U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

66–899 CC WASHINGTON : 2000

RESPONDING TO THE DRUG CRISIS IN SOUTHERN

CALIFORNIA

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE,

DRUG POLICY, AND HUMAN RESOURCES

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

MARCH 7, 2000

Serial No. 106–157

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

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

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

STEPHEN HORN, California

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia

DAVID M. MCINTOSH, Indiana

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

MARSHALL ‘‘MARK’’ SANFORD, South

Carolina

BOB BARR, Georgia

DAN MILLER, Florida

ASA HUTCHINSON, Arkansas

LEE TERRY, Nebraska

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois

GREG WALDEN, Oregon

DOUG OSE, California

PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin

HELEN CHENOWETH-HAGE, Idaho

DAVID VITTER, Louisiana

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

ROBERT E. WISE, JR., West Virginia

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,

DC

CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

JIM TURNER, Texas

THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine

HAROLD E. FORD, JR., Tennessee

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

KEVIN BINGER, Staff Director

DANIEL R. MOLL, Deputy Staff Director

DAVID A. KASS, Deputy Counsel and Parliamentarian

LISA SMITH ARAFUNE, Chief Clerk

PHIL SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE, DRUG POLICY, AND HUMAN RESOURCES

JOHN L. MICA, Florida, Chairman

BOB BARR, Georgia

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

ASA HUTCHINSON, Arkansas

DOUG OSE, California

DAVID VITTER, Louisiana

PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

JIM TURNER, Texas

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois

EX OFFICIO

DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

SHARON PINKERTON, Staff Director and Chief Counsel

MASON ALINGER, Professional Staff Member

LISA WANDLER, Clerk

CHERRI BRANSON, Minority Counsel

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on March 7, 2000 .............................................................................. 1

Statement of:

Jacob, Dianne, San Diego County supervisor; Greg Cox, San Diego County supervisor; Sgt. Scott Lee, San Diego Police Department; Jack

Campana, director, Comprehensive Health and Wellness, San Diego

Unified School District; Tom Hall, chief of police, San Diego Unified

School District; and Judge Bonnie Dumanis, Superior Court Judge,

San Diego, CA ............................................................................................... 10

Veal, William, Chief Patrol Agent, San Diego Sector, Immigration and

Naturalization Service; Edward Logan, Special Agent in Charge, U.S.

Customs Service, San Diego, CA; UnderSheriff Jack Drown, executive

committee chair, California Border Alliance Group, Southwest Border

HIDTA; and Captain Robert Allen, Commander, Activities San Diego,

U.S. Coast Guard, San Diego, CA ............................................................... 56

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

Allen, Captain Robert, Commander, Activities San Diego, U.S. Coast

Guard, San Diego, CA, prepared statement of ........................................... 139

Campana, Jack, director, Comprehensive Health and Wellness, San Diego

Unified School District, prepared statement of .......................................... 34

Cox, Greg, San Diego County supervisor, prepared statement of ................ 22

Drown, UnderSheriff Jack, executive committee chair, California Border

Alliance Group, Southwest Border HIDTA, prepared statement of ......... 96

Dumanis, Judge Bonnie, Superior Court Judge, San Diego, CA, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 42

Hall, Tom, chief of police, San Diego Unified School District, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 37

Jacob, Dianne, San Diego County supervisor, prepared statement of ......... 14

Lee, Sgt. Scott, San Diego Police Department, prepared statement of ........ 30

Logan, Edward, Special Agent in Charge, U.S. Customs Service, San

Diego, CA, prepared statement of ............................................................... 84

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

Florida, prepared statement of .................................................................... 5

Veal, William, Chief Patrol Agent, San Diego Sector, Immigration and

Naturalization Service:

Information concerning positions for Border Patrol ............................... 60

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 69

(1)

RESPONDING TO THE DRUG CRISIS IN

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

TUESDAY, MARCH 7, 2000

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

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in the

U.S. Coast Guard Station, 2170 North Harbor Drive, San Diego,

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

Present: Representative Mica and Souder.

Also present: Representative Bilbray.

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

and Mason Alinger, professional staff member.

Mr. MICA. I would like to call the meeting of the Subcommittee

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

I am John Mica, chairman of the subcommittee and am pleased to

be here in San Diego today, southern California, at the specific request of Mr. Bilbray and pleased to conduct this hearing which is

entitled, ‘‘Responding to the Drug Crisis in Southern California’’.

Also, a member of our subcommittee participating today is the gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Souder, if he could please join us. We

may have others joining us today, but we have two full panels, and

we want to proceed accordingly.

I will recognize myself for an opening statement. I will recognize

Mr. Souder and then Mr. Bilbray for opening statements, and then

we will proceed to our first panel.

Our subcommittee is conducting this oversight field hearing as

part of our need to understand, fully, the Nation’s drug crisis, and

how it impacts different parts of our Nation. Specifically, we are

looking at what effective drug control efforts are underway in this

area of our country and how we can support those efforts.

Today, we will learn about Federal, State and local efforts here

to respond to the drug crisis in southern California, along with the

California’s border with Mexico. This area happens to be one of our

most vulnerable and challenging regions in America for our law enforcement officials in that mission.

We are privileged to have with us today congressional leaders

who strongly support efforts to stop the flow of illegal narcotics into

the United States and also to protect our communities from the

ravages they cause. I know that Mr. Bilbray, who invited us to his

congressional district in this area here in beautiful San Diego and

southern California, has been particularly active in helping this reVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:25 Dec 28, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\66899.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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gion in dealing with the issues we face. Primarily, he has been very

active in looking at solutions for effective drug prevention and

treatment and also helped me on a number of occasions in my responsibilities on our national and international drug control policy

which we are trying to formulate through our subcommittee.

I recognize that he is a resident expert on the needs and concerns of citizens throughout this area and an important force in

helping us to fashion our Federal, State and local solutions.

I want to thank all the Members who have encouraged us to conduct this hearing here today, particularly Mr. Bilbray and thank

them for their dedication to this issue of critical importance to our

Nation.

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

Federal, regional and local officials who are engaged in responding

to the drug crisis and the terrible consequences we see daily from

that epidemic we are facing. These officials serve on the very front

line, investigating, apprehending, prosecuting and sentencing drug

producers and traffickers and are in need of our national Federal

support and assistance.

This subcommittee is particularly interested in how communities

and regions are dealing with critical responsibilities of implementing successfully our national, and I say national in the terms of not

just Federal, drug control strategy. After all, most law enforcement

and drug control activities are really primarily State and local responsibilities. However, as a border region, this community and

this area has special needs and concerns such as transit, drug transit issues and also trade issues, a big corridor for both.

We also are very concerned with drug related developments

across the border. I think all of us were appalled on both sides of

the border of the recent murder of the Tijuana chief of police which

focused national and international attention on the corruption and

violence that has faced us on both sides of the border. Our sympathies go out to the family of the police chief and those in the

Baja Peninsular who have seen the violence repeated time and

time again on that side of the border, and the people of this community who have also seen a loss of life. The dangers in combating

illegal narcotics are very real. In Congress, we want to ensure that

the Federal Government is doing everything possible to assist this

area and our colleague in both reducing the supply of drugs in this

community as well as the demand for drugs here and across our

Nation.

At a recent hearing of this subcommittee, we learned estimates

that Americans in need of drug treatment range from 4.4 to 8.9

million people, yet less than 2 million people reportedly receive

treatment. The gap must somehow be addressed. Our subcommittee will continue to conduct oversight in this and other areas and

seek to improve our Federal programs that support those State and

local drug treatment and prevention efforts.

Today, we are focusing on regional challenges and threats facing

southern California. Illegal drug production, use and trafficking

pose special dangers and challenges to the communities in southern California, also to our Coast Guard, to our Customs officials,

to Mexican officials who work with them and to our local law enforcement and elected officials.

3

This region of California continues to a primary transit point for

illegal drugs entering this country and transiting across and

through this State and region. In recent years, this area has experienced more demands on its resources than ever before. This demand is expected from what we are told to even further increase,

not diminish, in the future.

In response to this terrible drug crisis, this area of California has

been designated by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy [ONDCP], as what is termed a ‘‘High Intensity Drug

Trafficking Area.’’ That is a general law designation by which we

can impose a HIDTA, Federal designation as a high intensity drug

trafficking area. HIDTAs are defined as regions in the United

States with serious drug trafficking problems that have a harmful

impact on other areas of the country. The mission of the HIDTAs

is ‘‘to enhance’’ and this is out of the laws, ‘‘to enhance and coordinate America’s drug-control efforts among, Federal, State and local

officials in order to eliminate or reduce drug trafficking (including

the production, manufacture, transportation, distribution and

chronic use of illegal drugs and money laundering) and its harmful

consequences in critical regions of the United States.’’ That is the

mission of the HIDTAs.

Our subcommittee is responsible for authorizing and overseeing

the Office of National Drug Control Policy and also overseeing the

HIDTA programs. Today, we will learn more about the effectiveness of this particular HIDTA in this area and its efforts to combat

illegal narcotics.

Designated as one of the original HIDTAs in the 1990’s, the

Southwest Border HIDTA region is a critical of defense in efforts

to reduce drug availability in the United States. Our National Office of Drug Control Policy estimates that about 60 percent of the

cocaine entering the United States passes through Mexico. Mexico

is the No. 1 foreign producer and supplier of marijuana and also

methamphetamines to the United States. We just conducted a

hearing in northern, I guess this would be referred to as northern

or north central and northern, California on the question of methamphetamine. Mr. Souder was there. You were not there, Mr.

Bilbray. Last week he heard of a murder of a 6 year-old by a 6

year-old. Look at the root cause of that murder. The child’s father,

I believe, was in jail, came basically from a crack house. What we

learned about methamphetamine and its impact on the communities there is absolutely astounding. People abandoning their children. What was it 35 children of which only 5 were reclaimed by

the families. They showed a tape and they showed the face of one

little girl who had been abused and tortured by her family and

then scalded to death was her final demise. 600 children, I think

they said, in one county coming from meth families. We have an

epidemic of methamphetamine and some of that coming again from

across the border. In fact, they displayed meth that came from

Mexico and cocaine at the hearing and it just appalls me to see

what is going on in this area. Unfortunately, Mexico is the No. 1

foreign producer, as I said, and supplier of methamphetamine to

the United States and Mexican heroine dominates the market in

the western and southwestern United States. Through DEA signature program, they have also indicated in the last year about a 20

4

percent increase in production of black tar heroin from Mexico, also

something that should raise concerns.

I do applaud the continuing dedication and professionalism of our

witnesses today and their willingness to share with us their ideas

and needs again of this particular area and the impact that illegal

narcotics have had on this area.

I can assure you that this subcommittee and your Representatives in Congress here today will do everything possible we can to

assist you in protecting your loved ones and ridding your communities and our communities of deadly drugs.

I called back to central Florida, Orlando, this morning, and they

read me the headlines in central Florida. They said we have had

epidemic heroin overdose deaths. The headlines last year where

they exceeded homicides in central Florida, and the news today is

that the heroin deaths are up almost 20 percent over last year.

Overdoses are up dramatically, and there would probably have

been another 30 deaths on top of the number we have had if it was

not for rapid medical treatment that is now emergency treatment

that is taking place.

We all recognize that the drug crisis demands full utilization of

all available resources and close cooperation in a comprehensive,

regional and national approach. After all, that is what the HIDTAs

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

decisively to overcome them. San Diego, southern California, and

this Nation cannot afford to wait. The drug crisis demands promising approaches and decisive action and the time to act is now.

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

today. I appreciate the invitation from Mr. Bilbray to conduct this

hearing here in his home area. I would like to yield now to the gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Souder, for an opening statement.

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

5

6

7

Mr. SOUDER. I thank the chairman. It is a great privilege to be

here. When we were in the minority, before I was elected to Congress, but was a staffer, there was a concern that there had been

a seeming retreat from our efforts to battle illegal narcotics, and

it is by this oversight committee not holding even one hearing to

oversee the drug policy. And since the Republicans have taken over

Congress we have been pretty much in every part of the Nation,

on each of the borders and have been very aggressively trying to

see what can be done in all the different areas ranging from interdiction to treatment.

I went with the chairman down to South America last year. We

met with all the source countries and leaderships in those countries. We went with Congressman Ballenger just a few weeks ago,

where we met not only with President Pastrana and President

Chavez of Venezuela and Colombia, but with the leaders of Mexico,

including the Attorney General, who has a tremendous uphill battle. I am convinced that the higher levels of the government in

Mexico are extremely dedicated to trying to do something to tackle

the problem. However, the lack of a legal system and a corrupted

system which to deal with the tremendous amount of narcotics is

overwhelming our ability to work together, and we are going to

continue to have to address that question, which means it puts tremendous pressure on our borders. And part of the reason we are

here in San Diego today is because of that.

In addition, we are about to finish our markups and have our

votes on the Safe and Drug Free Schools Act, in addition to looking

at some additional treatment legislation in the areas of prevention

and treatment. So I am looking forward to the testimony on that.

And my friend, Congressman Bilbray, was elected the same year

I was in 1994, part of the class was that came in with lots of diversity. One of the things that Congressman Bilbray has done constantly with me and other Members is to collar us and to make

sure we do not forget about the problems of California, in particular, the relationships of the border. He will occasionally on almost

any given day take us one by one and say you have to do more for

this problem we have here in California. I mean that seriously. We

have had many discussions, usually at a fairly calm level, sometimes going up one notch higher as he feels we are not paying

enough attention to the problems here in San Diego, so it is one

of the reasons that I am here today because I have been listening

to Congressman Bilbray as well as looking at the data. I have been

here before, but I have not been here for a hearing on the border,

so I am looking forward to your testimony and appreciate the invitation.

Mr. MICA. Thank you, gentleman. I am pleased now to yield to

our host today, the gentleman from California, Mr. Bilbray, you are

recognized.

Mr. BILBRAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I would

like to welcome you and Mr. Souder. I hope you appreciate, Mr.

Souder, that we tried to accommodate you and make you feel at

home by having the coldest wettest day of the year. We really want

to make you feel comfortable.

Let me just say I appreciate the tactful ways my colleagues point

out the way that I have been rather persistent in trying to point

8

out that in so many ways San Diego is a world away from Washington, DC, and for a lot of us in San Diego, we prefer it that way.

But the sad fact about it is that Washington has a major responsibility to be sensitized to the unique perspective we have here, not

just as a border community or the major border community of the

world. Tijuana, point of entry, has more crossings than any other

port of entry anywhere in the world, but also the fact that San

Diego County, as a whole, has had some very unique challenges

and unique answers to those challenges that I think that the rest

of the country can learn by.

Now, the chairman has been very clear in pointing out that more

has to be done in drug interdiction in the entire drug cultural development, not just in this country, but internationally, and I really

appreciate you coming here because you are able to see first hand

the front line battle against the drug smuggling trade, but also the

front line battle that what is being done in our counties, in our cities, in our schools, in our courtrooms at fighting this hideous epidemic at every line, every point we can.

I think it is going to point out there are still things we need to

do, a whole lot more we need to do. The United States Government

has gotten very comfortable at reviewing Mexico and certifying

Mexico based on how they made the efforts that we expect of them.

I appreciate the fact that Chairman Mica and his subcommittee

has looked at also the issue of who do we certify in the U.S. Federal Government. Is it doing what it has to do? It is doing everything it can do and as we judge others, we should judge ourselves.

I think that one of the things that hits home to me, and I apologize

if I am a little persistent on this issue, is that the violence of the

drug activities along the border is not something far away from me.

The brutal assassination that happened last week or 2 weeks ago

happened a few kilometers from where my family lives. We have

had assassinations on the silver strand that are a few kilometers

or miles north of where I call home. This is something that is happening in our community, not somewhere else and it is hard to

draw those lines.

I would ask us to take a look at the deficiencies, things like half

as many border patrol agents being actually hired than what was

authorized. The lack of resources that are given to Customs and

drug interdiction while we give resources to other countries all over

the world to defend and secure their borders, but sort of give our

own borders and our own citizens a second rate standing in the defense of our frontiers.

I think though that there are challenges we need to do within

our own communities. San Diego County will point out that one of

the things that has been detected here in San Diego County is the

involvement of public funds in supporting the drug problems. San

Diego County has been very innovative and very challenging and

brave enough to raise these issues and say how much of public

funds are going in to financing the drug problems? What can be

done in the educational institutions? And we do have a major challenge to look at what we can do along the border, what we can do

in our schools. But I also would challenge you to say we have to

set an example as a Federal Government and this is not popular

to say, but at a time where we have people that are incarcerated

9

in this country, that are under lock and the key and the government cannot keep them from having access to drugs, we have a

major challenge to look at ourselves and say what are we not doing

right? How can we think that we can save our children from access

to drugs? How do we think we can keep drugs out of the hands of

teenagers and school age kids when we cannot even keep it out of

the hands of convicted criminals who are in prison? This really is

a major challenge for us. So I appreciate the fact that you are able

to see what we have done, that barriers that used to exist are falling down, and especially along the border. The fact is is that the

county was very aggressive, the Sheriff’s Department and the city

was very aggressive at cracking down on the meth labs a few years

ago and we have seen them be basically put on a retreat and they

restructured somewhere else and then we have to fight again. We

have looked at the fact that we are not just talking coordination

between Customs and Coast Guard and Immigration. We are talking about coordination between Customs, Coast Guard, Immigration, the Navy, the Army, the National Guard and the Air Force

and this is what it is going to take to defend our children.

So I am glad you are here. I am glad that we are able to spend

this time talking about these, and I think San Diego has a great

story to tell America. I think there is so much you can learn from

our experiences here. That is why I have been a bit of a pain, saying come and listen to the story of San Diego County, look at what

we have been able to do with all of our problems and all of our

challenges. If America will give us half a chance to teach you how

to address this issue, it can really help us find the answer, not just

for San Diego County but for America and the world. These problems do not only affect our children as what has happened in Mexico the last few years, it affects people outside our borders.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I appreciate this time and this

effort.

Mr. MICA. Thank the gentleman and again thank you for the invitation. Let me explain how we will proceed. First of all, those of

you that are part of our first panel all appear to be local officials,

and we are pleased to have you. This is an investigations and oversight subcommittee of Congress. In that regard, we do swear in our

witnesses, and you will be under oath when you testify.

We will also run this little clock here. We do this in Washington

or in field hearings. We will allow you 5 minutes for oral presentation. When you see that blinking, you try to wind up, if you can.

By unanimous consent or just by request, and I will seek unanimous consent, we will submit for the record any lengthy documentation or if you have a lengthier statement that you would like

to be made part of the official record of this congressional proceeding.

The first responsibility is to swear you in. Will you please and

raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. MICA. Witnesses answered in the affirmative and thank you

again. We are going to start with this first panel. Let me introduce

all the panelists, if I may. We have Ms. Dianne Jacob who is a San

Diego County supervisor. We have Mr. Greg Cox, San Diego County supervisor also. Sergeant Scott Lee, San Diego Police DepartVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:25 Dec 28, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00013 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\66899.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ment. Mr. Jack Campana, and he is the director of comprehensive

health and physical education for San Diego Unified School District. We have Mr. Tom Hall, he is Chief Hall, chief of police of San

Diego Unified School District. And we have Judge Bonnie Dumanis,

Superior Court Judge in San Diego, CA. Welcome each of you and

we are pleased to have your testimony at this time.

The other thing, too, is we will withhold questions, and I think

one of you might have to leave early. If you have to leave that will

be fine. We may submit questions to you.

Mr. Souder has a motion that we leave the record open for 2

weeks.

Mr. SOUDER. So moved.

Mr. MICA. All right. We will leave the record of this hearing open

for 2 weeks without objection, so ordered.

Mr. SOUDER. And that includes any additional testimony that

they may want to submit or background information.

Mr. MICA. That includes any background information. If there

are those that in the audience or in the community that want to

submit testimony or other additions to the record, that also will be

welcome. Without objection, so ordered.

With that I will then recognize and welcome Ms. Dianne Jacob,

San Diego County supervisor, our first witness. Welcome and you

are recognized.

STATEMENTS OF DIANNE JACOB, SAN DIEGO COUNTY SUPERVISOR; GREG COX, SAN DIEGO COUNTY SUPERVISOR; SGT.

SCOTT LEE, SAN DIEGO POLICE DEPARTMENT; JACK

CAMPANA, DIRECTOR, COMPREHENSIVE HEALTH AND

WELLNESS, SAN DIEGO UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT; TOM

HALL, CHIEF OF POLICE, SAN DIEGO UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT; AND JUDGE BONNIE DUMANIS, SUPERIOR COURT

JUDGE, SAN DIEGO, CA

Ms. JACOB. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. I appreciate the opportunity to provide testimony to you

today. I am here as the chairwoman of the Board of Supervisors,

but also as the second district supervisor that represents the eastern portion of San Diego County and about 50 miles of the United

States-Mexico border. It was San Diego County about 3 years ago

that was recognized, unfortunately, and had the dubious distinction

of being named the meth capital in the United States and East

County, my district, was the hot spot and it was for that reason

about 3 years ago I initiated the Methamphetamine Strike Force

and that is what I am going to talk about a bit today.

Never before has one single drug threatened the health of a community like methamphetamine to the county of San Diego. Out of

this specific mass destruction and continuing threat has come a

unique alliance of criminal justice officials, policymakers, drug

treatment practitioners and drug prevention specialists and we call

this the Meth Strike Force, but before I discuss the on-going goals

and accomplishments of the Strike Force, I must tell you the devastating tale of meth use in our county. I want you to understand

the magnitude of the meth-related problems in our county because

I think you will find the efforts of the Strike Force are nothing

short of impressive.

11

The year was 1995. An unemployed plumber named Shawn Nelson sneaked into a National Guard Armory in San Diego’s Keany

Mesa neighborhood and commandeered a 57-ton M–60 tank. He

maneuvered the deadly vehicle down residential streets crunching

into cars and snapping steel lampposts as if they were twigs. He

terrorized the neighborhood and frightened those of us who

watched in disbelief.

Not long after that incident, a young man in San Diego’s East

County climbed on board a county transit bus. He yanked the driver away from the steering wheel, hijacked that bus and embarked

on a nearly 3 hour road trip down four separate San Diego freeways. It took the cooperation of three separate city police departments, the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department, the California

Highway Patrol and a small pack of police canines to halt the vehicle and get the man into custody.

The common denominator in each of these gruesome acts is

methamphetamine. In each case, the guilty party was under the influence of this intense stimulant.

Unlike other drugs, meth is ‘‘homegrown’’ as drug agents say. Before my colleagues on the Board of Supervisors passed crucial legislation, most of the chemicals used in its recipe could be obtained

with little difficulty. This availability made it cheaper than crack

cocaine. Frighteningly, its high lasts 4 times longer.

By 1997, use of the drug had proliferated greatly in San Diego

County. Some 43 percent of the people arrested for crimes in our

county were under the influence of meth. Our county emergency

rooms admitted nearly 2,000 patients for reasons related to methamphetamine that same year. And some 3,500 people had visited

drug treatment providers seeking help to kick their meth-specific

addiction. Every week of 1997 two people in our county died due

to the methamphetamine overdose.

We knew it would take a collaborative effort as fierce as the drug

itself to stop its spread and that is why we envisioned an all-inclusive effort in the fight. We began to enlist the input of every agency

who had any vested interest in stamping out methamphetamine.

We knew we needed input from law enforcement because no one

understands the ravages of meth better than the officers, the deputies, the agents who deal with methamphetamine on a daily basis.

But we also knew that we could not, as one agent described, ‘‘arrest the drug out of the county.’’ Locking up every last user, cooker

and dealer was a noble endeavor, but even law enforcement officials said it would not alone deter future generations of young people who would be peer pressured into trying the drug. It did not

address the high re-arrest rates of meth users after they served

time in our county jails. It did not arrest the explosive danger of

volatile meth labs or the environmental hazards of toxic chemicals

which are frequently dumped at the lab sites.

Thus was born our four pronged approach toward meth abatement. We wanted the prevention and the education community on

board to keep people from trying meth. We needed the intervention

community on board to get the drug off the streets by prosecuting

those who engaged in its manufacture and distribution. We needed

the interdiction community to help create systemic legislative goals

related to methamphetamine and we needed the treatment commuVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:25 Dec 28, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00015 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\66899.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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nity on board to successfully rehabilitate users thereby ending the

generational cycle of meth use.

Now imagine, one table with representatives from each of those

four sectors: prevention, intervention, interdiction and treatment.

In all, some 70 different agencies attend the regular sessions and

subcommittees of the Meth Strike Force with law enforcement,

health officials, educators at both the Federal, State and local level.

Strike Force officials do more than just strategize ways to combat

meth. They fuse resources. They identify successful programs already working to stop meth. They implement those programs in

critical areas and lobby for increased funding. They seek to raise

public awareness and streamline public access to solutions. This is

truly a ground breaking regional approach to decrease supply and

demand for meth.

I am here to tell you the accomplishments and recommendations

of the Strike Force are very inspiring.

In the last 3 years, the Meth Strike Force for example has put

the power of law enforcement in the hands of the people by empowering the community with a 24-hour anonymous hotline to report

meth-related crime. Calls to our hotline have so far resulted in

more than 100 arrests of meth users, cookers and dealers.

The Strike Force lobbied for strict—may I finish?

Mr. MICA. Go ahead.

Ms. JACOB. The Strike Force lobbied for strict drug treatment

programs to reduce recidivism rates within our community’s criminal justice system. The Strike Force identified the drug court program as a base model which would best serve the nonviolent criminal drug offender population in our county.

Currently some 450 offenders take part in the program which

has early recidivism rates of less than 10 percent which is phenomenal. That is the drug court. That is significantly less than the

traditional court system. 45,000 offenders are currently eligible for

the program should expansion occur and we are fighting to expand

those drug courts and need resources to do that.

The Strike Force brought to the community forefront the issue of

children living in potentially explosive meth labs. The Strike Force

identified the San Diego County District Attorney’s Drug Endangered Children Program as a crucial solution to this issue. This

program is an outstanding example of cross agency cooperation between law enforcement and Child Protective Services.

The 2-year old program removes kids from contaminated sites

and requires that parents get clean and sober before the family can

be reunited. A physician is medically tracking each child so the San

Diego community will learn more about the long-term effects of

meth on children. More than 170 children have been removed from

meth contaminated environments and continue to receive DEC

services. These are children who stand a high statistical risk of becoming meth cookers themselves.

In addition, the Strike Force helped draft local and State legislation limiting sales of products which contain ingredients used to

cook meth. In 1998, my colleagues and I adopted an ordinance limiting sales ephedrine-based cold medication to three packages per

transaction. This poses no threat to people using the medicine legitimately. Across California, 38 other jurisdictions adopted similar

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ordinances. Just months ago, the Governor of California signed a

statewide bill which mirrors San Diego County restrictions.

The Strike Force also embarked on an intensive local media campaign to raise public awareness about the dangers of meth. We

joined forces with the Partnership for a Drug-free America and the

State Attorney General’s office. We continue to distribute meth-specific public service announcements to local print and broadcast

media. Our Strike Force media team frequently informs local news

outlets about local drug trends suggesting ways in which the community can best respond.

The Strike Force addressed a severe meth problem within the

North County community of Vista by setting up an experimental

pilot project designed to address the specific needs of one community. Already, the Vista Partners Project has brokered increased cooperation between law enforcement and educational officials by

bringing meth awareness to every employee on the District’s campuses. The group developed a series of teacher trainings by State

Bureau of Narcotic agents who have coached school employees to

recognize the warning signs of drug use on campus. The trainings

have since been requested by a number of school districts countywide.

Since the inception of the Strike Force in 1996 there has been

a 30 percent drop in the number of meth-related deaths in our

county. Methamphetamine-related drug arrests are down nearly 14

percent. Availability is down some 14 percent and local meth lab

cleanups and seizures have been cut in half.

It is a good beginning and encouraging news to those who have

worked tirelessly on meth abatement issues. But the commendations cannot last long because there are media education campaigns to sustain, decoy operations to plan, court reform strategies

to discuss and bi-national relationships to develop with our Mexican officials so that we can respond to the meth trends along the

border. There are many, many more ideas on the developmental

plate of the Meth Strike Force.

These efforts would be greatly enhanced with funding directed

toward community collaborative abatement efforts so that law enforcement officers can continue to share their expertise with school

teachers, so that drug treatment counselors can continue to talk

with U.S. Customs officials about the trends in distribution; so that

our dialog remains healthy in our efforts manageable.

We needed an entity more powerful than meth itself to force it

out of our community and we believe that we have found it in the

many voices of the Meth Strike Force and thank you for allowing

me a little more time. You can tell me I am very excited about this

effort and it is working. We need your help.

Mr. MICA. We are very glad to hear your testimony and we did

allow you to extend your time and the others are now to a minute

apiece.

Ms. JACOB. Sorry.

Mr. MICA. You did have a very thorough presentation. We appreciate that. I recognize now Mr. Greg Cox and also a San Diego

County supervisor.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Jacob follows:]

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Mr. COX. Thank you, Chairman Mica, Congressman Souder, Congressman Bilbray. We are very pleased to have you here in San

Diego. I just got back last night from spending 6 days back in

Washington, DC, lobbying my Congressman and some other Congressman from San Diego on a TEA–21 project, S.R. 905. I have

to say I do not think I would ever contemplate that I would say

this, but actually the weather in Washington, DC, was more beautiful, at least the last couple days, than it has been here in San

Diego as I understand.

Mr. BILBRAY. We need the rain. We need the rain.

Mr. COX. I am very pleased to be here. I have the distinction and

the pleasure of having followed Congressman Bilbray when he was

elected to Congress. I was appointed to his seat in the 1st District

for the San Diego County Board of Supervisors.

Mr. BILBRAY. Tonight he gets unanimously elected again.

Mr. COX. And I have the balance of the United States-Mexico

border where Supervisor Jacob’s District stops. My district picks up

and goes from the Pacific Ocean, 14 miles to the east. We have, obviously, some very significant concerns about illegal drug use, illicit

drug use along what is certainly as Congressman Bilbray pointed

out is the most crossed border crossing in the world, over 70 million crossings per year. Included in this testimony that I am going

to give you today is going to be some very specific solutions that

we have identified as significantly addressing these concerns dealing with border-related drug use and drug use within the county

of San Diego.

San Diego County encompasses 4,261 square miles and is located

obviously in the extreme southwest portion of California, bordered

on the west by the Pacific Ocean, on the south by Mexico, on the

east by the desert and to the north by a mountain range and a

major military base. Most of the county’s 2.7 million inhabitants reside in the coastal strip with an estimated 26 percent of this population under the age of 18 and another 23 percent of this population over 59 years. According to recent statistics, the county’s

population is predominantly white, 63 percent, with Hispanics comprising 23 percent, African-Americans 6 percent, and Asian and

other minority groups at 9 percent.

A variety of opportunities and challenges exist with the diversity

of the region and the proximity to the international border. The

economic and social impact of drug use in this region is significant

across every costly local government system and throughout the 18

municipal jurisdictions and unincorporated areas of San Diego

County. An analysis performed in 1997 estimated that the total

economic cost of alcohol and drug abuse in San Diego County

reached $1.8 billion in 1995. We have included in the packet of information we have given to you an executive summary of that

study that establishes what all those costs were. The most significant cost component was the direct expenditure on medical care to

treat substance abuse-related health conditions. These expenses accounted for approximately one third of the total economic cost of

abuse.

Related costs associated with alcohol and drug-involved crime including criminal justice expenditures, property destruction, criminal victimization and incarceration account for more than 30 perVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:25 Dec 28, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00022 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\66899.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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cent of the total costs. Prevention and treatment expenditures were

less than 2 percent of the total economic cost of alcohol and illicit

drug use. To emphasize what Chairwoman Jacob has mentioned,

we need additional resources on the demand-reduction component

of our efforts to combat drug abuse. Drug abuse drive the budget

across a variety of departments at the county. It draws precious

local resources that could otherwise enhance the quality of life for

residents in the areas of education, parks, libraries and transportation.

Nationwide, there are over 1 million people arrested each year on

drug-related charges. In San Diego County, over 70 percent of men

and women arrested last year tested positive for drugs. Substance

abuse was also present in almost 80 percent of San Diego County

child abuse cases. It is the precipitating factor that drives domestic

violence as well as street violence.

Elected policymakers, health administrators and judicial authorities have collectively recognized that the criminal justice system,

social services and health care are interrelated and that the best

practices of courts and effective treatment options must result in

a new model that reflects the reality and knowledge we have in the

year 2000.

In light of these statistics, it is clear that criminal activity in San

Diego walks hand-in-hand with the incidence of drug and alcohol

abuse. Beginning in 1996, the county partnered with the courts

and other jurisdictions to develop several creative and collaborative

pilot programs in an attempt to lessen the economic and social impacts of alcohol and drug abuse in this county. We started this

planning process by acknowledging that enhancement of local law

enforcement alone is not the solution. Because alcohol and illicit

drug use play a part in everything from street crime to domestic

violence and child abuse or neglect, San Diego has taken a balanced, comprehensive and integrated approach to combat alcohol

and illicit drug use and their resulting impacts.

These efforts can be seen in the Dependency Court Recovery

Project and drug courts. We know that coercion works and that the

heavy hammer of the law can influence an individual’s choice to be

clean and sober. We know that the long-term criminal behavior

pattern of drug abusers will not change until those individuals no

longer use drugs.

The Dependency Court Recovery Project targets the documented

child abuse and neglect cases that are the result of the alcohol and/

or drug dependency of one or both of the child’s parents. This

project provides for court supervision of the parents linked with the

availability of alcohol and drug recovery treatment on demand and

weekly testing to ensure the compliance with court orders. Over 80

percent of parents in the Dependency Court Recovery Project are

in compliance with court orders and thus the courts are able to

make more timely decisions about the reunification plans for these

families and their children.

San Diego County currently has four adult drug courts, one juvenile delinquency drug court and one dependency drug court in operation. Their program designs closely match the national drug court

models that offer convicted drug offenders the opportunity of entering a closely monitored, 15-month drug treatment with both strong

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incentives and immediate sanctions in lieu of other criminal penalties. During the first 34 months of operations, the numbers of

drug court participants has increased steadily until they have

reached our operational capacity of approximately 500 per year. We

now have waiting lists in at least two of the drug courts. All drug

court treatment is currently being funded from a combination of

short-term grants, participant fees and one time resources such as

seized asset forfeiture funds from local law enforcement agencies.

Regardless of the success of these drug courts, the existing programs are only serving approximately 2 percent of the drug-involved criminal cases in San Diego County. To effectively accommodate the remaining cases, from early diversion to long-term commitments to State prison, a system-wide approach is being designed that is based upon the same principles and practices that

have shown success in the drug court programs.

Every jurisdiction in America struggles to some extent with the

societal and fiscal liabilities of drug abuse. Border counties carry

an additional burden.

The funding available through the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, or SCAAP program, partially offsets real costs, but

reimbursement of the criminal justice costs related to our geographic location adjacent to the United States-Mexico border is still

inadequate. As an example, the drug-related cases coming from the

border now account for over 57 percent of all felony cases issued

in South Bay, which is a part of my District, up from 24 percent

in 1997. The South Bay Branch of the San Diego District Attorney’s Office reviewed 1,770 cases dealing with drug trafficking at

our borders in 1999 also a substantial increase from only 1,325 in

1997. These increases are expected to continue with no anticipated

growth in the number of personnel. We need the assistance of Federal funds to address what is a national and international problem

that unjustly burdens local taxpayers.

What we do not need are any more studies. We know what the

problem is, we know what works, and we need the resources and

reinforcement to continue to solve these problems with practical solutions. Drug treatment must be administered and funded as an integral part of the criminal justice system, not simply as an ad hoc

and piecemeal adjunct to it in a separate, inadequate health system. To date, the drug courts have been funded through a combination of short-term grants and one-time moneys. In recognition of

the continuing need for expansion of these integrated, cooperative

programs, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors has endorsed legislation that would create on-going program funding for

the drug courts for both adult and juvenile criminal offenders and

for drug abusing parents of adjudicated dependent children.

In closing, you, as legislators have the ability to foster cooperative, multi-faceted approaches to reduce drug abuse. The Meth

Strike Force, drug courts and the Dependency Court Recovery

Project are prime examples of what can be done when elected leaders provide the direction and leadership needed to harness the resources of various professionals to address this critical problem.

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Only through the leadership and fiscal resources that Congress can

provide can this border region effectively combat drug trafficking

and drug abuse.

And I sincerely thank you for your presence here today.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Cox follows:]

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Mr. MICA. Thank you.

I will recognize now Sergeant Scott Lee with the San Diego Police Department. You are recognized, sir.

Sgt. LEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Mica, Congressman

Souder and Congressman Bilbray. It is an honor to appear before

you today to give an overview of the narcotics trafficking situation

in San Diego.

Let me first introduce myself. I am a Sergeant with the San

Diego Police Department assigned to the Drug Enforcement Administration-hosted Narcotics Task Force, better known as NTF.

NTF has been in existence for the past 26 years and has come to

epitomize drug law enforcement in San Diego County. The task

force is comprised of eight teams, consisting of 100 people from 16

different Federal, State and local agencies. It is responsible for the

investigation of major narcotics trafficking in San Diego County.

Two of the NTF teams, the Airport Team and the Parcel Interdiction Team, which I supervise, are HIDTA funded.

NTF has the mission of meeting the drug trafficking threats to

San Diego County. The arrest and seizure statistics for NTF in the

last fiscal year clearly illustrates the drug trafficking situation in

the county. Approximately 50 percent of the arrests and seizures

were for methamphetamine, as you have heard; 35 percent for

marijuana, and the other 15 percent are for heroin, cocaine and the

other dangerous drugs including the new ‘‘designer drugs’’ which

we are seeing more and more in San Diego.

The trafficking characteristics of the two major drugs of threat,

methamphetamine and marijuana are widely disparate. Methamphetamine traffickers are commonly white males with no noticeable organizational makeup. Much of the methamphetamine is locally produced in small, what we call ‘‘kitchen labs,’’ however as

you mentioned, the majority of the methamphetamine seized in

San Diego County has been produced in Mexican laboratories.

Marijuana is likewise smuggled across the United States border by

Mexican cartels. However, much of the marijuana is purchased in

San Diego County from the Mexican traffickers by organized

groups of traffickers prominently led by bands of Jamaicans and

Puerto Ricans. These groups in turn ship the marijuana to cities

on the East Coast and Puerto Rico.

Traditionally, the marijuana had been shipped by common carriers such as airlines, buses, trains and/or driving it across the

United States. However, in the past few years narcotic traffickers

have increased the use of various commercial shipping and mailing

establishments such as Federal Express, United Parcel Service and

the U.S. Post Office. Seizure statistics for the past 2 years show an

alarming use of commercial mailing companies by traffickers to

transfer their marijuana and money. The Commercial Interdiction

team recently conducted an intensive mail interdiction operation

spanning 11 days. In that period of time 176 parcels were intercepted, which resulted in the seizure of more than 1,600 pounds of

marijuana and we seized over $300,000 in cash coming back into

San Diego.

The close proximity to the Mexican border makes San Diego and,

recently, Los Angeles, the hub of marijuana trafficking for much of

the United States. Based on an on-going investigation, it is estiVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:25 Dec 28, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00032 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\66899.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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mated that Jamaican traffickers alone ship 100 tons of marijuana

from Los Angeles and another 40 or 50 tons from San Diego in a

year period. Profits explain this phenomenon. In San Diego, marijuana can be purchased for $300 to $400 per pound, and then be

resold on the East Coast for as much as $1,000 to $1,600 per

pound.

With the cooperation of law enforcement agencies on the East

Coast, what the Parcel Interdiction Team tries to do is we intercept

the packages when we work these shipping companies. We have

found that it is much better if we do send the packages on to the

East Coast where local agencies or DEA will make controlled deliveries of these packages, resulting in arrests back East and provide

us intelligence information so we can followup and hopefully make

arrests here in San Diego.

This is a brief overview of the trafficking in San Diego County

and in conclusion I do want to thank you for allowing my testimony.

[The prepared statement of Sgt. Lee follows:]

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Mr. MICA. Thank you, and we will now hear from Mr. Jack

Campana. He is the director of comprehensive health and physical

education with the San Diego Unified School District. You are recognized.

Mr. CAMPANA. Thank you, Chairman Mica and Congressman

Souder and Congressman Bilbray. I am pleased as a staff member

from public education to testify with you, to you this morning.

Today, in public education, not only must we have high achieving

students, we must have healthy high achieving students.

Responding to the drug crisis in southern California, San Diego

City Schools has identified prevention education, graduated sanctions and intervention policies and program that reflect the interest

of students and the community we serve. We support and encourage law enforcement officers to become involved in providing prevention education and skill building at the classroom level by using

effective research-based models. Superintendent Alan Bersin and

Police Chief David Bejarano have worked together to bring juvenile

service team officers into schools to pilot Dr. Gilbert Botvin’s Life

Skills Training that is a research-based substance abuse prevention curriculum to grade 5 students at 17 elementary sites. Other

law enforcement officers work collaboratively with life skills teachers assigned to high schools to prevent several other successful curriculum lessons. Examples are Looze the Booze, alcohol abuse, domestic violence, date rape, border alliance issues, and conflict resolution.

Under the leadership of Special Agent Phil Donohue, the Bureau

of Narcotic Enforcement has developed a prevention education

cadre of agents which provide classroom, parent and school staff

presentations on a wide variety of alcohol, tobacco, and other drug

topics.

What is most important and what we have found most effective

is to have a substance abuse policy. Staff from schools, law enforcement, probation, juvenile court, and parents developed our policy.

All discipline related to alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs is enforced consistently district-wide and applies to all incidents that

occur on campus or at activities under the jurisdiction of the school.

Possession and use of any substance requires a formal suspension

unless the student and parent agree to participate in an early substance intervention program. Formal suspension would be one

where they could be sent home anywhere from 1 to 5 days. But if

they participate in the program it is still listed and tracked as a

suspension, but they will remain in school. School police and law

enforcement officers today provide an ‘‘event tracking number’’ for

all juvenile contact involving alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs. This

tracking system allows for educators, law enforcement, and probation to provide early intervention and monitor future behavior.

Hearing officers from the juvenile traffic court, department A, provide an additional level of support through the establishment of juvenile drug court and a reduction of fines for students participating

in a substance intervention instruction.

Data has been evaluated since the inception of the Substance

Use Policy for Students in 1997. Suspensions for alcohol, tobacco,

and other drug use have been reduced by 22 percent. This trend

can also be substantiated by results found in the 1999 Youth Risk

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Behavior Survey where 20 percent of the students reported that

they are not using drugs on campus compared to the 1997 data.

You should have in your folder a summary of the Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Our District has participated in this survey which

is administered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

since 1991. Its a biannual survey. And what we found from 1991

to 1993 to 1995 was a significant increase in substance abuse. In

1997, we found it stabilized and equaled to 1995. And 1999 was the

first year in the decade that we have some good news. We cannot

cheer about it, but it was the first time in the decade of the 1990’s

where we saw a significant decrease in use among high school students of all drugs.

One area though that has remained a tremendous concern during the 1990’s has been the supply of drugs. Students in San Diego

City high schools over 40 percent during the decade of the 1990’s

have reported that they have been offered drugs on campus. Unfortunately, that is one of the highest percent in the nation.

Mr. MICA. What was the percent?

Mr. CAMPANA. It has been over 40 percent of our high school students have reported that they have been offered drugs, illegal

drugs. One thing we do know is that the supply certainly has remained high during the decades and we still must continue our effort to stop and reduce supply, but we do have to remember that

if we are really going to be effective in reducing substance abuse

among youth we have to one have research-based effective prevention programs and we have to have early intervention and good

treatment for our students as well as adults in this community.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Campana follows:]

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Mr. MICA. Thank you. Now, I would like to recognize Mr. Tom

Hall, chief of police for the San Diego Unified School District. You

are recognized.

Chief HALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee. The data produced in the 1999 Youth Risk Behavior

Survey is an accurate picture of the availability and use of drugs

in our schools. Although we know that drug use occurs more often

in the community than on our campuses, the education of our children remains at risk. Our students arrive to school every day

armed with values, motivations and life experiences that mirror

our communities. Unfortunately, the drug culture that has evolved

over many years has become a significant piece in our lives. The

majority of our students do not use drugs, however, they remain

very apathetic to those that do. We have a long road ahead of us

in educating our youth and the community at large in the realities

of the negative impacts of drugs.

The availability of drugs is not a problem to your youth. Juvenile

arrests for drug abuse in our Nation increased 86 percent in the

last 10 years and unfortunately, the San Diego region was on the

higher end of the collected data. My department’s arrests as well

as the School District’s suspension actions further support this reality. It is simply a supply and demand issue. In 1998, an undercover drug buy operation was conducted at two of our high schools

with cooperation of the San Diego Police Department. After 3

months of operation, 21 students were arrested for sales of narcotics. This was a low number as compared to the 150 arrests made

8 years earlier. However, we also found that our students had become much more sophisticated in their transaction procedures and

usually conducted the physical transfer of these drugs off campus.

Those arrested indicated that they could find any drug demanded

within days. Our buys included marijuana, hashish, LSD and

methamphetamine.

Although the use of alcohol and drugs is a serious health issue

and often impairs our students’ attendance and learning motivation, our major concern is the relationship to violence. Our data indicates a cycle that appears predictable. During the 8 years of high

drug use, many of our students display disobedient and violent behavior. Student discipline data will indicate an increase in referrals

and suspensions. This will then be followed by an increase in reported violent crimes and arrests by my Department and other law

enforcement agencies. Many of these students reflect an inability

to rationally manage conflict using nonviolent coping skills. As reported drug use declines, so does our discipline and criminal data.

This has been carried on for the last 14 years.

These behaviors on our campuses create a perception by other

students and staff that the campus is unsafe and this increased

level of fear interrupts the educational process. Our data will also

show an increase in weapons possession during these cycles. In the

majority of our arrests, the students indicate they consciously violated the District’s zero tolerance policy and brought the weapons

to school for protection. They are willing to suffer the severe school

and criminal justice sanctions to protect themselves and often state

that they would use the weapon if necessary.

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Although our data and experience will not stand the test of research scrutiny, I believe there is a definate correlation between

drugs and violence that affects safe schools.

What works best for San Diego city schools is a traditional three

pronged approach. Prevention, enforcement and treatment. Prevention includes educating our students, faculty, parents and the community at large on the realities of substance abuse and violence.

A strong District policy and procedure is also part of prevention.

Enforcement is essential as a check and balance to assure our message is taken seriously. Working in tandem, the School District’s

administrative enforcement actions and law enforcement referrals

to probation or juvenile court assures that students and their parents receive treatment and support. There are parents and guardians that simply do not participate with their children and require

sanctions for treatment to occur. Treatment is complex and often

requires more than addressing substance abuse and/or violence.

Family dysfunctions are often revealed which can lead to broader

treatment needs. Enforcement is a necessity, however, prevention

and treatment is the only long-term solution here.

We need extensive research to support and examine the correlation between drugs and violence, so we can prevent and treat these

behaviors. We also need additional support, especially at the Federal level on public education strategies, to get our communities

truly involved in finding these solutions and then funding to implement them.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Chief Hall follows:]

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Mr. MICA. Thank you for your testimony.

We will now recognized Judge Bonnie Dumanis, Superior Court

Judge, San Diego, CA.

Judge DUMANIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you all

for having us here today. I have to say that it is not often that I

am on this side of the bench, so I am a little bit nervous being in

this position.

Mr. BILBRAY. Judge, we are much more comfortable being on this

side of the bench.

Judge DUMANIS. Well, in my courtroom, I am sure that is true.

At any rate, I am here and pleased to be here and thank you, Congressman Bilbray for bringing this committee here. I know that

you have been intimately involved in the drug issue here in San

Diego and particularly with the drug court, but I appreciate the opportunity to let the chairman and the other committee members

know what we are doing here in San Diego.

My background, just so that you know where I am coming from,

I was a Deputy District Attorney for more than 13 years before I

went on to the bench, served as a juvenile referee for 4 years in

the juvenile court, 2 years with the parents that abuse children

and 2 years with the children that commit crimes. I have also

served in the Municipal Court and now on the Superior Court, having been elected to both of those positions and I am one of the ones

that began the drug court program in the Downtown Central San

Diego Division.

I am particularly proud to tell you that our program, the San

Diego Central division drug court program was on the cutting edge

as well as many of these programs that have been presented today.

We were one of the first out of three in the country to add our linkages with the San Diego Police Department. Before, drug courts

were Judge-oriented with the law enforcement not being a part of

the team. And I think that one of the things that all of the panel

members have impressed upon you is that San Diego can be very

proud of its elected officials and law enforcement because they have

continued to collaborate and cooperate in this endeavor.

As part of our component of collaboration, cooperation and coordination, I am proud to say that we have on board as team members the Probation Department, the San Diego Police Department,

the Sheriff’s Department, the Parole, California Corrections Division, Alcohol and Drug Services and the District Attorney, City Attorney and the most unique part, the Public Defender. Unique, because I say it is not often that you see at the same table in a team

meeting a police officer with a public defender with a Judge sitting

together to make a decision about what the right thing to do is

with this particular person.

We do that in the following way. Our program is a post-plea program which means that in order to get into our program an offender must admit responsibility. They must plead guilty which

means that we save our taxpayers the money of having subpoenaed

law enforcement, we keep our law enforcement officers on the

streets and not in jury trials. We have an agreement with the participant that they will test regularly. That they will come to court

weekly, that they will go into treatment and that they will become

clean, sober and productive citizens. The component of drug court

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that has worked particularly is to have hand in hand the courts

and law enforcement as well as the defense monitoring these offenders and I think it has been said before that one of the cornerstones to our program is that we have swift, sure sanctions and in

a criminal justice system that is not always the case, particularly

the swift part.

When someone tests positive they go into custody right then and

there. There is no trial. There is no motion. There is no hearing.

We talk about it, but they go into jail right from the court. The supervision is what we call supervision with a vengeance. The police

officer goes out, the probation officer goes out, checks on the home,

the family, those people that they are involved in to make sure

they are in a clean and sober environment. The law enforcement

officer is the eyes and ears of the court. And the offender gets to

know a law enforcement officer in a different way. It promotes respect by the Defendant for law enforcement and it also promotes

law enforcement officers having the opportunity to see the outcome

of what they have been able to begin.

We, at our graduation ceremonies, give out to law enforcement

a letter of commendation, as well as a plaque to our graduate and

we invite every law enforcement officer that was the initial arresting officer for that offender. And the reason why we give letters of

commendation is because although it may be an ordinary event for

that police officer to make an arrest, it leads to an extraordinary

outcome and that is we have a clean and sober person now in our

community working.

The police officers get an opportunity to see those people now at

the other end of the system and they have made a change and they

have facilitated that change. No one is more behind it in San Diego

than law enforcement because all of us across the board, the County Board of Supervisors, Supervisor Jacob has been the champion

on the Methamphetamine Task Force. Supervisor Cox and Supervisor Roberts have been hand in hand with us on this drug court

emphasis. Out in the juvenile court, Judge Millikin has spearheaded the effort for the dependency court and the delinquency

drug court and is the chair of our county-wide Drug Court Advisory

Committee to begin our system-wide approach.

As pointed out by Supervisor Cox, the problem is that the drug

court addresses only 2 percent right now of all the offenders that

we see. I am currently in the domestic violence court, and I think

he also mentioned that domestic violence we see alcohol and substance abuse permeates that as well.

I think it is fair to say that more than 80 percent of all those

that come through the criminal justice system have a substance

abuse problem. It is not the cause, necessarily of what happened,

but it is, it permeates throughout and it costs us a lot of money.

As I think has been pointed out one of the things that is very

important and dear to us is the funding sources. We have relied on

local law enforcement. The Sheriff has given us asset forfeiture

money. San Diego Police Chief, Chief Sanders and then Chief

Bejarano have given us block grant money and we have received

funding from the Nation drug court office. But we do not have a

stable source of funding. We are always going hat in hand to wherever we can. We have even formed a nonprofit organization to go

41

out into the community and partnership with community members.

So we look to you for your help in that area, particularly as we go

to a system-wide approach which would not only be just the drug

court, but it would be every offender that comes in would have to

test for drugs before they are released out of custody, would have

to go into treatment, would have the hammer of the Judge behind

that so if they fail they go to court, they go to jail and if they cannot make it in the community they make it in prison and we are

also working on the end to have beds in prison available through,

we have it here in San Diego at Donovan State Prison, the Right

Turn Program. We now have a female alternative to the State Corrections System here in San Diego for females who have children

to work on that. I could talk forever, so I am going to close. Thank

you so much, Supervisor Bilbray showed our drug court graduates

around in Washington, DC. When would you ever see that happen?

People who have been through the criminal justice system with and

proud to be taxpaying members of society honored by their Congressman to be taken around the capital and show cased for the

Nation.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Judge Dumanis follows:]

42

43

Mr. BILBRAY. Judge, I am honored to be called the supervisor.

Judge DUMANIS. I am sorry. You were supervisor.

Mr. BILBRAY. Once part of the team, always part of the team.

Judge DUMANIS. That is right.

Mr. MICA. Well, I want to thank all of our panelists for their testimony today. I have a few questions, and then I will yield to other

Members.

First of all, with your Meth Strike Force, I understand from your

testimony it started in 1995, and I was interested in how it works

with the HIDTA. The HIDTA was started in 1990 and the HIDTA

did not address the meth problem. This is a local initiative?

Ms. JACOB. The Meth Strike Force was a local initiative, yes, and

as I mentioned—— Mr. MICA. Was it totally funded by local contributions?

Ms. JACOB. It is basically using existing resources, existing agencies. The difference here is that we are putting law enforcement,

education, health officials together with the four-pronged approach

of prevention, intervention, interdiction and treatment.

Mr. MICA. Have HIDTA resources gone into that effort?

Ms. JACOB. I believe that they are a part of the Strike Force.

Undersheriff Jack Drown is one of the co-chairs along with Dr. Bob

Ross, our Director of Health and Human Resources. Again, it is not

additional money. It is the resources available. It is coordinating

and collaborating and bringing them all together—— Mr. MICA. It sounds like you have done a good job locally. From our standpoint they are asking for over $200 million for HIDTA. I

have a HIDTA that I started in my area. There has been a HIDTA

here from 1990, one of the original ones. I am wondering what good

they are doing.

Ms. JACOB. I think that you will hear more from—— Mr. MICA. No, no. I am interested in hearing from you. These

guys have this down pat. They will be asking me for more money,

more resources—— Ms. JACOB. So will I. HIDTA has been extremely helpful.

Mr. MICA. But you are here and you are telling me you have had

a meth epidemic. You are addressing it with a task force. I am not

sure how the HIDTA fits into it. I am trying to find out where our

Federal money is in this picture. Maybe, I should not be funding

that. Maybe, I should be giving you directly more resources.

Ms. JACOB. HIDTA is a part of it. HIDTA is a part of the Meth

Strike Force effort so more funding for HIDTA means more aggressive efforts for the Strike Force as a whole.

Mr. MICA. And you are happy with the HIDTA performance?

Ms. JACOB. Absolutely.

Mr. MICA. If you had to change something, again, this is just like

a big Board of Supervisors in Washington. It really is except it has

435 Members.

Mr. BILBRAY. Except they have a time limit on speaking.

Mr. MICA. Yes, but we are spending nearly $18 billion on this

whole effort, and my purpose in being here is to see how we can

improve it. You are saying we need more money, but you have also

said that locally you have developed a cooperative effort that has

been very successful. I am anxious to hear how you did that and

how we can complement it through our resources here.

44

As you look at the Federal involvement from your vantage point

as the supervisor, additional funds, is there anything else, additional flexibility, now the court program sounds successful. It only

addresses 2 percent which is a very small figure. Our subcommittee

has looked at these prosecution programs. We have looked at several models around the country. They seem to be very effective if

you have the hammer and a constant source of funding or support.

Is that something that you favor too?

Ms. JACOB. The drug court is strongly supported by the Board of

Supervisors and we have taken action to expand it again its resources that are needed. The drug court is one of the most successful programs that we have in treatment.

Mr. MICA. We have had people in from Arizona. We went up to

New York and looked at Guiliani’s very successful program, the

same thing.

Ms. JACOB. Right.

Mr. MICA. You step out of line, they have got the hammer. And

a pretty good success rate. Yours sounds similarly successful.

Ms. JACOB. But the systems approach though is what I think we

need the more resources for because even those programs. There

are a few nationwide that do a systems approach. They have a different track system so that everyone that comes in with a substance abuse issue it is a drug charge and we do not handle violent

offenders though. But everybody that comes in has to go through

this court, has to be monitored, has to be in coerce treatment or

they go to prison and even when they are in prison they cannot get

out of prison unless they complete in prison a coerced treatment

program they are not let on parole.

Mr. MICA. And that is State and local funded now?

Ms. JACOB. Well, we have not begun that process here in San

Diego. We are looking at that now. I am not sure how the other

courts have done it, but I did want to let you know, Chairman, that

the HIDTA Federal grant money did go to the drug court in the

demand reduction. It was one of the first times they had given part

of their funding to demand reduction.

Mr. MICA. I think you all were going to change other things at

the Federal level. Sergeant Lee, maybe the school folks could tell

me, is there anything else you see that we need to do? We just got

through spending $1 billion on an education program. We are over

a third of $1 billion into it. We have had the drug czar in trying

to look at what we are doing right and wrong. It seems to have had

some impact on our students, and we are seeing a slight blip nationally, as you said here. I am not sure if that is a success of what

we have done. It is actually a $2 billion program because Clinton

wanted us to appropriate $1 billion, but we also insisted on a $1

billion in donations. So it is actually double that amount, and we

have seen the first part of it, although a lot of the young people

we talked to do not seem impressed with the program.

Do you think it is having any effect?

Mr. CAMPANA. One of the changes we have observed, especially

in the last 4 years is that it was not just helter skelter here is

money and we will just throw money at the problem. We now have

to certainly evaluate any program we do. And it has to be a research-based effective program and that has made a difference

45

rather than a cure for substance abuse prevention, which we were

caught in this month. Every month some new group would say this

is what you can do and it really was not resulting in the positive

effect on reducing substance abuse, so what we have seen change

through Title IV of the IASA, Safe and Drug Free Schools is much

more accountability and effective research program.

One area that I do not know how you can help, but it certainly

affected us in San Diego. Under Title IV of the Improving America

School Act, 70 percent of the money for prevention effort to schools

is entitlement money, it is so much per student. Each State has

discretionary funds on how they can provide additional support to

Districts in need and what happens though in this formula is the

more success you have, the less chance you have of continuing the

funding.

Mr. MICA. That is right.

Mr. CAMPANA. And we in San Diego city schools lost approxi- mately $750,000 because of having a reduction. That has caused reduction in the program. And that is something that I hope in legislation and in Title IV that they can be some incentive for successful

programs.

Mr. MICA. If I may, Mr. Lee or Sergeant Lee, did you have something, any recommendations you would like to see changed in any

legislation operations from the Federal level?

Sgt. LEE. Speaking primarily for the team that I supervised

which is HIDTA funded, when that team was originally developed

we in San Diego were interdicting the drugs here, keeping the

drugs here. It was thought that a lot of the people shipping drugs

throughout the United States were not organized. We are now finding that it is probably a much bigger organization sending that out

there, primarily Jamaicans and Puerto Ricans as we are seeing.

The funding that we do have was appropriate at the time when

we thought it was more unorganized. However, the investigations

that we are doing now, it is a much bigger problem throughout the

United States and that is why we are cooperating with the different agencies throughout the eastern seaboard. The funding probably could be increased to fight that.

Mr. MICA. We are hearing that. I have heard that in hearings

that we have been doing around the country. In fact, as a result

of this hearing, we are going to conduct a national hearing on that

at some point to see if we cannot help get that better organized in

an effort to address that particular new problem.

Mr. Souder.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. I have a number of things. First, if you

were not aware of this, you have joined a distinguished group of

people who testify in front of our committee. At least you are answering our questions. We have had Charlie Tree last week who

could not remember who was at his apartment when the calls went

to Indonesia and to the White House, and we had Craig Livingstone who could not remember who hired him, and at Waco the

ATF could not remember who exactly left the search warrant in

their car. So it is a distinguished group of people you are joining.

Mr. MICA. With good recall.

Mr. SOUDER. A couple of things. I am going to go a couple different directions. I did want to make a comment that several of you

46

mentioned about a stable source of funding which the Federal Government is not and will not ever be. First off, constitutionally, we

are bound by 2 years in the funding cycle, so every program has

to be reanalyzed, so there is no such thing as a stable funding

source, plus we go up and down much faster than what happens

at the local county, State and volunteer sector. So do not view that

if you have a stable, whether it is the COPS grants that we put

in or whether it is drug courts, 1 year it is up and the next year

it is down which is why historically the money has been used on

hard goods as opposed to personnel because it is so unstable which

has kind of distorted the systems too.

Another thing, I could not resist, although Mr. Campana qualified a little, is that when we in the Education Committee go into

research base and what that has actually been done as we put it

into the things. It is a tremendous job boost for beltway bandits

who do research because then everybody comes, and I have never

heard of a program that has failed in any hearing in Congress or

as a staffer unless they found the solution now and want the

money. E.D. Herscher wrote Cultural Literacy. We had a tremendous exchange on that trying to define even better what good research is. I think it has helped in some places. In other ways, it

is trying to define it even further as we get into it without putting

too much control on it because that is a great way to manipulate

the locals by having a Federal decision of what is research based.

So I just wanted to throw that in the record.

I have some very specific questions. Let me start with the drug

court. What percentage of your money comes from asset forfeiture?

Judge DUMANIS. I do not recall.

Mr. SOUDER. Good, at least you have not fled the country.

Judge DUMANIS. I was only joking, but I am told it is less than

10 percent.

Mr. SOUDER. And is that asset forfeiture money?

Judge DUMANIS. The Sheriff of San Diego represents all the

Sheriff contract agencies for all the smaller cities and then the San

Diego Police Department as well as the smaller cities like Chula

Vista has given the South Bay area some of their. So almost all of

law enforcement has pitched in to their capacity with some.

Mr. SOUDER. And do you know what percent came from HIDTA?

Judge DUMANIS. HIDTA was a small percent. We received, it

went actually to the Police Department, but for the purpose of drug

court, I think it was a vehicle for the police officer that was liaising

to the Department for equipment, primarily. So I am not exactly

certain what the amount was.

Mr. SOUDER. In Mr. Cox’s testimony he said this has been approximately 3 years?

Judge DUMANIS. That is true.

Mr. SOUDER. And you are up to nearly 500 cases?

Judge DUMANIS. 500 graduates.

Mr. SOUDER. Graduates.

Judge DUMANIS. Yes.

Mr. SOUDER. When you say you have had success, are the people

coming into the drug court preselected, self-selected? Who determines who is eligible? Obviously, not violent, I understand that.

47

Judge DUMANIS. The prosecutor begins the screening process, but

we have an overall criteria which actually we came to consensus

with our Criminal Justice Subcommittee—I am not sure what it is

a subcommittee of. But anyway, all of those of us here at the table

are represented there as well as the community is represented, Supervisor Jacob, I know chairs that committee.

Mr. SOUDER. Before somebody comes in?

Judge DUMANIS. No, we just got together and got some criteria.

So the criteria basically is considering public safety is the primary

concern, so if they have prison priors for violent felonies or even

prison priors, that usually excludes them. If they have any violence

that excludes them. In San Diego in the Central Division, if they

were driving while under the influence because of the public safety

concerns that usually excludes them. So it is usually people that

use drugs as a felony or as a misdemeanor or are drug driven in

their crimes. We try to take some of them as well into the program.

Mr. SOUDER. Do you do any kind of screening as to whether you

think this might be successful? In other words, do you look at a

person and say this is a relatively recent thing? There is a support

system around them?

Judge DUMANIS. No. We do not.

Mr. SOUDER. Education background?

Judge DUMANIS. No.

Mr. SOUDER. No creaming?

Judge DUMANIS. No. We usually take the bottom of the barrel.

I mean most of the people who choose to come into our program

choose to because they want to get clean and sober though because

they have been in jail most of the time. They usually have about

10 cases per person.

Mr. SOUDER. So it is self-selecting.

Judge DUMANIS. Yes, it is self-selecting in that situation.

Mr. SOUDER. How many people who have self-selected initially

have dropped out?

Judge DUMANIS. About 20 percent and dropped out not just by

their own choice, dropped out by the court’s choice as well. We sentence them to either prison or local custody and some of them have

dropped out because they cannot handle the strictness of the program.

Mr. SOUDER. One of the problems we have had in the drug court

in my home area is that depending on the mix is if their sentence

is not that severe, they may drop out. Not because they are necessarily guilty, but they do not want to go through the drug testing

and so on. They figure hey, this is not worth it. I will just serve

the rest of my term. There is too much accountability which I think

is great.

Judge DUMANIS. Exactly. That is the problem. For them. It is not

a problem for us.

Mr. SOUDER. And then how many did you say have relapsed out

of the graduates?

Judge DUMANIS. Out of the graduates I think it was 8 percent,

and I do not know about relapse. What we have been tracking is

whether they came back into the criminal justice system. So it is

a very small percentage, but I just want to let you know that in

our original program when we had only misdemeanors, we now

48

have felonies also, but that theory that they had to have a long

sentence did not hold for us. More than 100 of our people were selfselected misdemeanors, so the most they could get in local custody

would be 1 year and the most they would serve even when that 1

year because of the crowding in the jails would be around 6

months. So they knew that for many of them they could do that

on their head, doing 6 months in custody because they had spent

most of their life in custody, but they wanted to get clean and sober

and they took this rigorous program to do it even despite the fact

that we did not have a high sentence hanging over their head.

Mr. SOUDER. How many had been through other treatment programs?

Judge DUMANIS. Many of them have been through other treatment programs, but they have never been coerce treatment. We

have not had good success in the past in the criminal justice system to tell them to go out and get treatment, but we have not monitored it and probation has not had enough resources to really monitor either. Now when we have them come back we monitor, we get

reports from those programs and we put them in jail if they do not

go to those programs.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. As we move into the drug court last

year, we boosted up in a separate amendment on the House floor.

I know, I like many others, that when you are dealing with a hard

case population, so to speak, there is unrealistic expectations of the

success rates, and we have to be careful we do not overestimate

this one too because I mean many of your 500 have just gone

in——

Judge DUMANIS. That is right.

Mr. SOUDER. And when we compare to other places where there

is relapses, we are often looking at 10 year release period, but the

fact is that it is hard to see any negatives to this and certainly

every case, even if in the end it only reaches 30 percent. The truth

is that our research on treatment programs shows it is not very

successful which now leads me into the prevention programs. I

wanted to talk about this Title IV question that you raised.

What you are suggesting, and I favor driving, we put almost everything at a State level and none to the schools. That is still being

debated in the final form of the bill. I take it that you definitely

feel that at least 70 percent ought to be driven to the school districts?

Mr. CAMPANA. Correct, even higher.

Mr. SOUDER. And part of the argument against that is that in

small school districts, they do not reach the threshold and we also

cannot screen which programs are effective and not effective which

I understand that argument.

But coming back the other direction, in effect, I know you did not

mean it this way, but this is the dilemma we have when we are

dealing with the subsection. You said that there is no incentive for

success. Well, obviously the incentive here should not be funding.

The incentive for success is you are helping kids in the school district, and you are changing your community and that it is hard to

argue. One of the dilemmas here is if a problem is starting to get

solved in one place, presumably the problem is getting solved in

one place, and while I understand if suddenly you pull the proVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:25 Dec 28, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00052 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\66899.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
49

gram, it changes. On the other hand, the danger of putting it into

an area where it is not getting solved, it may not be getting solved

because of the programs are bad, but it may not be getting solved

because the demographics are changing and so on. It does not

mean we should not be concentrating on those areas. Would you

have it be a phase down? I am facing this in my district, too, where

I have the successful programs are getting reduced.

Mr. CAMPANA. What I mentioned and I clarified in the beginning

that is not an easy decision. What happens is clearly the success

of a program is that you reduced substance abuse, but when the

funding is pulled, the very program and the people who were put

in as a result of funding from this program are now pulled back.

And that is what I mean this is incentive for success is that you

no longer can have the program if the funds are pulled.

Mr. SOUDER. And how would you do that? Clearly, we are going

to move some of that. The truth is that we are in a zero sum game

that we can talk about. We heard plenty of ways to spend the

money here at this hearing as well as Sacramento and wherever

else we go, but you know, Medicare prescriptions are coming up

and Social Security trust fund and not to mention more funds for

education in general. There is a limited amount of dollars. You

would like to think that as you make progress in an area, you can

at least guess what percentage of that do you think you can pick

up from the State and local and voluntary sources because it is

clearly not going to be 100 percent sustenance to places where they

have had a dramatic drop. Hopefully, that will not be a

disencentive because the problem is so great, every body should

want to do it. But can it be 100, 75, 50, 25? Clearly, there is going

to be a drop.

Mr. CAMPANA. I do not have a formula and I have been at a

number of meetings where this has been discussed and no one can

come up—we have not been able to come up with a consensus. But

I would like to see something where if we can show, for example,

today in our State an improvement in educational achievement, the

school gets additional resources and additional funds per student.

Cannot we have something in here as well that if we can show a

drop, a significant drop, some measure that there is some recognition by saying we are going to allow you to continue at least that

program, not saying we are pulling funds so you no longer can have

the program?

Mr. SOUDER. My background is business, MBA, and one of the

things you hear is figures lie and liars figure. I am not going to

quite put it in those terms, but often inside a school district, the

improvement is being shown in prevention programs in the more

middle class white suburban portions of school districts. The problem has not been improved in the highest risk population. In other

words, if you are a drug abuser, you are a drug abuser, but partly

what we are trying to do is concentrate into the highest risk populations where the violence is and where there are less resources.

Quite frankly suburban and middle class families such as mine,

middle, upper middle families have resources with which to address the problem if they would have the willingness. Other places

do not even have the resources. Are these figures fairly uniform

50

when you say you have a reduction, or are they scattered? In effect,

if I looked at each school, would I see a reduction in the schools?

Mr. CAMPANA. The way the surveillance is using CDC surveillance system of the Youth Risk Behavior Survey, they have been

fairly uniform, but not completely. We do see areas where and with

certain ethnic groups, for example, tobacco use among Latino youth

is still very high and did not show the reduction as other groups.

But that is the importance of having even a local district or a county or a community to do its own surveillance, so with limited dollars you would say well now I have to be able to stress a program

in certain areas of your community with certain groups, ethnic

groups within the community.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. I know I went over. I had one question

I meant to ask about the drug courts. Do you see a difference in

meth from other drugs?

Judge DUMANIS. What do you mean a difference—— Mr. SOUDER. In other words, is there less success rate?

Judge DUMANIS. No. I think the statistics are about 50 percent

of those that we see through the drug court are methamphetamine

is their drug of choice, but we did receive a grant to specifically

work on the issue of methamphetamine and the problems that are

related to methamphetamine and our treatment providers have

geared their program toward that, but we have not seen a significant difference in their success rate.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Cox, in your testimony, you had Dependency

Court Recovery Project. Eighty percent of the parents in the Dependency Court Recovery Project during compliance of court orders

and for renotification, did you see any differences in meth? I mean

what is troubling is up in Sacramento, I forget the name of the

county where they had put an intensive parental program in, people were more likely to be so addicted that they were dropping out

and not doing the program. Thirty-four and only four or something

did that. They were starting to see it in the other places. I am wondering are you seeing it in meth as opposed to marijuana, cocaine,

heroin, alcohol?

Mr. COX. The last figures I saw, the success ratio is comparable

to other drugs of choice. I think one of the benefits of that program

is the fact that the period of time that it has taken to adjudicate

what is going to happen to the dependent has gone from over 36

months average to make a determination whether that child is

going to be placed back with their biological parents or not is now

reducing down to somewhere in the neighborhood of about 18

months and that is a significant change. But I do not think there

has been any significant difference as far as the drug of choice.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you.

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Bilbray?

Mr. BILBRAY. Thank you. OK, I guess I will start with you,

Judge, because you want to try to remember?

Judge DUMANIS. Yes, Congressman Bilbray.

Mr. BILBRAY. Let me just say I think we are starting to hear

more of us in government talk about a term that used to be called

tough love, treating people in trouble the way we treat a relative

or a child or a friend, something that government was not willing

to do in the past. But you broach an issue that is very touchy to

51

a lot of us and that is this issue of testing. Many people are concerned about the encroachment of big government on privacy. But

the testing component within your system, how critical is testing

for the success of your program?

Judge DUMANIS. Absolutely. It is the most fundamental part of

the program is the testing because it is for the accountability.

When we have these drug users in front of us they will lie, cheat

and steal and there are websites that will tell you how to beat the

drug testing. They have come into court with urine hidden under

their arms or use chlorine on their fingernails. When the officers

go out into the field and test them, when they are not expecting

it and that is when they get them or they test randomly. Through

our courts we have them call in. They do not know when they are

going to have to test and it is at least three times a week. It is absolutely critical to the program because otherwise they will try to

manipulate you and they could come to court and say that they are

clean and they are not.

Mr. BILBRAY. My committee on the Health and the Environment

of the Commerce Committee has been doing a lot of hearings on

new testing systems, the use of hair which can go back to 3 months

sensitivity. We hope to be able to have better technology for you

to use that is less intrusive and more telling.

What are the school systems using? Is testing being used in the

educational institutions?

Mr. CAMPANA. It is in some and it is probably the area where it

has been used has been in sports participation and athletic teams.

In San Diego Unified we do not mandate testing and I have some

difficulty with that personally. I would really like to have young

people know that there are right decisions that they make and they

do not make them because somebody is going to find out if they are

wrong because the majority of our children, not only in San Diego,

but throughout the country do make the right choices and are not

using drugs. And to test all students is also giving a message that

we somehow do not trust them in making the right choices.

Mr. BILBRAY. But in the use of the athletics and as somebody

who probably spent more time going to school just because of athletics, there is this attitude that participation in certain activities

in school is a privilege, not a right and that educational institutions use that.

Would it not be a lot easier to implement those programs if we

had the less intrusive snip of hair rather than going to the urine

sample? Would there not be a different perception about the humiliation and the inconvenience of the traditional testing period, I

mean system, as opposed to a less intrusive?

Mr. CAMPANA. It would be less intrusive, right, with certainly a

snip of the hair, but again I still feel that most students are not

using and we would like to certainly have them have the skills and

the ability to make right choices and just know that they are not

to use.

I think we work on the other end is that with the policy we have

graduated sanctions. If a student is found with possession and use,

even the first time, they cannot participate at least for a semester

in any activity. A second time, it is for a full year and if there was

a third time, they are recommended for expulsion.

52

Mr. BILBRAY. By your own admission though it is most of the use

and possession is off campus?

Mr. CAMPANA. Most of the use and possession is off campus, but

it is also certainly when you have several percent of students saying that they are using on campus, it does not mean just during

the school day. It could be an athletic event or it could be on school

property; 7, 8, 9 percent of students reporting they are using alcohol, marijuana is still significantly high.

Mr. BILBRAY. Well, let me just say it was a tradition in our family that after a summer on the beach, the first thing a coach would

do when you wanted to play football was if your hair was too long,

he would give you a helmet two sizes too small. When you complained, he would inform you that it will fit fine as soon as you got

the buzz, and so haircuts were part of the tradition of those of us

in athletics for a long time. Believe me, I thought my rights were

being violated too.

Chief HALL. Congressman Bilbray? If I may, I alluded to this in

the testimony about the apathy of our public and our parents. This

is an important issue when we are talking about testing and making followups with the behavior of youth and their children. First

of all, the public in my reading does not support doing on-going

testing. We had a student spike a teacher’s drink with LSD and he

almost died, 21⁄2 years ago. In that investigation and this is from

a middle school, we revealed the names of 43 students who were

heavily involved in drugs in the community, but at which point we

could not arrest. It was good, confirmed information through the

narcotics task force and our officers in that investigation. We called

at least one or both parents of every one of those children and advised them of what we knew, that the child would not be arrested

and we gave them the name of laboratories and suggested they

have their children tested. We also gave them a list and mailed it

to them of all of the treatment facilities and centers and programs

available to them. Only 31 percent of the parents followed up and

had their children tested. Of the 31 percent all of them tested positive and all of those children went to drug programs with supportive parents and to our knowledge have not been recidivists in the

system. The others had a 54 percent recidivism rate within 1 year.

So it speaks to the apathy. We have a long road ahead of us in

educating our public on the seriousness of these behaviors. It is no

longer when your child comes home and they tell you he is drinking and many of the parents will still go ‘‘well thank God it is not

drugs.’’ It is an addiction. It is substance abuse whether it is alcohol or drugs and we have got a tough road.

Mr. BILBRAY. Chief, well, I appreciate that information. One of

the frustrations we had in Washington is a lot of our attitudes in

Washington needed a change. We actually had the FDA that was

not willing to license home testing systems because at the same

time, they were fast tracking home pregnancy testing. They were

blocking home drug testing because of their perception that there

was a privacy issue for the child being imposed by the parent and

that Washington was going to decide if a parent would have the

option to be able to have a testing system or not. And in the testimony, basically, it was an interesting concept. In fact, I made the

point of looking at somebody, look at their age and those of us who

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were derelicts of the 1960’s may want to rethink our attitudes

about drug use and how serious we want to do it. I only bring it

up because I grew up in a community that had extensive drug use,

much of it was military, driven military. And I would say to you,

Mr. Chairman, I would really suggest the committee study what

the U.S. military did to curtail drug use among their personnel because they were serious about it. They used research. They used

drug sniffing dogs and they used periodic testing, and I do not

think there was any place in American society where we have seen

such a dramatic drop off of use as we saw with the Department of

Defense. The other success is Department of Transportation. And

so I just hope we build on those successes.

Now Mr. Cox, one of our frustrations that we ran into with the

county was how many people that were on public assistance were

also identified as being involved with drug use. You and Supervisor

Jacob were very instrumental in implementing a program that we

had only dreamed of being able to do. Then, you did it with the

support of people that traditionally opposed testing, at least who

did initially. And that was the fact that civil libertarian lawyers

not only did not go to court to block you at that time, they embraced the concept.

Can you explain to this body what you did with your general relief and the issue of testing and how you integrated that in with

your treatment and the total package approach?

Mr. COX. What we did and I think it was around 1997, we took

an action that would require any new applicant for general relief

to have to submit as a condition of their eligibility a urine test and

if they were positive then we offered them a program as a condition

of their eligibility for treatment and prevention and you are right,

the normal opponents of that type of a program were supportive because it was tied in with treatment for the individual.

And that is one of the things in the study that we did, the $1.8

billion cost of drug and alcohol costs that was experienced in the

county of San Diego in 1995, only 2 percent of that total cost was

in the area of treatment and prevention and I think if we can do

more focusing on treatment and prevention programs, in the long

run those costs will go down significantly. That is the biggest hurdle that we have to deal with is—and most of our programs we run

in the county that even if we determine there is a problem and this

is particularly true in the dependency court it would take 5 to 6

weeks to get somebody into a treatment program. Now under

Judge Millikin, once that parent comes into his courtroom, they are

basically given a choice. Do you want to keep using drugs or do you

want to keep your kids? And if they want to keep their kids then

by the time they leave the courtroom they are meeting with a social worker. They are getting placed in a treatment program and

the balance of the sanctions, if you will, the tough love as you referred to it, is in place, ready to go.

So if I can implore anything on you, it would be we need to focus

more resources than we are currently on treatment and prevention.

Mr. BILBRAY. I would just like to point out to my colleagues as

you pointed out, the issue of where the problem rests is not generally spread out. It is concentrated in certain components of society. Those components to be where there is more public resources

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being expended proportionally than anywhere else in society. One

of the things that San Diego County pointed to is make sure that

the public resources that were going in to help children, to help the

needy, were not being diverted into substance abuse and paying for

a whole new program or problem. And the key here was the fact

of using the results of positive testing as an entry way into treatment rather than a punitive action and I think that was the key

in there and I want to commend you on that.

Supervisor Jacob, I want to commend you at using a term that

I want us to use more often too and that is contamination. Drugs

contaminate the community, and San Diego County has one big advantage when we talk about contamination. Many of the precursors

of methamphetamine are identified as hazardous materials and are

regulated by environmental health agencies. You may want to explain to the committee, quickly because we have got another panel,

how tracking those hazardous materials for environmental reasons

gave San Diego an upper hand in being able to identify how and

where resources were being made available for meth labs.

Ms. JACOB. I am not sure about your question.

Mr. BILBRAY. Well, I meant the way the hazardous materials

people could be able to at least inform the Sheriff’s Department

that there was a whole lot of these precursors that were going to

some residence or being bought by somebody who did not have a

legitimate purpose and that information being able to be used by

law enforcement. And it was an environmental issue that ended up

being a law enforcement issue.

Ms. JACOB. Again, it is an example of the Meth Strike Force

which is bringing agencies together and there is more cooperation

because they are talking. There are 70 different individuals that

are sitting basically around a table from education, health, law enforcement, at Federal, State and local level so the environmental

health issue when the hazardous materials team goes in to clean

up a lab, they talk to law enforcement and identify not only the ingredients in the meth, but also again it involves the District Attorney in the Child Endangerment Unit the DA has put in place. It

has been very successful that I talked about earlier.

So the multi-faceted approach is working well in San Diego

County and to me it is these kinds of efforts that we have demonstrated success because we are measuring our success through

the report card that I just provided some recent information for

you. If we can get resources to put into a program like this that

is working and working well through collaboration, I think we will

have a chance of eradicating the community of the deadly drugs

that are out there. That would be the ideal.

Mr. MICA. Thank you. Mr. Souder had a followup.

Mr. SOUDER. I had a quick followup question on the AFDC, Mr.

Cox, Ms. Jacob or whoever. Can you use AFDC funds, the welfare

funds for the drug treatment? Can that be used or how do you pay

for the drug treatment?

Mr. COX. The AFDC funds are all local funds. There is no State

or Federal money that comes into that so the treatment is actually

through other funding sources available through the county.

Ms. JACOB. The general relief.

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Mr. COX. I am sorry, the general relief. General relief is all county funds.

Mr. SOUDER. So you do not have any AFDC funds there?

Mr. COX. Not in general relief.

Mr. SOUDER. Would you be allowed to use it to help pay for that

if you chose?

Mr. COX. Well, it would be—— Ms. JACOB. That is Federal money.

Mr. COX. You mean the AFDC funds?

Mr. SOUDER. Yes. In other words, the States are asking us because right now they are running surpluses that they cannot tap

into because, in fact, the welfare rolls have been reduced because

of welfare reform. The question is could some of that dollars be

used to pay for drug treatment for the people who are stuck in the

welfare system?

We will check to see. I was just wondering.

Mr. BILBRAY. That is an innovative idea.

Ms. JACOB. One of the things that should happen very quickly

here, back to the drug testing that Congressman Bilbray mentioned, we did have some flexibility with general relief welfare because that was county funded program and just by posting the fact,

putting up a sign fact that people were going to get drug tested

when they came in for general relief welfare, actually half of them

at the time we ran the numbers did not come back just because

they knew they would be tested.

Now the problem when we get into what was known as AFDC

now is TANIF is that the State law has changed so that there has

to be reasonable cause. These are people with children, as we all

know, but we do not have the local authority to drug test these

mothers, these individuals, let alone the treatment programs. That

is a problem.

Mr. MICA. I want to take this opportunity to thank all of you.

You spent several hours of your morning with us, you provided our

subcommittee with some insight as to how you are tackling your

local and regional problem here, and how we can do a little bit better job in assisting you. Hopefully, we have learned some of that

today.

I always invite our panelists, particularly those not from Washington to contact me. If there is something you did not want to say

publicly to address it to me or to the subcommittee that needs our

attention. Sometimes, working with the different agencies, you are

reluctant in a public forum or under oath at a hearing to relay

those comments, but I do welcome any of your suggestions on how

we can do a better job to tackle this. And I salute you. You have

a monumental task. You are at a geographic position that puts you

right in the middle of a number of issues, a corridor that is very

difficult to control. It appears that you have tackled that locally as

best you can with limited resources, and unfortunately, with limited assistance from the Federal level. I thank Mr. Bilbray again

for inviting us here and for your participation this morning and to

this afternoon. Thank you, and you are excused.

I will call our second panel, if I may. Our second panel consists

of Mr. Edward Logan, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Customs

Service in San Diego. The next witness is Undersheriff Jack

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Drown, and he is Executive Committee Chair, the California Border Alliance Group, Southwest Border HIDTA. Another witness on

this panel is Captain Robert Allen. He is the Commander of Activities at the San Diego U.S. Coast Guard operations in San Diego

here. Then Mr. William Veal, who is the Chief Patrol Agent of San

Diego Sector of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

As I mentioned to the previous panel, we are an investigations

and oversight panel in Congress, and we do swear our witnesses.

Some of you may have testified before Congress. If you would

please stand and rise, raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. MICA. The witnesses answered in the affirmative, and I am

pleased to welcome you. I understand Mr. Veal is only able to be

with us until 12:30, so we are going to recognize him first. He is

Chief Patrol Agent from the San Diego Sector of INS. Welcome, sir,

and you are recognized.

STATEMENTS OF WILLIAM VEAL, CHIEF PATROL AGENT, SAN

DIEGO SECTOR, IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION SERVICE; EDWARD LOGAN, SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE, U.S. CUSTOMS SERVICE, SAN DIEGO, CA; UNDERSHERIFF JACK

DROWN, EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE CHAIR, CALIFORNIA BORDER ALLIANCE GROUP, SOUTHWEST BORDER HIDTA; AND

CAPTAIN ROBERT ALLEN, COMMANDER, ACTIVITIES SAN

DIEGO, U.S. COAST GUARD, SAN DIEGO, CA

Mr. VEAL. Thank you, sir. Thank you for the change of order.

Chairman Mica, Congressman Souder, Congressman Bilbray, let

me begin by thanking you and your colleagues who have worked

diligently to provide the U.S. Border Patrol with the resources to

gain control of the border against the illegal smuggling of drugs,

aliens and contraband into our Nation. I am very proud of the men

and women of the San Diego Sector and I feel privileged to be able

to represent them here today. Their commitment and professionalism have made possible the success we have achieved so far. We

have brought a sense of order and law to what was once a chaotic

and out of control border between San Diego and Mexico. We have

made life much more difficult for the drug and alien smugglers who

frequent the border area and who before Operation Gatekeeper

brought their wares across our border with virtual impunity.

The U.S. Border Patrol is the primary Federal agency tasked

with land interdiction of illegal aliens and narcotics between our

ports of entry. The 2,150 agents of the San Diego Sector maintain

a highly visible presence along the 66-mile San Diego County-Mexican border and also cover 7,000 square miles of land and water

boundaries.

Our mission is a focused, phased approach toward obtaining a

border that deters drug traffickers, alien smugglers and other

criminals. Based on our intelligence reports and actual experience,

drug smuggling and alien smuggling are often linked.

The Border Patrol employs a multi-faceted strategy at the immediate border. We deploy agents in highly visible positions. We use

utilize fences, high-powered stadium lighting, electronic sensor systems, infra-red night vision scopes, low light television cameras.

We utilize horse patrols, boat patrols, helicopters and even bicycle

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patrols. We also employ a system of checkpoints situated along

major roads and highways leading away from the border areas to

deter the movement of and to intercept both illegal aliens and

drugs.

I do not need to tell Congressman Bilbray this. He lived through

it, but when I came to San Diego, my first assignment here in

1975, this was the most out of control segment of our border. From

1974 through 1994, of our almost 2,000 mile long border with Mexico, the 66 miles which comprised San Diego County accounted traditionally for 50 percent of all the illegal activity on the border.

And within that 66 miles, the first 5 miles of border from the Pacific Ocean to the San Ysidro port of entry accounted again for the

50 percent of the activity within the San Diego sector. So here we

had generally 25 percent of all the illegal activity occurring on our

Nation’s border with Mexico occurring in that 5 mile segment. It

was clearly an unacceptable situation.

Since Operation Gatekeeper began in 1994 illegal entries in that

area, historically the most heavily trafficked corridor in the United

States has dropped 92 percent. Overall, apprehensions in the sector

have fallen 66 percent or in that same period. Local law enforcement officials have attributed much of the decrease in crime in several communities to our ability to do our job. Felony arrests for

narcotics, marijuana and other dangerous drugs within the county

declined by 24 percent from 1994 to 1998.

Prior to 1992, there was inadequate fencing along the border. In

some areas, border fencing was nonexistent. In some places, paved

streets in Tijuana paralleled the border and at weak spots single

and multiple truckloads of aliens and drugs drove across the border

at will and blended into the flow of vehicle traffic in the United

States.

With considerable assistance from Congressman Duncan Hunter,

the California National Guard and other military engineering

units, this changed dramatically through the erection of the landing mat fence on the border. Construction of border security roads

has allowed us to patrol close to the fence and monitor it for attempts to cut the fence and also to drive over the fence. Gatekeeper’s success in the first 14 miles led the drug smugglers into

the far reaches of East San Diego County. Cross border vehicular

entries were further restricted by the construction of vehicle barriers and primary fencing in vehicle accessible areas. These advances have required drug smugglers now to backpack drugs across

the border until they can reach a vehicle. With the heightened surveillance provided by our agents with sensors and night scopes, it

becomes difficult for smugglers to bring in and load significant

quantities of narcotics.

The traffickers still try. Our permanent and temporary checkpoints plus the agents who monitor traffic on East County back

roads continue to discover drugs brought in either in San Diego or

Imperial County. During fiscal year 1999, 75 percent of our interdictions occurred in East County.

Technology has vastly improved our detection and resource deployment. A large portion of San Diego sector drug seizures and a

tremendous amount of real time intelligence results from over 950

electronic sensors placed along remote smuggling routes in the borVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:25 Dec 28, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00061 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\66899.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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der area. The sector has 39 long range infra-red scopes located to

provide maximum coverage at border crossing points as well as to

deprive smugglers of the cover of darkness. These scopes have discovered backpackers, suspicious vehicles and even smugglers in

wet suits with drugs lashed to surfboards.

We have 28 canine units to locate concealed people and drugs.

So far in fiscal year 2000 these 28 canines have accounted for drug

seizures valued at over $28 million.

After climbing steadily from 1993 to 1995, our interdiction seizures have fallen in the last 4 fiscal years reflecting the effectiveness of the enforcement efforts between the ports of entry. Despite

this, this fiscal year our marijuana intercepts already equal the

same period last year. The drug smugglers keep trying new avenues and searching for weak spots.

The Border Patrol is a very active member of the HIDTA. Under

the HIDTA, the Law Enforcement Coordinating Center [LECC] in

East County operates as an intelligence-driven, joint task force to

deny drug smugglers their traditional routes between the ports of

entry. The Law Enforcement Coordination Center works to coordinate interdiction and investigative assets to detect, disrupt and dismantle major trafficking organizations.

Since the inception of the LECC and with enhanced efforts between the ports of entry, there has been a 75 percent increase in

seizures at the ports of entry. The improved coordination and cooperation has increased the effectiveness of every law enforcement

agency. We have unquestionably increased the cost of business for

drug trafficking organizations.

Other HIDTA initiative is the San Diego Maritime Task Force

comprised principally of the U.S. Customs Service, the U.S. Coast

Guard and the U.S. Border Patrol. While the Task Force focuses

on the investigation and interception of sea-borne smuggling in Pacific coastal waters, it also investigates international smuggling

originating at considerable distance from the U.S. territorial waters.

Because of the volume of opportunistic smugglers working in

coastal waters, the San Diego Sector has established a Marine Unit

utilizing night scopes and two 21-foot Zodiac inflatables, one of

which, Mr. Chairman, is on view outside this building. The Border

Patrol Marine Unit has successfully intercepted a number of smuggling vessels and forced many others to return back to Mexican waters.

The San Diego Sector receives considerable support from the U.S.

military, particularly the California National Guard. They have

been instrumental in providing us officers, personnel who serve as

intelligence analysts, electronics technicians, bus drivers, sensor

monitors, scope operators, freeing up Border Patrol agents for line

assignments.

In summary, the mission of the Border Patrol has remained the

same, to work in cooperation with other agencies in a mutually

beneficial spirit to secure our national borders. Regaining control

of our borders is an on-going task. No single initiative or program

can achieve the goal, but through joint operations that we have realized here in San Diego we have achieved a real synergy.

59

I appreciate the attention of the subcommittee to the problems

that we face. Thank you for this opportunity.

Mr. MICA. Thank you, and we are going to let you go in just a

second. I had a couple of quick questions. How many full-time positions do you have in this area, INS?

Mr. VEAL. Sir, I cannot speak for INS, but for the Border

Patrol—— Mr. MICA. The Border Patrol, OK.

Mr. VEAL. Yes sir, officers, men and women who are Border Patrol agents, 2,150.

Mr. MICA. That is Border Patrol, 2,150. How many of those positions are filled? Are those working? Mr. Bilbray has been on me

about the number of positions that are not filled that we have appropriated. How many positions do we have that are vacant?

Mr. VEAL. I cannot give you the exact number, sir, but the last

time I checked it was less than 100.

Mr. MICA. Less than 100?

Mr. VEAL. Yes.

Mr. MICA. So you are able to fill those. Of the 2,150 is that your

total positions? There is 100 vacant?

Mr. VEAL. No sir. We also have a number of personnel and support positions who are not officers.

Mr. MICA. OK.

Mr. VEAL. I can supply those numbers to you.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. MICA. Are there problems with getting personnel to fill the

positions? Is there something missing or is this a normal vacancy

right?

Mr. VEAL. I think there are two factors involved, Mr. Chairman.

One is there is a normal rate of attrition. We do recruit nationally

and a lot of folks like to get their job, start their job and then try

to relocate to an area closer to home. Another thing is we are not

very competitive salary-wise in the southern California law enforcement community and I think that spurs attrition also.

Mr. MICA. High turnover?

Mr. VEAL. Yes sir.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Souder, did you have any quick ones for Mr. Veal?

Mr. SOUDER. Yes, I have a pet peeve question I want to ask, and

I have not been able to ask it in a hearing before because, although

I was at San Luis Obispo in 1996, I had not been down along the

fence. To the east side of the city, I do not know how far out it was

where the fence separates and there is kind of a no man’s land in

there and you were talking about catching people who cut the fence

and so on, there is a great big drainage area that was not sealed

off when I was there about a year and a half ago. Is that still not

sealed off?

Mr. VEAL. Sir, I would be pleased to take you down there and

see that that is no longer a problem.

Mr. SOUDER. Good, because my understanding was is EPA had

kept that from being sealed off and whatever used to be in there

was clearly being trampled to death.

Mr. VEAL. We do, sir, continue to have problems in complying

with NEPA and doing the infrastructure that we want, but Congressman Bilbray was very helpful to us in overcoming many of

those hurdles.

Mr. SOUDER. Because if there are additional ones, I am interested in doing some oversight on it because there was also orange

posts up on the hills where a bird was hatching. When I talked to

the Border Patrol agents on the ground, not dressed up and I do

not know that they knew that I was a Congressman, because I

think they thought I was a staffer because we were not going on

an official tour, they said oh yeah, they just run in up to those

areas. Well, whatever was being hatched there is deader than if we

had not zoned off the areas.

Mr. VEAL. Yes.

Mr. SOUDER. And I would like to know those kind of inconsistencies if you come up with others. Thank you very much.

Mr. VEAL. Yes. Thank you.

Mr. MICA. Finally, how would you describe the cooperation with

the Mexican officials?

Mr. VEAL. I would describe it as spotty. There is no real institutional relationship between my organization and Mexican Government organizations. Those relationships are generally personal. We

try to contact the heads of the Mexican and Federal agencies and

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build from the ground up a relationship of trust. I will say that we

have, over time, developed an improved degree of cooperation. We

have provided the Mexicans with the means of directly communicating with our officers without having to go through an intermediary and that has been a very helpful thing for us.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Veal follows:]

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Mr. MICA. Thank you. We are going to excuse you, Mr. Veal, I

know you have a plane to catch.

I promised I would let him scoot at this point, so you are excused

and Mr. Edward Logan, U.S. Customs Service, San Diego, you are

recognized.

Mr. LOGAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee. I am pleased to appear before you today to discuss the

Customs Service’s efforts to combat the drug crisis in California.

Before discussing our efforts, I want to first give you the sense

of our overall challenges. As the committee is well aware, the Customs Service in California must work at a multi-dimensional threat

environment. While we have positioned most of our personnel and

resources facing south along the 150 mile land border that we

share with Mexico to screen persons, conveyances and goods moving north, we also must be watchful on southbound trade and traffic which may carry weapons, undeclared currency, hazardous materials, controlled technology, thousands of stolen cars or fugitives

from justice leaving California for Mexico.

At the same time due to our geography we also must look westward where the Pacific Ocean provides yet another avenue for drug

smugglers long schooled in the ways in moving narcotics by sea.

We also must be able to look up and monitor our skies which became in the 1970’s and 1980’s the quickest way for drugs to enter

the country in a wide variety of aircraft. And last, all the agencies

along the border must be ever vigilant to the presence of tunnels

which have been created to move both narcotics and illegal migrants into the United States.

Within our area of operations in fiscal year 1999 we encountered

over 30 million passenger vehicles, 95 million persons, almost a

million trucks, thousands of pleasure craft and cleared for entry

into the United States commerce over $12 billion of trade from

Mexico. To meet our threat, we have deployed personnel, technology, aircraft and vessels to screen the border environment,

whether that be on land, in the air or at sea, all of which pose

unique challenges.

I would be remiss, Mr. Chairman, if I did not express our agency’s gratitude for the significant funding provided by the Congress

for new aircraft and nonintrusive inspection technology in fiscal

year 1999. Culled from this enormous haystack of people and conveyances the Customs Service seized 192 tons of marijuana, 5 tons

of cocaine, 1,164 pounds of methamphetamine and 226 pounds of

heroin along with arresting over 4,00 drug smugglers. In 8 short

years, we have witnessed drug seizures rise at our California ports

of entry from 370, 370 in 1991 to over 4,000 in 1998. Last year,

over 58 percent and this kind of tracks with what Bill Veal had to

say, 58 percent of all detected drug smuggling events at United

States ports of entry along the whole Mexican border occurred

right here in California.

While Customs is responsible for enforcing more than 600 sections of U.S. code on behalf of 60 other Federal agencies and routinely conducts a wide variety of investigations on everything from

trade fraud, cyber smuggling to money laundering, Commissioner

Kelly has clearly stated that interdicting narcotics and dismantling

drug smuggling organizations is our highest priority.

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As demonstrated by our very large haystack, the windows of opportunities for would be drug smugglers are staggering and the

number climbs each year as the benefits of NAFTA continue to increase trade with our southern neighbor which rose 115 percent

from 1994 to 1998.

Our efforts to deal with our ever increasing workload may be

characterized as follows: continuous coordination with Federal and

State and local resources through coalition law enforcement; the

utilization of technology, effective intelligence gathering and sharing and proactive investigative operations targeted at drug smuggling organizations.

Of growing concern to the Customs Service is the widespread

smuggling and use of the dance club drug known as Ecstacy. The

popularity of Ecstacy is spreading faster than any drug since crack

cocaine and it threatens to erode the foundation of our Nation’s

youth its most common user. While Ecstacy production has been

primarily traced to the Netherlands, Canada, on a limited basis in

Spain, there have been indications that Mexican drug trafficking

organizations may have become involved. Nationwide, seizures of

Ecstasy have increased eight fold since 1997 and in 1999 topped

2.5 million dosage units. We expect to far exceed these figures in

2000.

Customs is committed to remaining on the forefront of this

emerging drug smuggling trend and in response we have formed an

Ecstasy Task Force in Washington to husband our resources

against this high profile threat.

Coalition law enforcement is nothing new to the San Diego law

enforcement community and the Customs Service has forged strong

alliances with its counterparts to combat the increase in drug

smuggling activity along our border. Certainly, the various local

high intensity drug trafficking areas which Undersheriff Drown

will talk about are examples. Those of us who work on the California-Mexican border know that it is an environment in which drug

smugglers routinely infiltrate narcotics into legitimate trade and

commerce on a daily basis while also attempting to exploit the

vastness of the Pacific and the remote terrain along our border.

The traffickers and smugglers are experienced, well financed,

often well trained and sadly, highly effective in their efforts.

In conclusion, we take great pride in our California law enforcement coalition as the Customs Service is not alone in our counter

narcotics efforts. We are shoulder to shoulder with all the agencies,

Federal and State who have resources dedicated to this important

effort.

I am proud to represent the Customs Service in providing insights into the hard work being conducted along the border.

Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Logan follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER [presiding]. Thank you very much for your testimony.

Sheriff Drown.

Mr. DROWN. Good morning, Mr. Chair, Congressman Bilbray,

welcome to San Diego. Welcome home. I am Jack Drown. I am the

Undersheriff for San Diego County and chairman of the California

Border Alliance Group, a designated high intensity drug trafficking

area or HIDTA for San Diego and Imperial Counties. I also chair

the county’s Methamphetamine Strike Force and I have been in

local law enforcement here in San Diego County for 30 years.

I am pleased to be here and thank you for the opportunity to

present testimony before you this morning.

First, let me express my appreciation for the Congress’ and

ONDCP’s recognition that while border enforcement and border

control may be a Federal responsibility, everything that occurs

along the border is a local impact. And I think that is a key concept

for folks looking in to our situation here in San Diego to fully understand. Everything that occurs along the border is a local impact.

As you know, the Southwest Border HIDTA is one of the largest

most diverse and unique of the 31 HIDTAs throughout the country.

There are 45 counties and 5 Federal judicial districts in the five regional HIDTAs that make up the Southwest Border HIDTA: Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, West Texas and South Texas.

Drug trafficking from the southwest border, without question, affects the entire Nation. The 2,000 mile southwest border represents

the arrival zone for South American produced cocaine and heroin

as well as Mexican produced methamphetamine, heroin, marijuana, other dangerous drugs and precursor chemicals used to

manufacture illicit drugs in the United States.

The California Border Alliance Group, also know as CBAG was

designated in 1990 as one of the five partnerships of the Southwest

Border HIDTA. The CBAG’s area of responsibility is comprised of

San Diego and Imperial Counties, 8,900 square miles from the

Mexican border to the Orange and Riverside County lines and from

the Pacific Ocean to the Arizona State line. The location and geography are unique. Terrain that ranges from seaports and beaches

to mountains and deserts, yet home to San Diego, the sixth largest

city in our Nation.

There are two large Mexican cities directly to our south served

by six points of entry including San Ysidro, the busiest land port

in the world. Tijuana’s population is estimated at 2 million and

growing. Mexicali with a population of 1 million is the capital of

Baja California Norte. The 149 mile California-Mexican border is

only 7 percent of the entire United States-Mexican border but it is

home to 60 percent of the people who reside on both sides of that

border.

Major highways connect San Diego and the Imperial Valley to

Mexico, Los Angeles and points north and east. Maritime routes,

railways, international airports, smaller airfields and clandestine

landing strips are also a major concern. Because of our location and

proximity to Mexico, drug smuggling is here and likely will remain

here for years to come.

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duction of methamphetamine and marijuana, high drug re-use

rates, especially methamphetamine and border violence spills over

and impacts our regions. Suffice to say, San Diego County and Imperial Counties suffer from triple whammy. We are high trafficking

areas, high production and manufacturing areas and high use

areas.

Although both heroin and marijuana seizures are up from last

year, methamphetamine use and production continues to be our

major problem. In the CBAG area alone 67 labs were seized in

1999, 1,700 were seized Statewide. California continues to lead the

Nation in clandestine methamphetamine lab seizures. Most disturbingly are the number of children present at these heavily contaminated sites, children who have been removed under the Drug

Endangered Children’s Program for treatment, assessment and

placement services.

Methamphetamine use in our region continues to be a significant

public safety and health problem; 75 percent, 75 percent of the

arrestees at the Visa Jail in northern San Diego County tested

positive for methamphetamine or admitted methamphetamine use

during the year of 1999.

Our regional response to the drug threat is based on a foundation of Federal, State and local agency cooperation and coordination. We are proud of the fact that this region was one of the first,

if not the first, to form an integrated Federal, State and local law

enforcement drug task force in the early 1970’s. This task force set

the tone for the level of cooperation in our HIDTA today.

As a designated HIDTA area, we realize our response to the border and drug problem must be comprehensive, must be as comprehensive as resources will allow. There is no magic solution. We

did not get here overnight. We do not get out of this overnight.

Therefore, our regional strategies provide for a balanced mix of

interdiction, investigations, prosecutions, intelligence and support

initiatives that are continually adjusted to address the changes in

the threat. We also support a very cost-efficient and effective demand reduction effort which concentrates on educating young people about the consequences of drug use.

I have provided you with written materials that describe our

HIDTA initiatives in detail, but please allow me to highlight just

a few of our more innovative efforts.

With your permission sir, I will continue? The CBAG’s methamphetamine initiative exemplifies the multi-faceted approach to a

critical regional problem. The San Diego Methamphetamine Strike

Force is a cross jurisdictional effort created by the San Diego County Board of Supervisors to support the National Methamphetamine

Strategy with local action, co-chaired by myself and Dr. Bob Ross,

a San Diego County Health and Human Services Director, the

Strike Force is composed of law enforcement leaders and substantive experts, more than 70 different people representing courts,

treatment and prevention providers. You have heard of the Strike

Force from Supervisor Jacob. So I am not going to dwell on that.

Suffice it to say we believe it is a very effective approach to the

methamphetamine problems in San Diego County.

One of the Strike Force’s initiatives is going to take place in the

city Vista, a city in northern San Diego County where are bringing

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together cops, courts, treatment providers, city government, hospitals and educators in a coordinated effort focusing on prevention,

intervention, interdiction and treatment efforts to reduce the use of

methamphetamine in one particular community.

Drug courts, while not specifically a HIDTA program play a large

part in our efforts within the Meth Strike Force and throughout

the region. As you have been told in the past 2 years, San Diego

County drug courts have processed over 450 nonviolent offenders;

90 percent of those who complete the 1-year program remain drug

free. Interestingly and importantly, compare the drug court costs of

$300 per month to the cost of $2,000 per month for incarceration

and I think you can see this is a very cost effective and productive

approach.

The Drug Endangered Children’s Program, previously mentioned,

provides specially trained on-call Deputy District Attorneys and

child protection workers who actually participate with law enforcement in the planning for raids on clandestine methamphetamine

labs in order to properly take custody of and care for the children

who are present at about 25 percent of the meth labs that we have.

The children are entered into the established health care and social work protocols while the District Attorney insures that child

endangerment enhancements to sentences for lab operators are included in charges against the violators. This program is proving to

be a strong and effective deterrent that deserves national implementation. Perhaps more importantly, I dare say we are rescuing

children from years of potential neglect and abuse and a very distinct potential of future drug use and addiction themselves.

The California Precursor Committee and the National Methamphetamine Chemical Initiative provide training and coordination

throughout the Nation in the investigation and prosecution of

rogue chemical and pharmaceutical companies, as well as retailers

who illegally supply the listed chemicals and equipment needed to

make methamphetamine, chemicals I might add, and recipes I

might add, that can be obtained simply through the network.

This program that was begun here as a regional effort was expanded last year into a national effort focusing on proven practices

to reduce the availability of precursor chemicals.

Another example of Federal and local cooperation is the Combined Prosecutors’ Initiative which provides funding for cross-designated assistant U.S. attorneys and deputy district attorneys and

the prosecution of border drug cases in State court. In the past 2

years, the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office handled

3,400 port of entry and other border drug arrests allowing the U.S.

attorney’s Office to concentrate on major violators and conspiracies

while insuring that low level violators are prosecuted and a measure of deterrence is maintained.

Ironically, the number of cases being handled by the DA’s office

has now reached the limits of their capacity, another example of

local impact of which I spoke earlier.

And what was intended to relieve the Federal prosecutor’s burden has now severely impacted the local prosecutions in both San

Diego and Imperial Counties.

We have had great success this year in San Diego County. I believe that the primary foundation of our success is indeed a level

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of cooperation and coordination that has served us extremely well.

There are certainly areas that we need to improve on and much

needs to be done. We are particularly concerned about the maritime routes and potential for ocean smuggling. Intelligence and information gathering is always a major topic of discussion. We believe that we are making progress in that area and yet there are

still probably too many examples where information is gathered

and kept by one single agency, rather than being shared.

I think it is important to recognize that many will appear before

you and ask you for increased funding. We certainly would join

them, but I think the more important message is we are doing well

with the money that you have supplied us through the Southwest

Border HIDTA. We can always do better. We would implore you to

at least leave our level of funding where it is at and certainly if

you can—if you have the means available to you, we believe that

increased funding would enhance what we are doing down here in

the Southwest Border and we appreciate your being here in San

Diego and I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you and

present you with testimony.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Drown follows:]

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Mr. MICA [presiding]. Thank you.

We will now hear from Captain Robert Allen, U.S. Coast Guard,

San Diego.

Capt. ALLEN. Thank you. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Congressman Souder, Congressman Bilbray. I am pleased to be here

today with you to discuss the Coast Guard’s effort to interdict drug

smugglers at sea and how we can improve our effectiveness in

stemming drug smuggling through the transit and arrival zones

leading to and in the vicinity of southern California.

I am honored to be able to host this hearing here at Activities

San Diego, a Coast Guard unit with a long and proud history of

service to our country.

The Coast Guard is the lead agency for maritime drug interdiction and shares the lead for air interdiction with the U.S. Customs

Service. As the only Armed Service with law enforcement authority, and the only Federal agency with broad enforcement authority

on the high seas, the Coast Guard is on the front line in the maritime drug interdiction effort. In the southern California and Eastern Pacific region we have seen a dramatic increase in cocaine

smuggling in the past few years. To date in fiscal year 2000, the

Coast Guard has interdicted over 72,000 pounds of cocaine, and

more than 60,000 pounds, or 84 percent, of that total was interdicted in the Eastern Pacific. These numbers are significant and

they may very well represent a shifting trend by the drug smugglers. Within this context, our counterdrug efforts in the Eastern

Pacific and southern California take on added significance.

The Coast Guard focuses on reducing the supply of illegal drugs

through maritime interdiction using a layered approach. In the

Eastern Pacific, we interdict drug smugglers in the departure zone

near Colombia and the transit zones of the Central American and

Mexican coasts and at the arrival zones in the United States using

a variety of surface and air assets. We know that large cocaine

shipments coming up from Colombia are often off-loaded to smaller

‘‘go-fasts’’ boats or ‘‘pangas’’ for further transport into Central

America and Mexico, where much of the cocaine is then transported primarily via land routes into southern California. In addition to these large cocaine shipments, we have experienced a continual flow of smaller drug loads, mostly marijuana, coming across

the maritime extensions of the Mexico-United States border. Last

year, we intercepted over 7,000 pounds of marijuana transported

through a myriad of maritime conveyances, small boats, jet skis,

kayaks, and rigid-hull inflatable boats, as well as individuals attempting to swim ashore with their drugs in tow.

Operation BORDER SHIELD is a maritime pulse operation comprised of an in-shore component along the coastal waters of the

United States-Mexico southwestern border and an off-shore component along the western coast of the Baja Peninsula. Activities San

Diego has coordinated the in-shore component of this operation

since its inception 3 years ago by using reservists and temporarily

assigned active duty personnel drawn from units throughout the

Coast Guard, but relying heavily on our local units.

We work closely with other agencies to coordinate our

counterdrug operations and I am fortunate to sit as a member of

the Executive Committee of the California Border Alliance Group

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[CBAG], with so many Federal, State, and local agencies fighting

the war on drugs, CBAG is an essential organization which creates

synergies and improves our overall effectiveness.

Pulse operations such as Border Shield, combined with our

heavy, tasking in other missions areas can take a toll on our personnel and equipment readiness. Our operational tempo continues

to climb with increasing demands on our personnel and their families. To insure we maintain sufficient readiness for emergent missions, I have been directed to no longer sustain routine operations,

despite their productivity, by overtaxing my units. This approach

marks a new awareness that there are limits on what we can accomplish, given the resources that are available.

We will still answer the search and rescue alarm, but other missions, namely maritime security operations, may have to be scaled

back.

In summary, the drug threat is increasing in southern California

and the Coast Guard must maintain a robust, fast, and mobile

force and a proactive interdiction strategy. Our resources are

spread thin. We have inadequate maritime patrol aircraft support

for our cutters and patrol boats. We must rely on annual supplemental funding and the use of temporary duty personnel to continue our counterdrug operations at the present level, not knowing

from year to year what to expect in terms of funding and other resources.

New technologies, interagency cooperation, and improved intelligence gathering and dissemination are essential to increasing effectiveness. The Coast Guard’s Deepwater recapitalization project

and readiness-related budget initiatives within the President’s fiscal year 2001 budget will improve our capabilities for drug interdiction and other missions.

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you this morning.

I would like to recognize your support, oversight, and commitment

to the national counterdrug effort. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Captain Allen follows:]

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Mr. MICA. Thank you.

I have a couple of questions, first for Undersheriff Jack Drown.

What is the total dollar figure spent on this HIDTA?

Mr. DROWN. For year 2000 our dollar amount here is $10,407, ex- cuse me, $10 million.

Mr. SOUDER. A lot of accomplishments.

Mr. DROWN. A lot of accomplishments for $10,000. We get a good bang for your buck here in San Diego let me tell you. $10,407,701,

out of the total Southwest Border HIDTA funding of $46 million.

Mr. MICA. So you get $10 million out of the—— Mr. DROWN. Out of the $46 million.

Mr. MICA. So the entire Southwest Border HIDTA, we are spend- ing $46 million which is basically almost 30 percent of the whole

HIDTA budget, the national budget, is it not?

Mr. DROWN. Yes.

Mr. MICA. Because we are looking at trying to go $200 million.

Mr. BILBRAY. Remember 58 percent.

Mr. DROWN. We have close to 60 percent of course for the population and I would suggest with the business land port.

Mr. MICA. But I come from Florida, and Florida will tell me they

are catching all the drugs, if you look at the seizures. Folks on the

East Coast say they are catching all the drugs. And I just had the

Border Patrol head here testify that since 1995 his seizures are

consistently down. And we went to Sacramento, and they said I– 5 is like a direct conduit. I mean they are showing us buckets, literally buckets of meth and cocaine coming up through I–5, like you

guys are not doing anything down here.

Mr. DROWN. I would say we are doing our best as we possibly

can.

Mr. MICA. Is he right? His seizures are down. Your seizures are

up.

Capt. ALLEN. Ours are up.

Mr. MICA. And Customs seizures are up.

Mr. BILBRAY. One of the things you have got to point out with

the Border Patrol is that Operation Gatekeeper kicked in, as the

fences were built, as we did——

Mr. MICA. There was less coming across that way. So now it is

coming up not I–95 conveniently, or I–5. We have I–95, it is coming

up I–95 in Florida.

Mr. LOGAN. We believe it created a deterrent effect at ports of

entry and certainly in the marine environment and we have seen

direct evidence of that and with our haystack, we cannot set the

screen levels to a point where we would essentially stop traffic and

international trade and we are certainly willing to put the levels

of screens that Congress foresees and the U.S. Congress mandates,

but——

Mr. MICA. The other thing that concerns me about the testimony

I heard today is I have a HIDTA, one of the oldest HIDTA, one of

the best funded HIDTAs, and the supervisor over here tells me

that in 1995 they created their own Meth Task Force. That was not

your initiative. That was the local initiative? Do you now support

it?

Mr. DROWN. Oh no. Let me clarify. I am the co-chair of the Meth

Strike Force.

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Mr. MICA. OK.

Mr. DROWN. It has been in existence—— Mr. MICA. Is that a HIDTA-initiated or local?

Mr. DROWN. No, it was locally initiated.

Mr. MICA. Do you put money into it?

Mr. DROWN. And HIDTA does add some support to it. It is not

a great deal of money.

Mr. MICA. How much? How much have you put into it since

1995?

Do you want to repeat that?

Mr. DROWN. Yes, I will, sir. About $80,000 has gone into the

Meth Strike Force. It is predominantly gone into support of the

District Partners Program allowing for overtime for Deputy Sheriffs assigned to that program and to support the hotline that has

been—— Mr. MICA. And your HIDTA also supports demand reduction?

Mr. DROWN. We do, about 6 percent of our money goes into demand reduction programs and you previously asked a question

about perhaps what could be done somewhat differently. Let me

make the statement that first of all I have been a local law enforcement officer for 30 years. The testimony that you received earlier

from our Board Members, from Judge Dumanis, I think you would

find the local law enforcement here is completely and 100 percent

behind the efforts that are going on in terms of an equal balance

between reduction and supply and I certainly feel that way.

Having said that I think it is very important that when we form

these local coalitions and these cooperative efforts that we be allowed to have some degree of flexibility with the moneys obtained,

to be able to look at our problems locally and to be able to distribute those moneys accordingly, we feel somewhat restricted in terms

of the amount of moneys that we and the sanctions for supporting

some demand reduction type efforts. We have been very, we have

felt somewhat constrained in terms of our support for the drug

courts. We would like to do more for the drug court. We would like

to do more in some of our demand reduction programs, but our own

DCPE regulations and direction are somewhat limiting in that regard.

Mr. MICA. Do you follow any of the missing persons related to

drug cases?

Mr. DROWN. I am sorry?

Mr. MICA. Do you follow any of the missing persons related to

drug cases?

Mr. DROWN. The ones down here in Tijuana and San Diego.

Mr. MICA. Are there many here? How many Americans are missing with the drug-related—10, 20, 100?

Mr. DROWN. I would not be able to give you a number on that.

Mr. MICA. Could you check that?

Mr. DROWN. Sure.

Mr. MICA. And which side of the border.

Mr. DROWN. And which side of the border. There is no question

that the proximity to Mexico, particularly Tijuana creates major

problems for us. We talked briefly about the violence and the violence, and how it spills over into this county and this region. Chicago of 1920’s pales in comparison to Tijuana of 2000, no question

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about it. And it has a definite significant impact on people living

in this region.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Souder.

Mr. SOUDER. How many HIDTAs—it seems like every year we

add new HIDTAs. Pretty soon everybody will be high intensity.

Mr. DROWN. If I am not mistaken, I believe there are now 31,

but I can check very quickly.

Mr. SOUDER. And how many are on the Southwest Border?

Mr. DROWN. There is one HIDTA on the Southwest Border made

up of five partnership HIDTAs, if you will. I went through them

earlier, south Texas, west Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California, but there are now 31 HIDTAs throughout the Nation.

Mr. SOUDER. And this counts as one?

Mr. DROWN. It is considered legally to be one HIDTA with five

partnerships.

Mr. SOUDER. And 30 percent, you get $10.7 million which means

that the other four divide up the other $46 million?

Mr. DROWN. That is correct. And I have a figure if you would like

it, sir.

Mr. SOUDER. Could you give it to me?

Mr. DROWN. Yes sir. Arizona receives $11 million. CBAG,

$10,407,000. New Mexico, $7,558,000.

Mr. SOUDER. What was that one again?

Mr. DROWN. $7,558,000; south Texas, $8 million; west Texas,

$7.5 million. And the Southwest Border administration, $1.4 million.

Mr. SOUDER. And you are saying that 58 percent of the seizures

are coming from your area?

Mr. DROWN. I think the figure I gave was——

Mr. LOGAN. I can testify to that, Congressman. It was 58 percent

of all detected drug smuggling events through ports of entry from

Brownsville to California are in California.

Mr. SOUDER. And that 58 percent, that is not necessarily volume,

that is events?

Mr. LOGAN. That is correct. I have got figures and can provide

that to the committee. It represents by volume in each of the drug

categories, meth, cocaine, heroin and marijuana.

Mr. SOUDER. What is coming through California? Do you have

more events of less volume?

Mr. LOGAN. We have actually more events of less volume although it is the shotgun effect in all the border areas and they do

not want to repeat the Sylmar case of where there was 20 tons of

cocaine in one warehouse. The smugglers are using shotgun techniques and also in heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine, that is

smaller amounts, concealed in more vehicles.

Mr. SOUDER. I am trying to work off this 58 percent figure. Is

that roughly what the volume is too in addition to the number of

events?

Mr. LOGAN. Well, for example. In methamphetamine, California

was responsible for seizing 984 pounds; Texas, 131; Arizona, 50

and we break it down by drug amount and——

Mr. SOUDER. What? May I ask the question?

Mr. LOGAN. Sure.

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Mr. SOUDER. We have heard from the Sheriff in Eagle Pass

where clearly coming in he is overwhelmed. He had two or three

people there and we put more resources in because they have a different type of border. They do not have necessarily as much historic resources there, but why is there this disproportionate funding in the sense of California getting, in effect, less than 25 percent

of the funding but having 58 percent of that?

Mr. LOGAN. I do not know the answer to that. I can cite that

Eagle Pass was responsible, their port of entry now for 65 drug seizures last year. Now they have got a different border. Their border

patrol—and I am not familiar with that sector. My assumption is

that the border there may be more permeable outside the port of

entry than it is inside the port of entry.

Mr. SOUDER. Yes, yes. I mean it is just all open.

Mr. LOGAN. Yes.

Mr. SOUDER. So it may cost a little bit more to try to stop even

if it is a lesser amount of drugs?

Mr. LOGAN. We are the drug magnet. L.A., San Diego, as the

committee acknowledged, this is the largest land border in the

world and the haystack is enormous.

Mr. SOUDER. Sheriff Drown, I take it that these statistics based

on what was in your written testimony are combined for all the affiliated agencies?

Mr. DROWN. That would be correct. All the affiliated agencies

participating.

Mr. SOUDER. I am just kind of curious. How do you avoid double

counting?

Mr. DROWN. Frankly, it is something we struggle with all the

time. I mean it really is. I think that we constantly are checking

and double checking to insure that we do not double count, but I

would not appear before you and tell you that there is not some

double counting that takes place and I would also not tell you that

we get and record everything that is seized in the region. We are

just now working on a program to insure that when seizures are

made locally by local law enforcement officers that they get counted

into these totals as well because frequently they are not.

Primarily, we guard against double counting by direct supervision and management systems to insure that the people know

that we count only once. I think if there are mistakes being made

in double counting they are mistakes of—they are errors, they are

not intentional errors. No one is intentionally double counting.

Mr. SOUDER. I was not alleging that. I was just trying to sort out

because when you have joint task forces and you see press releases

of people claiming the different things, how do you sort that?

Mr. LOGAN. It is very easy. I mean you have a seizure in the

back country. Perhaps it is made by a Border Patrol agent and for

whatever reason it gets turned over to the local Deputy Sheriff or

resident Deputy Sheriff and each one of them takes it as a seizure

and reports it as a seizure. That should not happen and supervision should be there to ensure that it does not happen and I am

confident it does not happen on a wholesale basis, but I cannot tell

you that it does not happen on occasion for sure.

Mr. SOUDER. In the Camp Pendleton area, clearly there is a lot

of fairly wild area there, just as a lay observer. You also see signs

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about illegals moving through there and potential drug. Has that

been with the Coast Guard or any of the others and more open

areas and is the military doing anything to try to address that

question? It would seem like a logical place for marine traffic.

Mr. LOGAN. We have seen, actually, we have seen people try to

circumvent the Border Patrol checkpoint by using, obtaining access

to Camp Pendleton through the back roads and then getting north

to the checkpoint and then proceeding on. Unfortunately, we have

actually arrested some members of the U.S. Marine Corps community involved in drug smuggling. NCIS, Naval Criminal Investigative Service works very closely with us. They are of course—I do

not think—the Marines are aggressive in going after misconduct

among their own, like any law enforcement agency would as well.

And it is an attractive alternative because—it is a huge base.

Mr. SOUDER. Anything on the Marine side? I do not know the

terrain enough to know. Is that a place where—— Mr. LOGAN. They will just continue on up the coast line and keep

to the coast, basic 101 Navigation, keep the coastline on your right

and proceed up to the southern Orange County area, Dana Point.

First harbors of opportunity. Also, they can off-load it at the beach,

very easily. And military members that are trained in the operation of small craft are formidable foes.

Mr. SOUDER. I would like to ask one other question which is

there has been an obviously fair amount of publicity with the DEA

case recently that ripples a lot through this area on use of informants.

Do you find that many informants are clean? In other words,

part of the problem in the DEA was that the person had been arrested before and clearly had a number of problems. Do each of you

presumably have funds for informants or is that mostly through

DEA? I had trouble understanding the shock that was coming

through the media that the informants had criminal records in the

past.

Mr. LOGAN. We certainly maintain sources of information and I

think the Undersheriff can speak for his agency, but certainly are

the people that are sources of information potential criminals

themselves? Yes, the answer is yes. Oftentimes, cooperators are

people we have apprehended and then decide to cooperate with

Federal law enforcement authorities. Have they gone bad on us?

Yes. I mean it is risk management. In order to get to the people

that we are targeting and have we had problems with informants?

Yes. And we continue to exercise due diligence in trying to maintain that we have the proper control of them, the proper oversight

and with all that, there are still occasions where they go bad.

Mr. DROWN. I agree completely. There is probably nothing more

treacherous than managing informants. Our particular agency, we

have very strict guidelines and policies regarding informant registration and the informant package that has to be put together,

the background investigation that has to be done. Informants sign

waivers relative to their knowledge that they are not to be committing criminal activities and so forth and so on and it is very closely

monitored. But it would be very unrealistic to assume that we

would be working informants who had not at some point in time

in their life been involved in some degree of criminal activity.

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Capt. ALLEN. The Coast Guard allocated a limited amount of

money to pay confidential informants. We do tap in, definitely, to

DEA and Customs information and intelligence.

Mr. SOUDER. And would you say that a big percentage given the

fact that you have been talking about the needle in the haystack

are based on informants’ information, could you function without

it?

Mr. LOGAN. No. Well, we have been successful without Humint.

We are more successful with it. And because of our limited resources whatever agency you are with it allows us to put the resources on the pointy end of the sword where we need them and

at a given date, place and time in a very large geographical area.

So we rely on that.

Capt. ALLEN. Of the Coast Guard’s large cocaine busts this year,

almost all of them were driven by intelligence largely from confidential informants, so it definitely helps us out. We have to have

that information.

Mr. MICA. Thank you. I would like to recognize Mr. Bilbray at

this time.

Mr. BILBRAY. OK, we are all family here. We are the bad guys

with the Federal Government, or at least we are working with

them close enough so we can get blamed. Issue of small parcels of

drugs being intercepted at the border. The issue of Mexican nationals who are apprehended with small quantities of drugs. Are we

still releasing them, confiscating their documents and releasing

them back into Mexico?

Mr. LOGAN. The short answer is yes, and may I provide an explanation.

Mr. BILBRAY. You better.

Mr. LOGAN. First of all, let me say this. It is the desire of every

Customs Inspector, every Customs Special Agent and probably

every Prosecutor that we have a fact pattern on each drug smuggling event that would allow us to prosecute those cases.

Over the past 4 or 5 years there has been a program called INS

Referral Program, that is where we encounter a Mexican citizen

who we have no prior information, but what I mean by that there

is no—the name of the person is not in any criminal indices, that

is, he is not of interest to Customs, to FBI, to DEA, to the San

Diego P.D., the Sheriff’s Office, that is, they are an unknown. That

the fact pattern is such where the concealment methods, the statements made by the traveler or the driver are consistent with an innocent victim. Now obviously, we have been duped. We want to

prosecute every case. This year so far I think we have had 56 deferrals, that is down—we had 237 last year; 302 the year before.

Now also contrary to belief, these people are arrested.

Mr. BILBRAY. Fifty-six so far this year?

Mr. LOGAN. This fiscal year 2000, through I believe around the

first of March. These people are arrested. They are deferred back

to Immigration for deportation to Mexico. They are advised that if

they come back, they are not only prosecuted for the first event,

but the secondary event. I do not have a figure on the recidivism

or the numbers that return.

We also have a large number of cases and as the Undersheriff

mentioned and as the city councilman represented, the DA has

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taken about 2,000 of our cases which was—the original agreement

thought that there may be 100. The requirements for prosecution

in the San Diego District Attorney’s Office is that there be a nexus

to San Diego. Obviously, if they are Los Angeles-based——

Mr. BILBRAY. Do we reimburse them for those prosecutions?

Mr. LOGAN. I think——

Mr. DROWN. I have money that goes to support the cross designation. It was a program that I mentioned earlier.

Mr. BILBRAY. Do they get totally reimbursed for the incarceration?

Mr. DROWN. I am sure they do not get totally reimbursed.

Mr. BILBRAY. OK, go ahead.

Mr. LOGAN. What happens is there is very little expended. There

is usually no court time because the people wind up pleading guilty

and they are essentially processed through South Bay which is a

large number and they wind up doing, for example, in marijuana,

which is the usual scenario here, let us say it was 50 pounds, 50

days in jail.

Mr. BILBRAY. OK.

Mr. LOGAN. If they come back, the second time, of course, we

take them federally and it is a matter of resource management, but

not the decision. The decision on the deferral program is not resource management. It is a decision of the fact pattern that will

drive us to that conclusion that we cannot get a conviction, that the

evidence is not there, that they are not of interest or of prior interest to any law enforcement agency and there is certainly a strong

likelihood if we took the case forward that we would lose it in court

and therefore, needlessly expend U.S. taxpayers’ resources.

Now are they all exactly cookie cutter, the same? No.

Are there errors of judgment made, perhaps by the defendants

or perhaps the suspects where we think we might get a prosecution? Those issues go to prosecutorial merit and best addressed by

the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the DA.

Mr. BILBRAY. Mr. Logan, the previous Federal attorney clarified

at least in the past and at that time that there were people that

were apprehended who were in possession of drugs, either for

whatever purposes, and based on their nationality being Mexico

was not prosecuted. Now he indicated to me that if he had been

a U.S. citizen in possession of a small quantity of drugs, that U.S.

citizen would be prosecuted.

Now do we still have that situation existing along the border?

Mr. LOGAN. I would say they would be prosecuted if the facts and

the evidence dictated it. There are still cases where there are U.S.

citizens caught in possession of narcotics concealed in a way and

a story presented consistent with an unwitting juvenile being asked

by an uncle or an adult to transport a car across the border for one

simple example where they are not prosecuted because we believe

they were not the guilty party.

If we did believe they were guilty and we had the evidence, of

course, we would take it forward. So there is still prosecutorial decision made on a U.S. citizen and it may be for prosecution and it

may be—it would not be deferral because we would not be able to

prosecute. We would essential, what we call kick them loose.

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Mr. BILBRAY. Well, I am just trying to get back to this whole

issue of what happened to the policy that specifically had a certain

amount of pounds or kilos of drugs as being a threshold for certain

prosecution?

Mr. LOGAN. Well, there is no particular threshold.

Mr. BILBRAY. Was there at one time?

Mr. LOGAN. Is John here? John may be able to answer this because he has dealt with it as well. He is a prosecuting attorney

from the United States——

Mr. BILBRAY. Why do not you confer with him, and I will shift

over. I would like to get this thing straightened out.

Mr. LOGAN. Right.

Mr. BILBRAY. I think it is a very serious issue.

Captain, we have had individuals along this coastline that keep

finding empty boats parked on the beach. Now you are saying that

the resources are just drawn to the point to where you cannot

intercept those?

Capt. ALLEN. Some do slip through. There is no doubt. And we

find them ourselves.

Mr. BILBRAY. Captain, they do not just slip through. You have

got life guards arresting people in Mission Bay. That is pretty embarrassing for those of us in the Federal Government, right?

Capt. ALLEN. Sir, sometimes it is hard to tell the bad guys from

the good guys, too. There are these small boats. They all look very

similar. We do not always know whether they have aliens——

Mr. BILBRAY. Californians do not wear enough hats, I know.

Capt. ALLEN. That is the truth though, sir. It is hard to tell.

With the limited resources we have, we investigate whichever vessels we think are dirty, but we do not always know who they are

and they come through.

Mr. BILBRAY. I just hope my colleague hears the fact that while

we are sending resources all over the world to defend other neighborhoods, that you do not have the resources here to defend our

neighborhoods. This is the largest military complex in the world,

San Diego County, more military installations here than anywhere

else in the world, and the Captain who is in charge of defending

these neighborhoods from drugs does not have the resources to stop

the drug ladened landing crafts from hitting our beaches.

Now in the positive side of it your cooperation with—is it Guatemala, Honduras about doing interception, deep interception? You

want to explain that relationship of flagging, reflagging, having an

officer on that?

Capt. ALLEN. I think you are referring to the military, being the

largest military industrial area in the United States and the world,

I think, but the Department of Defense forces cannot enforce laws

and treaties. Only the Coast Guard can and we go on board their

ships to be the law enforcement officials. So we have our law enforcement detachment over here at the Pacific Area Taclet over on

MCRD. They go on board U.S. Navy ships and the ships of friendly

nations and enforce our laws and treaties. So that is how that

works and about a third of our cocaine busts last year were made

by Taclet personnel.

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Mr. BILBRAY. What about the cutter that we are posting south

of Mexico and in cooperation with a Central American country

there and being able to do interdiction to the coastline?

Capt. ALLEN. To the coastline? My 110-foot patrol boats here

have operated down off the Gulf of Tehuan tepc off of Guatemala

and we had set up with them where we could go in for refueling,

logistics, and that sort of thing with Guatemala. That was last

year.

Since then we haven’t because of funding and other resource allocation uses we spent 10,000 man hours on the Alaska Air crash.

It is liken the balloon: you squish it here, it gets bigger over here.

We are not going to send them down this year because we do not

have the funds and the time to do it, or the maritime air support

to make it effective, but we did work with Guatemala.

Mr. BILBRAY. When you patrol of the Mexican coast, how far out?

Capt. ALLEN. Twelve miles.

Mr. BILBRAY. Twelve miles. You cannot come in any closer than

that because it violates the sovereignty of Mexico?

Capt. ALLEN. Yes, sir.

Mr. BILBRAY. And the drug smugglers basically stay within those

12 miles and run up the coast?

Capt. ALLEN. That would be one method to do it, yes, sir.

Mr. BILBRAY. What if we had the ability to have Mexican

authorities—— LOGAN. As previously discussed, the limit, or the—if it is an artificial one, 125 pounds below which a Mexican national would be deferred and there again, if it is not a readily approval case. It could

be below 125 pounds and we have got a provable case, we will take

it one.

Mr. SOUDER. You did not mean 125 pounds?

Mr. LOGAN. Of marijuana, right.

Mr. BILBRAY. This is why I wanted to hear. The challenge is this.

You have got 125 pounds coming across. The drug cartels know the

125 pounds will set a threshold for them to shoot for, and I can

imagine being the import agent for the cartels saying do not worry,

Joe, we only have 115 pounds here. You know what the stupid

Americans on the other side are doing. Let us run it under the bar.

Mr. LOGAN. They clearly brief their load drivers and we have

found that to be true. Our challenge is to develop an evidentiary

case where we can prosecute them too. This is not an automatic deferral of 125 pounds, like I say, these have to be folks that there

is no prior indication. We have not tracked them to an organization. We do not think there is a likelihood that will get jail time

or conviction and so we are making a judgment and the percentages we believe are consistent with declination rates in the DA’s

office or the U.S. attorney’s office. So as much as we would like to

prosecute everyone, if we feel there is over 125 pounds, the larger

volume, the more prima facie case we think we have in terms of

that person was knowledge, that it is harder to conceal in the vehicle and there have been some very innovative ways where they will

and all four tires and unbelievable concealment shops. And they

can actually operate the vehicles at high speed with those cars or

bumper loads. And the higher the poundage, the more success we

have in proving knowledge. Those are prosecutorial decisions and

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we share the frustration of every inspector and agent where we

cannot get a prosecution and we would love to have 100 percent to

do that.

Mr. BILBRAY. Mr. Logan, I have supervised law enforcement

agencies since 1976. I know resources are still and always have

been a major determining factor in deciding when to prosecute and

when not.

I just want to make sure my colleague wakes up to the fact, and

then gets the message to Washington that certainly one of the determining factors with prosecuting somebody with 125 or less is do

we have the money to prosecute them? Do we have the jails? Do

we have the court space? And as we point at Mexico and say they

are not doing enough, I hope those of us in Washington look at the

facts that there are lines being drawn because Washington is not

giving the people locally the resources to prosecute every single

person who is caught smuggling drugs. That is the message that

I wanted to get out is that there, which is a classic example of

something we ought to be demanding and expecting, that everybody caught no matter what their nationality, because there is this

issue of who is a United States citizen as opposed to a Mexican national. There might be a different determination, that every nationality should be prosecuted for smuggling drugs and I think that is

all I wanted clarified.

Clarification on the opportunities and challenges for operations

along the coast.

Capt. ALLEN. Yes sir. We had an operation called Mayan Jaguar,

I think what you are referring to.

Mr. BILBRAY. Yes.

Capt. ALLEN. We went down, the same one I talked about, went

to Guatemala. And we had a Guatemalan ship/rider on board. We

had an agreement with them that so then we could go into their

waters with the shiprider aboard and prosecute cases in their waters as well as international waters. So that is something we have

done throughout the Coast Guard with different countries. They do

it in an operation in the Bahamas, on the East Coast. One problem

I have with that is that it takes about one-third of my annual operating hours for my 110 to go all the way down to Guatemala. But

the concept works. However, this sort of coordination is done above

my level as a Department of State sort of thing. So it does have

promise.

Mr. BILBRAY. Captain, I appreciate you being briefed on this,

whatever, and I understand the challenge with it.

I saw an opportunity there, the fact that there was an innovative

approach that secured the national sovereignty of Guatemala by

having the ship basically under the flag and command of Guatemala as it enters their waters.

Capt. ALLEN. Right.

Mr. BILBRAY. But still making the U.S. resources available to

work that out. There is a challenge for a lot of us. Frankly, when

I meet with the representatives of Mexico’s delegation in Veracruz

this year, I will basically be approaching them about the issue,

Mexico trying to cooperate in the same kind of relationship. And

national sovereignty is a very, very delicate issue there for good

reason historically. But the fact is that between Cedral’s Islands

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and the Santentine or Ensenada is the most deserted portion of

Mexico and the coastline. If we can develop a protocol to allow the

same type of arrangement to occur between those two areas, about

300 miles, this close to San Diego, you will be able to use your resources more effectively. We will be able to be able to intercept

more effectively and Mexico will be able to help curtail the flood

of drugs that are killing their law enforcement officers in Tijuana.

So I guess that is my challenge as I point fingers at you.

Capt. ALLEN. If you can make progress there, sir, as an operational commander I would definitely point out that that would be

helpful to me. It is obviously above my level, but my 110 were to

go into Mexican waters with them on board as shipriders it would

be beneficial.

Mr. BILBRAY. I want to say something in public and I would like

you guys to respond to it because I think it is a good time to do

it. Has anybody investigated the use of the oil transports to

Rosarita refineries, Rosarita power plant? Do we have any hot data

on the use of those tankers for transport of contraband?

Mr. LOGAN. No from me.

Mr. BILBRAY. Can you talk about it in public? Well, let me just

say frankly as someone who grew up in this area, you have huge

freighters that are traveling from the interior up to and within a

few miles of the border, unloading and then turning back around.

It just seems like a huge opportunity for mischief. And there is a

problem we have in Mexico, and there is another issue that some

of us have to talk about. Those ships are basically autonomous and

to themselves to the skipper. Federal officials have very limited jurisdiction in Mexico over that shipping. But I think that we need

to be aware of what is the obvious.

You have a comment?

Capt. ALLEN. I would just point out that those ships are controlled completely by PEMEX and delivered 100 percent to PEMEX

so it is sort of a government controlled entity, so therefore there

may be some implication there, I do not know.

Mr. BILBRAY. Captain, the Ambassador to the United States from

Mexico is the ex-Secretary of Energy. And the Secretary of Energy

did not have control. That is one big problem we had. He did not

have control of those ships. So again, these are challenges we need

to work on.

I would open up this can of worms basically to challenge all of

us to try to think about how we can do better as part of the Federal

strategy.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SOUDER [presiding]. I would suggest to my colleague that one

of the things I might do is attach these in the certification, possible

things to look at the next year. We have done that. We have had

a terrible time with the marine part in Mexico. We were down

there in January. We were hearing in terms of progress, meaning

instead of two arrests, they made six. This type of thing. But they

do seem to be committed to trying to do some of that. They do not

like us to be this heavy big brother type. At the same time, there

are give and takes in all of our relationships whether it be immigration, trade or otherwise.

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I had two followup questions I wanted to ask, one with Mr.

Logan and whoever else might know this. In El Salvador last year,

Guatemala this year, one thing when we deport people because of

them being convicted in the United States or release them from

prison if they are illegals who have been arrested and go into our

prison systems, do you know whether we notify those governments

that they are coming in?

Mr. LOGAN. I know from an immigration standpoint and I am assuming that when they deliver them back that the Mexican authorities are there.

Mr. SOUDER. One of the things in the record, and you might

watch this, that both countries told us in separate years that we

were deporting them and we did not know where they were and

they are getting dumped in in huge numbers and that in Guatemala and El Salvador, particularly vis-a-vis probably more L.A.

than San Diego and in Washington, DC, that now we have inadvertently developed drug trafficking networks and families that we

did not have previously. In other words, when they first came in

as illegals, they were not drug abusers. They came to the United

States, became drug abusers and we kicked them out. Now they

are realizing that they can sell because they were doing the street.

They were the kind of carriers for the people we had deported.

Mr. DROWN. Franchised the problem, basically.

Mr. SOUDER. One last thing. I am perplexed a little on this 125

pounds. That I understand those are cases you thought you would

not win, is that correct?

Mr. LOGAN. Yes.

Mr. SOUDER. And in that how many of those are over 50 pounds.

Are there very many that we are talking about here?

Mr. LOGAN. Usually in the smaller amounts versus the higher,

up to 125 pounds and if the fact pattern is there and it is a Mexican citizen and it is less than 125 pounds and if they are linked

to something that we are interested in, we will prosecute them.

Mr. SOUDER. You had another ‘‘if they are linked to something.’’

What if they are not linked to something?

Mr. LOGAN. Well, first of all, it has got to be a provable case.

Mr. SOUDER. OK, if it is provable, and it is under 125——

Mr. LOGAN. They are going. They are going to be prosecuted.

Mr. SOUDER. Even if they are not linked to anything else?

Mr. LOGAN. True, true, yes.

Mr. SOUDER. It is still a little disturbing because in most parts

of the country 125 pounds, particularly by the time it gets watered

down is possibly just in the history of that country.

Mr. LOGAN. Absolutely.

Mr. SOUDER. And it is a little disconcerting. Well, thank you very

much for your testimony. As the chairman said earlier, we are

going to leave the record open for 2 weeks. If there are other pieces

of information you want to insert and with that I thank everyone

who has been in attendance as well as the participants of the hearing and the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice stands adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 1:24 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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