U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

64–343 CC WASHINGTON : 2000

THE DECRIMINALIZATION OF ILLEGAL DRUGS

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

FIRST SESSION

JULY 13, 1999

Serial No. 106–115

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, 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

CARLA J. MARTIN, 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

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

EX OFFICIO

DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

SHARON PINKERTON, Staff Director and Chief Counsel

GIL MACKLIN, Professional Staff Member

SEAN LITTLEFIELD, Professional Staff Member

AMY DAVENPORT, Clerk

MICHEAL YEAGER, Minority Counsel

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on July 13, 1999 ............................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Cohen, Frederick, graduate of drug treatment alternative to prison program ............................................................................................................... 233

Constantine, Thomas A., former Administrator, Drug Enforcement Administration ................................................................................................... 7

Glasscock, Bruce D., chief of police, Plano, TX; Sandra S. Bennett, president, Drug Watch International; R. Keith Stroup, Esq., executive director, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws;

and Robert J. MacCoun, professor of public policy and law, University

of California at Berkeley .............................................................................. 46

Hynes, Charles J., district attorney, Kings County, NY; Katherine N.

Lapp, New York State director of criminal justice; and Barbara A.

Broderick, State director of adult probation, Administrative Office of

the Courts, Arizona Supreme Court ............................................................ 113

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

Bennett, Sandra S., president, Drug Watch International, prepared statement of ........................................................................................................... 96

Broderick, Barbara A., State director of adult probation, Administrative

Office of the Courts, Arizona Supreme Court, prepared statement of ..... 152

Constantine, Thomas A., former Administrator, Drug Enforcement Administration, prepared statement of ........................................................... 14

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

of Maryland, prepared statement of ............................................................ 112

Glasscock, Bruce D., chief of police, Plano, TX, prepared statement of ....... 51

Hynes, Charles J., district attorney, Kings County, NY, prepared statement of ........................................................................................................... 116

Lapp, Katherine N., New York State director of criminal justice, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 130

MacCoun, Robert J., professor of public policy and law, University of

California at Berkeley, prepared statement of ........................................... 86

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

Florida, prepared statement of .................................................................... 4

Mink, Hon. Patsy T., a Representative in Congress from the State of

Hawaii, prepared statement of .................................................................... 35

Stroup, R. Keith, Esq., executive director, the National Organization for

the Reform of Marijuana Laws, prepared statement of ............................. 63

(1)

THE DECRIMINALIZATION OF ILLEGAL

DRUGS

TUESDAY, JULY 13, 1999

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

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John L. Mica (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Present: Representatives Mica, Barr, Hutchinson, Ose, Mink,

Kucinich, and Cummings. Also present: Representative Sam Johnson of Texas.

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

Gil Macklin and Sean Littlefield, professional staff memebers; Michael Yeager, minority counsel; and Jean Gosa, minority staff assistant.

Mr. MICA. I would like to call this meeting of the Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources Subcommittee to order.

This morning the hearing is entitled ‘‘The Decriminalization of Illegal Drugs.’’

We have other Members who will be joining us, I understand the

ranking member is on her way, but we will begin so that we can

finish on a timely basis. I will start with an opening statement,

yield to others for their opening statements, I believe we have

three panels today.

Today, our Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and

Human Resources will examine the controversial topic of the decriminalization of our narcotics laws. This hearing is one of a series

of hearings that we intend to hold to examine our national drug

control policy and also to determine its effectiveness.

Last month, the subcommittee heard testimony from a number

of important witnesses on the topic of narcotics legalization. Witnesses at that hearing included the Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, General Barry McCaffrey; the Director

of the National Institute of Drug Abuse, Dr. Alan Leshner, and

Donnie Marshall from the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Additionally, we heard from the new Florida drug czar, also a

former member of and staffer with the National Drug Control Policy Office, and a number of other nongovernmental witnesses who

have testified before our subcommittee on this subject.

Today’s hearing should help buildupon that record begun last

month. Some proponents of decriminalizing our drug laws have

2

claimed that many of those in our jails and prisons today are incarcerated for minor drug use or for simple possession. Others claim

that those in prison have a health problem versus a criminal problem and should be treated accordingly.

As we have examined the effects of illegal narcotics, it is clear

that drugs destroy lives. They help produce the felonious behavior

and conduct we have seen: overdoses, fatal accidents, and death by

criminal homicide. Drug overdose deaths continue to plague our

metropolitan areas, both our suburbs and our inner cities, and our

schools at every socioeconomic level today.

Drug use is soaring among our young people. The latest national

survey found that more than 50 percent of 12th graders had tried

an illicit drug and more than one in four are current users. If the

laws are evenly applied and enforced, half our young people would

be eligible for jail time.

The American public should understand the policy implications

of decriminalization. Despite all the media hype, however, most

young drug users, and for that matter very few drug use offenders,

ever see the inside of a prison cell.

In fact, one of the most recent studies analyzing the New York

State prison population indicates that you really have to work hard

to be in prison for drug use. The facts—and we want to deal with

the facts today—also show that most of those in our State and Federal prisons are, in fact, repeat felony offenders or those have trafficked in large quantities of hard narcotics.

Should Congress change the laws to take the criminal penalties

out of these narcotic-related felonies? Today we will hear from a

number of witnesses on this subject. We will hear from two witnesses who have important stories to tell about drug programs that

appear to be producing results in New York State and in the State

of Arizona. We will also hear from some nongovernmental witnesses who represent differing viewpoints on this issue.

It is the contention of some that drug laws in this Nation are

sending first time offenders to prison. The statistics tell, in fact, another story. In fact, virtually all convicted criminals who go to prison are violent offenders, repeat offenders, or violent repeat offenders. It is a simple myth, in fact, that our prison cells are filled with

people who don’t belong there, or that we somehow would be safer

if fewer of these people were in prison.

A scientific survey of State prisoners conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice found that 62 percent of the prison population

has a history of violence, and 94 percent of our State prisoners

committed one or more violent crimes or served a previous sentence

of incarceration. Between 1994 and 1996, over 90 percent of all

State prisoners were violent offenders or recidivists.

The closer one looks into the criminal conviction history of prisoners, the clearer it becomes that there are almost no petty, nonviolent, or first time felons behind bars who pose no real threat to

our public safety and who simply do not deserve to be incarcerated.

According to another study, in 1994, California’s prison population rose to over 125,000 inmates. Numerous experts and journalists insisted that the State’s prisons were overflowing with first

time offenders and harmless parole violators.

3

The results of the California Department of Corrections’ analysis

of randomly selected felony offenders admitted to the State’s prisons in 1992 and classified as nonviolent, revealed that 88.5 percent

of these offenders had one or more prior adult convictions. The average number of prior convictions in fact was 4.7, and a fifth of

these so-called nonviolent felons had been committed to prison once

or twice before.

A 1996 study of individuals imprisoned in Wisconsin found that

about 91 percent of the prisoners had a current or prior adult or

juvenile conviction for violent crime. None were sentenced solely for

possession or as drug users, and fewer than 2 percent were first

time drug or property offenders. Of these prisoners, 82 percent

were eligible for discretionary parole within a few years.

It is true that many of those in our State and Federal prisons

are there because of drug-related offenses. Some have murdered,

robbed or physically assaulted others while under the influence of

hard drugs or while trafficking in significant quantities of deadly

narcotics.

Do we let these felons out of prison? Do we have adequate treatment for drug abusers and addicts who commit felonies while

under the influence of drugs? Is this just a public health problem

that medical professionals can solve?

These and many other questions will be asked today as we address the topic of decriminalization. I look forward to today’s hearing on this important topic. I want to thank our witnesses for taking the time to participate.

That concludes my opening statement. I am pleased to yield at

this time to Mr. Kucinich.

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

4

5

6

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank

you again for holding hearings which focus on this important question. And to that, I would just like to simply add a question, because I don’t know if I am here today with any answers.

My question is, what is it about our society or individual experience which causes people to seek an altered reality? What is going

on with our world that people try to find ways of escaping it

through the use of drugs? I think that is a question worth pondering, whether it is going to be pondered in this particular setting or

not.

Thank you.

Mr. MICA. I thank the gentleman. I would yield now to Mr.

Hutchinson.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. I thank the chairman, and I just want to express my appreciation for you holding this hearing. I believe it is

an extraordinarily important subject that we need to hear about,

but also to provide a tool of education for people in America to really look at this head-on and see the problems of moving in this particular direction.

I also want to take the opportunity to welcome Mr. Constantine

and express appreciation for the work that he has done as administrator of the DEA. I look forward to hearing his testimony on this

very important subject.

I yield back.

Mr. MICA. I thank the gentleman, and we will turn now to our

first panel, which consists of one individual who is known to all of

us, Tom Constantine, who served an incredibly distinguished tenure as the Administrator of our Drug Enforcement Agency.

I just want to say a few things while he is before us today, as

I introduce him. During his 5 years as the head of DEA, he did,

in fact, do a superb job of bolstering our national drug control efforts. He not only improved the quantity of agents that we have

working but also the quality of the organization, the modernization

of the agency’s intelligence operation.

He has been referred to as a law enforcement officer who has

been applauded by almost every State, local, national and international organization for his incredible efforts. He has only been

out of office a few days now, but already his presence and his leadership are missed.

We are indeed privileged to have him before us today as a retired, former administrator. I think hearing his perspective, too,

having served in that important drug enforcement position, will be

especially enlightening.

Again, sometimes when you come before us as a public servant,

as the head of an agency, there are some constraints, there is some

tempering, although I have never known Tom to temper his comments too much to us. He has always been frank and candid. But

he is in a different role now, and we are delighted that he would

voluntarily come back and testify. The topic before us is a difficult

topic, but there has been much public discussion about decriminalization, and I think it is important that our subcommittee and

Congress hear his perspective.

Having been before us, Mr. Constantine, I think you know this

is an investigations and oversight panel, so if you wouldn’t mind,

7

sir, even though you are no longer the Administrator, we are still

going to swear you in.

[Witness sworn.]

Mr. MICA. With nothing but accolades for your past performance,

your great service to our country and the drug enforcement agency,

let me welcome you back, sir, and recognize you for your testimony

today.

STATEMENT OF THOMAS A. CONSTANTINE, FORMER

ADMINISTRATOR, DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Congressman, thank you very much for your

kind comments. They are very flattering, and I wish that half the

things that have been said over the last 3 or 4 weeks were true,

and then I would feel that I had been successful.

However, I very seldom have been involved in discussions or debates on the legalization or decriminalization issue. The reason

being, I always had a concern that it would be similar to deciding

how much domestic violence we would tolerate, how much drunken

driving we would tolerate, how much child abuse we would tolerate, and we would wind up compromising positions on the edges of

the argument, and the eventual losers would be the young people

of the United States.

Unfortunately, during my 39-year career in law enforcement,

both with the State Police of New York and now with the Drug Enforcement Administration, I have seen this cycle come one time before at least. When I first began my career in the 1960’s, drug

abuse was a little-known problem within the United States. Very

few people utilized drugs. It was not a burden on our criminal justice system, our social system. The individuals who were using narcotics tended to be addicted to heroin of low-level purity, in very

small numbers.

During the 1960’s, I saw a great change occur in our society. I

saw young people become involved in the use of all types of drugs,

originally the so-called soft drugs—marijuana, hashish, hallucinogenic drugs—and there became almost a cultural divide between

my generation and the generation that followed.

Unfortunately, I watched as leading people in many of our universities and opinion leaders started to address narcotics and the

use of narcotics as if it was a rite of passage, and in many ways

that it was something that was a civil right, that people could do

what they wanted with their own bodies. The availability of drugs

in so many segments of our society over the last 30 years has created profound damage, I believe, not only to individuals, families,

neighborhoods, but entire cities and sometimes our entire society.

I think we have to make very, very clear the discussions and the

arguments that are taking place. If you look at opinion survey after

opinion survey over the last 30 years, continually, U.S. citizens are

diametrically opposed to the legalization of drugs. So now we begin

to hear words like ‘‘decriminalization’’ and ‘‘harm reduction,’’ and

when we start to consider those approaches, I think it is important

to understand the ultimate goal of some of the advocates of legalization when they say ‘‘harm reduction.’’

Last night, when I was going over my papers, I found a letter

that had been sent to me by Mr. Ethan A. Nadelmann, who is from

8

the Lindsmith Center in New York City, working for the Open Society Institute with Mr. George Soros as the president. He asked

that I review an article he had published in the Foreign Affairs

magazine that might be useful in my thinking about drug policy

issues.

One paragraph caught my eye, and I recall the term ‘‘harm reduction’’ something that I think you will hear again and again because it is a euphemism for legalization. Here is what Mr.

Nadelmann thinks, and I read his own words, ‘‘harm reduction’’

means: ‘‘Harm reduction innovation includes efforts to stem the

spread of HIV by making sterile syringes readily available and collecting used syringes; allowing doctors to prescribe oral methadone

for heroin addiction treatment, as well as prescribe heroin and

other drugs for addicts who would otherwise buy them in the black

market; establishing safe injection rooms so that addicts do not

congregate in public places or dangerous ‘shooting galleries.’ ’’

The last interesting comment caught my attention, obviously,

quite vividly. Mr. Nadelmann recommends employing drug analysis

units to be stationed at large dance parties called ‘‘raves’’ to test

the quality and potency of the MDMA and Ecstacy drugs and other

drugs that patrons buy and consume. He also recommends decriminalizing, but not legalizing, possession and retail sale of marijuana,

and in some cases possession of small amounts of hard drugs, and

integrating ‘‘harm reduction’’ policies and principles into community policing strategies.

That, I think, is a fairly clear indictor of some of the arguments

that have been made and will be made. But there are some things

that are obvious to me over all of this experience, that is, the advocates of decriminalization and legalization are mostly affluent,

well-educated, and socially distant from the potential victims of

their experiment. The legalization movement is well-financed, and

has been spawned in the salons of the Upper East Side of New

York and country clubs on both coasts of the Nation, locations remote from the realities of drug addiction, despair and the social

decay that accompany drug use.

The people who are always excluded from the legalization debate,

and this is no accident, I think, are the mothers of addicted children, religious leaders, and the loved ones of those who have been

victimized by crime and addiction. Law enforcement officials are

also absent from the ranks of those who are calling for legalization,

not because we have a vested interest in enforcing the drug laws

of the United States—nothing could be further from the truth—but

because we have seen how dangerous and devastating drug use

and trafficking have been, and unfortunately, in those very communities that suffer the most from social problems.

I would like to make several points during my presentation today

to show some additional insight as to just how misguided the legalization argument is. In order to do this as succinctly as possible,

I would like to address head-on some of the issues that are pertinent to this debate. Because of my extensive experience in law enforcement, the majority of my comments will be focused in this

area.

First, it is important to recognize that the drug supply often

drives the demand. Second, the enforcement of drug laws can and

9

has had a significant impact on reducing the crime rate in the

United States. And, third, there are far too many questions that remain unanswered by legalization advocates about the practical implementation of their social experiment.

Often, legalization advocates claim that drugs should be legalized

in order to satisfy what they characterize as America’s insatiable

demand for drugs. From my experience and the experience of the

vast numbers of law enforcement officials that I deal with, it is

clear that it is drug availability that often leads to increased usage.

At the current time, communities in the United States are often

being targeted by powerful international drug syndicates, presently

from Colombia and Mexico. They have brought to the United

States, cocaine in massive tonnage amounts, heroin of very high

purity, and methamphetamine, a drug that was virtually unknown

in the United States until about 6 years ago. All of it offered at low

prices and high purity until such time as individuals become addicted to the usage of the drug, and then demand does perpetuate

the source of supply.

Today’s heroin mortality rates are the highest ever recorded, exceeding even those of the mid-1970’s when deaths reached a high

point of just over 2,000 per year. Close to 4,000 people died in each

of the last 3 years from heroin-related overdoses. That has taken

a toll on a wide range of communities such as Baltimore, MD,

which has unfortunately become the heroin capital of the United

States, or Orlando, FL, and suburban cities such as Plano, TX, in

the West, Seattle and San Francisco.

The fact that increased drug supply leads to increased drug demand is also demonstrated by the skyrocketing surge in methamphetamine abuse throughout the United States. Before there became a large amount of methamphetamine available, there were

over 4,900 emergency room episodes in 1991. As the drug became

more prevalent and available, in 1997, we had 17,400 emergency

room episodes, a 280 percent increase, and this is spread across the

entire United States.

Second is the impact of aggressive law enforcement. Much is said

about the issue of law enforcement and their ability to direct resources to focus on these problems of crime and violence. I

watched, Congressman, as the State which I live in and am very

proud of, New York State, went through a period from 1960 to 1990

where the violent crime rate deteriorated to levels that were almost

unimaginable.

In the city of New York, there were about 400 murders in 1960.

By the time we had gotten to 1990, there were over 2,250 murders

in that city. The armed robberies went from 7,000 to 120,000.

All of that changed in 1990. In the fall of 1990, a young man

from Provo, UT was murdered in front of his parents in a subway

station in Manhattan, and there immediately became a reaction to

the problem.

Previously, we were told in law enforcement that our strategies

would not work, we could not arrest our way out of the problem,

that prison was not the answer to these situations, nor were arrests. However, with added police resources in the city of New

York, the arrests doubled over a period from 1994 to 1998.

10

When that occurred, we watched the crime rate drop, so where

there was 2,250 murders in New York City in 1990, the murders

had gone down to just a little over 600 last year. If you add those

homicide victims up cumulatively from 1990 to 1998, if they had

continued to be murdered at the rate that they were being murdered at in 1990, there are approximately 6,700 people alive today

in New York City who would not be alive had it not been for the

active, aggressive use of law enforcement in that city, in that State.

Even more amazing to me is the reduction in the so-called index

crimes. We have a uniform crime reporting system in the United

States, that all law enforcement agencies have to file the incidents

that occur within their communities. It is murder, robbery, rape,

manslaughter, assault, burglary, car theft, and I believe, arson.

In New York City, and I have met with the leaders of the New

York City Police Department, they focused on the violent drug

gangs that were causing these immense problems within that city,

and they doubled their arrests. They went from 64,000 drug arrests

in 1994 to over 130,000 drug arrests in 1998.

What is the result? The index crimes have been cut in half. They

went from 400,000 index crimes in 1994 to 200,000 index crimes

in 1998. That means in that 1 year alone, in 1998, there are

200,000 less crime victims in the city of New York than there

would have been if there had not been immediate use of law enforcement resources directed to that area.

In fact, I am very proud to say that city, and that State which

is my home, and as I said, I am very proud of it, has led the entire

Nation in the reduction of crime. It has become one of the safest

cities in the Union. A lot of that work is the responsibility of very

professional, very active law enforcement.

We also have done similar things within DEA. We have gone

from community to community throughout the United States and

targeted violent drug traffickers. I think it’s important for everybody to understand, there is a nexus between drug use and violence, and drug trafficking and violence. Over 70 percent of all of

the felons in most of our major cities who are arrested, are under

the influence of drugs at the time of their arrest and during the

commission of their crime.

Second, those groups competing with each other in the violence

that occurred, that have engaged in an enormous amount of homicides and assaults, in our program, we are able to demonstrate a

12 percent reduction in homicides in less than 6 months. That

means in just these small communities throughout the rural, suburban areas of the United States, over 130 less crime victims, 2,000

less robbery victims, 2,000 less assault victims.

We believe that drug abuse, along with the combination of violent crime and social decay that accompany it, can be prevented.

Too many people in the United States sometimes seem resigned to

the inevitability of rampant drug abuse. However, effective prevention programs, effective law enforcement programs, and effective

rehabilitation programs can improve that drastically, as we have

been able to demonstrate over the past 7 or 8 years.

Now, the reality is, the legalization opponents are telling Americans that drugs are not dangerous; that increased addiction is not

a significant threat to America; and that the people living in the

11

poor neighborhoods of our cities and communities will be better off

because it is drug dealing, not drug use, that is the problem.

There was a report released at 10 o’clock this morning by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. I read portions of the report last night. It is the most impressive treatise that I have seen on the entire area of the use of

marijuana and the impact on young people.

It finds that more teens age 19 and younger—and this is very

important—enter treatment for marijuana abuse and dependence

than any other drug, including alcohol. In fact, nearly as many

teens and children were admitted to treatment for marijuana as

were admitted for abuse and dependence on all other substances

combined. So that most vulnerable segment of our society, teenagers up to the age of 19, are being admitted for therapy and rehabilitation and counseling for marijuana more than any other substance combined, including alcohol.

They find that of the 181,000 teens and children who entered

treatment in 1996, nearly half, 87,000 of them were admitted for

abuse or addiction to marijuana alone; 35,000 were admitted for alcohol with a secondary drug; 21,000 for alcohol use. More than half

the teens in treatment for marijuana were between the ages of 15

and 17.

The paper goes on in a great deal of depth, and time does not

allow me to present it all, and I probably would not be able to give

it the appropriate treatment that it deserves.

But it discusses in depth the issue of who goes to prison, who

gets arrested, and what is the real story on individuals arrested for

the possession of marijuana and other drugs, and I think you will

see that it is an infinitesimal number of people in the Federal prison system and in the State prison system who have, as a first offense, nonviolent drug usage. In fact, in DEA, our marijuana cases,

the average amount of marijuana per defendant convicted is over

300 pounds of marijuana.

So the legalization advocates unfortunately are not telling the

truth about the consequences of their proposal. It is not that they

are purposely misleading Americans, but rather, they are not providing all of the information that is necessary for us to make a

sound judgment on the issue.

The logistics of legalization of drugs are overwhelming. Take

legal pharmaceuticals, for example. Despite tough regulations and

strict controls, these powerful and addicting legalized drugs, that

have been tested again and again by the major pharmaceutical corporations, remain the most widely abused drugs in the country.

Surely the same would happen if we were to legalize heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine.

There are many tough questions to ask legalization advocates. I

believe many cannot be answered adequately. Some of these include: Will all drugs be legalized? Will we legalize marijuana,

Ecstacy, hashish, hallucinogenics, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine?

Will we knowingly make dangerous, mind-altering addictive substances like crack cocaine and methamphetamine and heroin available to everyone? Will we, as a society, willingly and knowingly addict our citizens to a lifelong dependency on drugs, regardless of

12

their age, regardless of their health, regardless of their profession,

regardless of their past criminal record?

How will we address the black market that will inevitably spring

up to provide newer, purer, more potent drugs to those now addicted who cannot be satisfied with the product that they obtain by

the government or the private sector?

Simply, if we start to allow people to use heroin, as a government, and we know that they become addicted and they need more

and more, in the sense of their dependency on that substance, will

we continue to give as much heroin as they want, as often as they

want? Once we say no, there is a limit that we will place on the

amount of heroin we will give them, we now have an addicted junkie who wants more heroin than the government will provide, and

as a result will be looking to many outside sources.

Given the fact that our record with cigarettes and alcohol in this

country is not very good, how will we limit the abundance of dangerous drugs to 18 or 21-year-olds? Who will pay for the health

costs and the social costs which will accrue as a result of increased

drug usage? Or do we have a store in the middle of the block that

makes drugs available to people who want them, and then on the

corner at the other end of the street, will we need a rehabilitation

center and a therapy center, both of which are paid for by the government?

Who will pay for the loss in productivity and the absenteeism in

our society as a whole? Whose taxes will pay for the thousands of

babies who are born addicted to drugs? What responsibility will our

society have for these children as they grow and have problems as

a result of their drug usage?

Where will we set up these drug centers? I talked to a mayor of

a major city in this country who I thought put the problem as succinctly as I have ever heard it placed.

He said if the advocates for legalization think this is such a very

good idea, why don’t they start off with their family first and see,

after a year or two, the impact of their family utilizing these substances? If then, they feel it has been productive and will be successful, let them then move to their own childrens schools or their

own neighborhoods before there are any experiments that go further.

Last but not least, if we are going to have a place that distributes and dispenses drugs, please do not place it back in my city,

which has all of the social burdens that we have today. See how

that will work in some of the trendy suburbs or some of the areas

in the Upper East Side of Manhattan where many of these individuals live.

Most legalization experts cannot answer this question: Can we

set up a legalization pilot program in your neighborhood?

These are all questions we should ask, and these are answers

that we should demand. Granted, we have not effectively addressed

all of the drug problems facing our Nation today, but we have

made substantial progress and improved dramatically.

From 1979 to 1992, the violent crime rate in this country has

dropped at a rate that most would not have imagined 5 or 6 years

ago. If we could be as successful in reducing violent crime as we

have been with the other diseases, the communicable diseases, canVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:01 Aug 21, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00016 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\64343.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
13

cer and heart conditions, whoever was responsible for that reduction in crime would probably be a recipient of the Nobel prize.

We must also realize the drug issue is a very complex problem.

It has been with us for decades. It will take more time for us to

see our way clear. Despite this realization, it is astounding to me

that legalization proponents advocate surrender.

Our Nation is faced with other problems beside drug abuse—

AIDS, declining educational standards, homelessness—but we do

not hear cries for us to abandon our efforts and surrender to inaction on these issues. Why is the drug issue different? We do not

advocate giving up on our schools or negating everything we have

done to date to find a cure for cancer, even though we have spent

billions of dollars on research and we’ve not yet found a cure.

In closing, I would have to say, as a sergeant with the New York

State Police, a lieutenant, a captain, a major, I went from neighborhoods and eventually to cities and entire communities throughout

our State. When I went to those communities that were suffering

the most as a result of the drug problem, never once did I have a

mother, a sister, a priest, a teacher come to me and say, ‘‘Sergeant

Constantine, Lieutenant Constantine, Major Constantine, what our

community needs more than anything is drugs that would be available to our children in a legalization scheme, because that will improve our schools, it will improve their work habits, it will improve

their study habits.’’

I think, because these parents have all the wisdom of generations

and know that more drugs, freer drugs, more accessible drugs, will

only lead to more addiction, more problems. They do not have a lot

of the resources within their family wealth, their family background, to be able to solve those problems. We have a responsibility, those of us who have been very fortunate in life, some very successful, to make sure that our first and No. 1 priority is to take

care of those who have been less successful and have limited resources.

Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Constantine follows:]

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

Mr. MICA. I thank the gentleman.

Moving to our ranking member, do you have an opening statement at this time?

Mrs. MINK. [The prepared statement of Hon. Patsy T. Mink follows:]

35

36

37

Mr. MICA. Also, we have been joined by Mr. Ose from California,

and I see Mr. Johnson is here. Welcome, and I think you are going

to introduce one of our next panelists.

With that, I do have some questions for you, Mr. Constantine.

First of all, again we thank you for stepping out and coming forward to testify today.

Obviously, you come from the tough law enforcement side. You

had some statistics that you have used before, particularly with

New York City and the dramatic change in crime there. However,

we’re hearing more and more that this is not a comparable problem, that this is similar to Prohibition, when they tried to stop alcohol, it was made illegal in this country, and that it wasn’t possible to enforce the laws.

Can you tell us, do you view this as a valid analogy? We have

had some reputable folks in the last set of hearings that we had

from the CATO Institute, I believe it was, who said to legalize heroin, cocaine, and sell it like cigarettes or alcohol, that is controlled

and regulated.

Is this a prohibition problem that we’re never going to solve, like

alcohol?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. I think the ultimate solution obviously is prevention programs. All of the studies that I have looked at, those

that are most impressive claim the answer lies in the family. It lies

in an intact family, it lies in established standards for children, it

lies in communication. It’s the responsibility of parents to talk to

their children continually about their concerns about the dangers

of drug abuse and utilization.

And where all of those things are intact, the studies that I have

read, which are very reliable, point out that 9 times out of 10, that

young person will not become involved in using drugs in that vulnerable period between 13 or 14 up until 18 or 19. If you get that

far, you are pretty well satisfied that they will not become involved

in the use of drugs, as they have a more mature outlook to life.

So I have always supported, I am a great believer in the Partnership for a Drug-Free America. I am a great believer in Mr. Califano

and the CASA Center at Columbia. I think they provide a major

service to the people of the United States, and whatever we can do

in the way of resources and assistance to help with prevention programs, I think over the long haul, 10, 15, 20 years, will help us to

improve this problem.

In the meantime, we have a responsibility in law enforcement to

make our communities safe. We have a responsibility to citizens

who come to us and say, ‘‘My son or daughter was sold drugs by

individuals at a certain location who are profiting from this criminal enterprise,’’ and ‘‘My son or daughter is addicted and has been

harmed, perhaps irreparably.’’

We have a responsibility as a society to bring those individuals

to justice and to make sure, if they are found guilty, that they’re

sanctioned commensurate with the pain they’ve caused other people. I think that aspect of the strategy has been the most successful

in this dramatic reduction of violence.

But the long-term usage of drugs, people who are addicted to

drugs, I believe, is a prevention program. I do not see the analogy

38

with prohibition. It is a vastly different substance; it is a vastly different cultural issue.

Mr. MICA. The other thing that prevails today is this belief that

behind Federal prison walls, State prison walls, and local jails, are

countless people who are there for simple possession of marijuana

or some other substance, and that is why they are incarcerated.

You had given us some statistics. I think you said something

about the quantity of, for example, marijuana seized from Federal

prisoners, averages 300 pounds. Geraldo Rivera did a piece a couple of days ago that showed a woman in tears who was in prison

for only having 4 ounces of cocaine, I guess, and trafficking 4

ounces of cocaine.

Is this a myth, or have we imprisoned innocent mothers and

folks who possessed small quantities of drugs?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Let me address it from two perspectives. One,

as the head of DEA, a Federal law enforcement agency, for the last

51⁄2 years, virtually all of our investigations are geared to individuals who sell drugs at enormous profit, and we are trying always

to reach the highest level of those criminal organizations.

The only time that we tend to go for lower-level individuals is if

these individuals tend to be involved in murders, robberies or assaults as part of their drug trafficking issue. So all of our defendants that we have are, for the most part, major dealers in narcotics. They fit the pattern.

Mr. MICA. So in the Federal prison we would find what person,

you know, charged with possession?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. The actual figures, I presently don’t have.

They are in this report, by the way, from the Center on Addiction

and Substance Abuse. I saw the figures last night. I don’t want to

quote them without reading them, and I don’t know if I can find

them fast enough for you, for this presentation. But as I recall, possession was like 1, maybe 1 percent, 1.5 percent, mere possession.

Mr. MICA. And some of those had——

Mr. CONSTANTINE. My experience in New York State as superintendent of the State Police was, as I always said, it would be

easier for a kid to get into Harvard, Princeton or Yale than it

would be to get into the State prison system.

When I worked on a sub-cabinet in the Governor’s office, there

was a second felony offender law in the State of New York, whereby individuals with a second felony conviction would have to go to

State prison. There was a movement, for financial reasons and for

a number of other reasons, to make that a third felony offender

law.

All I said was that we had better start telling these police officers that it is not serious until we get to the individuals who were

the second felons who were going to get sentenced. They had 15

previous arrests, 9 or 10 misdemeanors, 4 or 5 felonies, and that

they fled to all different types of diversion programs to try to avoid

putting them in prison before it became impossible to do that any

longer.

So I have had many interviews with individuals who were reporters and came to me, and I said, ‘‘Look, if you find a prisoner in Attica who is serving time for a sole possession of marijuana, an

ounce or 2 ounces or 100 marijuana cigarettes, I will buy you dinVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:01 Aug 21, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00042 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\64343.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
39

ner in the best restaurant in Washington, DC.’’ And I have yet to

buy a dinner for any reporter.

Mr. MICA. You also said that the drug supply drives demand, and

you cited the problem of growing addiction where there is a liberal

policy. I think in the past you have used Baltimore as an example.

Maybe you could explain the difference between Baltimore and

your New York experience?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. In Baltimore in the 1950’s, there were approximately 300 heroin addicts for 950,000 people. In 1998, there

were about 39,000 heroin addicts in Baltimore for about 650,000

people. The population has been reduced by 300,000 in the city.

The eventual heroin addicts have gone from 300 to about 39,000.

As I recall the figures, in the 1950’s, there was one heroin addict

for every 3,161 people in Baltimore. By the time we got to 1998,

there was one heroin addict for every 17 people in the city of Baltimore.

To give you a sense of what that looks like, the overdose death

rate for heroin in Baltimore is five times that of New York City.

The homicide rate in Baltimore is six times that of New York City.

I don’t believe it is coincidental that the mayor of Baltimore has

espoused the legalization of drugs; that there is a very soft attitude

on the arrest or prosecution of low-level drug traffickers that has

caused Baltimore to be a magnet for drug addicts and drug traffickers.

Mr. MICA. So a very liberalized thought that essentially the problem goes away——

Mr. CONSTANTINE. I mean, if somebody indicates that because it

has been more lenient and more acceptable in Baltimore, that has

solved the drug and crime problem, I don’t think the experiment

worked.

I think it is important to note, too, that New York, along with

a number of other States, decriminalized marijuana in the 1970’s.

It, in essence, became, for low-level arrests for possession of marijuana, what was called an adjournment in contemplation of dismissal. If the individual did not get involved in other criminal activity

for about 6 months, the charge was dismissed; and if they were

younger, they could have that criminal record expunged and sealed.

Now, I have to tell you, if that was the concept, that by decriminalizing marijuana in the 1970’s, we would not have a more significant drug problem in the 1980’s, the experience is exactly the opposite. We wound up with a huge drug problem in the 1980’s, the

State of New York, along with other States, I suspect.

Mr. MICA. Thank you.

Mrs. Mink.

Mrs. MINK. Thank you very much. Welcome to our hearing today,

Mr. Constantine.

The subject of law enforcement is something that I am very, very

committed to. It seems to me that the problem has to be dealt with

harshly, and that the Congress and the Federal Government in

general have to support stringent law enforcement activity in order

to get to the nub of the problem, and so I certainly support the thesis that you have presented to the committee today.

What troubles me is a city like Baltimore that you have just described, and the suggestion that perhaps the advocacy alone of

40

more liberal policies toward marijuana has produced an even greater problem than they had two decades ago. My question goes to the

fact that even if the city officials and others were moving toward

a more liberal policy, wasn’t the responsibility of the Federal Government the same there as in New York City or any other place?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Well, it was more than an espousing of a philosophy, which I think is—everybody is entitled to talk about, obviously, certainly, elected officials more than anybody else. That’s

their role in life.

But this became an implementation of policy. The prosecutor

would not prosecute individuals with under 29 dosage units of

whatever the drug might be, so as a result, the police community

had little role left to make arrests for low-level operations.

People on the street, in the narcotics trafficking industry, pick

that type of policy up in a strategy very quickly. When there is an

absence of enforcement, it becomes apparent to them that there is

no legitimate sanction.

We have doubled the number of people that we had in the Baltimore office, trying to deal with, as I mentioned, we try to focus as

often as we possibly can on the highest level dealers of heroin trafficking, as it would be in Baltimore, and the mid-level. The lower

level street operations, there are just not enough resources in the

Federal Government to be able to do that, other than to take it

away from perhaps the bigger criminal organizations.

Now, we did in Baltimore—I have a personal admiration for the

police chief, I have worked with Chief Frazier a number of times—

and we lent two of our MET teams, our Mobile Enforcement

Teams, in the city to go after the violent drug trafficking organizations within the city of Baltimore, to try to assist them. And I think

we do have a role, and obviously, as a city starts to suffer more

than perhaps neighboring jurisdictions.

It is important for me to note that not all of the addicts, by the

way, are living in the city of Baltimore. What has happened, you

now have middle class young people from the affluent suburbs of

Carroll County and Harford County who are going into the city of

Baltimore to purchase their drugs. So the industry has become

something that is attractive to all types of people from different

sites.

My concern is that if you announce to drug traffickers that drugs

should be legalized, if you adopt a strategy that you will not enforce the law at certain levels, I don’t think it is coincidental—now,

that obviously is a decision for the people who live in the city of

Baltimore, not my decision—but I don’t think it’s coincidental that

you wind up with these tremendous heroin problems, a homicide

rate six times that of New York, and an overdose death rate five

times that.

Mrs. MINK. What was the level of success of the DEA enforcement activities in Baltimore, going after the big traffickers and

those who were warehousing the drugs, if there was a lenient policy toward the people on the street and those who were using it,

and you maintained a tough policy with reference to the big dealers? Couldn’t or wouldn’t that have made some impact on the distribution, if you were successful? Or did the local authorities impede your successes at the higher levels of distribution?

41

Mr. CONSTANTINE. No, no. They did not impede, they cooperated,

and the relationship between the police department, the DEA and

other Federal agencies is very, very good. We went after every

major trafficker that we could identify.

Usually these big organizations that were responsible—in Baltimore much of the heroin comes down from New York City. It is Colombian heroin, it comes from Colombia usually to the Washington

Heights area of New York City. Then it is brought down to Baltimore. We continually have tried to impact that by enforcement

against those groups. Obviously, the problem still continues.

I have always felt that to have an effective enforcement strategy,

it has to touch all of the components, because if you just do one

and then leave the others, if you were just to work low level and

not work the mid level or high level, I don’t think you are going

to be successful.

I believe the experience that I have seen in other cities throughout the United States, if you could focus on those drug trafficking

organizations in the neighborhoods of Baltimore who are causing

all this problem, I have no reason to believe that you would not be

just as successful in Baltimore as they have been in New York

City.

It is not a magic strategy. It is not something that had to be invented in a laboratory. It was merely the identification of traffickers, block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood, and going after

them and arresting them, and having reasonable sanctions or some

type of rehabilitation if that is the appropriate strategy to be able

to improve the situation. There is no reason why one city should

have a homicide rate six times that of another city, and an overdose death rate five times that of another city. I think those problems can be addressed.

Will that address the problem of people who are addicted to heroin? I think that is a prevention/rehabilitation issue that I am not

an expert on, but I believe in both strategies.

Mrs. MINK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MICA. Thank you.

Mr. Ose.

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Could you tell me the number of deaths, all categories, per year

due to drug use? I saw the number on heroin of about 1,300, 1,400

a year over the last 3 years. What about——

Mr. CONSTANTINE. I believe it is 4,000 per year in each of the

last 4 years. All drugs, cocaine, heroin, I don’t have that exact figure available at the present. I can get that back to you.

Mr. OSE. Rough, is it 5,000, 10,000?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. I don’t have that exact number presently. I

would rather get back to you than——

Mr. OSE. The reason I ask the question is that those who are a

little older than me went through a period of time in the 1960’s

where we were losing roughly 5,000 or 6,000 young people a year

in the war in Vietnam, and I don’t quite understand this sense of

legalization of a product that equates to that kind of a mortality

rate. I think you probably share that. If Vietnam was such a fiasco,

why do people close their eyes to this and suggest legalization? Do

you have any feedback on that?

42

Mr. CONSTANTINE. I never looked at it from that particular perspective, but most of my feelings and impressions and thoughts on

drug use and legalization are really from dealing with people in

neighborhoods who are living behind three locks on their door, are

afraid to go out to the corner grocery store, are afraid to go to a

PTA meeting, have not a lot of money, and they can’t send their

child to some prep school in New England. Their child will have to

get their education at the public school three blocks away, and if

the drug traffickers, as they have, have taken control of those corners in many neighborhoods in various cities, those people are living as virtual prisoners.

So all of my analysis of the legalization issue is, why would we

want to visit more problems on people who, in my opinion, have far

too many problems, and far too many problems that have not been

addressed already by society, let alone to bring them down to the

depths of further concerns for their children and themselves?

Mr. OSE. I appreciate what you are saying, truly. I want to go

on to the next item.

On page 10 of your testimony you comment that drug use related

to methamphetamine in Iowa contributes to an estimated 80 percent of the domestic violence cases in Iowa. Am I correct? I mean,

there is a nexus you can draw there?

And if that is the case, why wouldn’t we ask a question similar

to that one I just asked about Vietnam, why would we legalize a

product that not only diminishes one’s individual capabilities on a

day-to-day basis but also contributes to 80 percent of the domestic

violence? Why would I, as a lawmaker, ever agree to that?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Well, Iowa is, I think, a classic example of

how supply creates demand. If you were to talk to anybody in Iowa

in law enforcement 10 years ago about a methamphetamine problem in the State of Iowa, it would be nonexistent. People would

talk about maybe some motorcycle gangs on the West Coast or a

Hell’s Angels club in the southern tier of New York.

Now we find there are organized criminal groups out of Mexico

and then California, operating out of California, who were able to

get large amounts of precursor drugs and begin to sell methamphetamine at very low cost, relatively, and high purity. Then, as

a result of the meat packing industry, in which very decent, hardworking people came from Mexico to earn money and send it back

to their family, drug traffickers came in behind them and started

selling methamphetamine at very low prices throughout the State

of Iowa.

There are now—if that last figure that you mentioned doesn’t

capture people’s interest, then this one may—there are more methamphetamine arrests in the city of Des Moines, IA, than there are

drunken driving arrests. I think all of us know someone, family or

friends or neighbors, who have been arrested for drunken driving.

One-third of all the children in Marshalltown High School—

which is a rural county northeast of Des Moines, I have met with

all of the fantastic people from this community—have experimented or tried methamphetamine. They have a huge addiction

problem that was created by increased supply, and that has been,

to a degree, part of my perception of this issue.

43

If we make methamphetamine more available to more people,

more accessible, there is no doubt that more people would utilize

these drugs. I have never, never used any of them. I have talked

to doctors, I have talked to people who have been in this business.

They say the patients tell them that these drugs are the most

pleasurable experience that you could ever imagine when they first

begin to use them, and it is not unreasonable to think that people,

with those drugs accessible, will use more of them in the future.

Those are all of the reasons why I argue against legalization, or

what they now call ‘‘harm reduction,’’ which is really the same

thing.

Mr. OSE. I need a professional person’s response to the following

question. That is, if we increase the supply of methamphetamine,

either through legalization or otherwise, are we going to see an

equivalent increase in the amount of domestic violence?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. I can’t tell you. I can’t tell you if there would

be a straight line correlation. With methamphetamine I think you

would see significant increases in domestic violence, because the

properties of that particular drug and the physiological impact of

that drug on people is different than anything we had seen before,

even more exacerbated than crack cocaine. People tend not to eat

or sleep, they become delusional, paranoid, and incredibly violent.

It is a problem for police officers trying to arrest individuals, either

on routine traffic stops or in domestic violence situations. Yes, I

think you would see a fairly dramatic increase in domestic violence

where that drug was used more freely.

Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, as usual, you have been very generous,

and I thank you.

Mr. MICA. Thank you. We have been joined on the panel by Mr.

Johnson from Texas.

Mr. JOHNSON OF TEXAS. Would you allow me to ask a question,

Mr. Chairman?

Mr. MICA. Without objection, go right ahead.

Mr. JOHNSON OF TEXAS. Thank you. I would just like to ask a

couple or three quick questions. You have been talking about the

major cities. I think your last answer was an eloquent reply as to

why we don’t need to legalize these drugs, based on what you just

said.

But I am thinking of the border areas which you haven’t mentioned, at least I haven’t heard you. I have been down there. It is

a veritable sieve, where drugs are coming through, not just in

Texas, but in Arizona, New Mexico and California.

I am told that—as an ex-DEA guy, maybe you can tell me—Customs and the Border Patrol don’t really coordinate and work together down there very well. Is there a problem with split police

or enforcement down there?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Well, it is tough to say historically what happened. Before I got to Washington, I heard many of the same concerns on the part of people, of Federal law enforcement agencies

not cooperating with one another, and I made one of my No. 1

goals, as the administrator of DEA, to improve our relationship and

cooperation with not only the other key Federal agencies but State

and local law enforcement, and I think a lot of those areas have

passed now.

44

We see the Border Patrol as very important. They act as a tremendous resource for the seizure of narcotics, especially at the

checkpoints they set up away from the border, because a lot of the

substances are coming right across the river, and then eventually

the checkpoints, because they have to move it in bulk. We also see

this Operation Pipeline where we have the highway interdiction

that is very, very effective in seizing a lot of these substances.

We actually have Border Patrol officers stationed in DEA offfices,

to be almost, from my view of things, like the uniformed force to

help all of the detective agencies, Customs and DEA and the FBI.

We have co-located our offices with the FBI in El Paso, which is

the hub crossing from Juarez and very, very important.

I signed an agreement to cross-designate over 1,000 Customs

agents, and for the first time, the DEA and FBI signed a memorandum of understanding to make sure all of these cases are coordinated one with the other. I don’t see it as the problem that it was

once reported to be. I think they have been very effective and very

successful.

Mr. JOHNSON OF TEXAS. Are we stopping it at all? I mean, you

know, we talk about the war on drugs, and I am not convinced that

we are fighting it as a war.

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Well, two things. I have testified before Congress, the use of the term ‘‘war’’ is an analogy that for somebody

who grew up as a young boy in World War II, and at least watched

some of it, over 12 million of our young people volunteered or were

drafted into the service; that people who stayed home went without

various food and cars and commodities. There was a belief that we

were united in many ways against a common enemy.

In those indications, people who would have talked about giving

up in World War II, in essence capitulating to a dangerous adversary, would obviously have been either have been considered a

treasonous or certainly placed in a situation where nobody would

want to deal with them.

Now, we have in essence, an adversary. The adversary is drug

traffickers and drugs, and we still have some people who would

like to surrender, would like to capitulate. I am not sure we have

made the sacrifices that we need as a society to be able to improve

the situation.

You may not have been here earlier. I testified that the key component to protect young people in the area of drug abuse is the

family, a strong, intact family. Unfortunately, I am not so sure everybody wants to sacrifice, even at the family level, all that they

need to sacrifice in order to make sure that kid gets a great chance

at life.

Mr. JOHNSON OF TEXAS. I hear you.

Mr. CONSTANTINE. So I have always tried to stay away from the

‘‘war’’ analogy. Our seizures have gone up dramatically along the

border. We have gone from 105 tons of marijuana in 1992 to about

858 tons of marijuana in 1998. But the key is not seizing drugs

alone, because they are really an infinite commodity. It is overproduced for the amount that can be utilized. What’s not infinite are

the criminals and the criminal organizations, so we try to focus on

them as our priority.

45

Mr. JOHNSON OF TEXAS. Yes, that is where I think you should

be. Can you tell me, in your opinion, if our HIDTA’s are doing any

good?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Yes, we have HIDTA’s in virtually every location throughout the country right now. We have DEA supervisors

who work on that. We have intelligence centers.

We just opened our new academy about a month and a half ago.

We have—I am sure that my successor will continue that—we have

dedicated 50 beds in that academy for intelligence training. A lot

of that will go for intelligence officers assigned to HIDTAs. So we

have a universal system of analyzing this problem and our reaction

to it.

So, yes, they have been successful. They are different. If you go

to New England and ask what the HIDTA looks like, it is going to

be dramatically different from the HIDTA on the border, but I

think it reflects the concerns of that community.

Mr. JOHNSON OF TEXAS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Johnson.

Do you have any questions of Mr. Constantine?

[No response.]

Mr. MICA. We want to thank you for coming forward today and

providing your perspective, Mr. Constantine. We have enjoyed

working with you, and look forward to your future participation

and your incredible knowledge on the subject of drug enforcement.

We will probably be asking you to come back and provide our subcommittee with assistance in the months and years to come, so

thank you again for your service and for your testimony.

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Thank you very much, all of you, for the gracious treatment I have received these past 5 years.

Mr. MICA. Thank you.

I would like to call our second panel this morning, Chief Bruce

Glasscock, the chief of police from Plano, TX, and we will have a

further introduction in just a minute.

We have Sandra Bennett, president of Drug Watch International.

We have Mr. R. Keith Stroup, executive director of the National

Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. And we have Mr.

Robert MacCoun, who is a professor of public policy and law at the

University of California at Berkeley. I see three. Mr. Stroup.

Let me explain the ground rules. I think most of you are new in

testifying here. This is an investigations and oversight subcommittee of Congress, and we swear in our witnesses, so the first order

will be, if you don’t mind, to stand and be sworn.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. MICA. The witnesses answered in the affirmative, and we are

pleased to have each of you here. We only had one individual in

our first panel so we didn’t run the timing light, but if you have

a lengthy statement or additional information or data that you

would like submitted for the record, within reason, we will do that

by unanimous consent request. And if you will just ask, we will

grant that.

We have Mr. Johnson here, who is a Representative, of course,

a Congressman from Texas and the Plano area, and I will let him,

if he would, introduce his witness.

46

Mr. JOHNSON OF TEXAS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is indeed

a pleasure to introduce Chief Bruce Glasscock. He is head of the

police department in my home town, which is Plano, TX, and the

chief has run the Plano Police Department since August 1990.

Prior to that he served as chief of police for Fort Collins, CO, and

as an officer in both Lakewood, CO, and St. Petersburg, FL.

Overall, Chief Glasscock has spent over 30 years of his life serving in the field of law enforcement. He holds a Bachelor’s degree

in criminal justice management from the Metropolitan State College in Denver, and a Master’s degree in public administration

from the University of Colorado.

Apart from his current duties serving the citizens of Plano, TX,

Chief Glasscock is also the current vice president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. As the head of law enforcement in a city that has seen the all too tragic effects of drug use

by our Nation’s teenagers, Chief Glasscock, I think, offers a unique

perspective, and I am grateful that he has agreed to share his experience and expertise with this committee.

We have had some terrible problems in the city of Plano, and

thanks to his leadership and guidance, along with the other city officials, and the State and local officials in the surrounding cities,

and the fact that we have established a HIDTA in the Dallas area

now, we have helped solve some of the problems. So I would like

to welcome him here today, and thank you for having him as a witness, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. And we welcome you, Chief

Glasscock. We will hear from you first. We have two folks who are

on the pro, and two I guess on the con side of this issue on this

panel, and we will recognize you first, chief, for 5 minutes. Welcome.

STATEMENTS OF BRUCE D. GLASSCOCK, CHIEF OF POLICE,

PLANO, TX; SANDRA S. BENNETT, PRESIDENT, DRUG WATCH

INTERNATIONAL; R. KEITH STROUP, ESQ., EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, THE NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR THE REFORM

OF MARIJUANA LAWS; AND ROBERT J. MacCOUN, PROFESSOR OF PUBLIC POLICY AND LAW, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY

Chief GLASSCOCK. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the

subcommittee, and thank you, Congressman, for the kind comments. I am pleased to be here this morning to share my experience in combating drug abuse and my views on the question of

drug legalization.

The issue of drug legalization is of great concern to those of us

in the law enforcement community. It is my belief the nature of our

profession provides law enforcement officials with a unique insight

into the ravages caused by the abuse of narcotics and other dangerous drugs. These experiences have clearly demonstrated to me

that this Nation should not be considering legalizing drugs, but

rather we should increase our efforts to combat drug traffickers

and assist those individuals who have become addicted to drugs to

break the cycle of addiction.

Over the last few years, my position as chief of the Plano Police

Department has provided me with a first-hand look at the probVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:01 Aug 21, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00050 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\64343.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
47

lems and dangers that accompany drug abuse. The recent heroin

overdose death of former Dallas Cowboy Mark Tuinei received extensive national media coverage. Unfortunately, it was not the first

such occurrence in Plano. Our community was faced with a series

of events involving heroin overdoses which resulted in our taking

an aggressive plan of action in dealing with drug abuse.

In June 1995 the city of Plano experienced its first heroin-related

death. Additionally, between 1995 and 1996, our detectives noticed

an increase in burglaries being committed by heroin addicts to support their addictions. During this same time period, local hospitals

reported seeing about six overdoses a week, some of which resulted

in death.

Between 1995 and year to date 1999, there have been 18 heroin

overdose deaths related to Plano in some fashion. We had one in

1995, three in 1996, nine in 1997, three in 1998, and two deaths

so far in 1999. The victims of these deaths were not your

stereotypical drug addicts. The average age was 20 years, with a

range of 14 to 36, and if you were to take the high and low, the

average was about 18 to 19. Most were young adolescent white

males; most considered your average all-American kid.

Because of the rise of incidences of heroin overdoses, in early

1997, the Plano Police Department adopted a multifaceted strategy

to attack the heroin crisis. First, we undertook aggressive enforcement action to identify and prosecute those responsible for supplying the heroin. The police department joined with the DEA, FBI,

Texas Department of Public Safety and other local agencies in a coordinated effort.

Because of this effort, 29 individuals were indicted on Federal

charges of conspiring to distribute heroin and cocaine, as well as

charges of contributing to heroin overdose deaths. Another of our

enforcement actions involved an undercover operation in our senior

high schools, which resulted in the arrest of 37 individuals on 84

cases of narcotics violations. We believe our enforcement actions

have greatly reduced the amount of heroin being sold in the Plano

community and the number of heroin overdoses.

The second part of our strategy involved using education as a

means to reduce the demand for heroin. The DEA’s demand reduction specialist, who provided us with guidance in demand reduction, spoke at community meetings and helped utilize the media effectively, assisted us in this effort.

During this time, our department hosted several community

meetings, the largest occurring in November 1997. This meeting

was attended by more than 1,800 citizens and was televised and

covered by the national and local media as well as the city cable

television network.

Our education efforts would not have been successful if it were

not for the cooperation of our Community Task Force, Plano’s

Promise, and many other community organizations not affiliated

with the police department. These community organizations provided education programs within our high school groups, PTAs,

neighborhood associations, church and parent groups.

In addition to the above-mentioned strategies, our department is

involved with several organizations that are working to continue

48

the fight against drug abuse. These organizations strive to prevent

drug usage through education as well as intervention.

The department is currently involved with Kick Drugs Out of

America, a school-based program designed to teach children the

skills needed to resist drug and gang pressure. This program is in

addition to our department-run D.A.R.E. program, which also

teaches elementary school children the risk of drugs and how to resist peer pressure.

We are currently working with a nonprofit organization in Florida that offers home drug testing kits to families. This organization

offers a free and anonymous way for parents to find out if their

children are using drugs. If the child tests positive for drugs, Drug

Free America provides the family with support organizations in or

near the community to help with intervention efforts.

Our statistics show a clear reduction in the number of heroin

overdose deaths, as well as hospitals reporting a reduction of in

overdose cases, which leads to the conclusion that our strategy is

working. Our continuing investigations also show a reduced availability of heroin on the streets in our community.

Unfortunately, the battle is not over. Our drug risk assessment

continues to show the north Texas area is a major hub for shipment and distribution of a variety of illegal drugs by Mexican drug

traffickers. These drugs include methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine,

and marijuana.

The porous Texas-Mexico border has 1,241 miles of frontier that

challenge all of our resources. Since the enactment of NAFTA, the

major ports of entry have experienced approximately a 30 percent

increase in legitimate commercial and passenger traffic. The number of vehicles inspected has increased, but the overall inspection

rate has decreased, affording new opportunities for smuggling. Our

statistics also show that since the passage of NAFTA in 1992,

Texas has the highest volume of drug trafficking in the Nation. All

of this directly impacts local communities located along the NAFTA

transportation corridors, and will continue to do so in the future.

This massive effort represents what just one city faces and has

gone through to combat the flow of drugs into its community in

order to protect its citizens. Plano is not unique. Similar scenarios

are being repeated in communities throughout our Nation. Combined strategies like the one I have just described to you are expensive, complex to manage, and sometimes controversial. However,

they are working.

Unfortunately, if those who favor legalization have their way, our

efforts to reduce crime and protect our children from the horrors

of drug abuse will be wasted. It is a simple fact: Increased drug

abuse and increased crime go hand-in-hand. It makes no difference

whether the user can purchase their drugs legally or not, they

must still find a way to pay for them, and the way most drug addicts finance their habit is through crime. Eventually, they will do

one of two things, they will either steal or deal.

This is not just speculation on my part. A 1996 study conducted

by NIJ clearly demonstrated drug users are more likely to be involved in criminal activities. Findings indicated that a median 68

percent of arrestees test positive for at least one drug at arrest,

and in 1995, the study revealed that 31 percent of both male and

49

female arrestees reported they were under the influence of drugs

or alcohol when they committed their crime. It also indicated that

28 percent of inmates arrested for homicide were under the influence of drugs when they committed their crime.

In 1986, during the midst of the crack epidemic, violent crime

reached a level of 617 violent crimes per 100,000 citizens. As we

experienced a continuing escalation of drug-related violence, this

figure rose in 1993, to 746 violent crimes for every 100,000 citizens.

In response, an outraged public joined together with government

leaders to challenge the escalating violent crime.

As a result of these efforts, new enforcement programs were implemented in the 1990’s that began to reverse this trend. In recent

years, we have seen a decrease in the violent crime rate in many

communities—such as New York, Boston and Houston—attributable to aggressive law enforcement efforts and the incarceration

of criminals. We know vigorous law enforcement actions aimed at

criminal activity, including illegal drug use, can have a material effect on reducing violent crime.

After making progress against violent crime during the last several years, we should not erode these gains by instituting policies

such as the legalization of drugs which we know will increase drug

use and drug-related crime.

In addition, aside from the fact that legalization will lead to an

increase in the level of crime and violence in our communities, it

also has terrible consequences on our citizens in other ways. Drugrelated illness, death and crime are estimated to cost Americans

$67 billion a year. That translates into every American having to

pay $1,000 per year to carry the cost of health care, extra law enforcement, car crashes, crime, and lost productivity.

Drug use also impacts on the productivity of America’s workers.

Seventy-one percent of illicit drug users are 18 or older and employed. In a study conducted by the U.S. Postal Service, the data

collected shows that among drug users, absenteeism is 66 percent

higher and health benefits utilization is 84 percent greater in dollar terms when compared against other workers.

Public safety is another critical factor. The National Highway

Traffic Safety Administration reported 18 percent of 2,000 fatally

injured drivers in seven States had drugs other than alcohol in

their systems.

I trust it is clear by now why other law enforcement officials and

I believe the legalization of drugs is wrong. It is a wrong course for

our Nation to take. Drug legalization will lead to increased crime,

a decline in economic productivity, significantly increased burden

on an already strained health care system, danger to those traveling on our highways, and perhaps most tragically, it sends a message to our children that drug use is acceptable.

A recent study by the Partnership for a Drug Free America

showed that as young Americans perceive that drugs are dangerous, drug use drops proportionately. Conversely, as young Americans get the message that social disapproval drops, as they hear

in the legalization debate, drug use increases.

Drug use in America was reduced significantly between the year

1985 to 1992. Since 1992, and until just recently, the amount of

antidrug messages has decreased. As recently retired DEA AdminVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:01 Aug 21, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00053 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\64343.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
50

istrator Constantine once said, ‘‘As a Nation we took our eye off the

ball and began to get complacent about drugs.’’ Drug use among

our young people began to rise again in 1992.

The legalization movement and the growing destigmatization of

drugs, along with the confusing message we are giving our young

people, will result in further decreases in the perceptions of risk,

and I believe a concurrent increase in drug use among our youth.

Within this atmosphere, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to

reach children and convince them that doing drugs is bad.

We must not make it easier or more acceptable for today’s young

people to start down the slippery slope from drug experimentation

to drug addiction. We, as a Nation, must continue to clearly and

unequivocally state that drug use is dangerous, drug use is

unhealthy, and drug use is illegal.

This concludes my statement, Mr. Chairman. I thank you for the

opportunity to appear here today, and I will be happy to answer

any questions that you have.

[The prepared statement of Chief Glasscock follows:]

51

52

53

54

55

56

57

58

59

60

Mr. MICA. Thank you, and we will withhold questions until we

have heard from all of the witnesses.

We will hear next from R. Keith Stroup, executive director of the

National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. Mr.

Stroup, you are recognized, and welcome.

Mr. STROUP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the

committee. NORML, for nearly 30 years, has been a voice for those

Americans who oppose marijuana prohibition. We are a not-forprofit, public interest lobby, and we attempt to represent the interests of the millions of otherwise law-abiding Americans who smoke

marijuana responsibly.

As I have summarized in my written testimony, when Congress

first outlawed marijuana in 1937, it was the result of a campaign

of extraordinary misinformation and ignorance in which it was alleged that marijuana caused insanity and violence and turned average people into savage killers who knew no fear and lost all inhibitions. This claim of ‘‘reefer madness’’ continued for decades, and

can still be heard from some quarters today, including occasionally

from this Congress.

It is time for Congress to move beyond the ‘‘reefer madness’’

phase of marijuana policy, where elected officials simply try to

frighten the American public into supporting the status quo by exaggerating the dangers presented by marijuana. Most Americans

know the difference between marijuana and more dangerous drugs,

and most Americans oppose spending $25,000 a year to lock up

otherwise law-abiding marijuana smokers.

In fact, if marijuana were truly dangerous, we would know it

today. There is a sizable segment of our population who are current

recreational marijuana smokers, and there would be epidemiological evidence of the harm to our citizens. No such evidence exists,

despite millions of people who have smoked marijuana for years

and years.

So, while of course we need to fund more research on marijuana,

it should be directed toward marijuana’s potential to alleviate pain

and suffering for seriously ill patients. We certainly know enough

now to know that marijuana is relatively harmless when it is used

responsibly by adults.

It is time for Congress to get beyond ‘‘reefer madness,’’ to end

what has really been a crusade against both marijuana and marijuana smokers, and to begin discussing this subject in a rational

manner. In particular, we need to expand the parameters of the

discussion in Congress on marijuana policy to include, first, decriminalizing the marijuana smoker; and, second, legalizing and

regulating the sale of marijuana to do away with the black market.

Let me speak for a moment about who smokes marijuana today

in America. It is time to put to rest the myth that marijuana smoking is some sort of fringe or deviant activity engaged in only by

those on the margin of society. In reality, marijuana smoking is extremely commonplace, and it is the recreational drug of choice for

millions of middle class, mainstream Americans.

According to the government’s own surveys, as many as 70 million Americans have smoked marijuana at some time in their lives;

18 to 20 million have smoked within the last year. Marijuana is the

61

third most popular recreational drug of choice in this country, exceeded in popularity only by alcohol and tobacco.

Like most other Americans, the vast majority of marijuana smokers are otherwise law-abiding citizens who work hard, raise families, contribute to their communities, and pay taxes. They are indistinguishable from the their non-marijuana-using peers except

for their use of marijuana.

Thirty-two percent of the eligible voters in this country acknowledge they have smoked marijuana at some point in their lives. This

includes many successful business people and professional leaders,

including many State and Federal elected officials. Many Members

of Congress have conceded they have smoked marijuana: former

Speaker Newt Gingrich; the President of the United States; the

Vice President of the United States.

It is time to reflect that reality in the legislation that Congress

passes on marijuana. Congress needs to acknowledge this constituency exists, and stop legislating as if marijuana smokers were dangerous people. In fact, marijuana smokers are simply average citizens who happen to smoke marijuana.

Unfortunately, our current enforcement policies seem to target

marijuana smokers. According to the FBI, in 1997, the last year for

which data is available, there were nearly 700,000 Americans arrested on marijuana charges, 694,000. Of those, 87 percent were for

simple possession, not for sale. Right now, we have a marijuana

smoker arrested every 45 seconds in this country, and 43 percent

of all of the drug arrests that occur in this country are for marijuana.

Despite criticism from some in Congress, and I believe from some

on this committee, that President Clinton has somehow been soft

on crime, in fact the data suggest that the Clinton administration

has waged the most aggressive war against marijuana smokers of

any Presidency in history. Marijuana arrests have doubled since

President Clinton took office, and at the same time there has been

a 51 percent decline in the arrest of cocaine and heroin sellers.

Now in 1972, there was a blue ribbon panel created by former

President Richard Nixon. It was chaired by former Republican Governor Raymond Shafer from Pennsylvania. The commission recognized that more harm was being caused by marijuana prohibition

than by the use of marijuana itself. They recommended that State

and Federal laws be changed to eliminate penalties for marijuana

smokers and for small transfers of not-for-profit amounts. This report served instantly as a basis for the decriminalization laws that

were passed during the 1970’s in 11 States.

What former President Jimmy Carter said in 1976 to Congress

still holds true today: ‘‘Penalties against drug use should never be

more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against possession of

marijuana in private for personal use.’’

Led by Oregon in 1973, 11 American States adopted modified

versions of decriminalization, where a citation and a small fine

were substituted for an arrest and jail. Approximately 30 percent

of our population in this country live under decriminalization laws,

so we have experience. We know what happens with decriminalization.

62

And the only Federal study that has ever been done to compare

usage rates in those 11 decriminalized States, versus the States

where they still arrest and jail marijuana smokers, concluded that

decriminalization had absolutely no impact on usage rates. It did

not lead to an increased use of marijuana.

Decriminalization laws are also popular with the voters, as evidenced by a State-wide vote in Oregon in 1998, in which Oregonians voted 2 to 1 to reject a law previously passed by their State

legislature which would have reimposed criminal penalties against

marijuana smokers. Clearly and resoundingly, the voters in Oregon

said, ‘‘We don’t want to spend our tax dollars arresting and jailing

marijuana smokers.’’

In conclusion, it is time that we adopted a marijuana policy in

this country that recognizes the distinction between use and abuse,

and which recognizes and reflects the importance we have always

placed in this country on the right of the individual to be free from

the overreaching power of the State. Most would agree that the

government has no business knowing what books we read, what

music we listen to, the subject of our telephone conversations, or

how we conduct ourselves in the privacy of our bedrooms.

Similarly, whether one smokes marijuana or drinks alcohol when

we relax is simply not an appropriate area of concern for the government. By stubbornly defining all marijuana smokers as criminals, including situations in which adults are simply smoking marijuana in the privacy of their home, government is wasting valuable

law enforcement and prosecutorial resources, we are clogging our

courts, we are filling our jails and prison cells with nonviolent drug

offenders, and most importantly, we are needlessly wrecking the

lives and careers of hundreds of thousands of genuinely good citizens every year in this country.

It is time that Congress acknowledges what millions of Americans already know: There is absolutely nothing wrong with the responsible use of marijuana by adults, and it should be of no interest or concern to the government. In the final analysis, this debate

is only incidentally about marijuana. It is really about personal

freedom.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Stroup follows:]

63

64

65

66

67

68

69

70

71

72

73

74

75

76

77

78

79

80

81

82

83

84

Mr. MICA. Thank you for your testimony, and now I would like

to recognize Mr. Robert MacCoun, professor of public policy and

law at the University of California at Berkeley. Welcome, and you

are recognized. I hope I pronounced that correctly?

Mr. MACCOUN. MacCoun, that is correct.

Mr. MICA. Thank you.

Mr. MACCOUN. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. I ask

that my written testimony, which is longer, be entered into the

record.

Mr. MICA. Without objection, that will be made part of the

record.

Mr. MACCOUN. My name is Robert MacCoun. I am from the University of California at Berkeley. My collaborator is Peter Reuter

of the University of Maryland.

I am here today to summarize some conclusions from our study

of drug control alternatives funded by a grant from the Alfred

Sloan Foundation to the Rand Corp.’s Drug Policy Research Center.

Rand is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. The opinions and conclusions expressed today are my own, and should not be interpreted as representing those of Rand or any other agency sponsoring the research.

I should also mention an earlier statement by the Chair suggested that there were two pro and two cons here. I am not here

in an advocacy role today. My purpose today is to try to inform the

debate by talking empirically about what we know about these

policies.

Mr. MICA. Well, thank you. I just made that——

Mr. MACCOUN. That is quite all right. It is understandable.

Mr. MICA [continuing]. Comment and I stand corrected. It never

happened before, but you are the first.

Mr. MACCOUN. Thank you. I am proud to be part of that first.

The empirical base is strongest for analyzing marijuana decriminalization, weaker for marijuana legalization, and quite weak for

the legalization of cocaine or heroin, so I will focus today mostly

on what we know about marijuana.

Decriminalization refers to the elimination or substantial reduction of penalties for possession of modest drug quantities. In a decriminalization regime, the sale and manufacture of the drug remains illegal. Marijuana has been decriminalized in 11 United

States States, in some regions of Australia, and in the Netherlands,

Italy, and Spain.

The available evidence suggests that marijuana decriminalization has either no effect or a very small effect on marijuana use.

Survey analyses in decriminalizing States have found either no

change in marijuana use or an increase that was slight and temporary. Cross-State comparisons have found no difference in adolescent marijuana use in decriminalizing versus non-decriminalizing

States. The conclusion that marijuana decriminalization has little

or no effect is bolstered by studies finding no effect of decriminalization in South Australia and in the Australian Capital Territory.

Our statements about marijuana decriminalization should not be

generalized to marijuana legalization. Legalization goes beyond the

85

decriminalization of user possession to allow some form of legally

regulated sale and distribution. We know of only one contemporary

example that comes close, and that is the Dutch model.

In compliance with international treaty obligations, Dutch law

states unequivocally that cannabis is illegal, yet in 1976, the Dutch

adopted a formal written policy of nonenforcement for violations involving possession or sale of up to 30 grams. That has been reduced

to 5 grams in 1995. Not only are prosecutors forbidden to act

against users, but a formal written policy regulates the technically

illicit sale of those small amounts in licensed coffee shops and

nightclubs.

The Dutch decriminalization of possession per se had no detectable effect on marijuana use, consistent with evidence from the

United States and from Australia. But in the mid-1980’s there was

a significant increase in the number of tolerated commercial sales

outlets for marijuana.

We believe this shift from mere decriminalization to de facto legalization was associated with rapid growth in the number of

users, an increase that was not mirrored in other nations during

that same time period. That increase might have been coincidental,

but it’s consistent with other evidence that commercial promotion

of a vice will increase consumption of that vice.

Dutch heroin and cocaine use numbers are not particularly high

by European standards, and a smaller fraction of marijuana users

go on to use those drugs in the Netherlands than in the United

States. There’s no evidence that Dutch cannabis policy has resulted

in any increase in property crime or violence, and claims that it

has are simply not credible.

The Dutch have made a policy choice: less black market activity

at the retail level, and less police intrusiveness into ordinary life,

in exchange for higher levels of marijuana use. Whether that is the

right choice depends upon one’s views about the dangers of marijuana. At any rate, it seems likely that the Dutch might have

achieved their goals with a less extreme policy. For example, South

Australia allows home cultivation of small quantities of marijuana

but not commercial sales or promotion.

Much less is known about the consequences of alternative drug

laws for heroin or cocaine. On the one hand, legalization would

probably reduce the harmfulness to the user, and to others, of the

average drug-taking episode. On the other hand, legalization would

increase the number of those drug-taking episodes. At present,

there’s no firm basis for predicting the relative size of those two effects. Thus, legalization is a very risky strategy for reducing drugrelated harm.

But the drawbacks of legalization do not imply that our current

version of prohibition is the optimal drug strategy. It may well be

possible to implement prohibition in less harmful ways.

Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. MacCoun follows:]

86

87

88

89

90

91

92

93

Mr. MICA. Thank you for your testimony, and now I’ll recognize

the last witness on this panel, Sandra Bennett, president of Drug

Watch International.

Ms. BENNETT. I have a statement here by one of our members,

a 20-year-old member of Drug Watch, and could I submit this

for——

Mr. MICA. Without objection, that will be made part of the

record. Can you pull that as close as possible?

Ms. BENNETT. Thank you.

Mr. MICA. Great. You’re recognized. Go right ahead.

Ms. BENNETT. Chairman Mica, members of the committee, thank

you for inviting me to provide testimony on this critical issue, one

that’s so important to the welfare and strength of our Nation, and

particularly important for the quality of the future we want for our

children.

First and foremost, I’m a mother who, because of illicit drugs,

has been subjected to every parent’s worst nightmare and ultimate

horror, the death of their child, and it’s from that perspective that

I’m going to address you today. Though it would seem that much

of the public is still in the dark, the harmful effects of drugs on

the body, the mind, an on society itself are well documented in scientific research and history. However, here we are again, for the

umpteenth time over the past 20 years, being forced to debate this

inanity.

It’s been said, those who don’t learn from their mistakes are

doomed to repeat them. With this caveat in mind, I fervently pray

that you’ll do everything in your power to prevent this country

from returning to the permissive drug policies of the 1970’s which

embraced responsible use of dangerous drugs.

It was in this permissive environment that drug use flourished,

and decriminalization of marijuana became the mantra of the pot

smokers. Drug use, particularly among students, ran rampant, and

the United States raced far ahead of the rest of the world in consumption of illicit drugs.

Police Chief Reuben Greenberg of Charleston, SC, wrote, ‘‘With

few exceptions, other than the drug traffickers themselves, faculties and administrations of our Nation’s colleges and universities

are the most hostile elements to the enforcement of our Nation’s

drug laws.’’ It was this permissive campus drug environment that

led to the death of our son Garrett.

My testimony today is for Garrett and all those young men and

women whose lives have been irreparably damaged by drugs, or

who did not survive their encounter with marijuana, cocaine, heroin, Ecstacy, and LSD. And it’s for the parents of those children

who must face the rest of their life knowing that their child’s death

or disability was a completely preventable tragedy, a tragedy that

likely would not have happened had sanctions against drug use

been enforced.

Decriminalization, as embraced by the drug culture, is simply the

notion that those who use illicit drugs are blameless and that all

criminal legal sanctions against use should be removed. As a bereaved parent, I can tell you that I would rather my son be shaken

to his senses with a little jail time than have to lose him, have him

lose his life or lead a useless, debilitated one.

94

Decriminalization is actually part of a back door effort to ease society into accepting legalization of all psychoactive and addictive

drugs. ‘‘Harm reduction,’’ a cover-all term coined by the legalizers,

is a euphemism encompassing legalization and liberalization of

drug policy, and can best be defined as a variety of strategies for

making illicit drug use safer and cheaper for drug users at the expense of the rest of society, regardless of the cost.

Included in these strategies are decriminalization, medicalization

of marijuana, industrial marijuana hemp, distribution of free needles to injecting drug users, free drugs to addicts, and a host of

other tactics designed to enable and protect drug users. The media

and our educational institutions are rife with ‘‘harm reduction’’

propaganda.

Speaking for the hundreds and thousands of parents who have

lost children to drugs, I cannot understand how this country can

listen for even one moment to those who advocate making illicit

drugs easier to come by, particularly when most of the leaders of

this effort are admitted drug users. Unfortunately, credibility is

given to those disingenuous scofflaws when they are invited to the

podium, paraded on TV, glorified on PBS, and asked to serve as

consultants to government agencies and the media, who then parrot this misleading, deceitful and dangerous propaganda.

The pro-drug advocates are allowed to operate out of our universities with impunity, and their deceptive and dangerous rhetoric

fills the Internet, where it is readily available even to our primary

school children. The media, which could be part of the solution, are

instead a tremendous part of the problem. They play a significant

role in the way people think, whether it’s about political, business,

health or community issues.

Many journalists and commentators have bought into the notion

that using psychoactive drugs is a personal right. Although adolescent drug use is half what it was in the late 1970’s, the media

echoes the claims of the legalizers that despite having spent billions of dollars fighting the war on drugs, it has failed and should

be abandoned in favor of permissive drug policies.

Complaints about spending too much money on the war on drugs

have no basis in fact. It’s simply pro-legalization rhetoric, as espoused at a Drug Policy Foundation media workshop in 1992,

where attendees were coached to ‘‘use economics, paint ridiculous

extremes, then go for logical, moderate alternatives.’’

If spending billions to reduce drug use is such a waste, where is

their outcry against the War on Poverty? Declared in 1964, the

War on Poverty has already cost this country over $5 trillion, yet

more than 20 percent of American children between the ages of 6

and 11 still live in poverty, a condition worsened by the impact of

illicit drugs.

How does all of this relate to my son’s death?

In 1980, President Carter’s blue ribbon panel on drugs, the Drug

Abuse Council, issued a report stating that America did not have

a drug problem and that it was mostly hysteria, and it called for

decriminalization of possession of small amounts of marijuana. The

report went on to lament that by adhering to an unrealistic goal

of total abstinence from use of illicit drugs, opportunities to encourage responsible drug-using behavior are missed.

95

Responsible use of an illicit drug? Is this akin to driving responsibly while drunk, or wearing boxing gloves to assault your spouse?

One does not act responsibly under the influence of mind-altering

drugs.

That same year, 1980, Lester Grinspoon, M.D., associate professor at Harvard and an outspoken proponent of drug legalization,

wrote in the Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry, ‘‘Used no more

than two or three times a week, cocaine creates no serious problems.’’ Respected medical researchers believe this article fueled the

rise in cocaine use in this country.

To my family and me, Grinspoon’s statement is nothing short of

criminal. Our son Garrett died of cardiac arrest, and though the

only abnormality found during his autopsy was a trace of cocaine

in his urine, we learned later that even a small amount of cocaine

is known to trigger this sort of fatal cardiac arrest. Similar circumstances occurred in the deaths of professional athletes Len

Bias, Reggie Lewis, and Mark Tuinei.

Lester Grinspoon is but one of many individuals and organizations that want to see drugs decriminalized as a first step toward

full legalization. People like Grinspoon, Ethan Nadelmann, Rick

Doblin, Eric Sterling, John Morgan, Kevin Zeese, Keith Stroup, Andrew Weil, Tony Serra, all of whom have publicly attested to their

personal use of illicit drugs, are at the forefront of the drug legalization/decriminalization movement in America.

And let’s not forget Mark Kleiman. Kleiman was a consultant to

the Office of National Drug Control Policy. He not only advocates

legalization of marijuana, but also indicated publicly that he agrees

with Canadian psychiatrist John Beresford that everyone has the

right to use LSD.

Eric Sterling, the admitted pot-smoking head of the Criminal

Justice Policy Foundation, talking to a pro-legalization audience

about how to legalize marijuana under the guise of medicalization,

said ‘‘Packaging is important, and messages get packaged.’’ In an

article about the marijuana hemp movement, Sterling was quoted

as saying, ‘‘It is the leaky bucket strategy. Legalize it in one area,

and sooner or later it will trickle down into others.’’ We are talking

about legalization of all drugs.

This notion was taken up by international entrepreneur George

Soros, who offered to fund the legalizers if they would target a few

winnable issues like medical marijuana and the repeal of mandatory minimums. Consequently, the pro-drug lobby has cut up its

agenda into a dozen smaller packages and is busy trying to dupe

the public into accepting the whole pie, one bite at a time.

Perception of consequences or danger is key. When drug users

suffer no consequences, the behavior appears safe, acceptable, and

spreads unchecked, friend to friend, sibling to sibling, parent to

child. Decriminalization of drugs? Not on your life. And please, not

on the lives of our children.

Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Bennett follows:]

96

97

98

99

Mr. MICA. Thank you for your testimony. I will start with a couple of questions. First of all, Mr. MacCoun, did I hear the statistics

correct about the Netherlands? Did you say the Netherlands had

allowed up to 30 grams of cannabis until 1995, and then dropped

it to 5?

Mr. MACCOUN. To 5 grams. That is, possession of up to 5 grams

is not prosecuted.

Mr. MICA. Are you aware why they tightened this up? I wasn’t

aware of that.

Mr. MACCOUN. It was part of a general tightening up of the

Dutch policy in response to international pressure, both from the

United States and from the Dutch neighbors, France, Belgium, and

Germany.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Stroup, you used the Netherlands as an example,

I think. Is that the model that you would like to see in the United

States? I guess that in the Netherlands it is still illegal but you can

have a small quantity of marijuana.

Mr. STROUP. It is sort of a gray market, Mr. Chairman, where

they allow adults to go to coffee shops, where they can buy small

amounts of marijuana at the coffee shops.

Mr. MICA. They sell——

Mr. STROUP. That is correct. I don’t think that is the perfect solution but I think it is a cease-fire, sort of middle ground for the moment. What it does is what decriminalization does generally. It removes the consumer from the threat of arrest and jail, but it maintains strong criminal sanctions against commercial sellers. So I

think it is a good first step.

Mr. MICA. So your group would still advocate enforcement, then,

of trafficking?

Mr. STROUP. What we would like to see——

Mr. MICA. Someone has to be involved in an illegal process to get

the 5 grams to the coffee shop.

Mr. STROUP. What we would recommend, Mr. Chairman, is that

the government legalize and regulate a market for marijuana so

consumers would have a legal and a safe source to get it, but we

recognize there may always be characters who would sell beyond

that, just as there occasionally are bootleggers that still operate

today, and that would still remain illegal. Unregulated commercial

sales would remain a crime. Regulated sales would not.

Mr. MICA. Well, to date there have been 11 States, I think you

testified, that have decriminalized or lowered the penalties. Should

this be left up to the States, as opposed to having the Feds make

some decision on this?

Mr. STROUP. Yes, sir. I believe we should follow the same sort of

pattern we did at the end of alcohol prohibition in 1933. As you recall, the Federal Government got out of the business of enforcing

alcohol prohibition. They removed Federal prohibition, but they did

not demand that every State immediately legalize the sale of alcohol. Some counties in this country are still dry counties.

I think the correct procedure would be to remove the

antimarijuana law that was passed in 1937 and let the States experiment with different models. It is the way our Federal system

was designed to work.

100

Mr. MICA. Now, we have talked about marijuana in this panel

mostly, although Ms. Bennett can certainly testify to the adverse

effects of cocaine. Are you advocating taking the same position relating to heroin or cocaine?

Mr. STROUP. No. I believe that we have a right as a society to

judge illicit drugs, to some degree, based on their potential for

harm. Quite honestly, of the 13 million illicit drug users in this

country, that is roughly the government figure, 10 million are just

marijuana smokers. There are 3 million that use the more dangerous drugs, cocaine, amphetamines, and heroin, all the drugs I

have heard talked about today, but 10 million are just marijuana

smokers.

So if we simply decriminalized and legalized marijuana, we

would reduce the drug problem in this country enormously, reduce

the number of good, hard-working citizens who are being dragged

through the criminal justice system needlessly, and then let’s see

how that system works.

What I do think about the other drugs, cocaine, heroin, amphetamines, is that for people who use those drugs, if they have a problem, it is a medical problem. It is not a criminal justice problem.

So what I would suggest is that we legalize marijuana but that we

medicalize the other drugs; that is, we don’t create a market, we

don’t have a store that sells heroin or amphetamines, but that

when someone is caught with those drugs, they are put into drug

treatment, they are given help.

Mr. MICA. I think one of you cited, maybe it was you also, Mr.

Stroup, that the cocaine—the decline in cocaine arrests, was that

the Federal and State level?

Mr. STROUP. Yes, that is the combination of Federal and State

cocaine and heroin sales arrests. There was a 51 percent decline in

the last decade, at the same time that the emphasis was placed

back on marijuana smokers.

Mr. MICA. The problem with that, I think, if you look at those

statistics, is people have now gone from cocaine to heroin and

methamphetamine.

Mr. STROUP. I would agree. I don’t suggest that every law enforcement officer out there by any means goes out with the intention of looking for marijuana smokers, but I think when you have

10 million to 12 million people that smoke on a regular basis and

20 million marijuana smokers during the course of a year, the fact

is, they are going to run across large numbers of otherwise lawabiding citizens who have got a marijuana joint in their pocket. So

the result is, the people we end up arresting are predominantly

marijuana smokers. They are not heroin addicts, they are not amphetamine sellers, they’re marijuana smokers.

Mr. MICA. Mr. MacCoun, you said you did some studies. Was

that in all 11 States that have changed their laws?

Mr. MACCOUN. Yes. There is a small literature now. A number

of both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies have looked at the

U.S. experience with the 11 States that decriminalized marijuana.

Mr. MICA. And you said that there was no difference in the number of people who went from one drug to another?

101

Mr. MACCOUN. No, that there was no difference between decriminalizing and non-decriminalizing States in the rates of marijuana

use.

Mr. MICA. What about the question of marijuana being a gateway drug, as the drug czar testified in our previous panel? Is there

any study or evidence to document that?

Mr. MACCOUN. There are two lines of evidence. One is U.S. research. Some people believe that there is a substitution, actually a

substitution relationship between current marijuana use and current use of hard drugs, and that decriminalization of marijuana actually might bring about some reduction in hard drug use. That is

controversial, and that is not accepted by everyone in the research

community.

The other line of research that addresses that question—first let

me say there is clearly a statistical association between cannabis

use and hard drug use. Most people who use marijuana do not go

on to hard drug use, but there is clearly a statistical association.

The Dutch cite that statistical association as the basis for their

policy. The Dutch believe that the reason there is a statistical association between using cannabis and using hard drugs is because

once people begin using cannabis, most cannabis users do not encounter serious health problems as a result. They also come into

contact with drug dealers who sell hard drugs, and for those two

reasons, people start moving on to harder drugs. What the Dutch

wanted to do was separate those two markets by making cannabis

not legally available but de facto legally available in these coffee

shops, so that people would not come into contact with hard drug

users.

In our research we have looked at that question. We do find

some evidence that the probability of going on to hard drug use,

given that you are a marijuana user, is lower in the Netherlands

than in the United States. Whether that is a result of their policy

is hard to say, but statistically fewer people go on to hard drug use

in the Netherlands than in the United States.

Mr. MICA. Chief Glasscock, what do you think about legalizing

marijuana?

Chief GLASSCOCK. Well, Mr. Chairman, I am not—I kid people

and I say——

Mr. MICA. Decriminalizing it, or——

Chief GLASSCOCK. Decriminalizing it or legalizing it I guess is almost synonymous for me, and I tell people I am just a plain old

chief from Plano, TX, and I am not a scientist or a researcher.

There are a few things that I do know. I am not aware of any

reputable medical institution that recommends the use or the decriminalization or the legalization of marijuana. I think we have

had a number of people who take the contrary.

The other is, I don’t know of any—and we talk about it for medicinal purposes—I don’t know of any medicine that we smoke, and

I think we only have to look at our history with tobacco and what

we have learned from that, and for us to go and tell, particularly

tell our youth, that smoking marijuana is going to be OK, to me

is indefensible.

I look at what we experience on the streets. Marijuana is the

most commonly used illicit drug among youth. The most recent surVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:01 Aug 21, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00105 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\64343.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
102

vey data that I have out of the Texas school survey shows that the

average age is 13 for a young person to be starting to use marijuana.

My experience shows me that marijuana is a gateway drug. The

18 deaths that we have had to deal with in our community from

heroin overdose, they all started with gateway drugs. They were

poly drug users, and every one of them had a history of marijuana

use.

It is just difficult for me to accept the concept of decriminalization or legalization of the use of marijuana, particularly in what we

are seeing on the streets and among our young people.

Mr. MICA. Ms. Bennett, a final question: Did your son abuse any

other drugs, other than cocaine, to your knowledge?

Ms. BENNETT. Actually, he did not smoke, and was chided because he did not like alcohol. So in this case, it was the perception

all over the campus and probably throughout the State that cocaine

was neither harmful nor addictive that made it seem safer than the

other drugs, and there was no school policy against it and no fraternity policy against any sort of illicit drugs.

Mr. MICA. Thank you.

Mrs. Mink.

Mrs. MINK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I want to address my question to Dr. MacCoun. The discussion

is very confusing, because as an ordinary person, I have great difficulty in understanding this one sentence in your testimony which

says that it is important to emphasize that in decriminalization,

the sale and manufacture of the drug remains illegal and is criminally prosecuted.

Now, I don’t understand how the sale and manufacture of a drug

can remain illegal and criminally prosecuted, while at the same

time saying that its use and possession is decriminalized. How do

you get to use marijuana except after a sale and manufacture?

Mr. MACCOUN. Well, clearly in decriminalization regimes, the

marijuana is changing hands through an illegal sale.

Mrs. MINK. Well, isn’t the possession and product of something

which is illegal also illegal? Isn’t that what we are taught in law

school?

Mr. MACCOUN. Well, possession is—I am not a lawyer, although

I am a law professor—but possession is defined——

Mrs. MINK. Are you applauding, Mr. Ose?

Mr. OSE. The fewer attorneys, the better.

Mr. MACCOUN. Possession is defined as a separate legal offense

from sale and manufacture, and that has been true——

Mrs. MINK. But it is traceable back to it, and so I don’t understand this argument. I could understand it if you were arguing that

sale and manufacture for personal use or something like that is

perfectly legal and would not be prosecuted, but when you argue

that under your concept the sale and manufacture remains illegal

and is criminally prosecuted, it is absolutely confusing.

Mr. MACCOUN. I want to clarify, this—I am not arguing a concept. I am simply describing the state of the laws in 11 States.

Mrs. MINK. But I am trying to——

103

Mr. MACCOUN. I quite accept your point that there is an ambiguity there, and I find the Dutch policy even more ambiguous. The

Dutch are willing to live with that ambiguity.

Probably the least ambiguous version of decriminalization would

be the South Australia version, which was also the regime in Alaska for some years. That is, personal cultivation of small amounts

was not criminalized. Again, trying to break up the black market

by getting people to grow their own marijuana if they were going

to use it.

I am not here to advocate that the policy should be ambiguous

or not ambiguous. I am simply describing factually the state of law

in 11 States in this country.

Mrs. MINK. The 11 States adhere to that ambiguity?

Mr. MACCOUN. Yes, that is right; 11 States adhere to that ambiguity. It is not an unprecedented ambiguity. We have similar ambiguity in our enforcement of other vices. Whether that is a good

thing or a bad——

Mrs. MINK. But does that ambiguity then lead to even greater

confusion among our young people, when we are trying to say to

them that they ought not start this habit? Because I assume in

your testimony that you are not advocating the use of marijuana,

you are just analyzing the circumstances that exist——

Mr. MACCOUN. That is correct.

Mrs. MINK [continuing]. In our society. So wouldn’t you also then

conclude that this ambiguity creates even greater confusion in our

teenage population when faced with this dichotomy?

Mr. MACCOUN. I think that is a very plausible argument. However, I think that empirically, if it were true that decriminalizing

marijuana implied endorsement of marijuana, we would expect to

see an increase in marijuana use in the decriminalizing States, and

we didn’t see any such increase.

Mrs. MINK. What about increases in the use of other illegal drugs

as a result of this ambiguity with regard to marijuana in those 11

States?

Mr. MACCOUN. Those States do not have higher levels of hard

drug use than nondecriminalizing States.

Mrs. MINK. Now, what accounted for the increase in the use of

marijuana under the Dutch policy?

Mr. MACCOUN. Well, it’s—the evidence I cited is correlational

and not causal. Nevertheless, we believe—we contend in our analysis that the most likely explanation for the increase—and I want

to be clear this is an increase that occurred during the 1980’s—that

it coincided with an increase in the number of commercial coffee

shops selling cannabis.

We think that correlation is probably not a coincidence; that in

fact commercial promotion led to an increase in use. Prior to that

time, when the Dutch stopped incarcerating offenders for marijuana possession, but there weren’t coffee shops, we saw no effect

in Dutch cannabis statistics. Which leads us to the conclusion that

the decriminalization aspect per se had little or no effect, but that

the commercialization of cannabis has led to an increase in cannabis consumption in the Netherlands.

Mrs. MINK. As a researcher, would you be concerned at all about

the statistics which were just released today by the National CenVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:01 Aug 21, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00107 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\64343.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
104

ter on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University,

which cites the fact that almost 88,000 teenagers were admitted for

treatment for abuse or addiction to marijuana?

Mr. MACCOUN. Of course I am greatly concerned by that.

Mrs. MINK. Well, how would——

Mr. MACCOUN. I haven’t seen the report, but I think that there

is evidence that—I certainly would not contend that cannabis is not

harmful, and I have not contended so today. There are risks associated with cannabis. We also know that most people who use cannabis do not get involved in serious, harmful consequences, so the

risks are less serious than for cocaine or heroin, but cannabis is a

harmful drug.

Mrs. MINK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MICA. Thank you.

Mr. Ose.

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to pursue the

lawyer question——

Mrs. MINK. Careful, I am a lawyer.

Mr. OSE. Well, you are one of the good ones, though, of course.

First, I’d like to clarify something. Somebody, I don’t recall who,

made a comment about studies commissioned under President

Nixon and ratified under Carter, and the current President and

Vice President and former Speaker of the House making comments

about marijuana use.

No. 1, I didn’t vote for Nixon, who commissioned the initial

study. I didn’t vote for Carter, who ratified it, and I certainly didn’t

vote for President Clinton or Vice President Gore, who admitted to

using it, and I never voted for former Speaker Gingrich, who also

admitted using it. I want to be clear that that kind of an argument

really doesn’t hold water with me.

However, let me go on to the substance of my questions. If I understand correctly, Mr. Stroup, from your testimony, there’s 18 to

20——

Mr. STROUP. Million people who have smoked in the last year.

Mr. OSE. Yes, 18 to 20 million who have smoked during the last

year.

Mr. STROUP. Right.

Mr. OSE. Thirty-two percent of the voting adults acknowledging

having smoked marijuana at some point in their lives. That means

that there is roughly 230 or 240 million who haven’t smoked during

the last year, and roughly 68 percent of the voting adults in the

country who haven’t smoked marijuana at some point in their lives.

I am just doing the simple math.

Mr. STROUP. I am not sure about your math, but at least it is

true that if you have one-third of the eligible voters who have

smoked, there are two-thirds who have not.

Mr. OSE. Right. Well, that is my point. So the question I come

to is that when I look at your cover letter here, the third line describes you as a nonprofit public interest lobby, and I am trying to

figure out what do those 230 or 240 million people, or those 68 percent of the voting adults—why should I subsidize an organization

such as yours?

Mr. STROUP. Well, I think that if you believe the current policies

are ineffective and costly and counter-productive, then there is an

105

obligation to look for alternative policies. We are simply suggesting

that we can decriminalize marijuana, we can reduce the number of

good, honest, hard-working Americans who are needlessly dragged

through the criminal justice system, and there are no apparent

down sides to that change.

Mr. OSE. I have learned in politics to never let an arguable position go unchallenged, and I would challenge you on your position

that decriminalization has no negative impact. For instance, can

you tell me whether or not NORML has any epidemiological data

regarding the use of marijuana by pregnant women?

Mr. STROUP. No. There certainly has been research done by the

Federal Government and others on that question, and there is no

indication to date that marijuana smoking has any impact on pregnant women or on newborns that have been born to pregnant

women who have smoked marijuana. It is not a smart thing to do.

I think most of us would suggest that you not drink alcohol, smoke

cigarettes or smoke marijuana when you are pregnant.

Mr. OSE. How can you say it is not a smart thing to do? You

have no data on which to base that comment.

Mr. STROUP. Well, certainly. Smoking itself is unhealthy. We

know that when pregnant women drink alcohol, for example, there

is fetal alcohol syndrome. The suggestion would be that if there is

any time when a person should be extremely healthful, it would be

during pregnancy when you are carrying a child.

The idea here is not to turn on America or to increase the number of drug users in America; it is to minimize the harm of our current antidrug policies.

Mr. OSE. Actually, my objective here is to eliminate the drug use

or abuse of any——

Mr. STROUP. Well, good luck, it has never happened in the history of mankind, and I suspect you will be frustrated.

Mr. OSE. It is all right, I am young.

Mr. STROUP. And optimistic.

Mr. OSE. Now, from where does NORML obtain its function for

operations?

Mr. STROUP. Private contributions. We get people who agree with

our position and who appreciate the work we do, and they contribute money. We are a 501(c)(4). It is not tax deductible. It is a

contribution——

Mr. OSE. That was my next question.

Mr. STROUP. No, we are not. We do have a tax-exempt side, a

501(c)(3) NORML Foundation, but the NORML Foundation can do

no lobbying. It is simply an educational foundation.

Mr. OSE. The activities that the foundation engages in range

what gamut?

Mr. STROUP. Public education, primarily. We do some public advertising, some campaigns in which we try to get our viewpoint

out. We also provide legal assistance to people who have been arrested on the marijuana penalties and need help either finding a

good lawyer or raising a valid defense. In particular, most of the

legal defense is provided to those who are medical users of marijuana but who have been prosecuted under State law.

Mr. OSE. So if I understand correctly, the 501(c)(3) organization

does enjoy certain tax advantages that could arguably be used to

106

further the ‘‘agenda’’ that some of us, wherever we might sit today,

find objectionable.

Mr. STROUP. Well, if we filed what is called a 501(h) election—

I hate to be too technical, but that is the provision under the IRS

Code where even a foundation can do a modest amount of lobbying—we would be entitled to do that. We have not filed a 501(h)

election.

The NORML Foundation does no lobbying or policy work at all.

We simply do research and education and legal support. Now, you

might not agree with the legal support we are providing, I understand, but that is what is great about this country, is it is a free

country.

Mr. OSE. I am trying to find out why I would agree to any such

educational program, the consequence of which might be adverse to

my 6 and 4-year-old, 5 years, 5 months, 5 days from now.

Mr. STROUP. I don’t think that telling the truth about marijuana

and marijuana policy is detrimental to anyone, including your 5

and 6-year-olds. We are trying to counter a ‘‘reefer madness’’ misinformation campaign that the State and Federal Governments have

been involved in now for 60 years, and many of you in Congress

are still involved in. So I don’t think you should fear the facts.

Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, I see the red light. I regret my time has

passed. However, I do want to again subscribe to the theory of letting no suggestion go unchallenged. I want to refute, as best I can

today, simply that I am not a subscriber to the fact that marijuana

has no adverse consequences. I happen to think it does have adverse consequences, and I appreciate the opportunity to participate

today.

Mr. MICA. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Cummings, did you have any questions for this panel?

Mr. Barr.

Mr. BARR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I am always intrigued by your efforts to get away from the term

‘‘legalization.’’ When did this term ‘‘decriminalization’’ first come

into popular usage? Was it you that developed that for a euphemism?

Mr. STROUP. To me, Mr. Barr?

Mr. BARR. Yes.

Mr. STROUP. No. The first time I had heard of that word was in

1972, when the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug

Abuse came out with it. In fact, I think for most of us it seemed

like a strange term, and we weren’t quite sure what they meant

until we had read the report.

Mr. BARR. You embrace it now?

Mr. STROUP. I do embrace it. I think it is a common sense recommendation that has worked well in the 11 States that have had

that policy in effect now for 25-plus years.

Mr. BARR. What are the other two States? There are nine of

them listed here, in somebody’s paper here.

Mr. STROUP. I have a foot——

Mr. BARR. It says 11, and then the footnote only lists nine: Alaska, California, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota——

Mr. STROUP. If you will look on footnote 3 of my statement, you

will see 11 States listed there.

107

Mr. BARR. All right. Your colleague might want to check that out.

He only has nine listed.

Mr. STROUP. Well, mine has 11.

Mr. BARR. OK. Maybe we will split the difference, I don’t know.

But this term ‘‘decriminalization,’’ I mean, I can understand why

you embrace it and like to use it, because it sounds like something

less than ‘‘legalization.’’ I do think it is sort of splitting hairs and

is simply sort of a Clintonesque way of describing something to

make it appear different from what it really is.

Mr. STROUP. Could I explain in one sentence the difference

between——

Mr. BARR. The—sure.

Mr. STROUP. The difference in——

Mr. BARR. It means reducing penalties.

Mr. STROUP. No, no. There really is a subject matter difference,

as well.

Mr. BARR. I was just quoting one of your papers here.

Mr. STROUP. On the first page of my statement, in fact, what we

talk about is—decriminalization removes the user, the consumer,

from the threat of arrest or jail. However, commercial sellers would

still be subject to arrest and jail just like they are now.

Legalization——

Mr. BARR. What would be the legal basis on which you could do

that? Say somebody can use a substance, in this case marijuana,

say, without any threat of any penalty, but the person that gives

it to him or sells it to him would be subject to penalties.

Mr. STROUP. Well, the most obvious prohibition was alcohol prohibition from 1919 to 1933. You are young enough that you

wouldn’t remember that, I expect, but the reality is, it was never

illegal to possess or drink alcohol during alcohol prohibition. It was

illegal to sell it commercially. You were even allowed to make several—I forget the quantity, 50 pounds or something, of alcohol in

your own home during alcohol prohibition, so there is precedent

there.

Mr. BARR. Does there, in terms of that precedent, lie the fallacy

of saying that decriminalization isn’t, in and of itself—just if you

characterize prohibition as decriminalization of alcohol from that

standpoint, it didn’t work, I presume.

Mr. STROUP. I am delighted to hear you say that, Mr. Barr.

Mr. BARR. This is all hypothetical, but I am certainly not arguing

to, you know, change our alcohol laws. The use of alcohol, when it

measurably and demonstrably impairs a person’s ability to act and

react to the work around them, is criminal.

Mr. STROUP. And so should marijuana remain.

Mr. BARR. Well, and therein, I suppose, lies the distinction,

whether or not one can smoke some joints and not have their ability to react to the world around them impaired to the extent that

it poses a danger, but I don’t want to get into that debate. I would

disagree with you on that, but I understand the distinction there.

But it seems to me that if you are saying, ‘‘Well, decriminalization didn’t work with regard to alcohol back in the days of prohibition, but we want to try it now for marijuana,’’ you probably would

conclude that it is not going to work with marijuana either if we

go that route. You are going to run into all sorts of, I suppose,

108

equal protection problems. You are going to run into all sorts of enforcement problems, and then the next step would be, ‘‘Well, let’s,

you know, legalize it. Let’s just legalize it.’’

Mr. STROUP. In fact, on the first page of my statement, you will

see that we do, in fact, favor eventual legalization of marijuana. By

that I mean the distinction is, the government would actually legalize and regulate a market so consumers could buy marijuana in a

safe setting.

Now, I think that is going to take some time before we are going

to get there, but I think eventually we need to do that in order to

deal with the attendant violence and crime associated with any unregulated and uncontrolled black market. The reason alcohol prohibition was such a failure, in addition to the fact that you had millions of citizens who wanted to drink whether or not the government wanted them to, was because of the crime associated with the

prohibition, and the same thing is true with marijuana prohibition.

Most of the ills that result from marijuana prohibition are what

bother everybody about marijuana. It is not the marijuana, it is the

prohibition. When you have large amounts of money in a totally

unregulated setting——

Mr. BARR. Well, no. I mean, that depends on who you talk to.

When I talk to my colleagues and parents and people in my district, it is not the enforcement that bothers them, it is what it does

to people’s minds and the danger that it poses, because they do believe that there are dangers and adverse consequences that affect

a person who smokes marijuana.

I was intrigued, though, by one comment you made in your answer, I think, to a question from my colleague from California regarding smoking. Would you concede—I wrote down here, and I extrapolated from something that you said—would you concede that

smoking marijuana is at least as harmful as smoking tobacco?

Mr. STROUP. No. I think actually the research shows that it is

not as harmful as smoking tobacco. However, I would concede that

it is harmful to bring smoke into your lungs, and we should generally discourage those kinds of activities. But we don’t have to

pass a criminal law——

Mr. BARR. If we are going to decriminalize marijuana, then if

smoking tobacco is even worse than that, then we ought to make

smoking tobacco illegal.

Mr. STROUP. It sounds like many of you in Congress are heading

that way, but I would certainly advise against it.

Mr. BARR. Not this Member.

Mr. STROUP. No, no. You are from Georgia, I know.

Mr. BARR. But, anyway, I appreciate you being here. It is a very

interesting discussion. I doubt that I will convince you of anything,

and vice versa, but I do appreciate you being here.

Mr. MICA. Did you have any additional questions?

Mrs. MINK. No.

Mr. MICA. I think today we have had several sides presented,

and Mr. MacCoun has tried to present the facts as he sees them.

We appreciate that. I don’t know if we have reached any conclusions. Sometimes they try to portray, I guess, drug use as a right

and drug abuse as a victimless crime. I think you would probably

have to disagree with that, Ms. Bennett, wouldn’t you?

109

Ms. BENNETT. Could I make one statement?

Mr. MICA. Yes. We will give you the last word.

Ms. BENNETT. I am from the Pacific Northwest, from Oregon,

and I know, because I have been working in prevention since 1988,

that drug use increased dramatically when marijuana was decriminalized, and California experienced an 81 percent increase after decriminalization, and in Alaska it became so bad after they legalized

it that they recriminalized it a couple of years ago. So we are looking at a different set of facts, and there really can only be one set

of facts. The rest of it is just balderdash.

And I would say one other thing: that if you got anyone in this

room on the stand and asked them if they ever stole anything, I

am sure most people in their youth have tried that once or twice.

It doesn’t mean that we abandoned the laws against—enforcing

that there is no theft, that thievery and robbery is a crime. Just

because as children we might have done that or made that mistake, does not mean that we should legalize it or decriminalize robbery.

And I think when we see these people who in their youth tried

an illicit drug or did an illicit act, that it falls in that same category. It doesn’t mean that we should go on to legalize bad behavior.

Mr. MICA. Thank you. Mr. Barr, you had one last question?

Mr. BARR. Just one question: Is Geraldo Rivera still on your advisory board?

Mr. STROUP. No, Mr. Barr. He was, at some time in the 1970’s,

but I have not actually seen or spoken to Mr. Geraldo for 15 years.

He has not been for a long time.

Mr. BARR. Thank you.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Cummings.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I just have

a very brief question and comment for Ms. Bennett.

Ms. Bennett, I agree with what you just said. I don’t know if

most of America—as a matter of fact, I know most of America

doesn’t see what I see in my neighborhood, and a lot of the young

people in my neighborhood got started on drugs through marijuana

and smoking.

And if you were to tour my neighborhood in Baltimore, you

would see within a block of my house around about this time of

day, maybe 100 people, young people, standing around in a stupor.

Not in school, should be in school. And many of these young people

I have known all their lives. Young girls at 14 and 15 years old

who will commit any sexual act you request for $5. That is the part

America doesn’t see. Maybe that hasn’t gotten to certain parts of

America, but it can get there.

And, you know, when you talk about decriminalization, not you

but just this whole idea of decriminalization and legalization and

all of this, you know, there may be something to that for medical

purposes. I don’t know. But when I see the pain on the one hand,

and what happens to people, and not just young people, and when

I consider the pain, the pain to the families; our court systems

being literally clogged. I mean, you can’t even—you can barely get

a civil case done because there are so many criminal cases, and 85

to 90 percent of them are because of drugs.

110

When I took a relative to the emergency room the other night,

I mean, I literally sat there for about 5 hours, from about 1 o’clock

a.m., to about 6, and I was just talking to the ambulance personnel

as they were bringing people in, and the guy told me, he says, ‘‘You

know, 85 to 90 percent of all the cases who come through this facility are drug-related.’’

And our society is paying a very, very high price, and I think it

is very easy sometimes when we sit back and we make these philosophical statements about the legalization and decriminalization.

But I am going to tell you, when you see the human toll, when you

see the loss of life as you have seen and felt, when you go to the

funerals like I do, because of folks arguing over who is going to sell

drugs on what corner, when you see mothers cry, when you see

classmates come, taking time out from their classes, to stand over

caskets after people have been shot to death over drugs, I am telling you, it is not a pretty picture. It is a very painful picture.

And a lot of their lives are basically, their potential is being

snuffed out. When I go to a high school graduation sometimes, I

went to several this past June, and you know, when people get to

a point where literally they almost explode over the fact that their

children are graduating—in other words, they see so much hell

coming at them, and they are able to get around all of these roadblocks and graduate from high school, it is almost like the highest

religious experience you have ever had. And at one school it was

only 20 percent of the kids who started in the 9th grade, who graduated by the end of the 12th.

And so my point is, that there is a lot of pain out here so if we

are going to talk about decriminalization and all that kind of stuff,

you know, I just want you to know that, I mean, I look at this

thing as a health issue—the whole drug thing, we need more treatment, and I will say this over and over again, for people who may

become addicted. But we also have to look at the pain that is

brought upon communities.

Now, there was a time that people in the suburbs weren’t talking

about this. Let’s be frank. And now that it has infiltrated every

nook and cranny of this country. And I know about Plano, TX.

They had a thing on one of the national shows not long ago, and

I am telling you, I was spellbound. I mean, I just couldn’t—as a

matter of fact, Congresswoman Maxine Waters and I said maybe

we need to go down there and try to help out, because we understand the pain.

So hopefully America will wake up and understand that what is

happening is that we are snuffing out not a generation but generations of people. And I want to thank you for your testimony. I am

sorry I missed it earlier, but I just wanted to say that. I mean, a

lot of times people, they don’t see. They don’t see all that.

And sometimes—and then I will end with this, Mr. Chairman.

You know, Martin Luther King, Sr., said something that is so special. He said you cannot lead where you do not go, and you cannot

teach what you do not know. And I think sometimes when you

111

walk the path, as you have, and seen the pain and understood it,

and then taken that pain and turned it around and used it as a

passport to help other people, you ought to be applauded. And I

thank you, and I just want you to know I am on your side.

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

112

113

Mr. MICA. Thank you, and I want to thank each of our panelists

for being with us today, for participating in this discussion and providing us with testimony.

I might say, when I was a freshman in Congress, from 1993 to

1995, we had one hearing on national drug policy. So we at least

have attempted to try to open the debate and the discussion here

and hopefully enlightened both the Congress and the American

people about this subject, and we appreciate your helping us in

that regard.

Thank you. We will let this panel be excused.

I will call the third panel, consisting of Mr. Charles J. Hynes, the

district attorney of Kings County, NY. I believe he is going to talk

about the DTAP program.

Ms. Katherine Lapp, director of Criminal Justice, the Office of

the Governor of New York, and I think New York has completed

one of the most recent surveys relating to crime and incarceration.

Then we have Ms. Barbara Broderick, director of Adult Services

of the Administrative Office of the Courts, and she is with the

State of Arizona, and we are pleased to have her. There has been

much discussion nationally about what is going on in Arizona, and

I think this should be one of the most interesting panels that we

have had in all of our sessions this year.

I am pleased that you are joining us. As I indicated, this is an

investigations and oversight subcommittee of Congress. Please

stand and be sworn in.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. MICA. Thank you. Witnesses answered in the affirmative,

and we would be glad to include lengthy statements in the record

upon request. We do ask that you summarize. I got a little bit lax

in the last panel, but we will try to ask you to summarize in 5 minutes or so, if you can, and that will leave us time for questions. But

we do appreciate your being with us, and I will recognize first Mr.

Charles J. Hynes, district attorney of Kings County, NY. You are

recognized, sir, and welcome.

STATEMENTS OF CHARLES J. HYNES, DISTRICT ATTORNEY,

KINGS COUNTY, NY; KATHERINE N. LAPP, NEW YORK STATE

DIRECTOR OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE; AND BARBARA A. BRODERICK, STATE DIRECTOR OF ADULT PROBATION, ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICE OF THE COURTS, ARIZONA SUPREME

COURT

Mr. HYNES. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Mica,

members of the committee, and good afternoon. I would respectfully submit my full statement for the record in addition to these

charts which deal with employment and recidivism as a result of

our drug treatment program, which is what I am going to talk

about.

Mr. MICA. Without objection, they will all be made part of our

record.

Mr. HYNES. Thank you. And I am very, very pleased to be with

both Ms. Lapp and Ms. Broderick. We are all New Yorkers. Arizona

stole Ms. Broderick, and we miss her in New York. Katie Lapp is,

of course, the Governor’s chief adviser in criminal justice and an

old friend of mine.

114

I want to share some ideas I have with the committee on drug

treatment alternatives to prisons and drug treatment alternatives

to criminalization. But, first, just a brief moment on some background.

I became the district attorney in Kings County, Brooklyn, NY,

more than 10 years ago. My county had become the fifth most violent municipality per capita in the United States. Our population

of 2.3 million people witnessed the horror of the murders of between 750 and 800 men, women, and children between 1988 and

1992. In one particularly tragic year, 129 of our children, 17 years

or younger, were murdered in Brooklyn. When we assessed the reasons for the carnage, it led immediately to the conclusion that

drug-related crime, which rose from 15 percent of all arrests in

1975, in New York City, to nearly 85 percent in 1989, was directly

responsible.

It is very clear that the proliferation of drugs always leads to the

creation of profit-motivated drug gangs who arm themselves to protect their product. Out of that violence, every neighborhood, village,

town, and city is soon threatened with the same crisis level that

Brooklyn faced in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s when the phrase

‘‘drive-by shootings’’ became a common part of our lexicon.

To deal with the crisis, we considered several options, the goal

of which was to reduce the demand for drugs. And I should add

that we never considered decriminalization as an option for a host

of reasons, not the least of which is the inevitability of an illicit

drug market controlled by the same drug dealers who sell drugs

today. But I will leave that for others to expand the reasons

against decriminalization because the initiatives we formulated in

Brooklyn, in my view, moots the issue. The bi-level option we did

choose was, first, an aggressive prosecutorial approach to nonaddicted drug traffickers. We throw the key away. If you get

caught in my county and you are selling drugs and you are not a

drug addict, we will send you to prison as long as we can. For example, if you are a trafficker caught selling more than 2 ounces of

heroin or cocaine, you face a minimum period of 15 years to life in

prison. But the second part of our option was to offer a treatment

alternative prison to non-violent drug-addicted defendants who are

facing sentences as high as 41⁄2 to 9 years in prison as second felony offenders.

This second prong of our strategy, drug treatment, begun in late

1990, was the first ever prosecution controlled drug treatment program in the United States, and it is called DTAP, the Drug Treatment Alternative to Prison.

The program has been adopted by all five district attorneys of

New York City and various counties in the other parts of New York

State, and it identifies prison-bound, non-violent, second-felony offenders who commit drug crimes in order to support their habit.

Facing mandatory prison time, these defendants are thus motivated to choose diversion into long-term treatment, and our office

does the screening for suitability. We make the appropriate placement in a residential therapeutic community, and we monitor the

progress. And if they succeed, generally, in a 2-year period, we dismiss the charges. Our office also takes control over getting them

jobs and making sure they continue with their jobs.

115

But if they withdraw from the program, they are returned to the

court by a special arrest team, and they are sentenced to State

prison on the plea that they originally made in court—with no

credit for time served in our program.

DTAP has a 1-year retention rate of 66 percent, which is considerably higher than the national average. Three years after treatment, only 23 percent of our graduates have been re-arrested, compared to 48 percent of those defendants who spent a comparable

amount of time in prison on drug charges. Of our 398 graduates

to date, we have saved New York State more than $14 million in

reduced criminal justice costs, health costs, and welfare costs.

What is more, the graduates pay taxes, an average of $2,000 in

Federal, State, and local taxes every year.

Based on our experience in Brooklyn, now for nearly 10 years, I

can tell you there is another way to use existing drug laws to accomplish beneficial results without decriminalization. I agree with

the critics of New York State’s so-called Rockefeller drug laws that

it makes no sense to simply warehouse non-violent drug abuses

with long prison sentences. But rather than continuing the neverending debate over the efficacy of long prison sentences for junkies

who recycle drugs to other junkies to support their habit, we can

use these harsh laws to encourage addicts to opt for treatment. Indeed, these laws should be changed, in my view, only where treatment is mandated.

Today, we were asked by your staff, Chairman Mica, to put a

face on this, and we brought a very, very fine face, a young man

who joined our program in 1992 and is a proud 1995 graduate of

DTAP, Mr. Frederick Cohen, who is with me. I hope you will give

him a chance to say a few words sometime during this presentation.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hynes follows:]

116

117

118

119

120

121

122

123

124

125

126

127

Mr. MICA. Thank you. Did you want to identify the individual?

Mr. HYNES. This young gentleman right here.

Mr. MICA. Thank you. We will go through the panel first. We will

recognize now Ms. Katherine Lapp, director of Criminal Justice,

Office of the Governor of New York.

Ms. LAPP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for inviting

me here this morning to talk about the topic of decriminalization

of illegal drugs.

I would like to focus my remarks principally on the experience

of New York State in addressing illicit drug use and drug-driven

crime. Over the last several years, there has been much debate in

New York State about the efficacy of our drug laws, oftentimes referred to as the Rockefeller drug laws, which were enacted in 1973,

in response to the onslaught of drugs and drug-driven crime. Drug

law reform advocates have argued that the drug laws have done little to remove drugs from our communities and have only served to

imprison low-level drug addicts in our State’s prison system for

lengthy periods of time. Advocates also argue that the laws should

be repealed in whole or in part and replaced with a system to provide treatment for all drug-addicted criminals.

My response to this position is twofold: First, the facts do not

bear out the position that there are thousands of low-level drug-addicted offenders sentenced each year to State prison for lengthy periods of time on charges of pure possession of small amounts of

drugs. Second, New York State has developed a rather sophisticated and progressive system for providing drug treatment options

and alternatives to incarceration programs for dealing with drugaddicted non-violent offenders. The success of that system, however, is premised, in large part, on the fact that these offenders are

motivated to take advantage of treatment options in order to avoid

mandatory prison terms.

In a recent report issued by my office entitled, ‘‘Narrow Pathways to Prison: The Selective Incarceration of Repeat Drug Offenders in New York State,’’ we have documented that less than 10 percent of persons with no prior felony record arrested each year in

New York State for a felony-level drug offenses received sentences

of State imprisonment; the balance received sentences of local jail

time or probation. When we analyzed the group who were sentenced to State prison, we learned that 49 percent had been arrested for a Class A–1 drug offense. Of those charged with lesser

offenses, 48 percent had one or more bench warrants issued against

them while they were out on pretrial release awaiting disposition

of the drug charge.

Mr. MICA. Excuse me, could you tell us what is a Class A–1 drug

offense?

Ms. LAPP. Sure. In New York State, a Class A–1 drug offense,

is sale of 2 ounces or more of a narcotic substance or possession

of 4 ounces or more of a narcotic drug. In addition, 57 percent were

arrested at least once while out on pretrial release.

We also undertook a random review of the case files for these

first-time felony drug offenders sentenced to State prison and, in

what I believe is a very persuasive way, documented the various

reasons why they were sent to State prison. In simple terms, the

offenders gave the judges little choice as they consistently and rouVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:01 Aug 21, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00131 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\64343.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
128

tinely ‘‘thumbed their nose’’ at the system and showed little remorse for their actions or interest in seeking treatment. And, finally, those sentenced to State prison served an average of 13

months in prison—hardly the lengthy sentences which drug reform

advocates suggest.

As for repeat drug offenders, our report also documented that

only 30 percent of persons with prior felony arrest histories who

were arrested on a drug felony charge actually received a sentence

of State imprisonment.

Now, there are roughly 22,000 individuals currently serving time

in New York State prisons for drug offenses, and we have roughly

a population of over 70,000 inmates in our prison system. Eightyseven percent of the 22,000 are actually serving time for selling

drugs, not mere possession, and over 70 percent have one or more

felony convictions in their record. Of those persons serving time for

drug possession charges, 76 percent were actually arrested on sale

or intent to sell charges and pled down to possession.

It is also significant to note that despite 15 years of continuous

increases in the number of non-violent offenders sentenced to New

York State prison, we have begun to witness a stabilization and,

in fact, a slight decline in the number of non-violent offenders in

State prison. Between 1982 and 1995, the number of non-violent offenders in New York State prisons increased four-fold, from 8,200

in 1982 to 34,000 in 1996. But from 1996 to 1997, we witnessed

a slight decline, actually about 1,000 offenders, in the number of

non-violent offenders coming into our custody.

Now, that stabilization can be directly attributed to a variety of

initiatives that have diverted these otherwise prison-bound offenders into alternative treatment programs. These programs include

drug courts, the DTAP program, initiated by District Attorney

Hynes in Kings County and now replicated by numerous prosecutors throughout the State, and the State Willard Drug Treatment

Facility, implemented by Governor Pataki to provide a 90-day drug

treatment program in a secure facility for D and E repeat non-violent drug offenders who would otherwise be prison-bound. Governor

Pataki also implemented a merit time program for incarcerated

non-violent offenders which allows these offenders to be considered

for early parole release if they take part in and successfully complete in-prison substance abuse treatment programs.

Each of these treatment alternatives and early release programs

have varying degrees of success in terms of reduced recidivism

rates, perhaps the most successful being the DTAP program which

reports a recidivism rate of roughly 10 percent among its graduates

after only 1 year. What is oftentimes overlooked in analyzing the

success of these programs, however, is the fact that the program

participants are motivated to address their substance abuse because of the lengthy prison terms which loom over them. In fact,

in a recent Wall Street Journal article regarding this very issue,

Dr. Mitchell Rosenthal, head of the Phoenix House national drug

treatment organization, which participates in the DTAP program,

noted that the State’s tough drug laws have ‘‘diverted lots of people

into treatment who wouldn’t otherwise go into treatment.’’

I would submit that those who advocate a wholesale repeal of

New York State’s drug laws in favor of treatment for substanceVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:01 Aug 21, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00132 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\64343.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
129

abusing offenders actually miss the point or fail to appreciate or

choose to ignore the realities of the system. Perhaps the most compelling argument in favor of maintaining tough drug laws as a way

to motivate substance-abusing offenders is found in the reports of

the Kings County DTAP program. On average, over 30 percent of

the defendants screened and deemed eligible for the DTAP program

actually declined to participate in the 18-month residential program, opting instead to go to State prison. This despite the fact,

as District Attorney Hynes noted, if they successfully complete the

program, the charges will be dropped and wiped off their record.

Now, I submit, what are we to do with these categories of offenders

in the absence of mandatory minimums? Return them to the community? I think not.

In recent years, changes have been made to the New York State

drug laws to permit certain non-violent offenders to be diverted

from prison into treatment programs—two examples mentioned,

the Willard Drug Treatment Facility and the merit time program.

Those programs, along with DTAP, incorporate a ‘‘tough but smart’’

approach to criminal justice and substance abuse. Wholesale repeal

of drug laws is a simplistic and irresponsible approach to our country’s drug problem—simplistic because it ignores the reality of drug

use and irresponsible because it would only serve to fuel crime in

our communities.

The intrinsic link between crime and drugs is indisputable, as

any member of this Nation’s law enforcement community will attest. The 1998 Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring program report

issued by the National Institute of Justice documented that an estimated 80 percent of persons arrested each year in New York City,

regardless of charge, tested positive for drugs. It is also no coincidence that when the New York City Police Department in 1994,

began implementing a targeted and comprehensive policing strategy aimed at the street drug trade in some of the highest crime

areas in that city, those communities witnessed unprecedented reductions in crime—reductions, I might add, which outpaced those

in other areas of the city. This same trend has been witnessed

throughout the Nation, as noted in the 1999 National Drug Control

Strategy report, which reported that drug-related murders decreased by 42 percent from 1991 to 1997, as drug arrests increased

by 57 percent during that period.

So, in closing, I would submit that our drug laws work and the

effective drug treatment options we have operating in New York

State for drug-addicted offenders are successful because of them.

Repeal or wholesale revisions to those laws would only serve to undermine the successes we have enjoyed over the last several years

in New York State, with index crime down by 28 percent since

1994, more than four times the national average, and our communities being the safest they have been since the 1960’s.

Thank you once again for inviting me here today.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Lapp follows:]

130

131

132

133

134

135

136

137

138

139

140

141

142

143

144

145

146

147

148

149

Mr. MICA. Thank you for your testimony.

We will recognize now Ms. Barbara Broderick, director of Adult

Services, Administrative Office of the Courts, from Arizona.

Ms. BRODERICK. Thank you, chairman and members of the committee. I would ask to have my written testimony submitted.

Mr. MICA. Without objection, we will make that part of the

record. And if you would just pull that mic as close as possible, we

will be able to hear.

Ms. BRODERICK. Sure.

Mr. MICA. Thank you.

Ms. BRODERICK. I also will attempt to shorten my version.

I am not here to discuss decriminalization of drugs but rather,

to relate to you a strategy that I think is very promising to taxpayers and to public safety. It is a system that talks about strong

probation with available and effective drug treatment services. One

point I have to make very clear: while the courts can provide you

with information, basically, on drugs and about drug offenders, we

take no position in terms of legalization. That rightfully belongs

with the legislative and the executive branches of Government.

I am the director, as you stated, of probation programs at the

State level in Arizona. Our probation system is very different than

a lot of other States. We are under the auspices of the judiciary,

and we have a decentralized system with the 15 counties. Each

chief probation officer reports directly to the presiding judge of our

superior court.

Another thing that is very fortunate about Arizona, we have a

very well-funded probation system. I grant you it has probably one

of the best supervision and control mechanisms in the Nation. We

have in statute for standard supervision, 1 officer to 60 adults. For

our youth, it is 1 officer to 35. For our high-risk felons, it is 2 to

25. When you have a system like that, what you start to look for

is how do you actually bring in the treatment services. That is

what was lacking in Arizona.

In 1996, the citizens passed Proposition 200, better known as the

Drug Medicalization, Prevention and Control Act. This particular

act, I am happy to say, gave us the ability to bring in more drug

treatment dollars to the courts, close to $3.1 million. It also

brought in another $3.1 million to a parents commission that basically deals with prevention. And it brought in another $2.7 million

to our Department of Corrections to actually place programs in the

facilities to deal with substance abuse.

In Arizona, not unlike the rest of the Nation, two out of three

people on community supervision have a substance abuse problem.

We also have the ability to use the National Institute of Justice’s

Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring Program, better known as ADAM,

and if you look at the 1998 annual report, you will see that Phoenix is listed. Basically, 63 percent of the men who are arrested test

positive for drugs, and more alarming, perhaps, is the fact that 71

percent of the women also test positive for drugs.

The first report I am going to talk to you about—and I will be

talking about two—is going to be dealing with what we call the

Drug Treatment and Education Fund. This is the fund that was

made available through Proposition 200 and came into the probation system.

150

First, and probably most importantly, the DTEF—as we call it,

very similar to DTAP—hypothesis is: If substance-abusing offenders can be accurately and effectively assessed as to the risk and degree of substance abuse, and these offenders can be matched with

effective treatment interventions determined through research to

confront their presenting problems, and supervised closely by probation, then substance-abusing behaviors can be reduced or eliminated, offenders’ quality of life will improve through recovery, community safety will increase, and incarceration will be primarily reserved for the violent and chronic offender.

Now, one problem that emerged with the passage of DTEF was

the idea that we could not use jail as a sanction for revocation. One

of the fallacies to that—and that has been a part of what the national press has talked about—is we can—it is at the discretion of

the judge. At the time he or she decides to sentence, they can impose up to a year of jail time as a condition of probation. And when

we find people in non-compliant behavior, we can go back to the

court and ask the court to impose a sanction of jail.

We have also gotten very creative because, as a part of the

DTEF, we are not allowed to send back first and second non-violent

possessing offenders to prison. So we have gotten very creative in

terms of the sanctions that we will use. We have done things like

move people into intensive probation. We have moved them into

day reporting. There is nothing worse than having to come down

to a probation office at 7:30 a.m., and 7:30 p.m. We have also established more and more programs.

Now, our first year, the accomplishments were very encouraging.

We created basically 2,600 more treatment slots, and they range

from everything from education classes right on through to longterm residential beds. Arizona is a rural State. We have one big

metropolitan area and one suburban. We have Phoenix and we

have Tucson. The rest of the State is very, very small. We have actually created a tremendous amount of treatment slots in very

rural counties.

What we found was the following: In our first year of operation—

and it was partial operation—we were able to basically match offenders into appropriate treatment over 90 percent of the time. We

were also able to have 932 people go through treatment, and 3 out

of 5 of those people completed successfully.

Now, one of the problems—or not necessarily a problem—was our

first year, we did not look at an outcome evaluation. We have not

found the recidivism data. We do not have quality-of-life information to give you. We have preliminary results, and you have to take

these very cautiously. But they are good. We basically found that

primarily 75 percent of the offenders could offset their treatment

by at least paying for part of it. We also found that about 77 percent of them remained drug-free. We also found that probation coupled with treatment was cheaper than incarceration.

Now, the second report that I am going to talk to you about is

probably more methodologically sound. It is an audit that was conducted by our Office of the Auditor General, and they came in with

a question that was posed by the legislature, and I will read the

question. The legislature asked: ‘‘How effective are substance abuse

programs at reducing abuse and crime, and do they contribute to

151

the successful completion of probation?’’ The audit came in and basically had to answer that question.

They looked at 845 cases, randomly selected from four counties,

representing 80 percent of our population. Those four counties had

two of the big urban areas and two rurals. Basically, what they

found out is the following: Probation with treatment works. Eightyfive percent, very similar to what D.A. Hynes was talking about,

of the individuals who were in drug treatment and successfully

completed it then went on to successfully complete probation. This

is a 4-year study. Those people who were in alcohol treatment with

probation, 80 percent went on, if they completed treatment, to complete their probation successfully. Now, by contrast, those people

who refused to go into treatment, only 22 percent of them completed their probation successfully.

Another interesting statistic is, only 57 percent of the people who

were not identified actually were ever able to complete the probation.

I can go on. There are some other interesting ones that deal with

employment. Ninety percent of the people who are consistently employed will do well. Those people who do not stay consistently employed will do poorer, about 40 percent, and the same is true for

those who have paid full restitution and do their community work

service. People who do their probation will do well.

In conclusion, I just want to talk to you about something that

Joan Petersilia’s work talked about. She is the former director of

RAND’s Criminal Justice Research Center, and she is a professor

at the University of California at Davis. Basically, she recognizes

the probation system and the treatment system in Arizona as one

of the most effective. We believe that probationers, if they can become clean and sober, will maintain jobs, they will pay in full their

restitution, and they will live law-abiding lives, resulting in safer

communities, improved family and social relationships, increased

productivity and wages, and decreased health costs.

Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Broderick follows:]

152

153

154

155

156

157

158

159

160

161

162

163

164

165

166

167

168

169

170

171

172

173

174

175

176

177

178

179

180

181

182

183

184

185

186

187

188

189

190

191

192

193

194

195

196

197

198

199

200

201

202

203

204

205

206

207

208

209

210

211

212

213

214

215

216

217

218

219

220

221

222

223

224

225

226

227

228

229

230

231

232

233

Mr. MICA. We thank each of you for your testimony.

Mr. HYNES. Mr. Chairman, may I ask for your indulgence to

have 1 minute for Mr. Cohen?

Mr. MICA. Yes, in just 1 second. I want to make this announcement to the panel before I lose some of these folks.

I was informed by the Attorney General yesterday evening that

the Mexican Supreme Court ruled in favor of extradition for Mr.

Del Toro. Several weeks ago, we had a very compelling hearing

about the problem with extradition of that individual. I don’t know

that this is the case. The Attorney General told me, I believe, yesterday or today, he will be extradited to the United States. So I do

want to thank all of the members of the panel. Mr. Miller also

asked me to convey his thanks to you, and those of you who participated in the hearing, we appreciate it.

Yes?

Mr. BARR. Did the Justice Department have to agree not to seek

the death penalty, though?

Mr. MICA. Yes.

Mr. BARR. Is that the price——

Mr. MICA. That is the unfortunate part. I did talk to Mr. Bellush

yesterday. It is unfortunate that is one of the conditions which

Mexico insists on for all their extraditions. But at least there will

be some justice in the case. So I do thank you, and we also received

the thanks of Mr. Bellush and his family yesterday.

Mrs. MINK. Will the chairman yield?

Mr. MICA. Yes.

Mrs. MINK. I would like to commend the chairman and our colleague, Mr. Miller, for bringing the matter to the subcommittee

and giving us an opportunity to have input. I would particularly

like to compliment my colleague, Mr. Cummings, for his role in

achieving this result. It is a tribute to your leadership, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MICA. Well, as I told the press, we were fortunate on that

case. But we still have 274 to go, so we can only pat ourselves on

the back a little bit. But, again, after that hearing, I think everyone feels a little bit of satisfaction in what we were able to achieve.

So thank you.

I do apologize. I meant to do that at the beginning of the hearing

and didn’t get a chance to inform my colleagues on the panel of

that information.

You were going to introduce this gentleman?

Mr. HYNES. Frederick Cohen is a 1995 graduate of the drug

treatment program. I know he has no more than 1 minute to talk

to you about his experience.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Cohen, if you could come up, and would you mind

just standing for a second and being sworn?

[Witness sworn.]

Mr. MICA. Thank you and welcome, and we will recognize you for

a statement.

STATEMENT OF FREDERICK COHEN, GRADUATE OF DRUG

TREATMENT ALTERNATIVE TO PRISON PROGRAM

Mr. COHEN. Thank you. Thank you very much, Chairman Mica,

for having me and allowing me 1 minute to briefly speak to you.

234

I heard a lot of interesting things today in discussing the legalization of drugs. A lot of things were rallying to my ears. I want

to share with you briefly, a story about a drug history and an outcome, a personal story.

At the age of 9 to 11, I began drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana, which for me, marijuana was a gateway drug which led me

to use other drugs. By the age of 14, I had done PCP, LSD, cocaine,

Valium, and hashish. I had experimented with mushrooms, assorted hallucinogens. In fact, this was in the early 1980’s. I had

done Ectasy at that time. I frequented the Washington, DC, area

and tried what they called Love Boat at that time, which was PCP

sprinkled over marijuana. By the time I was 16, I actually began

to sell drugs in order to support my habit. At the same time, I committed petty non-violent crimes to obtain money to support this

habit.

It was at that time that I understood that if I wanted to get high,

I would have to devise a way to do so. So I began to sell drugs,

and I would take the profits that I made selling drugs to supply

my habit. This continued and by the time I was 22 years old, I was

smoking crack daily in the streets of New York. I met all the criteria for chemical dependency at that time, and I continued to use

drugs for 4 years after that, despite the negative consequences.

And you may ask yourself, what type of background did I have

and what type of life did I lead during this time? Well, I was a Boy

Scout. I was a Cub Scout, and I went to Weplo and I became a

first-class Boy Scout as a juvenile. I graduated valedictorian from

a private high school in New York City. From there I went on to

college with hopes and dreams of becoming a computer scientist.

All during this time I was using drugs. I dropped out of college because my chemical dependency problem caught up with me and I

could no longer concentrate on my studies.

I remember leaving college and obtaining certain types of employment from bank tellers to computer operators to accountants to

construction workers and security guards. All jobs were lost due to

my chemical dependency problem, the absenteeism and the tardiness.

I remember getting arrested on several occasions for petty

crimes, for petty possessions, and doing small amounts of time, up

to a year. None of this was a deterrent for my substance abuse

problem. I remember the hardship. I remember the homelessness.

None of this was a deterrent. I remember losing my family, losing

my friends, and yet still I used substances.

The only deterrent for me was the threat of serious sentencing

from the district attorney’s office of Kings County. I was arrested

again, for a second felon, and I faced a minimum of 41⁄2 to 9 years.

It was at that point that the district attorney’s office actually offered me an opportunity to get my life together. It was either I do

the minimum sentence of 41⁄2 years or I opt for a drug treatment

alternative to prison program and get my life together with the

promise of the case being dismissed. The district attorney’s office

gave me another opportunity at life.

It was at that point that I realized the destruction that the

chemical dependency had caused in my life, and I took advantage

of that opportunity. I took advantage of the opportunity because

235

the manipulative, addictive mind-set said, ‘‘Hey, 18 to 24 months

is far better than 41⁄2 to 9 years.’’ I went into the program, I excelled, and I found out a lot of things about myself, about drug use,

about how to restructure my life, and about how to be responsible.

To make a long story short, I went from a welfare recipient, a

beggar on the street, to the program director at the Project Return

Foundation where I make over $45,000 a year. I pay over $10,000

a year in taxes today. I am a home owner. I pay property taxes.

And I am a voting American citizen.

In conclusion, I just want to say that legalizing drugs perpetuates the illness. Arresting people actually bandages the illness.

Arresting people with an alternative to incarceration remedies the

illness.

I want to thank the committee for hearing me. I want to thank

District Attorney, Charles Hynes, for saving my life. I want to

thank the assistant district attorney, Samaritan Village, and the

Project Return Foundation for all their help and all their efforts.

Thank you once again.

Mr. MICA. Thank you for your testimony. I think you have provided an interesting chronology of how this whole problem has affected you personally. It doesn’t sound like you would be much of

an advocate then for reducing tough enforcement. It sounds like

tough enforcement is the only thing that got you to the point where

you had to choose. Is that correct?

Mr. COHEN. That is absolutely correct.

Mr. MICA. What do you think, time to liberalize some of these

tough laws, Mr. Hynes?

Mr. HYNES. Mr. Chairman, as I said, these harsh laws we use

as creating an opportunity to have people save their lives. And if

we are going to make modification of the so-called Rockefeller drug

laws, we better do it with mandated treatment.

Mr. MICA. Did they alter the laws to give you the discretion at

that point? Or was there enough——

Mr. HYNES. Sir, I have an obligation. Once a grand jury returns

an indictment in these kinds of cases, I lose all discretion. This is

pre-indictment.

Mr. MICA. Pre-indictment.

Mr. HYNES. Yes.

Mr. MICA. It was interesting to hear Ms. Broderick. I have heard

quite a bit about the Arizona—I don’t want to say experiment—but

the Arizona approach and some of the preliminary data. You are

telling us that there is not a decriminalization under this law. Is

that correct?

Ms. BRODERICK. Probation is a very strong and viable sanction

in Arizona.

Mr. MICA. But you told us, you said that you can still—you hold

over their heads——

Ms. BRODERICK. Correct.

Mr. MICA [continuing]. Incarceration and the tough penalty.

Ms. BRODERICK. The judge may impose that as a condition of probation.

Mr. MICA. So it is actually withheld based on a performance, but

some 30 percent are sent back to the—or I forget what your failure

rate. I guess it varies?

236

Ms. BRODERICK. Actually, there are two things going on here.

One is the way in which a person is sentenced, and the way the

sentencing laws are in Arizona, for first-time possession and second-time possession, the person must be sentenced to probation. In

Arizona——

Mr. MICA. OK. That is important. You said first-time possession?

Ms. BRODERICK. And second-time possession. People must get

probation, and there must be no violence in their background. And

it is an incident of violence, which means a simple arrest. So it is

truly first-time drug possession, second-time drug possession.

Mr. MICA. First-time drug possession is mandatory probation,

but with the caveat that there can be some incarceration if they

don’t complete their probation.

Ms. BRODERICK. Correct. As a condition of probation, a judge

may impose up to a year of jail.

Mr. MICA. OK. That is different than what the public perception

is.

Ms. BRODERICK. Correct, and that is one of the clarifications I

wanted——

Mr. MICA. I have not seen that in any of the news stories or editorials that I have read to date. And the second time, how does

it——

Ms. BRODERICK. Same thing. The judge can impose up to a year

of deferred jail time. Now, why there is some confusion is the fact

that in the revocation process, which is a way in which probation

usually comes forward and says to the judge we would like this

person to be revoked, we no longer have that as an option if there

is just simple non-compliance and the year jail time that has been

deferred has been used up. So that is probably where some of the

confusion may be.

Mr. MICA. And what substances are taken into account by firsttime possession? Is that marijuana, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, all drugs?

Ms. BRODERICK. All drugs.

Mr. MICA. And what about quantities?

Ms. BRODERICK. That varies depending on——

Mr. MICA. What is the triggering——

Ms. BRODERICK. I don’t know off the top of my head. I am sorry.

I can tell you that the bulk of people that are coming through are

principally methamphetamine—I look no different than Iowa—and

marijuana.

Mr. MICA. And I heard small numbers quoted here, like you said

932 have been in that program?

Ms. BRODERICK. Correct. The program——

Mr. MICA. Over what period of time?

Ms. BRODERICK. It is 1 year.

Mr. MICA. So for 1 year.

Ms. BRODERICK. Correct.

Mr. MICA. And how big is your prison population?

Ms. BRODERICK. About 27,000, and under probation we have

about 35,000.

Mr. MICA. But in your program, under probation in your program, it has only been 932?

Ms. BRODERICK. 2,622 people actually received services.

237

Mr. MICA. I am sorry, 2,000?

Ms. BRODERICK. 2,622, and 932 in a given year graduated, either

successfully or not. Like I said, three out of five were successful

and two out of five were not, and they went on either to be reassessed and placed in a different type of treatment, or they committed a new crime or perhaps absconded.

Mr. MICA. Has this resulted in any decrease in your prison population?

Ms. BRODERICK. That is a very difficult question to answer and

something that we will be looking to in the future. But Arizona is

a growth State, so one has to take into account the numbers coming into the State. So our at-risk population keeps growing.

Mr. MICA. But if I go back and look at 1996—when did this start,

1995?

Ms. BRODERICK. The law was passed in 1996. The program became effective in 1997.

Mr. MICA. So we would look at 1997 and 1998, and we factor in

population growth, too. But do you know if the population incarcerated in the State prison has increased or decreased?

Ms. BRODERICK. I am assuming it has increased because the population on probation has also increased. Our population growth is

just so great, and there are other factors that are going on, being

a border State with Mexico.

Mr. MICA. And your crime, though, is generally down, according

to national trends?

Ms. BRODERICK. Unfortunately, Phoenix is not one of the cities

that is down.

Mr. MICA. Phoenix is not down?

Ms. BRODERICK. No.

Mr. MICA. Does that mean the State is not down?

Ms. BRODERICK. I think where goes Phoenix, so goes the State.

Mr. MICA. So the State is not down, either?

Ms. BRODERICK. Correct.

Mr. MICA. Because I look at your prison population and the

crime rate, I know—I come from a growth State, Florida, and we

have a lot of that. But most of the people who come to our State

are the least likely to commit crimes unless it is——

Ms. BRODERICK. Not that I want to have a commerce debate with

you——

Mr. MICA [continuing]. Driving behind the wheel of their car and

not being able to see the dashboard. But we won’t get into that.

Ms. BRODERICK. That fits two sections of our State, also.

Mr. MICA. I have heard a lot about the DTAP program. It is impressive, and certainly this gentleman that you brought along is an

example. DTAP, though, is part of a very tough—now, Kings—I

don’t—I am the fourth one from New York. I am from upstate New

York, but I am not that familiar with the city geography. Kings

County, is that part of the metropolitan——

Mr. HYNES. We are one of the five counties of New York City.

We are the largest county in New York State by population.

Mr. MICA. Now, where does Giuliani fit into the picture? Is he

also——

Mr. HYNES. Anywhere he wants to be, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MICA. But is the—would he be the mayor of——

238

Mr. HYNES. He is the mayor of the five counties of New York

City.

Mr. MICA. OK. That is my question. He has had a tough enforcement policy.

Mr. HYNES. Yes.

Mr. MICA. And you, therefore, have had a tough enforcement policy combined with this program, which—and you said this is preindictment or——

Mr. HYNES. It is pre-indictment, and I must make a point that

there are some good things that preceded the mayor. He is not responsible for all the good things that happened in New York City.

Mr. MICA. You know what? We don’t want to hear that. [Laughter.]

But it is impressive.

Mr. HYNES. Yes, it is.

Mr. MICA. By any standard.

Mr. HYNES. I can tell you that the crime reductions are extraordinary. We have a 61 percent reduction since 1990, in the seven

major categories of crime, the index crimes. It is really extraordinary. But I believe it is fundamentally part of the strategy of

being very, very tough on violent crime and drug traffickers that

are not addicted and having this piece put in, which is to offer an

opportunity, as we did for Mr. Cohen.

The third part of the fundamental change is we have an extraordinary education program. We have had 135,000 kids through our

program since 1990, 10 hours a month for the entire school year,

which is run by my prosecutors who teach kids two essential values: that it is wrong to hate anyone regardless of what the difference might be, and that drugs are about death. It has been an

extraordinary program. It has been replicated in about 12 cities in

America and about 8 counties in the State.

So I think it has got to be a coordinated strategy. I don’t think

anyone would suggest that prison alone works. It has to be a much

broader strategy.

Mr. MICA. Now, you also had some numbers. I thought I had

them down here, but I don’t——

Mr. HYNES. There are 398 graduates, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MICA. OK. But that is not a whole lot of——

Mr. HYNES. No, it is not. But if you begin to look at the numbers,

I mean, Ryker’s Island, which is our local prison, the cost, I think,

will astound you. It is $69,000 for 1 year. Now, it takes us about

6 months to get someone involved in drugs out of the downstate

prison up to upstate. So it is about $34,500 for 6 months of incarceration. Then we ship them upstate for the remainder of their sentence, and you are talking about another $15,000 for that second

6 months, and then $30,000 for the next year and subsequent

years. So while the numbers seem, I guess, a drop in the bucket,

if you begin to look at all of the money—this is Anne Sweren, who

is my deputy. She gives me charts because I can’t read. She would

be more than happy to explain them if you would like.

But if you look at the money that is spent, for this 398 population, it is extraordinary. It is $14 million, and that is documented.

Mr. MICA. Well, I don’t want to hog all the time. Mr. Cummings.

239

Mr. CUMMINGS. Yes, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Hynes, let me ask you, one of the problems that a lot of jurisdictions face is trying to figure out how to have effective drug

treatment.

Mr. HYNES. Well, you begin with a very preliminary problem.

When you talk about drug treatment, you are almost always accused of being soft on crime. It took us a long time to be able to

get the word out that you can do this thing in a tough, coercive

way. I tell the story of one of my colleagues that someone from the

public defender’s office wanted to help us run the program, and I

told him I didn’t need his help, I will run the program, I will decide

who goes into my program. We typically knock out two-thirds of

the people who are eligible. As was mentioned before by Ms. Lapp,

you will get 30 percent who won’t take the program because it is

too tough.

I think the prosecutors have got to make the argument that you

can’t continue to build prisons without alternative strategies. Prisons ought to be used for people who you can send away until they

are too old to hurt people, too old to commit crime. But I think you

have got to look at a strategy that says let’s give someone like Fred

Cohen a chance, let’s try it because it works. So there has to be,

I think, a much broader strategy.

I am the director for New York State representing the 62 counties on the national board, and I say to my colleagues all over the

country that it is a program that works, you ought to try it. But

you are going to have to deal with the reality. When you initially

talk about it, people are going to look at you askance and wonder

if you are soft on crime all of a sudden.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Well, thank you for that response, but that

wasn’t my question. Let me try to zero in on what I am talking

about.

When I say effective, I mean the treatment itself. In other words,

in Maryland, we have a lot of treatment programs, but the question

is whether they are effective with the individual. Do you follow

what I am saying?

Mr. HYNES. I understand.

Mr. CUMMINGS. We have a lot of people throughout, and—wait

a minute, hold on—and I guess what I am trying to get to, is it

is clear, based upon what you have just said, that you have a lot

of confidence in the program itself.

Mr. HYNES. Right.

Mr. CUMMINGS. And I am asking you, what does that program

entail, and apparently it is effective, so how do you make sure——

Mr. HYNES. I apologize for misunderstanding.

Mr. CUMMINGS. No, that is OK. It is no problem.

Mr. HYNES. But let me tell you what—let me tell you about the

Holy Grail of this program—jobs. Because if you have a drug treatment program and there is no job component, you are going to get

a 12 to 14 percent success rate.

By the way, I take that, but it doesn’t work unless you have jobs,

and that is why our retention rate jumps up to 66 percent after 1

year. If you can create a model in Maryland or Indiana or Georgia

or anywhere you want, create a model that has tough, coercive alVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:01 Aug 21, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00243 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\64343.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
240

ternatives and a job component at the end of the program, you are

going to get success.

Mr. CUMMINGS. You know, it is interesting. Before I came to

Congress—this is an interesting point you just made. Before I came

to Congress, I created a program in my church where we worked

with people who were coming out of boot camp programs, and not

1 dime of Government money was used, all volunteers, young men

like the young man sitting there, who wanted to help and advise.

But one of the key pieces of it was, the business community got involved and helped folk with jobs. You are absolutely right.

We saw things began to really change. We saw people who—guys

would come up to us and say, you know, a light bulb came on because now I am working and I am getting the treatment. Now I

have found that fun is being with my 2-year-old as opposed to

standing on the corner. And I guess the job thing allows—does

something else. What I noticed is, a lot of the problem was, these

guys would come out of prison and go right back to the corner. And

if they could just stay away from the corner, that would be very,

very helpful.

Mr. HYNES. The breakthrough in our program was going to a

plant manager of a major corporation in Brooklyn and saying this

is what I have in mind, and he just looked at me, and he said, ‘‘Listen, you know, I know you from a lot of other jobs you had, I mean,

you want to put junkies on my factory floor?’’ And I said, ‘‘do you

have an alcohol rehab program?’’ He said, ‘‘Of course, we do, very

progressive.’’ I said, ‘‘I will give you the same quality, and maybe

even better.’’ And that broke through.

Now, Anne Sweren, who is my deputy who runs the program,

just had a meeting the other day, a luncheon meeting. We had 45

business people. They are on line waiting to hire my people. It is

the breakthrough. And everywhere it has been tried, it is very successful.

Mr. CUMMINGS. And is there monitoring with regard to those?

When you send somebody to get a job, do you monitor them, too?

Mr. HYNES. Yes, sir, we do.

Mr. CUMMINGS. To what extent? I mean, is it just checking the

drug use, or is it more than that?

Mr. HYNES. Well, I mean, the drug use ultimately leads to arrest.

We do have our failures, no question about it. But we regularly

check in with our work force, and we find a great deal of success.

And you are right, if they are not hanging out on the street corner,

they feel good about themselves and the edge of success is assured.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Barr.

Mr. BARR. Mr. Hynes, you may have covered this, and if you did,

I apologize. But what if somebody goes through the DTAP program

and then later on there is a problem? They successfully complete

it and later on they have a problem.

Mr. HYNES. There is no longer a chance. They have had their

chance. But the more difficult thing is that someone might go

through it for 19 months and walk away, Mr. Barr. And we have

an enforcement team that is very effective. We pick them up. They

don’t get time served for a minute in our program. And they know

241

it. They know it when they go in. So they go back to the original

sentence.

Mr. BARR. That is very similar to a first offender program, for

example, that we have in Georgia that applies.

Mr. HYNES. Yes.

Mr. BARR. When you first instituted this program, was everybody

on board, or did you have some detractors?

Mr. HYNES. Heavens no. I mean, people on my own staff said,

‘‘Are you crazy? You have to run for office. If, God forbid, someone

walks off the program and hurts someone, you know, how are you

going to face the people?’’ And I said, ‘‘I am going to say a prayer

every day,’’ and thank God we have never had a problem. But,

sure, there was a great deal of resistance.

Mr. BARR. What was the general nature of that? I know there

seems to be always inherent opposition to anything that changes

the status quo. But how would you summarize the type of opposition that you faced?

Mr. HYNES. It was political fear. It was that simple. People on

my staff were saying—you know, I had a lot of appointed jobs. I

was in private practice a lot of years, but I had a lot of appointed

jobs. I was the fire commissioner of New York City. And someone

said, you know, this is the first time you have run and been elected

to something, and you better be very careful. And I said, look, if

we are going to remain—you know, maintain the status quo, as you

suggest, Mr. Barr—and you have been a prosecutor—you will never

get a change. So we took the chance and it has worked, and my

only disappointment is that it has not expanded to the extent that

it can. We have had great support from Governor Pataki through

his criminal justice adviser, Katie Lapp, but we have—there is

unending conflict in our legislature with the two houses represented by two different parties, and it is difficult to get agreement on expansion.

Mr. BARR. How about within the city? The chairman mentioned

the mayor. Do you work with him? Do you have a good relationship?

Mr. HYNES. Yes, the mayor has been supportive. The city council,

you know, funds most of my budget, and we get approval from that

segment. But most of our funding comes from the State.

Mr. BARR. Have you discussed this program and received support

or have others taken it on? And a couple come to my mind, the National District Attorneys Association?

Mr. HYNES. Oh, yes. I represent the State on the board, and

some counties are very, very interested. The problem is two things:

first, getting beyond the reaction, the visceral reaction that, you

know, you are going to put people like this in a program? I don’t

know if I should take that chance. But once you get beyond that,

the money saved is demonstrable. And once we get beyond that, I

think it is pretty easy, but it is the first step.

Mr. BARR. How about the folks at Main Justice?

Mr. HYNES. I have had a number of conversations with the Attorney General. She has been very helpful to us in supporting the program. Actually, she came up to—the corporation that first signed

on was Pfizer, and she came up to the anniversary of Pfizer a couple of weeks ago in Brooklyn, and she was very pleased to hear

242

from this former plant chairman how happy he was with the program.

Mr. BARR. Is there anything in particular that we could do, both

on this subcommittee as well as, perhaps, the Congress generally?

Mr. HYNES. It is all about resources, Representative Barr. If we

had money to expand this program by perhaps 4,000 or 5,000 slots,

I think we could effect an incredible change in public safety, even

for all of the positive changes we have in my city and my State.

I think the more people we could put into this program and turn

them from drug addict criminals into taxpayers, the better it would

be for public safety. So if we could get some kind of visible support

through direct grants to prosecutors, through the State DAs Association, that would be terrific, through the National DAs Association, that would be great.

Mr. BARR. And you don’t receive any Federal funds for the program?

Mr. HYNES. Well, most of the Federal funds are—if they are targeted, they go through the State government, and Ms. Lapp can

speak to that more eloquently than I can. But I think we have had

a number of conversations with——

Mr. BARR. Another chart you can’t read?

Mr. HYNES. No. This is from Katie Lapp. The Byrne money has

been cut by 10 percent during the current budget. Restoring that

would be very helpful. But the Deputy Attorney General, Eric

Holder, had a conference of about 25 prosecutors around the country, and Ralph Martin from Boston, whom I am sure you are familiar with, complained to him that, you know, if you don’t have a

particularly good idea and someone happens to slip it to you, you

get funded. But if you got a great idea and you want to expand it,

you have no money for enhancement. Eric Holder is now committed

to helping us with direct grants to prosecutors to allow us to enhance programs. So if we get some support from the Congress, this

committee, you know, for drug treatment expansion, that would be

wonderful.

Mr. BARR. Thank you very much.

Mr. HYNES. Thank you, sir.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Ose.

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HYNES. I am a lawyer, Mr. Ose, I am sorry to say.

Mr. OSE. I am sorry?

Mr. HYNES. I am a lawyer, I am sorry to say.

Mr. OSE. Well, we will see how you are.

Mr. HYNES. OK.

Mr. OSE. I look at the testimony, your written testimony here on

page 4, and it highlights the difference after a 3-year treatment period, really highlighting the difference of about 25 percent, that

being the differential from the two treatment modalities.

Mr. HYNES. No, it is from treatment as opposed to prison.

Mr. OSE. Well, treatment—not treatment in the sense of medical

treatment, but how you treat the person that is there in front of

you in court.

Mr. HYNES. Right.

243

Mr. OSE. There is a 25 percent difference in terms of re-arresting, equating to around $14 million in reduced criminal justice

costs.

Mr. HYNES. Right.

Mr. OSE. And health and welfare costs. That is remarkable. That

is only 400 people?

Mr. HYNES. That is right.

Mr. OSE. That is remarkable.

Mr. HYNES. I think, as I said to my associate coming over here,

the true figure is a heck of a lot higher, and I will tell you why.

The average drug addict goes to jail for life on the installment plan.

So if you took half those people, you are talking over a 50-year life

expectancy—you know, a 50-year life of crime, you are talking

about a lot of money.

Mr. OSE. Because that $14 million only relates to a 3-year period.

Mr. HYNES. Yes, sir.

Mr. OSE. Now, the other question I have, Ms. Lapp, you have—

I am not quite sure I read it here other than maybe implicitly, but

both of you—I am sorry, Ms. Broderick. I haven’t quite read your

testimony yet. Both of you suggest that repeal of drug laws will not

satisfy or address our problem, and I perceive there is concern on

both your parts that, in fact, this is inappropriate behavior on people’s part and we need to help them stop this behavior. Am I correct in that?

Mr. HYNES. Well, Mr. Ose, we were well served, I think, by the

testimony of this young man, and I don’t think you were in the

room. What he said was very, very clear. It wasn’t until he faced

41⁄2 to 9 years in prison that we got his attention, and so he would

believe that harsh punishment led him to change his life. He is

now a program director of a major agency and paying $10,000 a

year in income tax.

Mr. OSE. The reason I asked that question, I could hardly contain my disbelief at the testimony from some members of the second panel that marijuana in particular is a behavioral pattern that

we should overlook. Is it your conclusion that we should or should

not overlook marijuana use?

Mr. HYNES. I don’t believe for a moment that we should overlook

marijuana use. Indeed, the testimony of Frederick Cohen a few

minutes ago was that he began his substance problems with marijuana and booze. You know, I have heard marijuana advocates say

endlessly that there is no data that would suggest that because you

use marijuana you naturally will go on to the next drug. I look at

it in the reverse way. If you speak to the average hard-core drug

abuser, they will tell you that certainly marijuana was their first

introduction to drugs.

Mr. OSE. Their gateway.

Mr. HYNES. Yes, their gateway, right. And that is exactly the

word Mr. Cohen used.

Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, I can’t—I sat here literally in disbelief

at the second panel to have that gentleman suggest that we should

over—I just—I am sorry. I had to leave the room. And I thank you

for tolerating this. Thank you.

Mr. MICA. Don’t leave the room. Stay and engage, Mr. Ose. It is

more fun that way.

244

We appreciate all of the testimony. It is fascinating to hear more

about the Arizona experience, and, again, we would like to get

some additional data, I think, on that approach. You know, we

have a responsibility here to see what is going on across the country and what is effective and what isn’t effective. And we do spend

a lot of money. Believe it or not, I think, in the last 6 years, we

have almost doubled the treatment money from the Federal level,

which filters down into the State level and these local programs.

Mr. Barr just said that if the New York State program is effective,

then we should make certain that funds get to these programs that

are effective. That is all I care about, that it is effective and we are

doing something about the problem Mr. Cummings has in Baltimore or New York or Arizona or wherever it may be. I think that

is our major interest.

So we would like to hear more about your program. Did you want

to comment?

Ms. BRODERICK. Chairman Mica, there is going to be a full-blown

evaluation that will be done looking at it after we really have been

in existence a little bit longer. I was required by the law to do an

initial report, and it basically—that initial report that really got a

lot of attention was about a first-year implementation program,

going to what Congressman Cummings was talking about in terms

of best practice. We are working with all 15 departments to try and

come up with research-based best practice so we can go out and

contract with really good, effective treatment providers. So hopefully, about 10 months from now, you will see some long-term evaluation that really gets to outcome, not the preliminary data that

we talked about.

The other thing, if I can just put in a pitch to Congressman Barr,

there is some funding for residential substance abuse and treatment, RSAT. It is not available to community corrections. It is only

for institutions. It would be wonderful if you could see if there is

a way to open up some of that funding so that probation departments and not-for-profits and ATI programs could actually access

some of that.

Mr. BARR. Could I just ask one quick question on that, Mr.

Chairman?

Mr. MICA. Go right ahead.

Mr. BARR. Would you send me, either directly or through the

chairman, either way, just a few details on that so that we could

maybe draft something up?

Ms. BRODERICK. Sure, I would be glad to.

Mr. BARR. Thank you.

Mr. MICA. The other thing we planned to look at as a panel is

the amount—the way this money filters down to the States and the

programs. I believe it is administered by SAMHSA, and the preliminary information is that we spend an incredible amount on administering the programs and the grants, and they end up going

into State programs or local programs that are already in existence, that already get State money. I think it was $129 million we

have identified in overhead, which sounds like just paring that

down and maybe going to a grant system to these locales we could

put, let’s say, $120 million into the system and use $9 million to

245

administer, dividing it up, which seems like it would be much more

effective.

The other thing we did in some of our preliminary studies—and

we used Florida as an example when I had to testify before—not

testify, but participate in a State summit. We found an interesting

phenomenon in Florida, and we will see if it is repeated across the

country, which, in fact, the Federal Government has dramatically

increased the amount of treatment money. But then we are finding

that the States—in particular, we verified that with Florida. As the

Feds increased the money to the States for treatment, the legislatures decreased the amount. And it was one of these things, we

went up, they went down, and so the money was being shuffled

around at the State level. And we need to look at that because we

want the money to go into the programs.

Then the third area is the effectiveness of the programs. Unfortunately, some of the secular programs have had very dismal rates

of success. Some of those that have been non-secular, private and

some with a religious connection, have been highly successful, and

some of those are not eligible for Federal funding, which I think

we are doing a re-examination of. All we care about is success, and

we are trying to evaluate that.

In 10 months, Ms. Broderick, we will invite you back, maybe 11

months, and we would like to hear more of your program and the

specifics and see what we can do to get additional funds and resources into programs that obviously are effective.

It does appear that decriminalization, we have some real problems with it, and there is a lot of mess out there about it. The

study that you conducted, Ms. Lapp, in New York is really outstanding. It is probably the most recent. Was it completed in April?

Ms. LAPP. Yes, it was issued in April.

Mr. MICA. And it does debunk some of the myths that we have,

just first-time offenders in prison in New York. In fact, I think

even the cases where you cited there for possession were, in fact,

almost all—what do you say—something down, taking the

sentence——

Ms. LAPP. Oh, pled down.

Mr. MICA. Pled down, exactly. That is the term I was looking for.

So that as far as pure possession, there were very few, if any, incarcerated in New York for first-time possession offenses. Is that

correct?

Ms. LAPP. That is correct. One of the purposes of the report was

actually to just synopsize who was actually in our State prison system and for what types of offenses because we have had substantial debate about the Rockefeller drug laws. There have been a lot

of advocates seeking to repeal, wholesale repeal, of those laws. And

one of the things—I just wanted to segue a little bit. Before I took

my current position with Governor Pataki, I worked for Mayor

Giuliani for 4 years, and what we did in the city, which now dovetails with what the State has been doing, is we took a very intensive and targeted approach to all drug dealing and drug possession.

Mr. MICA. All drug dealing?

Ms. LAPP. And possession.

Mr. MICA. OK.

246

Ms. LAPP. But prior to 1994, one of the problems that the police

department had was that uniformed police officers were discouraged, actually not allowed to make any arrests of drug dealers on

the street. They used undercover units to do that. Mayor Giuliani

turned that around and told the police officers, you see drug dealers on the corner, on the stoop, in the playground, we want them

arrested, we want them to go to jail, we want them to go to prison.

That is what happened.

For drug possessors—and we enforce laws and district attorneys

such as District Attorney Hynes enforce those laws very vigorously

against possessors with substance abuse problems and put them

into programs that work—DTAP and some of the others.

One of the interesting things that happened in New York State

is despite increased arrests at an all-time high of all felony levels,

and particularly drug offenses, we saw a reduction in the jail population in Ryker’s Island. It is down to about 15,000. It used to be

over 23,000 in 1994. New York State’s prison system essentially remained the same; 70,000 of the population remained the same

since 1994.

What happened was, the makeup of the prison population

changed. We are holding the violent felony offenders for longer periods of time, and we are allowing appropriate non-violent felony

offenders to go into treatment programs like DTAP, like merit

time, like some of the others that I mentioned.

What that allowed us to do was, unlike the prior administration,

which released a high number of violent felony offenders on work

release, we kept them in prison. That helped the police officers on

the street, it helped prosecutors like District Attorney Hynes, because they weren’t seeing those people come back again. They were

being released into our community, recidivating in violent ways—

and I am talking about violent felony offenders—and the police officers were just continually arresting them and sending them to—

being prosecuted and sending them to State prison. So what we

have done is hold the right people in prison, prosecute them, hold

them for longer periods of time, not allow early parole release. We

ended early parole discretionary release for all violent felons, and

we screened, very appropriately, the non-violent felons, drug offenders, that would otherwise go into State prison to go into DTAP

and some of the others.

Mr. MICA. So your violent folks are staying behind bars?

Ms. LAPP. That is right.

Mr. MICA. The non-violent ones are getting a chance at probation?

Ms. LAPP. That is right, or, you know, going into DTAP as an alternative to prison or in some of the other programs.

Mr. MICA. Now, Ryker’s—again, excuse my New York geographic

ignorance—that is a State prison or local?

Ms. LAPP. Ryker’s Island represents the local jail system in New

York City.

Mr. MICA. You said that went from 23,000 to 15,000?

Ms. LAPP. 15,000. And it makes sense when you think about it.

In New York City, prior to 1994, violent felony offenders were

being released on early parole release from the State prison system, and they were put into work release programs when they realVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:01 Aug 21, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00250 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\64343.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
247

ly should not have been. They were going back to the communities.

They were recidivating. The police officers just continued to re-arrest them. The prosecutors were re-prosecuting them. They would

go back to State prison, and we would release them again.

All that changed with what Mayor Giuliani did in the city and

what Governor Pataki did in the State. Mayor Giuliani said, I am

going to arrest everybody that is breaking the law, and I want

tough State prison sentences for violent felony offenders. In concert, Governor Pataki passed a truth in sentencing scheme for all

violent felons. They do not get out early. They are being held behind bars. But the non-violent offenders are being screened appropriately.

It is actually quite a success in New York State that very few

people know about. We have talked about it. I have spoken to

many, many people about it, and we have had people from other

States come in to see how we have worked in concert with programs like District Attorney Hynes’ program, tough law enforcement by Mayor Giuliani, and Governor Pataki with his truth in

sentencing, holding the violent felony offenders behind bars.

One of the things I would just like to quote and synopsize as a

success: Prior to Governor Pataki, work release and—violent felony

offenders could go into work release, which allows them to go into

the communities. We stopped that, and Governor Pataki changed

that in 1995, and said no violent felons can go into work release.

That is a privilege that should only be limited to non-violent offenders.

We reduced the work release participants group by about 32 percent, and we saw a 90 percent drop in violent felony offenses committed by work release inmates. That synopsizes—and it is just

plain common sense. Keep the violent felons behind bars and the

non-violent felons with violent criminal histories behind bars. Give

non-violent offenders who want treatment that opportunity like

this young man here. Give them a chance. If they succeed, then we

can see the success—more success stories like this. If they don’t

want to deal with their problem, we have to send them to prison

because I do not advocate, nor does Governor Pataki or Mayor

Giuliani advocate, putting them back in the community. They are

just going to prey on their neighbors.

Mr. MICA. One other point. We are seeing now, an attack on the

Federal minimum mandatory, and we have a certain class of offenders at the Federal level. They are going after, as I understand

it from Mr. Constantine’s testimony, Barry McCaffrey and others,

they are going after the trafficker, the big dealer, the big-time dealer, the repeat felony offender. If you look at a study of who is in

the Federal prison population—and we are going to explore that a

little bit further—you have some pretty tough cookies who have

been involved in some serious felony offenses, in most cases repeat.

You wouldn’t then advocate changing our minimum mandatory?

Mr. HYNES. No, but that doesn’t——

Mr. MICA. At the Federal level.

Mr. HYNES. Sure, but it doesn’t deal with the historic problem.

You know, drugs as something affecting society didn’t happen over

a weekend. It took a long time for it to catch on. And there has

to be a reduction in demand, and if we are not allowed or we can’t

248

corral the demand, we are always going to have the hard-core drug

sellers down to the low-level people who are committing crime.

The reduction in demand, I think, should be a primary goal of

this country, and, you know, interdiction has not worked. I

wouldn’t do away with interdiction, but interdiction is not something that has worked. I think you have to expand the alternatives

for treatment. That is the only way you can deal with demand as

I see it.

Mr. MICA. I have to disagree with you on the interdiction, but

that is—since we abolished interdiction——

Mr. HYNES. No, I wouldn’t abolish it. I am just saying it hasn’t

worked terribly effectively.

Mr. MICA. Yes, well, I would disagree with that, too, because we

basically at the Federal level abolished interdiction in 1994 and

1995, and that is why you are seeing this incredible supply coming

in now—not that interdiction is the key. I believe you start in the

source countries. But that doesn’t answer it, either, because if you

look at methamphetamine, people can get the recipe off the Internet and cook it in their kitchen, and we still have a hell of a——

Mr. HYNES. It is——

Mr. MICA. It is a combination——

Mr. HYNES. It is a cultural thing that has to be dealt with, and

we allowed it to become part of our culture.

Mr. MICA. Let me see. Mr. Cummings.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you. As I am listening to you all, everything you are saying just makes sense. And I was thinking how

what happens so often is we get so caught up in which party you

are in that we miss the boat. I mean, we just miss it. I have got

to give you credit, what you are doing makes sense.

I think that in the African American community, there is a concern that many—just a disproportionate number of African Americans are being literally warehoused in prisons. That is one piece of

it. But there is another piece, too, and that is that in my district,

which is predominantly African American, folk want people to be

punished for violent offenses, there is no doubt about it. I mean,

I have been in Congress only 31⁄2 years, but in politics, in elected

office for 20, and I have seen it. Because African American people

are so much victimized—and I am not saying other people aren’t,

but I am just saying I know we are.

So it makes sense, Ms. Lapp, it makes sense to treat the violent

offenders the way they are treated. And you said something that

kind of confused me. You said that when you stopped allowing violent offenders and those with a history of violent offending, your

work release offenses, violent offenses—is it offenses or violent offenses?

Ms. LAPP. All violent offenses committed by work release inmates.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Work release inmates went down——

Ms. LAPP. Ninety percent.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Ninety percent. So basically, you have created a

situation where you have no violent offenders in your midst unless

they commit it while they are on work release. Is that right? Does

that make sense?

Ms. LAPP. Well, I think what——

249

Mr. CUMMINGS. I mean, I know they are kicked out of the program if they do it on work release, but I am just saying basically,

what you have, based upon that, is that when these guys go out

today there should be no violent offenders in——

Ms. LAPP. In the work release program.

Mr. CUMMINGS. In the work release program. And that makes a

lot of sense.

On another matter—I am sorry. I forgot your name.

Mr. HYNES. Mr. Cohen.

Mr. COHEN. My name is Frederick Cohen.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Cohen. Something that Mr. Cohen said, and

I just wonder how this affects your report. And I have seen this to

be true, too. You will get people who are using, and in order to

maintain their habit, they have got to figure out what to do. They

may have done some petty larceny, robbed a few people, and then

they get to a point where they are saying, well, I mean, what else

can I do? So then they begin to sell or they have been selling for

a while. So maybe they have been arrested one or two times, three

times for possession. And then they finally get caught doing something like robbing somebody.

I was just trying to figure out, when you were talking about your

statistics, the ones that the chairman was impressed with, which

I am impressed with, too, about who is arrested and how long—you

know, who is in your prisons, how is that—I mean, how does that

play out? Are you following my question? In other words, you have

people who—you can’t even put your finger on how many people

fall into that category. In other words, they have been doing—they

have been using drugs for years, arrested say three or four times

for possession, and they have been committing violent offenses for

years. But now finally they get caught. So I am just trying to figure

out how do you—how does that play into your analysis, if at all?

Ms. LAPP. Is your question how do we address someone whose

violent offense was fueled because of their drug habit?

Mr. CUMMINGS. Yes.

Ms. LAPP. Well, I think once an offender starts committing violent acts against other members of society, we have to separate

that person from someone who repeats a drug offense.

Mr. HYNES. We don’t accept them in our program.

Ms. LAPP. They will not go into the DTAP program. Obviously,

when they get into prison and violent felony offenders—our laws

are very tough with regard to that. We have increased the sentences fairly dramatically. We put them in prison drug treatment,

and in New York State, ours has gone up in the last 3 years. The

participants have gone up about 27 percent, 28 percent now. So we

are pretty aggressive in New York State in terms of once—if you

are a violent felony offender you go into prison. But if your underlying problem was substance abuse, we are going to put you in a

substance abuse program while you are in prison and continue that

once you are released on parole after you have served your definite

period of imprisonment.

It is a difficult thing. Once someone starts engaging in violent offenses because of their drug habit, we as responsible government

officials, need to make sure that those people are punished approVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:01 Aug 21, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00253 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\64343.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
250

priately. And that is why the district attorney doesn’t allow them

to go into even the DTAP program.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Well, it just seems to me that if the program is

all that you all said it is—and I have no reason to doubt it—it

seems like every State would be doing something like this. I mean,

can you help me with what the arguments are against it? I am just

curious. It makes sense.

Ms. BRODERICK. In Arizona, our district attorney in Maricopa

County has a very similar program called ‘‘Do Drugs, Do Time,’’

and it is exactly modeled after the program in Brooklyn. There are

a lot of district attorneys. They may have different names for those

programs, but they all are prosecutorial where they make the selection, they do the screening, they offer the diversion, you complete

that and you basically are able to do away with your offense.

Mr. HYNES. Mr. Cummings, this is new. You know, I mean, 12

years ago you wouldn’t want to talk about this. This is new. But

we did it in Brooklyn because we had no choice. We were in a crisis. You know, you talked about seeing those young men in a stupor. They were on my block, too. They were mugging people on my

block. My house was burglarized four times in 5 years, and one of

my graduates was one of the burglars before he went into my program.

So, I mean, this is new, and it has taken a long time. As I mentioned to Ms. Sweren coming over here, and Mr. Cohen, this is the

first time I have been called before a congressional committee in

10 years on this program. And it does make perfect sense. And I

will tell you, of the 62 district attorneys, apropos of your mention

about political parties, of the 62 district attorneys in my State, the

vast majority are conservative Republican. They would buy into

this program in a minute if we could get the funding. But the Governor, who has been pushing the program to get money from the

legislation, has had this constant fight with the legislature. So, you

know, Mr. Barr didn’t invite it, but I am certainly going to send

something on to him, of course, through you, Mr. Chairman, to try

and get some additional funding because it does make sense. It is

a perfectly appropriate approach. For the violent people, no questions asked, you go to jail—you know, don’t pass go. But if you are

someone like Frederick Cohen, you give them a shot. And he is just

one of the many, many examples of why this program works so

well.

Mr. CUMMINGS. What I hear, I have never—and I am sure that

there are probably similar statistics somewhere in the United

States. I have never heard those kinds of statistics with regard to

jail cells and who occupies them and a reduction of the drug—I

mean, how did you put it, Ms. Lapp? In other words, you all, you

say you still have the 70,000——

Ms. LAPP. Our overall population is still 70,000. The mix is starting to shift. Over 15 years, it went from 80 to 100 to 34,000 nonviolent offenders in our system, of which most of them are drug offenders. And now that has shifted. At the same time, let me underscore that New York State’s crime declined, went down 28 percent,

which is four times the national average, and we are the safest we

have ever been since 1960. All those things indicate that New York

State is doing something very interesting, and obviously right,

251

which was one of the reasons why District Attorney Hynes and I,

when we received the invitation from Congressman Mica’s office to

be here today, we jumped at the chance because we have a lot to

say, we have a lot to show. And we think that this is a recipe for

success. Obviously, we still have our problems, but working together with the local police, with prosecutors, courts, the State government and the State legislature in passing laws, that is how all

this has changed, and it has been a lot of coordination.

I can recall the days when the mayor took office and he said we

are going to arrest every drug dealer and every drug possessor and

every quality-of-life offender in New York City. And I sat down

with people like District Attorney Hynes and said I don’t know how

we are going to handle it. But we did because we coordinated everything.

Mr. HYNES. It would have been more helpful if they gave us more

money, Mr. Cummings.

Mr. CUMMINGS. The last question, Mr. Chairman. It does have to

be—you have to have both sides of this thing, though. You know,

I am just thinking, you got to have that toughness on the violence,

but you also have got to have this treatment and give it a chance.

And I guess it is that combination, like a one-two situation, that

helps it to work so that I guess it does free up funds on one end,

and I guess those funds don’t necessarily flow back, but the

treatment——

Ms. LAPP. No, not as much as the district attorney would like.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I am sorry?

Ms. LAPP. Not as much as the district attorney would like.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Yes. Well, you would be in great shape, wouldn’t

you? The money that you save in the end, if that came back to the

other side. That is all right. You don’t have to comment.

Mr. HYNES. OK. Thank you, sir.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much. You all have been very,

very helpful.

Mr. MICA. I look forward to working with you in getting more of

that money into the system. I know where there is $120 million to

start with, not counting what resources are used by you to apply

for this Federal largesse.

Mr. Ose.

Mr. OSE. Before I venture into my few items, I think that my

friend from Maryland has come up with an idea. He only touched

on it very briefly, and that is perhaps to put some sort of an incentive program to work where a portion of the funds saved go back

to the agency that saved them. And I think that is well worth exploring.

One of the things that—going back to my comment about never

leaving a charge unanswered that you disagree with, Ms. Lapp, you

have in your testimony on page 3, the first paragraph, at least as

it relates to New York State, some statistics regarding who has

been arrested and incarcerated under the current legal protocols affecting drugs. And some who have testified before you suggested,

whether it was explicitly or implicitly, that we were incarcerating

people for, ‘‘recreational use,’’ ‘‘individual use,’’ and the like. And I

just—the first paragraph kind of refutes that comment. I mean, 87

percent of these 22,000 individuals are serving time for selling

252

drugs, not for recreational use but for selling drugs. We don’t know

if they were selling to their siblings or their parents or their children or what have you, but they were selling drugs. It was a commercial transaction.

Over 70 percent have one or more felony conviction in their

record. Of the persons serving time for drug possession, 76 percent

were arrested for sale or intent to sell. And then they pled down.

You know, one of the things we lose up here in the testimony is

the ability to come back and say, well, now those down pleadings

are actually the result of a higher charge being negotiated down.

I wish we could have had all eight of you up here to kind of have

a roundtable discussion, as we say in politics. I just want to suggest to you that this information is extremely valuable to me, and

I appreciate you bringing it forward.

The other aspect that I wanted, Mr. Chairman—I went through

everybody’s testimony here, and I found it very interesting. I started with Mr. Constantine, page 1: ‘‘I have passionately believed that

legalizing drugs is wrong . . .’’

Ms. Bennett in her—there is no question what she thinks. Her

son is dead, and she obviously believes it is wrong.

Mr. MacCoun, on page 7, ‘‘Legalization is a very risky strategy

for reducing drug-related harm.’’

Sheriff Glasscock, ‘‘[My] experiences have clearly demonstrated

to me that this Nation should not be considering legalizing drugs

. . .’’

District Attorney Hynes, ‘‘I believe it would be a terrible mistake

to make any changes in the law that would make it easier for

young people to have access to these poisons.’’

And then I compare that to Mr. Stroup’s testimony and, Ms.

Lapp, your comment here. Here it is, page 5: ‘‘Wholesale repeal of

drug laws is a simplistic and irresponsible approach to our country’s drug problems.’’

Mr. Chairman, I am having a little trouble right now because we

sit and receive the testimony of people whose sole purpose in life

is to improve our community by enforcing the laws that are passed,

and then we countenance testimony from individuals, organizations

like NORML that, for personal gratification or otherwise, wish to

have these poisons remain available in our country. And I just—

I can hardly contain myself today.

To you, I very much appreciate what you are doing. I mean, you

are on the other end of the country from where I live. You will

never have an impact on my town or my kids or my community.

But just keep at it. We will give you every resource we can.

Mr. HYNES. Thank you.

Mr. MICA. I do want to thank the panelists. We tried to open this

whole subject up to discussion. There is increased interest in socalled decriminalization, but when you talk to folks in New York

or Arizona, you find out a little bit more of what is going on, the

facts, so to speak. They are not all in, at least in Arizona, and I

think the study that has been revealed here today from New York

is interesting.

It is incumbent on us at the Federal level that we look for effective legislative and administrative initiatives that will make a difference. Mr. Cummings’ community—he and I served together. He

253

was a ranking member when I chaired Civil Service, and he told

me—I think he has 60,000—his estimate is 60,000. Mr. Constantine had 38,900 heroin addicts in Baltimore; the population is

60,000, which has adopted a more liberal approach, so it does raise

some very serious questions about what we do, and that certainly

has to have some cost to his community.

I think we would all be better off if we could have more success

stories liken Mr. Cohens. That is what we are looking for, and trying to find a route there isn’t easy.

We do appreciate your participation, your testimony. As we move

along, we may call on you again, obviously trying to draw on those

success stories and see where we can do a better job, from the Federal level, of assisting you.

We have no further business to come before the subcommittee.

I am going to leave the record open for 10 days for additional comments or additional information or questions that may be directed

to any of the witnesses.

There being no further business before the subcommittee this

afternoon, I would like to thank you again for being with us and

providing testimony.

Mr. HYNES. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MICA. This meeting is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 2:10 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

Æ