a different base before you added the other counties.

Mr. RUZZAMENTI. Yes. Technically, I don’t know how ONDCP

would do that.

Mr. SOUDER. But you haven’t had any discussions at this point

with ONDCP about how to do that?

Mr. RUZZAMENTI. I have had preliminary discussions with

ONDCP as far as trying to up the ante on this thing to $2.5 million. And in those preliminary discussions, we have indicated that

there were counties to the northern part of the State that are interested in joining the HIDTA. And that if additional funds were

available that new initiatives in the northern counties would be a

possibility.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. I know my time is up. Mr. Bruce, I

wanted to thank you for the specifics in your testimony. It was very

helpful and hopefully we can followup.

Mr. MICA. Thank you, gentlemen. I will recognize Mr. Herger.

Mr. HERGER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just as a followup to

this. Mr. Ruzzamenti, if it might be possible in the next couple of

weeks, I believe the chairman indicated that we would have the

record open for questions. And it would help us very much on the

committee and as Members of Congress as far as budgeting is concerned if it might be possible to perhaps give us an outline or a

skeletal budget of what you feel it might take to include Congressman Ose’s and my districts or the northern part of the State. It

would be very helpful to us in making recommendations.

Again, I want to thank everyone who is here. The fact that we

have so many sheriffs and so many law enforcement people and

district attorneys not only on the panel but a number who in fact

have shown up and are here in the audience this morning from

throughout our area certainly indicates how incredibly important

this issue is to us.

We are having some questions on perhaps the difference between

methamphetamine and what it does than that of marijuana, which

is also a major concern. District Attorney Scott, if I could ask you,

if I would, if you would relate. I know you have set up a pilot program or a program that you have initiated on methamphetamine.

What have been some of your experiences on the clients, if you

will—those that you have run into as far as their disposition, those

who are on methamphetamines.

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Mr. SCOTT. I think the principle thing which distinguishes methamphetamine from certainly marijuana and the other drugs is the

level of violence which accompanies use of the drug. One of the statistics I included in my written presentation was that for a 4-year

period of time in Shasta County, 40 percent of our murders involved some use of methamphetamine. I think that is a startling

statistic when you stop and think about it.

The second aspect of it was spoken to by Ms. Webber-Brown this

morning with respect to the drug becomes all encompassing. It literally takes over the life of the person who becomes addicted to it.

So that literally their children don’t matter to them as much as the

drug does. And those two things really stand out to me in my experiences with methamphetamine. It is a startling thing to stand in

court at an arraignment of a person who has been arrested for a

methamphetamine related offense and to literally see the shell of

a human being. A person who is emaciated, sores on their body,

scratching and itching constantly, no concept of where they are or

what is going on. It really is the devil’s drug. That is what people

call it. The users call it that and it is a very appropriate title.

Mr. HERGER. So it is horrendous, as all these illegal drugs are.

Methamphetamine particularly we are seeing causing problems.

That is quite startling I think of all the murders in Shasta County

that almost half are methamphetamine related. So it certainly, I

think, would indicate a reason why we, if anything, could use a

specific program that has grown so much here in our area. How

much would an expanded HIDTA program help us in northern

California in your County of Shasta and the adjoining counties that

you are familiar with if we were to be able to do that?

Mr. SCOTT. I think it would be a tremendous help. I think I

speak for most of the counties, if not all, when I say that we are

literally tapped out in terms of the use of local and State resources

to battle the methamphetamine problem. We have all applied for

grants from the State and we have all gotten grants from the State

and we have gotten the grants that we can from the Federal Government. And this is really the next step in our ability to do something about the problem. We have got to have a coordinated response between all levels of government, not just the locals and the

State governments, but the feds, the State and the local government.

One of the key things, and there are several, is the I–5 corridor.

It has been addressed here before, but one of the essential problems we have is that we literally are stopping on a daily basis drug

traffickers who are ferrying drugs to the northwest from the Bay

area and lower Central Valley and Los Angeles. We bear the cost

of the investigation, prosecution and incarceration for those persons

who are sent to State prison, when it is truly an interstate problem

that we technically under the Constitution don’t have responsibility

for. And so the expansion of the HIDTA, along with the opening of

a branch regional office of the DEA, preferably in the north state,

Redding, would really go a long ways toward tying division of the

responsibility for that interstate drug trafficking to the feds as well

as the State and locals, and really be the next step, as I said, in

what we are trying to do. We all come from communities that are

seriously devoted to doing something about this problem, and we

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need the help from the feds. Because we have taken it as far as

we can and the next level has to come from your end.

Mr. HERGER. Thank you very much for pointing that out. I know

that had been pointed out earlier. But the fact that so much of the

problem we have is really that Interstate 5 is a major corridor between Mexico, actually international, through Oregon and Washington into Canada, as well as 99, which passes up through

Marysville and Yuba City, and these corridors do tend to attract

those who would be involved in this.

And I just have to restate again the importance. I want to thank

you. I mentioned earlier just speaking with Sheriff Charlie Byrd,

who is sitting in the back. And every sheriff I talk to or law enforcement within our counties, this is such a major problem and

really just crying out for assistance and help to combat this. So,

again, thank you very much for your testimony. And Mr. Chairman

and members, thank you very much.

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Herger. Additional questions, Mr.

Ose?

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to come back to the

two questions I have. First, and this falls to you primarily. I notice

in Mr. Ruzzamenti’s testimony that you are the chair of the Executive Committee for the Central Valley HIDTA. What I am trying

to determine is to which executive or where in the executive branch

will the decision be made as to whether or not to expand the existing Central Valley HIDTA?

Mr. SEAVE. Within ONDCP.

Mr. OSE. It would be made by General McCaffrey or some

other——

Mr. SEAVE. Someone working for General McCaffrey. That is assuming the funding is there.

Mr. OSE. Correct, on that assumption. Is the Executive Committee of which you are the chair of play a role in that?

Mr. SEAVE. We play a role in so far as we submit our requests

for here are some initiatives that we have and we need additional

funding. But I can assure you that every HIDTA is doing the same

thing. So the decision, as far as I can tell, comes from McCaffrey

and his staff.

Mr. OSE. OK. From your experience, could you share with us

some of the specific qualifications or requirements that our counties must establish in order to make an acceptable case for expanding the current Central Valley HIDTA?

Mr. SEAVE. One of the factors that McCaffrey and his staff look

at is is this just a local problem or is this a problem that goes beyond the regional area and beyond the State? Is there a national

impact? As far as that goes, of course you have heard about I–5.

So this is more than simply a local problem. As a number of people

have mentioned, we anticipate that as we have success in driving

the labs out of the southern part of this district, they are going to

move to the northern part of the district. Just as they are moving

now from the Los Angeles area up to this area. I guess they have

been in business a lot longer than we have and they are having

some success. So I think that is one of the major factors that they

look at.

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Mr. OSE. Two final questions. I asked Mr. Ruzzamenti and Mr.

Bruce, I will get to you. The $2.5 million for the current Central

Valley HIDTA, are you comfortable with that for operations on an

annual basis?

Mr. SEAVE. Yes.

Mr. OSE. What number for an expanded HIDTA that might include Congressman Herger’s and my districts should we keep in

mind?

Mr. SEAVE. I think Mr. Ruzzamenti mentioned $5 million. But

equally important is the lack of DEA agents in the northern part

of the State. I think they go hand-in-hand.

Mr. OSE. Would that be part of the $5 million or would that be

on top of the $5 million?

Mr. SEAVE. That is apart from the $5 million.

Mr. OSE. And that would be how much for the DEA establishment?

Mr. SEAVE. I would have to ask DEA for that.

Mr. OSE. Mr. Bruce.

Mr. BRUCE. I am not sure exactly what the formula is now per

agent cost. But that of course would be a whole separate appropriation through DEA and DEA’s funding for the agents. My understanding on that process, the last 2 years anyway, is that our agent

increases—I have heard the number 44 this year for 2000. Those

were all congressionally mandated. So even as an agency, I don’t

think we had any choices there in where those agents went. They

were congressionally mandated for certain programs. So there is a

number of ways Congress deals with these things. Either straight

appropriation to increase the number of agents for the agency to

handle it, or congressionally mandating where those agents are

placed by virtue of giving the increases.

Mr. OSE. Generally speaking, is that $125,000 an agent or

$60,000 an agent or $200,000 an agent?

Mr. BRUCE. I would think $125,000 probably. Because you are

talking about not only obviously salary, but you are talking about

opening an office. Although we have had, even when I was in Sacramento for 4 years in the late 1980’s or early 1990’s, at that point

we had invitations for agents in Redding. And I know a couple of

agencies would be more than happy to let us squat in their facilities even if we had to. I would say, in talking about cars and guns

and everything that goes to equip an agent, $125,000 per agent is

probably a pretty good figure.

Mr. OSE. And that would just be the Federal share, and that

would not affect perhaps the associated costs for the local agency

interacting with DEA? That would just be the Federal per agent

number?

Mr. BRUCE. Ordinarily the way this goes—what we just did in

Modesto this last year—ordinarily what DEA does initially is open

what they call a posted duty, which are two agents. Two agents in

a posted duty. And that is the initial step. Many of those posted

duties, like in Medford, OR, for instance, which is just across the

line in Oregon, went from a posted duty and subsequently became

a resident office, which of course gets a larger facility and more

manpower. But the first step would be a posted duty probably with

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two agents assigned to—the most reasonable location, at this point

would be Redding.

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MICA. Do you have some questions, Mr. Souder?

Mr. SOUDER. I had a couple of quick questions on methamphetamine itself, probably for Mr. Bruce or Mr. Ruzzamenti but anybody else. Is this a drug that is more heavily used by adults than

kids at this point in your region? Or are the adults who are doing

the labs selling it to the kids?

Mr. BRUCE. I think from our experience, the age of methamphetamine abuse just gets younger and younger constantly. We are seeing it down into the primary grades now.

Mr. SOUDER. Is it a drug that somebody would start with marijuana and switch over or is it a separate track? Usually you hear

tobacco, marijuana, cocaine, heroin. How does methamphetamine

fit into this track?

Mr. BRUCE. I think it is a matter of opportunity for a lot of kids,

especially given peer pressure and the situation. I think just the

availability creates—I think we saw that in the Midwest over the

last few years. The fact of availability and an illicit substance becoming available. People are going to take advantage of it and traffic in it.

Mr. SOUDER. But users move back and forth between it.

Mr. BRUCE. Oh, certainly.

Mr. SOUDER. In other words, it is not like it is a separate track.

Once you move into looking for artificial stimulants, you could

move in any different direction?

Mr. BRUCE. That is certainly the way I see it over 34-some years

in this business. We sometimes facetiously talk about the drug du

jour. But the situation is so dynamic and that is why I kind of presented a little bit on several of the drugs. There is no question that

methamphetamine is a major problem at this point. This too shall

change.

Mr. SOUDER. It is storming the Center Plains area, Kansas City

and St. Louis. We are still over in cocaine and heroin when you

move into the Detroit, Chicago and Indiana circle. I mean, we have

more murders related to cocaine than what I have heard here from

methamphetamine. I am from a city that is not so much larger

than anything here.

One last thing. I noticed in your data that the California marijuana, the THC, you estimate twice the potency of imported Mexican because it is being watered down or what?

Mr. BRUCE. No. Just the way it is produced and grown.

Mr. SOUDER. So it is not like the ditch weed we would see in Indiana?

Mr. BRUCE. Right. Highly cultivated marijuana uses a cincemia

plant, which is virtually a sterile plant. So everything goes to the

concentration of production of THC. The potencies now are probably four or five times what they were in the 1960’s or 1970’s when

both of us came on the job.

Mr. SOUDER. So we are not talking like the hippie days of the

late 1960’s when I was in college.

Mr. BRUCE. No, not at all. I am not going to say you were.

Mr. SOUDER. Not me. I have always been a square.

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Mr. BRUCE. The price was not $5,000 or $6,000 a pound either.

Mr. SOUDER. I not only didn’t inhale, I didn’t smoke. I yield back.

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Herger. I would like to take this opportunity to thank each of the panelists and witnesses we have had

today that are on the front line of this battle. We particularly appreciate and salute your efforts. We honestly try to do the best we

can in Washington in trying to address these problems and see how

we can work in a cooperative effort. As Mr. Scott said—he is gone

now, but it does take a concerted local, State and Federal cooperative effort. Much of the war on drugs as we know it was closed

down between 1993 and 1995. I inherited the responsibility from

the current Speaker, Mr. Hastert, who is a great ally and was really an initiator in getting us back to meet our Federal national responsibility to bring this situation under control. I have worked so

closely with Mr. Souder, who has been on the subcommittee with

me for some years and now joined by Mr. Ose, who has been a tireless supporter of our efforts, which we appreciate. Because it takes

218 votes to do this in the House of Representatives, I am pleased

with Mr. Herger’s interest in expanding the HIDTA and his support for our efforts along the way. It is very difficult in trying to

get attention focused appropriately and balanced.

I might say that I did have a chance on Friday to visit the West

Coast JATF, Joint Agency Task Force, which operates out of the

San Francisco Bay area. And they did point out that the West

Coast has been neglected in this effort, and we need to focus

through this visit and through the hearing we are doing here today

and then in southern California tomorrow on the situation here,

which appears to be very serious. You have a unique problem that

certainly warrants national attention and cooperation.

So there being no further business, Mr. Ose has requested that

the record be left open for a period of 2 weeks. And without objection, that is so ordered. We will be asking additional questions and

we can proceed for those—and I know this is a limited forum given

the constrained time requirements. In fact, our staff will be leaving

in just a few minutes to prepare for the next hearing in San Diego.

But we do welcome additional comments for the record and will

leave it open. You can contact Mr. Ose, and he will see that it is

made part of the complete record. And everything that has been

said here today and submitted will be part of a permanent record

and used by the committee and Congress hopefully in its future decisionmaking in a wise fashion.

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There being no further business to come before the Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources Subcommittee at this time,

this meeting is adjourned.

[Whereupon, the subcommittee was adjourned.]

[Additional information submitted for the hearing record follows:]

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