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44–274 CC 1997

REAUTHORIZATION OF THE OFFICE OF NATIONAL

DRUG CONTROL POLICY

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, 

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT 

REFORM AND OVERSIGHT 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

MAY 1, 1997

Serial No. 105–47

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight

(

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM AND OVERSIGHT 

DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman 

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York 

J. DENNIS HASTERT, Illinois 

CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland 

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut 

STEVEN SCHIFF, New Mexico 

CHRISTOPHER COX, California 

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 

JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona 

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio 

MARSHALL ‘‘MARK’’ SANFORD, South 

Carolina 

JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire 

PETE SESSIONS, Texas 

MICHAEL PAPPAS, New Jersey 

VINCE SNOWBARGER, Kansas 

BOB BARR, Georgia 

ROB PORTMAN, Ohio 

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California 

TOM LANTOS, California 

ROBERT E. WISE, JR., West Virginia 

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York 

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York 

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania 

GARY A. CONDIT, California 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

THOMAS M. BARRETT, Wisconsin 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington, 

DC 

CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland 

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio 

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois 

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois 

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts 

JIM TURNER, Texas 

THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine 

HAROLD E. FORD, JR., Tennessee 

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont 

(Independent) 

KEVIN BINGER, Staff Director 

DANIEL R. MOLL, Deputy Staff Director 

JUDITH MCCOY, Chief Clerk 

PHIL SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, AND CRIMINAL

JUSTICE

J. DENNIS HASTERT, Chairman 

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana 

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut 

STEVEN SCHIFF, New Mexico 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona 

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio 

BOB BARR, Georgia 

THOMAS M. BARRETT, Wisconsin 

TOM LANTOS, California 

ROBERT E. WISE, JR., West Virginia 

GARY A. CONDIT, California 

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland 

JIM TURNER, Texas 

EX OFFICIO

DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California 

ROBERT CHARLES, Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

CHRIS MARSTON, Legislative Assistant 

IANTHE SAYLOR, Clerk 

MICHAEL YEAGER, Minority Counsel 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on May 1, 1997 ................................................................................. 1

Statement of: 

McCaffrey, Gen. Barry, Director, Office of National Drug Control Policy ... 10

Rabkin, Norman, Director, Administration of Justice Issues, General Accounting Office, accompanied by Jess Ford, General Accounting Office, 

and Marsha Lillie-Blanton, General Accounting Office ............................. 73

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

Cummings, Hon. Elijah E., a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Maryland, prepared statement of ............................................................ 6

Hastert, Hon. J. Dennis, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Illinois, prepared statement of ................................................................ 3

McCaffrey, Gen. Barry, Director, Office of National Drug Control Policy, 

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 14

Rabkin, Norman, Director, Administration of Justice Issues, General Accounting Office, prepared statement of ....................................................... 75

Souder, Hon. Mark E., a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Indiana, December 31, 1996, Boston Herald article .............................. 49

(1)

REAUTHORIZATION OF THE OFFICE OF 

NATIONAL DRUG CONTROL POLICY 

THURSDAY, MAY 1, 1997 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, INTERNATIONAL

AFFAIRS, AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE, COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM AND OVERSIGHT, Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 11:10 a.m., in room 

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. J. Dennis Hastert 

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Hastert, Souder, Mica, Barr, Barrett, 

Blagojevich, and Cummings. 

Staff present: Robert Charles, staff director and chief counsel; 

Chris Marston, legislative assistant; Ianthe Saylor, clerk; Michael 

Yeager, minority counsel; and Ellen Rayner, minority chief clerk. 

Mr. HASTERT. The Subcommittee on National Security, International Affairs, and Criminal Justice will come to order. I want 

to say good morning and welcome to everybody. We have an excellent opportunity today and in the upcoming months. The authorization of the Office of National Drug Control Policy expires at the end 

of this fiscal year, which is September 30th. Considering legislation 

to reauthorize this office gives us a chance to evaluate the way our 

Government responds to the threat posed by illegal drugs. 

Since the office was established in 1988, it has been reauthorized 

once in 1994. Several changes were made at that time. We now 

need to consider the effect of those changes and what new improvements we can make to enhance coordination of our Nation’s efforts 

to fight drug abuse. As the subcommittee begins to develop its own 

ideas about changes in ONDCP, I look forward to hearing from 

Gen. McCaffrey, as we always do, about his proposals, and also 

Norm Rabkin of the General Accounting Office about the considerable work that office has done in evaluating coordination of the 

Federal drug control efforts. 

Before we hear testimony from our witness, I’d like to take a moment to remind everyone that the issue we confront today is not 

just about technical changes in legislation; it’s about the threat 

posed to our Nation by illegal drugs. And not just the people who 

you think sit or stand on the street corners. It’s in our schools. It’s 

in our communities. It’s all over. And it really affects the No. 1 victim of this, our children. 

As we consider proposals for changing ONDCP, we need to remember that we are working to protect our children and our society from the effects of drug abuse and the dangers connected with 

2

drug trafficking. As recently as Tuesday, I was reminded of the 

dangers presented by drugs. A man in one of our adjoining districts 

in Illinois, just north of my own, was arrested for giving a so-called 

date rape drug to a woman. Had she not received prompt care, her 

reaction to the drug could have killed her. 

While we have no measures to indicate that the prevalence of the 

particularly insidious use of date rape drugs, recent studies tell us 

that other types of drug use among our youth continues to rise. Illicit drug use among 8th and 10th graders has doubled in the last 

5 to 6 years. Our children are using LSD and other hallucinogens, 

cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine, at increasing levels. 

MDMA, commonly referred to as ecstacy, has been used by nearly 

5 percent of 10th and 12th graders, as well as 2 percent of 8th 

graders. 

MDMA is just one example of a new and emerging drug that 

threatens our youth. Parents have stopped talking to their children 

about the dangers of drug use. And only 3 of 10 children say their 

parents have talked to them about drugs. And faced with a problem of this magnitude, we must take very seriously the task before 

us today. Before asking Gen. McCaffrey to testify, I yield to my 

friend, the subcommittee’s ranking member, Tom Barrett, for any 

opening comments that he may have. Mr. Barrett. 

[The prepared statement of Hon. J. Dennis Hastert follows:] 

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Mr. BARRETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I, too, would like to 

welcome Gen. McCaffrey and Mr. Rabkin today. The consequences 

of illegal drug use are more serious than ever for the health of our 

Nation, for our productivity, and for the safety of our communities. 

As you pointed out in the 1997 drug strategy, every man, woman 

and child in America pays about $1,000 per year to cover the expense of crime in our neighborhoods, extra law enforcement, unnecessary health care, auto accidents and loss productivity all resulting from substance abuse. And that’s not to mention the incalculable harm done to families and communities by the effects of drugs. 

Gen. McCaffrey, you have a difficult job. Not only are you responsible for developing our national drug control strategy, your office 

is also responsible for coordinating the drug control efforts over 50 

Federal agencies, each with its own priorities, and each with its 

own bureaucracy. An important place to start in our effort to combat illegal drugs—and I see this reflected in the drug strategy and 

in the proposed reauthorization bill—is with our country’s young 

people. 

In recent years we’ve seen a very troubling increase in the number of teenagers and young adults using drugs. The percentage of 

youngsters between 12 and 17 using illegal drugs has steadily gone 

up, from 5.3 percent in 1992 to 10.9 percent in 1995. That’s more 

than 1 out of every 10 young people in America. Among eighth 

graders, drug use has gone up 150 percent over the past 5 years. 

This year’s drug strategy reflects the fact that underage alcohol 

and tobacco use leads to more serious drug use down the road. 

They are gateway drugs. 

And research on the subject shows a strong statistical association 

between adolescent tobacco and alcohol use and the use of other 

drugs. Children 12 to 17 years old who smoke are 19 times more 

likely to use cocaine than children who have never smoked. Children 12 to 17 who drink alcohol are 50 times more likely to use 

cocaine than children who never drank; 12- to 17-year-olds who 

smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol, and use marijuana are 266 times 

more likely to use cocaine than children who never used these substances. 

These are difficult problems, Gen. McCaffrey. And I stand ready, 

as I’m sure all of my colleagues do, to do everything in our power 

to help you succeed. I look forward to hearing your testimony 

today. Thank you. 

Mr. HASTERT. The gentleman from Baltimore, MD. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. General, 

I’ve had the honor to hear your testimony before this committee on 

different occasions. And let me say how impressed I am with your 

continuing commitment and integrity in fighting this drug war. I 

want to applaud you and encourage you to continue your mission. 

It is not enough to have a vision, it is important to be on a mission. 

And that is what I think you are trying to do. And I support you. 

General, we don’t have time to point fingers. Life is too short. 

And too many people are dying and suffering. You have travelled 

to my district of Baltimore and walked the streets with me where 

drug trafficking flourishes, and you have visited treatment centers 

where patients strive simply to get well. You have seen people who 

are in so much pain that they don’t even know that they are in 

5

pain. I fully support the HIDTA programs. In fact, I’m scheduled 

to visit the Washington-Baltimore HIDTA shortly. 

This particular HIDTA provided vital support to the investigation that culminated in the largest drug seizure in Maryland’s history. As you know, in February U.S. Customs and U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents seized 2,400 pounds of cocaine, 

worth $25 million, concealed in steel drums transported to a Baltimore chemical company. General, I am also grateful to you for your 

attentions to the abuses of tobacco and alcohol. Last May, a stunning report issued by the Federal Centers for Disease Control and 

Prevention stated that 4.5 million children and adolescents smoke 

in the United States. 

This is particularly troubling for me because the proportion of African-American boys in grades 9 through 12 who reported they 

smoked was almost double. The report concluded that nearly one 

out of every three young people who smoke will have their lives 

shortened from terrible diseases caused by smoking. I am committed to doing everything possible to help enact President Clinton’s new tobacco regulations. These policies are only the first steps 

in saving generations of young people from becoming addicted to 

tobacco, which science has proven causes serious health problems 

including early death. 

I would also like to take this opportunity to comment on the Sentencing Commission’s recent proposal to adjust the great disparity 

in sentencing for powdered cocaine versus crack cocaine. This development is long overdue. The current guidelines are not only racist, but they do nothing to assist in the development of a resultsoriented national drug policy. And finally, I urge your office to do 

more to address the allegations made against the Central Intelligence Agency and their relationship with regard to the introduction of crack cocaine into American urban centers. Although you 

were one of the first Government officials to call for full disclosure 

by the CIA, very little or no interest in getting to the bottom of 

these disturbing charges is evident. 

As the use of crack cocaine continues to skyrocket in urban 

areas, there is a growing outcry in American cities to know the 

truth about how this plague began. Until we can get an honest answer to the origins of this crisis, the talk of winning this war is 

useless. The House of Representatives must follow the example of 

the Senate, and hold open and thorough hearings on the trail of 

drugs from Nicaragua to Washington to the distribution networks 

of violent street gangs. 

Finally, General, once again, let me say how pleased I am for you 

to be here today. I also want to compliment you on your hard-working and dedicated staff. They have been extremely helpful to me 

and my personal staff. I am fully supportive of your mission. And 

I stand ready to assist you in any way that I can. 

[The prepared statement of Hon. Elijah E. Cummings follows:]

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Mr. HASTERT. Without objection, we’ll move now to questioning. 

Anybody that has an opening statement will submit it for the 

record. 

Mr. BLAGOJEVICH. Can I say something? 

Mr. HASTERT. Go ahead. 

Mr. BLAGOJEVICH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would only say 

that—excuse me for being late, by the way. I would only say that 

in my judgment the war on drugs is our new cold war in America. 

We were successful in facing an external threat to our national security during the cold war because we had the will and the wherewithal, and we put forth the effort to meet that challenge. And I 

just hope that our country can put that same kind of focus in not 

only fighting but ultimately winning this war on drugs. 

And I would simply say again that it’s a real privilege to serve 

on this subcommittee. And, General, I look forward to hearing your 

testimony because I can’t think of anything more important than 

this particular issue facing America. So, thank you for coming, and 

I’m eager to hear your testimony. 

Mr. HASTERT. I thank the gentleman from Illinois. Now I would 

like to formally welcome Gen. Barry McCaffrey, Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. General, welcome. As usual, 

we look forward to hearing your testimony. General, as you know, 

the rules of the committee require that I swear you in. Will you 

please stand and raise your right hand? 

[Witness sworn.] 

Mr. HASTERT. Let the record show that the witness responded in 

the affirmative. General, please proceed with your testimony. 

STATEMENT OF GEN. BARRY McCAFFREY, DIRECTOR, OFFICE 

OF NATIONAL DRUG CONTROL POLICY 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for the 

opportunity to come down here and to lay out some initial 

thoughts, and, more importantly, respond to your own questions 

and listen to your own comments. Let me underscore that your 

leadership and also Mr. Barrett’s and Elijah Cummings’ and Rob 

Portman’s and Steny Hoyer’s and Jim Kolbe’s and others has been 

a source of not only enormous confidence in dealing with Congress, 

but more importantly, we’ve learned a lot from listening to those 

of you who have worked this problem over the years. 

With your permission, I would like to point out that we have 

with us in the hearing room some very important people to the 

drug issue. Dick Bonnette, Partnership for a Drug Free America, 

which has done such absolutely splendid work over the last many 

years trying to organize public service announcements, pro bono 

announcements. Jim Burke, as you know, has been the guiding 

light of that effort. We have with us the Community Anti-Drug Coalition of America, Jim Copple, representing more than 4,000 community coalitions across this country. Jim has been absolutely pivotal in our success in communicating the National Drug Strategy. 

Bill Alden, from D.A.R.E. America, is also here. As you know, the 

D.A.R.E. program, with some 25 million children involved, has 

been what many of us believe the single most effective drug prevention program in the school system we’ve had to date. We also 

have Judge Jeff Tauber, from the National Association of Drug 

11

Court Professionals. There are some 200 drug courts now, 89 of 

them funded by the United States, supported by Federal funds. 

And they have, while not being a magical bullet—are probably the 

single most effective new initiative, I argue, we’ve seen in the 

criminal justice system relating to the drug issue. 

Mike Kirshenbaum, from the National Center for Drug Free 

Kids, is also with us—a very key organization in our continuing 

concern about gateway behavior with adolescents. And we have 

Chris Rugaber, from the National Association of State Alcohol and 

Drug Abuse Directors. And, as you know, they represent our State 

Governors as sort of the primary point of contact on prevention and 

treatment programs. And they’ve been essential to my own education in the last year. Finally, and very importantly, Laura Waxman, from the U.S. Conference of Mayors, is here, representing 

some 1,500 mayors of cities with populations over 30,000. 

I’ve been involved very heavily in the last 6 months with not only 

Mayor Rich Daley but also his mayors’ coalition on drugs, which, 

as you know, will come to Washington here, toward the end of 

May—probably over 100 mayors—to have a national conference 

and to present us with their own ideas. So I’m very grateful for 

these representatives to be present and to provide continuing guidance and support to me. Mr. Chairman, with your permission, I 

might offer for the record our statement, which we have provided 

to your committee members, and also the associated graphs. And 

it’s our attempt to bring together in a coherent manner our own 

ideas on reauthorization. 

Mr. HASTERT. Without objection. 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. I’ve also provided, obviously, not only, Mr. 

Chairman, to your committee, but also to the Senate and the House 

Republican and Democratic leadership, our rewritten authorization 

bill for the Office of National Drug Control Policy. And that packet 

has been made available to all of you. We’ve had a very hard working group throughout the executive branch struggling over this for 

the last 8 months. We think it’s a solid piece of work, and one that 

will allow us to continue to support the American people and to 

carry out the mandate of confronting drug abuse and its consequences in America. 

And, finally, I will again remind myself, for starters, that the National Drug Control Strategy 1997 and the National Drug Control 

Strategy budget, which by law I must prepare and certify and submit to Congress each year, has been put on the table. We think 

they are solid pieces of work. The 1998 budget, itself, is some $16 

billion that I have asked for the support of the two appropriations 

committees. Very briefly, with your permission, Mr. Chairman, I 

will run through some ideas that are on charts. 

And starting off with, again, a restatement that our entire effort 

is organized around five goals of the National Drug Strategy. We 

have now articulated, we think, in a pretty decent fashion, 32 supporting objectives for these five goals. That is the conceptual framework that we intend to hang the budget, policies and programs on. 

The next chart briefly outlines a quick overview of where we are 

in drugs in America. 

And, again, it’s important to remind ourselves drug abuse is 

down by 50 percent, cocaine use has plummeted 75 percent. But 

12

that’s not the nature of the problem we’re working. That may be 

the good news. But the bad news is that the—next chart—the consequences of this drug abuse have gone up. We’re seeing more sick, 

desperate people, more hospital room emergencies. In addition, we 

are clearly facing a tremendous increase in the consequences of 

drug-related crime—1.6 million Americans behind bars. 

And I’ve just tried to demonstrate Federal, local and State increases. We think it will go up 25 percent more by the turn of the 

century. And this is a system which we assert we have 7 percent 

of the treatment capacity for those incarcerated that we need. A 

quick overview. And this chart is not meant to be discouraging, but 

it does cause some pause for thought. Since the 1990 through 1995, 

we’re looking at a system in which the production of cocaine has 

essentially not gone markedly up or down. The seizure rates in the 

international community have not gone up or down. And the domestic seizure rates have not changed. 

I say this really to put explicitly on the table that what we actually are seeing now in cocaine is a heavy amount of drugs, the 

same amount of drugs, chasing less addicted people who are more 

sick than ever. That’s the truth of the matter. And that’s what 

we’re facing on the interdiction fight. We can and should do better. 

But that’s our track record. We’ve seen a change in youth attitudes. 

This, I would argue, as you have said in your opening statement, 

is the heart and soul of the problem. 

Youth attitudes started changing in 1990. The perception of risk 

went down. Drug use started up. It has gotten worse every year 

since then. The problem is it’s going to get worse. It’s half as bad 

now as it was 15 years ago. So, we’ve got to simply get organized 

and confront this problem. The stat that bothers me most out of all 

of these is a look at the eighth graders. Look at the front end of 

the bubble, as they enter the most vulnerable period of their adolescent development, whether it’s central nervous system or social 

development or the requirement to learn and physically develop, 

drug use among eighth graders has nearly tripled—primarily marijuana—in the last several years. And I underscore this because this 

is much higher THC levels of pot that we’re talking about. These 

are not college sophomores. These are eighth graders. Drug abuse 

in the United States really begins in the sixth grade. 

Finally, the purpose you’ve asked me to come over here and talk 

about is the reauthorization of the National Drug Control Policy 

Office. And these are two charts. If you’ll put up the second one, 

also, Steve. The two charts outline the principal changes that we 

have tabled for your consideration and your colleagues. First, we 

are arguing that there should be a 10-year perspective on the strategy. I would still argue we should come down each year and update 

and explain whether environmental conditions have changed. But 

a 10-year commitment to face this drug problem. We would argue 

for a 5-year drug control budget, so that the debate that we put in 

front of you, that I force the Federal bureaucracy to look at it in 

a longer term and allow your judgments to come into play on a 5-

year budget. 

We think we’re making some absolutely spectacular progress in 

developing measurable goals and objectives. And I can talk about 

this in greater detail in response to your own questions. But this 

13

may be one of the most exciting things going on in Government to 

try and define performance targets and performance measures, and 

to be able to come down here and relate the money you gave me 

not to process but to outcomes. 

Now, we’re also going to argue to make more explicit what has 

been in the national drug strategy since 1992 under President 

Bush’s guidance, that we are indeed concerned about gateway behavior. And I won’t repeat the statistics so nicely laid out by your 

committee. But there is unarguable evidence that the correlation 

between some of these gateway behaviors and later addictive problems are so powerful that if we were talking about seat belts or 

lung cancer or dietary restrictions, there would simply be no discussion. On the other chart I’ve outlined four other considerations 

I’d ask you to consider. 

We want to talk about an office of inter-governmental relations 

instead of State and local affairs. This better captures what they’re 

doing. We’re going to have to apply more attention to this HIDTA program. Congress has now given me $140 million, and has designated 15 HIDTAs. This is paying off. It’s a good program. And 

so I recommended we put together an element inside ONDCP to 

follow it. CTAC—we want to broaden their viewpoint on bringing 

technology to bear on all five goals of the National Drug Strategy. 

And, finally, Mr. Chairman, I would ask your committee to consider extending ONDCP for 12 years, to say that this is not a 1-

year campaign. This is a 10-year strategy, 5-year budget, a longterm commitment to a coherent policy. That really captures the 

broad scale of what I would ask you to consider. And, Mr. Chairman, I thank you again for the opportunity to lay these ideas out 

for you. 

[The prepared statement of Gen. McCaffrey follows:]

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Mr. HASTERT. I thank you, Gen. McCaffrey. And with us also 

now is our vice chairman, Mr. Souder, who didn’t get a chance to 

give his opening statement. I think he’s going to give a short opening statement. I’ll let you open the questions, Mr. Souder. 

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to welcome 

Gen. McCaffrey. You were briefly over in the Republican Conference. I thought you were going to address us over there where 

I was. I apologize for missing the start of your statement. I appreciate your continued commitment to speaking out. I’ve read 

through your testimony and have some questions. But in my opening statement I wanted to express a deep personal concern, and 

make sure it’s in the record. I would like to insert for the record 

this article, if I could have unanimous consent. 

Mr. HASTERT. Without objection. 

Mr. SOUDER. It concerns William Weld and some of his positions 

on medicinal use of marijuana. 

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. In your statement to us, you correctly point out, as 

you just did verbally, the danger of marijuana use as an entry-level 

drug. You point out that in even reducing drunk driving, that marijuana is now the second leading cause of drug-related accidents behind alcohol. We have another section countering attempts to legalize marijuana. You correctly point out that in preventing drug trafficking across the Southwest Border, that the United States-Mexican border is the microcosm of America’s drug problem. You correctly point out the difficulties the we’re facing with Mexico in the 

counter-drug cooperation, and talk about Mexico continuing to face 

an emergency situation in their country because their democratic 

institutions are under brutal internal attack by international drug 

criminals. 

There are laudable things—you have a statement about measuring and reducing illegal domestic marijuana cultivation. In the 

Boston Herald, December 31, 1996, it says: ‘‘Gov Rips Drug Czar’s 

Threat: Weld Backs Pot Use for the Ill. Says he: ‘Let docs prescribe 

pot.’ Governor William Weld yesterday took a pot shot at President 

Clinton’s bid to snuff out medicinal marijuana use, following a 

push to allow state-based doctors to prescribe the outlaw weed.’’

Now, I want to know, if Mexico is our No. 1 problem in this country, where the drugs are coming across. And this is obviously not 

partisan. William Weld is a Republican. He takes a cheap shot at 

you, headlined. And I want to commend you on your efforts to 

speak out in a very difficult political situation, when two major 

States pass referendums. And I commend you for your efforts. And 

I think this potential could undermine our biggest international 

crisis—the Mexican border—if we send an ambassador to Mexico 

who is undermining our domestic efforts, criticizing our drug czar, 

and every time we meet the Mexican Government, every time we 

meet with Mexican legislators, every time we meet with them, 

they’re going to throw our own Ambassador’s statements back at 

us. 

And I hope you will—if you can’t publicly, at least privately, ask 

the President to reconsider this. And this is certainly going to be 

an issue. And many of us are going to make it an issue. Because 

I did not spend these multiple years and have my kid—working on 

the drug issue first as a staffer, and since as a Member—and watch 

my kids in my home town and people under attack by drugs, so 

that we appoint an ambassador to a country that is pooh-poohing 

a threat of this gradual legalization trend. And I can’t imagine anything more devastating. And I hope that understanding that he has 

made you an issue, which puts you in an awkward position—that 

you’ll be willing to speak out. And this is a devastating blow to 

what we’ve been trying to do to make America aware. 

I just can’t conceive that we would put a man in this most high 

and conspicuous position with this background. Even if he will retract this. If he understands what the administration position is—

we’re still going to have this thrown back at us. I felt that’s very 

important to get in the record. It’s not something that’s going to 

end. And it is directly related to the drug czar, because he took—

it says, ‘‘Gov Rips Drug Czar’s Threat’’ and the language goes 

through. 

51

So, I’m very disappointed. I wanted to put that into the record 

as an opening statement. And if I can now move to my questions, 

I will do so. One of the questions that we’ve been trying to sort out 

is some of where your drug research money has been going. And 

we understand that there was some question about what happened 

in 1996. 1997 is a bit unusual. And I just wondered for the record 

if you could provide us a comprehensive list of the individuals and 

organizations that ONDCP funded over the past 2 years, as well 

as through other agencies which you have budget review authority? 

Because there have been some concerns about where we’re headed 

in the research regarding marijuana. 

It is very important that we don’t have mixed messages going 

out. Many of us—I, particularly have been disturbed as I’ve gone 

through schools, and have been evolving my position. I always opposed tobacco use for minors. And I believe we’ve had to up and— been moving along with the rest of the Government. While I fear 

Government intervention in too many areas, believe that we’re 

going to have to cross some lines because of the tobacco usage and 

its relationship to marijuana and alcohol. I think we need to speak 

out more. But it’s important that we keep a united front on the 

marijuana question. And I’m very concerned that—what research 

is out there, how it’s being used, and how it can be distorted, and 

would appreciate that record so we can look at it in more detail. 

I also wanted to commend you in your written statement. I 

missed the first part, so I’m not sure whether you verbally referred 

to that—and that was the importance of your work with the entertainment industry. It is clear from going to schools that the music 

and the movies and particularly the music, is one of the most sensitive areas with kids. And we really have to work with the administration and others to try to turn this. Could you elaborate on 

where you might be heading with this and just give me some comments on what you alluded to? I think you had, I think, just a few 

sentences that you were going to try to work with that. 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. The entertainment industry visit was, to be 

honest, quite encouraging and almost surprising. I prepared for 

that for 3 or 4 months. There was enormous suspicion on the part 

of the entertainment world when I went out there whether they 

would be treated to a lecture and a thumping and then I’d leave. 

What we essentially did was, we asked for their help, we asked for 

their support. 

I told them we had three principal concerns. First, that drug 

abuse be pictured realistically when it was shown, that we had no 

problems with a movie like ‘‘Trainspotting,’’ but enormous difficulty 

with a movie that romanticized or portrayed as glamorous the use 

of drugs. We said if you’re going to put drugs into the entertainment world, make sure it looks like real life. The second thing we 

asked them to do is, don’t portray drug use as the norm. It isn’t. 

Most of us in America don’t use drugs. Some of us do and have 

enormous problems. So make sure you tell our children that it’s 1 

out of 10, which is a terrible problem, but it’s not the norm of behavior among adolescents. 

And the third thing we asked the entertainment world to consider is, don’t portray drugs as funny. They’re not funny. They kill 

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try. So we said, those are the three things we’d like you to consider. Finally, we asked for their thoughts and their involvement. 

I think we’re getting some payoff already. I was astonished. I went 

to the Writers’ Guild, the producers, the directors, the Entertainment Industry—EIC—Council, the Actors’ Guild, and I think there 

was a very positive response. 

The one clear problem I would suggest to you is, we’re going to 

do a lot better with television than we are with the music industry. 

We’re going to do better with the established movie industry than 

we are with the independents. There’s tremendous sensitivity, 

which we support, to the rights of free expression in the entertainment world. But I think the larger firms were very positive. I was 

very impressed. 

Mr. SOUDER. One thing that turned up in some of our discussions 

around ‘‘Trainspotting,’’ which is very controversial, and also some 

of the music industry—and this may be something to look at in 

some of the research, is that there’s clearly a difference of opinion 

of what is viewed as attractive by the majority of the people and 

what can be viewed as attractive by actually the high-risk groups 

who are more likely to be addicts. 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. I agree. 

Mr. SOUDER. And particularly when you go into the schools and 

see the type of clothing and almost a depressing view of life, that 

something to most of us that looks like portraying the actual and 

is a depressing thing that we wouldn’t find attractive, is actually 

a reverse attraction. 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. Yes. I agree. 

Mr. SOUDER. And to some degree, educating, getting more research on that as it relates to the fashion industry and stuff, too, 

ups the awareness of parents as well. 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. Yes. I think you’re entirely right. 

‘‘Trainspotting’’ is a good example in which perhaps to the adolescent world it’s an inappropriate movie, but it’s a great film for parents to see. 

Mr. SOUDER. If I can make one other—just a brief comment. 

While I understand—and I have taken to calling this both war and 

cancer, that it’s both things, as we’ve discussed this—the likelihood 

of a 12-year reauthorization is pretty minimal because it’s one 

thing, if you’re there and we’re working closely together—but just 

as far as how likely Congress is going to move, and the ability to 

manage and do this—a 12-year reauthorization is probably not realistic. It doesn’t mean we’re not committed to a 12-year battle. 

Viewing this as a cancer, any Congress that backs away is going 

to learn from—we’re going to repeat history again if we don’t keep 

the pressure on. I also wanted to express one other concern. And 

that is, I understand that there’s some fencing going on between 

treatment interdiction. But I think that we need to make sure, just 

like your one chart that you had up there about interdiction, 

doesn’t downplay that. Because there was some movement in less 

international interdiction in your chart, which actually opened up 

the amount of domestic. 

I’m not sure, simply because I don’t know all the facts, how much 

domestic drop there’s actually been. But that’s something we all 

53

need to be very careful of, because we need to keep all fronts moving aggressively. 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. I absolutely agree, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SOUDER. I yield back. 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. That’s why, when I show that chart, I’m a little nervous. It could be used for mischief on both sides of the question. I certainly don’t mean to imply that that’s futile. That was 

over 300 metric tons of cocaine taken out of the system each year, 

which potentially would have devastating impact on America. So 

law enforcement in our country last year took 107 metric tons of 

cocaine away from the criminals. Thank God. I agree with your 

point entirely. 

Mr. HASTERT. Thank you. The gentleman yields back his time. 

We have a vote pending. So I’m going to recess for 20 minutes. And 

we’ll be back here at five after. 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. Yes, sir. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. HASTERT. The committee will reconvene. General, one of the 

things that we’ve had discussions about and the colleague from Indiana opened up the whole issue with Mexico. And we’ve had discussions on that. A couple things concern us. And let me just ask 

you, do you feel that since we’ve had the certification of Mexico and 

moved forward—and I know you’ve had considerable talks there 

and in the Caribbean area—what positive grounds are what measurable goals have we reached there? 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. Of course we have had a tremendous amount 

of energy into this process. And I think the congressional response 

and attention paid to it was in a large extent very helpful, because 

it underscored the vehemence and the insistence on the part of the 

United States Government as well as Mexican authorities that this 

level of corruption and violence that are threatening us out of 

international drug crime is unacceptable. So, I think some good 

came out of it. 

Now, we’re watching Mexican partners with enormous sympathy. 

That’s the bottom line. We think their senior leadership are committed to confronting the issue. We think they have an enormous 

internal threat to their democratic institutions. And to be balanced 

about it, much of it comes from $49 billion of United States drug 

money, and I might add, a considerable amount of United States 

arms being smuggled into Mexico. Now, they also, it seems to me, 

have understood quite clearly that if they don’t confront effectively 

this issue with their own police, judicial system and armed forces, 

that they will lose their future. 

So, a lot of specific measures are ongoing, whether it’s cooperation with training prosecutors, police agents. Mexico has announced today a very bold program to try and rebuild their drug 

police from the ground up. We have a considerable amount of support thanks to U.S. congressional action for providing their army 

with greater mobility to confront these massive drug gangs that are 

operating on both sides of the border. 

We have extradition in a very balanced manner ongoing on both 

countries. The Mexicans have made the tremendous effort to energize these three binational border task forces. And I would expect 

in the year to come we’ll see more happen out of that. They have 

54

fired hundreds of corrupt police officers. This thing with Gen. 

Gutierrez Rebollo was a terrible blow, an incredible blow to Mexican leadership, to President Zedillo and Minister Cervantes, as you 

can imagine. They’re attempting to roll up the gang of thugs that 

was part of his operation, which apparently was—essentially, he 

was a mole for Amato Carrillo Fuentes’ drug gang. So, I think 

they’re continuing to push the envelope. And we’re going to work 

with them. 

Mr. HASTERT. General, one of the things that you know that 

we’ve had discussions back and forth, there are about six or seven 

issues that we felt very strongly about. You’ve talked about one of 

them: extraditions, commitment to DEA agents, the use of side 

arm, which I know is a very touchy situation, permanent maritime 

agreements, the radar situation, and to endemic police corruption. 

And I would like for you, before the President goes to Mexico—I 

think it’s May 6—that if you could write a letter of conveyance to 

me just in your assessment of where we’re moving on that. I don’t 

want you to do that publicly at this time. But I would like you to 

either us have a conversation or a letter outlining where we are at 

on those issues. I’d appreciate that very much. 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. Mr. Chairman, I might add, in front of each 

of you, you should have a copy of the letter that I sent to the—if 

I can find it—to Hon. Porter Goss and Hon. Norman Dicks. We had 

a closed, classified session, security implication of Gen. Gutierrez 

Rebollo’s arrest. You have a copy of that. It has my letter to the 

congressional hearing and an earlier letter to Foreign Minister 

Gurria. And I would be glad to share with you, sir, the classified 

book that we put together, which includes, among other things, our 

own internal look at our intelligence system, and what we knew 

then and what we intend to do about it. So, I’d welcome a chance 

to share that with you. 

Mr. HASTERT. As you well know, one of our other areas of concern in South America is Colombia and the situation we have 

there. And, of course, they had some type of an action by the State 

Department and the President. There’s also a 614 Waiver that’s sitting, that’s been approved by State and, I understand, is sitting on 

the President’s desk. I have a personal view on that, that it’s very 

important that they have the ability, especially the national police 

force and the army, have the ability to have weapons to protect 

themselves and actually go out and do the job that they very, very 

gallantly have been doing. What’s your view on that? Can we have 

that 614 signed and sent to Colombia as soon as possible? 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. Mr. Chairman, I think there’s commitment on 

the part of the Secretary of State and most of her senior people, 

and certainly on my part, and, I believe, on the President’s—I’ve 

talked to him about it—to provide 614 Waiver authority for Colombia. We share your view. Gen. Serrano and the Colombian police 

authorities, who at great sacrifice, have continued to fight against 

this menace and also Gen. Bedoya and the Army. There is a very 

definite problem now, though, as a challenge on human rights concerns and the Senate amendment which requires a waiver and puts 

us under caution to not provide these weapons or, for that matter, 

FMS sales without an in-use monitoring agreement. And we are 

working pro-actively with the Colombians to get this signed to 

55

make sure both sides recognize the legitimate interest of the 

human rights community and the international press to watch this 

issue. If we can work through that I think we’re going to move 

ahead. And I’m very confident we’ll have a good outcome. 

Mr. HASTERT. Well, we understand that, according to Ambassador Gelbard, at least, that is going to the police and not that 

Army, and there certainly is less movement—— Gen. MCCAFFREY. But we’re also going to support the Army. 

Both. There was a change recently now to provide the helicopters, 

I believe—one tranche of the helicopters will go to the police. 

Mr. HASTERT. Well, we may want to have a separate conversation on this. But I think it’s very, very important that we do get 

the aid down there. And, you know, I’m very sensitive to human 

rights and the issues of human rights. But the fact is that our children are being delivered cocaine, and in some cases, heroin, on our 

street corners, in our schools. And I don’t think there are more heinous violations of human rights than that. And anything that we 

can do on the ground in Mexico, in the United States, in Colombia 

or Peru or any place else to stop that, we need to do it. I’ll yield 

back my time. And Mr. Barrett is here for questioning. 

Mr. BARRETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Gen. McCaffrey, one of 

my reactions when I first came to Washington was it seemed as 

though we had an office for everything. And many of these offices 

conflicted in their goals or duplicated goals of other agencies, and 

it was this office or that office overseeing things. And one of the 

things that I’m happiest you’re doing is taking the lead on recognizing that the drug use can begin many times with underage children, in particular the use of tobacco and alcohol. 

And I think it would be somewhat ludicrous if we had a drug 

czar and then a teenage tobacco czar and then a teenage alcohol 

consumption czar, when anybody who has been exposed to any of 

this recognizes that there is a correlation, as you have stated, as 

many others have stated. So I want to applaud your efforts in taking the lead on that. I think that’s extremely important. And I 

think it helps dispel the notion that the Federal Government is 

tripping over itself by duplicating efforts. This is one of the times 

I have seen truly a person who brings issues that are somewhat 

related together because in the real world they are together. I just 

wanted to start off with that. 

You’ve heard some criticism already today about the notion of 

having a 12-year authorization. From your perspective, what’s 

more important—getting the 5-year budget or the 1-year, 12-year 

authorization? 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. Well, I think these things have symbolic importance beyond the practical. I think what I would like to see us 

all do is understand that 5 years from today, we’re going to still 

confront addiction in America and its consequences. And we’re still 

going to have the responsibility to actively promote drug prevention 

among American children, and indeed to continue to defend our air, 

land and seafrontiers. 

Given that, we need to understand that that strategy isn’t a new 

idea every year, it’s a concept that, if solid and coherent, ought to 

be used to build budgets year after year. And for that reason, I 

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56

ment, I think we’re missing a bet in a very important philosophical 

way to make that commitment. But I’m not sure practically it’s 

going to stop us from doing what we need to do. The second notion, 

though, is that the 5-year budget—we’re still going to have to come 

down here and authorize a budget execution every year. 

I got that. But I would like to see that executive branch, the 50 

agencies of Government, and the two Appropriations Committees 

force ourselves to see the tradeoffs in options. We simply can’t have 

a debate over do we jail violent drug criminals or do drug prevention programs? Do we maintain the prison construction program or 

do after care? So if you don’t get your time horizons out, as we do 

in the national security business or as IBM does and Sears & Roebuck does, I don’t see how we’re ever going to get a sensible solution to the problem. So, the strategy, the 5-year budgets, that’s the 

heart and soul of it. 

For sure, what’s going to be the case is, 12 years from today— some of us may not be present—someone here is going to continue 

to exercise this absolutely pivotal responsibility to protect America 

from drug abuse. I’d like to recognize that, embrace it, and say this 

isn’t a trick, an election year issue, this is a commitment to America’s future. 

Mr. BARRETT. Thank you. One of the other issues that is under 

your jurisdiction is the HIDTAs. Can you give me a little better feel 

for how those work and why you think those are so effective? 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. Well, we do have a problem with HIDTAs. And 

the problem is having some concept that’s defined having some objectives, having some performance measures of effectiveness. We’ve 

got to deliver that. The HIDTA concept has grown topsy-turvy. 

We’re now up to 15. We’ve got two more that I’ve provided funding—$1 million each—to Detroit and San Francisco for startup. I 

think we need clarity in what we’re doing. And I think we’re going 

to provide that in this strategy and in the subsequent performance 

measures. 

Now, having said all that, the 10 HIDTAs that have had a track 

record, some of them have been spectacular in using small amounts 

of money to support what smart cops and prosecutors are doing 

anyway: allowing task force operations so that local, State, and 

Federal law enforcement and prosecutors can go to the same place, 

share evidence, data and operations, deconflict operations, and 

bring together some coherence to counter-drug efforts. And the 

ones that are just spectacular are places like Miami, which in 7, 

8 years of hard work has really made a tremendous change in the 

quality of the community life. And HIDTA has been a big part of 

it. 

We’ve got the one in Puerto Rico-Virgin Islands—is going to 

make, I would argue, an enormous difference organizing some 600-

some odd Federal law enforcement officers to act in sync with Puerto Rican police, attorney general, et cetera. New York—Howard 

Safers doing incredible work with—we’ve had—Mr. Chairman, your 

staffer was up there with us looking with tremendous admiration 

at what $9 million a year in Federal money has helped with in 

New York. So we’re pretty upbeat about the potential of it. 

Mr. HASTERT. Just in passing, they also have some National 

Guard assistance. Now, I want to talk about that in a few minutes. 

57

And just stop short of harping on my behalf, General, I just want 

to go back on the 614 for a second. You know, the 505NUST agreement is in place with the police. And it’s just very, very important 

that that’s being expedited. I know that you have very close consultations with the President. And hopefully that thing could be 

signed before the President goes to Mexico, and moved. And that’s 

our desire. So hopefully that can be passed on. I now recognize Mr. 

Mica. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you and welcome back, General. Yesterday, a 

district court in San Francisco barred the Federal Government 

from retaliation against physicians who endorsed therapeutic marijuana under California Proposition 214. The judge specifically cited 

the mixed signals being sent by the Clinton administration as one 

of the bases of the judge’s ruling. This week a Federal judge barred 

our law enforcement agents from taking any action against doctors 

who recommend marijuana to patients under California’s Proposition 215. She cited mixed signals from the administration as one 

of her reasons. General, I’m really wondering if we are serious, if 

we are in fact sending mixed signals about what we want to do in 

this war on drugs. What’s the situation? What’s the problem? What 

can we do? 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. Well, the judge issued a 42-page order, 

which—I have skim read parts of it. Obviously, Department of Justice has primary responsibility not only for representing us during 

those proceedings, but also interpreting what the results are. And 

I don’t know. I don’t know where this is going to come out. The 

only thing I can assure you of is that the administration position, 

we think, is prudent. It makes sense. It’s in writing. It’s a seven 

page document. 

It’s endorsed by the President. It’s in concert with U.S. Federal 

law. We are supported by the American Medical Association, the 

California Medical Association, the American Cancer Society, the 

American Opthamological Society. We have said we would be glad 

to aggressively examine the scientific claims of smoked marijuana 

to be a safe and effective medicine. And that’s going on in the NIH, 

FDA community. We have funded American Academy of Science 

Institute of Medicine studies on what we know and don’t know 

about smoked marijuana. 

We believe it is vitally important for the United States to maintain a system of national standards of medicine based on scientific 

inquiry and not ideology. We’ve got a problem and I——

Mr. MICA. You just got back, didn’t you, from Mexico? 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. I just got back from the Caribbean. I’ve also 

been to Mexico, yes. 

Mr. MICA. Well, fairly recently. And the President is going there 

in the near future. Isn’t the largest source of marijuana coming 

into the United States from Mexico? 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. Well, it’s hard to say because we don’t know 

how much marijuana is produced in the United States. We have no 

accurate figures. 

Mr. MICA. Well, OK. Let’s not consider domestic production, just 

foreign coming into the United States. Mexico is No. 1 for marijuana? 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. I think that’s probably true, yes. 

58

Mr. MICA. And we’re now about to send a United States Ambassador to Mexico, who takes a position in opposition to the administration. And, in fact, that appointment may be sending a message 

now, that it’s not all that bad, particularly for certain purposes 

that the administration has—and I sent you a letter applauding 

you on your initial stand on this. But can’t you see that through 

our actions—our policy may be one thing, but our actions are sending a mixed message. What do you think about this appointment? 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. Well, I think, again, it’s unequivocally clear in 

writing, that the Attorney General, the Secretary of Health and 

Human Services, the Secretary of Education and I and others supported, obviously approved by the President, are unalterably opposed to the legalization of drugs or the surreptitious legalization 

of drugs under the guise of medical uses. 

Mr. MICA. Will you join me in asking the President to withdraw 

this proposed Ambassador? 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. No. I wouldn’t think it would be appropriate, 

Mr. Congressman, for me to join that viewpoint. 

Mr. MICA. OK. Thank you. Last year it was revealed that Presi- dent Clinton had accepted a $20,000 check from Jorge Cabrerra, a 

member of a prominent Florida Keys fishing and lobster family. 

The donation enabled Cabrerra to attend a fundraiser with Vice 

President Al Gore—— Mr. BARRETT. Mr. Chairman, I’d like to raise a point of order. I 

don’t believe this is within the scope of this hearing. 

Mr. HASTERT. Well, it probably is within the scope. I believe the 

parliamentarian says, this counsel says it’s within the scope. I’ll 

take it under reservation and discuss it later. 

Mr. BARRETT. No. Could you give me a specific reasoning as to 

how this is within the scope of this hearing? 

Mr. MICA. Well, it deals—Mr. Chairman, may I speak to the gentleman’s point? This deals specifically with an individual who smuggles $6,000 pounds of cocaine through the Florida Keys 

and——

Mr. BARRETT. Could he do it in an authorization bill? 

Mr. MICA. I have a very specific question. We are not dealing 

with an authorization and appropriations. This is a Government 

Reform and Oversight Committee investigative subcommittee. 

Mr. BARRETT. Mr. Chairman, what is the title of this hearing 

today, please? 

Mr. HASTERT. It is the authorization of the ONDCP. The ONDCP 

has jurisdiction over drug smuggling and the reduction of the use 

of drugs. I would see that it’s appropriate. The gentleman’s time 

has expired. And we’ll move on to the next questioner, Mr. 

Blagojevich. 

Mr. Blagojevich, the gentleman from Illinois has no questions. 

The gentleman from Georgia. 

Mr. BARR. In followup to something that my colleague from Florida said, I think, General, that we had a discussion about this at 

your last visit here. I think that very clearly what the judge perhaps was reflecting is contained in page 59 of the 1997 National 

Drug Control Strategy. The conclusion of the top paragraph on the 

left column it says, ‘‘We must continue to oppose efforts to legalize 

marijuana.’’ You say here today, ‘‘The administration is ‘unalterVerDate Sep 04 2002 12:48 Sep 13, 2002 Jkt 080908 PO 00000 Frm 00062 Fmt 6602 Sfmt 6602 W:\DISC\44274 44274
59

ably opposed’ to medicinal uses or legalization of marijuana.’’ Yet 

you go right down—a paragraph and a half further down that page, 

and it says, ‘‘Nonetheless,’’ and then talks about—and you follow this up with a letter to me, $1 million that you wish to spend that 

the administration wants to spend to study the medicinal uses of 

marijuana. 

I just fail to see very clearly that the administration can truly 

be unalterably opposed and then ask for money to study the issue. 

I think that is precisely where the confusion comes from. I’d like 

to turn, though, for a couple of specific questions, General, to another matter that concerns me. And I do appreciate the material 

that you and your office have furnished to me. And that is with regard to the legal basis on which your office expends moneys and 

deals with matters involving tobacco usage. 

And this has nothing whatsoever to do with all of our opposition, 

which I share and which I know the President feels strongly about 

as do you, too—tobacco usage by teenagers, by underage children. 

But just liking that as a policy and agreeing with it does not provide the legal basis for the Office of National Drug Control Policy 

to engage in programs and policies and promotions of anti-tobacco 

programs. 

And I still fail to see, even though in your kind letter to me you 

mentioned various provisions of 21 U.S.C. 1502 and 1507. There is 

absolutely nothing in those authorities that talks about tobacco as 

within the legal jurisdiction of your office. And, as a matter of fact, 

I truly believe, General, that the precise language of those sections 

supports my position that if this administration or any administration—and I know that you cite very correctly that a former administration sort of began this slippery slope in 1992. If, in fact, the 

administration or you want to engage in anti-tobacco efforts, as 

laudable as that may be, I think you need to come to the Congress—the administration does—and ask for the legal authority to 

do so. 

Because I don’t think you have the legal authority. And I intend 

to make that an issue. For example, in 21 U.S.C. 1507–1, the term 

drug is defined. And it refers very clearly to controlled substances. 

Tobacco is not a controlled substance, no matter how much people 

might want it to be, no matter how much people might want to, 

for various reasons, good or bad, substantive or political, to make 

it so. And I continue to have a very serious problem with your office engaging in activities, expending moneys, designed to stop tobacco usage. 

I do think that if you believe that that is something that is an 

important part of the overall drug strategy. Maybe it is. Maybe it 

isn’t. That you lay out the case and propose an amendment to the 

authorization legislation that provides for the jurisdiction of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Because I don’t think that 

power is there, the legal basis. As a matter of fact, I think it is very 

clear that it isn’t there. And, again, I appreciate you corresponding 

with me on this. Is there anything you want to add to the record 

today over and above the letters that you sent me? 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. Well, I certainly understand your concern. In 

fact, I think I share it. That’s why in this reauthorization bill we 

do explicitly ask you to put aside those concerns and specifically 

60

enumerate gateway behavior by tobacco and alcohol. So I share 

your conviction that we ought to come to Congress and explicitly 

ask you for this authority. And that’s what I’ve just done. Now, the 

second thing I would argue, though, is that what you’ve cited is the 

Controlled Substances Act. 

And what the 1988 law told us in ONDCP to do was establish 

policies for the drug program. And that certainly includes the right 

to do comprehensive, demand reduction efforts, which from President Bush on has, I think, quite wisely encompassed the reduction 

of use of illegal substances by adolescents. So, it’s unquestionable 

that alcohol and tobacco are illegal substances for use by youngsters. We have found the evidence of University of Michigan and 

Columbia University, in particular, quite persuasive that smoking 

and alcohol use does indeed inexorably set one up for higher risk 

correlations of later addictive problems in life. But I do agree, Mr. 

Congressman, I ought to get from you explicit authority. And it will 

put aside some of these questions. 

Mr. BARR. Could I just ask one very quick followup question, Mr. 

Chairman? Will you then be recommending to the President that 

he send forward to the Congress a specific proposal for providing 

that explicit authority or jurisdiction? 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. Mr. Chairman, it’s in the bill I sent over here. 

This hearing is on—— Mr. BARR. In chapter 20, so that it would appear—the language 

would appear in chapter 20. 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. Yes. It’s in—— Mr. BARRETT. I’m looking at page 2 of the bill. It appears that 

there’s—— Gen. MCCAFFREY. Yes. It would be in our authorization and definition aspect of drug control. 

Mr. BARR. OK. 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. We will exclusively ask you——

Mr. BARR. But would it be amendment to chapter 20 of title 21? 

Is that where it will be? 

Mr. BARRETT. Mr. Barr, I’m looking at page 2, lines 11 through 

16. 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. I can try and provide you a written response. 

But it will be in 21.1507 under definitions. 

Mr. BARR. OK. Well, that’s in chapter 20 of the—— Mr. HASTERT. The gentleman’s time has expired. The gentleman 

from Wisconsin, Mr. Barrett. Gen. McCaffrey, I would like to ask 

you a couple things. First of all, in the issue of reauthorization, 

which I think we need to talk a couple minutes about. I tend to 

agree that we probably need to have a 5-year budget authorization. 

I see the need for planning to make sure that the equipment and 

strategies are in place over a period of time. I question whether a 

12-year authorization is something that we’d want to do. I think 

things change. People change. Administrations change. Drug Czars 

change. And certainly the changes that you brought about, bringing 

in new ideas and different approaches from your predecessors have 

certainly been noted and marked. I’m not sure that we’d want to 

be bound under a policy that was set under one administration and 

one person, and drive that policy when people come and go and 

change. And I’d like your reaction to that. 

61

Gen. MCCAFFREY. Well, I think your point is a good one, Mr. 

Chairman. The only thing I would, though, suggest is, you’ll still 

pass budgets every year. Every dollar will have to be appropriated 

by Congress. And the Director of ONDCP will still have to come 

down here and explain the 5-year request and what they did or did 

not accomplish. I think second, the way we wrote that, it said that 

the strategy would still have to be updated, and the Director ought 

to explain—I mean, this is a dynamic problem. With any luck, 10 

years from today, cocaine will not be a major drug of abuse in 

America. 

But the problem may well be that methamphetamine and boutique drugs will be. So, I think you’ll still have clear authority to 

demand hearings and to adjust this strategy as the situation 

evolves. So, again, I think what we’ve got is—we’ve got a request 

on my part for you to consider that this is a permanent challenge 

to our children, to our schools, our work places, that the mechanism that we put in place ought to be responsive to congressional 

interest. But the problem won’t go away. 

What we want to do is manage it down until it’s causing the 

least amount of anguish. I think ought to commit to a decade. And 

12 years, apparently. We just said 2 years beyond a 10-year strategy. 

Mr. HASTERT. Well, I think we need to get your view. I think 

we’ll have this as a point of issue and discussion. 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. Yes. 

Mr. HASTERT. And furthermore, I would just say that one of the 

things that I would hope we’d have in 10 years is a drug free 

America. I hope that we can fight this war week by week, day by 

day, month by month, and have some achievement there. 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. Mm-hmm. 

Mr. HASTERT. And as that fight progresses through the years, I 

think maybe we need to sometimes change our strategy. 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. I agree. Yes. 

Mr. HASTERT. I’m sure that if a general is going to place and 

fight a war, I’m not sure a 10-year strategy is always in place without some changing of it from time to time. But that’s my own opinion. 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. Mm-hmm. 

Mr. HASTERT. At this time I’m going to yield to the gentleman 

from Illinois, Mr. Blagojevich. 

Mr. BLAGOJEVICH. General, I was very impressed with the information that you provided with regard to the eighth graders and 

marijuana use and the rise of marijuana use among eighth graders. 

What specific policies are being implemented by your office or being 

discussed by your office with regard to addressing that problem 

that clearly can only get worse unless we meet the challenge head 

on? 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. Well, the Department of Education, in particular, but also Health and Human Services and, indeed, Department of Justice, have a series of initiatives that we think are enormously important. I might also add that this is not only a Federal 

responsibility and the kind of work we saw endorsed by Gen. Powell and the President and others in Philadelphia are part and parcel of it. We think the reduction of drug abuse among children is 

62

primarily a function of parents, educators, local coalitions. And 

that’s the heart and soul of it. 

Now, having said that, we’re also asking Congress, Mr. Kolbe and his committee, to support $175 million a year for 5 years, 

where we’ll also go back, after a matching pro bono $175 million. 

Partnership for a Drug Free America and the Advertising Council 

are assisting us with this. And we’re going to try to talk to adolescents and their parents through the medium they’re watching, 

through what is being used to instruct them. But I think it’s a 

whole array of issues, and that the heart of and soul of it is not 

just the magnificent contributions of the D.A.R.E. program. You’ve 

got to have more than that. Something has got to happen between 

3 p.m. and 7 p.m. 

Mr. BLAGOJEVICH. Mm-hmm. 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. And so mentoring initiatives and a whole series of other approaches—safe and drug free schools. The 1998 

budget, we’ve got $620 million in there. We know we’ve got to be 

more responsive to Congress and make that it produces outcomes 

that I can explain what we did with the money. But we think we’ve 

got a pretty good effort. 

Mr. BLAGOJEVICH. General, just quickly, did you say $620 million? 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. In the 1998 budget. It’s an increase of some 

$64 million—11.5 percent. 

Mr. BLAGOJEVICH. And that money would be specifically earmarked to send back to community groups or local governments 

that match funds at the local level? Is that what you were saying? 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. One of the challenges, of course, when you get 

into programs like this, is finding out where block grants go and 

how effectively they are spent, and what constraints do you put 

upon them. So I think Dick Riley and I and others have to ensure 

we deliver the goods. But, yes, that’s where that money is going. 

Mr. BLAGOJEVICH. Thank you, General. 

Mr. HASTERT. The gentleman from Florida is recognized. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you. General, I’m glad to see that you did get 

a hearing or opportunity to explain your side of the situation with 

the——

Mr. HASTERT. Did the gentleman have a specific question of the 

Chair? 

Mr. MICA. Yes. I’m referring to the report that he referred to 

with Mr. Goss’ Intelligence Committee. Because the—I can’t think 

of a better term—but the screw up of having our highest folks dealing with the drug war, dealing with an involved drug czar from another country and our not knowing about it is a matter of importance if we’re going to be funding these kind of programs, particularly over a long-term period. So, I’m pleased to see that my request was adhered to for that. 

Along the same lines, I’m still concerned that in funding you in 

a multi-year fashion that we send the wrong signals. I believe that 

having a convicted drug dealer or a drug dealer actively involved 

in drug trade getting an invitation to the White House. I took my 

mother-in-law to the White House for a Christmas party. They 

checked her out. I would expect that the President of the United 

States, the Vice President and the First Lady should have some asVerDate Sep 04 2002 12:48 Sep 13, 2002 Jkt 080908 PO 00000 Frm 00066 Fmt 6602 Sfmt 6602 W:\DISC\44274 44274
63

surance that we have some program in place that, in fact, that 

these highest individuals aren’t sending the wrong message by having these folks as their guests. 

So, that is a concern in this multi-year funding. And also a congressional report that the Cabrerra donation was requested of him 

while he was in Havana on a business trip. So, I’m wondering why 

we find ourselves in this situation, why we don’t have good intelligence. Are we putting enough resources in these areas? And do 

we have controls and policy in place to deal with these situations 

under your proposed multi-term budget? 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. Well, the piece of the question that I guess I 

could respond to is, how good is our intelligence on foreign drug operations. And the answer is, it’s pretty good. And it ought to be better. And it has difficulty. We don’t get the appointments of the Government of Colombia or Mexico or—in the case of Gutierrez 

Rebollo, I think that Minister Cervantes and others were shocked 

and dismayed to find that they had pulled up a general officer who 

turned out to be a, apparently, a stooge of another drug gang. 

We had a DEA office that had worked in that city of Guadalajara 

with him for 7 years and had not picked up on the fact that he was 

apparently an employee of the ACF gang. So I think we probably 

need to and we are scrutinizing how we go about learning more 

about the drug threat. But we do a remarkable job, by and large, 

of following smuggling routes, interdiction routes. Our biggest problem may well remain picking up Minister of Defense Boterro, that 

he was an active recipient of millions of dollars of drug money from 

a Colombian drug gang. 

Mr. MICA. The other area, General—you know that I’m very supportive of you getting the money on a long-term basis or whateverterm basis you need it. The problem I have is still the issues like 

the 614, where we have equipment on the shelf, where we have 

funds already appropriated, and we can’t get the equipment to Colombia in this instance. I have 14 waivers that the President granted. One for Serbia, Montenegro, Haiti, Somalia, Jordan, the list 

goes on and on. And since last year I wrote him, and again, we still 

don’t have that equipment. 

So what assurance do we have even if we go to a multi-year that 

we can even get the equipment that’s on the shelf or already appropriated to these folks? And then I read today that Myles Frechette 

says, ‘‘Oops. I made a mistake. This is going to the police. And we 

may not even have had to have some type of consideration by the 

state to oppose this.’’ It doesn’t seem like we’ve got our act together. 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. Well, I think we’re working the 614 authority. 

We have not yet deliver the helicopters. We think we’ve got a shipping date on an American flag ship. We think we will get them 

there in May or June. There are problems with in-use monitoring 

agreements and human rights. We’ll have to face up to the Leahy 

amendment and try and deal with it. We are still a Nation of laws, 

and we can’t unilaterally direct these things to happen. But I share 

your dismay. And, Mr. Congressman, I will assure you it will get 

my attention. And we will try and support the police and army of 

Colombia. They deserve it. 

64

Mr. HASTERT. I thank the gentleman. We have a vote on. And 

I know you have a time constraint, General. We will come back in 

approximately 10 minutes and make sure that you’re out of here 

by the time that you have to be out of here. And I just want to say 

thank you very much for your cooperation and candidness today. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. SOUDER [presiding]. I’d like to call this hearing back to 

order. Thank you for being patient as we go through these voting 

processes. I have some additional questions, some of which are 

variations of some earlier questions. But I want to work through 

the record and talk. One is regarding Colombia. And I understand 

during the period I was gone you had some discussion about the 

helicopter assistance 614 Waiver. 

But the particular concern we have—because we’ve had Gen. 

Serrano here in front of us, here. When we were in Colombia last 

year, we met with Gen. Serrano. While we have and share your 

concerns about the head of Colombia, there’s certainly no question 

in his record that they’ve been fighting the drug war. Many of their 

police have died. I don’t believe there are any human rights allegations against him. And our question is, why are his helicopters 

being held up, since the allegations are not against him? 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. Mr. Chairman, I would probably be better off 

providing you an update for the record. I’ll go back and check the 

specifics. The bottom line is we are committed to supporting the police and the Army of Colombia. We’re also committed to following 

the restrictions of U.S. law, which requires us to take into account 

these very legitimate concerns about human rights, in-use monitoring agreements, and to ensure that the support goes to the 

counter-drug fight and not to counter-narcoguerrillas. 

Now, having said that, there has been a continuing problem to 

get the appropriate concurrence of Colombian authorities, and to 

get the agreement of lawyers throughout the United States Government that we satisfy these requirements. I think we have finally— we’re about to solve the problem. And I will try and come back to 

you and give you an update on what remaining difficulties there 

are. 

Mr. SOUDER. Yes. As we talk with the leaders from the different 

countries—when people are actually out there fighting and dying 

as aggressively as Gen. Serrano. And I understand that this has 

been a concern in multiple countries, not just in Colombia, but in 

multiple countries as far as the human rights question. But I don’t 

believe—and my understanding, unless you have something different for the record, that the allegations aren’t in the area or even 

the concerns aren’t in the area where the helicopters would be 

going. In other words, there are some questions regarding the Defense Department and concerns about the agreement. But you’re 

not saying there’s any concerns about Gen. Serrano’s human rights 

record, are you? 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. No. Not about him personally. I think there’s 

been human rights abuses on a massive scale throughout the region. They’ve made a tremendous effort to improve them. Serrano 

has fired hundreds of corrupt cops. But I think there is a very deep 

concern on the part of our human rights community about the police, the Army, the institutions of justice. And I might add, a third 

65

of the country isn’t under the control of Colombian authorities anyway, it’s under the control of narcoguerrillas. So, we do have a 

problem. We’re going to have to face up to it. 

Mr. SOUDER. We’re concerned that this has been—it was promised 8 weeks ago. I appreciate the update. I hope you’ll keep the 

pressure on the administration. Because I don’t know how we proposed the—I mean, we heard very explicitly what they need the 

helicopters for. I don’t know how we can continue to encourage 

them and not help equip them when they’re doing a lot of our fighting, because we haven’t reduced the demand here in our country. 

And it’s something that we’re very concerned about. I share human 

rights concerns. I have some question about—and I think it’s important for the record—you’re not saying Serrano, when allegations 

occur, isn’t dealing with those? 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. Well, I have——

Mr. SOUDER. You’re saying he hasn’t had any allegations, but 

you said there were people in the national police. But his record 

has been as aggressive. 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. Sure. 

Mr. SOUDER. We don’t have any complaints against the national 

police? 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. None. None at all. As far as we know, we have 

great respect for Gen. Serrano’s leadership and integrity. 

Mr. SOUDER. Our big concern—and I think this is important to 

be communicated—is that he hasn’t used his leverage for some 

other battle. Because if they’re going to him, and there’s no complaints against him, and we’re trying to use our ability to crack 

down on narcoterrorists and the drug people indirectly, even 

though this has been promised multiple times, it starts to undermine our credibility. And I think it’s important, since it’s been 

promised multiple times, to move this ahead and, if necessary, figure out several tracks here. Because I don’t believe the national police are under question. 

If I can move to another area. Understanding that you’re going 

to get back to us. And I assume you’ve heard our grave concerns 

from multiple members here. I wanted to move into the question 

of the National Guard. At a strategy hearing we had in February 

you testified that the excellent work that the National Guard is 

doing to support our counter-drug efforts. And we’ve had several 

hearings with the National Guard. And I wholeheartedly agree 

that they’ve done an important work. And that’s why I’m concerned. Our committee is concerned about why you had a $30 million decrease in funding for the National Guard in the President’s 

request. Can you explain why you would want to cut funding for 

such an important part of our counter-drug effort? 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. Well, I’ve had a conversation with Secretary 

Cohen. I went over and saw him about that and other matters in 

the defense area. And I think one of the principal problems facing 

DOD is maintaining an adequate defense given a very constrained 

budget. And in that constrained budget the answer has been that 

the National Guard percentage essentially remains unchanged: it’s 

23 percent of the total counter-drug DOD percentage. And when 

you get into State plans, there was—it’s historically at 16 percent. 

66

It’s been higher. But that’s about normal. The whole pie, though, 

has gotten smaller. And so the Guard’s State plan efforts has been 

cut. It requires more funding in our judgment. But I’d be hard 

pressed to have suggested to SECDEF that he should cut other 

pieces of his counter-drug effort and provide the money to these 

National Guard efforts. So I’ve asked him to consider it and to 

come up with his own thinking. And we’ll have a further discussion 

of it. And I will get back and try and resolve this concern. DOD’s 

total funding is actually pretty good. We’re up at about $1.6 billion. 

If you take out the supplemental you gave us last year of $168.3 

million it, in fact, is an increase. But I think the National Guard 

does need more funds. We’re going to attempt to see how we can 

do it. 

Mr. SOUDER. We’re very concerned, because it impacts every 

State, particularly a lot of the States along the border where 

they’re doing unique services and the cut is 30 percent, which is 

a fairly significant cut. So, we’ll continue to work with you. But 

take this as that we’re deeply concerned. I have some additional 

questions, but I’ll go to Mr. Barrett. 

OK. Another—I know that you and the President are, in general, 

working with Mexico and are visiting there soon. But I wanted to 

ask you a series of questions not so much about what you’ve necessarily done in this interim from the time we certified Mexico. If 

you have anything in the interim you can add this here but concerns that I hope you will address there and can report back the 

progress on after your trip. One is progress with Mexico and allowing DEA agents to carry firearms while assisting Mexican counterdrug operations. 

Second is obtaining assurances from Mexico that the additional 

DEA agents that Congress appropriated can be stationed in Mexico, what commitments they have made to root-out the endemic 

corruption in their counter-drug efforts. The good news is that they 

seem to be making efforts. The bad news is that they’re finding 

them in such high level places. But we want to be kept posted on 

what they’re doing to get rid of the endemic corruption, not just the 

occasional. Have they made any headway on the over 100 outstanding extradition requests currently pending with Mexico? 

I understand they say that they have extradition requests, too. 

But there’s a question of scale and potency of these requests. And 

we want to hear what progress we’re making. What’s the status of 

our efforts to get a permanent maritime agreement with Mexico? 

So, those are among the questions that we’ve raised in the House, 

that, hopefully, if you don’t have any additional updates on that 

now, which I would welcome you to give if you do, that you can, 

once again, inform us upon your return what progress you’ve made. 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. I’d be glad to do just that, come back here and 

update you. 

Mr. SOUDER. OK. Another question is, in regarding certification, 

in December 1996, in the State Department IG report, Assistant 

Secretary Gelbard was quoted as saying, ‘‘Since its inception in the 

mid-1980’s the President’s annual certification process has emerged 

as one of the most powerful tools in the conduct of our foreign drug 

control initiatives.’’ Do you agree with this? 

67

Gen. MCCAFFREY. I think it has been. You know, a lot of good 

has come out of it. It has focused the energies of the executive 

branch. The Secretary of State has the lead for this process. It has, 

as the President of Bolivia just said in an international conference 

on Monday, it’s been a major factor in driving drug money out of 

the electoral process in Latin America. It has clearly galvanized 

many of us to even greater efforts. 

Now, having said that, the other side of the coin is—and it really 

came over me in the Carter Center listening to nine former or currently serving Heads of State of Latin America—it has damaged 

the central notion that we can only confront the drug issue in cooperation with international allies. It’s causing us a major difficulty. It’s viewed as a direct offensive interference in the internal 

sovereignty in another nation. It allows the argument to come up— and it shouldn’t come up—between partners, who are you to talk, 

you whose money and weapons drive this criminal process. 

So I think there’s been great damage. And I really have welcomed the thinking of people like the Speaker, Newt Gingrich, who 

was at this conference, and had some very creative, forward-thinking words. Sen. Coverdell has really pushed us to rethink the issue. 

We made need a higher order way of multi-national cooperation, 

perhaps in addition to certification, to try and remove this problem. 

Mr. SOUDER. It’s kind of an ironic position here that—a minute 

ago when we were talking about releasing helicopters to the national police of Colombia, which are being held up because we can’t 

agree on the exact language of some relationships with their defense department, which is intense micro-managing, there’s an incongruity. That we have to decide that when we’re doing trade with 

countries, when we have opened processes, that we have a right to 

say that we expect you to do certain things, or the American taxpayers have a right to have certain actions. 

I, too, share a concern that that is sometimes taken as a holier 

than thou position and sometimes looking down the nose as ugly 

American. And I’ve tried to be careful with my rhetoric in regards 

to Mexico, to be precise that we’re fighting an evil which is shared 

by many of the concerns in Mexico. But that doesn’t mean that I 

don’t have a right to defend the taxpayers of Indiana. And it also 

doesn’t mean not just in the drug area, but in the human rights 

area. And it also comes into most favored nation status, that we 

don’t have a right as America without pronouncing—in other 

words, I’m not sure sometimes we’d certify ourselves if you look at 

some of the areas. 

In other words, in States where they’re legalizing marijuana, at 

least for not only medicinal purposes, we might have some internal 

problems. But the fact is that we’re facing in the international 

area, some of these types of questions. And I think it’s important 

that we take a strong stand as our country. And the review process 

has been working. So, I think your statement was very effective at 

the beginning. And I hope the latter part of that isn’t taken that 

we should be backing away. What we need to figure out is how to 

keep the partnership going but still keep our flexibility here. With 

that, I yield to Mr. Barrett from Wisconsin. 

Mr. BARRETT. Thank you. Gen. McCaffrey, GAO has recommended that ONDCP develop an after-action reporting system 

68

top review counter-drug operations after their completion, assessing their strengths and weaknesses. The purpose is to learn lessons 

from the past to plan more effective future operations. Do you 

agree with the GAO’s recommendation? 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. I think I do. Let me say that, when I do, that 

I have been watching this process at work in the Department of 

Defense for 30-some-odd years. And I would be—if we do that, we 

need to ensure that we don’t spend a ton of money to develop an 

automated system that produces reams of unexamined data in the 

years to come. So I think ONDCP should, indeed, be a center for 

institutional memory of what works and doesn’t work. 

But I’m more inclined to say that we need to go to performance 

measures of effectiveness to get targets to measure outcomes and 

to be able to show you dollars in, results out. And, oh, by the way, 

to learn from it. Because some of these programs aren’t going to 

work and others are going to work spectacularly. I noticed the GAO 

report had cited the CALL system—Center for Army Lessons 

Learned. And, you know, we’ve done a lot of work on that. We just 

have to be cautious that we don’t build another giant data base 

that doesn’t influence real people like Tom Constantine, Director 

Freeh and others. 

Mr. BARRETT. OK. Earlier this week I think you issued a statement on the sentencing guidelines and the treatment of crack cocaine versus powder cocaine. Can you capsule that for us and give 

us your reasoning for you thoughts on that issue? 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. I think the mandatory minimum sentences 

and the sentencing commission have been concerned that—there 

was some very good rational thought that went into this in the beginning. There was a concern that crack was more rapidly addictive than powdered cocaine—that tends to be the truth—that crack 

was more closely associated with violence, with child abuse, with 

domestic abuse in general—I think that tended to be the case—and 

because, to deter those crimes, we needed a much lower threshold 

for possession of crack or sales. So we rolled into that. 

But I think over time what’s happened is we’ve developed an institutional problem. One of them is we’ve ended up with an African-American population of 11 percent of America. Thirty-three 

percent of the arrests for drug related offenses were African-American. And 48 percent of the people in prison were African-American. So we ended up with the appearance of racism in our judicial 

system. I don’t think that was there. But I think the outcome has 

caused serious American concern. Now, the second thing that came 

out of that was when I listened to the people in the corrections system, who are locking up 1.6 million Americans, a figure that’s 

growing enormously, they say that these floors and the mandatory 

minimums weren’t necessarily helping solve the drug problem, a 

position that I largely agree with. 

You’ve got to have drug courts, punishment and treatment in 

some sync, rather than just telling young men, this offense is 7 

years, that one is 15 years. That isn’t what actually affects behavior of young people doing crimes. I think the sentencing commission has rethought it. I welcome their initiatives. The Attorney 

General and I have been ordered by the President to examine their 

69

findings. And I hope we can end up with a perhaps more helpful 

and better received policy in the country. 

Mr. BARRETT. As you know, when Congress considered this issue 

last session, the recommendation was to equalize the treatment, 

and to equalize it by lowering the penalties for crack cocaine. And 

that was defeated by Congress. And ultimately the sentencing commission recommendations were signed into law by the President. 

What advice do you have to us—again, the perception, I think, 

among some politicians, at least, is if you do anything at all to even 

minimally lower the penalties for crack cocaine, that you’re sending 

the wrong message. As the drug czar in this country, what is your 

response to that? 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. I think that—look, at the end of the day 5 

years from today, I would hope that we’re going to continue to have 

less crack cocaine and powder cocaine abuse in America. The prevention program has been working for 10–15 years. New initiation 

of cocaine use has come down 60 percent in 10 years. But a lot of 

that is because people see the wreckage of human life when addicted to crack. African-Americans are using less crack than caucasians because there has been more visibility on the devastating impact of it. 

If you watch crack sales in one of these big cities at 8 p.m., in 

many cases it’s an African-American male selling to people out of 

the suburbs. Now, the bottom line is, I think we’ve got to remember what our purpose is: it’s to reduce drug abuse and drug sales 

and not to put people in prison. We need drug treatment combined 

with the threat of incarceration. We’ve got too many people in prison. It’s not helping the drug effort at all. That’s my own viewpoint. 

Mr. BARRETT. Thank you. I yield back my time. 

Mr. SOUDER. My friend Mr. Barr from Georgia. 

Mr. BARR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It’s my understanding, 

General, that just within the last few days, I think—and I’d just 

like to ask you to clarify this—it’s my understanding that a new 

extradition bill or a piece of legislation or constitutional provision 

was drafted and presented to the General Assembly down in Colombia. Could you tell me exactly what that was and what the status of it is? 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. Mr. Congressman, I’ll have to give you an answer in writing. I’ve been following the extradition issue in Colombia for 5 years now. It is not clear to me—our internal Government 

viewpoint is that it’s not yet likely that it’s going to pass. And we’re 

pushing them pretty hard on it. We think, in accordance with 

international law with the 1988 U.N. convention, that it ought to 

pass, that civilized nations ought to have extradition so that offenses committed against another country can be punished in that 

country. I don’t know how this is going to come out. I simply can’t 

tell you. And I’d rather go back and review the evidence on it. 

Mr. BARR. I’d appreciate it. And it doesn’t have to be anything 

formal. Just have somebody give me a call. Because it sounds to 

me like at least it’s some movement in the right direction. 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. The only thing that gives me pause for 

thought is, there are two things these international criminals fear. 

The biggest one is extradition. And the other one is asset forfeiture. 

So, the notion of being hauled out of Colombia and made to stand 

70

trial and imprisoned in the United States is one that they are adamantly against. And that’s why the threat of violence and corruption on democratic institutions on that issue has been so extraordinary. I hope they do it. It’s the right thing to do in accordance 

with international law. And that’s what we’re pushing them to do. 

Mr. BARR. OK. Well, if you or somebody from your office could 

get back to me and clarify that I’d appreciate it. Let me return to 

the issue of the legalization of marijuana. I don’t need to recite all 

the terms or the definition of a schedule 1 substance other than to 

make clear for the record for purpose of our discussion here, that 

a schedule 1 substance is a substance which ‘‘has no currently acceptable medical use and treatment in the United States.’’ And 

there are, of course, other criteria as well. 

I do have a very serious concern about any effort on the part of 

our Government given the fact that, as I understand it, we still do 

consider marijuana a schedule 1 substance. And, therefore, I have 

to believe that this administration continues to believe firmly and 

has the basis on which to back it up that marijuana, as a schedule 

1 substance, meets the criteria in 21 U.S.C. 812 1A, B and C. That 

being the case, why would we want to study whether or not it has 

therapeutic uses, which is the work that’s used in your drug strategy, which is a strange word. 

I’m not quite sure what that means. The schedule 1, as the other 

schedule substances talk in terms of medical usage, not therapeutic 

usage. Therapeutic is a very, very, I think, vague word that is applied to many other sorts of procedures other than medical procedures. And it worries me that the administration is considering 

some sort of effort possibly to allow the usage of marijuana if it, 

quote—and this is a quote from page 59 of your drug strategy—if 

it ‘‘could have therapeutic uses.’’ Could you clarify this anymore 

than in previous discussions we’ve had? Because it really, particularly in light of the court decision that my colleague from Florida 

referred to earlier today, is a serious concern. Because I think this 

type of language is directly undermining our effort to continue to 

hold the line against marijuana usage. 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. Well, Mr. Congressman, I absolutely share 

your concern. And I won’t recite the list of major medical organizations. But literally all serious professional medical organizations in 

this country support the viewpoint that the National Institute of 

Health and the FDA, using a scientific process, should be the manner, the protocol by which we deem medicines safe and effective. 

And marijuana, smoked marijuana, is still a schedule 1 drug believed to have no known medical benefit and poses great harm. 

That’s the viewpoint based on the evidence generated by decades 

of research. 

Mr. BARR. But why then—and I don’t mean to cut you off—I certainly want you to finish your train of thought—but why then 

would we waste 1 penny, much less $1 million that we could be 

using, I think, much more effectively in some of your other programs, to study this issue, if that is, in fact, the position which is 

firmly backed up, as I believe it is, by the medical community and 

the medical experts in our Government? 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. Well, let me just go on to suggest that smoked 

marijuana was studied intensively in the 1980’s. And out of that 

71

came the viewpoint that one component of the 435-some-odd components—THC—did potentially have medical benefit. It was made 

available for 15 years. It’s been in pharmacies, suspended in an oil 

called marinol. There are problems with it. It isn’t used much at 

all. In 1997, it’s hard to imagine prescribing THC for management 

of pain or for that matter nausea. There are two other drugs that 

work far better. 

Now, having said that, however, it’s hard to disprove a negative. 

There may be other compounds in smoked marijuana that do have 

benefits. And the door ought to be open to scientific inquiry to determine that. That’s why we—the $1 million was to review existing 

scientific literature that—— Mr. BARR. But why do we need to, I mean, with all of the things 

out there that we could be doing? 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. Because two States—well, let me answer the 

question. Two States voted to do just that. And we have enormous 

pressure, some of it by drug-legalizing forces, others by legitimate 

communities, to have us look at this question. And, so, I think, 

from a scientific viewpoint, we should not be threatened by the examination of claims. And the $1 million was review the existing literature and make sure we know what we’re talking about. Then 

the NIH will conduct serious inquiry, narrowly focused, on whether 

there actually is medical benefit from smoked pot. 

Mr. BARR. Where did this term ‘‘therapeutic’’ come from and 

what does it mean? Because when you use the term ‘‘medical,’’ to 

me that is—as used in the statute, also—a very specific, precise 

term. Why did you switch over to the use of a much different term 

in the drug control strategy, this term therapeutic? 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. Well, I think the whole notion was, is it the 

case medically that smoked pot, that we know to be a carcinogenic, 

intoxicating substance, does it actually have benefit for the relief 

of AIDS nausea, chemotherapy, pain management, glaucoma, et 

cetera. That’s the notion in which therapeutic was implied. 

Mr. BARR. But are we going to start applying—see, this is the 

slippery slope and the open door problem here. Do we then start 

talking in terms of this broader concept of therapeutic uses for 

other drugs as well? I mean, somebody else comes in and claims 

that some other controlled substance other than marijuana and 

THC has therapeutic uses—and I suppose it does. It makes some 

people feel better. That’s a therapeutic use. Don’t you see the danger of starting to change very subtly here, by the use of terminology, what we’re trying to do here? 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. Yes. 

Mr. BARR. And don’t you see the slippery slope? 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. Well, I hear your concerns. Let me take that 

into account. It’s certainly not my intention to do anything but say 

we have a scientific medical process. We have the best medicine on 

the face of the earth. We got there by not allowing laetrile, thalidomide or smoked marijuana to end up as medicines. But if these 

substances can demonstrate a legitimate scientific benefit, then, of 

course, the door would be open. 

Mr. BARR. But nobody has done that yet, have they? 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. Done——

Mr. BARR. Exhibited that? 

72

Gen. MCCAFFREY. Well, it’s been tested. 

Mr. BARR. Provided that scientific evidence. 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. Well, no. It was tested. And out of it came the 

determination that THC did have medical benefit out of that process——

Mr. BARR. But that predates the inclusion in the controlled substances list, doesn’t it? That was done quite some time ago. 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. Well—— Mr. BARR. It may not predate a—I mean, you’re talking about 

something that done a long time ago. 

Mr. BARRETT. Mr. Chairman, regular order. 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. Well, no. I think there’s been continuing investigators, and there are still attempts to study the potential benefit 

of medical marijuana. That’s why we have a genuine issue. I 

wouldn’t, Mr. Barr, negate the fact that there is an issue at stake 

here to be confronted. My viewpoint has been the easiest way to 

do this is to use science to determine the outcome. You know, I 

don’t think we’re going to sign up for thalidomide. 

Mr. BARR. But shouldn’t—— Mr. BARRETT. Mr. Chairman, regular order. 

Mr. BARR. To be consistent that—— Mr. BARRETT. Regular order, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. BARR. That we have made that determination and that that 

is——

Mr. BARRETT. Mr. Chairman, regular order, please. We are well 

beyond the 5 minutes. 

Mr. BARR [continuing]. In the tradition of the Government. 

Mr. BARRETT. Mr. Chairman, would you please rule on my statement? 

Mr. SOUDER. Let him finish this last question. But what I would 

ask of Gen. McCaffrey, if you’ll be willing to come back in June. 

Partly, we can followup on Mexico. But to pursue some of these 

kinds of questions which I know you’re concerned about, too. I 

think this is actually an important sub-part inside the report that 

we’re dealing with. But I know we also made a commitment to get 

you out of here at 1:30 p.m. 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. I’d be delighted to return. 

Mr. BARR. OK. And that last question was, that shouldn’t the position of our Government, if it truly is that we are, in your words, 

unalterably opposed to the legalization of marijuana, shouldn’t the 

position of the administration be very clearly enunciated that we 

have made the determination that it should continue to be a schedule 1 substance with no legitimate medical use? Why should we 

fuzz that up? 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. Now, the legalization of marijuana, I would 

suggest, is a different question than whether it has medical benefits. Methamphetamine, the amphetamine family, are schedule 2 

drugs. They have medical benefit. Cocaine is used for eye surgery, 

cocaine products. So, there’s no where that the door is completely 

open to any chemical substance that might benefit American doctors. So far, smoked pot doesn’t fall in that category. One of its 

components does—THC. And we’d certainly be glad to examine the 

validity of that assertion, in response to what has been a pretty 

strong demonstration of interest along those lines. 

73

Mr. SOUDER. I thank the gentleman from Georgia. And I want 

to thank Gen. McCaffrey for spending so much time with us today. 

We wish you the best in coming back with direct progress from 

Mexico and also in your work in prevention and treatment areas. 

And thank you again. We’ll look forward to continuing to work with 

you. 

Gen. MCCAFFREY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SOUDER. With that I would like to welcome our next panel. 

And now I would like to introduce Mr. Norm Rabkin. Mr. Rabkin 

is the Director of Administration of Justice Issues at the General 

Accounting Office. Rabkin, is that the correct way to say your 

name? 

Mr. RABKIN. That’s fine. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. SOUDER. OK. If you’d please stand and raise your right hand, 

I’ll swear you in. 

[Witness sworn.] 

Mr. SOUDER. Let the record show that the witness has responded 

in the affirmative. And Mr. Rabkin, if you could introduce Mr. Ford 

and Ms. Lillie-Blanton for the record so that we have that—all 

three of you were sworn in and took the oath, responded in the affirmative. But I didn’t get the names before I did that. 

Mr. RABKIN. Certainly. I’m pleased to be here today to discuss 

the General Accounting Office’s views on the reauthorization of 

ONDCP. And with me are Jess Ford, who is responsible for GAO’s 

work on international drug control issues, and Marsha LillieBlanton, who is responsible for GAO’s work on drug abuse, prevention and treatment. 

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you very much. And I look forward to hearing your testimony. 

STATEMENT OF NORMAN RABKIN, DIRECTOR, ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE ISSUES, GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE, 

ACCOMPANIED BY JESS FORD, GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE, AND MARSHA LILLIE-BLANTON, GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE 

Mr. RABKIN. I have a prepared statement. If it could be put in 

the record. I have a very short summary that I’d like to offer. 

Mr. SOUDER. Without objection, so ordered. 

Mr. RABKIN. Thank you. Over the years, Mr. Chairman, the GAO 

has issued numerous reports on the Nation’s drug control efforts. 

These reports show a consistent theme: the Nation’s effort to control illegal drugs is complex, fragmented among many agencies, 

and hindered by the absence of meaningful performance measures 

for gauging the progress and guiding decisionmaking to better ensure that resources are used effectively. 

In 1983, GAO concluded that there was a need to coordinate the 

Nation’s drug control efforts, and recommended that the President 

delegate the responsibility to one individual to strengthen oversight 

of Federal drug enforcement programs. Since then GAO has periodically concluded that there is a continuing need for a central 

planning agency. Congress addressed this issue through the AntiDrug Abuse Act of 1988, which created the ONDCP to better plan 

a Nation-wide drug control effort and assist Congress in overseeing 

that effort. 

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ONDCP was initially authorized through November 1993 and 

later reauthorized through September 30 of this year. Since the 

last reauthorization of ONDCP, GAO has issued many reports on 

various aspects of the drug control effort. Most recently we summarized our work on international supply reduction efforts, most of 

which has been done for this subcommittee. We concluded that 

these efforts have not reduced the availability of drugs for several 

reasons, including sophisticated drug trafficking organizations, 

competing U.S. foreign policy objectives and inadequate assistance 

from governments of drug producing and transit countries. 

We also summarized some promising initial research results in 

the area of demand reduction. For example, recent research points 

to two types of promising drug prevention approaches for school 

age youth and three approaches for treating cocaine use. However, 

we also found that sufficient valuative research had not been done 

to test their effectiveness and applicability among different populations in different settings. 

Our work also shows that the Nation still lacks meaningful performance measures to help guide decisionmaking for the drug control effort. We have acknowledged that performance measurement 

in the area of drug control is particularly difficult for a variety of 

reasons. Notwithstanding, we have concluded over the years that 

better performance measures than the ones in place were needed. 

In 1993, we recommended that Congress, as part of its reauthorization of ONDCP, direct the agency to develop additional performance measures. 

In reauthorizing ONDCP in 1994, Congress specified that 

ONDCP’s performance measurement system should assess changes 

in drug use, drug availability, the consequences of drug use, drug 

treatment capacity, and the adequacy of drug treatment systems. 

ONDCP’s initial effort began around January 1994 with a private 

contractor, but did not prove fruitful. In the summer of 1996, it 

began a new effort involving working groups composed of representatives from Federal drug control agencies and State, local 

and private organizations. The working groups have been tasked 

with establishing performance measures for the goals set forth in 

the 1997 National Drug Control Strategy articulated by ONDCP. 

As yet, however, no new measures have been approved by the 

ONDCP director. Given the complexity of the issues and the fragmentation of the approach to the National Drug Control Strategy 

among more than 50 Federal agencies, we continue to believe that 

there is a need for a central planning agency such as ONDCP to 

coordinate the Nation’s efforts. 

We note that while it is difficult to gauge ONDCP’ effectiveness 

in the absence of good performance measures, we have found no 

compelling evidence that would lead us to advise against ONDCP’s 

reauthorization for a finite period of time. Mr. Chairman, this completes my statement. And my colleagues and I would be pleased to 

answer your questions at this time. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Rabkin follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Thank you very much for your testimony. There’s 

a couple different ways to approach this. First, let me ask you some 

kind of fundamental questions. You raised the performance standard question, alluded to the fact that you believe that they’re working with it. Do you believe they’ve carried out the provisions at 

ONDCP regarding its performance measurement? 

Mr. RABKIN. Well, they’re not there yet. I think they’re making 

a very good faith effort. We’ve been briefed on the status, what 

they’re doing, and where they are. And I think that they’re on the 

right track by involving the agencies that are going to be charged 

with carrying out the strategy, getting them involved at the working level and at a policy. I think that they’re on the right track. 

Mr. SOUDER. One of the most difficult things in measurement is, 

in business terms we call them opportunity costs. Here it’s kind of 

the reverse. In other words, you said, for example, in international 

narcotics, because of the sophistication of the organizations, it’s not 

clear that we’ve actually reduced. How do we know what it would 

have been? 

Mr. RABKIN. Well, we really don’t know what the problem would 

have been without the efforts that were there. And I think the concept of a measurement system is to measure the results that are 

achieved with the resources that are invested. And as I understand 

it, it doesn’t focus on what you call opportunity costs. 

Mr. SOUDER. Because one of the fundamental questions that we 

get into in this whole area and in other committees that I’m in— in education, for example, these things are difficult too—that if you 

hold somebody just accountable for—let me relate to something I 

know. I was in furniture retailing. If you set a sales goal for somebody and say, ‘‘This is what we expect you to reach,’’ and don’t 

have an additional measure for saying, unless of course there’s a 

recession—in other words, it may be a percentage of total—or have 

some adjustment—part of the problem here is, is that by definition 

if cocaine is seized, it’s not on the market. 

So it may be relative improvement that we’re measuring, for one 

thing. But then if the coca production is higher, then it may be that 

we’ve made progress—part of what I sense here, and in the immigration question, quite frankly, as I was down along the California 

border looking at the drug and immigration question—is that since 

we have no idea exactly how much drugs are coming in and no idea 

how many illegal immigrants are coming in, it becomes very difficult to measure the performance standards other than the few 

things that are out there. 

So, another way to ask my question then is, do you believe that 

the performance standards which we’re trying to measure by are 

accounting for the different variables? And if not, what would you 

change? 

Mr. RABKIN. In a large sense I think that they may be. In fact, 

I think that they can be. The performance standards will be—the 

program will be measures at different levels. There will be an overall, I think—an overall standard. And the ONDCP says, the overall 

mission is to reduce drug use. And I think you can look at that 

measure and see whether all the individual components of the 

strategy are having an effect when looked at as a whole. You can 

also break that down by goal. You can break it down by objectives 

90

within the goals. And you can find, for example, the agencies that 

are responsible for interdicting cocaine: the Customs Service, the 

Coast Guard, and the other agencies that have that mission. 

What are their individual performance goals? What results are 

they expected to achieve to help to contribute to the overall goal. 

And you can measure. The Congress, ONDCP as the overseer, the 

agencies themselves can measure their progress against the goals, 

taking into account the resources they were given to meet those 

goals. And that’s where I think the 5 year planning, the 5 year 

budget comes, because the assumption is that the agencies will 

have the resources, will have a given level of resources to achieve 

these results. 

If they get fewer resources, then I think it’s appropriate to ask 

the question, well, what results will we get with those fewer resources, and then hold them accountable for that. And then there 

are other external factors. You cited a recession in the furniture 

business. There are other external factors, changes in economic 

conditions in source countries, changes in culture, that may affect 

the operations. And those should also be taken into account. 

Mr. SOUDER. One of my frustrations, having first come to Washington as a Republican staff director on the Children and Family 

Committee, is that the social issues, we really didn’t have much accountability standards for what we were spending. With law enforcement—there’s a little bit more. I am a strong advocate of performance standards, because I believe at least it starts the bait and 

shows you what the exceptions are. But I also think it’s important 

to keep in mind that those constantly need to be revised and 

worked on—and we need your help in advising on those. 

Let me give you one other personal illustration. I used to jokingly 

do this in then Congressman Coats’ district staff, as economic development liaison, my job was to help get industries in. And we 

didn’t argue whether or not it was part of the Federal Government’s role. What we were doing is drowning in northeast Indiana, 

last one out, please turn out the lights after a harvester pulled out. 

When I took the position with Coats the unemployment rate—I 

can’t remember what it was—but it was near 15 percent. When I 

left it had dropped to about 5. In the 2 years after that it went 

back up to 7. 

Hey, I did a great job, except GM came and put a plant in, really, 

with—pretty irrelevant to what I was doing. But the performance 

standard for my job, had it been, he lowered the unemployment 

rate, I’d have looked really good. But it really had little to do—I 

won’t take no credit—but it had little to do with what I was doing. 

And I think one of things that we need to try to do—because all 

of us, as we’re tightening our budget, need to know where are we 

getting the most bang for the buck—but we also need to know what 

those conditions are. 

And, in fact, if we had a process—say, OK, now explain, not excuse, not whine, but explain the variations and how do we tighten 

this the next time. That’s what the real world out in the private 

sector has to do or you go broke. Do you see that in this area, being 

able to evolve some—like you said, the sophistication of the trafficking, the unlimited borders along Mexico, both in water and 

land? How are we going to do the international trafficking? Also, 

91

I’m on the oversight subcommittee on treatment and education programs, the only things out there are like D.A.R.E., where we have 

studies. 

And it seems like often in prevention programs, they are very effective if you measure short term in third and fourth and fifth 

grade when the kids aren’t very tempted. The question is, what 

happens when it hits junior high. Any additional insights on the 

performance standards related to any of these categories given how 

nebulous, how many influences are on the process? 

Mr. RABKIN. Well, I’d like to make an overall comment and then 

perhaps some of my colleagues can answer some of the specific 

issues that you raised. I don’t want to leave you with the impression that this is an easy process. Developing the performance measures themselves is difficult and yet it may be the easiest part of 

the process. A lot of the evaluation that’s going to take place is 

going to depend on the quality of the data. You suggested that no 

one knows how much cocaine is coming into the country or is being 

shipped to the United States. 

Well, it’s important to know that if one of the measures is going 

to be the success of the interdictors in stopping it coming in. It’s 

easy to find out what you stop. It’s hard to know what you missed. 

And yet many of the measures that are being developed relate to 

the percentage of the goods that are coming in that are actually 

interdicted. So you need to know that denominator. So that’s very 

difficult. 

And if you do get good data, the analysis of the data and the assignment of these outcomes of the specific inputs is going to be extremely difficult. You know, is it really the efforts of the Customs 

Service at the border or is it really the efforts of DEA in some foreign countries, or is it really the efforts of the local law enforcement or is it really the efforts of the parents and the teachers that 

has caused it. That’s going to be a very difficult evaluation to 

make. So I think that we’re really just at the start of this whole 

process. And if you’d have comments on international or the treatment side? 

Mr. SOUDER. Have Mr. Ford or Ms. Lillie-Blanton? 

Mr. FORD. Yes. Let me comment on the international side, which 

is the area that I deal with. And I want to concur with Mr. 

Rabkin’s comments. I don’t think there’s an easy answer coming up 

with measurable indicators that everyone is going to commonly 

agree to. But I think if you look at our efforts over the last 10 

years, say, in the international side, all too often we’ve found cases 

where we have planned efforts either in a country or in a region 

or by agency and they don’t seem to be well integrated. And what 

you cite as success of reduction in cultivation in one country there’s 

an increase in another, so the net effect is that there’s a net increase. 

I think it’s important—and this is why we support what ONDCP 

is trying to do—that we develop measures that generally we all 

agree to, but we have to have some flexibility. From your perspective you want to know where to make the right investment in 

terms of where to put the resources. And I think you have to have 

good data and some analysis of what the results are in order to 

make the best judgment instead of looking at it in a piecemeal 

92

fashion. I think that’s why we support what ONDCP is trying to 

do, particularly on the international side. Because it leads to a 

more coherent approach to what we’re trying to achieve there. 

Ms. LILLIE-BLANTON. I just want to respond briefly to your concerns about prevention. Because I fully agree that the problem of 

looking at all the intervening variables is very, very difficult. But 

on the treatment side, we made an investment on research and 

evaluation. I mean, we have several longitudinal studies over a 10-

year period of time. We have several multi-site evaluations that 

looked at 5 to 10,000 drug users in treatment. And we now have 

in place another 7-year study that’s looking over time at defined 

performance measures that have been set up in treatment. In the 

prevention arena we are nowhere close to where we have come in 

treatment. 

And so I would say that setting those performance targets and 

developing the measures is the first that we need to do to get us 

to the point where we’re not just looking at D.A.R.E. or just looking 

at the Midwestern Prevention Project. We have a few models. But 

we need to test out and evaluate those models in a larger context 

and, certainly, as you have said, over a longer time period. Because 

the intervening variables over the course of time is really what can 

effect the outcomes that we evaluate in a short time period. 

Mr. SOUDER. One of the things in prevention—some things are 

more easily measurable directly than other things. For example, I 

know in Fort Wayne where they put the drug dogs in, the first year 

they found some, the second and third year they found none. That 

doesn’t mean all of a sudden marijuana disappeared. But it wasn’t 

at the school. Also we know that schools that put drug testing programs in for certain targeting things like athletes, which started 

probably 9 years ago in a case with McCutcheon High School in Indiana, all of sudden it disappeared during the period of time at 

least they were in athletics. 

So there are some measurement things that are easier to measure, some that are harder. And even that only gives us short-term. 

I want to move to some other types of categories. But Mr. Barr said 

he had to leave. He said he appreciated your work, wants to stay 

posted on this type of thing as we look at performance standards 

and how we’re doing the budget, and apologize that he didn’t get 

his questioning in. 

You mentioned, Mr. Rabkin, about the 5 year plan. The administration is—and you’re supportive of long-term. The administration 

has been looking at a strategy for 10 years. Do you think that’s the 

most effective way given the fact that we’re struggling even to get 

the five? 

Mr. RABKIN. I think there’s value in a long-term strategy. I think 

it’s good for an issue like drug control for the Government, for a 

coordinated effort with 50 different departments at the Federal 

level, not even to mention what’s going on at the State and local 

and in the private sector, to have these targets set out there so you 

know where you are today—hopefully you have a baseline—and 

you know where you want to go. And I think it’s important that 

you measure all along the way to see if you’re still on the same 

path, the right path. And I think ONDCP’s plan calls for that. I 

93

mean, obviously there will be annual plans that will be up before 

the Congress every year in sessions like this. 

The 50 agencies that are involved in the plan will be up before 

their authorizing and appropriations committees justifying their requests for that money and explaining what they are doing and 

what they have achieved and how their results fit in to this overall 

plan. I think there’s plenty of opportunity for oversight. But it to 

me is a good move to have the target out there. It seems to me the 

strategy that has developed has evolved over time. You know, they 

were authorized in 1988–1989, and the first strategy came out 

shortly thereafter. 

It sort of wavered. It seems to have settled in now. There seems 

to be some consistency over the last couple of years in the overall 

strategy. Now it’s time to move on to the issue of measurement and 

evaluation. So, I think the 10-year strategy is a good idea. 

Mr. SOUDER. You’re raising some very difficult questions. Because if, indeed, we lack data on what’s effective in so many different categories, it becomes a little presumptuous to plan too far 

given the fact that we’re trying to up that research. And let me ask 

you a question, in working with Government agencies, if there’s a 

plan out there, do you think the research and the monitoring tends 

to try to justify the behavior or do you think it’s open minded research? 

And isn’t one of the natures of bureaucracy to try to justify its 

behavior? That’s one of the dangers of having a plan where you 

start to try to justify what you’re doing. In other words, stability 

is important for performance. On the other hand, when you get stability, it means you have entrenched bureaucracies trying to explain their behavior as opposed to trying to figure out how best to 

tackle the problem. 

Mr. RABKIN. I think the theory here is not to focus on the behavior but rather to focus on the outcomes. And as long as the oversight focus is on outcomes and the agencies are held accountable, 

whatever behavior they exhibit to get to those outcomes—I mean, 

they would have planned it along the way and laid it out—but the 

focus should be on the outcomes. Are we reducing drug use and the 

illegal use of drugs and the consequences of that drug use? I mean, 

that’s the overall mission of ONDCP. It’s the overall mission of the 

drug control effort in the Federal Government. So I think as long 

as the focus is on outcomes. I think that’s the theory behind the 

Government Performance and Results Act: hold the agencies accountable for outcomes rather than activities. 

Mr. SOUDER. Right. Which is definitely what it should be. The 

figures lie and liars figure, however, still is there. We all know how 

statistics can be used. The Office of Management and Budget only 

accepted one third of the critical anti-drug interdiction effort proposed by the Coast Guard. Why would you or the President keep 

interdiction funding so low? In other words, do you feel there’s 

any—what’s your reaction to the funding level on interdiction? 

Should we up that? 

Mr. RABKIN. I’m not in a position to—the General Accounting Office is not in a position to suggest what the funding level should 

be for interdiction. ONDCP’s role is to consider the missions of all 

the agencies that are involved in the interdiction function and to 

94

make that recommendation from a broader perspective. And I 

think there are results that can be gained through the investment 

of additional resources. The Coast Guard ran an operation called 

Frontier Shield last year or earlier this year, where they put additional resources in the Caribbean. 

It produced activities. There were more seizures. You know, 

there were more cutters out for more hours looking at more—interdicting more ships, making more boardings, more seizures. And 

that resulted in less drugs getting into the country. But one of the 

things from a broader perspective, we’ve found, that when there 

are successes in one area of the country, that the sophisticated 

drug trafficking organizations move to where the resistance is less. 

And so it’s important to look at this issue from a broader perspective. So increased funding for the Coast Guard may achieve certain 

results in certain areas, but you want to make sure—and that’s 

where ONDCP plays a pivotal role, is looking at this in a much 

broader context, that the overall goals of interdiction and the overall goals of the drug strategy are being met. 

Mr. SOUDER. Have you seen in performance review—one thing 

we heard at least informally when we were in Bolivia and Peru 

was that because of price pressures, partly because we were in fact 

forcing—in other words, that coming through Florida initially was 

the cheapest or they wouldn’t have been coming in through Florida. 

As we move them to more complicated procedures, or as Peru 

moves them—instead of flying an airplane they have to go around 

the water route—as we tighten that, that affects their costs. So 

that either drives the price up in the United States or what they 

pay at the wholesale level. 

And one of things that we were hearing was, for example—AID 

was saying—for the first time people were saying, well, what about 

planting bananas? Because have you looked at that in part of the 

performance monitoring in the international either Mr. Rabkin—in 

the source countries—or Mr. Ford? 

Mr. FORD. First of all, we haven’t done any recent work in Peru. 

What you’re referring to is that outcome of an air operation that 

we’ve had there since 1995—it’s an ongoing effort—that did have 

apparently some impact on the prices at the local level there which 

caused a number of the local farmers to say, hey, I’m not making 

enough money, I want to do something else. I think the issue here 

is we want to talk about sustainment of effort. And the fact that 

there appears to be some evidence that the traffickers are now, in 

fact, going around. 

Now, how much that costs them in addition and how that impacts on street prices, at this point I can’t comment on that. I 

haven’t looked at the most recent data. But I think the most important point here is that while that effort appears to have been successful, you need to talk in terms of sustainment and you need to 

talk about how you’re going to react to it. Because they always 

react to our operations. We tend to have success over some period 

of time and then the traffickers find ways around it. 

And I think that there’s some—I just recently came back from 

Panama and talked to SouthCOM, and they’re talking a more regional perspective at looking at that issue and trying to come up 

with a more sustained approach. I think that from ONDCP’s point 

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of view, they need to make sure that their interdiction strategy 

takes into consideration the entire region, not just what’s going on 

in one country or country by country piecemeal. It needs to be all 

integrated together. 

Because otherwise you’re not going to be able to really get to the 

bottom line of what the impact is. It’s all going to be short-term. 

Mr. SOUDER. Well, the change in the flow into Florida has substantially—in other words, I agree that it moves. 

Mr. FORD. Mm-hmm. 

Mr. SOUDER. And it would be very difficult without having a lot 

of information we don’t have to know what their cost changes are 

internally. But presumably even if you don’t stop it, as you make 

it more complicated—some of these patterns have changed longterm. Now if we back down we start to see it go back to the previous area. But there’s some—as I understand what you’re saying—is that there’s not really that type of performance review, 

partly because it would be very difficult to get the data. But the 

fact that they’ve had an 18 percent decrease in the amount being 

produced in the countries where it comes from, or that they have 

to clearly expend more, we know intuitively that that’s made a 

change. We just don’t know how much. Is that not correct? 

Mr. FORD. Yes. I think that is correct. And I think that’s important, though, because if you’re going to advocate spending more resources on a particular operation, you want to—I would want to 

have a little more data on what the likely outcome of that is going 

to be, particularly if things seemed to have changed. And they’re 

now analyzing that as we speak. They’re now trying to figure out 

where the bad guys are now going and where do we need to put 

the effort. 

Mr. SOUDER. Now, one of the problems that we have is that—we 

started in this discussion saying we have very little hard core evidence to grab onto, in particular, and what we have here is that 

we know that the Coast Guard accomplished its particular thing. 

We know that certain eradication programs are accomplishing certain things. We know that the shoot down policy in Peru accomplished certain things. 

We know that the drug dogs accomplished certain things. We 

know that drug testing accomplished certain things. Many things 

where the funding proposals are actually going have less evidence 

then even that. It isn’t that any of them seem to be. It’s not that 

we shouldn’t be looking at comprehensive—any evidence we get 

from anywhere given the totality of the problem and the inter-related variables, it’s always going to be inconclusive, because it’s a 

problem that will never really go away. 

It’s a matter of reducing the supply, upping the costs, trying to 

do some prevention treatment. It’s not likely that we’re ever going 

to totally get rid of the problem. So it becomes a little different performance standard than a zero tolerance. 

Mr. RABKIN. Yes. I agree, Mr. Chairman. I think that that’s behind the strategy and the measurement system. The goal that they 

set—and I expect that they will be presenting that information to 

the Congress some time late summer or early fall, that the goal 

will not be a zero goal, but it will be a certain reduction over a 

given period of time, and will probably have some incremental tarVerDate Sep 04 2002 12:48 Sep 13, 2002 Jkt 080908 PO 00000 Frm 00099 Fmt 6602 Sfmt 6602 W:\DISC\44274 44274
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gets along the way. But I think there will be these interim measures and it will be something—that each of these different factions 

will have measures and targets and can be held accountable to 

those. 

Mr. SOUDER. Have you been involved at all in the comprehensive 

overview and review by ONDCP of their counter-intelligence efforts? Because we’ve heard a lot—we’re very concerned about what 

happened in Mexico. It took us ablind. Have you looked at any of 

that? 

Mr. RABKIN. No. We have not looked recently at that. In the past 

we have looked at the drug intelligence structure in the Federal 

Government. This was 4 or 5 years ago. And we are working with 

committee staff on doing more work for the committee this year. 

Mr. SOUDER. ONDCP hasn’t contacted you or you haven’t done 

or had any direct relationship with them on the counter-drug intelligence? 

Mr. RABKIN. No, we have not. But we will—on this work for the 

committee, we will be working with ONDCP. 

Mr. SOUDER. What about—apparently ONDCP has indicated that 

it is still studying the feasibility of implementing a lessons learned 

data base. What’s your reaction to that? 

Mr. RABKIN. I’ll let Mr. Ford answer that. 

Mr. FORD. Yes. Again, that was a recommendation in the report 

we did for the committee in February. And I want to preface my 

remarks. This dealt primarily with the international side of the 

drug war, not the entire operation. But basically our recommendation is geared toward a problem that we found over the years and 

the work we’ve done. And that has to do with the continuity of effort. What happens is that we run operations. We run people in 

and out. They’re rotated out of their assignment. They move on to 

other assignments. 

And a lot of the good information that we’ve learned from previous efforts sometimes gets lost or we actually have the data but 

it’s not put in a place where people can touch on it so when they 

plan their reference in the future they have a good idea of what’s 

happened. Our recommendation that we put in our report was 

geared toward having ONDCP develop a way of capturing that centralized information so that the continuity problem wouldn’t resurface on various operations. We did not intend, necessarily, to develop an expensive data information system. 

We basically wanted them to be a repository, central local point, 

for planners to go to get information on how to plan operations 

using some historical experience that we’ve had. And that’s what 

the intent of the recommendation was when we put it into the report. 

Mr. SOUDER. One gentleman I worked with years ago from the 

city of Miami School System, Dade County, as they were putting 

in the pioneer areas in school-based management, said that often 

nobody wants to do analysis because they’re afraid that somehow 

somebody will get retribution, and lessons learned is a kind of a 

scary—it’s like, what works, what doesn’t and why. People are willing to say what works because then they might get more money. 

They aren’t necessarily willing to share what didn’t work. 

97

And often you can learn more as a baseball player as why you 

struck out than how you got the hit. You need to study both parts 

of that. And I think a lessons learned repository would be helpful, 

not only for national, but, like you say, for around the country. You 

said—there was a quote, if I understand this, you have found no 

compelling evidence to lead us to advise against ONDCP’s reauthorization. It doesn’t sound, on the other hand, like you thought 

that it’s been the central planning agency that you envisioned in 

your original. 

In other words, I think Gen. McCaffrey has brought a strength 

to it in the sense of a public forum much like Bill Bennett did. But 

it really hasn’t accomplished the type of integration that was the 

goal of that office. Do you feel there’s a better structure that could 

be developed? How would you do that? 

Mr. RABKIN. Mr. Chairman, I think the hesitancy in our language is simply because we didn’t conduct an evaluation of ONDCP 

specifically to determine if it had effectively carried out its mission. 

We’ve been looking at some programs around from the different 

agencies that have peripherally been involved with ONDCP in 

their role as a coordinator. And it’s only been—we spent a couple 

weeks getting ready for this hearing, focusing on the performance 

measurement system. 

But basically what we’re saying is there’s certainly a need to coordinate, there’s a need for that agency. ONDCP seems to have 

done the things that the Congress asked it to do when it reauthorized ONDCP in 1993. It seems to me that ONDCP is a good value 

for the investment in terms of the investment that the Congress is 

making in it as a coordinator. And there’s a need for it. The only 

reason that we phrased it that way was because we hadn’t done 

any specific work to answer the broader question. 

Mr. SOUDER. In closing—and I appreciate the patience you’ve 

had, because this has been a strung-out hearing. That’s a poor 

choice of words. But a hearing because of the voting and changing 

over here, it took a while. But let me—is it true, even given what 

you’ve just said, that—and I agree that we’ve made progress—that 

it could be doing better in these areas. If you could comment on 

this if you disagree or if you agree. At least in these areas including intelligence coordination—because clearly we’ve had problems—

when the drug czar announces his satisfaction with a man who you 

find out not only was on the payroll of a cartel but was living in 

the apartment and living in the apartment with the person from 

the cartel and had hired a staff person that had been busted before 

for having been a narcotics trafficker, it is pretty self evident that 

we have an intelligence question, problem—that also, in budget 

oversight and certification, in internal hiring and coordination, in 

anti-legalization coordination and in coordination of interdiction 

and support, to just name a few. Would you not agree that they at 

least need to improve even if you’re saying that they deserve to be 

reauthorized and that they’re doing a reasonable job? 

Mr. RABKIN. Well, from the evidence that I’ve heard presented 

today, I would think that, yes, there is an opportunity for ONDCP 

to do a better job. But, again, we haven’t done any work specifically 

looking at these issues. For example, in the intelligence coordination, there’s issues of coordination among the intelligence gathering 

98

agencies and issues of coordination between the gathering agencies 

and the law enforcement agencies that can make use of that intelligence. 

And then there’s coordination among the law enforcement agencies to make sure that the best use of the intelligence is made. 

Those are some issues that we plan to get involved with in dealing 

with the question that the subcommittee is putting forth on drug 

intelligence. And so it’s a very complicated area. And we’d rather 

do the analysis first and then reach the conclusions. 

Mr. SOUDER. OK. Well, thank you very much for your time. And 

we look forward to continuing to work with you. Because it’s an important part. Because as much as we are appalled by the continuing deaths in our own districts and the threats to our own families in addition to the Nation as a whole and the international 

community by narcotrafficking, it is wise to look at how we’re 

spending the money and where, and getting the most value for 

each dollar, particularly as we’re under the budget constraints. So 

we look forward to working with you with that. And with that, this 

hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 2:15 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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