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29–579 PDF 2006

THE NATIONAL DRUG CONTROL BUDGET FOR

FISCAL YEAR 2007

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

SECOND SESSION

FEBRUARY 16, 2006

Serial No. 109–168

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

JON C. PORTER, Nevada

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio

——— ———

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)

DAVID MARIN, Staff 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

MARC WHEAT, Staff Director

NICHOLAS COLEMAN, Professional Staff Member and Counsel

MALIA HOLST, Clerk

TONY HAYWOOD, Minority Counsel

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on February 16, 2006 ....................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Walters, John P., Director, Office of National Drug Control Policy, Executive Office of the President ........................................................................... 13

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

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

of Indiana, prepared statement of ............................................................... 5

Walters, John P., Director, Office of National Drug Control Policy, Executive Office of the President, prepared statement of ................................... 17

(1)

THE NATIONAL DRUG CONTROL BUDGET FOR

FISCAL YEAR 2007

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2006

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE, DRUG POLICY,

AND HUMAN RESOURCES,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:03 p.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mark Souder (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Souder, McHenry, Mica, Foxx,

Cummings, Davis, and Norton.

Staff present: Marc Wheat, staff director and chief counsel; Nicholas Coleman and Dennis Kilcoyne, professional staff members and

counsels; Malia Holst, clerk; Tony Haywood, minority counsel; and

Teresa Coufal, minority assistant clerk.

Mr. SOUDER. The subcommittee will come to order. Good afternoon. Thank you for coming.

I should note at the beginning here how pleased we are that the

President’s personal commitment to roll back the scourge of drug

abuse in this country is indicated by his four references to it in the

State of the Union address. As he stated, we have seen a 19-percent decline in reported drug abuse among the Nation’s high school

students since he took office, and this can certainly be traced, to

no small extent, to the drug control commitment of Congress and

the President over years of diligent work.

Leading the administration’s drug control effort is the Office of

National Drug Control Policy [ONDCP]. Congress created this office to act as the President’s principal advisor on drug control policy and program oversight and to lead the Nation’s effort to combat

the use, production, and distribution of illegal drugs and all their

negative consequences.

However, we Members of Congress find ourselves growing increasingly alarmed with some of the proposals for drug control

made by the President’s appointees and sanctioned by ONDCP.

The administration’s just-released budget request for drug control

has only fueled our fears.

To begin, we are deeply disturbed and surprised that the budget

proposal categorizes drug control as a ‘‘non-Homeland Security’’

mission. This flatly contradicts the statute that established the Department of Homeland Security. Did the ONDCP see this coming?

And did they fight it?

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We just had another discussion in the Speaker’s office about this

potentially devastating change in budgeting because this could impact us far beyond in how we count the drug budget.

Next, what are we to make of the substantial reductions in assistance to State and local law enforcement agencies? The administration proposes the complete elimination of the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant program, which sustains vital drug

investigations at the State and local level. The President’s appointees also seek the elimination of the Counterdrug Technology

Assessment Center’s [CTAC] Technology Transfer Program, which

helps to develop cutting-edge technologies for State and local law

enforcement. And they propose to set in motion a radical, yet mostly undefined restructuring of the High Intensity Drug Trafficking

Areas [HIDTA] program into an apparently more Federalized, topdown program controlled by Washington.

At first glance, these proposals seem to simply reflect a proper

concern with excessive Federal subsidization of local law enforcement. But while pursuing this national drug control strategy, can

we forget that it is the State and local agencies that make 95 percent of all drug arrests and provide indispensable access to intelligence, investigative leads, and resources that Federal agencies

simply must have? If the administration seeks to continue the positive trends in drug control, is this the time to be scaling back aid

to and cooperation with State and local law enforcement?

We are especially puzzled, too, by the administration’s lack of a

strategy to combat the abuse of methamphetamine. Though we

were encouraged by the administration’s release of a Synthetic

Drugs Action Plan in October 2004, followed by an interim report

in April 2005, we are still waiting for a final report with concrete

recommendations. Why is this? And why did the administration

provide no help to Congress when it was considering the Combat

Methamphetamine Epidemic Act that is now a part of the PATRIOT Act? In fact, the State Department tried to knock out critical parts of this bill, while the New York Times reported that the

FDA was working behind the scenes to block it.

Why did the Department of Health and Human Services, even as

Congress was drafting the anti-meth bill, provide money and personnel to a meth conference where a keynote address was entitled,

‘‘We Don’t Need a ‘War’ on Methamphetamine?’’ And why, if stopping meth is a serious goal, is the administration attacking programs like the Byrne grants and HIDTA? Are we wrong to be dissatisfied? Shouldn’t we expect a broader and more effective antimeth strategy than that?

Next, we have serious questions about the administration’s real

commitment to drug use prevention programs. ONDCP’s just-released ‘‘National Drug Control Strategy’’ again lists prevention—

stopping abuse before it starts—as one of these pillars of drug control, together with treatment and enforcement. Yet the administration’s budget requests even fewer dollars for prevention than last

year.

For instance, the budget request calls for the outright elimination of the State grants portion of the Safe and Drug-Free

Schools program, which is the largest prevention program we have.

And we know that there have been problems with accountability

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and performance measurement, but ONDCP has never proposed

any reforms or even alternative programs. Why not fire the incumbent bureaucrats and reform the program rather than kill the program? Why throw the baby out with the bath water?

ONDCP did propose and implement serious and effective reforms

to the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign over the last few

years. The recent reductions in student drug abuse vindicate those

reforms. Yet every year, this administration has reduced its request for the campaign. This year, the administration is finally

asking for $20 million more than Congress appropriated, but that

only gets us back to where the campaign was 2 years ago. To be

a truly effective national medica campaign, it must be national in

scope. That requires more than just administrative reform; it requires adequate funding. Where are the dollars for that in this

budget?

Other prevention programs—including the Drug-Free Communities program—are also flat-lined or cut in this budget. How can

the administration claim prevention is one-third of its drug control

strategy when prevention programs constitute merely one-tenth of

its drug control budget? While the raw dollar amount is not the

sole measure of commitment, when it gets that low, shouldn’t we

worry?

Perhaps the most alarming problem is in the area of transit zone

interdiction assets. This is especially true of Maritime Patrol Aircraft [MPA]. Among these, the most important are the P–3 airplanes, which have high operational capabilities and a broad array

of sensors used in detecting and tracking drug smugglers. These

aircraft are old and need repair. The Defense Department has already pulled its P–3s from drug interdiction use, leaving only the

Customs and Border Protection P–3s in the ‘‘transit zone.’’ Those

Customs and Border Protection airplanes won’t be able to carry out

this mission indefinitely without either an overhaul or a replacement aircraft.

So why, then, does the administration propose to terminate the

service life extension program, mandated by Congress for the P–3s,

and spend all of the CBP Air’s procurement funds on the small helicopters for the Border Patrol? These helicopters may be fine for

nabbing illegal immigrants, but how can they replace the P–3s over

the open water in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific?

In fact, the only MPA improvements we see in the proposed

budget are for the Coast Guard’s C–130’s, which even the Coast

Guard says cannot do the same job as the P–3s. In short, where

is the plan to repair or replace the P–3s? Within a few years, won’t

we be blind at sea when trying to find the drug traffickers?

I have worked on the drug issue long enough to have witnessed

what happens with drug abuse when the commitment to prevent

it flags. This is the kind of effort that requires staying relentlessly

on the offensive. This means no relaxing of our efforts when certain

trends are positive and no passivity in the face of pressure to divert

funds and assets to other priorities or agencies. In short, while we

have seen some progress in recent years, we cannot help but be

concerned that the progress we see may have plateaued on top of

a disintegrating anti-drug infrastructure. Atrophy seems to be setting in, and when drug use begins to spike again, will the Federal

4

Government be able to punch back? Based on funding and leadership decisions being made today, how can we not be concerned?

These are serious questions that Congress needs to ask as it

starts to work on the annual appropriations bills. I would like to

thank ONDCP Director John Walters for joining us once again

today to help answer these questions. I am looking forward to your

testimony and to an extended discussion of drug control issues

today.

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

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Mr. SOUDER. I would also like here in my opening statement to

pay special tribute to Nick Coleman. Today is the last day that

Nick will be on our staff. He has been counsel to the subcommittee.

Monday morning he starts work as Assistant U.S. Attorney for the

District of Columbia. Nick started working for the subcommittee in

the summer of 2001, about a year and a half before Director Walters was confirmed as head of the White House Office of National

Drug Control Policy. In his tenure for the subcommittee, he was responsible for a path-breaking report, ‘‘Federal Law Enforcement at

the Borders and Ports of Entry: Challenges and Solutions,’’ the first

type of report like this that was ever done in Government Reform,

and certainly out of our subcommittee. It is still used as an oversight checklist for making improvements on border security.

His legislative accomplishments include the reauthorization legislation for ONDCP in this Congress, which is finally starting to

move, and the prior Congress, as well as the Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act, which we expect will become law next month

as Congress comes back. It looks like it is going to move through

the Senate this week as part of the PATRIOT Act reauthorization.

Nick’s advice and imaginative solutions to difficult problems have

been a great help to me and my colleagues, and we are grateful for

his nearly 5 years of service, and we all wish him well as he continues in a position of trust and public service.

Thank you very much.

Mr. Cummings.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I want to

start off by thanking Nick Coleman for his service. We who sit in

the Congress so often are the ones who get our names written in

the Washington Post and we are the ones on Fox and CNN. But

it is people like Nick that make us look good. But, more importantly, it is people like Nick who provide us with the kind of information and thoughts and ideas to do the things that we do. And

so it is interesting to note, Mr. Chairman, that he now moves on

to another high calling, being as an attorney, I think one of the finest things and most important things an attorney can do is serve

as an Assistant U.S. Attorney. A very important job, only the best

of the best qualify, so I congratulate you and I thank you.

Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding today’s hearing to examine

the President’s proposed drug budget for fiscal year 2007 and the

2006 National Drug Control Strategy. This hearing provides an important opportunity to hear from the Director of the National Drug

Control Policy and the President’s principal advisor on drug policy

matters concerning the rationale behind the President’s budgetary

decisions in this very critical area.

As we speak, drug abuse remains the Nation’s No. 1 health problem, and the destructive impact of drug use, addiction, and a violent illegal drug economy continues to be felt in neighborhoods and

schools throughout our Nation.

Again, we face the prospect of more than 20,000 American lives

being taken by illegal drugs. Over the past year, the explosive

growth of methamphetamine has captured national attention as

the destructive impact of this devastating drug takes its toll on

abusers, families of abusers, the social fabric of communities where

it is used and manufactured, the land and property destroyed by

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clandestine meth labs, and the law enforcement and social service

agencies forced to grapple with these consequences.

Meanwhile, in cities like my own of Baltimore, more traditional

killers like heroin and crack cocaine continue to stifle potential,

steal lives, and erode the quality of life for entire communities.

The President’s 2006 strategy hails significant declines in overall

drug use by youth, as reported by the University of Michigan’s

Monitoring the Future survey. This is very encouraging news for

which the administration is entitled to accept some credit. But we

need to consider this sliver of progress in context.

First of all, what the overall decrease reflects is a reduction in

the use of marijuana, the most widely used drug of abuse among

youth and adults. Use of other more harmful drugs by both youth

and adults has remained constant and in some cases has increased.

Looking at the bigger picture, the Substance Abuse and Mental

Health Services Administration’s National Survey on Drug Use and

Health indicates that in the year 2004, an estimated 19.1 million

Americans age 12 or older were current illicit drug users, meaning

they had used an illicit drug during the month prior to the survey

interview. This estimate represents 7.9 percent of the population

age 12 years old or older. The overall rate of current illicit drug use

among persons age 12 or older in 2004 was similar to the rate in

2003 and 2002.

Among young adults between the ages of 18 and 25, there were

no changes in past month use of any drugs between 2003 and 2004,

although there were slight declines between 2002 and 2004 for

marijuana and hallucinogenics.

For adults age 26 and older, rates of lifetime, past year, and past

month illicit drug use for adults age 26 or older were unchanged

between 2003 and 2004. Clearly, more progress needs to be made,

and our National Drug Control Strategy should focus squarely on

making that progress.

We continue to be faced with a shameful gap between the number of people needing and seeking treatment and the number of

people receiving treatment. SAMHSA tells us that in 2003 the estimated number of persons age 12 or older needing treatment for an

alcohol or illicit drug problem was 22.2 million, 9.3 percent of our

total population. An estimated 1.9 million of these people, 8.8 percent of the total population and 8.5 percent of the people who needed treatment, received treatment at a specialty facility. Thus, there

were 20.3 million persons who needed but did not receive treatment at a specialty substance abuse facility in 2003.

As we approach the important task of ensuring that there is adequate Federal support for programs to reduce illegal drug use and

the myriad social and economic problems that stem from it, I think

it is safe to say that we again have our work cut out for us. Unfortunately, Mr. Chairman, the budget we are considering today does

not make the task any easier.

The President last week presented to Congress a budget that

continues a disappointing and accelerating trend toward decreased

emphasis on domestic demand reduction and law enforcement efforts as compared to supply reduction efforts and beyond our borders. This is not what we were led to expect from this administration. It is what the drug czar assured us would not happen on his

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watch when as a nominee he responded to the concerns about this

commitment to demand reduction.

In 2002, President Bush issued his administration’s first National Drug Control Strategy, citing it as a blueprint for a ‘‘balanced’’ approach to drug control. The three pillars of stopping drug

use before it starts, healing America’s drug users, and disrupting

the market for illegal drugs were cast as co-equal elements of a

comprehensive strategy that emphasized accountability and proven

performance. The 2006 strategy repeats this mantra.

But looking back over the past several years, and especially since

the President’s re-election in 2004, the administration’s use of the

language ‘‘a balance’’ has taken on more the hollow ring of lip service than the tenor of conviction.

In fiscal year 2001, the Federal Government spent 47 percent

and 53 percent for demand reduction and supply reduction, respectively. The President’s request for fiscal year 2006 proposed just 39

percent for demand reduction and 61 percent for supply reduction.

In the coming fiscal year, the President proposes to devote merely

35.5 percent to demand reduction and 64.5 percent to supply reduction.

If the President’s budget is enacted, approximately 11 percent of

the fiscal year 2007 drug budget will support prevention programs—a 2-percent decline from the fiscal year 2006 enacted level.

To make matters worse, it is not at all clear that the President’s

budget decisions have been driven by evidence of program effectiveness. Instead, it appears this administration simply has a pronounced and increasing bias in favor of fighting the drug war primarily through supply reduction efforts, and even highly effective

domestic enforcement programs like the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas program are targeted for decreases, if not extinction.

The unfortunate reality is that the President’s budget request

will again force Congress to make some very difficult choices. Last

year, Congress largely rejected the President’s proposed decimation

of the Safe and Drug-Free Schools State grants and Byrne Justice

Assistance grants and COPS Meth Hot Spots as well as the vexing

decision to cut HIDTA by more than half and move it to the Justice

Department where it would face an uncertain future. But restoring

funding for those programs meant cutting other programs, including the drug court program, which is one that I strongly support.

The administration’s less than vigorous advocacy for ONDCP’s

National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign meant that program,

too, lost funding, despite its supposedly strategic location in the Office of the Drug Czar.

Mr. Chairman, I think it is absolutely vital that we fortify and

not diminish our commitment to expanding our children’s exposure

to effective drug prevention and education in school, in the community, and in the media. It is equally vital that we support initiatives to close the persistent treatment gaps that I described just a

moment ago. We know from numerous studies that treatment is effective in reducing not just drug consumption but also associated

joblessness, property crime violence, illness, and risky health behaviors—precisely the things that cause individual lives to crumble

and the fabric of entire communities to unravel.

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Regrettably, I have to say that I believe the President’s efforts

to date have focused more on expanding the range of providers who

can provide treatment than on ensuring that treatment is available

for all who need and seek it. The administration stresses the importance of consumer choice with its voucher initiative, but without

access, there can be no choice other than to feed an untreated addiction.

It is apparent now that we have failed to provide sufficient support for programs that will bring the benefits of treatment to individuals and communities in need. When we consider that SAMHSA

data shows no change between 2002 and 2004 in the number of

persons classified as drug-dependent or in the percentage of the

population receiving substance abuse treatment, I think we have to

conclude that we need to do better. I regret to say that it is far

from clear to me that the President’s budget proposal puts us on

a better course.

That said, today’s hearing, Mr. Chairman, gives us an important

opportunity to hear directly from the President’s principal advisor

for drug policy matters. It is important that we understand both

the rationale and the ramifications of the President’s budgetary decisions before determining whether to enact the President’s drug

control budget. The 2006 strategy for the first time claims that

supply reduction efforts have forced the purity of South American

cocaine to drop while the price has increased. If this is true and

if the administration is correct in hailing this is the beginning of

a long-term trend, then there may be something to be said for continuing our international counternarcotics investment, although

not at the expense of reducing domestic demand. In any case, this

is an important claim that we should examine closely and very

carefully.

To close, Mr. Chairman, it will be up to the appropriators in the

House and Senate to make the final decision on what drug programs are funded and at what level. But as members of the only

subcommittee in the House with plenary oversight jurisdiction of

the Federal drug control policy and agencies, we have an important

role to play in making sure that the ramifications of the President’s

proposal are well understood.

I commend you for the proactive approach you have taken in

leading this subcommittee in that effort, and I pledge to continue

working with you on a bipartisan basis to help ensure our Nation’s

drug control policy adequately and effectively addresses the needs

of this great Nation.

And with that, Mr. Chairman, I thank you and I yield back.

Mr. SOUDER. Congresswoman Foxx.

Ms. FOXX. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you for

holding the hearing and for your strong dedication to reducing drug

use in our country.

We are quite concerned with drug use, especially methamphetamine, in the 5th District in North Carolina, and I share the concerns you expressed in your opening statement. I look forward to

learning more in this hearing and future meetings as to how we

can effectively reduce the incidence of illegal drug use.

Thank you.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you.

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Mr. Davis.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and let me also

express appreciation to you for holding this hearing. I also want to

commend both you and Mr. Cummings for the tremendous leadership that you both provide in this direction.

Also, I was pleased to look at the priorities for the coming year

relative to stopping drug use before it starts through education and

community action, healing America’s drug users by getting treatment resources where they are needed, and disrupting the market

for illegal drugs by attacking the economic bases of the drug trade.

I am particularly interested in priority No. 2 as I have been engaged a great deal with the number of people who believe that if

we could provide treatment for individuals when they need it, when

they indicate that they are ready for it, when they are desirous of

having it, that this is the most desirous and most effective form of

treatment that there is. So I look forward as we continue to push

for what I call treatment on demand, which really means that resources must be made available so that individuals don’t have to

go through long periods of waiting, so that there is not the unavailability of programs and beds.

I also want to commend you, Director, for the proactive stance

that you have taken. I know that I have come into contact with you

in many places throughout the country, and you are indeed carrying the message, and I look forward to this hearing and a very productive year of fighting the spread of drugs in our country and

throughout the world.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you.

Mr. Mica, do you have any opening statement?

Mr. MICA. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for

holding this hearing to review some of the proposals from the administration and the Director of the Office of Drug Control Policy.

I have reviewed a number of the proposed changes, and some of

them sort of a continuation of trying to eliminate some of the bureaucracy, the duplication, the administrative costs and overhead

in some of these programs, which I think is a very worthwhile endeavor by the Director. Sometimes these are not popular, and when

you have done things for years in sort of a rote manner, everyone

gets accustomed to them and a lot of feathers get ruffled and people have questions.

I do have some questions about some of the proposed changes.

I think this will be a good opportunity to air them. I think the Director has done an outstanding job in finding new approaches, and

many of them, as you could see just from the statistics, have been

successful, and he is to be commended in that regard.

I continue to be concerned about our ability to change programs

to deal with changing times and the changing new challenges that

substance abuse unfortunately we find change from designer

drugs—heroin, crack, meth—to whatever the next challenge is, and

we have to stay ahead of that.

So I look forward to his testimony and his comments on the specifics he proposes.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr McHenry.

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Mr. MCHENRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding these

hearings. I certainly appreciate it. And I appreciate the drug czar

being here.

You know, I think the key from my district is early warning and

detection of rising trends. That will help in combating the widespread use of drugs among certain populations and in certain regions and identify the new trends among drugs.

The meth epidemic has been one of the largest issues that I am

dealing with in my district in western North Carolina, and the

spread of meth from the West all the way to western North Carolina is a very large cause for concern both in terms of the health

risks to society at large and to law enforcement agents that are trying to bust these meth labs, to the cost to communities, to the overall impact on the lives of those addicts. And so, you know, I think

there are a number of pilot programs that you spoke about last

year. I would like to hear the ongoing status of that, and I look forward to your comments on that, because we have an opportunity

here to clamp down on this meth epidemic early. And we made

huge blunders in the past, going to past decades, on new drugs

that were created, and the Federal Government did not react fast

enough, did not enable law enforcement to root out the growing

epidemic; and instead of catching it at the beginning, we are now

paying a price, an ongoing price, as a Government and as a people.

And so I certainly appreciate you being here. I look forward to

your comments, and I appreciate your leadership and hard work to

protect our families, our children, and our country.

Thank you.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you.

I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative

days to submit written statements and questions for the hearing

record and that any answers to written questions provided by the

witness also be included in the record. Without objection, it is so

ordered.

I also ask unanimous consent that all exhibits, documents, and

other materials referred to by Members and the 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.

Our first and only panel today is composed of the Honorable

John Walters, Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Director Walters, would you please stand for the oath?

[Witness sworn.]

Mr. SOUDER. Once again, thank you for coming today. I appreciate our ongoing dialog, this being the most formal part of the ongoing dialog, and I look forward to hearing your testimony.

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN P. WALTERS, DIRECTOR, OFFICE

OF NATIONAL DRUG CONTROL POLICY, EXECUTIVE OFFICE

OF THE PRESIDENT

Mr. WALTERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member

Cummings, Mr. Davis, Ms. Foxx, Mr. Mica, and Mr. McHenry. I

appreciate your comments.

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If there isn’t any objection, I will ask that my prepared statement be put in the record, I will offer a brief summary, and then

I will be happy to take your questions and touch on some of the

subjects that you raised in opening comments.

I am obviously pleased to be before you today in support of the

fiscal year 2007 national drug control budget and the 2006 strategy. I appreciate this committee’s longstanding support for the

President’s National Drug Control Strategy, and I am pleased to

report to you today that through our work together, we have seen

a 19-percent reduction in teenage drug use since the year 2000. As

you know, the way drug use, the way substance abuse of all types

start in this country is with our kids. If we maintain reductions in

that area, the path toward addiction will be less, and we are trying

in this strategy to address both prevention and treatment, as I will

touch on.

With Congress’ support, the President’s fiscal year 2007 drug

budget and its key programs, such as the National Youth AntiDrug Media Campaign and the Andean Counterdrug Initiative, the

President’s 5-year goal of reducing youth drug use 25 percent we

believe can be accomplished. Again, my written testimony discusses

many of these programs in detail. Let me just offer an overview of

the budget and just several points.

The President’s fiscal year 2007 budget provides significant resources for overall reductions in use. In total, the drug budget for

the 2007 fiscal year is $12.7 billion, an increase of $109.1 million,

or 1 percent, over fiscal year 2006 enacted. That is the enacted

level of $12.5 billion.

In a time when we are trying to control domestic spending to

maintain economic growth, where most of the programs are lodged

is in domestic discretionary spending, as you know, in this budget

we have increased our level and maintained effective programs, we

believe, in the proposals that we have made.

The budget highlights I would concentrate on are programs that

we know work in the budgets of the Departments of Health and

Human Services, Education, Justice, and ONDCP.

The Department of Health and Human Services proposes $98.2

million for the Access to Recovery program, to level-fund that program but to extend its capability to help reform the treatment system to reach more people. I agree with Ranking Member

Cummings. The problem we have is we need to reach more people,

and part of that is not just when they want to come, but because

we know that substance abuse involves a disease that includes denial, we need to help to reach them, and we have tried to have a

number of efforts to do that as well.

This budget will also continue research on methamphetamine addiction by proposing $41.6 million in the National Institute on

Drug Abuse to develop ways to better treat methamphetamine addiction.

We will be giving youth another way to say no to drugs as well.

The Department of Education proposes $15 million for student

drug testing, a $4.6 million increase over the fiscal year 2006 level.

As this committee knows, this is a measure which cannot be used

to punish, must be used to help get those who are found beginning

their drug use to stop and to get those who have serious problems

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with substance abuse the treatment they need in a confidential

manner. It allows us to use the public health measures that have

changed the face of childhood disease in many other dimensions

and bring them to this disease.

According to a study done by the National Institute of Justice,

within 1 year of drug court graduation, only 16.4 percent of drug

court graduates have been rearrested or charged with a felony offense. We are proposing to increase that program. We are disappointed that Congress has not met the request for the last several years. We believe it is the right thing to do. Many jurisdictions

do. Drug courts are growing dramatically. They need to grow more.

The need is greater than the capacity here. It is an important adjunct to what we are doing on treatment and law enforcement. At ONDCP, the budget, as was pointed out, proposes $120 mil- lion for the Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign. It increases $21

million over the fiscal year 2006 funding level. Chairman Souder

and this committee have been very supportive of the campaign, and

I look forward to working with you that this year we make sure

the campaign gets the money requested.

Funding for supply reduction in the Departments of Homeland

Security, Justice, State, Treasury, and Defense will support operations targeted on the economic basis of the drug trade, domestic

and international sources of illegal drugs, and trafficking groups to

and within the United States. The drug control budget remains

committed to our allies in the Western Hemisphere. The State Department proposes $721.5 million for the Andean Counterdrug Initiative. The State Department also proposes $297.4 million for providing Afghan counterdrug support. This is an increase of $151.7

million to assist Afghanistan by supporting drug enforcement and

interdiction programs, public diplomacy, drug demand reduction,

and drug control capacity building in their judicial sector.

Drug traffickers are finding new ways to bring products to our

country, and we must also try to stop those. The Department of

Homeland Security has announced the Secure Border Initiative. A

part of that proposal, $152.4 million for Custom and Border Protection, will be a part of our drug control effort.

We have also made one change referred to in your opening remarks in the budget. We proposed the movement of the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program this year again to the Department of Justice. We have maintained funding at the base level

of the program. The program remains as is, and recently the Attorney General and myself sent a letter to the chairman stating our

intention to maintain the structure of the program as it currently

exists. But, again, we believe it can be more effectively integrated

into our overall law enforcement efforts by being in a law enforcement agency and better integrate, not denigrate, the cooperation

between State and local law enforcement.

In conclusion, I would like to take an opportunity to do something we do not do enough in Government, and that is to thank the

people who are our partners, who actually are the ones who do the

work in this area. There are a few of them here today. I would like

to recognize one who is not here, Judge Karen Freeman-Wilson,

who is chief executive officer of the National Association of Drug

Court Professionals. She had intended to be here but has been hosVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:40 Dec 21, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00019 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\29579.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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pitalized, and I am sure that all of our thoughts and prayers go for

her quick recovery. But she has been a dynamic leader in helping

to train and expand the reach of drug courts.

I would also like to recognize who is here: Carrie Garnett, executive director of the Drug-Free Community Coalition, One Voice for

Volusia County. Carrie’s coalition is also featured in this year’s

Drug Control Strategy; also, Dr. Jennifer Smith, Program Director

for the Illinois Screening Brief Inventory and Referral to Treatment program; Christina Steffner, principal of Hackettown High

School and a recipient of the student drug-testing grant; Charles

Garland, Acting U.S. Interdiction Coordinator; and Roy Bostock of

the Partnership for Drug-Free America. He wasn’t able to make it

today, but Kristi Rowe of PDFA is here with us, of course, our private sector partner in the Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign.

These are a small number of the people and the people that they

lead and work with who help fewer kids use drugs, help take those

who are involved and get them back into a healthier life, and to

take those who have suffered or those who wish to victimize others

and stop them. I don’t do that. Most of us in Washington don’t do

that. The best we can do is to be good partners in helping them

do their job better, and I wanted to recognize them because they

are the face behind the budget, behind the policy, behind the forces

that are making this country safer and our children safer. On behalf of the many people they represent, I thought it would be important, and I am sure you join me in thanking them and recognizing that they are the backbone of where we are going to go from

here. But we could not ask for better partners.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be happy to take questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Walters follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Thank you, and we certainly do agree with honoring and respecting both the individuals here and them as representatives of the whole groups of people in similar communities

and organizations, because it is at the front lines where the battle

is occurring, just like in the war on terrorism and everything else.

It is a battle, block by block, street by street, person by person. It

is not some kind of hypothetical. We may provide some air cover,

but it has to be won heart by heart, and thank you all for your efforts.

What I think I would like to do that is a little different is clearly,

depending on the questioning today, I want to do some extended

detailed questioning on HIDTA, but we have been arguing about

the HIDTA change and, quite frankly, my understanding is it is

still absolutely 100 percent unanimous that every HIDTA director

opposes this. At a press conference the other day, I think six or

seven U.S. Senators said it will not happen, including Senators

Hatch and DeWine and Biden. In the House, the key players on

both sides have said it is not going to happen. I would like to probe

it further, but I basically view that as a dead deal and an unnecessary war that has been brought on by the administration. Instead

of helping, it is getting the anti-drug community counter being able

to work together.

But I have a couple of particular questions. I would like to group

these. I raise some in the broader sense, but I would like to hear

your response at the beginning here, and then we can move

through. And if you want to just take like a note reminder of each

one—honestly this is not a suck-up point. You have a brilliant

memory, and you can do fine in here. But I am going to come at

a couple of them that one or two may be a little bit of a curve.

Mr. WALTERS. Short-term memory, you know what that is a sign

of, but go ahead.

Mr. SOUDER. In prevention, which is one of your pillars, this is

the 5th straight year you have certified funding as a decline, and

it is the only area in the entire drug budget that has been a decline. If you could address that question.

The second one relates to—you mentioned Mr. Garland, the acting USIC coordinator. How much of ONDCP’s budget request

would go toward the USIC position? And what does it pay for? That

is a more technical question.

A third more technical question is: We were very disturbed, as

we are trying to move the ONDCP reauthorization bill, that based

on contacts, it is our understanding that you had supported the

Dawson Family Community Protection Act that Mr. Cummings introduced and I have sponsored with him and that all indications

are you had expressed support, yet your staff told another congressional committee that you oppose that provision or have concerns

about it, and I wonder if you still support that provision and would

withdraw that opposition to specifically the Judiciary Committee.

And then, fourth—and I am just baffled about where that came

from, that the fourth thing is that in the Homeland Security, we

were blindsided with this huge category change. Chairman Lungren, myself, Republicans and Democrats are furious, as is the

leadership, because this—doesn’t this affect the Coast Guard—that

is what we first thought—but taking the narcotics outside of the

35

Homeland Security mission, which is in direct contradiction to the

law creating Homeland Security. It was an organic definition that

narcotics were a part of Homeland Security. It separates out the

part of the budget and in the out-years the budget for Homeland

Security goes up and for non-Homeland Security things in the

Coast Guard and elsewhere goes down.

Did you certify that? Who proposed this change? Did your staff

review this? Have you looked at the Coast Guard interdiction budget? How does this work in the different agencies? Because you are

supposed to be our protector. It shouldn’t be caught in doing some

staff oversight, and I would like to know what you know about the

track history and also your office’s response to that.

So I think that was four good start questions.

Mr. WALTERS. I will take them in order. Let me start with the

general premise. Maybe we have a different view of what I am supposed to do. You are the authorizers. I actually have to try to carry

that out. I do not view my job as being a defender of dollars. I am

defending results, and I try to apply dollars against where I think

we can get results. And obviously we all want to use dollars effectively. In some of these areas, we do not have a good and effective

vehicle, and so then it is my job to make the tough decision about

where we can provide dollars. I also have to make judgments, as

well as other parts of the executive branch, about what dollars we

actually think we can get. In a tight budget environment, we are

trying to propose things that we think are reasonable and we have

a reasonable likelihood of being able to secure. We have not always

been successful in critical areas, as you know as well as I. And so

we are trying to also be prudent in where we act within some level

of judgment.

On overall prevention, again, if all you want to look at is the investigation we are making work, I will point out that not in a decade has teenage drug use gone down as much as it has in the last

4 years. The only thing that matters in my judgment is: Is the drug

problem getting smaller in the United States? Twice the budget

that has things going level or up is a waste, no matter how well

intentioned it is. And if we can do it more efficiently, I will do it

more efficiently.

Now, I am aware we cannot make bricks without straw, but,

again, I would point out that I think anybody who has worked at

this for a long period of time—Mr. Cummings referred to the initial

signs we are seeing of the availability of heroin and cocaine in the

United States, the first time in many, many years, constricting. We

talked about teenage drug use. We obviously need to work on the

area of treatment of addicts and levels of adult drug use.

But I think if you look across the board and look at the forest,

it has been a long time since as many indicators on supply and demand have been going in the right direction. I fully agree with the

statements that several of you made. Our problem is followthrough. We need to be able to follow through. But if we are going

to be able to follow through in this environment, where we are not

going to have unlimited discretionary spending, we must make

hard choices.

Now, we will disagree on some of those. I regret that sometimes

the disagreement with us and people on the outside seems to sugVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:40 Dec 21, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00039 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\29579.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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gest motive and character flaws. I believe that is not helpful to

anybody. But I will say that the hard part of this is to say what

is working and make an argument for it even when you know people do not want to hear it because you need to try to see if that

argument can begin to have traction. We do not win all arguments,

but I think my job is not to be popular. My job is to try to help

make the drug problem smaller. That is what I understand it to

be. I have no intention of running for office. I have no intention of

being a celebrity after this. I want to go back to my private life.

But while I am here, I am willing to make every tough decision

and be responsible for it. And I do not expect to win every one of

those arguments, but I will not be scared away from making them.

I think the last couple years have shown that, if I needed to.

On the prevention side, we disagree about the Safe and DrugFree Schools program. I have worked with you for a while on this.

I was at the Department of Education during the Reagan administration when the precursor of this program first came into being.

I actually walked the regs through for the first awards of this.

The program has become a very large block grant program that

does many things, some good things some places, some, as you

have pointed out, wasteful and unaccountable things in others. We

have tried to work with other committees of jurisdiction here. We

have tried to work with appropriators. There is not a consensus to

change the ‘‘flexibility,’’ which also creates problems, we think, of

management. In a tight budget environment, I do not believe it

makes the necessary contribution to justify the funding request.

I recognize Congress disagreed with us last year. I recognize it

may disagree with us this year. Its arguments did not convince me

that the program is not in an accountable form, or the administration. We, therefore, called it as we saw it.

We are trying to get this year the money for a program that we

do think works and I know you think works, which is the Youth

Anti-Drug Media Campaign. Unfortunately, the cuts that Congress

made to our request last year and the year before and the year before that and the year before that have this program at a level now

where we cannot do 12-month-a-year programming for parents. We

have to cut out the ads for specific targeted minority groups and

special populations because we do not have the resources to create

and to target that. We are still trying to maintain weight on young

people because it is working, and the evaluation and the consequences of the surveys we see show that those messages are

working and driving down drug use.

We for this year, for the first time, asked for more than Congress

gave us because we think the cuts are extremely unwise and detrimental. I know you have helped try to work on this, and the rest

of your colleagues up here said no. I ask you to make another run

with us at the battle because we need this money.

On the USIC position, I don’t know exactly how many dollars Mr.

Garland gets paid or his permanent successor will get paid. But

part of what we have been able to do in——

Mr. SOUDER. In ONDCP dollars.

Mr. WALTERS. In ONDCP dollars? We have in the past—I will

have to get you the precise number. We have provided some money

37

for some so-called blue force analysts, I believe, that are a part of

that office.

Mr. SOUDER. It is funded through ONDCP?

Mr. WALTERS. No, I don’t—well, again, I want to be clear, and

let me provide a written statement for the record so I do not have

any confusion about this. But as you know, there was an employee

in my office that was double-hatted in the earlier version of this

as the USIC coordinator. We, I believe, continue to pay his salary,

but that was a unique situation of that individual. But we will give

you where the salary comes from and where has come from in detail.

But this is very critical, we believe, to allowing us to continue the

effort to make intelligence and interdiction work. And I don’t think

it is a trivial matter because what you see in the drug strategy is

historic seizures that are helping to change the availability of

drugs on the street. Why does that make a difference? Because

when there are less drugs, more people who have addiction will

seek treatment, seek detoxification. It will be expensive. There is

a barrier to price here as well for people coming into the market.

For heroin and, more importantly, for cocaine that still is ravaging

parts of our country, as I don’t need to tell the members of this

committee, this is a change that we can really hopefully be able to

drive with the unique opportunities we have both in Latin America

and in interdiction technology.

So USIC is an important part of what we do and has provided,

with the other agencies—Homeland Security, Defense, and Justice—unique power to this. Before, it was we don’t really make

much difference, we kind of have a cost of doing business. Today

we break the ability of the business potentially with the followthrough we hope to be able to continue in this program.

I will go back and double-check. It is hard for me to respond

when somebody says they heard somebody else say I said this. I

will be happy to go back and check and see if somebody has, without my knowing it, changed the support for the Dawson Family

Protection Act.

Mr. SOUDER. Actually, there was a memo of four objections to our

ONDCP reauthorization from your office, and it listed this as one

of them.

Mr. WALTERS. OK. I wasn’t aware of this in advance. I will go

back and check, and we will make sure we get this straightened

out.

In terms of the Department of Homeland Security, I will confess

I am not able to tell you whether we have read the law. You have

been more involved in writing the law than I have, but I also am

aware that sometimes Congress and the executive branch have a

different view of how the law is read through, you know, no

knavishness but through some different idea or principle. So I cannot comment on that.

What I can comment on is this budget maintains support for

DHS agencies to make critical contributions, domestic interdiction

and foreign. It will sustain and extend the progress we have made,

in my judgment. It will—and the budgets that are there, no matter

what you classify this part of Homeland Security, those budgets are

38

important and critical, but I believe they will sustain the effort

that we need to have——

Mr. SOUDER. The bottom line is you don’t care where it is classified.

Mr. WALTERS. Well, I care whether we follow the law always,

but——

Mr. SOUDER. Yes, that is——

Mr. WALTERS. But I care most of all——

Mr. SOUDER. You don’t see it as significant that they would pull

it out from Homeland Security.

Mr. WALTERS. I understand that there are expectations of increase in budgets that are categorized Homeland Security. It does

not prevent us from having increases in budgets that are not categorized Homeland Security. I recognize there is an implicit view

that these will be secondary priorities.

But I would say in the budgets that I looked at and worked on

and worked with OMB and Homeland Security on, we made sure

the money for necessary functions is there. And, in addition, I have

met with the CBP Acting Director and the new head of the Air

Wing, and they made commitments to me to maintain at last year’s

level or above. Long-range maritime patrol aircraft is one of the

critical items that I know you are concerned about.

Mr. SOUDER. Before yielding to Mr. Cummings, I just want to

make a couple of brief comments.

First off, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t, on the one hand,

say what we’re doing currently has lowered drug abuse, and then

say that what we are doing currently didn’t lower drug abuse. In

other words, Safe and Drug-Free Schools has continued to be funded in spite of the administration trying to wipe it out. The Byrne

grants continue to be funded in spite of the administration trying

to wipe them out. The HIDTA program didn’t change in spite of the

administration’s efforts to move it, and the Meth Hot Spots program was not wiped out in spite of the administration’s efforts to

do it. Some of the credit, at least some of the credit here—may be

because your budget was rejected, not your budget accepted. We

have a difference of opinion on that, but it is not kind of automatic

evidence that your strategy worked, because we did not follow the

strategy.

The one thing that I will agree on is the National Ad Campaign

did contribute to moving the numbers in the high schools. But so

may have Safe and Drug-Free Schools and everything. The things

work in combination. You just measured the Ad Campaign as one

of the ways to test attitudes, but attitudes are not the only thing

that impacts getting caught. Some law enforcement increase, knowing that they are there, improved treatment programs, what other

things came into the community, changed cultural values. You full

well know from your extensive writings and experience the Ad

Campaign is merely one thing.

Now, to the Ad Campaign, there is not going to be an increase

of funds until you show some flexibility to work with methamphetamine attack. The Congress would have plussed it up. We can’t do

it without some cooperation here. You have heard in opening statements, you have heard repeatedly from Congress, they want to see

a clear methamphetamine strategy, and that includes in the NaVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:40 Dec 21, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00042 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\29579.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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tional Ad Campaign. And your dollars are not going to go up until

you start to reflect a little bit—yes, you are not running for office.

I understand you are not running for office. But you know what?

We are listening to the grass roots and what they are hearing, and

you are not listening to your own grass roots and your own agency

in addition to people who basically had this come up from the grass

roots to us, who are saying, ‘‘We have a problem in our communities. We want you to address it, and we want to see that you understand it, partly in the National Ad Campaign.’’ Marijuana is the

gateway drug. You know that we have worked together in trying

to battle marijuana, but we cannot sustain the National Ad Campaign without some help and some changes here, and it is not because I certainly don’t work for George Soros, these other Members

here don’t work for George Soros. Yes, he does not like the marijuana campaign. I am willing to fight him. But we are not—I am

just telling you flat out. We are not going to make it unless there

are some adjustments in that.

I am also just disappointed, quite frankly, that the creation of

your office was to be an advocate to make sure that we had a stability of understanding the battle in the war on drugs, and that includes when the Department of Homeland Security was created,

they sucked in more people that were critical in that battle—the

Border Patrol, the Customs, the Coast Guard. And unless we are

ever vigilant all the time, they are going to be diverted, just like

the FBI does from time to time, into whatever the current crisis is.

And as I pointed out in my opening statement, if we lose P–3s and

get little helicopters and all of a sudden they are doing immigration stuff, we will pick up some drugs with it, but we are not going

to get the 100-ton loads, we are going to get the backpack loads.

And we are going to get it kind of as an accident of other things

we are doing on the border. And you have to become more engaged

even though it is hard. At the Cabinet table, you are not Chertoff

and you are not Gonzales, and we all understand that. But we created a separate Cabinet position to kind of be the lone complainer

at the table: Remember narcotics? Remember narcotics? You

change this thing, and it could hurt narcotics. That is a big part

of your job, is a bully pulpit, not only outside but inside the administration. And that is some of the frustration on something like the

Department of Homeland Security.

Mr. WALTERS. Let me just respond to two points you raised. On

the Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign and methamphetamine,

while overall teenage drug use is down 19 percent, teenage methamphetamine use is down 36 percent.

Mr. SOUDER. Do you know what we understand? That the methamphetamine problem has never been and is not a youth thing.

That is not an answer.

Mr. WALTERS. Well, then, my only question back to you is, since

you write the authorization for these things, why write an authorization that has the Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign that makes

it limited in what I can do? I have made ads. We have cooperated

and we have released those ads last November, and we are trying

to provide those in more areas.

Second, on the issue of interdiction, yes, believe me, I understand

the need to be vigilant. I understand the tendency for a number of

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things to put—not willful ignorance of this, but just the fact that

there are so many pressures on this—my office exists because we

could not create a Department of Drug Control when this was considered in the late 1980’s. There were too many far-flung agencies

to pull those units out of the Department of Defense or HHS or

Education and put them all into one department.

And so my office operates as a kind of overall management structure like an OMB and a policy organization office for drug control

to make sure that the individual Cabinet offices and agencies make

the parts fit together, even when those parts in their own view of

their own department are not as high a priority as they are for the

overall anti-drug effort.

What I am taking issue with is we have not failed on that. Every

year the number of seizures have hit a new historic level, a significantly higher new historic level, because we have the system working, because people like Mr. Garland, because people like the Coast

Guard Commandant, because people in the Department of Defense

and the Department of Justice are making this work, under difficult conditions, as you know. You have visited some of these sites.

And it is not true, in my judgment—I recognize you may have a

different one—that we have a threat of those assets falling away.

I know there has been a dispute about this, but I also think we

need to sit down and go through that dispute carefully.

Put up the slide about long-range Maritime Patrol Aircraft, because that has been an issue that I have spent a lot of time talking

to Members and others about as a result of the GAO report. That

report, I believe, is somewhat confusing. I won’t say what the cause

of that is.

These are the levels of Maritime Patrol Aircraft. It is true that

the mix of particular kinds of aircraft—C–130’s, P–3s, United Kingdom Nimrods—has changed. The reason it has changed is because,

as you know, with the P–3 we developed an unexpected, in the

Navy P–3s, mechanical problem in the super-structure of the aircraft, which has limited their life. Through a lot of hard work, the

other agencies, including our foreign allies, have supplied additional aircraft to meet that need. That is why we have over 250

metric tons of cocaine that did not get to the streets in the United

States last year through these efforts.

Now, do we have to be vigilant? Are we concerned? Are we

stretched in these environments? If the threat level for homeland

security went up, would we pull P–3s from DHS back to Air Cap

over our major cities? Yes, we would, and that would be the responsible thing to do.

But with the exigencies that we can control, we believe we have

the ability to maintain the effort within the boundaries of both responsible budgeting and responsible drug control. And it is not because people are not paying attention around the Cabinet table.

They are making serious efforts. I meet regularly with my Cabinet

colleagues. I meet regularly with the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security to make sure issues between these

agencies work. I meet regularly both with members of key agencies

of this Government, outside of Washington and inside of Washington, and foreign governments to make sure these work. And a lot

of other people do, too. It is not just me. You and some of your colVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:40 Dec 21, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00044 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\29579.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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leagues have helped to meet with foreign leaders and work with

others to make this work.

All I would urge you is in the effort to try to make sure that it

works and to make sure that we continue with the progress, not

to become so critical of things that are working, because that does

not help those people that do the job.

Mr. SOUDER. With all due respect, don’t make me laugh. With all

due respect, that chart, anybody who goes out in the field—and Mr.

Mica and I have dealt with this for years. What has increasingly

happened here is you on your watch and this administration’s

watch, because we haven’t replaced those assets and because as we

didn’t get new P–3s, as the Defense Department pulled out, we

pushed the cycling up, that doesn’t count down time. It doesn’t

count the extra push what they are telling us on the ground. These

things are going to fall apart. The next President is going to have

a fallen-apart interdiction effort because you haven’t put in the

budgets or pushed in the budgets for a proper replacement pattern

as we age out many time Vietnam era and other type things, and

we have pushed them to the limits. They are dangerous to get up

in. We would not certify them for our regular military. Our drug

guys are stitching this stuff together to try to keep them in the air,

to try to keep these planes working. And you are telling me that

because they have stitched them together, that is a strategy for air

interdiction? And that even then they get out there and they have

to pull back because somebody thinks something may be coming

into a harbor because they are multi-tasked. And then the Department of Homeland Security, furthermore, in this year’s budget is

going to yank those out—which I pointed out in my statement—

that you are putting up in the chart which are already deteriorating type things.

This is just really frustrating. You did give us a suggestion that

maybe we will change the name of the Anti-Drug Youth Campaign

and tie your hands a little bit if we are going to fund this, we will

just—because I just am exasperated. Anyway, I need to yield to Mr.

Cummings.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SOUDER. You responded twice. I had the statement. I need

to yield to Mr. Cummings.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SOUDER. Oh, I am sorry. I thought——

Mr. MICA. May I submit my questions for the record and if the

Director would respond to those.

Mr. SOUDER. Yes.

Mr. MICA. I am not able to stay. And I am sorry to interrupt the

love fest, but I——

Mr. SOUDER. We can laugh.

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you.

Mr. Cummings.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much.

Director, I am glad to have you back, and I just want to ask a

few questions.

Former Representative Bill Gray in a speech not long ago was

talking about the Congressional Black Caucus, and he was sayVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:40 Dec 21, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00045 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\29579.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
42

ing—he said the words, he said, ‘‘You may not win every battle, but

you set the trend.’’ And I have thought about those words quite a

bit, and particularly with some of the things that you have said

just this afternoon when you said that you do not necessarily expect the budget priorities the way you have laid them out necessarily to go into effect, but you are trying to, I guess, set a—

cause, I guess, the Congress to think and maybe at some point we

will drift toward where you are. Is that a fair statement? I mean,

I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but I just——

Mr. WALTERS. Well, I want to be clear. If I could get the budget

in the form it is requested, I would like it in the form it is requested.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I understand that.

Mr. WALTERS. But I respect the obvious prerogative of Congress

and other people that have different views about where we might

put priorities or levels of funding, sure.

Mr. CUMMINGS. And on that level, Mr. Souder and I just the

other day had occasion to go into the Convention Center and to be

with the CADCA people. And I got to tell you that—and I know

Mr. Souder will agree with me. Those are some of the—and I am

sure you agree with me. Those are some of the most caring, courageous, unselfish people that I have ever met. As a matter of fact,

a lot of them took their—came to Washington on their own money

because they simply wanted to make a difference.

I just want you to help explain to us what is happening with the

whole drug-free communities program. There seems to be at least

a reduction, I think, in the funding for the training portion, which

I think makes a lot of sense—I mean, it does not make any sense

to reduce it, but I am just trying to figure out what is the thinking

when we have people who want to—you know, people—as you well

know, people feel so trapped in their neighborhoods and they are

figuring this saying, look, you know, I will volunteer, I will be the

guinea pig, I will go out there, I will put my money on the line,

I will put my efforts on the line; Government, just help me a little

bit, if you could just help me a little bit, we will try to do the rest

because we are Americans, and we believe in the all-American way.

We know Government cannot do everything.

But it just seems to me that those are the kinds of programs—

and I have heard you talk before, and the implication was that,

well, we have—they are nice little programs for us lawmakers, it

makes our constituents feel good. I am not trying to put words in

your mouth, but it is not about that. It is about empowering people

so that they can—you know, they are not asking for the big Government funds. I mean, this is not a lot of money. When you consider all that they do to prevent drugs from coming into, you know,

their neighborhoods and whatever.

And so I just want to know what is the thinking on the DrugFree Communities, what you are doing with that, and how do we

at the same time make sure that we, first of all, encourage folks

to continue to try to take control of their neighborhoods and make

sure that their families stay off of drugs. When we talk about—you

know, there has been this whole issue of morals and they say that

the Democrats lost the election because of morals, immoral concerns and all this kind of thing. But, you know, I am convinced

43

that argument goes to—and Mr. Souder and I saw this when we

dealt with the whole steroid question. People want their children

to grow up in a safe and healthy environment. That is what a lot

of this is all about, I mean, if you really think about it.

So here we have these people who are saying, you know, I am

going to do my part. But are we doing all our part to take some

of their tax dollars and then allow them to do the little things that

they do so that—and those tax dollars, it seems to me that it is a

phenomenal leverage of our tax dollars.

I am just wondering if we—do you believe that in this budget we

are doing all that we can to help them? And if we are not, why

aren’t we?

Mr. WALTERS. Thanks for that. I appreciate your raising this because I think over the last year, one area of painful conflict for me

has been some of the issues around the Safe and Drug-Free Schools

program over the last year.

Let me be clear. I like this program. I support this program. I

supported an earlier version of this program, which we created

when I served in the President’s father’s administration in this office that was modeled on the original grant program by Robert

Wood Johnson, the Fighting Back program. We created the first

version of this that was subsequently made in the current form in

my office.

While I have been here, the President has kept his commitment

to double funding for this program, and we have doubled the number of community coalitions while I have been here to over 700.

On the first part, the issue you made about the institute, yes,

these are $100,000 grants a year, as you know, renewable for up

to 5 years, and individual coalitions can then apply for another 5

years of funding. They are a small amount of money, and it is not

about, I agree with you, whether it helps, you know, as much as—

you know, we are not averse to helping elected officials show that

they are representing their community and bringing people back

part of their tax dollar to help them. That is not what it is about.

It is about the fact that most of the money we spend and you appropriate, of course, goes for treatment and prevention and law enforcement that is done at the local community level. We know that

a balanced strategy is not just something we put in the White

House report. It has to be implemented in communities. And this

allows community leaders to come together, many of which do not

naturally associate. It is not just the police, it is not just the public

health members, it is not just the educators, it is not just the Government officials. It also requires private citizens, and it allows

them a small amount of money to hopefully take the resources that

they are contributing and we are contributing and make them have

maximum effect. That is enormously important, and we are trying

to support that.

On the issue of the institute per se, this was added, as you may

know, a couple years ago as a training feature. The organization

you mentioned said we seek this, we can fund it, and you give us

startup money, and we will get private money and keep it going.

That is not what has happened. The task has been to continue to

fund it and to fund it with another $1 million.

44

Now, is training a beneficial and leverageable thing? Yes. But in this case, remember, what I am making a decision about is $1 million is 10 community coalitions. Now, given the fact that it is started up, there was a commitment to raise private money. I think

there is support here for this. I think that tradeoff is something we

ought to give to 10 more communities. I recognize other people will

differ. I recognize CADCA has a different view. But, again, given

what happened here, I think that makes sense. And it is not detrimental to community coalitions. In fact, it increases the number

of actual coalitions. We fund mentoring coalitions that also help

train other coalitions here. So we are not killing the transmission

of knowledge. We are trying to make it as effective with the dollars

we have.

Again, as you may know—and as I know other members of the

committee do; I have talked to both of you in a separate meeting.

There has been some concern about at the field’s request we moved

the administration of this program from the Department of Justice

Juvenile Justice Office to HHS, the Prevention Office of SAMHSA.

In the course of that, we were asked by SAMHSA to review the existing transferred applications to make sure that they were abiding

by the original grant for the purposes of their taking responsibility

for administration. That was not a chairman review. It was an eligibility review.

In the course of that, of roughly 600 applicants, 62 were found

not to be in compliance and were not continued in their funding.

We have offered, as I have made to both of you, technical assistance to allow them to come back in and compete to be successful.

We are now in the process of again writing each applicant with the

specific reasons why they failed, allow them to come back and comment on that. If we made mistakes in the review process, given the

investment we have made and the good work of people, we will fix

those mistakes.

Nonetheless, there has been a view of some that what I consider

to be good stewardship of public money is outrageous and unacceptable. I don’t think that is true. I regret that there have been those

kinds of feelings formed by people. Again, you have a lot of experience. We have talked about this. A 10-percent failure rate among

grass-roots startups in these kinds of environments is an enormously low failure rate, and we would like it to be zero. And we

will work to provide technical assistance to get all these started up.

But the vigor and the animosity that has been created I regret because I think it creates a fight among the family, and the family

works better when we are all moving ahead.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I just will tell you, I had a chance to meet with

a lot of those folks after we spoke, and, you know, it just—they are

the kind of people who you just want to—you want to hold them

by the hand and say, ‘‘I am going to walk this road with you.’’ And

I guess my biggest fear is that when I think about the money that

we spend for all kinds of stuff—and I am not going to get into all

of that, but we spend a lot of money for a lot of things in this country. And when I have people that are willing to volunteer to deal

with something like drugs—and some of them have programs that

could possibly bring them harm. I mean, just—I mean, when you

start messing with drug reduction—dependency reduction and

45

things of that nature, you start—you can get into some very bad

situations. I guess, for the life of me, if anything, I would be one

trying to make sure that even if CADCA wasn’t able to do what

they said they were going to do in the time when donations from

charitable kind of groups, you know, going down because of Katrina

and probably a whole lot of other things, it just seems to me that

we could step up to the plate a little bit better, that is all.

Let’s talk about methamphetamines. You were just talking to the

chairman, and I think you said that there was a reduction in methamphetamine use among young people? Is that what you said?

Mr. WALTERS. Yes.

Mr. CUMMINGS. One of the things that was so interesting, and

I think Mr. Souder will testify to this, is that when we—a few

years ago, this subcommittee, we didn’t get a whole lot of attention.

People said poor Souder and Mica and Cummings, you know, this

subcommittee that deals with this negative issue, drugs—you

know. And then suddenly methamphetamines came along and we

became the most popular people in town because it was discovered

that methamphetamines are in communities. They are not in the

inner cities, they are on the farm, they are in the Midwest, West

Coast. People who never even thought about us—I am talking

about Members of Congress—now, how can I help you, you know,

can you help me get a methamphetamine bill through, and all this.

I guess my point is, you know, you have a situation where—and

I want you to just talk about this a little bit—the administration

is proposing $25 million for methamphetamine treatment, treatment grants using some kind of voucher system. Is that right?

Mr. WALTERS. It is part of what people can—they can use other

treatment money for methamphetamine treatment. We are trying

to do some targeted initiatives both with NIDA to improve treatment for methamphetamines, but part of the access—the 14 States

and one Native organization that received the 15 first Access to Recovery Treatment Expansion Grants, some of those, like Missouri,

have focused, where they have had methamphetamine problems,

the expansion of capacity on methamphetamine. So there is flexibility here for application. And of course the larger block grant can

be used as needed in States, based on the situation they find themselves in.

Mr. CUMMINGS. And so—but there are a finite set of treatment

approaches, is that right, for methamphetamine?

Mr. WALTERS. Yeah. One other area here—I mean, this is not unlike some of the discussion we saw earlier about crack, that, you

know, it is not treatable. Well, it is treatable. And we have people

that are in recovery, we have courts that are using techniques with

treatment for drug courts here, and we have treatments that work.

Now, it is a horrible drug—there is no more horrible drug—and it

is devastating to people. It is not easy, as it is with other drugs,

including heroin, as you know, and cocaine, crack, and others, to

get off methamphetamine. But it is not true that people have to be

hopeless.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Well, you know, that is one of the things that

concerned me. I mean, all the testimony that we have heard, and

we have heard testimony from a whole lot of folks with regard to

this drug. And I was just thinking, if you give somebody a voucher,

46

you have finite approaches to treatment—and what I know about

the meth addict—I am just wondering, is that a good idea when

these folks—assuming they have troubles making decisions anyway. Do you follow what I am saying? Is it good to just say, OK,

here is a voucher, you go and shop this, I mean, and this guy just—

you have heard some of the things that meth addicts do. I am just

wondering. I mean, what is the thinking behind that?

Mr. WALTERS. I think maybe that is a misimpression that the

word ‘‘voucher’’ has created. This isn’t like ‘‘Here’s a slip, go find

treatment.’’ It gives, essentially, a reimbursement commitment for

an individual, who then can choose the kind of treatment provider.

Most of the States that have implemented this now have a case

manager. I think the goal of the program was both to increase access, but also to allow the support of recovery services.

As you know, recovery is a longer process than just the time you

spend in an inpatient or outpatient treatment situation. And the

success rate of treatment can be based very clearly on can we get

you back into housing, can we get you into education, and other

support services; can we get you in job training, did we get family

support for this? What the program allows is also an expansion of

support and flexibility in that support, but it also usually includes

in the States that have done this a case manager that helps the

individual receiving services to put those services together.

You are right, people are addicted. They are impaired. They have

trouble putting their lives together. In fact, you could say that addiction is about your life falling apart. So what this does, for the

first time, is, in some cases, some States are going to find—are reporting to us—as they put it all together, it gets more expensive.

It is also more effective. And it is more capable of utilizing capacities in the community that are there, that are not frequently

tapped.

So what we see this as doing is allowing people who are addicted

to enjoy the same kind of situation that most Americans receive

their health care under. You get identified as needing services, you

have an insurance company or a provider who is going to provide

services for wherever you are referred suitable for your condition,

and we are going to pay them for the services they provide at a

reasonable rate.

So all this does is—it doesn’t say, in some cases, to an addict, you

have one choice; we’re funding this center here, which may be

doing a great job, but it also may be a long way from where you

are, it may not be the right place for you, there may be other

places that could help you and other services in support of that

place that it would help optimize your recovery. We are trying to

capture what the field has shown us is needed to optimize success

rates and to allow that to be a part of the way we provide funding.

That is why we are excited about what we think is possible here,

not because it is simply trying to fund a certain kind or it has tried

to have people walk around for the sake of saying, oh, we’re for

vouchers, if you like vouchers you will like this. It provides a kind

of reimbursement process that allows case management, follow-on

services, tracking, and the ability then for the maximum application of what we know works.

47

Mr. CUMMINGS. This is my last question, because I know we are

going to get to Mr. Mica.

At the CADCA conference the other day, they had this question

that they wanted answered. And the question was what is the perception on Capitol Hill about treatment effectiveness? And they

wanted to know what is it that they could do to convince the administration that more money was needed for treatment. Understand, a lot of those people probably come in contact with folks who

need treatment and they know—and they, basically, they are the

choir. They see treatment they believe, for the most part, that it

works. They know that people slip back and, you know, they get

that piece. But they are in those communities where they don’t

have always the access to treatment that they need, but yet still

they have to live around this person who is now a ghost of who

they used to be. They are lying, stealing, robbing, and what have

you.

So, I mean, what is your perception of treatment that you believe

is working? And how are your beliefs manifested in this budget? In

other words, how do you take your beliefs, whatever they are, and

how are they prioritized in this budget?

Mr. WALTERS. I don’t think there is any question that treatment

works. And I would say the best response to those people who have

questions about that is, you know, go to the graduation of a drug

court or a treatment center, or talk to some of the millions of

Americans who are walking around in recovery. I don’t think we

need to debate this anymore. I recognize there are also people who

had a particular family situation where a family member has been

wracked with this for a long time. We know it is not a victimless

activity. It makes everybody—and there are people who have lost

hope. I have met those people in Government and out, where they

know it is not politically correct to say treatment doesn’t work, but

they believe it because they have been suffering so much.

But that is not the common reality. And I don’t think anybody

that has a family member, even if he had a tough time, is going

to say, well, my next family member that has a problem, I am not

going to do anything for. We want treatment. We want effective

treatment, we want it early.

But what this also—this budget and this policy—reflects is, I

think our view—and we have learned this from the field; it is not

me—we need to thicken what we consider to be treatment and

intervention. We know that people start getting in trouble before

they are 10 years addicted. They start getting in trouble when they

are teens. So we are starting to strengthen prevention and intervention—community coalitions, the Media Campaign, other programs. We are also trying to do interventions through student drug

testing, to use the tool that lets us connect the dots between addiction-is-a-disease and the way we detect other disease and allow us

to bring the care we know will work at an early stage when we

know we can optimize results.

Also, we are supporting intervention in public health system. We

know that people who begin to and have substance abuse problems

are more likely to get diseases, be in accidents, be victims of violence and perpetrators of violence. We don’t screen effectively in

our health system. We want that to be a greater part of it, and we

48

are asking for more money in that to build into—and we have gotten through this effort major certification organizations to look at

whether or not to certify shock trauma centers on the basis of they

screen everybody that comes in, so that we can refer people to appropriate levels of intervention and services and cutoff the path of

destruction more effectively, as we have done with those diseases.

In addition, we have asked for an expansion, as I said, of drug

courts. It is extremely disappointing for me that, after asking for

year after year for more money, that we end up with less than $10

million. We are asking for $60 million more because this is a great

investment. The Federal Government, again, starts up drug courts

and allows communities to continue them. They save money on incarceration, they save lives, cycles of crime. The people who—you

have been there, you know. The people who are involved in this on

the judicial side, on the prosecutorial side, on the public health

side—not to mention the clients—think this is a Godsend.

It is growing. But we could make it go faster. And the faster we

make it go—again, the slide about interdiction. What pulls those

drugs into this country? One essential thing: addicted users in the

United States. Ten percent, 15 percent of the heaviest users consume 60 to 80 percent of the drugs. The drug trade in the United

States depends on addicts and is continuing to crush addicts with

the volume of addiction. If we pull those addicts out, every one of

those people is worth tens of non-addicted users because of the

quantities involved, the dollars involved, not to mention the destruction in our communities.

So, yeah, what we want to do is thicken intervention. You mentioned how many untreated people there are. The other reason to

thicken intervention is, as you know and we have talked about,

this is a disease that involves denial. You don’t say I have an attack of appendicitis and I have come to get help. I am candid about

my symptoms and I do what I am told. When you confront many

people that have this—and every family has been touched by it—

they get angry: No I don’t; mind your own business; leave me

alone. We have to do it anyway. And when institutions do that,

whether they are criminal justice, whether they are health, whether they are education, whether they are workplace and employment, whether they are in schools, we have a chance of changing.

We know how to do this. We are impatient to move it forward.

And I will tell you, one of my other concerns—we are talking

about dollars here. I will be happy to work with any of you all the

time up here to work with appropriators to convince them to put

these dollars in. Because I think on the drug courts, you know, we

sought $200 million when we proposed Access to Recovery, and a

lot of you tried to help us. We got $100 million. We have implemented it. We would like to continue to use the innovations that

it has shown to broaden out and reform for more people the treatment system so that it can be as effective as we know the current

understanding allows it to be.

So, yeah, I think this does reflect not my view, but, as you travel

and as you look at it, what people who are doing the work tell us

will optimize it. Now, can we put more resources in? Sure, we could

put more resources in. But I have a problem with the absorptive

capacity of the Government to accept the proposed resources that

49

we have had here. And frankly, it is hard for me to make recommendations for moneys after Congress has said we don’t want

to appropriate at that level. Because there are many other demands in education and health for, you know, senior citizens and

other demands that are here. And I think the question comes

down, as it does to you, when you can’t get a consensus on something, why don’t we try to fund the things there is consensus on

that are still important and valuable.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much. Perhaps you can give me

a written response to this issue of girls. There was a recent report

that I heard about girls using drugs at an alarming rate, much

faster than—I mean, in other words, the numbers are going up for

our girls, and I just—maybe you can answer that while you are answering somebody else’s questions. But that is something that certainly concerns us, because I don’t want us to move—you know,

have this happening, and we are so busy looking at the total picture that we don’t look at our girls.

Mr. WALTERS. Right. It is historic. In short, as the indications

are there, the pie size of the number of teens using drugs has gotten smaller for girls and boys. The slice that is girls has grown to

levels that it hasn’t since we have been measuring it. They are

equal to boys in using overall drugs and in alcohol use; they are

greater than boys in using marijuana since 2002; and they are

greater than boys in using cigarettes and abusing prescription

drugs. We tried to give a wake-up call—got to pay attention to

girls. Girls use for different reasons. We are trying to use our

Media Campaign to make sure we test messages, as we have been

over the last several years, that work for girls and boys. And we’re

trying to alert parents: Don’t just worry about the boys, you have

to worry about the girls and you have to take on board the reasons

that they use. We will give you the information.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Mica.

Mr. MICA. Thank you.

Thank you, Director Walters, also for recognizing some of those

that have made a difference in our communities and across the

country in this difficult substance abuse effort. In particular, I appreciate your pointing out and recognizing effectiveness of a drugfree community coalition like we have represented here with One

Voice for Valusia. These folks, not Congress, where the Office always makes a difference; it is those community efforts. I have a

couple of questions about those efforts as I conclude my questions.

I have been playing dual secretaries—we have Chertoff across

the hall. It was kind of interesting to hear Chairman Souder talking about some of the things that were done with the creation of

Homeland Security. We got into the same discussion next door, the

efficiency of 177,000, 20-some agencies being put together and trying to operate. It is quite a challenge.

But we identified over there, before I came over here, one of the

problems. I identified it as Congress. Congress created that.

One of the issues that I wanted to lead into that we are having

a problem with is HIDTA. And I know you are running into another brick wall. Maybe you like bashing your head against that

brick wall—it feels good when you are done. But other than that,

50

the proposal sounds like it is sort of DOA again. I have already

been lobbied very effectively on the issue, but it still remains a

challenge. Congress created HIDTAs to put Federal resources in

targeted areas where we had serious drug problems and combine

it with other local and State resources. How many HIDTAs do we

now have?

Mr. WALTERS. Twenty-eight.

Mr. MICA. And how long have most of those been in existence?

When was the last one created, do you recall? Most of them are—

have been around for some time.

Mr. WALTERS. I think the last one was created in 2000. I will

double-check that. But most——

Mr. MICA. Approximately 2000.

Mr. WALTERS. There were five original HIDTAs in——

Mr. MICA. How many have we eliminated?

Mr. WALTERS. I am not aware that a single one has been eliminated.

Mr. MICA. It is very hard, you know, when Congress—and I

think you read the list of all—there is a list of opponents to doing

anything. Maybe we need a BRAC commission for HIDTAs. Not

that they aren’t good and not that we don’t need them, but again,

it is very frustrating. And now the—it is a quarter of a billion dollars, approximately, on them. Not targeted. I got mine. I had to get

mine—you know the story, I was on the wrong side of the political

aisle and Clinton wouldn’t do it. We had people die, young people

in particular dying in the streets of central Florida, and no one

would do anything about it. McCaffrey was the drug czar. He could

have created one, but the others got theirs, I wasn’t getting mine,

I wasn’t up. So I put mine in legislation.

And then I remember the call from the press, ‘‘Mr. Mica, you

have just been identified by Senator McCain as having a pork

project, a bad earmark and disgraceful performance.’’ I called John

McCain and read him the riot act. What had happened over in the

Senate, they added two more HIDTAs for God knows where, and

they are still there, that really weren’t needed. And John did give

me a letter of, I guess—what is it when the pope grants you a pardon? Indulgence. I got an indulgence from him.

But I still have my HIDTA. Mostly they are getting the same

amount.

So I recognize the problem, and they have mounted a great campaign. Maybe you ought to look at something else, maybe some

compromise, John, to try to move some of this money around. I

mean, many of them are still doing a good job, but that wasn’t the

purpose. Is that basically correct?

Mr. WALTERS. Yeah, I think many of them are doing a good job.

Unfortunately, in the proposals that we have tried to make to reflect the capitalizing on that good job, the view has been taken that

we are against the program. Again, I was over when the first five

were designated in the President’s father’s administration. I think

this could be useful. But the problem is that it has to be focused.

Mr. MICA. Do you have the power to move any of that, or is it

still targeted to each one? I mean, you should increase your security, because these people are hopping mad that you might take

their HIDTA money away or move it somewhere else.

51

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Mica? In 2003, we proposed giving him authority to reallocate, and ONDCP opposed being given that authority.

Mr. MICA. Do you have that authority?

Mr. SOUDER. No, he opposed it.

Mr. MICA. You opposed it?

Mr. WALTERS. Well——

Mr. MICA. Would you now—I mean, you are not going to get

what you asked for, so that—I mean, I propose this again as one

solution.

Just think about it. But again, I can tell you, around here 218

votes beats the best argument you can possibly come up with.

Mr. WALTERS. Well, let me just ask the two of you. I know you

can’t represent the whole Congress; you are part of it. I do have

the authority, as I understand it, to designate and de-designate

counties in HIDTAs. What do you think would be the result if I actually said, oh, I won’t de-designate whole HIDTAs; I will de-designate counties where drug use appears to be down, or where the

problem doesn’t seem to be as severe? And I de-designated, say, 50

counties of the program, which has many, many counties, as you

know, all over the country.

Mr. MICA. Well, my opinion is——

Mr. WALTERS. What do you think would be——

Mr. MICA. I think we should give him the authority to do a tough

evaluation of the effectiveness of the programs and then move the

money around. That would be my opinion. And I would support

that proposal. Then you do it, you will be even probably more unpopular than you are right now, but somebody has to do it. And

obviously, Congress isn’t going to do it.

Mr. SOUDER. We have several things here. First off, the appropriators have asked you, and you have the opportunity at any time

to propose to them, how you think the money ought to be reallocated. And they have an open invitation. We tried to make that

change in law on reallocation. We also, in the current ONDCP bill,

give you more flexibility to do that. And as you know, I was willing,

and we were trying to work out some kind of compromise on this

national focus in the HIDTAs to try to make sure that they didn’t

all go to State and local. It became partly complicated, which I

didn’t fully understand at the time, because many of the newer

counties, like in Oklahoma, in the north Dallas, in the Missouri

HIDTA, were meth HIDTAs. And since we didn’t have a national

strategy on meth, and their biggest problem was meth and at the

local level they wanted to do that, well, we had some disconnects.

So part of this has been a battle over meth. I think your question

is a fair one. What would happen if you actually did try to do something?

Now, the question is—I think it would be very difficult. The

counter-question to that is, why?

In other words, it isn’t enough to say, oh, this is just a pork

project and each Member of Congress is defending it. What we are

saying is the local law enforcement in charge of narcotics come to

us and say this is the most effective program that we have. They

are saying the same thing on Byrne Grants. I don’t have a HIDTA.

I didn’t offer to do a HIDTA and I said, no, I don’t need a HIDTA.

52

We have the Byrne Grants, drug task force, that is what my community wanted to do more. Not everybody has a HIDTA.

And I have had my concerns here and there, but the bottom line

is this. The reason it would be hard politically to change it isn’t because there is some kind of graft or pork or this kind of stuff, it

is because local law enforcement has found this to be an effective

tool of leveraging, as we have had multiple people come up to us

and tell us that as they are squeezed at their local level. The Phoenix Police Department, for example, gives three people to the

Southwest Border HIDTA, and he said that if there isn’t HIDTA

funding, he will pull his out. And without the Federal dollars, they

won’t do this.

And so that pressure is hard here because this is a popular Federal program. It is not a popular Federal program among a few

people, it is popular at the grass roots overwhelmingly, and they

were early on responding to meth. And that is why it is hard to

change and why there is an increasing demand. It is one of the

only areas in narcotics where there is an increasing demand for it.

And what we have right now is this incongruous situation where

the people who have been leading the efforts for years to buildup

your office, to fight narcotics, who get most of our drug support are

just really upset because you have not exercised your authority to

even make a proposal of where it should go.

Last year, and I am more than willing to ask you again this

year—is there any HIDTA that you think should be decertified? Is

there any HIDTA that you think isn’t doing well? You and then the

Justice Department say that they can be more effective with

OCDETF. I asked Paul McNulty the other day and I asked you last

year, OK, which one? How aren’t they being effective? Don’t just

tell me, oh, we think we can be. How aren’t they being effective?

Because if you can’t give us one example of a HIDTA that doesn’t

work, one example of what isn’t effective that could be more effective; if you can’t show us a single reason for the change, of course

Congress is going to oppose a change.

Mr. MICA. Reclaiming my time.

You see the problem. Now, I would—it is very difficult. I got

them, I want to keep them. You know, to paraphrase the President,

we have an addiction to Federal money. And these people have all

gotten hooked on it. Somebody has some other Federal money and

you pull the plug, maybe it is like a little bit with an addict, we

have to work out a program for withdrawal. Maybe there are a lot

more addicts someplace else that need attention, but we have ourselves in a dilemma here and we need to find a—again, the current

proposal, as I said, is DOA.

Let me jump from that, and hopefully, something productive can

come from this discussion.

Last year, we talked about moving some of the media dollars

around a little bit. And I know you have limited media dollars. But

we talked about the Media Campaign not following some of the

problems that Cummings was interested in because of this new

emergence of females sort of leading some of the addiction problems.

But I saw where you have responded and you have an online

campaign for, what is it, 14 to 16. But we are finding even more

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and more people of all ages get their information from online. I can

get all my drug recipes online and concoct meth and everything

else. But there is not a lot in other categories. Maybe with a few

bucks we could get online some—and again, I know you have some

limited, but just a suggestion to take back.

Mr. WALTERS. Well——

Mr. MICA. One of the other things—I just throw that as a suggestion. You don’t have to respond.

Mica’s last suggestion for the day: In dealing—again, I inherited

in the last 36 months a different district than I had the previous

10 years. I had fairly sophisticated communities that could—we

could write the best damn grants in the world and get them approved, and I would back them up and we would send little letters

in and that money would flow in. But I find in my experience with

the poor districts, where I have drug problems that make everything else pale, the addiction and criminal justice problems, is the

lack of sophistication to even put a grant together. Now I am finding a lack of moving forward. I mean, to put a grant together—and

you know what I am talking about—we had to bring in people from

three other entities to even try to meet the requirements.

So you are probably getting the best and most sophisticated and

putting our money to those who know how to operate this, but you

have folks here who don’t have that capability.

Then the second part is even actually running, for example, a

community drug-free program. And I am seeing the same thing

here. They don’t even have the resources to put that kind of a program together.

In any event, I am rethinking some of what we are doing there

as leaving people who need the attention the most, who are least

capable. They are going to be, probably, the people that score some

of the lowest scores in those traditional applications and then sort

of flub the dub, and they are the people that need some kind of

help.

So I think that is something else we need to take another look

at.

Mr. WALTERS. I agree with you in a couple of dimensions there.

One, we have put into place efforts to do outreach and technical assistance to areas that have more limited resources. We also give a

priority for those areas that have economic disadvantage, rural,

urban, Native American tribal areas. And I am pleased to say that

in the Safe and Drug-Free Schools program, for example, 40 percent of those awards go to disadvantaged areas. So that is partly

working.

But I also agree with you that we need better ability to track

where the problem is.

Can I ask you to put up the meth chart, No. 8? I want to give

you an example of what we are trying to do. This has methamphetamine, but you could use cocaine or marijuana or opioids.

We are now getting information from the largest workplace drug

tester in the country. No identifying individual information, but

millions of tests a month, down to three-digit Zip Code, which is

what you see there. Some of these areas that are less populous, the

three-digit Zip Code is of course bigger. But that, in short, for calendar year 2005 is the methamphetamine problem in the United

54

States. You will see how the darker areas are the more intense

rates of positivity. It tracks with what you see in the newspaper,

of course, States that you see mentioned.

But even within individual States, it is extremely concentrated

in some areas. What we are trying to do is to work with the community coalitions, with our friends in Justice and HIDTA and other

places—and I like HIDTA. Let me just say that because I think it

has gotten lost here. Not every part of it, and I think there are

going to obviously be some changes, but I like what we are doing

here. What we are trying to do is to blend the kind of intelligence

we try to use to be effective in the war on terror. Because we have

a problem that is not everywhere, it is not equal everywhere, and

by hosing water everywhere, we don’t put the fire out where it is.

And we certainly don’t put it out where it is very intense.

So what we are trying to do is provide a way to move this information and other information like it directly to the people that

have to work—in State government that are our partners, national

government—so that we can also then say, look, why aren’t we

driving treatment resources in these areas where this exists? Why

aren’t we better targeting drug courts or community coalitions into

these areas where it exists? Can we actually program now, effectively, the response to where the problem is in a more localized

fashion?

In fact, in these States, if you—actually, we ran this data. The

positivity rates in these States—and, for example, the small toxic

lab data. If you run small toxic lab data for the overall States, the

change for a 2-year period, and you run it against the Uniform

Crime Reports measures of violent and property crime, they don’t

correlate beyond .3—which is not a correlation. Why? Not because

meth doesn’t cause a great deal of violent property crime, not because it isn’t extremely intense where it is; it is just so focused in

States that in some cases that focus is not causing an overall trend

in the State.

So if we are going to deal with it, we need to localize. And I think

that is an issue for getting to disadvantaged communities, getting

to communities that are broken because of the magnitude of the

drug problem. But I also think it is a matter of how we begin to

use law enforcement to cutoff either access or production of drugs

so that the supply and demand parts can work.

That is what I think is an example of how we want to move dynamic change into HIDTA, into drug courts, into Media Campaign

programming, is that we can begin to tie some things together

through these data sources and through responding to them.

Mr. MICA. Now, for the record, in closing, Mr. Chairman, I would

like the Office of National Drug Control Policy to provide an overlay where we have the current HIDTAs on that map, just for the

record. I think that would be interesting to see.

Thank you, Mr. Walters. Carry on. But I would advise getting

more personal security.

Mr. WALTERS. Can I respond to one other thing? On the Media

Campaign suggestion you made, which is a very good one, we have

been trying to watch this, we have tried to use some of our money

to track this—we have moved more of the messaging online because the kids are not necessarily watching conventional television

55

or even cable television. They are online, and through the help of

the best people we have working with us in advertising, we have

moved more appropriate messages online and tied this.

Also, with respect to girls, we have learned that girls have different motives, we have tried to use, as you know, a new branding

of the youth antidrug campaign, called Above the Influence, to get

at both the aspirational and the feelings that many young people,

both boys and girls—particularly girls—say they feel pressure as

young people, adolescence is a difficult time; they use drugs or they

get caught up in drugs because they feel pressures to conform. We

are trying to reinforce those sentiments generally, and we hope the

campaign will help play into that research as well.

Mr. MICA. My point, too, is not just that category—and you have

done a good job there—is looking at other categories. And again,

I know you have limited resources, but maybe with a little creativity we could get more online for different categories.

Mr. WALTERS. Oh, I would be happy to look at and work with

you, if you want to look at expansion. All I would say is, all the

research we say is we have to maintain the weight. Remember, as

this goes down, the remaining group is harder. So if you want to

talk about letting it take your eye off the ball, if we want to expand

it, that is fine, but there have to be more dollars. We have to have

more dollars to hit the current target audience, in our judgment

and the judgment of the partnership and others that we work with,

and we have to be able to put the—if you are going to talk about

expansion, we have to be able not to throw out the base as we

move on to other areas.

Mr. SOUDER. One of our fundamental disagreements here is I understand why you have the strategy you have—marijuana is the

base drug, it is going to show more evenness across the country.

But partly both in—just as background, this is partly marketing

and advertising, and that you also have to be able to capture people’s attention, it is the kind of intensity of watching an ad, the

uniqueness of it. Trends go. Our message isn’t about a particular

drug, our message is illegal drugs are bad. And if you are in a

curve in the country where there is an intense interest in meth,

even in an area where it is not hypothetically, or Oxycontin comes

up, the novelty of that and the focus and how it gets covered in CSI

and Law & Order and other types of things means that the basic

message is narcotics are bad, and underneath it marijuana and

often drugs and alcohol are the gateway. But if you keep the same

message over and over again, it wears out and your intensity. It

isn’t that you don’t change certain kinds of premises, or even the

marijuana questions.

I had some police people in from Noble County, Drug-Free Noble

County, this past week. They reported the first THC between 40

and 50 percent in Indiana. It is the seventh—could you leave the

chart up there on meth? I have some technical questions on that.

But in the fundamental with this, that you have to show some

movement. And if you don’t, the Members of Congress are reflecting not just, yes, there is opposition on the marijuana campaign,

but it isn’t meeting where the demands are.

But let me ask a couple of questions about that chart, and it

would relate to other drugs as well.

56

How old is the data? How timely is that data?

Mr. WALTERS. I believe it is a—as it says there, it is a consolidation of calendar year 2005.

Mr. SOUDER. So these are tests that occurred in 2005, or data

that was given to you in 2005 from tests earlier?

Mr. WALTERS. It is data from, I believe, tests in 2005. I will

check to make sure I am stating that correctly. And it is positivity

rates among those tests.

The data is available monthly, but in order to have sufficient cell

size in all the Zip Codes, it is generally amalgamated.

Mr. SOUDER. And do you lay that over with emergency room, lab

seizures, and so on?

Mr. WALTERS. We are beginning to be able to do that, yes, sir.

Mr. SOUDER. Because I would say any particular piece of data

will suggest something slightly different. This is also a reflection

of how many drug tests you have. For example, in a rural county

you are going to have fewer people doing drug tests; therefore, if

you find a little bit of meth, it is going to be darker brown. You

have bigger tests—I mean, I took multiple courses in statistical

analysis. There are some fundamental questions there, because, for

example, what I can do is look at my whole thing and go, man, is

that wrong, that there is some total disconnect with emergency

rooms, law busts. The brown is not in the places where the law enforcement problems are, where the school problems are, where the

treatment problems are.

And the other thing, I look at that map, is, man, I have been

wrong, meth is a national problem, I thought it was a regional

problem. It is more intense in the rural areas, but this stuff has

moved into Florida. We hadn’t thought that meth was down in

Florida to that extent. We didn’t know it was up in New England

to that extent. Man, meth is a national problem. And that we have

been buying that the intense brown, it is just that it is more intense in those areas and it is a newer drug there, and those Members of Congress are going crazy.

And the other thing is, how does this map relate to the 2004 map

and the 2003? My premise has been that the areas that were kind

of orange moved to lighter brown, then moved to darker brown, and

we have seen a steady progression of this. And this is a drug that

you can in fact get ahead of because this is one we can sell and

we can use that as a gateway to do the others. And I have been

trying to make that message and I think Congress is doing that.

So instead of it being in the National Media Campaign, you have

had more or less a rump Ad Campaign startup, which I believe was

up to $6 million this last year targeted specifically to meth, that

is totally outside, based on individual Members’ ability to convince

people to write that in, just like meth hot spots is coming up as

a separate earmarked program because there has not been a coordinated strategy that is responding to the fact that map is dramatically changing. That is a great thing that we should have had

a long time ago.

So first off, I compliment you on doing drug testing because it is

something that is being done on a regular basis. So are drug

courts. So are child protection questions. So are emergency rooms.

And as we get better data, we can move that and then look at how

57

is it changing. And instead of reacting, try to get ahead of it. And

I would argue that a blended strategy—and I just said ‘‘basic’’—I

don’t think you are going to get—I mean, I have been trying to sell

this ad program, too. And what I know is when we went to the

floor with an amendment to put money into meth in the National

Ad Campaign, which, by the way, wasn’t ruled out of order, so I

assume it would have been allowable—that it had overwhelming

bipartisan support and we were able to increase the Ad Campaign.

But when it came back out, then the Ad Campaign went back

down. And that there are some practical tradeoffs here.

I would also argue that I don’t know how many kids use meth.

In my opinion, it tends to be weight loss, more like an amphetamine, or tends to be adult-oriented but kids get caught up in it.

At the same time, I don’t believe the current survey structure is

going to find kids who are using meth anyway. In many cases, they

aren’t in school, their parents are disorganized, they are almost

zero percent likely to return any kind of questionnaire. It is arguably the most dysfunctional unit of Government—or unit of drug

use to try to test. They are worried somebody is going to smell

their drug lab. If I was a person doing a survey, I would be—as

a postman, I might be afraid to deliver, let alone try to hand-deliver something. Or in school. It is a much harder population even

than heroin and cocaine to try to get in your survey anyway.

And we certainly can’t make policy on how we are dealing with

meth based on the fact that it dropped from 1.3 percent to .9 percent, which is statistically irrelevant in the change anyway because

it is too small a sample size to—probably the variation is at least

5 to 7 percent statistical variation when you get down to that few

people inside of a category.

But the bottom line is we are still splitting hairs here because

I don’t think that this is the target problem on meth.

Mr. WALTERS. Well, again, let me just go back. First of all, the

number that you cited in that survey is statistically significant—

not all the changes are—but even at that small cell size. But the

point is, I agree young people are not the major using population

for meth. It is young adults. And we target those people as well.

But again, if you show here—what you are seeing in the press that

I think is reflected in the data we have—can you show me the——

Mr. SOUDER. By the way, can I ask a fundamental question?

Maybe your staff knows. Were there 1,000 people in this survey or

100,000?

Mr. WALTERS. I believe there is about 70,000. Oh, 49,000 in the

Monitoring the Future survey.

Mr. SOUDER. So 49,000 means that there were 490 meth cases

that basically dropped to about 410 meth cases, something on that

order.

Mr. WALTERS. Yeah, I would have to check the cell size.

Mr. SOUDER. I would argue——

Mr. WALTERS. And I don’t do these surveys. We rely on statisticians that do that.

Mr. SOUDER. Well, that statistical differential is greater than 5

to 7, which is what you normally measure.

Mr. WALTERS. Well, again, I am not——

58

Mr. SOUDER. It is significant, because you made that as a pivotal

point in your statement.

Mr. WALTERS. No, I——

Mr. SOUDER. And also in your comment that it had dropped. And

what I am arguing is a statistical variation even of 3, when you

only have a point–4 or 5 differential, means that it could be 4 percent, which would be 4 times higher. That your standard deviation

on a sample size that small——

Mr. WALTERS. Again, I don’t run the numbers. I rely on the statisticians who do. In this case, they are not Government, they are

under contract at the University of Michigan. They have been

doing this since the mid-1970’s. They tell us what is statistically

significant over the period of time. The change can be smaller over

a longer period of time to be significant as I have seen it in the

past. But these are not my numbers. These are numbers by the

people who have been doing this for well over 20 years.

What I wanted to say is, on the larger population of meth users,

which I think is an important issue here—No. 7. What we have

seen in the larger household survey, which you referred to earlier,

that has been going on for awhile, we have made efforts to try to

capture some of these individuals. These are not a census. They

give us relative sizes. I agree with you, these are hard things to

survey.

But what we have here are those who are age 12 and above in

household survey. The numbers for the comparable years, the survey structure, as you know, has been changed. It has been made

automated. We have now to maintain a sample size and integrity,

paid individuals for participating—that causes some change in the

survey. We have, at my direction, changed the placement of the

meth question for the next year to make it more prominent, to

make sure that we are not underreporting because of where it may

be in the survey. I did that after I took the survey. The results

were not part of the national sample, but I insisted on seeing how

these instruments work and asked that, particularly with meth,

that we try to make it more a prominent part.

So we will adjust this estimate, probably, up some. It won’t be

a perfect census, but it is a relative measure, as it has been over

years of looking at the issue of cocaine and heroin and other drugs,

a relative probable suggestion of trends and relative magnitudes

among the other drugs. What you see here is the troubling dimension of meth, I think.

On the overall, we haven’t had much of a change in the aggregate number of meth users. But each year for the last 3 years, the

number of people addicted has increased by 50 percent. The smaller portion of those individuals, as you see in red, are those whose

primary addiction is to meth. The larger portion, also increasing by

50 percent per year, are those who have a primary addiction to another drug and are also using meth.

So what we have is an increasing overall portion of the overall

users of meth who are addicted. The need for treatment, the burdens you have seen yourself and heard in the press—emergency

rooms, treatment facilities being burdened here—are exactly what

we see in these national numbers. But again, I point out, as from

the other map, that is not going to be uniformly displayed across

59

all counties in all places at all times. It is going to be where the

drug is concentrated.

The earlier charts show workplace tests. Probably most of those

tests, positive tests, are not people who are addicted. Some of them

may be, but they are probably coming in because they are detected

using but they are not yet addicted.

This figure gives us a slice through that shows us something

about those who are the heavy or most addicted users. What we

obviously want to try to do is array that data as well across individual geographic spaces and populations so that we can see where

there are concentrations. We do get reports from drug courts, we

do get reports from HIDTA. We do get price and purity and availability data. We do get data also from other surveys—the User

Risk Behavior Survey as well as others—some of which have city,

urban, sometimes non-urban concentrations.

Our goal is not just to kind of have numbers about things, but

the problem that you face and we face is how do we make sure we

are driving the resources to where they belong. As Congressman

Mica said, we have poor areas that don’t apply for grants. They are

too much under fire to apply for grants. It is our job, if we are

going to make a difference, to be proactive and to be there and try

to make sure the programs are where they need to be, and to tell

you when programs are working. I take your point. We want to

focus law enforcement resources as well, and HIDTA resources

here. We have instituted, as you know, the first comprehensive implementation of an evaluation process for HIDTA. We will begin to

have those results. We are asking them to program against those

results. We are asking them to be accountable.

But you also know that the pressure that we get in the appropriations process, a markup of this committee, is not to reduce

HIDTA counties. I have a lot of friction with Members of the House

and Senate because they want to add counties. Now, sometimes

they want to add counties where we should add counties, I think,

from the data. Sometimes they want to add counties because they

have people who are working hard and want additional resources

and will put them to good use. I understand that. But our job is

also to say, well, is want identical with the best deliver of limited

resources? Sometimes it is not. And I recognize that those are the

decisions that we are trusted to make. So we do the best we can

here.

But I don’t see much language in the appropriation bill telling

me to reduce HIDTA counties. What I see is directions to add. And

the problem with that is not that we won’t try to do this responsibly, it is that when you add it, what am I going to have to do?

You know what the program has done—it has cut money, as a portion, to some of the major original HIDTA areas that are cities and

towns that still have major problems, and arguably have greater

problems. That the spread of the program without additional dollars—and even though Congress has appropriated different

amounts than the administration, it has not expanded the program.

Mr. SOUDER. But even using your own kind of model of measurement—that we have added HIDTA counties, we have added

60

HIDTAs, and the drug use has gone down 5 straight years—it

must be working.

Mr. WALTERS. That is not my model. I mean, the sun came up

every day, too, and I don’t think the sunrise caused drug use to go

down. It is not a matter of proximity, it is a matter of can we demonstrate that these programs have had a particular effect on the

problem. Drug-Free Communities. We are asking the Drug-Free

Communities program to institute measures of effectiveness that

include, first and foremost, are you driving down drug use? It is not

so easy to measure in a community-wide effort. But if the program

is not doing that, it is not doing its job. We are trying to do that

with accountability in the treatment program.

Now, you raise the issue of Safe and Drug-Free Schools. The

problem that I have is—and we have talked together. I know you

are on my side on this. So, I mean, we are arguing as if we are

at opposite, and we are not—I think. There is no consensus to put

that kind of accountability in the block grant program, because it

is supposed to be a block grant. It is not supposed to be just a drug

prevention program. And people do not want to change the authorities to do drug-free. I understand that. But under this environment, as we have looked at it—I recognize other people have different views—those millions of dollars are better used elsewhere,

given what they——

Mr. SOUDER. Here—and I have one more thing and I will see if

Mr. Cummings has that.

Our problem here is not that I don’t think it is as effective as

it should be. I don’t believe it should be zeroed out because I believe it is one of the only prevention programs we have that, I believe, had between 20 and 30 different amendments in the Education Committee last time, on Safe and Drug-Free Schools, to try

to tighten it, to cut allowable uses, to tighten it up, that they had

to have an antidrug message if they did an after-school program.

At one point I got so frustrated I offered an amendment that education itself be one of the allowable uses, because I am sure that

would reduce drug use.

In other words, is this an antidrug program or not? ‘‘Safe’’ got

added in. School violence, the time we did it last time, Columbine

happened around that same time. We are about to start hearings

again, not only here but in the Education Committee. That is going

to be one of my primary things: let’s figure out how to make it

work. Getting rid of prevention programs, when it is one of the

major legs, is not a solution. Drug testing is part of it, but it is not

just drug testing. I believe that even if these programs aren’t as effective as they should be, they, plus the community coalitions, plus

the National Ad Campaign, plus the arrests, mean we have a net

reduction in drug use, that there is a holistic, interactive relationship when you get different teen groups, no matter what the antidrug program is in the school, and it is very hard to measure, but

it is a backup behind the National Ad Campaign working with the

community antidrug efforts with testing behind it, and that we

need to make it more effective. You don’t just say let’s zero it out.

That has been my argument. It is a nuance of the same argument, but the same. We can’t just take it over and knock it out.

61

Now, we have a major difference here on methamphetamine. And

we can sit here and argue some of these numbers, but here is some

of the mistrust in Congress. ONDCP seems intent on disproving

what everybody else in the country is seeing, that methamphetamine is an epidemic, in that you continue to come up with numbers that I believe illustrate my point, and I don’t understand the

lack of understanding with this. In other words, first off, I don’t

know if I agree with that chart. And I believe you were correct in

interpreting that chart of intensity, and that is part of what we

have happening in emergency rooms.

But there is another phenomenon that happens. Because States

have been implementing pseudoephedrine control with no help

from the Federal Government or guidance on this. As States have

been implementing this, labs and some of this drops. Then new

people come in. Then as we implement our Federal law, it is likely

to still stay relatively flat, or have a slight decline, because of what

we did, not because of any help out of ONDCP or the Federal Government, the executive branch. And that what we are seeing here

is new people come on board.

And I believe, first off, your data is wrong. I believe that the Association of Counties reflects that. I believe that when you mix a

whole bunch of things together, you will find that the casual use

is up as well as the codependency use, and definitely the intensity

use is up. But partly, when we go after the meth epidemic in individual States, we defeat it. Unlike some of our others where we try

to control it and get it down, meth is one where we can go from

200 labs in an area down to 20. And that then crystal meth comes

in behind, which is going to be—is this crystal meth or labs, or

both? I assume both.

Mr. WALTERS. That is both.

Mr. SOUDER. And that the other thing is this chart is going to

change internally. And if you can’t get a sophistication of what is

happening, that this goes in one regional area, it gets intense, the

community responds; then it goes in another area, it gets intense,

the community responds. It looks like it is flat when it is not. It

is Jello moving around that could have been defeated. And now it

is going to move as we get control of pseudoephedrine—opposed by

HHS—get control of international standards, which was opposed by

the Department of State and, in effect, the executive branch sitting

aside, other than Attorney General Gonzales and the DEA, watching us do this.

Yeah, we have kept it flat. We have been going at it like crazy

with meth hot spots, with HIDTAs developing it, trying to do regional efforts. The Partnership for a Drug-Free America has some

ads, but they are doing it outside the Ad Campaign. So if that is

true that it is relatively flat, it is because State and locals have

been fighting like crazy to do this, with a little bit of help—and we

are jumping in.

And I still don’t believe that is ultimately going to be flat because

now crystal meth is going to come in and suck up the demand with

a more potent and cheaper drug behind it and be able to cut out,

potentially, some of the Colombians and other dealers because of

being able to basically get this through Mexico with legal drugs.

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Now, we are working at that. I know we have talked on the

phone. I know you understand the India-China problem, that you

are becoming engaged on this as it moves toward crystal meth. And

I believe it will be then more of a traditional battle. But the frustration you are hearing out of Congress when you release figures

like that, it is like ‘‘this isn’t a big problem,’’ when people are battling their heads off to get control of this.

Mr. WALTERS. Mr. Chairman——

Mr. SOUDER. And you are saying it is not a national problem. It

is a national problem. It is a national—39 States where this is

their biggest problem, and you are telling me it is not a national

problem.

Mr. WALTERS. Mr. Chairman, I didn’t say it wasn’t a national

problem.

Mr. SOUDER. You said it was regionalized and localized, even

within States.

Mr. WALTERS. I said the intensity of the problem is extremely localized based on the data I see. I can only tell you what I have as

the available information to me that comes from credible sources.

I cannot report something that I don’t have a credible source for.

I did not say this was not a serious problem. I believe I said this

is as serious and harmful a drug as there is. I believe that the good

news here is that, yes, States have been passing pseudoephedrine

controls as well as carrying out enforcement. They have been doing

more treatment, some of it with the President’s Access to Recovery

money in some States.

Under the management of my office, the HIDTA program has

more initiatives on meth than any other single drug, I believe, over

the last several years. We have not been avoiding the problem of

meth. We have controlled what was first, as you know, the diversion of pseudoephedrine and ephedrine from industrial-size quantities in the United States for super-labs. There was then importation from Canada, and our law enforcement at the national level

worked with the Canadian RCMP to shut that down. We have had

remarkable success, it looks like, through State and through enforcement action more broadly on small toxic labs, which helps us

on toxic waste sites, on drug-endangered children, on danger to

first responders. And we hope that will also change some of the

availability here.

We are also now working with, and I met with, the Chinese Ambassador a week ago. We are meeting with the other major supplier

countries of Germany and India. There is a conference in Hong

Kong. And we are working to cutoff the supplies that have now

been in combination and single ephedrine and pseudoephedrine

products coming into Mexico where this is coming, so we addressed

that issue as well. We are systematically attacking both the supply

and demand for meth.

I think one of the great things on our side is, frankly, that the

media does not glamorize meth. I mean, unlike the early days of

the cocaine epidemic and some of the times a marijuana and some

of the talk in the entertainment business about ecstasy, which was

the great threat when I took office in 2001 that was coming for our

children, we have, I think, a real depiction of the dangers of meth,

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which help us generally in making a better understanding of the

risk to young people and young adults and adults generally.

So again, we are not there yet, but we are not failing to pay attention. We are not failing to take steps that are making systematic efforts. And I would say last, on the general point of what we

oppose, what we don’t oppose, we support the Combat Meth Act as

an administration. Send it, we will sign it.

Mr. SOUDER. We like leadership, I know. I appreciate that you

never opposed it. And you informed me early on——

Mr. WALTERS. The President will sign it when Congress passes

it, the sooner the better. November would have been better than

December, February is better than March.

Mr. SOUDER. Well, the President, for the record, has not vetoed

any bill. The question is leadership. And the fact is that different

agencies inside the Federal Government, inside the executive

branch, were opposing the bill.

Mr. WALTERS. But I have been up consistently with Members of

Congress——

Mr. SOUDER. You have not opposed this.

Mr. WALTERS [continuing]. And I have said send us the bill, send

us the bill in a variety of the earlier forms. The one thing I have

worked with Members on is said I do not want a floor on the ability

of States to operate precisely because State regulation is making a

difference. And we don’t want to cutoff States that want to have

heavier regulation. Congress has accommodated that. And I think

the sooner we get this, as you pointed out, the data I arrayed, we

have creep into States that now don’t see this as a major problem.

The law will allow us to give protection to some of those States.

And the good thing is we have a tool that works on the localized

production of meth. We want to use it.

Mr. SOUDER. Ms. Norton.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Let me begin by indicating that there are some very important

points of agreement that I would like to note. I looked through several of the charts. I have a very serious question about the chart

that you and Mr. Souder were talking about. I am reluctant to get

into it, but I have a meth question and a question about that chart.

This is a wonderful chart. This is a chart about the drug courts.

And this administration has consistently asked for an increase in

drug courts. You did so last year, and it took the Congress to knock

that down. It is such an important prevention device, and you have

not been deterred, apparently, by being cut by the Congress. And

if you are really talking about preventions, if you talk about carrots

and sticks, if you are talking about tough love, a very good place

to begin is with drug courts. You have to scare the bejeezus out of

them, really.

And I must tell you, being brought before a judge that is on a

drug court has proved a very effective way to do it. I can’t tell you

how many lives you have saved, economic and actual lives you have

saved by sticking with the drug court notion which, you know, took

off. It was in experimental phases we can see, in the late 1980’s

and 1990’s, just kept taking off, and I encourage you to continue

to do that no matter what the Congress does.

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I also am in strong agreement with your priorities—stopping

drug use before it starts, then you go to healing drug users and

then disrupting the markets. It seems to me that is the right order

of priority.

One of the reasons I so favor your first priority, starting before

it stops, goes back to something I think Mr. Souder has heard me

say in this committee. Those of us who aren’t addicted, let us say,

to cigarettes or to drugs don’t have a real appreciation, I guess, of

what real addiction is about. But everyone has something that they

wish they could give up. And for me, you know, it is sweets. So I

can’t imagine, given how difficult it is for me to push aside my

sweet tooth, what it must be to be truly addicted to a harmful substance, particularly since we know now addiction to alcohol, to

drugs has some compulsion factors that we are still trying to understand. So getting it early could not be more important. And it

seems to me it is the most important thing we could do.

I am not one of those who—I am a great admirer of the multitude of programs to get people off drugs. You see, I don’t believe

it. I really don’t believe by sitting down and talking to somebody

or—I believe you can get people off of it and then they go back on

it. We all understand what that kind of recidivism is about. We

don’t understand—I mean, if you talk about smoking, people who

smoke, whatever those things they—you know, they put on them

all the time. I mean, you know, I just think we have to begin to—

science is going to help us on this.

So until then, you say, hey, look, just get it before it starts. I

would like you to reconcile that with a very small portion of the

budget to be spent on prevention. Just, as I understand it, 11 percent of your projected budget you ask for prevention programs. And

I was so disappointed that represented a 2 percent decline from

your fiscal year 2006 levels. I understand there is a tiny increase

overall, but the last place I would have expected an administration

who has focused relentlessly on drug courts to take from would be

the already small part of the budget that goes to prevention, the

best chance we have on drug addiction in this country, in my judgment.

Mr. WALTERS. Yes, thank you, Congresswoman. We have tried to

focus, as we talked earlier, on what we think are the programs at

our disposal that work. And one of the areas that causes the array

to look the way it does is—we have just been talking about this—

that we have a disagreement over whether the outputs from the

Safe and Drug-Free Schools program, the larger prevention program in the Department of Education, because it is limited in its

focus on drug prevention, is an effective way to target that money.

I wish it was. We have tried to work with this before. The chairman and I have worked on this, and I have worked with others,

to try to build some accountability into that program. And I am not

saying there aren’t people who are using that money for good

things. I have gone around the country, too, and I know there are.

But the issue is not whether out of hundreds of millions of dollars a few people are doing a good thing or some are, I think the

proper management and demand in this environment for sustained

funding is that the program itself can show that it can generate results. Drug courts do that. The Media Campaign, we believe, does

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that. The community coalitions campaign, we believe, does that.

The HIDTA program, I believe, produces results. Again, we have

been back and forth about the HIDTA program, but the fact of the

matter is in this budget, as you have seen, the administration has

taken, again, some pretty hard decisions about revenue sharing

with State and local law enforcement, some of which are not going

to be popular and may not even be sustained.

In this budget, we have proposed level funding for the HIDTA

program. But on the prevention side, what we are trying to do is

support those avenues that we think will make a difference. And

in a competitive environment where, as you know as well as I do,

you have to make these decisions and provide support for education

programs, for health programs, for job programs, and for others,

what we have tried to do is maintain those that will show they can

drive the prevention forward in a direction it has been going and

follow through, and we have not been able to request money for

programs that are not as effective.

Ms. NORTON. Do you do control studies on these programs? How

do you know what is effective and what is not effective unless you

are doing control studies?

Mr. WALTERS. Well, they are required by the laws passed by

Congress to have performance measures and release those performance measures as a part of what they submit to the Congress and

what they submit to OMB.

And look, here is the real problem, I think, with the Safe and

Drug-Free Schools program. It is conceptually not intended to create specific results. It is intended to be a block grant. It is intended

to have money which is not specifically directed, but for a range of

activities to be deployed as State and local officials see fit within

the parameters of that program. The problem is, in an environment

we have like drug courts, where you have a certain number of individuals going in, a certain number of individuals going out, where

we have a Media Campaign where we are measuring attitude

changes on the target audience, where we a community coalition

campaign that is measuring declines in drug use——

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Walters, you have a convert on that. You are

talking to somebody that doesn’t believe in these people saying, you

know, we have cured X number of people and so forth. But what

you haven’t convinced me about is that there are not a sufficient

number of programs that in fact have undisputed results that

should be funded. And indeed—Let me tell you the difficulty. People see the administration as eliminating programs in order to cut

budgets. I think you would have had a better chance, it seems to

me, of convincing people like me who are with you with all these

programs, shucks, in a school system, you—you, School System, figure out where your folks—I am all for local control. You know, I

argue that all the time, for very good reasons.

But the only way I would do it, of course, would be to say, look,

School Systems, we have looked at programs tried in representative school systems; you are in a big school system, you are in a

rural school system, you can choose one of these programs. But you

sure can take this money, you know, and give it to, you know, X,

Y—Ballou High School, you can have this, Wilson, you can have

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your share. You wouldn’t be able to do that. That is something I

would support.

The notion, though, of cutting prevention programs because there

are not enough good programs out here, that is very much—given

the priority you put on prevention, that is very hard for me to accept. Because you have the right priority. You have not put your

money where your mouth is.

Let me go on to my second question.

Mr. SOUDER. Will the gentlelady yield to that point, to kind of—

I just want to add one thing that I have been brainstorming that

has not been developed. For example, one of the problems is, by

driving it to the individual school, often they don’t have enough

money to do something, so therefore they couldn’t afford this type

of program. But we could do that by who we drive the dollars down

to. If instead of—a lot of my school districts have just one high

school in it. If you did, not to the Governor but to some sort of coalition, whether it is a county or a four-county area or different

things, and then, like you do with CTAC, where there are certain

allowable things—you don’t allow police departments to just come

in and say this is what we want, you say these are the things that

work in narcotics. And then you review that and say in this size

school, this type of thing works. And then for the type of area that

this area is representing, if it is a cluster of rural districts, you say

what tends to work in rural districts, what are some national models, and this is pooled between those schools, much like what we

do in drug-free Indiana, much like we do with some of the community antidrug coalitions.

There are creative ways that we can work with this other than

have it be just run out of Washington, but Washington could give

some guidance. And the question is, how can we make this program more effective because it is one of our only prevention things.

It is in the school and it serves to back up the National Ad Campaign.

Mr. WALTERS. Just one suggestion here from my own experience,

but—this is not obviously an administration suggestion in the

budget. First of all, it is a lot of—keep in mind, I want to emphasize one point you made and make one comment. It is a lot of

money, but when it gets down to individual schools, it is not a lot

of money. So part of the problem with this program is one of the

demands of effectiveness, you are right, if you are going to be fair,

when you get down to where the rubber meets the road, it is, like,

‘‘I’m supposed to do what with this?’’

So the issue is can we focus it. These block grants, I don’t need

to tell you, there is enormous controversy within the Congress

about changing the formula. So it is not so easy to say, well, OK,

then just focus it. But second, the minimum thing, I would say, as

we are trying to do with community coalitions and we are trying

to do with others: measure drug use in the school every year so

people know what is happening and they can measure whether the

efforts combined are working there or not. That has not ever been

a requirement of this program. So when you are trying to say, well,

how do we have accountability, if you don’t have accountability

against that measure, what do measure and it makes any difVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:40 Dec 21, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00070 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\29579.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ference that you know is going to be connected to making the problem smaller?

Ms. NORTON. Thank you.

Let me go on to a very serious question I had. You are a professional in this field, are you not?

Mr. WALTERS. Well—my hesitancy is I am not sure there is a

professional drug czar, but——

Ms. NORTON. No, I am talking about what you have been doing

for 4 years.

Mr. WALTERS. I mean, I have worked in this policy issue in

Washington for a while, yes.

Ms. NORTON. The reason I ask this is because I have a very serious question. The most important issue for me as a Member of

Congress and an African American really isn’t anything that finds

its solution in a piece of legislation, although legislation is, like almost everything, a part of what we can do. It has to do with the

decline and fall of family life in the United States and particularly

in the African American community. I have joined with a good

friend of mine on the other side of the aisle in the Senate, Sam

Brownback, with whom I cannot have more thoroughgoing disagreement on something he is doing in the District of Columbia

called Marriage Development Accounts, because I am so concerned

about it, the notion that marriage has gone out of style, as it were.

I hate to use it that way. You have White children being born to

never-married mothers, you have twice that African American children. Anybody who thinks that you can raise children that way, it

seems to me, hasn’t gone into communities where mostly mothers

are trying to raise children on their own. So I have very, very serious concerns here.

So when we look to the various causes, they are multitudinous—

some internal, some historic. They are very large. And there is no

pathway into solving this problem.

But I have to ask you, Mr. Walters, about one cause that is explicit. And I want to ask you very frankly what your view is and

if you think this policy should continue. That is the policy that

began in panic after crack was introduced in society in the early

l990’s and crime went up so badly, and we developed a difference

in the treatment of crack cocaine and powdered cocaine. Democrats

and Republicans both embraced this difference not understanding

what I am sure were unintended consequences. Well, the consequences were the low-level drug dealers, mostly people from the

poorest communities, got caught up, while the guys on top, the

ones you want to go at in Priority No. 3, Disrupting the Markets,

were left to continue to plow drugs back in the poorest communities in the United States.

What is the effect on marriage when somebody gets a felony

record, and most of these drugs types are people who were dealing—very little in the way of violent crime. Jails are full of these

nonviolent drug-addicted dealers. You finally get out with a felony

conviction, you know, and it is written on your forehead. And if you

happen to be African American, it is written on your Black forehead. It was bad enough being Black if you came out of a poor community, but now the word ‘‘felony’’ is over that.

68

Well, people will have children. African American women know

how to control children in various ways, from abortion to birth control, so they have one perhaps, no more than two. Their birth rate

is not much different than the birth rate of White women. But the

whole notion of marrying the father has very much disappeared,

because in a real sense you marry somebody who is—disproportionate numbers of whom have either been to jail and have a felony

record or are hustling—that is not in your jurisdiction; it has to do

with unemployment, the rest of it—are hustling and, God knows,

on their way to jail. Even though a pregnancy occurs, the family

will say do not marry him. In your generation and mine, of course,

the family said the opposite—give the child a name even if you

don’t stay with him. Or whatever. The way to look at such a man,

ripe for such a charge or with such a charge, is that he is

unmarriageable, he is not deemed to have the capacity to become

productive in the society.

So if you are looking for various things, and you see I am looking

for everything I can find—that is why Sam Brownback and I are

working on Marriage Development Accounts to make marriage attractive again because part of the problem is, of course, that people

wonder whether they want to take on financial responsibilities of

marriage. It encourages savings and it rewards saving. But I don’t

see how one can overlook crack and powdered cocaine.

If one wanted to overlook it or consider that this is Eleanor Norton, Black woman in Congress, then I would have to, lawyer that

I am, cite you to perhaps precedents that are more persuasive—like

Supreme Court Justices, beginning with Justice Rehnquist or Justice Kennedy. For a Justice to speak out, as they have, against the

guidelines that result in this disparity, saying, as they have, that

rank injustice has been done. And for us over here to kind of ignore

it and keep going willy-nilly while a whole generation of Black people are condemned now to losing the family culture, and a whole

generation of Black children are being raised with no father, and

a whole generation of Black women, including middle-class Black

women, find such a disproportion between the number of marriageable people without records, even if they are not already in the

middle class, marriageable Black men and marriageable Black

women, so that there is a whole generation of Black women who

will never be married.

Now, I cannot tell you that you have or I have the answers to

such a complex problem, but I can tell you one thing, that disparity, which sweeps up boys and men without economic opportunity

in the poorest Black communities is one cause. It is a cause. If a

woman makes a mistake, she is making another mistake to marry

this man, and these children are left without a parent. And I have

to ask you in your professional judgment, whether you think it is

time to at least take another look at the disparity between the sentences for powder cocaine and the sentences for crack cocaine.

Mr. WALTERS. This has been, obviously, a concern almost since

the differential in sentencing was enacted. Of course, the original

reason was that people were trying to protect people in the Black

community. I was here during the Reagan administration. I worked

with Charlie Rangel, and you and others here on this that were

outraged that on top of the other burdens that Black inner city

69

Americans bear. Someone had designed an incredibly addictive and

destructive drug, I mean, similar with what we talk about with

meth. If you change the drug, you would be talking about crack if

you talked about the inner city instead of rural western United

States.

I do think that, obviously, the goal here was to say if we had

harsh penalties that really put people away, we would stop this

cancer from eating one generation after another.

Ms. NORTON. And you and I agree these are thoroughly unintended consequences. But one has to be a fool to see unintended

consequences and say, ‘‘Let’s keep on doing what we’re doing.’’

What do you want to do, wipe out any prospect for African Americans? Is 70 percent born to—not enough? What will be enough?

Will 80 percent turn this around? Have we not reached the point

where everybody ought to take a hard look at this, even if they are

not prepared to make a judgment on it.

Mr. WALTERS. And I think the other part of this is that the adjustments that have been made still leave some disparity here, as

you point out. I mean the effort to create a bypass a number of

years ago if you were not a repeat offender, if you didn’t have a

gun, there was a bypass created in the Federal law. Of course, the

Federal law also is—it is used in some jurisdictions, but not in all

jurisdictions. Washington is somewhat unique in that regard.

It seems to me that the real——

Ms. NORTON. Most jurisdictions in their own criminal law don’t

have the guidelines that the Federal law has, and the DA will

sometimes pass off to the Feds, really go get them, so I understand

that. It is interesting that the States haven’t followed suit with

what the Federal Government has done.

Mr. WALTERS. I agree with you that there is—I think that reflects the difference about what is the proportionate level of punishment, which is always going to happen in jurisdictions, and it

partly is going to be based on threat, it is partly going to be based

on individual judgments.

To get to the thrust of your question, of course, the Federal law

also does not actually involve a large number of the offenders. If

this were the only thing that were pulling in—I am not trivializing

its contribution, but it is a small part of it. Obviously, the underlying issue is substance abuse, and we have let substance abuse particularly impact cities. I mean I have been here a long time and

I have said before, if what is happening to the inner cities—permit

me to leave meth aside for 1 minute, and rural America in our debate—if what is even happening today with crack and powder cocaine, were happening not in downtown Washington or Baltimore,

but in Chevy Chase, D.C. or Maryland, our response would be different.

We would not allow open-air drug markets in those areas. Why?

Because they are poisoning the people who live there. They are

taking their dollars from much less to begin with, and turning

them into an asset against economic opportunity and education and

safety and health. They’re spreading blood-borne diseases. They are

turning people’s families into hollow shells. I agree with you.

I think that the key here is that we can look at the proportion

of enforcement, but we have to—I visited a re-entry program in

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New Jersey within the last week—we have to first bring people

back and use what we have in helping young men learn how to be

parents that are coming out of the institutions. We have too many

there to forget them. And there are programs that work here and

we are funding them, and we need to have more resources to fund

those re-entry programs.

We also want to start at the beginning, I think, and that is why

I am proud that 40 percent of our community coalition dollars go

to disadvantaged communities. We worked with Mr. Cummings on

trying to make sure that this gets to more places. I believe we

ought to have more of these community organization funds in the

D.C. area. And I have asked my staff, and we have tried to work

with people in the D.C. metropolitan area to build more of these

capacities. But I agree with you, the problem also is that what we

allow is young males, White and Black, particularly African-American males, to get into trouble too far before we pay attention.

I tell people—and I know that there’s resistance to this and I

have talked to others—if you want to also stop this—and I am not

begging the question about the distinction—but if you really want

to stop young men starting this, it is time to connect the dots on

public health measures and do drug testing. We are working with

the city of Detroit today to bring drug testing to what is considered

to be the worst school in Detroit. Why? Because they have talked

about this and understand once you get over it, it is not going to

be used as punishment. It is going to be used as an enormously

powerful prevention tool, and it is going to be used to get people

help early before they are in the juvenile justice system.

There is a lot of sensitivity. Can we do this? Is it really going

to be run that way or is it going to be run a different way? If we

can do that in Detroit, I believe we can show this can be done in

a whole range of settings.

And what does it also do? It shows those kids who are at risk

that we have programs for, you know, bringing adults into their

lives when the family structure falls apart. We don’t connect them

soon enough. The testing shows you also which kids are going to

bring a gun to school, which kids are going to be truant, which kids

are on the path to poor academic performance. It allows us to wrap

those services around, and doesn’t allow us an excuse to say, well,

we didn’t know what was going to happen until he got in a fight

or until he got arrested.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Walters, I couldn’t agree with you more. I have

my own Commission on Black Men and Boys. I mean, here I am

a card-carrying feminist, and I could not agree with you more.

I have to ask you very directly as a professional in this field, not

speaking for the administration, do you believe it is time to take

a second look at the disparity between crack cocaine and powdered

cocaine, either as a matter of fairness, as Supreme Court Justices

have said in a number of speeches, or as a matter of policy on other

counts, or do you support the present disparity?

Mr. WALTERS. I don’t think—I can’t separate myself from my position, so I can’t—my opinions are not just my opinions in this job,

and I understand that. I think we are always willing to work. We

have been working with Senator Sessions in the Senate and others

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about looking at—if there is going to be a review of the law here,

what it could be.

At this point I will tell you that, from my experience looking at

this, the relative number of individuals that are brought into the

crack mandatory minimum—because that is what we are really

talking about—is fairly small, and it is partly smaller because the

Federal Government is not generally focusing enforcement at that

level.

In addition, you have to separate those who have pled down from

a more serious charge to get to the ones you want to talk about,

which are those who are charged largely because they are not a serious offender. The bypass has removed some of those individuals.

I do think though that the issue here is it is symbolic now, and I

think that is really what we are talking about because a number

of individuals is really relatively small. I can get the number for

the record.

It is known to have a disproportionate effect, and the issue, is,

why should that be? Again, it has not stopped Congress from passing a mandatory minimum, as you probably know, for meth that

has its pattern on the crack mandatory minimum. That will also

be a racially disproportionate enforcement mechanism. Now, again,

the argument here though that we have had, and that I have had,

and I know you have probably had if you talk about this, is when

you change the penalty to be less severe on the offender—and I recognize the offender also masks children, wives, families—but the

offender, what are you doing to the victim, the person who they are

making a living off of poisoning? Sometimes they are also poisoning

themselves, but what I have heard from people I have talked to in

the Black community when this comes up, who sometimes oppose

it—not everybody and I think there is a pretty broad consensus

this should be changed in the African-American community of people I talk to—but there are people who are in that community who

say, ‘‘Who speaks for us? Who speaks for saying that these people

are doing something really wrong, given the power of crack and

what we know.’’

Ms. NORTON. I will tell you who speaks for them, the people they

elect, and I can tell you that the Congressional Black Caucus,

speaking for them—and if they don’t like what we are saying, they

know how to tell us—are hearing these are killing our families,

this is killing our community.

Could I have one more, ask one more question on meth and I am

interested in knowing about its possible crossover effects. I don’t

quite understand why it is being contained. I understood something

about the big city incubator for heroin, for example. I don’t understand meth and what we might do to prevent its spread. I particularly wondered about this chart, and I must say it is very clever.

It was the other chart that was up there, and I think Mr. Souder

was dealing off of that chart. This is a chart that is designed to

show that the number of meth users are going down, because it

combines the meth users with other drug dependencies, if most

drug users didn’t get there by being on something else. That is

kind of drug abuse 101. Most people don’t jump into the bad drugs

like heroin, cocaine or meth without going through the pathways.

It can be anything from marijuana to alcohol and up. If you looked

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at these people—and I take it there is no illicit drug dependence

abuse—it should have said ‘‘except for meth.’’ Then, of course, you

can look, and the numbers go down.

I don’t understand that way scientifically of looking at drug use

because I don’t understand it to comport with how drug dealers in

fact get to hard drugs independent, and then somehow you factor

in all these things.

My other question was related. I saw a television program—

maybe others saw it—recently. It was the most fascinating thing

I have ever seen—maybe it was the program, maybe it was a little

slip—that showed that meth addiction, severity of addiction, went

up and down according to almost absolutely correlated to purity.

And thus, they suggested that if you looked at purity, you would

know when addiction—and then they put the two lines together,

and I have never seen anything like it. So my question is, why talk

about drug addiction in this way, when our common knowledge is

that is not what addiction is all about. We have to assume people

are multi-addicted, and does it really help us get rid of addiction

to look at it that way?

And the second is, is purity the thing to look at when we look

at meth, and is meth going to come to the big cities any time soon?

Mr. WALTERS. First, I apologize if the chart is not clear. What

it is designed to show is not that meth is not serious. What it is

designed to show you is our ability to measure, through the largest

national survey we have, meth use. While it has been constant over

the three comparable years of the survey, that within that constancy for population age 12 and above, every year the number of

addicted people among the meth users has increased by 50 percent.

The red bar—I am sorry that is not in color—the red bar is those

whose primary addiction is meth. The blue bar is those who have

a primary addiction to something else and also use meth. Both of

those are increasing at a rate of 50 percent per year, while the

total number of all meth users, addicted and non-addicted, has remained constant.

This has become, not unlike—if you have seen similar data for

heroin—the conversion rate from first use to dependency is extremely rapid, and in fact, for heroin at different times in the past,

the number of addicted users exceeds the number of non-addicted

users, because we have had longitudinal studies that show if use

heroin 10 times, you have a 50 percent probability of becoming addicted to it because it is that addictive. Methamphetamine is showing some of those similar properties here, and it helps also to explain why while you could have rates of use that may not change,

that nonetheless put enormous strains on the treatment system, it

is not—fortunately, there is not enormous number of new users

coming on board. In fact, that proportion of the overall user population is shrinking.

The problem is, the consequences for addiction are increasing at

50 percent per year. We need treatment resources here.

And also on the point you made, which is very important, people

are coming to meth from—I have met people who say they started

with meth, and I don’t doubt some have, but generally speaking,

they are coming to meth from using other drugs. What that

means—Mr. Souder’s and my earlier conversation about the Media

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Campaign, that is a different prevention problem for us. We can’t

run a prevention campaign saying, ‘‘Look, we know you abuse alcohol and marijuana, but don’t use meth.’’ That is not a very powerful Ad Campaign. And we certainly have the news media talking

about meth in a way that is very powerful.

So we are trying to look at prevention strategies and intervention

strategies that work, given the different phenomenon of this problem. It is serious, and I think on the issue of cities, yes, we are

very worried it could come to cities. Why? It already has done that

in the Southwest, certainly Los Angeles area. And second, as you

see in the drug strategy—and we have a chart but I won’t bother

to put it up now—the number of small toxic labs that we have all

been concerned about or should be concerned about because of the

consequences of the environment for children and others is going

down. The remaining source that is now becoming bigger, is crystal

meth being made in Mexico and distributed by the same organizations that are bringing, in some case, cocaine and heroin and marijuana. They have marketing outlets in our cities. They have the capacity to go nationwide very rapidly.

That is why we are working with the Mexican Government to

control the precursor chemicals that are now being focused in Mexico to distribute this. That is why we are also looking, in addition

to local law enforcement against small toxic labs, task forces that

will deal with these organizations as we have with cocaine and heroin, that are international. That is why I met with the Mexican

ambassador this morning, to talk about how we can strengthen

those cross-border operations, as well as the efforts we are making

to cutoff—we have cutoff significantly the precursors necessary to

make meth from Canada, from within the United States, and the

amount of production is declining over-the-counter drugs as a result of regulation, which we want to follow through on.

But the issue now, and the danger for our cities, is if we aren’t

successful on the Mexican produced, organization distributed meth,

you will have meth as a bigger problem in major cities if the patterns were to continue.

Now, we don’t entirely understand this, because there is a tendency for these drugs, like a disease, to spread as an epidemiological

phenomenon. They don’t come from nowhere. They come from contact of one person that is involved to the people around them. So

there can be pockets of intensity. There can be limits, but that is

why I talked about the need to localize this, especially in the early

stages. If we are going to wait until that is—Mr. Cummings mentioned there is 19 million Americans who use an illegal drug once

a month or more frequently. Fortunately, by a comparative measure, which is not a census, this is about 600,000, 700,000. If we

want to wait for this to be 3 million, we will have a meth problem

of gigantic proportions. Our goal is——

Ms. NORTON. It is going to depend a lot on the price of crystal

meth.

Mr. WALTERS. Purity and price, yes. I believe that what you saw

and what you cited is a critical matter because that reflects availability. Those changes up and down though, I think the suggestion—I saw just a transcript of the Frontline program—the suggestion was that the drug traffickers are manipulating the purity. We

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don’t have perfect knowledge of this, but I think the actual—if you

look over time there, what is actually manipulating the purity is

the effectiveness of enforcement in cutting off pseudoephedrine to

major labs in California that were run by organizations, the ability

to control some of the pseudoephedrine at the State level, that in

fact, it is a consequence of the law enforcement and regulatory——

Ms. NORTON. If that is the case, how come it goes up and down?

Mr. WALTERS. Well, because what happened was, first of all, you

had large production by organizations largely focused in California

when pseudoephedrine was available inside the United States. We

cutoff that source of large bulk supply. There was a downturn.

Then it came from Canada. They established routes through pharmaceutical firms in Canada. We worked through it at the RCMP

to cut that off. Then the enormous explosion of small toxic laboratories occurred from over-the-counter production. That was lower

purity, but more availability. That has been—it has dropped over

the last year by about 50 percent.

Ms. NORTON. So when you say it is purity and—I mean the purity lines were converged absolutely. I am going to ask you to go

back and have somebody do a study to prove what you are talking

about, law enforcement.

Mr. WALTERS. Sure.

Ms. NORTON. But are you saying purity was not a factor or——

Mr. WALTERS. No, purity was a factor.

Ms. NORTON [continuing]. Was an additional factor?

Mr. WALTERS. No. I was saying the cause of the purity—again,

we don’t know this perfectly, and I don’t want to overstate this—

the cause of the purity change I believe was suggested to be manipulation by drug traffickers. There may be some effort to adjust this,

but generally speaking, they are producing what they can produce

with the picture that is put on them.

Ms. NORTON. But they may have pressure to produce more to get

to more users. Wouldn’t they be inclined to dilute what they got?

Mr. WALTERS. Well, they may not be able to produce as pure a

product when their precursor chemicals they need to produce it are

not as available, yes. That is what I am saying. And when they

have to use smaller lab sites—again, this is a dangerous drug. The

purer it is, the more dangerous it is. Does the change in purity reflect manipulation by the bad guys, or does the change in purity

reflect the progress of the good guys?

Ms. NORTON. I appreciate what you are saying, Mr. Walters, because you are approaching it scientifically and you are talking

about hypotheses. I wonder if you are in a position, the drug czar

is in a position to put out an RFP so we can find out what in fact

produces this, and pinpoint, so that we know more then perhaps

about how to stop it.

Mr. WALTERS. We are trying to look at that internally. We will

be happy to share those results with you.

Mr. SOUDER. Also, there is more purity if an area is crystal meth

as opposed to mom and pop labs, because they don’t achieve the

same purity level. So depending on the mix of the meth, you get

a different—so, let’s say in Oklahoma—part of this is going away,

so let’s say in Oklahoma they are doing mom and pop labs. They

do the pseudoephedrine law that purity was lower. We shut down

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the mom and pop labs. They move to crystal meth. The purity goes

up so the addiction goes up. Then you bust a big distribution network, which has a lag effect. The Canadian bust he is talking about

at Windsor and Detroit, we think took out at that point 40 percent

of the raw pseudoephedrine for a period of time in the United

States. Then it found another way to come in.

But the problem, when we talk about meth, is that there is two

types of meth going on in the country, and the urban threat is crystal meth, although we are starting to see some labs. But it is not

just a rural phenomena, and you repeated that here, and that you

clarified. Phoenix has it. Los Angeles has it. Minneapolis has it.

And there was an early myth that because right now crack is still

the choice in most major cities and African-American areas. But in

Minneapolis, at our hearing in St. Paul and the Minneapolis side,

one neighborhood gang in the African-American community

switched from crack to meth, and all of a sudden, 20 percent from

a standing start of zero, 20 percent in I think it was 3 months of

the people who were addicted—I believe it was a Drug Court measurement—in the African-American community, were meth predominantly, because—and that city was, I believe, 5 to 10 percent, and

it showed that it could be a crack epidemic if the distribution network changes.

And I believe the disservice that you are continuing to do is to

act like it has flat-lined, when in fact, this is a rolling phenomena.

In my district, Elkhart and Fort Wayne, the two biggest cities,

don’t have any meth or minimal. Elkhart is starting to get some,

because crack is still the drug of choice. But as it moves and we

get control out here in the mom and pop labs, and the crystal meth

comes back in, all of a sudden—and so the line is changing, and

the reason we have a flat line and the reason we are going to see

purity go up in America, could be, is that the bill we are about to

pass in the Combat Meth Act, is going to regulate pseudoephedrine

at a Federal level.

Now, that means the mom and pop labs are going to be scrambling as to how to deal with this. The net effect of that is, is crystal

meth is going to jump short term. But we also put international

precursor controls in, and agree we can do that, and get control of

the Southwest border, they will have to water it down and blend

it in order to do it.

So you have to have multiple different strategies. But to understand that, you have to understand the risk of the drug.

I thank you for your patience. I know this is kind of our Valentine’s Day gift to you, and you love this every year, to come up

here, but we appreciate the thoroughness and the ability to talk

this through.

I personally believe that the disparity is wrong in cocaine, but I

believe we need tougher penalties on powder. The drug of choice of

Whites should not be less severe than for the drug of choice that

is more likely to be African-American. Those are just tilt area, but

to the degree your statistics are right, I think what Senator Sessions is looking at is, OK, if we take this down, do we also increase

the powder? And I thought it was a good discussion, but I would

have a slightly different resolution to it.

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But I thank you for your testimony. We will continue to, I am

sure, try to refine as we move through, and particularly, since I believe Safe and Drug-Free Schools is still likely to stay there, and

as we move into the next thing of how to creatively try to address

this huge prevention program, including the drug testing.

With that, the subcommittee stands adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 5:03 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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