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25–173 PDF 2005

LAW ENFORCEMENT AND THE FIGHT AGAINST

METHAMPHETAMINE: IMPROVING FEDERAL,

STATE, AND LOCAL EFFORTS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE,

DRUG POLICY, AND HUMAN RESOURCES

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

AUGUST 23, 2005

Serial No. 109–103

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

DAN BURTON, Indiana

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida

JON C. PORTER, Nevada

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina

——— ———

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

MELISSA WOJCIAK, Staff Director

DAVID MARIN, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director

ROB BORDEN, Parliamentarian/Senior Counsel

TERESA AUSTIN, Chief Clerk

PHIL BARNETT, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE, DRUG POLICY, AND HUMAN RESOURCES

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana, Chairman

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

DAN BURTON, Indiana

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

DIANE E. WATSON, California

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

EX OFFICIO

TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

J. MARC WHEAT, Staff Director

NICHOLAS COLEMAN, Professional Staff Member and Counsel

MALIA HOLST, Clerk

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on August 23, 2005 ........................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Oetjen, Gary W., Assistant Special Agent in Charge, Louisville, KY District Office, Drug Enforcement Administration; and John Sommer, director, Ohio High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area [HIDTA] .................... 11

Oetjen, Gary W. ......................................................................................... 11

Sommer, John ............................................................................................ 21

Vore, Dave, Montgomery County sheriff; Ralph Fizer, Jr., Clinton County

sheriff; Tom Ariss, Warren County sheriff; Commander John Burke,

Greater Warren County Drug Task Force; Jim Grandey, esq., Highland

County Prosecutor; and Commissioner Randy Riley, Clinton County

Administrator ................................................................................................ 50

Ariss, Tom .................................................................................................. 59

Burke, John ............................................................................................... 64

Fizer, Ralph, Jr. ........................................................................................ 55

Grandey, Jim ............................................................................................. 72

Riley, Randy ............................................................................................... 76

Vore, Dave .................................................................................................. 50

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

Ariss, Tom, Warren County sheriff, prepared statement of .......................... 62

Burke, Commander John, Greater Warren County Drug Task Force, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 67

Fizer, Ralph, Jr., Clinton County sheriff, prepared statement of ................ 57

Grandey, Jim, esq., Highland County Prosecutor, prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 74

Oetjen, Gary W., Assistant Special Agent in Charge, Louisville, KY District Office, Drug Enforcement Administration, prepared statement of .. 14

Riley, Commissioner Randy, Clinton County Administrator , prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 78

Sommer, John, director, Ohio High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area

[HIDTA], prepared statement of .................................................................. 26

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

of Indiana, prepared statement of ............................................................... 4

Tobin, Pete, deputy director, Ohio High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area

[HIDTA], prepared statement of .................................................................. 32

Vore, Dave, Montgomery County sheriff, prepared statement of ................. 53

(1)

LAW ENFORCEMENT AND THE FIGHT

AGAINST METHAMPHETAMINE: IMPROVING

FEDERAL, STATE, AND LOCAL EFFORTS

TUESDAY, AUGUST 23, 2005

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE, DRUG POLICY,

AND HUMAN RESOURCES,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Wilmington, OH.

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

McCoy Room at the Kelley Center, Wilmington College, Wilmington, OH, Hon. Mark Souder (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Turner, Cummings, and Souder.

Staff present: Nicholas Coleman, professional staff member and

counsel; and Malia Holst, clerk.

Mr. SOUDER. The subcommittee will now come to order.

Good morning, and we thank you all for coming. Today we will

continue our subcommittee’s work on the problem of methamphetamine trafficking and abuse—a problem that is ravaging the entire

Nation and putting a severe strain on law enforcement agencies at

State and local levels.

I would particularly like to thank Congressman Mike Turner for

inviting us here to Wilmington for this important hearing. I look

forward to working with him as Congress moves ahead with antimethamphetamine legislation.

I would also like to thank our ranking member, Congressman

Elijah Cummings, for taking the time from his August recess to

join us here in Ohio today. Even though meth is not yet one of the

primary drug threats in Congressman Cummings’ own district in

inner-city Baltimore, he has always been very supportive of our national efforts to stop this deadly drug.

This is actually the 10th hearing focusing on meth held by our

subcommittee since 2001. In places as diverse as Indiana, Arkansas, Hawaii, and Minnesota, I have heard moving testimony about

how this drug has devastated lives and families. But I have also

learned about the many positive ways that communities have

fought back, targeting the meth cooks and dealers, trying to get addicts into treatment, and working to educate young people about

the risks of meth abuse.

Today we are focusing particular attention on the challenge of

meth to Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies. That

challenge is complicated by the way this drug is made, and by who

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is making it. Most meth comes from the so-called ‘‘superlabs’’ in

California and northern Mexico, and Congress is currently exploring ways to address that problem.

Direct action against the labs themselves, and the traffickers

controlling them, is part of the solution. But an even more important part is controlling the supply of precursor chemicals, notably

pseudoephedrine, the key component in most cold medicines. We

need a better international system for controlling the manufacture

and distribution of pseudoephedrine to prevent its being diverted

to meth production.

However, Congress also needs to address the other source of

meth supply: the small, clandestine or ‘‘clan’’ meth labs that generate so much damage and misery for local communities. The

amount of meth that is created at these smaller labs is relatively

small, yet they have a huge impact on the community due to the

environmental damage and health risks that they create.

The National Association of Counties recently published a survey, which details the enormous impact that meth is having on law

enforcement agencies. The survey reported that nearly 60 percent

of the responding counties stated that methamphetamine was their

largest drug problem; 67 percent reported increases in meth-related

arrests. Over half of the agencies surveyed stated that at least 1

in 5 jail inmates are serving methamphetamine-related sentences.

Proposals to give Federal help to this ground fight against clan

labs have taken two general forms—first, proposed retail and

wholesale regulations of pseudoephedrine products; and, second, financial assistance to State and local agencies to deal with the cost

of investigating and cleaning up lab sites. I believe that both approaches will be necessary, but the question is how they can best

be implemented.

Nearly everyone agrees that we need to better regulate

pseudoephedrine products. As they say, however, the devil is in the

details. Precisely what regulations are needed at the Federal level,

and what kind of exceptions should apply? Some ideas—including

import controls, better wholesale market monitoring, and repealing

Federal exemption that allows unlimited sales of pills in blister

packs—are fairly non-controversial. I have proposed legislation that

would put all of these into Federal law.

Congress is also considering legislation for another approach,

putting pseudoephedrine on Schedule V of the Controlled Substances Act, which would put most cold products behind the pharmacy counter, and prevent non-pharmacies from selling them. A

number of States have already passed such regulations. In fact, the

overall majority are currently considering it. And hopefully we will

have data soon showing how effective they, in fact, are. But we

need to be mindful of the impact of these laws on consumers and

on small businesses. We don’t want to pass laws that unnecessarily

burden consumers in rural and small towns that prevent everyone

but Wal-Mart and Target from selling cold medicines.

The second major proposal involves providing Federal financial

and other assistance to State and local law enforcement agencies.

The cost of cleaning up meth labs is very high—much higher than

most rural agencies can afford. Moreover, the health hazard of

meth labs is such that local police officers often have to wait for

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6 hours or more for the State lab unit to arrive. That’s time wasted, when they can’t protect the community from other threats.

The Federal Government must do something to help with this serious problem, because the Nation’s fight against illegal drug trafficking depends on the ability of State and local agencies to do

their part. But we also have to recognize that we will never have

enough money to fund every anti-meth effort. We need a mechanism for targeting limited Federal resources in the areas with the

most significant problem, and where they will have the most significant impact.

My bill, and a number of other bills, try to address these various

issues, but we need an overall, national anti-meth strategy if we

are ever going to get ahead of the meth problem. In this, I have

frankly been very disappointed by the administration, which has

not yet developed such a comprehensive strategy.

I am a strong supporter of President Bush, but I believe his administration can do better than the rather tentative anti-meth initiatives announced last week in Tennessee. They are a nice first

step, but we need a lot more leadership on this issue.

At today’s hearing, we will hear from the Federal, State, and

local agencies that are trying to provide local leadership against

the meth epidemic right here in southern Ohio. We welcome Gary

Oetjen, Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the Drug Enforcement

Administration; and John Sommer, Director of the Ohio High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, the so-called HIDTA program. The

HIDTA program has set a new standard for improving Federal,

State, and local law enforcement cooperation, and I look forward to

hearing about HIDTA’s impact on the meth problem.

On the second panel we will hear from Commissioner Randy

Riley of Clinton County; Sheriff Ralph Fizer, also from Clinton

County; Sheriff Tom Ariss of Warren County; Sheriff Dave Vore

from Montgomery County; Commander John Burke of the Greater

Warren County Drug Task Force; and Jim Grandey, the Highland

County Prosecutor.

We thank everyone for taking the time to join us this morning,

and look forward to your testimony.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Mark E. Souder follows:]

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5

6

Mr. SOUDER. Now I would like to yield to our distinguished ranking member, Mr. Cummings, for an opening statement.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I

want to thank Mr. Turner for inviting us to his district, and we

want to thank you, Mr. Turner, for your leadership on this issue.

We know what it means to you. We know that you have put it at

the forefront of your priorities, and so we really do appreciate this

opportunity to be here.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for convening today’s field

hearing on law enforcement and the fight against methamphetamine. Today’s hearing is the 10th in a series of hearings the subcommittee has held on the impact of methamphetamine on communities across this Nation. And I think that speaks volumes about

your leadership and your commitment to this extremely challenging issue.

I might add that this is a bipartisan effort. Wherever drugs are

affecting people, illegal drugs affecting people throughout our Nation, we stand together. Methamphetamine, or meth, is not a new

drug. In fact, it has been around for decades. Meth originated in

south California, and its production, trafficking, and use were traditionally limited to California and a small number of western

States, where the primary producers, traffickers, and users were

outlaw motorcycle gangs and affiliated populations.

Over the past couple of decades, however, Mexico- and California-based Mexican drug traffickers have become the primary largescale producers of meth through their operation of so-called

‘‘superlabs’’ that are capable of producing 10 or more pounds of

high purity meth in a single production cycle.

Small-scale production and distribution of meth has also increased rapidly, as clandestine labs, some by individual users capable of producing very small quantities of the drug, have proliferated

in many areas of this country. Clandestine labs are particularly

prevalent in rural areas where they are difficult for law enforcement to detect.

And let me add here to all of our officers, to the DEA, and

HIDTA, and all of those in law enforcement, I want you to understand that our committee and subcommittee are dedicated—we understand that you are a—truly a fed blue line, and that we want

to do everything in our power to help you do your jobs.

The trends that I have talked about have caused the Midwest

Region to experience tremendous growth in both trafficking and

production, and that activity is spreading into the southeast and

the northeast regions.

As a result, according to a recent report by the National Association of Counties, the meth epidemic in America—meth is now the

No. 1 illegal drug threat facing most of the 500 counties that participated in a survey of local law enforcement agencies. Unfortunately, Ohio is no exception, as lab seizures, prosecutions, and the

myriad of problems that accompany meth addiction and production

have increased dramatically in this State.

For many reasons, meth is an especially dangerous drug, with

devastating consequences for individual users, as well as the communities in which they live. A powerful stimulant that affects the

central nervous system, meth is derived from a chemical compound

7

contained in over-the-counter nasal decongestants and bronchia inhalers, as well as in certain weight-loss treatments.

Meth can be smoked, snorted, orally ingested, or injected, and is

known by a variety of street names depending upon the form in

which it is used. Meth frequently is produced in a powder form,

and also in a rock form known as crystal meth or ice. Because of

its high purity, the intense and prolonged high it produces, and the

fact that it can be smoked, ice has become a popular drug among

non-traditional users, including young people who use the drugs at

rave parties.

The side effects of meth use are dangerous and sometimes fatal.

They include convulsions, high body temperature, stroke, cardiac

arrythmia, stomach cramps, and shaking. Meth is highly addictive,

and abuse of the drug can cause violent behavior, anxiety, and insomnia, in addition to psychotic effects such as paranoia, hallucinations, mood swings, and delusions.

Persistent users develop a tolerance for the drug that requires a

user to take increasing amounts to achieve the desired effects. Because meth can be manufactured using ingredients purchased in

U.S. retail stores, small clandestine labs are often found in homes,

apartments, hotel rooms, rented storage spaces, and trucks.

Although most of these labs produce less than 10 pounds of meth

in a year, their impact on the environment and the costs of cleaning up the toxic waste from these sites can be enormous. Because

the ingredients are not only toxic but extremely volatile in combination, these labs also pose a serious danger to the so-called

meth cooks who make the drug, as well as individuals living in

close proximity to the activity.

All too often children are found in small-scale labs. These children are not only at great risk of physical harm from explosions or

exposure to toxic chemicals, but they are also victims of neglect or

abuse, because of the drug’s effects on their parents or other relatives. These circumstances have led to a large number of children

being taken from the custodial control of their parents and placed

in foster homes, adding another tragic dimension to this problem.

Meth abuse has not yet—not yet—become a major problem in

communities of Baltimore City and Baltimore County, Howard

County, in Maryland, which I represent. But the rapid spread of

meth production, trafficking and abuse in the United States, underscores the fact that America’s drug problem affects all parts of

America, and that no community is immune to the introduction of

a dangerous, new drug threat.

The possibility that could become a major problem in large eastern cities like Baltimore is a major concern to all of us. According

to the Drug Enforcement Administration, aggressive enforcement

and tighter controls on the commercial importation and distribution of meth, meth precursor products, have contributed to a sharp

decline in the number of superlabs operating in the United States.

At the same time, however, superlabs in Mexico have increased

in number. Widespread trafficking of meth in the United States by

Mexican drug trafficking organizations continues, and clandestine

labs continue to proliferate in many areas of our country. Effective

law enforcement efforts, including cooperation and coordination beVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:45 Mar 28, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00011 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\25173.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
8

tween Federal, State, and local agencies will continue to be necessary to combat this problem.

Regional task force, the HIDTA program, which I am very

pleased to say that this committee played a major role in making

sure that we retain the funding for, and the Justice Department

grant programs to support State and local enforcement and cleanup

efforts, must continue to play a substantial role.

Congress must consider what additional legislative steps can and

should be taken, including whether consumer access to cough and

cold medicines, and other retail products, should be restricted. Today’s hearing offers the opportunity to hear and consider the views

of important players in the fight against meth in Ohio, and I welcome their input concerning how we can improve on what we are

doing to fight meth at the Federal, State, and local level.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, as I have said many times before this

committee, I believe it is also important to recognize the importance of drug treatment and how it can complement enforcement

efforts in addressing this epidemic. Research for the Center for

Substance Abuse Treatment shows that meth addiction can be effectively treated, and that the benefits of treating meth addiction

are similar to the benefits derived from treating addiction to other

drugs.

If use of the drug is stopped or reduced, criminal activity and recidivism decline, employment status and housing status improve,

and overall health improves. We have seen, with regard to cocaine

and heroin abuse in Baltimore, that treatment and law enforcement must—must—go hand in hand to maximize our impact on reducing addiction, drug abuse, and related social ills. And I believe

the same formula will yield stronger results elsewhere.

That said, I thank you, Mr. Chairman, again, and I thank you,

Mr. Turner, for having us in your district.

Mr. SOUDER. Before I yield to Chairman Turner, who has been

a very strong leader in our Government Reform Committee, and a

great addition in all these efforts in fighting meth, I want to thank

him in particular for getting our distinguished ranking member

here to a real small town.

He came to a hearing in Fort Wayne. He represents inner-city

Baltimore. We have been up there, and I have learned more about

the streets of Baltimore and the struggles in many of his very

tough parts of his district, but he came to Fort Wayne once, and

he keeps referring to it in Washington as a small town. [Laughter.]

And it is 230,000 people. Small town, from Pittsburgh west,

many towns, in fact the majority of towns, have marked the highest building as a great—and you can tell that here rivaled by the

water tower. And that is the true midwest, and you are getting a

dose of that.

If we had time, we would take him out and have him milk a cow,

get a little bit of cheese—[laughter]—check out the difference of

what a real bean is, not a green bean but a soybean, a few things

like that. But thank you for having us here today.

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Chairman, thank you so much for bringing the

Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources here to Wilmington. I want to thank Ranking Member

Cummings for being here.

9

Both of you are national leaders in this issue, and your efforts

to highlight the problems of meth and to look for solutions are very

important. And Chairman Souder has come from Indiana, our

neighboring State, but, Mr. Cummings, appreciate you coming from

Maryland.

Both of these gentlemen have taken time from their districts and

from their families to be here. And why are they here? They are

here not only because they have insight in this issue, and they are

leaders on the national level for this, but also because they want

to hear locally what’s going on in our community and what we are

experiencing, so that we can look at national solutions for this

issue.

I appreciate both of you taking your time from your districts and

your families to be here. But, more importantly, we all appreciate

the fact that on a national level that you have made this an important issue. And, Mr. Cummings and Chairman Souder, you have

made certain that—not only that there’s focus on this but that

there’s a search for solutions. So thank you for bringing this hearing here today and for your efforts on the national level.

I want to thank our panel of witnesses and what they are going

to bring to this issue—the witnesses that we have are bfrom Clinton, Warren, Highland, and Montgomery Counties. The testimony

that we receive today will be helpful in examining the problems of

methamphetamine abuse nationally and locally, and how we in

Congress can assist local law enforcement officials in combating

meth abuse.

While a lot of the tension on the war on drugs has been focused

on the problems of cocaine and heroin, methamphetamine abuse is

reaching crisis levels all over the country and here in southern

Ohio. The effects of meth usage on the body are dramatic.

In the short term, meth significantly increases the level of

dopamine released from the brain. A single dosage of meth can result in dangerously high body temperatures and even cause convulsions. In the long term, methamphetamine use appears to cause reduced levels of brain activity, resulting in symptoms like those of

Parkinson’s Disease.

Nationally, meth abuse has become an increasing problem. According to the 2002 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 12.3

million Americans age 12 and older have tried meth at least once

in their lifetime—5.2 percent of the population with the majority

of past-year users being between 18 and 34 years of age.

Since 2003, 32 active labs were closed in Clinton County. And

since 2004, Warren and Highland Counties have closed almost 50

active meth labs combined. Meth abuse has also increased other

crimes, such as theft and home burglaries. For law enforcement,

fighting meth is dangerous, not only because of the harmful effects

of the drug that it has on users and their families, but also because

meth labs are highly toxic and volatile, making them a hazard to

clean.

The meth problem has also reached our schools, and that’s why

I appreciate both of you raising the issue of the effects of this drug

on people, so that we can get the message out to our youth to avoid

drug abuse and, of course, to avoid meth.

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Again, Mr. Chairman, thank you for your leadership on this critical issue. I look forward to hearing from today’s distinguished

panel of witnesses, and to working with you to address meth abuse

issues.

Thank you.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. What I often do when we are—let me

do first the procedural matters. Before we hear testimony, we will

take care of some procedural matters. First, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to submit written

statements and questions to the hearing record, and that any answers to written questions provided by the witnesses also be included in the record. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Second, I ask unanimous consent that all exhibits, documents,

and other materials referred to by Members and witnesses may be

included in the hearing record, and that all Members be permitted

to revise and extend their remarks. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Finally, I ask unanimous consent that all Members present be

permitted to participate in the hearing. Without objection, so ordered.

When am I on the road, I usually try to explain a little bit what

this committee does and our process here. The Government Reform

Committee actually is older than the authorizing committees, and

we do oversight. It was pretty evident under the last administration that many of the investigations that we did from the

Travelgate on through were done by Government Reform and Oversight.

Our subcommittee is a little bit different in the sense we do oversight on the narcotics issue, but we also have legislative jurisdiction over the Office of National Drug Control Policy [ONDCP]. And

so we don’t just do oversight, we actually do authorizing through

this subcommittee, which is relatively unique.

The way most people now—rather than thinking back a number

of years—think of this is the witnesses can pretend you are Mark

McGwire, and now it was a lot easier to get—we did the steroids

hearing through Government Reform. We moved it up to the full

committee level. We swear in our witnesses, because it is an oversight committee. Rafael Palmiero is learning that sometimes we

can actually prosecute for perjury. The question was: is it relevant?

And was he abusing at the time he testified?

You all were much easier to get here today than Mark McGwire,

who for days moved around so he could not get a subpoena served.

And now we know why. But this is the committee that does those

type of hearings, and that is part of our function—to see that the

laws of the United States are implemented and what laws needed

to be developed, so we can then move it into the legislative process

and the appropriations process.

We always start our hearings trying to get the—if there are Federal witnesses, they start on the first panel, as is the tradition of

the committee. And we try to have them lay out kind of the regional approach that is occurring in the area, and then pick up the

State and local. This hearing particularly is focused on law enforcement. We have been doing all of the different aspects.

11

And yesterday, in Fort Wayne, the Director of SAMHSA, the

Substance and Alcohol and Mental Health Administration, was in

Fort Wayne, and we spent most of the day with treatment providers trying to figure out how to deal with meth. But normally the

first thing that hits is the law enforcement problem. Then we move

to trying to figure out how to treat it, and then it dawns on everybody that maybe we ought to prevent it.

And the reason I keep talking about a national strategy, it would

be nice to get that a little bit in a different order in the places

where it hasn’t hit yet. And as we see it often in the rural areas,

it isn’t even—even though Fort Wayne region is eighth hardest hit

in the Nation, there is none in Fort Wayne.

And trying to get ahead of this before it hits the urban areas

means we ought to get prevention at the front end, so then we can

try to work with the law enforcement and treat those, in fact,

where we don’t get it prevented, and they get caught in the law enforcement, then treat. And we have this by not having a coordinated national strategy right now. We have this whole thing out

of whack, and we only are going backward with it, and yet it is a

freight train heading toward the big cities.

And as we heard in Minneapolis/St. Paul, they got whacked. In

12 months they went from no kids in child protection to 80 percent

of the kids in child protection were meth addicts. And when it hits

a city, it is much harder than crack, and that is partly why we are

getting attention beyond the rural areas of the United States, because as it hits Omaha, as it hits Minneapolis/St. Paul, as we see

it move into bigger cities and at the edge of Detroit and the edge

of New Orleans, we are starting to see it start to move in. This all

of a sudden will grab attention levels like it has never done before.

So our first panel is composed of Gary Oetjen, Assistant Special

Agent in Charge of the Louisville, KY District Office of DEA, and

John Sommer, Director of the Ohio High Intensity Drug Trafficking

Area [HIDTA].

So as an oversight committee, it is our standard practice to ask

all our witnesses to testify under oath. So please stand and raise

your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. Let the record show that the witnesses

responded in the affirmative, and we will start with Mr. Oetjen.

STATEMENTS OF GARY W. OETJEN, ASSISTANT SPECIAL

AGENT IN CHARGE, LOUISVILLE, KY DISTRICT OFFICE,

DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION; AND JOHN

SOMMER, DIRECTOR, OHIO HIGH INTENSITY DRUG TRAFFICKING AREA [HIDTA]

STATEMENT OF GARY W. OETJEN

Mr. OETJEN. Chairman Souder, distinguished Members of Congress, my name is Gary Oetjen, and I am the Assistant Special

Agent in Charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration for the

Louisville District Office.

On behalf of DEA Administrator Karen Tandy, and Detroit Field

Division Special Agent in Charge Robert Corso, I appreciate your

12

invitation to testify today regarding DEA’s efforts to combat

methamphetamines in the State of Ohio.

Detroit Field Division’s area of responsibility includes the States

of Michigan, Ohio, and Kentucky. In my capacity as Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the Louisville District Office, I am responsible for all of the DEA offices and operations in the State of Kentucky, and also the Cincinnati, OH resident office.

With me today is Anthony Mirata, the Assistant Special Agent

in Charge of the Columbus area district office. And Mr. Mirata is

responsible for the five other offices throughout the State of Ohio.

Until the late 1980’s, methamphetamine was a relatively unknown drug outside the States along the west coast. However, by

the early 1990’s, methamphetamine was gaining in popularity and

began spreading across the country. Today, few places in the

United States have not felt its impact. The State of Ohio is no exception.

In Ohio and across the Nation, we have initiated and led successful enforcement efforts focusing on methamphetamine and its precursor chemicals and have worked jointly with our Federal, State,

and local law enforcement partners to combat this drug. As a result

of DEA’s efforts and those of our law enforcement partners in the

United States and Canada, we have seen a dramatic decline in

methamphetamine superlabs in the United States. But with this

drop in superlab activity, we have also seen an increase of

superlabs in Mexico.

No precise breakdown is available, but current drug and lab seizure data suggests that roughly two-thirds of the methamphetamine used in the United States comes from the larger labs, increasingly in Mexico, and that probably is—about one-third of the

methamphetamines consumed in this country comes from the small

toxic labs.

Though methamphetamine is clearly a growing threat in Ohio,

currently the greatest drug threat in Ohio is cocaine, in both the

form of powder and crack. The most violent crime in Ohio is attributed to the distribution and the abuse of cocaine and crack cocaine.

Additionally, local law enforcement agencies throughout Ohio most

frequently identified cocaine, either powdered or crack, as the drug

that contributes most to the property crime in their respective

areas.

Methamphetamine manufacturing and use are increasing

throughout the State. In 2000, Ohio law enforcement agencies reported just 29 methamphetamine-related instances to El Paso Intelligence Center [EPIC]. In 2004, this number had increased to

286 instances in the State of Ohio, with 162 being actual methamphetamine labs. In 2004, Summit County, OH, which encompasses the Akron area, accounted for over 25 percent of the State’s

methamphetamine lab seizures.

The vast majority of labs seized in Ohio were small, toxic labs,

which typically produce 1 to 2 ounces of meth. Arrest data shows

that the predominant manufacturers and users of methamphetamine in Ohio are caucasian males and females.

We are well aware that combating this drug requires a concentrated effort by law enforcement at all levels. The strong workVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:45 Mar 28, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00016 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\25173.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
13

ing relationship that the DEA has developed with State and local

law enforcement is an essential element of this effort.

Another tool in this fight comes to DEA’s Office of Training,

which shares our expertise by training thousands of State and local

partners from all over the country as well as our international

counterparts. Since fiscal year 2002, the DEA has provided clandestine laboratory training to more than 100 officers here in Ohio.

DEA also provides cleanup assistance to law enforcement agencies across the country as they battle this drug. DEA’s hazardous

waste program, with the assistance of grants from—to State and

local enforcement supports and funds the cleanup of the majority

of laboratories seized in the United States.

In Ohio, from fiscal year 2002 through fiscal year 2004, DEA ad- ministered 556 lab cleanups at a total cost of $1,145,600. For 2005,

up to June 30 of this year, the DEA has thus far administered 331

cleanups at a cost of $655,200.

More than any other controlled substance, methamphetamine endangers children through the exposure, the drug abuse, neglect,

physical and sexual abuse, toxic chemicals, hazardous waste, fire,

and explosions. In response to these tragic phenomena, the DEA

has enhanced its victim witness program to identify, refer, and report these incidents to the proper State agencies.

This program ensures that the endangered children are identified, and that each child’s immediate safety is addressed at the

scene through coordination with child welfare and health care services.

The DEA, both nationally and in Ohio, is keenly aware that we

must continue our fight against methamphetamines and stop the

spread of this drug. To combat this epidemic, we are fighting methamphetamine on multiple fronts.

Thank you for your recognition of this important issue, and the

opportunity to testify here today. I will be happy to answer any

questions you may have, along with ASAC Mirata.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Oetjen follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. For our witnesses who may not be familiar, we

have a 5-minute rule. You have probably all heard that in preparation for your testimony. I grew up in a small town outside of Fort

Wayne, surrounded by Amish, and I always joke about we have the

longest yellow lights in the United States in those communities, so

they can slip through the yellow in their buggies.

So I will have a long yellow light here today and give a little

more flexibility in the testimony. But so we can get to questions,

and so on, with three Members, if you can follow close to the time.

Mr. Sommer.

STATEMENT OF JOHN SOMMER

Mr. SOMMER. Yes. Good morning Chairman Souder and distinguished members of this committee. My name is John Sommer. I

am the Director of the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Program for

the State of Ohio.

I first would like to thank you and commend you, the committee

members, for seeking the facts in this very urgent matter.

The HIDTA program was established in June 1999, originally

with five counties in the northern part of the State. October 2004

we established six more authorized counties in the south central

part of the State. As most of you know, the HIDTA program is very

unique. It is not just a channel for Federal funding, but it promotes

a partnership, and it is a partnership that I have never seen before, a most unique program in my 35 years in law enforcement.

This partnership is needed now more than ever to fight this battle in the State of Ohio. The HIDTA program does foster this relationship. It shares information. It does threat assessments. We

have an Analytical Support Center up in Brooklyn Heights, OH.

We provide strategic, operational, and tactical support throughout

the State.

The program, as you know, is threat-driven with regard to the

training we provide, and also the task forces that we have, which

are 13 Statewide. As I speak, there are 378 law enforcement officers that are part of the HIDTA program in the State of Ohio, representing 97 law enforcement agencies throughout.

We have the typical executive board, which has a complete balance between Federal, State, and local law enforcement officials

and executives on this board. Each year, this HIDTA, like all the

other HIDTAs, does a thorough threat assessment, before we take

the moneys that are given to us by Congress and spend them accordingly. And this is an act of stewardship on our part, and we

also want to keep track of how the money is spent and that it is

going to the most urgent areas of this battle in drug trafficking.

Mostly in the State of Ohio, within the innercities, we have the

biggest problem of cocaine and crack cocaine and heroin. However,

the growth in methamphetamine has taken a very active role, and

it is actually growing at an unbelievable rate of speed.

When I came on board in the year 2000, there were 29 labs in

the State of Ohio, and some of this included dump sites in those

numbers. And there is 315 counted in 2004. And as of August 8 of

this year, or rather August 18, there is 206 meth labs and methrelated sites found in the State of Ohio. We are way ahead of last

year.

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We have to remember with regard to the threat assessment, the

State of Ohio is an agricultural State. There are lots of farms. And

with those farms, there are a lot of cornfields, and we have a lot

of available anhydrous ammonia, which is used in one of the most

popular methods of making methamphetamine.

Because of that, what we call the ‘‘Mom and Pop labs,’’ and this

was referred to earlier, have been popping up, not only stealing

this chemical but also using the other precursor chemicals such as

pseudoephedrine, and ephedrine-based cold medicine. So there is a

lot of availability here in the State, like much of the country.

These investigations are very different than the other type of investigations, and it is unlike sometimes a long-term investigation

where you have a wire tap and it might take 18 months to get

through. These investigations, when we find a lab, it is an emergency. We must respond immediately.

There might be children exposed to these chemicals. There are

all types of problems with the dump sites, what goes to the economy of this entire country. The whole concept here is much different than—and basically it is in a category of its own with regard

to the trail of destruction.

Also, there are no forfeitures in this type of investigation like you

do—like you may find in other types of long-term investigations.

There are no fancy vehicles and cars and homes to take. What you

end up with is a pile of rubbish. And you have a dump site there.

It might be rented property, it might be an apartment, it might

be something that—it might be a park system. The cleanup is also

extremely expensive and dangerous. Last year alone in Summit

County there were six police officers who had to be hospitalized for

inhaling the toxic fumes.

Bulk transfer of methamphetamine worsening in the State of

Ohio—and, of course, with that most of it is coming from Mexico

or the southwestern portions of the State. Ohio is—even though it

is only—it is 35th in the size geographically in this country. It is

fourth in the interstate system, highway system, and handles a

third amount of truck traffic through this State. Why? It is because

we are a trans-shipment area, partly—halfway between Chicago

and New York. There is a lot coming through here, which makes

it readily available or usable for bringing in all types of narcotics

and dangerous drugs, to include methamphetamine.

There is a model that I want to—I referred to previously, and

that is what is going on up in Summit County. Summit County, the

last couple of years, has had a third of the clan labs discovered. A

recent newspaper article mentioned that they were the meth capital of Ohio, with kind of a negative overtone to it.

I would actually say they are the meth response capital of Ohio.

That is because they have a very aggressive program, a good training program, a community awareness program. And also, we do

support—the HIDTA program does support their task force. They

have a very aggressive task force.

Even though they have seen a 210 increase in meth labs over the

last year, they are doing a great job doing it. There has been explosive devices found. There has been booby traps found. Again, very

dangerous situation.

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There is also some imported meth coming through there. One of

the largest organizations they took down was handling up to 200

pounds of crystal meth. Again, dangerous situation, automatic

weapons, people tweaking out at these sites, and the dangers to the

children involved and the citizens, unexpectedly these things happening in rooms next to them, in hotel rooms, motel rooms. It goes

on and on.

Hilton Baker is the Southern County drug task force unit chief

up there, and he indicated—this was unsolicited, but he said with

the overwhelming support of the HIDTA program that they feel

that the Akron/Summit county HIDTA initiative has become the

most successful and productive initiatives in the Nation. And he

also indicated that without the HIDTA funding they would be

doomed, so, obviously, they do not want to go back to the 1990’s.

What the HIDTA response has been—and I know I am going on

longer than I should, but the HIDTA response has been very aggressive based on the limited funding we have. This last year alone

at an average of $2,000 per ounce on the street level, the HIDTA

initiatives have conservatively taken off $700,000 worth of raw

methamphetamine, and that is in 2004.

We have had awareness programs, not only speaking to community organizations but to realtors, citizens groups, prosecutors, children’s services. We are trying to push the envelope as far as we

can on limited funding and what we do as a HIDTA. We have also

been involved with the media.

We have had I wouldn’t say a media campaign, but we have done

the best we could to advise the media of the urgencies of what is

going on. We talked to them freely and openly, so that they would

spread the word of how dangerous this epidemic is in the State of

Ohio.

The HIDTA program is very aggressive on the training front.

Again, we are threat-driven. We have put training out there that

we believe the police officers need to be ahead of the curve. Since

2001, we have had a lot of training. We have trained over 1,000

officers this last year; 202 officers were trained specifically with regard to the clandestine lab training.

We have coupled with DCI&I, which is the State law enforcement agency that is probably tasked with most of the investigations, giving them a 40-hour methamphetamine clandestine laboratory certification school. We are doing that next month.

In 2006, we have two workshops, and we have two classes scheduled for now. We will increase that, if we can, based on budgeting.

I am wrapping up, and what I want to say is in the State of Ohio

we have had some legislation, and I have some recommendations.

In March 2005, legislators in Ohio introduced a bill restricting the

amount of ephedrine-based cold medicine.

And, basically, I believe it is not strong enough. I personally

would like to see a Schedule V, like Oklahoma, be a little bit

stronger, keep that behind the counter, have some accountability

on not only the amount of purchases but also make it a Schedule

V.

Also, in the State of Ohio, we have had—on April 15, 2005, H.B.

536 bill, which makes the theft of anhydrous ammonia a third-degree felony, regardless of the value. I think that is a really good

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start. I think that this committee, through their leadership and

some of the things I have heard, could even take some of that information and maybe even push it to the point where they would recommend putting chemical additives in the anhydrous ammonia,

rendering it unusable in the use of methamphetamine.

There is a lot that could be done. Greene County is an example,

which is just up the way here. Earlier this year, one of the clan

lab operators was attempting to steal this chemical, very dangerous

chemical, and the sheriff deputies came across him. He pulled a

gun. They ordered him to drop the gun. They had to kill this individual.

That is how desperate the people are in stealing the anhydrous

ammonia, not to mention when they leave the pipe, they leave the

tube. It is open for the farmer to come up and the material is leaking. And, of course, they put them in these tanks which are not

suitable for transportation. The tanks blow. It just goes on and on,

the dangers of this epidemic.

I would just like to stress more than ever, as the Director of the

HIDTA, and speaking on behalf of the HIDTA and all of the law

enforcement officers and agents that are involved in this wonderful

program, and which I appreciate your support on, is that for this

trail of destruction that we are seeing, to get a grip on it, to get

a handle on it, we have to continue the Federal funding into this,

not only to respond to these sites but to train, equip, help prevent,

bring on more public awareness through the program.

Hopefully, through ONDCP, there will be some more commercials, and not marijuana commercials so much but more commercials that really hit the public where they need to hear it. And also,

treatment should not be lost in this battle. We have to remember

the treatment side of it, although you are hearing from the law enforcement side of it today. We need treatment, we need prevention,

and, of course, the law enforcement side of that stool is extremely

important.

I brought with me my Deputy Director, Pete Tobin, who is sitting

behind me. He is a Deputy Director for the HIDTA in the State of

Ohio. He has 35 years of State and local law enforcement experience. I bring approximately 35 years of Federal experience.

And Mr. Tobin and I have talked about this at length, and he,

too, obviously recommends what I am recommending. And then,

the programs that he brings to light are the COPS program that

we don’t want to see any cutting in that. The DEA Superfund—

DEA has been great. They have had to contract out the cleanups,

but yet they are understaffed. They can’t be running around responding immediately to all of these sites that we uncover. So a lot

of this goes to the local law enforcement effort.

Proposed cuts in the JAG program, obviously, I thank the committee, again commend the committee, for restoring this type of

funding, or attempting to restore it under the current administration. And I just want to say that the HIDTA program has done a

lot, but we could do a lot more.

And we believe that the funding is the lifeblood, but not to be

lost in the funding is the cooperation. The multi-agency cooperation

that we are getting, and we are operating on a level playing field,

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and that is what I would like to continue with. And I thank you

very much for listening.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Sommer follows:]

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[The prepared statement of Mr. Tobin follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Oetjen, do you have DEA drug task forces in

Ohio?

Mr. OETJEN. Yes. The Cincinnati office itself has 16 officers,

along with 14 agents.

Mr. SOUDER. And how far up do they go?

Mr. OETJEN. We come all the way up here to Clinton County. It

is actually 13 counties—Clinton, Butler, Hamilton, Clermont,

Brown, Adams, Ross, Pike, Scioto, Jackson, and Lawrence. I think

I got them all.

Mr. SOUDER. And in the Columbus office you also have DEA task

forces in Toledo and——

Mr. OETJEN. There is five additional offices throughout the State

of Ohio, and they all have task forces, yes, sir.

Mr. SOUDER. Where you have the DEA task forces, do those overlay with the two main HIDTA zones? In Indiana, for example, our

HIDTA’s, we have the DEA task office in Fort Wayne, HIDTA is

over in Gary, you kind of—you don’t usually find overlap. They

bump, but wherever they have a DEA task force, that Congressman usually wasn’t as aggressive in getting a HIDTA. Where they

had a HIDTA, they haven’t necessarily pushed for as much of a

DEA office.

But that leads to this patchwork pattern that we are getting

across the United States. And when you look at a State like the

State of Ohio, how are you integrating so we can figure out, as

meth starts to move in from, say, the Akron area, and this area

starts to pop up, and another area, and then as it starts to move

in on the cities, how are we integrating to look at a distribution

plan as meth starts to move through a State?

Mr. OETJEN. In southern Ohio, we have just committed an agent

to join the HIDTA initiative here in southern Ohio. And through

the HIDTA intelligence center, the southern Ohio HIDTA will

interact with the northern part of the State through the intelligence center. That is the key point to the component of HIDTA

is the coordination and communication between all of the HIDTA

initiatives and the local task forces.

And so, then, Ohio DEA incorporates mainly outlying counties,

law enforcement officials, and not necessarily Cincinnati or Hamilton County Sheriff’s Department. And that kind of keeps the finger

on the pulse of what is going on in rural Ohio.

Do you agree that in Ohio 70 percent of the meth comes from the

large organizations and 30 from the Mom and Pop, which is kind

of the typical pattern? Does that seem to be here?

Mr. OETJEN. I have been here for 4 years, and I wouldn’t have

thought that until I actually saw it. And, yes, it is larger than—

we have more meth coming in. In this region, we took off a

superlab distributor who was importing pseudoephedrine from

Canada into this area, and then distributing it back out to the

West Coast to Mexican traffickers. It was approximately 31⁄2 years

that we worked on this, dismantling separate organizations. That

is based on this one distribution that——

Mr. SOUDER. Was that part of the big operation in Detroit, or

was it——

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Mr. OETJEN. Yes. It is part of that. It was a nationwide SOD

campaign. And as we identified this cell here, we were incorporated

into that major investigation.

Mr. SOUDER. In that investigation that came out of Detroit, that

took down—at one point we thought it was like—something like 40

percent of the total quantity of pseudoephedrine in the United

States. Have you seen any shift in Ohio? Have we, in effect, cut

some of that Canadian structure so much that it may shift? Or

what do you anticipate?

Mr. OETJEN. Since that operation, I haven’t seen the superlab activity that was here before. And to my recollection, I haven’t seen

any of the superlab meth. I have seen it—sorry, but I also cover

Kentucky. But it has still been coming through the Kentucky route,

but not here in southern Ohio.

Mr. SOUDER. Before I go to somebody else, let me ask you one

other question. Part of the reason I keep pushing for a national

plan and ask this question—in Minneapolis, the U.S. Attorney, or

the State Narcotics Officer, I can’t remember which one—when I

asked, ‘‘Why hasn’t this hit the cities as much?’’ and they said, ‘‘In

the African-American community,’’ as you stated here, ‘‘that the

urban areas are more crack and cocaine, that the distribution networks, both Hispanic and African-American, are predominately

hooked into the traditional cocaine market, to some degree heroin

market, and often have Colombian and Mexican ties.’’

In one neighborhood, they switched over to meth, because they,

in effect, cut out the Colombians. The Mexican stayed within the

Mexicans. One black African-American group in one section of Minneapolis switched over, and all of a sudden 20 percent of their addiction in the city was meth.

Have you seen any signs, or are you watching for signs, of how—

because these are a lot like trucking companies. They are a lot like

just here is a Target and here is Wal-Mart. Part of the thing here

is that if we are not watching these trends as to where the patterns

are coming from, to the degree we are all successful in putting any

pressure on Colombia, to the degree we are all putting any pressure on the border, which we are not in immediate danger of sealing our border.

But we do—the patterns are likely to change. And are we watching those kind of things? And do you have a setup to kind of track

something like this, because we are seeing it? And do you even get

information from other parts of the country where DEA is seeing

this sudden flip-over of some of these distribution networks?

Mr. OETJEN. We absolutely get information from other parts of

the country and through the SOD center, which is tracking the

major trafficking routes. Sometimes we are aware that they are

coming before they get there. Sometimes they are there, and we

come upon them, and through the interaction with the SOD program in Washington they have identified the major routes.

In my 30 years of narcotic experience, and 22 with DEA, I have

seen towns like Tuscaloosa, AL, change over in about a week’s

time. The crack epidemic went in and just took over, and that is

how they do that. They will come in, and there is violence and a

takeover.

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And it is—you know, using your term, it is almost like a corporate takeover. They come and just squash the competition and

spread this poison. Sometimes they give away the drugs in the beginning to get everybody hooked on it and set up the distribution

points. And then, once it is there, they are entrenched, and it is

hard to get rid of it.

Mr. SOUDER. Thanks. Mr. Cummings.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I just want to followup on what the chairman

just asked. I wasn’t even going to go down this road, but I couldn’t

help but think about in my district where I have actually seen this,

seen in the middle of the day you are walking down—you are driving, and you see maybe 150 people literally lined up in a straight

line to get samples of a drug.

And when you first see it, it just blows your mind. You just can’t

believe this is happening in the middle of the day in a busy area.

And I was just thinking about what the chairman just asked you.

I would imagine that—see, I think about meth coming into urban

areas because it is cheap to produce.

And so if you have some people looking for a high, and they have

an opportunity to get something that is cheap, and they can come

in and do one of those sample things like what I just described, and

somebody—they may not be used to the meth, but they say, ‘‘Well,

gee, this is nice.’’ The next thing you know, I think it does—you

have a major problem.

And so you are saying that you wouldn’t—that wouldn’t surprise

you, then?

Mr. OETJEN. No, it wouldn’t.

Mr. CUMMINGS. What I want to talk about more than anything

else is this blue line, and our police officers and what assistance

that you all give them. I know both of you all talked about training. Do we—and you, Mr. Sommer, you talked about how you

had—you wish you had more classes. I forget what it was in particular.

But are we—do we—when these local police—we have heard a

lot of testimony about how police officers, when they have to go

clean up this mess, or to be there, you may have a small group of—

small law enforcement agency, and it basically just ties them up.

One of my concerns is that when it ties them up, then there are

other crimes they can’t deal with. And the criminal mind is they—

they are all into this.

They say, ‘‘OK. If they are tied up with meth, then we can go

and do our little stuff, the robberies, whatever else, because the police are tied up dealing with this.’’ And so I am just going to try

and make sure that when the police come to you all for this training, are you able to provide them with the training that they are

requesting? I mean, do we have a waiting list or something like

that?

When it comes to cleanup, you are talking about cleanup, are we

using Federal funds mostly for these cleanups? Because you have

a law enforcement officer that has a law enforcement agency, I am

talking about these small counties, that have a small budget. I

mean, it sounds to me like if you get three or four of these cleanups, you have a major problem with your budget, and something

has to give.

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So I am just wondering, where are we with training? And where

are we with cleanup?

Mr. OETJEN. Well, as far as DEA, we are constantly providing

clandestine lab training and a train-the-trainer concept, where we

can train the first responders, the police officers in uniform, what

they are going to come up on, because a few years ago they didn’t

know. They had no knowledge.

In southern Ohio, the system is set up that, as far as the Federal

funding, we provide COPS cleanup money for all the clan labs. We

have had to tweak that system that—the 24-hour number, that

when they come up on something, they call us, we give them an

appropriation number, so to speak, and they have—and then, the

company comes and cleans it up. That is all done with Federal dollars, and that is through the COPS program.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Have you had a sufficient amount of money to

do that? In other words, I take it that—I mean, have you had situations where there was a need for a cleanup and you didn’t have

sufficient dollars to do it? I mean, it may have been the end of the

fiscal year? I don’t know.

Mr. OETJEN. The money is a pool——

Mr. CUMMINGS. Right. I understand.

Mr. OETJEN [continuing]. In Washington. So to this day, there

has never been an instance where we have asked for money and

we didn’t get money for the cleanup.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Good.

Mr. OETJEN. Forgive me, I know we are not in Kentucky, but in

Kentucky they do a container program, and they have reduced the

funds all the way down to $300 per lab. And it is done by the

unique cooperation between DEA, Kentucky State Police, the local

sheriffs and agencies. If they find a lab, they are trained to seize

that lab. They take that lab to a depot so to speak, and it sits

there. So it costs just as much to clean up 10 labs in one location

as it does to go out and do it 10 times. It is 10 times the cost. So

it has reduced a lot of the cost of this cleanup.

Mr. SOMMER. I would just say that the local law enforcement element is hungry for the training. And when we started this up

about 3 or 4 years ago with Ohio State Highway Patrol, just to tell

them and show them what the precursors were, and what you

might see in the back seat of a car is not what you think it is, or

what it might be used for—empty boxes of pseudoephedrine or

tanks that are starting to turn blue, ready to blow the tops on it,

and glassware. So it has really, really helped us.

We could probably do training almost every week at least in this

area. And there are different levels of training. There is the actual

certification course, which when they come out they have their

moon suits, and these are the people that are going to be doing the

cleanups. And then there are some other basic courses, which are

just basically the awareness courses and what to look for.

How this has changed in the last 2 or 3 years is that it is something that they have to respond to. And a lot of times, even if they

are not assigned to do the cleanup, they still have to respond to it,

they have to guard the sites. There is overtime costs that are involved that these small police departments may not have. This is

where the HIDTAs do come in to help pay for that.

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What it is, it is just an urgency matter. It is an emergency cleanup matter is what it is, so that has to go along and be done in tandem with the actual investigation. It is just a different type of

beast is what I have seen in my years. I don’t know if that answers

your question.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Yes. I am just wondering, it sounds like you were

saying that you think there should be some national standard.

Mr. SOMMER. Yes, I do.

Mr. CUMMINGS. OK.

Mr. SOMMER. I really do, and I——

Mr. CUMMINGS. You have heard arguments on the other side of

that, right?

Mr. SOMMER. Not all of them, obviously.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Well, the main ones. Well, when we talk about

like some of these products are easy to get over the counter——

Mr. SOMMER. Right.

Mr. CUMMINGS [continuing]. You have the Retailer Association

coming in, and they talk about how it is going to kill their business, I mean it will hurt them. Some retailers are being—I think

Chairman Souder in his opening statement said you might be in

a position to where Target and Wal-Mart might be able to sell

these things, but then a lot of your other businesses would have—

it would be onerous.

And, you know, it is—and I think he and I, before we heard the

testimony, we were pretty—we hadn’t really considered all of that.

But the testimony was quite—I mean, it left you saying, ‘‘Well, you

know, you have a point here.’’

The problem is, though, when we look at methamphetamine and

the damage that is done by these drugs, sometimes you have to use

urgent and—urgent solutions and solutions that might be a burden

to some of you in society to get to the problem, to deal with it,

when you see the damage and you see what is happening to our

children and you see all of the social services being tied up, and

what have you.

And so I think we—I think what we need to try to do is find

some kind of balance whereby—and I don’t know what that balance

is. I think we have been trying to struggle with that a bit, where

you do make sure that certain products, people have to go

through—if they are intent on using those products illegally, have

some kind of barrier to them getting them, but at the same time

have the free flow of commerce. and where that balance is we are

still trying to figure out.

Mr. SOMMER. I think, too, that the—instead of each State doing

their own thing——

Mr. CUMMINGS. Yes.

Mr. SOMMER [continuing]. I think you need uniformity, because

if one State is very strict, like Oklahoma, and 80 percent of the

labs are—Mom and Pop labs are—have diminished over the last

year. Of course, they are going to get imported stuff.

But if one State is doing it, and the other State is not, then the

State that is not doing it, then the stuff will be shipped over, or

they will go over and they use the smurfing technique, obviously,

because a lot of these meth operators, they are almost set up like

co-ops. You get the chemicals, you get this kind, you get this kind.

42

So I think that we need uniformity and leadership on that end of

it. And it is an emergency, and I think this is a tremendous

wakeup call for this country.

And if some manufacturers are inconvenienced, my opinion as a

law enforcement guy, so what? It is saving people’s lives, and this

kind of——

Mr. SOUDER. We had a very interesting debate between Kansas

and Oklahoma when Oklahoma had just put in their law, because

Kansas actually reduced the Mom and Pop shops more than Oklahoma with the Meth Watch program than Oklahoma did with the

Pharmacy program. What it takes is a concerted effort of the local

people to pay attention, and the law enforcement to work at it. And

we need some kind of combination of these type of things.

But we are getting kind of a uniform, in my opinion, simplistic

answer for law enforcement right now that it is just the

pseudoephedrine control when other communities have done other

things. It has to be part of it, whether it is blister packs, wholesale,

over the counter, and hard.

But as I pointed out informally, this stuff is going to go to the

Internet. And everybody in law enforcement knows it is tougher

when it hits the Internet than when you are selling it at a local

grocery store, because we can find them when they are coming in

as a physical person. We can find them when they use cell phones.

The tough problem here is, as we are finding with the Colombians

and the Mexicans and everywhere else, is that when this stuff goes

underground, it is gone.

And we have to make sure that in the short term, trying to get

a quick fix, we aren’t actually creating a bigger potential problem,

and not to mention the fact that Dayton doesn’t have a problem.

How much do you restrict, because of the rural areas around it, the

city of Dayton? It is a political problem.

I mean, I have been as aggressive as anybody in the Nation on

this, and we brought the Oklahoma program in to help publicize

it. But we have to, when we are looking at narcotics, get a step

ahead and think a step ahead, not just what is the immediate fix,

of which this may be the immediate fix.

By the way, now that so many States have moved, it is not clear

we can get a national standard anymore, because usurping State

law, because we would—the national law proposed is weaker than

many of the State laws. I can imagine very many Congressman

from a home State are going to want to say, ‘‘We want to do a

weaker law.’’

In Indiana, we have, after a big battle, passed a law. And if I

now, all of a sudden, decide to jump on the bandwagon and do one

and unseat the State law, we now have another political problem,

because this has kind of gone in this tidal wave through the States.

But it clearly has to be addressed, and we have to get at the

pseudoephedrine. The question is: what is the best way to get the

pseudoephredine?

And it was a very interesting point just a minute ago that Mr.

Oetjen made when he said that, in effect, he hasn’t, by the—much

of our midwest was coming through Canada, and that we took

down the big group, and the question is: who is going to replace

it? Or did we actually, if, in fact, the superlab stuff isn’t coming

43

through as much, what is going to be the net replacement from

that?

And if we replace Canada with Mexico, you know, I don’t know

that I want to make that trade. That it is a really difficult process

to work through here. We are all doing the best we can, but it is

a huge challenge that we are trying to work out as it moves east

and moves urban.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Just one last question. You know, one of the

things that—our being here today focuses on the problem here. And

I am just wondering, I mean, perhaps it would be good for the local

law enforcement officers to talk about this, too. I think our greatest

weapon in most crimes, our greatest agent to fight crime, are citizens.

I mean, I have practiced law for 20 years, 25. When you don’t

have citizen input, you can forget law enforcement. And I am just

trying to figure out, I mean, what—you have these cameras here,

and I am just wondering, you know, what would you say that citizens can do to help to fight this? What is going on here with

methamphetamines, because it is in every nook and cranny? It is

everywhere.

I mean, so—and they are everywhere. And you have a lot of people—I think our citizens—and Mr. Turner can tell us better about

that. I think they are aware of how bad the problem is and they

see the effects. And a lot of people say, ‘‘Well, there is nothing I

can do about it.’’ I am just wondering, what would you have them

do?

Mr. SOMMER. I think it is an awareness problem, and it is also—

I mean, whether you establish a national hotline, whatever you do,

you need more watch groups. But to start with, to educate them

on—there is really—there are some people that aren’t even aware

of what to look for. They don’t have the indicators.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I see the officer shaking his head behind you.

Mr. SOMMER. But it is true. We need to get a campaign going,

a national campaign. And whether you set up hotlines or whatever

you do, I know in Hawaii they did—when they had the crystal

meth, they took the whole weekend out and had a bunch of people

call in. And I think it was on every station out there for a while,

and they blitzed the public.

Something needs to be done, but I agree with that—we are only

as good as our intelligence in the community, and it is the backbone of law enforcement.

Mr. CUMMINGS. So you don’t think our Media Campaign—you

think our Media Campaign has to have meth in there.

Mr. SOMMER. Oh, yes.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Big time.

Mr. SOMMER. Oh, yes. Absolutely. It is here. It is here, and we

can’t ignore it. It is here. What I am concerned about, I am digressing a little bit, or going off, is one of the biggest things happening

are the gangs in the cities. And Mr. Oetjen picked up on it with

the city, the problems with the cities, and I mentioned with the

crack and the heroin.

When the gangs pick up on it, it is going to run really fast and

furious, I believe, because it is a product. They are all into selling

44

the drugs. And it is just a matter of the gang activity picking up

on it, even though most of it is coming in from the rural area.

Mr. OETJEN. Congressman, just to go one step further, you are

absolutely right. It has to be a total package or it is not going to

work at all. We have in the past, and just recently here in Ohio,

had methamphetamine summits. We talk about treatment and prevention, and try to embrace the total cooperation. But as you well

know, along comes violence with that, and a lot of people are afraid

to step forward.

We encourage it, and we wish there was more. But, you know,

it is hard to sell that to a citizen who is afraid, afraid of their life,

so——

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Turner.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, ranking

member, for your thoughtful approach to this issue. I appreciate

not just the expertise that you bring, but the thoughtful discussion

of, what do we need to do to address this? And, Ranking Member

Cummings, I think that your last discussion, the focus on the issue

of what do we need to do with the general public, is an important

one when we talk about issues of controls, and we talk about the

issues of the recipe, if you will, of making meth.

I know we all note that the front cover of Newsweek most recently talked about the meth epidemic. And one of the things that

strikes me in this is that, as we look at the meth epidemic, there

appears to be clear evidence that the use of meth results in the destruction of lives, that this may be one of the most addictive drugs

that we have faced in our communities, and that anyone who

makes a choice to use this drug is making a choice that could be

permanent to their life, both the changes in the structure of the

brain, the addiction level that they have, and the destructive

forces.

Now, as we look to law enforcement, we look to trying to find

those who are selling it, find those who are making it, you have

a tremendous wealth of information that the public needs to learn

about the effects of this drug. And I wonder to what extent that

we are harnessing the information that you have about the impacts

on people’s lives who have used this drug, so that we can communicate to people on the demand side that this is a dangerous drug,

that this will destroy their lives, that they need to stay away from

meth, that they need to report individuals who are trafficking in

meth.

To what extent are we, or how could we do a better job, by making certain that the information you have of the destructive forces

of meth can get into the hands of our children and the people who

are making the decisions to avoid this drug?

Mr. OETJEN. Well, again, historically the Town Hall meetings

sponsored by the city fathers and police departments that I have

participated in seem to have worked very well and opened the eyes

of the common citizen out there who has no idea what methamphetamine is or the dangers behind it. Awareness is the key.

I mean, and we participate in these events routinely, probably

not enough, but we have a demand reduction coordinator for two

States. And they are constantly going around, speaking to schools

45

and high schools and public events, to make them aware of these,

not just methamphetamine but everything.

Mr. SOMMER. Basically, my take on it is to bring it to their attention and use it, not only through the community outreach programs, but also to cities, making sure that the workers in the cities

know what to look for, look for the dump sites. The people that are

out there daily working with—just picking up the roads, the road

hazards, and this sort of thing.

And also, but I think the attention that you are—this committee

is putting on it, and the pressure they are putting on this, is very

admirable, because, just like the article you have there in your

hands, it has the media’s attention now. What we have to do is continue the pressure, keep using the media to put the message out

there, follow it up with some kind of a national campaign.

I think probably the most effective thing for this hearing today,

if we brought in a family, a family that has been nearly destroyed

through the use and abuse of meth, and to have the public see

them and see what it has done to them and how it has destroyed

their family, their kids, animals, I mean everything in the family.

This is the kind of thing that we need is the public to see that path

of destruction.

I spoke with a very hardened detective the other day, and I said

something about, ‘‘We are going to talk about some things. You

know, what do you think about treatment?’’ He just snapped back,

‘‘There is no treatment. There is no treatment for this drug abuse.

It is so severe.’’

And I am sure that is not quite that extreme. There has to be

some type of treatment. But based on what he has seen, he has

never seen—he has always seen relapses, or other people could get

hooked into it, and I think the public needs to know it is a sentence

of death once they start it.

It is just not a casual drug, and it is not a recreational drug. It

is an absolute—might as well put a gun to your head and kill yourself. I think they need a very strong message, and it needs to be

put out there.

Mr. TURNER. I think one of the most effective things that we saw

in the Newsweek articles, and in the other articles that have occurred, are the pictures of the faces of meth when they talk about

the impacts of the decline that you see in individuals who have

begun to use this drug. I think that is absolutely correct.

If we can get that story out, if we can get the words out as to

the impacts of this drug, that this is a permanent decision, that

this is not a recreational decision, that can have a real impact. So

I encourage both of you, as you look to the information that you

have and the need to get that information out to the public, that

you do that, because you will know more than we ever will, and

you will have direct evidence that people know what is going to

happen to their lives.

Mr. Sommer, you also said one thing that I was not aware of,

and that was anhydrous ammonia—you talked about it as a way

to make it so that it is unusable in this process, rendering it unusable for this. Could you describe that a little bit more?

Mr. SOMMER. The only thing I know is that there is some research being conducted right now—I want to say it is in Iowa, I

46

am not sure, a college. But what they have done—there were two

thoughts of that. No. 1, they were going to try to put something

in it, so when it was being stolen it would act like a tracer, similar

to like a bank robbery drive back or something.

And then, the other thought was, well, let us make it so that it

cannot be used, you know, in the making of meth. And to me that

is the wiser thing is to just make it so it cannot be used. But they

are doing some experimentation on it right now with the manufacturers to make it still usable as a fertilizer. It is primarily used for

corn. And I think that would help. I think if they could push that

a little bit more, and push that along to the manufacturers, and I

could get more information for you on that, but I think that is an

idea.

Now, there is actually a case, though, where there are some

chemists—there are some chemists out there that actually have the

capability of coming up with that chemical themselves. Anhydrous

ammonia is extremely rare, but for the most part it is stolen and

used. And if not used directly, it is sold to those who are the operators of the meth labs.

Mr. TURNER. Thanks for your hard work that you are doing to

combat this, and your bringing information forward that we might

be able to implement. I appreciate also your discussion of the national standards issues, because it does look as if we don’t have a

margin of error here, since this is a life destructing drug.

As we look to the chemicals that make this recipe, I think the

discussion of both the chairman and the ranking member on ways

to restrict its availability are very important.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SOUDER. Thanks. Nick Coleman has been our internal specialist on meth, and I was just asking him, because this comes up

in my district all the time, about the anhydrous ammonia. And

what we need as we look at a meth package is to figure out what

things we can do with the precursor chemicals in the brief point

there, which is that we have been funding this for a long time, and

we hear different things about red dye, and we are going to do this

kind of stuff.

And, quite frankly, none of it works because it appears that

every time they think they have a breakthrough, what it does is

it reduces the value of the anhydrous ammonia. Furthermore, if we

do solve the anhydrous ammonia, they may switch to iodine or

other types of things that could be equally as effective.

So we are trying to figure out how we can do this in some of our

fall legislation, and we are going to plunge in.

I have a couple of followup questions yet. One is, on the Kentucky program, the $300 containment, we are going to be down in

Chairman Rogers’ district within the—certainly within 60 days,

maybe within 30, to look at some of this. He raised this to me, I

believe. Do you know, is that in his district, and, in Kentucky, Harold Rogers?

Mr. OETJEN. Yes, sir. It is in 10 Kentucky State Police posts

throughout the State. Some of them are in his district.

Mr. SOUDER. And can you provide, so we have the record and can

start to look at it, what that exactly is? Because that would be a

47

huge breakthrough, and I don’t understand why it is not spread

wider, if you can do a $300 containment on this.

Mr. OETJEN. A summary of the program?

Mr. SOUDER. Yes.

Mr. OETJEN. Yes.

Mr. SOUDER. With some of the details, and we can maybe ask

some questions. But if you can get a draft of that to the committee.

Mr. OETJEN. Sure.

Mr. SOUDER [continuing]. Then we will follow-up and get that

from Kentucky State Police before we get down there, because that

is something we ought to be looking at in the fall, because one of

the biggest problems we are going to hear is how we have to wait

to get a cleanup lab, and the cost that a local county can’t do, and

if there is a way to address that.

You also made a reference in your statement about club drugs

and seeing it show up in rave.

Mr. OETJEN. Methamphetamine show up at raves, yes.

Mr. SOUDER. In Ohio, in your district, or is that just——

Mr. OETJEN. I can’t give you a specific instance, but this is what

I was told.

Mr. SOUDER. OK. If you can find anything more particular about

that, we have been watching Ecstasy closely. If this turns into a

club drug, we have a whole other problem.

Mr. OETJEN. OK.

Mr. SOUDER. And, Mr. Sommer, on the HIDTA funding question,

you were authorized, because you expanded for HIDTA for an additional $644,000 in funding, did you actually receive any of that?

Mr. SOMMER. Not yet. And what they did was when they authorized those counties, I was told that it was going to be base funding,

they would level fund us up to that amount. We have not received

it, and they put it into a package of discretional funding, which we

are supposed to be getting at the end of the month.

Those counties are still left high and dry for this year. We have

not been given the money for 2005, and we are waiting for that.

Mr. SOUDER. So they added it to the HIDTA, so you have more

territory but the same amount of money.

Mr. SOMMER. Right now, we have more territory, the same

amount of money. The ONDCP did promise the funding would be

coming. Again, it is very difficult doing this, and you know the restrictions on ONDCP. We are supposed to spend the money——

Mr. SOUDER. They never have enough.

Mr. SOMMER [continuing]. Only in the counties, you know, that

have been authorized, but you have Clermont County right down

the road that is about third highest in the——

Mr. SOUDER. And why wasn’t that authorized, then?

Mr. SOMMER. They are not authorizing. You have Astabula County next to Cuyahoga that is about second highest. But we still try

to do the best we can with what we have.

Mr. SOUDER. So let me ask this question. Since we have seen the

figures in meth have been doubling in Ohio, did that play a factor

in adding the counties to it?

Mr. SOMMER. Definitely. What they did was——

Mr. SOUDER. But if that is the case, why didn’t the second and

third largest get added?

48

Mr. SOMMER. The way those counties were added, the history on

it was they were originally going to make that a separate HIDTA,

so they began doing their own threat assessment, the U.S. District—or U.S. Attorneys Office, Southern District. And they came

up with their threats that didn’t include the meth at that time.

Mr. SOUDER. So the answer to the question is they expanded the

HIDTA, but not because of the meth problem.

Mr. SOMMER. That is right.

Mr. SOUDER. Because your second and third biggest counties

weren’t included.

Mr. SOMMER. That is correct.

Mr. SOUDER. So that meth wasn’t considered the drug threat in

Ohio.

Mr. SOMMER. That is correct.

Mr. SOUDER. If we polled the counties in Ohio, do you think they

would consider meth—we heard this county thing that said that

meth was the highest threat in the Nation. In Ohio, we find a similar thing, and how does that interrelate to where our DEA task

forces are and our HIDTA?

Mr. SOMMER. I think the meth situation has been growing so

rapidly that another fresh look at the State of Ohio, in my opinion

I would include those counties.

Mr. SOUDER. Very wise and careful choice of words. [Laughter.]

Let me ask one other thing. It seems to me that one of the problems—we have been trying to figure out how—we have been down

to EPIC multiple times, met with risk and all the different alphabet soup. I mean, we have seven different intelligence centers just

in El Paso, collecting data. And it is clear the data is incredibly inaccurate.

Mr. SOMMER. Exactly.

Mr. SOUDER. And that there just isn’t any other way to say it,

and DEA is trying to get on top of it, and EPIC, but every hearing

we do, the lab takedown totals from the local police do not match.

In other words, in Arkansas, for example, they had taken down

more labs in one county than they were reporting for the State.

But what I learned is that the figures—that Arkansas was no

more off than any other State, so there is some kind of—I don’t

know whether they are just not reporting.

The other thing is that drug court data in the urban area

seems—they are having to deal with them right there, they have

the cases, and it is almost like a lead indicator. My question is: do

you have or use drug court data? And we don’t have national drug

court data, but I am wondering if the HIDTAs and the DEA task

forces look at the drug courts as well in accumulating what your

highest risk things are?

Because the drug court guy is having to deal with the cases right

in front of him, he is trying to decide whether they are going to

be incarcerated or released. He is trying to decide what treatment

program to put them in. So they have to do a poly drug analysis

of which is the driving drug.

And what we are finding out is that the meth is the driving drug

in much of this, that if you can’t control the meth you can’t control

the individual. But that data isn’t even coming into the law enforcement system, from what I can tell.

49

Mr. SOMMER. I would just like to mention that in our threat assessments, we use the ADAM reports, and I know they are under

threat of loss of funding, and we do use all the data we can get

to put the threat together, to answer that one question.

The other question I would like to just bring up for—or you

brought up was on the clan lab, the national clan lab system. You

are 100 percent correct. The figures are very difficult. We are trying to work on that. The HIDTA, on the national level, pushed that

system, tried to put it together. But what is happening is this—the

143 Form, the DEA form that they came up with, it is a voluntary

form, a lot of local law enforcement officers will not submit it, or

they submit it late.

And then, the other problem with reporting—the State of Ohio

has another reporting system where they may be reporting dump

sites or just glassware, and not an actual active clan lab, you know,

with bombs going off and everything, chemicals and this kind of

thing. So there—we need to get our hands around that, and we are

working on it.

I know that the directors, the HIDTA directors, and at our meetings we brought that up about how to make sure we have more accurate reporting. Perhaps maybe we need a requirement in the

local and State law enforcement agencies that require them to submit the form, maybe some type of—even a penalty if they don’t.

But there is really no followup.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Just one more question. Mr. Sommer, you said

some very kind things about the HIDTA program, and I was just

wondering, do you all communicate much with those folks, those

HIDTAs in the west, and the Los Angeles HIDTA? I mean, I know

the HIDTA in the region—I mean, your HIDTA, all of you all are

working together, but is there a lot of discussion with regard to

these kinds of problems from those other areas affected?

Mr. SOMMER. Yes. We do have connectivity with all 28 HIDTAs

throughout the country. And, of course, in California, when they

were talking about 1,400 labs a few years ago, us out east were

like, OK, you know, it hasn’t hit here yet, but we knew it was probably going to be coming.

But we do communicate. We have a strategy that we worked on

together, and we also support this national methamphetamine

chemicals initiative that we have been doing. And what I would

like to see actually is more of a national strategy put together, and

where all HIDTAs, regardless of the amount of labs you are seeing,

that we could put something together to—not only on the awareness side of it, but also on the training side of it, because to get

ahead of the curve, quite frankly, these labs—I don’t see any end

in them growing and heading east.

So, but to answer your question, we do communicate regularly.

We do have these summits. We do have meetings. And we share

any ideas and best practices with each other, and particularly

those that have been through it, before we have gotten to this

point, this crisis, that we would learn through them.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. We are going to take a brief recess. If

the second panel could come forward.

[Recess.]

50

Mr. SOUDER. The subcommittee is back in session, or whatever

the correct term is. Raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. SOUDER. Let the record show that each of the witnesses responded in the affirmative. Thank you for your patience. Thank

you for all of your years of work in this area, and we will look forward to hearing your testimony. We will start with Sheriff Vore.

STATEMENTS OF DAVE VORE, MONTGOMERY COUNTY SHERIFF; RALPH FIZER, JR., CLINTON COUNTY SHERIFF; TOM

ARISS, WARREN COUNTY SHERIFF; COMMANDER JOHN

BURKE, GREATER WARREN COUNTY DRUG TASK FORCE; JIM

GRANDEY, ESQ., HIGHLAND COUNTY PROSECUTOR; AND

COMMISSIONER RANDY RILEY, CLINTON COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR

STATEMENT OF DAVE VORE

Mr. VORE. Thank you. I would like to begin today by offering my

sincerest gratitude to the Congress of the United States, Committee on Government Reform, and the Subcommittee on Criminal

Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources for holding this most

important investigative hearing here at Wilmington College.

Before becoming Montgomery County Sheriff in 2000, I served as

the Commander for the combined agencies’ Narcotics Enforcement

Drug Task Force. This is a multi-jurisdictional task force that targeted upper-level narcotics traffickers. During my time as Commander in the mid-1990’s, we rarely encountered the illegal drug

methamphetamine.

This problem was relegated in Missouri, Kansas, and other

States west of the Mississippi River. Not anymore. Meth is marching—no, running—eastward and enveloping the whole Nation. Very

few issues repeat the criminal cycle and resulting societal damage

as this illegal drug activity does.

While we in law enforcement and society are familiar with marijuana, cocaine, oxycontin, we are not as familiar with methamphetamine. This highly addictive stimulant, which is relatively cheap to

manufacture, ensnarls the grip of addiction like a vice. According

to a recent Federal estimate, more than 12 million Americans have

tried methamphetamine.

Law enforcement officers across the Nation have ranked meth as

public enemy No. 1. This drug has affected the whole criminal justice system in a way unseen since the crack cocaine epidemic of the

1980’s. Not even during the crack epidemic of the 1980’s were normal law-abiding citizens affected as they are today, as a result of

the assault of meth.

Giant retailers such as Wal-Mart, Rite Aid, and others have removed non-prescription cold pills from unsecured product shelves.

These products contain the active ingredient pseudoephedrine.

Meth manufacturers or cookers extract this pseudo and then combine it with other chemicals like iodine and anhydrous ammonia.

During the spring of 2004, the Miami County Sheriff’s Office had

seen a noticeable increase in the theft of the chemical, anhydrous

ammonia. This chemical is illegally used as a fertilizer. Miami

County is primarily a rural agricultural area. In the spring of 2004,

51

my office assisted the Miami County Sheriff’s Office with an officerinvolved shooting incident.

One evening a deputy was investigating a suspicious individual

around an anhydrous ammonia tanker left near a farm field, which

is normal in rural areas. The suspect had just opened a valve on

the tanker, attempting to siphon off anhydrous ammonia, when

something went wrong, sending a cloud of ammonia into the night

air.

Two deputy sheriffs confronted the individual, ordering him to

the ground. Instead of following the deputy’s order to get on the

ground, the suspect reached into his waistband and pulled out a

handgun. The suspect pointed his weapon at the sheriff’s deputies.

In defense of their lives, they fired their weapons, fatally wounding

the suspect.

Further investigation revealed the deceased was heavily involved

in the use and manufacture of methamphetamine. This was a tragic result of his horrible addiction.

According to the latest DEA drug task force info in 2004, approximately 20 methamphetamine labs were shut down in Montgomery County as a result of law enforcement efforts. In 2005 thus

far, law enforcement has busted or cleaned up at least 30 methamphetamine operations in Montgomery County.

One main problem for law enforcement trying to combat the

manufacture of methamphetamine is the ability for its manufacturers to cook the product in any location. Although rural areas are

preferred venues because of the pungent smell the cooking process

emits, cookers have increasingly used vehicles as a point of manufacture. This creates a logistic nightmare for law enforcement officers when vehicles are discovered either to be engaging or previously engaged in the manufacture of meth.

Toxic waste left by the manufacture of this drug is immense. For

every 1 pound of meth, 5 pounds of toxic waste is left behind. In

Montgomery County, during the last 6 months, my narcotics enforcement unit has encountered three meth labs operating out of

vehicles.

The city of Riverside just last month, located in Montgomery

County, busted a meth lab operating in a garage in a residential

area, which required the response of the Ohio Attorney General,

Jim Petro’s, Bureau of Criminal Investigation Clandestine Drug

Lab Unit. This unit conducted the cleanup operation in this particular case.

Because the materials used to manufacture meth are extremely

dangerous, the response of trained personnel capable of handling

self-contained breathing apparatuses, air tank, portable decontamination units, air purifying respirators, and other protective

gear, are necessary and needed to be the standard operating equipment of all law enforcement personnel across the State of Ohio and

the whole United States.

If meth abuse reaches the levels seen by crack in the 1980’s, our

already overcrowded jail population will explode. Montgomery

County and surrounding counties have recently built new jails or

added new cells to handle the increased inmate populations resulting from already increased drug offenders. That is why we must

stop meth in its track.

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Therefore, I ask the Federal Government to assist us in our effort on the front line in this war against meth, with its subsequent

assault on our society by, No. 1, providing funding for law enforcement agencies to purchase specialized equipment, such as self-contained breathing apparatuses, portable decontamination units, air

purifying respirators, to enable us to clean up labs when discovered; two, provide treatment for methamphetamine abusers and

support systems for their children; three, keep funds available for

HIDTA areas to combat the illegal drug traffickers.

Again, I would like to thank all members of this committee for

allowing me to address these concerns in our effort to combat the

increasing tide of methamphetamine use in our community.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Vore follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Thank you very much.

Sheriff Fizer.

STATEMENT OF RALPH FIZER, JR.

Mr. FIZER. Thank you, Chairman Souder. I would like to take

this opportunity to thank you for the invitation to testify before you

today. I consider it an honor and a privilege to be able to speak

to you, and I want you to know we appreciate the fact that the

Federal Government is willing to take the time to listen to our concerns on the local level.

Just to give you an idea, from August 2003 through this August

2005, we have had approximately 32 partial or working methamphetamine labs seized here in Clinton County. We are a very

rural community, a lot of farm land. All of these seizures resulted

in felony arrests of approximately 50 different individuals.

There have been approximately 50 abandoned methamphetamine

labs found in our fields or ditch lines throughout the county. There

are currently approximately 30 more labs that we know of working

right now today in Clinton County.

The number of meth cooks grows rapidly. It is relatively simple

to make, and the ingredients are easily attainable. Along with

these meth labs, we have had approximately 70 to 80 reports a

year for the past 2 years of anhydrous ammonia thefts. Again, as

you saw when you came to our county today, we have a lot of farmland. The anhydrous tanks are usually parked at the edge of the

fields and around barns.

Just so far this year, in 2005, Clinton County has had 88 drug

cases. Of those 88, approximately half of them are due to meth.

Due to the meth use in Clinton County, we have also seen increases in home burglaries and thefts. Just a week ago, I myself

responded with my deputies. A lady is frantic. Someone is beating

in her back door, attempting to break into her house.

We got there. Sure enough, the guy had made it into her house.

Of course, he was arrested immediately. But his actions—we were

pretty sure he was on some type of drugs. He was taken to a local

hospital and, yes, he was on methamphetamine, in a small, local

village here in our county.

All of these cases where the burglars were on meth, the suspects

were caught and taken to the local hospitals. The drug cases in this

county have impacted our corrections facility. We built a new jail

41⁄2 years ago here in Clinton County. I am overcrowded. It is busting at the seams, and it is mainly because of the

methamphetamines here in Clinton County.

I have a very aggressive detective division. There isn’t a week to

2 weeks goes by that we don’t bust some type of a meth lab or drug

dealers here in Clinton County. We are doing everything possible

we can to get them off the streets.

The increase in the drug cases also affected our manpower, as it

takes many hours to work these cases, along with the paperwork

load, but it also affects our courts, our prosecutor’s office, probation

and parole offices.

As a result of the increased felony case load in the court system,

we are already looking at, along with our County Commissioners,

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possibly having an additional Common Pleas Court Judge. It is getting that bad.

As the sheriff, my office is taking the initiative to warn and educate our local firefighters, township trustees, our local citizens, as

to the dangers of meth. Methamphetamines—the dangers of meth

have been added to our DARE program, which is very big here in

Clinton County.

There are also citizens groups here in Clinton County, the Coalition for a Drug-Free Clinton County. They are trying to educate,

along with our sheriff’s office, educate the public and the kids to

the dangers of meth.

Our biggest problems we have, though, are the cleanups. In Clinton County, we have one officer trained in going in and cleaning

it up. We have had two or three detectives on waiting lists trying

to get in to get them trained. There is not enough training.

DEA does an excellent job of assisting us in coming in and cleaning up the labs. However, they either have to come out of Columbus or into Annapolis. Again, it is taking 5 to 6 hours that we have

to maintain these scenes, waiting for a cleanup crew. It is very expensive to my sheriff’s office, especially when we are in a small

rural community. Luckily, I have good County Commissioners that

do try to assist us any way they can.

So what we are asking on the Federal level is any assistance at

all for additional training on the cleanup, anything DEA can do to

give us more cleanup crews, so we are not tied up for hours and

hours. I think the reason we have busted so many labs, too, is because of the awareness in Clinton County. We are a small community. The community calls my office constantly.

We have a Web page that they are constantly e-mailing us, they

think there is a meth lab here or there. Because of their help, the

citizens have actually joined in to help the sheriff’s office. And we

are busting them right and left, but we need additional training

and additional equipment.

Thank you very much for the opportunity today.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Fizer follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. For the hearing record, because these meth hearings are going to be kind of the main hearings that will be the official record of the United States on meth, and for reading them it

would be helpful—and let me go back to the first two, and then

each of you kind of, to the degree you are not from the same county—Sheriff Vore, if you could say—how big is Montgomery County?

Mr. VORE. As far as population?

Mr. SOUDER. Population.

Mr. VORE. About 565,000.

Mr. SOUDER. And how many narcotics officers do you have in

your office?

Mr. VORE. In my office, six.

Mr. SOUDER. And, Sheriff Fizer, how big is——

Mr. FIZER. We are approximately 43,000.

Mr. SOUDER. And how many narcotics officers do you have?

Mr. FIZER. I have four detectives, one that works full-time narcotics, and that is it.

Mr. SOUDER. OK. Thank you.

Sheriff Ariss.

STATEMENT OF TOM ARISS

Mr. ARISS. Thank you, gentlemen. Chairman Souder, members of

the committee, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you today.

I am Tom Ariss. I am the Sheriff of Warren County, OH, and

Warren County is located in the southwestern part of the State of

Ohio. It is the second fastest-growing county in Ohio. The population has grown from a 2000 Census of 152,000 to the present estimated population of almost 200,000. So rapid growth.

I myself have been in law enforcement since 1957. I retired from

the U.S. Highway Patrol, and I have served as sheriff for 13 years.

I was in the Army as a military police officer, and I also worked

with the Springbrook Police Department and the county court system as a bailiff and probation officer.

Over these years, I have been involved in numerous drug types

of cases. My most memorable event was a drug arrest involving a

young man, local young man about age 20. I had arrested him for

DWI and a failure to stop violation. In a subsequent search of this

gentleman’s vehicle, I found four large grocery sacks full of marijuana, over 200 hits of PCP and LSD. He was arrested for these

drug violations.

What keeps this case in mind—this is about a 30-year-old case—

is that the gentlemen was—his age, and also prior to his case being

heard in our local Common Pleas Court, this gentleman was killed

up in Greene County, an adjacent county up the road here.

And the reason he was killed—the information I got—was that

he failed to pay for his drugs that I was fortunate enough to remove from the street and from him. It has been on my mind for

many years.

Warren County has a very active and, I might add, a very

proactive and progressive drug task force program. It has been in

effect for approximately 8 years. The success of this program is

through the efforts of our county prosecutor, local Warren County

police departments, our township police agencies, the Ohio Bureau

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of Identification and Investigations, the FBI, and also the members

of our Warren County Sheriff’s Office.

The local townships, cities, and villages over the years are contributing to funding of our new drug task force. And the good thing

about our Warren County Commissions—match dollar for dollar to

keep this drug task force in operation. And without this funding,

we would not be able to exist. Also, we have moneys from the Federal Byrne Grant to assist in this program.

Additional funding resources could be enhanced if the Federal

forfeiture funds could be allocated for the salaries of drug task

force members. And my understanding is that Attorney General

Gonzales can expand or permit the usage of these forfeiture funds.

We presently work with the Ohio HIDTA group, which is based

in Cleveland—you heard from Mr. Sommer earlier. We now have

a HIDTA group for the southwestern Ohio area, which encompasses from Columbia to Dayton to Cincinnati, a huge triangle of

many counties and very large populations. I presently chair the

southwestern Ohio HIDTA group.

Warren County has seen a large growth in the production of

methamphetamine over the past years. And last year, 2004, our

drug task force investigated eight meth lab cases. So far this year,

2005, the task force has been involved in 15 meth lab cases. As

these numbers grow, we will more than likely triple the numbers

from 2004.

We, the local law enforcement agencies, have been involved in

numerous types of meth labs, from the mobile to the hotel to the

home to the garage and to the shed. Our most recent meth lab production operation involved locating the remnants of a lab in a local

farmer’s pond.

The site work and cleanup are dangerous and very expensive.

There are numerous recorded incidents in our county and all

throughout the country involving meth labs where there have been

explosions and injuries and where labs have even been boobytrapped. Gentlemen, we have been very, very lucky.

Folks, quite frankly, the influx of the manufacturing and also the

use of meth frightens me, unlike any of the other challenges that

I have faced throughout my law enforcement career. If we think of

those non-involved individuals who are victims of this scourge, and

how it affects their lives and living conditions, it is very frightening. Remember the farmer whose pond is now contaminated with

these dangerous chemical residues. The same applies to the motel

and hotel proprietors.

The costs associated with the cleanups of these sites is tremendous. The property is contaminated. There is definitely a true loss

of the property values. I shudder to think when the innocent family

rents the motel room next to the potential meth lab next door. The

potential victims do not even know that they are sleeping next door

to what is effectively a bomb.

As citizens of this great Nation, we are acutely aware of threats

of international terrorists. But I submit to you all that this epidemic is more of an immediate threat than the terrorist.

Every one of us is a potential victim. This scourge crosses all

lines of the social-economic strata. The poor, the rich, the doctor,

the lawyer, the factory worker on his way to work, and the day laVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:45 Mar 28, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00064 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\25173.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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borer on her way back to home, could all be in danger. These drugs

do not discriminate by religion or skin color. The drugs ruin our

lives, and they can and do often kill.

If everyone is not safe, then none of us are safe. As law enforcement executives, we owe our citizens nothing less than our full attention to this growing problem.

Gentlemen, thank you very, very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ariss follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Thank you.

Commander Burke.

STATEMENT OF JOHN BURKE

Mr. BURKE. Thank you very much, Chairman Souder, and the

committee. I appreciate, as the others have said, this opportunity

for us to be here. I am in charge of the Warren County Drug Task

Force, obviously in Warren County, OH. We also currently cover

the city of Wilmington.

We have an eight-person meth lab team that is in a 26-foot trailer that we were able to purchase through some forfeiture funds and

a generous donation from the Procter & Gamble Co. So I do have

eight people trained. One is actually a chemist with the Miami Valley Crime Lab, which is kind of unusual.

But before I discuss the five things that I have listed, I wanted

to just give you a little background about the first meth lab that

we encountered, which was in July 2000. We were woefully prepared for this. We had purchased a small amount of methamphetamine, raided an almost abandoned farmhouse at the end of a

1,000-foot gravel driveway. And only by the grace of God did this

first endeavor turn out to be successful, since we had no training

or protective gear to minimize harm to all of us who drove down

the long lane to the house.

In that residence, we found over 50 automatic weapons, most

ready to fire at a moment’s notice, detonation cord, and a host of

toxic chemicals, meth waste, and a small amount of methamphetamine. During the investigation, we became aware of child

endangerment and abuse, domestic violence—two issues that are

often present, as you well know by now, at these clandestine laboratories.

On the first lab, we arrested four people and removed two children from their parents’ custody by notifying our children’s services

department in Warren County. Although these adults were longtime methamphetamine users and showed signs of anorexia, little

or no personal hygiene, paranoia, and drug-induced stupor, that

seems commonplace with methamphetamine abuse.

In almost 38 years of law enforcement, which included 32 years

with the Cincinnati Police Department before coming to Warren

County, I believe that methamphetamine is the most addictive

drug on the planet. When abusers are willing to drink their own

urine and smoke their own puss out of self-induced scratches in

order to obtain the drug, it has a lethal attraction like no other

substance of abuse I have encountered in my career.

In talking about the five things in this few minutes that we

have, I wanted to get to—I wanted to let you know, too, Mr. Chairman, that I was born in Fort Wayne, IN. My family is from Berne

in the Decatur area, and I——

Mr. SOUDER. I thought your statement seemed extraordinarily

intelligent. [Laughter.]

Mr. BURKE. I always say that I travel in Maryland quite a bit,

too, as I—[laughter]—five separate things. The one thing that I

think the sheriff touched on are the Byrne Memorial JAG Grants.

These are grants that come from the Federal Government, as you

know, and there has been a considerable reduction in this funding

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for local drug task forces to be potentially devastating in fighting

the drug war.

Ohio Drug Task Force grant moneys have been cut in half in

most instances for 2006, with a much greater cut in a few more.

Currently, there is no funding slated for drug task forces for calendar year 2007. This change will effectively cripple many drug

task forces in 2006, and will likely eliminate others in 2007, if

funding is not restored to its 2005 level.

The clandestine methamphetamine problem and the increased

abuse of crystal meth will put an even greater strain on the drug

task forces in Ohio. I strongly urge that these grants under Byrne

Memorial be restored to their past levels to ensure a continued

pursuit of high-level drug traffickers.

The Federal forfeiture revisions, which the sheriff also touched

on, in these times of reduced revenue for governmental entities, the

consideration of the expanded use of Federal forfeitures is very important. Currently, the Federal moneys can be used for a variety

of things to combat the drug war, but salaries for people longer

than—new employees for a year that cannot be used.

This puts many drug task forces in the position of having substantial Federal forfeiture moneys accrued from participating and

joint Federal-local drug investigations, but being unable to maintain their current personnel strength due to lack of enough State

and local funding. This could put drug task forces in the position

of having state-of-the-art equipment to address the drug problems,

but not the funding to provide an investigator for its operation.

My understanding is that U.S. Attorney General Gonzales can

expand this use of Federal forfeiture funds to that of salaries of

drug task force personnel that have been there longer than a year.

This change may very well also be the difference between drug task

forces surviving at their full strength or not at all.

Since this change does apparently not require legislation, I would

hope that it could be considered as one of the most expedient ways

of allowing new funding for drug task forces, and this change

would not require more taxes or governmental funding, only a

small change in the current policies.

Ohio HIDTA and, of course, Director Sommer was here—our region has recently been part of that program. HIDTA provides an

enormous ability for us to cooperate with Federal and State law enforcement agencies. They have excellent training opportunities, investigative resources, a deconfliction program nationwide that foremost protects law enforcement officers while safeguarding major

crimes.

I feel that full funding of this program is crucial if we are going

to continue to combat the drug problem in the United States. The

influx of crystal meth just adds another drug requiring total law

enforcement cooperation involving international substance of

abuse.

Clandestine lab cleanup, which is already in place—and we have

not seen any indication that we didn’t have that funding when we

needed it. My people are site safety trained, so we get a number

of these safety cleanup people that come right to our site. And we

have not seen any dry-up of that money, but I just want to stress

how important that money is for the future.

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The last thing I have, which is kind of specialized, because we

do have a clan lab team, is the clan lab entry. The problem with

entering meth labs when you have to—and we try not to while they

are cooking, but it is not always that easy—is the fact that you

have one or two thoughts of going in.

And one is you go in without protective gear, so that you have

the full availability of being able to use your firearm if you have

to. Of course, the problem with that is if you encounter toxic chemicals, then the officers become endangered without any masks or

any other breathing apparatus.

The second way is to go in with the full suits on, which we have,

and then you restrict your amount of movement and the fact that

you can use your firearm if you have to.

What DEA does provide is specialized training that we would

just like to see more of. It is excellent training, and it provides

sending an entire team probably to Quantico, or they may come to

Ohio where they would train as a unit, so that when we make

these entries we are making them as safe as possible for the police

officers.

In conclusion, law enforcement continues to try and address the

issues surrounding clandestine methamphetamine production in

our jurisdictions. The efforts on clandestine meth require extensive

training and equipment for law enforcement and good intelligence

on those who are producing this addictive substance.

Continuing education efforts are also vital and are the key to

identifying those responsible. Continue with current cleanup programs to clandestine meth, along with forced entry training, would

be welcome. The introduction of crystal meth has already started

in Ohio, and will likely continue to grow, especially as new legislation will likely take place concerning the sale of pseudoephedrine

products.

Crystal meth is likely to be more potent, with bigger profit margins and more overdose deaths. Crystal meth will need to be combated in much the same way as we combat currently cocaine and

marijuana, which also has a Mexican nexus.

We about a year and a half ago seized 11 pounds off of a person

in a small township in our county. Crystal meth was worth well

over half a million dollars just here in Warren County.

Now more than ever, while Homeland Security needs make for

strained drug enforcement budgeting, increased funding is needed

for drug task forces. Money for personnel, overtime, equipment,

and good training is paramount, the need to restore grant moneys

to 2005 levels and relax the Federal forfeiture policies to allow us

to pay for salaries of drug task force agents that may need to be

laid off if relief is not forthcoming.

In addition, the best way I see to promote Federal-local drug law

enforcement cooperating, producing excellent cases, is to continue

the funding to ONDCP for the HIDTAs. HIDTA can be the glue

that keeps the Federal-local entities together, working toward a

common goal of reducing the influx of these substances in the

United States, while arresting and prosecuting those responsible

for its distribution.

Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Burke follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Thank you.

Mr. Grandey.

STATEMENT OF JIM GRANDEY

Mr. GRANDEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the

committee. I appreciate the invitation to come here today.

And just as an aside, Congressman Cummings, I had a brotherin-law who did most of the architectural work for the revitalization

of downtown Baltimore. And so I am familiar with your district as

well.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Yes. We have representatives from just about all

of downtown. Yes. Wonderful.

Mr. GRANDEY. As I indicated, my name is Jim Grandey. I am the

Highland County prosecutor. My office is located in Hillsboro, OH.

Highland County has approximately 44,000 residents.

I took office on January 1, 2001. Since that time, we have presented 193 methamphetamine-related cases to the Highland County Grand Jury, 27 in 2001, 45 in 2002, 54 in 2003, 52 in 2004, and

15 this year-to-date in 2005. At that same time, my total felony

case load has increased from 129 cases in 2000 to 315 cases in

2004, and 203 so far in 2005.

We have had two deaths which were directly related to the manufacture of methamphetamine in my county. As has been stated

here before, methamphetamine is beyond a doubt the most addictive drug that I have seen. Many times the defendant is arrested

for manufacturing and/or possession, he bonds out of jail, and upon

being served with the indictment is found to be manufacturing or

possessing or using again.

We have had at least two defendants who were incarcerated in

the State penitentiary, one for 2 years, one for 3 years. And shortly—I mean, shortly—after their release from the State penitentiary, they were indicted again for manufacturing. That is something you don’t see in your other crimes.

Normally, if you would have somebody who commits a robbery,

they will lay low for a while while you are prosecuting them. You

may get them later later on, but with methamphetamine it is constant, and it is something that I know the other counties share as

well.

In response to this phenomenon, Judge Hoskins of the Highland

County Court of Common Pleas amended his bond schedule to increase the bond amounts for anyone who is indicted on a methamphetamine-related charge. This has kept the offenders in jail

rather than out manufacturing, but it has created other problems.

One, it has increased the amount of inmates in our new county

jail, which is overcrowded, and causing budgetary concerns for the

county. Also, it shortens the try-by time in which my office must

bring an accused to trial. Shortening the try-by time puts added

pressure upon my office and upon the court to resolve the cases,

along with the other cases which are pending.

In a county that only has one general division judge, and a felony

prosecuting staff consisting of myself and one assistant, the increase in the case load and the shortening of the time to process

the cases has put an extreme pressure on the criminal justice system.

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In addition, very few, if any, of the defendants can afford to hire

their own attorney. Thus, the cost of court-appointed counsel has

increased in the county as well. In 2000, Highland County paid

$175,752.78 for court-appointed counsel. In 2004, the county spent

$314,582.12, and has paid $206,633.05 as of August 15, 2005.

This increase has been complicated because the reimbursement

from the State has been reduced from 50 percent to 28 percent, and

we are told it is going to be reduced down to 25 percent.

Some people may ask why there are so many cases in Highland

County. First of all, we are rural. Second, there is an ample supply

of chemicals necessary for production, especially anhydrous ammonia. And, in addition, the recipe for manufacturing methamphetamine is readily available on the Internet, and, believe it or not,

in the local library.

What can be done to help smaller counties in their fight against

methamphetamine? We need financial assistance to offset the increased costs of providing court-appointed counsel and housing

those charged with methamphetamine-related crimes. It is my belief that the cost of court-appointed counsel should be paid from the

State or Federal funds rather than from a local level.

From a non-monetary perspective, it is my belief that increased

penalties with longer mandatory sentences would help. In addition,

mandatory fines need to be made mandatory and not able to be relieved because a defendant claims to be indigent. He or she may

be indigent today but may not be later on and should be required

to pay all mandatory fines.

In addition, increasing the try-by times for methamphetamine-related crimes would be a help. With the 3 to 1 ratio that we have

now, those defendants who are in jail need to be brought to trial

within 90 days. Increasing that just to 120 days would be a help

to my office.

There has been talk this morning about taking Sudafed and

other products, putting them behind the counter. I am not opposed

to that. However, as you have heard before, that does not prevent

the manufacturers from obtaining these products. It may be an inconvenience for them, but they will still get it.

What it does do, though, is you and I as consumers, it puts an

added burden upon us. We have had some pharmacies who restrict

the amount of packages you can buy. My secretary buys three different kinds for her family, and the pharmacy she goes to won’t sell

her three. So she has to go back. I applaud their efforts, but I am

not sure that is going to keep the manufacturers from getting the

products.

Any help that this committee and the Federal Government can

do to help us not only with the financials, but also in the enforcement that we have heard about this morning, would be greatly appreciated. And I know every small county here in Ohio is more

than willing to work with you to try to seek a solution to this problem. I know it has put an extreme burden upon my office.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Grandey follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Thank you.

Commissioner Riley.

STATEMENT OF RANDY RILEY

Mr. RILEY. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, as County

Commissioner, I am delighted to be here today representing Clinton County, a traditional rural county which is currently going

through the leading edge of what is anticipated to be a very significant growth period.

The city of Wilmington, the county seat of Clinton County, has

been designated as a micropolitan area with a population of over

12,000 people. The remainder of the county is compromised of

seven incorporated villages, ranging in size from just a few hundred residents to well over 4,000. There are 13 townships in Clinton County. The total population of the county is just over 40,000

people. Almost half of the county residents live in the townships

outside of the incorporated areas.

Clinton County, because of its location and transportation infrastructure, is a rapidly growing area. Several industries and businesses have recently moved here. We anticipate significant growth

in the next few years. With the anticipation of population growth

also comes an anticipated growth in crime.

Methamphetamine use in Clinton County has already reached

the crisis level. Law enforcement officials throughout the county

are spending a considerable portion of their time dealing with the

consequences of the ever-growing methamphetamine problem.

But the problems surrounding the increased use of methamphetamine in this rural community go far beyond law enforcement.

Lives that could be active and productive are being lost to this insidious drug. Children whose parents are caught up in the methamphetamine trap are abused, neglected, and are being raised in

an extremely dangerous environment.

Meth is called ‘‘poor man’s cocaine’’ for a good reason. The ingredients are available locally, and it is not difficult or expensive to

make.

When discussing the most highly addictive, life destroying drugs,

most people generally think of heroin and cocaine. Now, we must

add methamphetamine to that short list. But there is a big difference.

Heroin is not grown in North America. The poppy fields of southeast Asia are half a world away. Efforts to halt the growth and distribution of heroin are ongoing, but those efforts are taking place

far from Clinton County.

Cocaine crops from South American countries certainly find their

way to the United States, but the growth and initial production of

cocaine takes place a continent away. Efforts to halt the growth

and distribution of cocaine are ongoing, but those efforts are taking

place far from Clinton County.

However, with methamphetamine, we have an entirely different,

more complex, and much more devastating problem. We know that

most of the large, bulk production of methamphetamine takes place

in Mexico and the southwestern portions of the United States. The

drug is then shipped and distributed to addicts around the country.

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Bulk production is certainly a problem. But in this area it is the

small ‘‘Mom and Pop’’ cookers who are wrecking havoc with the

lives of our citizens.

Unlike heroin and cocaine, which comes from distant countries,

everything you need to make methamphetamine is available right

here in Clinton County. Gentlemen, within a half a mile of where

we sit, I could find everything I would need to start a lab, make

enough meth to get high, and have enough meth left over so I could

sell it to make enough money to start making another batch.

You can even go to the Internet, select a search engine, type in

‘‘How to Make Meth,’’ and you will find on the Web site a method,

a prescription, a recipe that very clearly describes two different

methods of methamphetamine production. There is even a frequently asked question section for cookers who might be having

problems.

I have spoken to law enforcement officials and pharmacists about

this situation. One solution keeps coming up. We have to make it

more difficult to get the ingredients. Ephedrine and

pseudoephedrine must be more difficult to obtain. There needs to

be a tracking system to find out who is buying ephedrine and

pseudoephedrine, when it is being bought, where they are buying

it, and where these folks live.

When it is discovered that one or two people who live with or

near each other are all buying ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, we

must be able to take legal action. And, very importantly, we must

be able to protect the children who live in these highly dangerous

environments.

Methods must also be explored to see if ways can be found to

track the other highly toxic ingredients which are also readily

available in our community.

In conclusion, gentlemen, methamphetamine, besides destroying

the lives of users, is also destroying the lives of innocent children

and has become a major law enforcement problem and societal

problem right here in Clinton County. We welcome any help you

can give us in dealing with this problem.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Riley follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. I am going to do something a little unusual. I would like—is David Priest still here? Could you come forward and get one of those chairs. We are going to swear you in.

[Witness sworn.]

Mr. SOUDER. Let the record show that he responded in the affirmative. Priest is P-R-I-E-S-T.

My understanding is that you have been a meth addict and are

recovering. Could you just tell us a little bit of your story?

Court REPORTER. Excuse me, Mr. Chairman. Could you please

move the mic closer to him? Thank you.

Mr. SOUDER. Will that work? OK. She does the court record. So

when we do the record, hopefully we have an accurate representation. Getting a word turned around here or there can be very critical when you are dealing with this kind of issue. Thank you.

Let me know if you can hear.

I am going to have—Nick is our legal counsel for the committee.

I need to have him describe, for your own protection, what you

need to say and not say.

Mr. COLEMAN. I am not your attorney, but I can tell you, obviously, you are testifying under oath. You do not have to testify as

to any illegal activities that you may have participated in for your

own legal protection. Obviously, that is your choice to make, but I

just want to make sure that you are aware that you don’t have to

testify specifically about any illegal activities that you yourself participated in.

Just so you are aware of that. Your choice.

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Chairman, if I could just add, Mr. Priest, from

what I understand, you have very compelling testimony for us on

the personal impacts and effects. And I just wanted to make certain that you were aware that being under oath any testimony that

you would provide—that you would not be required to provide

about manufacture or sale of meth.

Since it would be testimony that you would be giving under oath,

it would have criminal implications for you. But we don’t want that

to inhibit your ability to tell what is an incredibly important personal story, but did want you to be aware of that.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. I am not an attorney, but it sure sounded scary to me. [Laughter.]

Thank you for being willing to talk to us.

Mr. PRIEST. Meth was very attractive to me, because at the time

I liked to speed and try it, and it lasted so long. It is like a 3-day

type of thing, so it would be like a speed buzz for 3 days. That attracted me to it.

But then, instantly the group of people that were doing that, I

saw them starting to lose their minds, and I wanted to get away

from it. And it was almost impossible. It was like the only way to

get away from it was to cut them off, get them away from it, because they were—they cooked. They were making it themselves.

And I don’t think we are getting as much imported here as—I

mean, that is not the root of the problem, in this small community

anyway. I think most of it is manufactured around here. I have

wanted to quit almost from the time that I did it, and the easiest—

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the only way to do that was to discontinue going around those people at all.

Mr. SOUDER. How is it different than other—anything else you

have ever taken on yourself? And why was it harder?

Mr. PRIEST. Harder to quit? You just—it is part of the addiction

thing. You justify it a hundred ways, and it was so much easier to

justify. It was part of——

Mr. SOUDER. Did you think about it all the time? Did it impact

your ability to work or your family?

Mr. PRIEST. Yes. I thought I needed it to make it, to get up the

next day, you know, to get moving. Yes, and I destroyed my entire—everything. It tends to make you want to tweak, like try to

make things better than they were. And what you end up doing is

destroying what you have, and, you know, I pretty much had to dig

a hole. I was at the bottom.

I couldn’t get anywhere, and finally that is when I—actually, I

left the State for about 3 weeks or so just to get those guys to realize it. Don’t even want them to come visit me anymore, because it

was like I wanted to quit, and it just kept finding me. And I am

sure that is an excuse, that is justifying it, whatever. That is just

how it went.

And the rehab programs, I tried those. That didn’t work. I don’t

know that those programs could really help someone that was addicted to it.

Mr. SOUDER. Do you think it is hard to find here?

Mr. PRIEST. No, it is so easy to find here, because everybody is

cooking it. It is hard to find someone that don’t have some association.

Mr. SOUDER. Do people teach each other how to cook it, or how

do——

Mr. PRIEST. Yes, that is what happens. A guy sees he is about

ready to get caught, because, I mean, of course they always think

you are about to get caught. But, so then he shows somebody else,

so one guy gets taken down, and then two more come up.

But I have noticed just from today—that is kind of why I came

here, I wanted to see how things were going. They are doing a lot

better. It is not as bad as what it was 2 years ago when I quit.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Cummings.

Mr. CUMMINGS. OK. Do you have children?

Mr. PRIEST. I just had one 11 months ago.

Mr. CUMMINGS. And this is—I mean, when you were using it, did

it make you feel like—I mean, like you didn’t care about keeping

a job and things of that nature? And I take it that you feel like

you have already beaten the habit, is that right? Do you believe

you have?

Mr. PRIEST. As long as I stay away from—I don’t want to ever

go around anybody that does it again. I mean, I have beat it, yes.

I know what it does. I know where I will end up if I go back. And,

yes, I feel like I have beat it, but you can never say, ‘‘Well, I have

beat it good enough to do it one time’’ either, you know? I have

been through multiple rehabs. I do know how all that stuff works.

And one time, you know, it would turn into again, the same thing.

So I can’t say I have it beat. I don’t think anybody could ever

beat an addiction.

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Mr. CUMMINGS. I know you are not here for this purpose, but you

hear—have you heard any of the testimony of these officers?

Mr. PRIEST. Yes.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Oh, good. Good. You know, I mean, and I know

you are concerned about other people being involved in this, and

these officers have talked about how, you know, even their lives

and their men and the women that serve—their lives are on the

line. And I will tell you, on my way here last night when I was

driving through this rural area, you know, I thought about years

ago how in Baltimore crack cocaine had gotten—and cocaine had

gotten to be such a problem.

And then, the next thing you know time goes on, and the next

thing you have are generations. The grandfather is in jail, the father is in jail, and now the son is in jail. And I saw some of that.

And so, I mean, how do you think—I mean, knowing what you

know, is there a good way to try to help people not get addicted,

No. 1, and try to stop these folks from—it sounds like you have—

you are talking about a whole string.

You know, you said one person is cooking, he thinks that these

guys are right on his trail, so he calls up his buddies and says,

‘‘Well, look, you know, I want three of you all to come over, because

I am just about to go down so the three of you all, you do it,’’ and

the next thing you know it just doesn’t stop.

I mean, how do they address this? And how would we address

it as a neighborhood, do you think, so that you don’t get to that

point where, like I described in Baltimore, we have generations,

and that child has a baby less than 1 year old? You know, so your

child doesn’t end up where—doesn’t have to go through what you

went through. Do you follow me?

Mr. PRIEST. Yes. That is kind of why I am here, to see——

Mr. CUMMINGS. But I know you don’t want to——

Mr. PRIEST. Yes, I wanted to see—that is why I am here. I wanted to see how you guys were working toward getting it that way.

I think—I mean, of course, everybody thinks this—that Sudafed

is—pseudoephedrine, whatever it is, that is the biggest problem

with it. I mean, it is the people doing it, really. But if that was

gone, it would be so much harder, and it would all be imported,

and it would be a whole—it would be down with the cocaine. Cocaine has always got to be brought in.

And with the methamphetamines, I can see it coming as people

getting killed by—like I heard somebody’s testimony there, how

many guns were in there that were ready to be fired at that time.

And I have seen it on the news also. People have come out shooting

from—about to get their—I think that happened in Highland County maybe 3 or 4 years ago.

It is going to progressively get worse, I mean, and it is getting

worse already. And this is already in these people’s minds, and it

is just like it is going to happen sooner or later, and it already has

several times. Being in a small town I guess is just——

Mr. SOUDER. In looking at the so-called home-cookers, which are

different than the crystal meth, and often totally different people,

and looking at the pseudoephedrine question at pharmacies, which

we have been kind of going around about today, would the people

you know—do any of them use the Internet?

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Mr. PRIEST. Use what?

Mr. SOUDER. The Internet.

Mr. PRIEST. Yes. Actually, a lot of them learned it from there.

Mr. SOUDER. If they learned it from the Internet, and we restricted that to pharmacy, why wouldn’t they just order the

pseudoephedrine on the Internet?

Mr. PRIEST. I just—actually, I just learned that today. I didn’t

know that was even possible. That kind of ruined that whole——

Mr. SOUDER. Do you have any friends up in Fort Wayne, which

is farther north—we have whole bus groups that go across to Canada to bring pharmacies in, and the laws wouldn’t restrict bringing

Sudafed, where obviously whole groups of people go back and forth

all day. And in the southwest United States, you see at each border

crossing rows of pharmacies and people going back and forth all

day within the limitations of what they can bring back in drugs.

Do you believe the people are desperate enough in your area,

who you know, that they would find that?

Mr. PRIEST. I don’t think they have the resources. They have dug

theirselves holes. They are at the bottom of it, and they can’t afford

to get there to get it that way, actually. There is a lot of that, but

there is also the bigger—like you were talking about, the glass or

the ice or whatever, that is imported.

Mr. SOUDER. It is a fascinating sub-question, because I believe

for much of the market they would adjust. But it may be that, like

you say, that the home-cookers are a unique subgroup that we actually could control through a different program targeted at the

local pharmacy distribution, because if they are disconnected and

not into the normal networks, and don’t have resources—of the

people that you have known, without getting names or implicating

anything, would you say that in their patterns, do they worry at

all about their kids?

Mr. PRIEST. Their kids? No. Actually, they are sitting there worrying about the law.

Mr. SOUDER. When we do a cleanup of a site, one of the things

that we don’t do, we get all the chemicals out, but the house is still

dangerous. Is there any kind of discussion, or have you ever heard

anybody discuss like, ‘‘Hey, what is this stuff going to do to the

people around me?’’ or that kind stuff?

Mr. PRIEST. They just don’t care. They have a one-track mind,

and that is, is the law watching me?

Mr. SOUDER. Do most of the people have jobs?

Mr. PRIEST. No. Actually, they lose their jobs within—I think

maybe people might make it 6 months with a job. But once you get

in one of those groups, I mean, they are actually cooking it right

there, and it is just—you just don’t—you lose your whole——

Mr. SOUDER. Do they drive a car?

Mr. PRIEST. If they can get one.

Mr. SOUDER. Do they drive it when they are high? I mean, can

you—at what point does it become you are just——

Mr. PRIEST. With me, it was a problem. I couldn’t do that. I actually got dizzy on it. But——

Mr. SOUDER. So would you still try to drive or——

Mr. PRIEST. I wouldn’t, no.

Mr. SOUDER [continuing]. People coming down the road?

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Mr. PRIEST. I know other people would, yes. I have seen several

people drive in and drive out, and they have driven out after 3

days of——

Mr. SOUDER. One of our challenges is we have drunk driving

laws, but we don’t have very good drug-induced driving penalties,

because if you are driving in that condition you are endangering

everybody else on the road around you. Do you know anybody who

has had fires?

Mr. PRIEST. Yes, several places——

Mr. SOUDER. Or blowups.

Mr. PRIEST [continuing]. Has burnt. Yes.

Mr. SOUDER. Does that tend to sober them up at all about it, or

does it——

Mr. PRIEST. No. I don’t know how to knock sense into them, really, to be honest with you.

Mr. SOUDER. Were any of the people that you know related to

biker gangs? Is that a——

Mr. PRIEST. Actually, you know, one of them from Missouri actually, he came down and that is pretty much what brought a whole

group that is still out there, still free. They are out of Missouri, but

they don’t have the money to be able to go get the drug, the ephedrine, anywhere else, or Sudafed, whatever you call it.

They don’t have the capability of going to get that somewhere

else. They have Wal-Mart, wherever—you know, like gas stations

has a——

Mr. SOUDER. Because they are broke because they have lost their

jobs already, basically.

Mr. PRIEST. Yes.

Mr. SOUDER. They don’t have many assets.

Mr. PRIEST. All they can do is sell what they are making.

Mr. SOUDER. Is it like crack in the sense of every city that has

had crack will move to abandoned houses or different places if

they—do they get desperate enough that they will look for——

Mr. PRIEST. I haven’t seen that in the small towns. Actually, yes,

in the rural areas, it is more like a camper out behind the house.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Chairman, I am going to have to leave, unfortunately, to catch a plane, but I just want to, first of all, I want

to thank you for what you are doing. I want to thank all of you

all for your testimony. And I really do—I mean, you have sat here

and you all have said—you thanked us, but we thank you. We really do, because, you know, when I go to, sadly, to the funerals of

police officers, it becomes so clear to me what you all go through

in law enforcement. You don’t know whether you are going to come

home.

And then, when we get testimony like what you just said, you

know, you can find yourself in a situation where you are harmed,

and the person who harmed you, you know, they are not even in

their right mind at that moment.

And we are committed, along with Representative Turner, to do

everything in our power to assist you. And the testimony has been

very helpful. Believe it or not, I have heard a lot of testimony, but

I have learned some things here that I had not heard before.

And we are all working together to try to make a difference, and

so I just want to, again, thank you, and I want to thank you, too.

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But I want to leave you with a message, and it is really simple.

That we can solve our neighborhoods’ problems by all of us working

together, and that is why your testimony is so important. These officers, they are just trying to keep people like you, your wife, and

your neighbor safe. That is what—they eat it, they sleep it, that

is all they—I mean, that is on their minds all the time. That is

what they do.

And so by you trying to help us in any way that you can, we really, really do appreciate it. And so, thank you all very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. Mr. Turner, do you have—I have some

law enforcement questions. I will yield to you next to see if you

have questions first, and then I will do some final.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank each of

you for everything that you do every day in your communities, for

law enforcement, for making certain that you have safe communities.

And, Mr. Priest, I appreciate your bringing forth the message

that you had today of getting the message out that this drug destroys lives. So thank you for what you have shared.

I want to ask you, our panel members, what can we do better in

the area of communication? Because one of the things that just

strikes me, and what I am hearing from you, not just the epidemic

and the numbers which are extraordinary, but that this is different

than anything we have dealt with before.

Commissioner, when you talked about how this is made and the

access, you know, that certainly is an important issue, its readily

available nature. The dangerousness of this drug, the fact that this

drug will absolutely ruin lives, is a message that I don’t know that

it is getting out. And what do you think that we can all do together

to make that more clear, so that when people know that they are

facing this drug that they are facing a decision that really is a

preservation issue for their lives?

Sheriff Vore.

Mr. VORE. Obviously, a public education program that can be

funded and put out across the Nation would be helpful. But, you

know, something radical that, you know, I have been thinking

about for actually, about a year, ever since meth started to really

come to the forefront in our county, is—and the gentleman testified

down there that he was in rehab. How many times were you in

rehab?

Mr. PRIEST. Probably about four times in my life.

Mr. VORE. And that has been my experience, that meth is one

of those things doesn’t react to rehab like, say, some of the other

drug addictions, because it just envelopes you. It takes your whole

life over.

You know, maybe it is time that we have some forced treatment

programs for individuals who are caught using meth. And a lot of

times they get put on probation, and then they go out and do community service or something of that nature. And maybe we need

to get drastic here, because for the users they have to have some

hope coming down the road. I mean, we have all seen the pictures

in Time. We have heard the testimony here. If it gets to a point,

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then there is no point of return, and I think that is what we have

to get out there and that is what we have to stop.

And quite honestly, though, for the cookers and for the manufacturers, I think there has to be some lengthy, mandatory terms in

prison to where you are removed from society, and you can no

longer participate in the activity. So it is going to be a—like a twopronged attack. Actually, a three-pronged attack with the education end of it.

And I think this is something that—you know, we always talk

about being tough on the war on drugs and stuff. But if we don’t

get tough on this, in 10 years this is going to make crack look like

candy.

Mr. TURNER. Sheriff Fizer, I know that in Clinton County you

guys have made an effort to communicate. How is that going, and

what can we do better?

Mr. FIZER. We have actually had some pretty good success, I believe, and I guess I agree with Sheriff Vore. Something nationwide

would be great, or if we could even go from the States down to the

local sheriff’s offices to start organizations and mainly make the

parents aware, which this Coalition for a Drug-Free Clinton County—it is a lot of—one of their main things, too, is to get the parents

involved.

We are already teaching the kids in schools the dangers of it, but

the parents, because a lot of them are busy working, they don’t

take the time to know where their kids are at, and a lot of them

is, ‘‘What is this meth stuff that I read in the newspaper?’’ There

are still a lot of them that doesn’t even know about it, which is surprising in the community, but—so that is what we are trying to do,

and I would like to see more of that.

I think if we educate them enough—we have township trustees

that we went and gave talks to, and showed them the propane

tanks, and—because we have a lot of—we refer to them as mobile

meth labs. We get those also, and they have actually seen some of

this in the ditch lines and didn’t know what it was.

So it is—we have had a lot of success thus far. We just would

educate everybody that this is what is out there. And like I said,

we are busting them right and left, but we are only doing it because the community is participating. They are calling in constantly.

Mr. TURNER. Sheriff Ariss, in your role with the regional perspective, are you seeing some best practices and some things that we

need to do?

Mr. ARISS. Yes, sir, I think I have to agree with everybody else.

There is a problem out there. We are fortunate in our area with

having the drug task force, you know, in the county, and John

Burke and his group, what they are doing right now.

And as I said earlier in my statement, that we ask for the participation, you know, within the county itself, you know, for funding to keep it going. And all of the villages and the townships and

the county commissioners are funding it, so we have that buy-in

early on. And selling it back to the community, John, with this new

vehicle that he has purchased, it is a demo vehicle.

We can take it out into the field, around to different areas, and

show them what is going on, and then working—again, we have a

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rural area, working with our farm group and showing the farmers

what they need to be alert of and what can happen. And just selling the program, which is what it is all about, selling the people

and they have a buy into it.

And I think as Sheriff Vore has talked, we have to explain and

show them that this is very important. But, again, if you are going

to do it, you are going to make a cooker, you are going to be the

manufacturer, you will have to pay the price. And it has to be sure

they go to jail, and we have to have the combinations.

And locally it is tough for all of us, because we are all bursting

at the seams and looking for bed space. But, again, there has to

be a sure shot. If you are going to do these things, this is what the

penalty is going to do, just like the nun did when we were in grade

school. You know, if you stick your hand out there, you are going

to get knocked.

But, again, it has to be sure, you know, what is going to be effective at the same time.

Mr. TURNER. Any other thoughts?

Mr. BURKE. Yes. You know, we have done a lot of awareness and

education, and what it does is—and it ultimately looks like a bad

thing, is it will increase your meth labs, because there is a lot more

of them out there than we are finding. And what happens is when

you increase the education, the citizens get involved, which you

mentioned before is so important.

And they start to smell odors in their neighborhood, and they call

the police, and hopefully we have educated the deputies and the

other law enforcement and they realize what it is. And this has

happened over and over again, so you get more of them, but that

is not a bad thing because you are finding those that you didn’t

find before.

The other thing I think is, it kind of sounds simplistic, but we

just need to all really stay on this problem. I mean, we cannot back

off of it one bit. As I told you, with Cincinnati, I saw the heroin

problems in the cities. And if this goes as big as the heroin problem

went, it will make heroin look very small compared to this meth

problem.

I mean, it is cheaper to make, it is a much longer high, there is

paranoia involved, there is extreme risk for—I think it was mentioned, people that would normally not ever shoot a police officer

may very well shoot somebody while they are under the influence

of meth. And so the concerns and the issues, or a fire person or

whoever happens to be around the property.

So, you know, education is crucial, but so is staying on this and

convicting folks that are manufacturing and somehow trying to find

I think better rehabilitation, because my understanding is there is

like a 6 percent successful rehab rate across the country for meth,

and that has to get a lot better.

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Grandey, as you pursue prosecutions, are the

stories of what is happening in these people’s lives being able to

be told, so that others can know the dangers?

Mr. GRANDEY. Well, let me give you an example of that, and this

is what makes meth so baffling to me. We had a young man who

we sent his father to prison for manufacturing, we arrested his

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older brother for manufacturing, and just prior to his trial he committed suicide in jail.

This young man we didn’t think was a manufacturer. Shortly

thereafter, he was arrested for manufacturing. Nice kid, worked

hard, but he got involved in the same thing his family was.

In trying to help him, he was sent to the Star Justice Program,

which is a lockdown rehabilitation program. This young man was

an absolute poster child for that program. He would go out with

the director to Rotary Clubs and Lions Clubs and tout the benefits

of the Star Justice Program.

I think it was 3 months after he was released from that program

we indicted him again for manufacturing. That is what baffles me

about this, the addictive nature of it.

Mr. Priest says if you get back around these people, you are right

back into it again. And I don’t know how you deal with that. I

know my sheriff and his deputies have gone out and given educational programs to the schools, parents groups, trustees, farm bureaus. And like Commander Burke said, yes, people became more

alert, and we have gotten more labs, but the people who are involved in doing this, I don’t know how you reach them with this,

you know, and you keep them from starting, because I have never

seen anything.

I spent 10 years in the system prosecuting before I got elected

to my current position, and I have never seen anything where people who—and, you know, a lot of them really want to quit and just

can’t do it, and they fall back into the same trap.

It increases problems, you know, for my health department, because somebody says we have a house now that is contaminated.

I have health department issues that I have to deal with as the

county prosecutor. I have domestic violence charges, I have neglect

and dependency charges, you know, which all just mushrooms as

far as the prosecution.

I mean, it affects every aspect of everybody’s life. And it just baffles me that those people that I have seen who I believe honestly

want to quit, and as part of our sentencing recommendations was

treatment, would successfully complete that—I mean, as far as, you

know, everybody that is in the program, I mean, they have successfully kicked this habit and they are ready to go back into society,

and within a short period of time they are back in my system

again.

And it is just so frustrating, because, you know, part of my job—

yes, I am a prosecutor, but part of my job, I believe, is quite frankly

to do justice. And if that is helping somebody and their family by

making a recommendation of treatment, or whatever, I am willing

to do that, and take the criticism that sometimes comes with that.

But it is so frustrating with methamphetamine users. We just don’t

get there.

And hopefully through all of these discussions somebody will

come up with a solution for that, but it just baffles me in dealing

with it.

Mr. TURNER. Commissioner, I know your county, Clinton County,

has been very active in trying to get the word out, working in the

schools and the community. What more do you think we need to

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do, or can do? Because it clearly is a message of, if you start this

drug, you will ruin your life.

Mr. RILEY. As was mentioned a moment ago, we can’t give up.

We have to keep plugging away and giving the same message and

being very consistent with the message. Anything that we can do

to limit the availability of the components I think we have to do

it.

In getting ready for this, I went to several of the pharmacies in

town. Most of them had the ephedrine and pseudoephedrine products back behind the counter. But I happened to get one of my

wife’s prescriptions filled yesterday, and I turned to my right and

there were several blister packs of Sudafed right there. I could

have, if I had wanted to, I could have grabbed probably 24, 30 of

them, and been out the door. So it is still available.

I think we need to do everything that we can to make it unavailable. And it is becoming more and more pervasive. Right here in

Clinton County I have heard township trustees referring to a small

village as ‘‘meth land.’’ It has become that well known in that area,

and the sheriff is doing all that he can. But it is so insidious and

there are so many of them, and, as Mr. Priest said, one cooker will

teach two cookers, two of them teach two more cookers, and the

next thing you know, with that geometric progression, the problem

grows more rapidly than we would ever have thought.

I have learned things here today that have shaken me, and I

have lived in this community my entire adult life, and I know that

there are things going on that are horrendous and are devastating

to people’s lives. We cannot give up on the hope that we can do

something good about this, and I think we have to give that hope

back to people.

What Mr. Priest has done I think is extraordinary. My understanding from what I have heard is that this is one of if not the

most highly addictive substances that people will start using. They

continue to want to chase that high, that 3-day high that Mr.

Priest described. You know, they can go into rehab, they come out

of rehab or they come out of prison and they immediately want to

get that high back again.

I applaud Mr. Priest for having the guts to separate himself from

those people, if that is what it takes. But that is an extraordinary

example, and, unfortunately, most people can’t do that.

Education and limitation of the ingredients, and basically it goes

down to what was said earlier, we just can’t give up whatever effort on whatever front it might be to try to educate, limit, and try

to treat these people and give them the hope. And, of course, law

enforcement is still going to be a vital, vital key in that limitation.

Mr. TURNER. I want to thank all of the panel members for both

the preparation time that you have taken, the time that you have

taken today to help this committee as they have been putting together a national record on this issue, so that they can look for national and Federal policy. And I want to thank you for everything

that you do at each of your communities, because you are making

an impact on people’s lives.

And I want to thank the chairman. I know, Chairman Souder,

you have additional questions. I do not, so at this point I just wanted to take an opportunity to thank you again. You have stepped

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out of Washington, and you have stepped out of your district and

taken your time to be here, so that each of these stories can be told

and be part of your record. And you certainly have been a leader

in looking for national solutions.

And your passion that you have for this is just so obvious and

appreciated. So thank you for being here, and thank you for your

attention to this. I think, as Mr. Priest has told us, this is destroying people’s lives, and your efforts hopefully will save some.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. And thank you for bringing us to Ohio.

This has been really informative, and your continued leadership in

Congress and help with this as we try to move additional legislation this fall and finish up on our appropriations bill.

I have some very specific questions again. Does Ohio have a drug

endangered children law or program? Are any of you familiar with

that? Or, Mr. Grandey, you wouldn’t look at—in other words, off

in California, the first meth hearing this committee held, it was before I was chairman, came off of a case where—there were several

cases, one where the meth parents put their kids in a stove to

warm them up and cooked them to death. There were some explosions, and it led to a child endangered law, which California has

the oldest, which is an additional tool for prosecutors and also for

courts to remove the children.

Mr. GRANDEY. We have a child endangerment statute, as well as

neglect and dependency.

Mr. SOUDER. Related to meth, it would be if you are cooking at

home, you automatically become subject to——

Mr. GRANDEY. We don’t have anything specific as to meth. It is

one factor that goes into that, and one of the factors that my Children Services Board can use to file a neglect dependency

endangerment charge in order to remove the children. But as far

as enhancing any type of penalty against the parents, the penalty

for child endangering is less than we had for the manufacturing or

the possession, so that normally doesn’t even get filed.

They are looking at, you know, a stiffer sentence on the manufacturing or the possession, or whatever. But it is a tool that we can

use, and my juvenile prosecutor can use, to remove the children,

place them into foster care.

Mr. SOUDER. So if I can ask a technical legal question, in trying

to draft—if we do a national effort, although the furthest would be

done at the State level, that—you talked about the additional laws.

The advantage of having it be an automatic that can be invoked

is that you wouldn’t have to establish—in other words, if you have

to—if the penalty is short, we are finding in a lot of meth laws

around the country, and even as we—this is a side point, but this

illustrates our challenge.

As we look at the illegal immigration on the border and the terrorists on the border, the drug people coming across the Mexican

border, one of our subpoints in Homeland Security is what we call

OTMs, other than Mexicans, because they can’t be deported back

to Mexico. So we bring them here and we release them into the

United States.

Part of the question is who is running these? What we have

learned at one of our hearings, the people who run these groups,

the penalties are so small that no prosecutor or U.S. Attorney

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wants to take the cases, because the cost of preparing the case is

so great for such a short term, penalty term. So it has inhibited

our ability to control our border to some degree.

Well, some of this is the same thing. If you have to do a whole,

long process to establish it for a short penalty—on the other hand,

if it is, in effect, a bonus charge, when we talked about where it

is an—you could automatically invoke it if there are children involved in the house, then you wouldn’t have to do a long establishment, if you de facto determine and would add an additional penalty if there are children in the house. Is that feasible?

Mr. GRANDEY. We do have some enhancements if there are children in the house. I believe it raises the level of offense by one degree from a Felony 3 to Felony 2 if there are juveniles in the house.

And I have used that, you know. And one of the problems that I

have, quite frankly, is I mentioned the case load that we have, and,

you know, like I said, I only have one felony assistant. And I have

a lot of other things to do besides felony work.

We average—right now, we are having anywhere from 6 to 12

cases set for trial all on the same day. And, unfortunately, I don’t

like to do it, but unfortunately I have to. And then, a lot of times

you are negotiating prison time, and sometimes these things get

away.

Mr. SOUDER. It’s one of the mythologies that we hear about sentencing in the United States, because this is everywhere in the

United States, the bulk of the trials are being negotiated. So, therefore, if you have gotten an actual felony conviction, you’ve probably

been pretty high up the chain.

You hear all the time people are in prison for being convicted

just for marijuana use. If you convicted them for marijuana use, I

don’t know very many prosecutors who do that. What it is a negotiated sentence down to marijuana use, because that was the easy

one to get, and the news media has done a terrible disservice on

who we’re locking up, because most of these are negotiated bonds.

If I can mention one other thing that we are—it came up yesterday, and it is a big challenge for conservative Republicans, because

we have really stressed strong families. And surrounding family rehabilitation, and that type of thing. I want to ask Mr. Priest a

quick question. Did most of the people that you know who worked

with us, were they married?

Mr. PRIEST. Yes, married.

Mr. SOUDER. Both husband and wife involved?

Mr. PRIEST. Yes.

Mr. SOUDER. But as we start to talk to a number of the judges,

and in the prosecutors’ office and the criminal rehabilitation and

drug treatment people in Fort Wayne, one of the things that we

thought was different is we usually think of alcohol abuse and

other drugs as having an enabler in the family, and a user. And

what seemed to be a little different in meth is this is a challenge

to how we look at family rehabilitation when there is the whole

family that is involved in it.

And we have to have a bias toward trying to put the kids back

into the family, and we are going to have to look at family court

and child endangerment questions, because putting the kids back

into—because the kids can be functional in school.

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It is going home to an environment that they can get blown up,

and that this is a new part of the side part of meth that is becoming more into discussion, because it is a challenge to the bias and

the structure of our family court, our rehabilitation, our foster care

laws, because this is a different type of thing that we face in other

drugs, because it is almost always, it seems like, that both parents

are involved in the production. The Mom and Pop labs seem to be

different than the crystal meth on this, too, which is an interesting

variation.

Another question is: do any of your counties have Meth Watch?

Are you familiar with that term? Why do you think that this hasn’t

been published more? None of you have ever even heard of it?

When people say, ‘‘I don’t understand why we don’t have a national strategy,’’ this is part of it. I mean, how can it not be out?

It was next door in Oklahoma. It was just as effective, and it didn’t

cost as much. It basically is a reporting process that goes to the

pharmacies, that when they see people getting a certain number of

blister packs. I mean, a small town, I grew up in a small town, it’s

not like you don’t know who is coming in. And if you don’t know

who is coming in, that’s news, too.

If there is someone coming into a small town, and picking up

those blister packs, and you don’t know them, that is worth a notice. And what has happened is that the word quickly gets out, as

we heard from Mr. Priest, they worry about getting busted. If they

see somebody calling up, and if a car goes by, that is going to have

an impact as much as the pharmacy has in putting them behind

the counter, because that doesn’t get into the law enforcement system.

They can still do it—now blister packs, we have to get the quantity down. But we have to look at the individual citizens to do that,

and we have to have some communication going across between

people who are doing this around the country.

Let me ask another question for those of you who have worked

with the task forces and the community groups. And I am kind of

baffled as to why this doesn’t occur in the United States, and I

think that it is an appalling collapse of the Department of Education. I think two of you are involved in the Drug Free Task

Force. Have you sat the local schools down together and said,

‘‘What are you doing with your drug-free money?’’ Go ahead. I am

just wondering, because every school gets a certain amount of drugfree money. Do you sit down in any of your communities and say

not, ‘‘What could we do with new money?’’ but, ‘‘What are you

doing with your money? And how does it relate to an overall strategy?’’

Mr. BURKE. I am co-chair of the Coalition. It is funny you bring

that up. It is exactly what we are getting ready to do at the next

meeting. We just changed chairmanships, and I think it is a very

valid point—what are we doing?

I think there is actually some money that is not being spent at

all and going unspent. And it is very timely that you mentioned

that. We are doing that.

And as far as the Meth Watch, we don’t call it that. But we certainly have retailers and pharmacies that do participate. We encourage them to try and get license numbers without endangering

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themselves, and they do some of that. We don’t have it organized.

It sounds like Crime Watch? Is that kind of what it is?

Mr. SOUDER. It is a variation, and it can be done in different

ways, different counties implement it in different ways. But what

it appears to be is—that type of program wouldn’t work in Dayton

or Fort Wayne. But in a small town where the problems are most

concentrated, you have a pretty good handle of who is coming in.

There was a group coming from Bowling Green, KY, who traveled all the way up here stealing and buying Sudafed, and ended

up in Warren County and a Kroger employee called, and that’s how

they got caught.

I have been very critical about the current proposal that we reduce the program, a number of you have heard of that, the task

force is the height of money because information comes up in the

local law enforcement, the State and local law enforcement. But we

are going to have to, rather than drowning in the everyday problems, one of the things that we need is—you guys are doing the

point of arrest and have the data.

Sometimes these statistics and reports you’re doing can be very

valuable, because it is how we can—we don’t look at the big busts

if we try to explain it to the people in Washington. You can’t see

the big busts if you drive the people who are doing the little busts,

because it is the little busts that we turnup. You do negotiated sentences for information. Where did you buy it? Who did you buy it

from? And we go from there. A huge challenge—my first—I was a

staffer in a place in Indiana when I was working for a Senator, and

the Richmond, IN prosecutor wanted to take down the biggest bust

in the history of Richmond. Unfortunately, the group was also involved in the biggest bust in the history of Indiana over in Indianapolis, which, of course, they were waiting to see because they

traced them to Kansas City, to an even bigger network, which was

coming into the United States from Mexico. And we were trying to

bust this whole network, so we could figure out how to reach a

whole region.

Unfortunately, the local prosecutor took him down, and we didn’t

get the network. His response was, ‘‘People are dying and you guys

could be working on a network forever.’’ This is the constant tension that we have to work through, particularly when we are trying

to move through something like that, of how can we learn from the

experience, how can we get the data in, how can we get the, when

we have a program with nuances, where is the clearinghouse going

to be to get the information down and say ‘‘Here’s how they adjusted, we did this in Oklahoma; here is how they adjusted. When

we did this variation, this is how they adjusted.’’

It is one of the things we have been a little slow on in Iraq, although now we have minute-by-minute reporting on specific car

bombs to figure out the variations they’re doing. We have 20,000

people in the United States, 25,000 a year die of narcotics, but

Iraq, and for that matter September 11th, seem small, and we need

to have the seriousness about how we are going to do some of this

interconnectedness.

And you guys are on the front line, and the drug-free schools program is one of my frustrations. We got money back in, but we have

to get some semblance of order. And one idea that I’m hammering

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on in my district as well as elsewhere is that we need to get the

kids involved. Most of these schools have a little radio, or at least

announcements, or sometimes even a T.V. station at their high

school. We need some kind of award incentive. Procter & Gamble

wanted to publicize Crest toothpaste, gave the Crest award $15 for

each school district’s most-creative anti-meth ad, and get the kids

thinking of what they can put in their own announcements at their

own school that—how can we integrate the young people in that as

well.

One last question to Sheriff Ariss. You have referenced anhydrous ammonia, and there was a case in your county where 300

people had to be evacuated?

Mr. ARISS. Yes.

Mr. SOUDER. Was there any damage, any residual from that?

What level of endangerment did we get into? Could you describe a

little bit what worked?

Mr. ARISS. I’m going to defer to John, because John Berkeley in

Drug Task Force really took over that effort.

Mr. BERKELEY. That was directly related to a person trying to

transport anhydrous in a propane tank, and it actually ended up

being—the saving grace there was the weather. The weather was

perfect. Had it been a windier day—there ended up being a large

cloud that formed over this little town, and we evacuated it, and

it eventually dispersed.

Of course, the problem with that is inhaling these fumes into

your lungs. It could have been a disaster. If the weather had been

different, as I was told, it would have been much different, even

in a town of 300-and-some.

Mr. BURKE. I have a town that had a similar situation with a

super tank, and they put it in town, which was a big mistake.

Mr. BERKELEY. That is exactly what this is, and it is exactly

what——

Mr. BURKE [continuing]. It could have obliterated 700 people. But

I tried to figure out from that story where the danger points are.

The wind is one, concentration.

Mr. BERKELEY. The one thing that was a danger, though, was

the fire—volunteer fire lieutenant, and he got there very quickly

and got it shut off. That was one extreme. What it did do was, it

finally made them put a fence around this facility, which we had

tried to get done for some time. And that effectively, along with an

alarm system, stopped the entries in there. But it could have been

catastrophic. No question.

Mr. SOUDER. OK. Anything anyone else wants to add?

Mr. GRANDEY. Along that line, in my written remarks I mentioned this—one of my biggest fears is, especially with the local

land, and it is going to happen, it is just a matter of time—but one

of my biggest fears is that we are going to have a rear-end collision.

And because of the chemicals being used and the volatile nature

of those, either from the explosion or from leaking from the anhydrous, we are going to have a major catastrophe in one of these

smaller communities. And it scares me to think about what could

happen.

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When I prosecuted a case where four guys were manufacturing

in the lab and it blew up, when you think about the force of that

explosion, and you put it in a downtown residential area, it is catastrophic.

Mr. SOUDER. I have sort of a variation of that story, that Nick

and I were up in a small town in Washington, and that one of the

most famous pre-September 11th cases was the LAX bomber that

was taken down, who was going to blow up LAX Airport, and had

come all the way across Canada and had crossed at this little ferry

post. And the local Customs people wound up detaining the person,

getting into the trunk, thought they had a meth lab in the car that

we are talking about. It turned out that they turned in this stuff

to the local police department and it was nitroglycerin, enough to

take out the entire LAX airport.

So the danger with all that kind of stuff is just—it is a different

world than when we were young.

Anybody have anything else? Thank you very much for your participation. Appreciate your time. We have a bipartisan effort going

on in Washington right now and we’re going to push this, and this

is something the local people know. And we are trying to respond.

Thank you very much for your testimony.

[Whereupon, the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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