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EMERGING THREATS: METHAMPHETAMINES

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE,

DRUG POLICY AND HUMAN RESOURCES

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

JULY 12, 2001

Serial No. 107–81

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

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

BOB BARR, Georgia

DAN MILLER, Florida

DOUG OSE, California

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

DAVE WELDON, Florida

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

C.L. ‘‘BUTCH’’ OTTER, Idaho

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

JOHN J. DUNCAN, Tennessee

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

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

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

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

——— ———

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

KEVIN BINGER, Staff Director

DANIEL R. MOLL, Deputy Staff Director

JAMES C. WILSON, Chief Counsel

ROBERT A. BRIGGS, Chief Clerk

PHIL SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE, DRUG POLICY AND HUMAN RESOURCES

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana, Chairman

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN L. MICA, Florida,

BOB BARR, Georgia

DAN MILLER, Florida

DOUG OSE, California

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

DAVE WELDON, Florida

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JIM TURNER, Texas

THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine

——— ———

EX OFFICIO

DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

CHRIS DONESA, Staff Director

NICK COLEMAN, Staff Member

CONN CARROLL, Clerk

DENISE WILSON, Minority Professional Staff Member

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on July 12, 2001 ............................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Brooks, Ron, chairman, National Narcotic Officers Associations Coalition;

Douglas K. Dukes, sheriff, Noble County, IN; Doug A. Harp, deputy

sheriff, Noble County, IN; Henry M. Serrano, chief of police, city of

Citrus Heights, CA; and John McCroskey, sheriff, Lewis County, WA ... 110

Keefe, Joseph D., Chief of Operations, Drug Enforcement Administration 71

Rook, Susan, public affairs director, Step One .............................................. 187

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

Barr, Hon. Bob, a Representative in Congress from the State of Georgia,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 223

Brooks, Ron, chairman, National Narcotic Officers Associations Coalition,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 113

Dukes, Douglas K., sheriff, Noble County, IN, prepared statement of ........ 164

Harp, Doug A., deputy sheriff, Noble County, IN, prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 168

Keefe, Joseph D., Chief of Operations, Drug Enforcement Administration:

Followup questions and answers ............................................................. 92

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 74

McCroskey, John, sheriff, Lewis County, WA, prepared statement of ........ 131

Ose, Hon. Doug, a Representative in Congress from the State of California:

Article dated October 8, 2000 ................................................................... 8

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 66

Rook, Susan, public affairs director, Step One, prepared statement of ....... 189

Serrano, Henry M., chief of police, city of Citrus Heights, CA, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 144

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

of Indiana, prepared statement of ............................................................... 3

(1)

EMERGING THREATS: METHAMPHETAMINES

THURSDAY, JULY 12, 2001

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 10:07 a.m., in room

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

Present: Representatives Souder, Ose, Gilman, and Cummings.

Also present: Congressman Baird.

Staff present: Chris Donesa, staff director; Nick Coleman, staff

member; Conn Carroll, clerk; Conor Donahue, intern; Sarah

Despres and Tony Haywood, minority counsels; Denise Wilson, minority professional staff member; Jean Gosa, minority assistant

clerk; and Lorran Garrison, minority staff assistant.

Mr. SOUDER. The subcommittee will come to order.

Good morning, and thank you all for coming. We hope to concentrate many of our subcommittee’s upcoming drug policy hearings around a few core issues posing fundamental questions and

challenges to our efforts to keep America drug-free. This hearing

is the first of a series on ‘‘emerging threats.’’ Narcotics and other

drugs that are relatively new drugs of abuse or those which have

dramatically increased as a threat to our communities. In examining these emerging threats, we hope to bring public attention to

them for both policymakers and parents, as well as to consider

whether existing drug control institutions and policies are adequate

to address and combat them. In the near future, we hope to discuss

such emerging threats as ecstasy and other synthetic drugs and

abuse of the prescription drug Oxycontin. Today, however, we begin

with what has quickly become a monumental problem for America

throughout our Nation: methamphetamines.

Methamphetamines, or ‘‘meth,’’ has quickly spread across the

Nation to become one of the most pressing narcotics issues for

State and local communities and law enforcement in those areas.

I don’t think that there is a member of this committee or of the

House, particularly those who represent rural areas, who has not

seen numerous and disturbing reports of small ‘‘Beavis and

Butthead’’ meth labs being seized in their communities. These labs

are of immediate concern because they make almost every county

in America its own source for a powerful drug of addiction with unpredictable effects—along with all of the accompanying negative

consequences, including violent crime and environmental damage.

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Each pound of methamphetamine produced results in 5 to 6 pounds

of toxic chemical waste, which is simply left to enter groundwater.

It is difficult to control the growth of these labs because of the perverse economic incentives to push the drug—just $2,500 worth of

chemicals can make 4 pounds of methamphetamine with a street

price of $163,000.

But even these laboratories are the tip of an iceberg compared

to the large-scale operations run by organized crime, predominantly in California and the Southwest United States. It is by no

means an exaggeration to say that the State of California is, for all

intents and purposes, a narcotics source country for

methamphetamines. A large proportion of the meth on the streets

of the United States is produced or transported in and through

California. We face a tremendous national challenge in ensuring

that not only California, but all 50 States, have adequate resources

to combat this emerging threat. In addition, we must consider

whether additional controls are necessary for precursor chemicals

and other ingredients that are the key to the illicit trade. And we

must examine whether our system adequately takes into account

the special challenges of treating meth victims and addicts through

prevention and treatment.

I would also like to recognize and thank the House Meth Caucus,

of which I am a member and with which we have worked to put

together the hearing, particularly Congressman Calvert and Congressman Baird. I appreciate their bipartisan leadership in raising

awareness of these issues and look forward to continuing to work

with them.

Today we have excellent witnesses to discuss emerging meth

trends. From the administration, on our first panel is Joseph Keefe,

Chief of Operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration. On

our second panel, we will be joined by a number of knowledgeable

State and local law enforcement officers. Ron Brooks is the chairman of the National Narcotics Officers Coalition, and has also been

a good friend and resource for this subcommittee and a tireless advocate against illegal drugs. From Indiana is Sheriff Doug Dukes

and Deputy Doug Harp from the Noble County Sheriff’s office.

They are our second set of witnesses from Noble County in our last

two hearings; it may not surprise you to know that Noble County

is in my district and has had a growing narcotics problem, but has

been tackling it aggressively. From Congressman Ose’s district, we

have Chief Henry Serrano from Citrus Heights, CA. And at Congressman Baird’s suggestion, we will hear from Sheriff John

McCroskey from Lewis County, WA. Our third panel will discuss

meth’s effects on our families with Susan Rook from the Step One

Center in North Carolina.

Thank you all for coming. This should be an excellent hearing on

an important issue, and I look forward to your testimony.

I would now like to recognize Mr. Cummings for an opening

statement.

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

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

know, methamphetamine abuse is spreading across the country

like a forest fire, and it is fast on the rise in the areas to which

it has spread. Once concentrated almost exclusively in California,

the manufacturing, trafficking, and the use of methamphetamine

has expanded over the past decade and a half to many other areas

of the country. Outlaw motorcycle gangs in the West and Southwest have been supplanted by professional Mexico-based dealers

and wildly dispersed independent producers as the primary traffickers of this drug.

At the same time, meth use has become increasingly prevalent

among segments of our Nation’s youth. Although so-called crystal

meth made its appearance in major cities in the mid-Atlantic and

the Northeast only 3 or 4 years ago, the rapid growth of the problem in the South, Midwest, and Northwest suggests that meth

abuse in these areas will not long remain a mere blip on the radar

screen. Needless to say, that is not good news for my home town

of Baltimore, where heroin and other drugs, such as cocaine, already wreak havoc in far too many lives, and methamphetamine

poses a serious additional threat.

Indeed, one of the dangerous aspects of meth abuse is the tendency among users to couple it with other drugs, including heroin

and alcohol. But meth use alone is dangerous enough in itself. Like

crack cocaine, but the more long-lasting effects, methamphetamine

targets the central nervous system, increasing the heart rate, blood

pressure, body temperature, and rate of breathing. It can also

produce fits of hyperactivity, euphoria, a sense of increased energy

and tremors. Chronic and high-dose abuse can result in paranoia,

hallucinations, schizophrenia-like symptoms, and is often accompanied by violence and other criminal and anti-social behaviors. Indeed, in the areas of the country where meth use is prevalent news

reports abound of meth-induced domestic violence, murders, suicides, thefts, burglaries, and other crimes.

Compounding the health and social dangers of methamphetamine use are a host of other dangers that accompany its manufacture. Unlike other hard-core illicit drugs, meth can be, and often

is, manufactured by an amateur chemist from a precursor of chemicals contained in legal commercial products. Home-made meth

lends itself to a small-scale trafficking on the fringes of the meth

market and accounts for much of the rapid spread of the meth

abuse problem.

The volatility and toxicity of the chemicals involved in such production, moreover, result in make-shift labs being the frequent

sources of explosions, fires, and toxic damage to the environment.

Children who reside in homes where these labs are operated are

exposed to all of these dangers, and studies suggest an array of

health problems in the newborn children of meth-addicted mothers

traceable to maternal meth abuse.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, I know how very concerned you are about

the growth of the meth epidemic in Indiana and in the Midwestern

region of our country. For the same reasons which I have just described, I want to make sure that my State of Maryland and the

mid-Atlantic region are not similarly overtaken by methamphetamine abuse.

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I look forward to hearing from our witnesses about their experiences and how we can effectively combat the rapid spread of this

problem. Thank you very much.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. Congressman Ose, do you have an

opening statement?

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for holding this

hearing on an issue that generally is not getting the national attention it needs, and that is, as my colleague has said, the growth and

use of methamphetamines. In the interest of time, I’m going to

make a brief opening statement and ask unanimous consent that

my full statement be entered into the record.

Mr. Chairman, the growth and use of methamphetamines threatens every part of our society. Our communities and environment

are endangered by those who use and make the drug around them,

even as the drug destroys users and those around them. Combating

meth has been one of my top priorities since coming to Congress.

In fact, it predates even arriving here. Having been elected in early

November 1998, by November 18 I had begged, cajoled, browbeat,

and eventually persuaded the chairman of the full committee to

put me on this subcommittee after 11 phone calls. I think Kevin

Binger was very tired of me by the end of November 1998, but it

is a pleasure to be on this committee.

I plan to continue to work on this subcommittee. I am a member

of the Congressional Meth Caucus. I am going to do everything I

can to see that Congress acts quickly to address this issue.

I want to thank the witnesses who are joining us today to talk

about meth. I especially want to thank two that I have had personal experience with. The first is Ron Brooks, who is the Chair

of the National Narcotic Officers Associations Coalition. Ron is on

the second panel. His knowledge and personal experience have

been an invaluable resource to me and my staff, and I am appreciative of it.

And I am particularly pleased to welcome the chief of police from

Citrus Heights; that is Henry Serrano. Henry is the chief of police

in a city that I helped establish in California. Mr. Serrano’s team

protects my district, and they also have some insightful testimony

today regarding some innovative strategies they are using in northern California to stop the spread of meth.

As Mr. Cummings said, meth is a particularly large part of the

drug crisis in California, and it would take hours to truly explore

in detail what meth is doing in California. So, to expedite that, if

you would, Mr. Chairman, I would ask unanimous consent to submit for the record an article published in numerous California

newspapers last October titled, ‘‘A Madness Called Meth.’’ I have

given each of the members a copy of it. It is a lengthy read. I do

commend it to your consideration. It is quite informative, and it is

from my home town newspaper. As they say in the media, they are

a major Sacramento newspaper.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. OSE. This committee has itself examined what meth is doing

in California. In February 1999 we were in Woodland having a

field hearing. We had a lot of testimony from law enforcement

there, a lot from people who had been using meth, and I am

pleased to say that the interest in that issue has continued since.

Congress does need to act on this issue, and it needs to act soon.

I note with particular interest the efforts at CJS on funding some

of these issues, and I look forward to working with you, Mr. Chairman, and hearing the testimony from the witnesses today as we

move forward. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Doug Ose follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. I thank you for your continued interest and leadership. We learned a lot in the California hearing that you instituted

and traveled together to South America to many of the source

countries, and you have been very involved in the hearings. I appreciate your leadership and continued interest, particularly in

calling attention to the meth question, as you saw it explode in

your district.

We have been joined today by Congressman Bruce Baird of

Washington State. I have asked him if he would sit up with us

today and he is going to participate in the hearing. He is the cochairman of the Meth Caucus in the House and also one who has

pushed this committee and Congress toward leadership in the meth

area. Congressman Baird?

Mr. BAIRD. I would like to thank the chairman and the ranking

member for holding this hearing today. As founder of the Methamphetamine Caucus, it is particularly important that we raise the

profile and awareness of this terrible scourge within the Congress

and the law enforcement community.

My own background on this very briefly: I was a clinical psychologist before coming to Congress and had firsthand experience treating meth addicts. I will never forget a meth addict who I asked

what it was like to be hooked on meth and he said, ‘‘Doctor, if my

kids were over here and they desperately needed me and there was

methamphetamine over here and I needed methamphetamine’’—

and at that point he began to cry—he said, ‘‘I’d go for the methamphetamine.’’ We don’t want a drug that powerful in our society destroying

lives and destroying our families, and hearings like this and actions at the Federal level can help our local law enforcement officials. I look forward particularly to the testimony of Sheriff John

McCroskey, who I will introduce in a few minutes, who is on the

front lines of this battle every single day in our rural county of

Lewis County.

But, again, to keep my remarks short, I want to thank the Chair

and the ranking member, and I look forward to the comments from

the witnesses.

Mr. SOUDER. I apologize, I referred to Brian as Bruce. I gave him

a promotion. I think Bruce Baird used to be a forward on the Ft.

Wayne Comets hockey team.

Mr. BAIRD. That’s my brother actually. My brother will be

pleased to hear that. [Laughter.]

Not the hockey player, though.

Mr. SOUDER. Before proceeding, I would like to take care of a

couple of procedural matters. First, I ask unanimous consent that

all Members have 5 legislative days to submit written statements

and questions for the hearing record, and that any answers to written questions provided by the witnesses also be included in the

record. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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

and other materials referred to by Members, including those mentioned by Congressman Ose in his opening statement and the witnesses, may be included in the hearing record, and that all Members be permitted to revise and extend their remarks. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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Third, I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from California, Mr. Calvert, and the gentleman from Washington, Mr. Baird,

who are not members of this subcommittee and committee, and any

other Members of the House who may wish to participate in the

hearing be permitted to do so after all members of the subcommittee have completed their questioning in each round. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Now on the first panel, Mr. Keefe has come forward. Would you

stand while I administer the oath?

[Witness sworn.]

Mr. SOUDER. Let the record show that the witness has answered

in the affirmative.

You are recognized for your opening statement. As you know, we

typically ask our witnesses to summarize their testimony in about

5 minutes. We will include a fuller statement in the record and any

other insertions that you would like to do.

STATEMENT OF JOSEPH D. KEEFE, CHIEF OF OPERATIONS,

DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION

Mr. KEEFE. Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee, I am

pleased to have the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the serious methamphetamine problem facing our Nation

today. I would especially like to take the opportunity to thank you

for your continued support of Federal, State, and local drug law enforcement.

I would like to also apologize that I have a cold and it is very

difficult for me to speak clearly, but I will continue.

Over the past several years, established drug trafficking organizations based in Mexico and California have seized control of the

illicit methamphetamine trade. The principal reasons for their rise

to dominance is the ability of these organizations to exploit the existing, well-established transportation and distribution networks on

both sides of the border, as well as their ability to illegally secure

large amounts of precursor chemicals.

These drug trafficking organizations have revolutionized the production of methamphetamine by operating large-scale laboratories

in Mexico and California that are capable of producing unprecedented quantities of methamphetamine. Almost all of the superlabs

operated in the United States are located in California. These organizations operate only a small percentage of the total methamphetamine laboratories seized nationally. However, these labs produce

an estimated 80 percent of the methamphetamine manufactured in

the United States.

These criminal organizations have saturated the western United

States with methamphetamine, established their distribution cells

in other regions of the United States, and have now moved their

methamphetamine to markets in the Midwestern and Eastern

United States. Current DEA statistics indicate that in fiscal year

2000 DEA alone seized 1,848 clandestine laboratories and that the

total number of laboratories seized by Federal, State, and local law

enforcement officers nationwide was over 6,500.

Methamphetamine is a very simple drug to produce. A user can

go to retail stores and easily purchase the vast majority of the ingredients necessary to manufacture the drug. Precursor chemicals

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such as pseudoephedrine can be extracted from common, over-thecounter cold medications. Unlike Fentanyl, LSD, and other types of

dangerous drugs, it does not take a college-educated chemist to

produce methamphetamine.

The highly toxic and flammable chemicals involved make these

rudimentary laboratories ticking time bombs that require specialized training to dismantle and clean up. Even with this training,

law enforcement officers and/or firefighters are often injured responding to methamphetamine lab explosions and fires.

The threats posed by clandestine labs are not limited to fire, explosion, poison gas, and boobytraps. The chemical contamination of

the hazardous wastes contained in these labs also poses a serious

danger to our Nation’s environment. Each pound of methamphetamine generated in a clandestine lab can result in as much as 5

pounds of toxic waste, which clandestine lab operators routinely

dump into our Nation’s streams, rivers, and sewage systems to

cover up the evidence of their illegal operations. The average cleanup cost per clandestine lab in fiscal year 2001 is estimated to be

$3,400. The cleanup of superlabs can cost over $100,000.

The violence associated with methamphetamine traffic and use

has also produced a collateral impact on our communities. Mental

health agencies warn that methamphetamine abuse can be linked

directly to a myriad of social and economic problems to include

child abuse. Domestic violence, poverty, homelessness, spousal and

child abuse, as well as homicides abound among methamphetamine

users. Children and infants are susceptible to permanent health

damage resulting from inhalation of chemical fumes. In calendar

year 2000, 1,872 were present or residing at clandestine laboratories at the time of enforcement intervention.

In response to the methamphetamine threat, DEA established

the National Methamphetamine Strategy. The primary focus of

Strategy calls for a strong and highly aggressive enforcement effort

that is aimed at chemical companies, chemical brokers, and large

domestic/Mexican trafficking organizations involved in the production, transportation, and distribution of methamphetamine and its

precursors.

Operation Mountain Express was especially successful in targeting traffickers of methamphetamine precursor pseudoephedrine. A

number of multijurisdicational investigations targeting these

pseudoephedrine traffickers, many of whom were Middle Eastern

region origin, resulted in numerous arrests, seizure of large quantities of pseudoephedrine, and $11 million in U.S. currency.

An additional response to the methamphetamine problem has

been to initiate an aggressive training schedule to increase the

number of clandestine laboratory safety schools. Since 1997, DEA

has conducted numerous clandestine laboratory schools and certified over 4,400 special agents and State and local law enforcement personnel across the country.

Criminal drug trafficking organizations involved in the methamphetamine trade are one of the greatest threats to communities

and citizens across this Nation. Their power, influence, and growth

are presenting new challenges to law enforcement agencies that are

addressing this threat. The DEA is deeply committed in our efforts

to identify, target, arrest, and incapacitate the leadership of these

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criminal drug trafficking organizations. In addition, DEA will continue to work to improve its efforts to ensure a safe future for both

our law enforcement personnel as well as our citizens.

Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to appear before

the subcommittee today. At this time I would be happy to respond

to any questions you may have on this important issue.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Keefe follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. As you may have heard, we have a vote

on the Journal and then we’re going to have a motion to adjourn.

We’re doing campaign finance reform, and it is a controversial subject so it could get a little hairy today at a couple of times, depending on who got their amendments allowed and who didn’t.

At this time, Mr. Gilman, do you have a statement you would

like to read?

Mr. GILMAN. Just, Mr. Chairman, I am pleased that you are conducting this hearing. It is an extremely critical issue, as we address all of the substance abuse problems throughout the world,

and methamphetamine has become a nightmare in many of the nations across the globe. I think it is extremely important that Congress review what we can do to have a more effective approach to

this worldwide problem. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. I am going to go ahead with some of

my questions. I have the advantage of being able to watch the clock

on the floor here, too. Then Congressman Ose was going to try to

come back over to continue it, but I don’t know, when he gets over

there and finds out that there is a second vote, although there may

be a delay, he may come back, reconvene, so that he can get some

of his questions in. We will at that point suspend again, and I am

sure the other Members will have some questions, too, and I may

have some additional.

First, what I would like, DEA has said that 85 percent of the

methamphetamine trade is controlled by well-organized drug-trafficking organizations out of Mexico and Columbia, but particularly

Mexico, and organizations based in California. So are the Mexican

and Californian organizations in this 85 percent, are they controlling the production or just the distribution?

Mr. KEEFE. Both, sir.

Mr. SOUDER. Both?

Mr. KEEFE. I would say 80 percent of the methamphetamine produced in the United States is produced by Mexican trafficking organizations who also, then, are involved in the distribution through

various levels to the street levels, sir.

Mr. SOUDER. Now you referred in your testimony—and we are

going to hear from other witnesses today—about the explosion of

these small labs and that you refer to that individuals can’t make

their cocaine and their heroin, but they can make their meth.

You’re saying that total is less than 20 percent of the country,

those who produce their own meth?

Mr. KEEFE. That is our estimate, sir, yes. Both smaller labs, personal use, I would say less quality, sir, and those are the 20 percent.

Mr. SOUDER. And in those smaller labs, are they just distributing

in a narrow area around them to their friends and for personal

use?

Mr. KEEFE. Yes. Yes, sir.

Mr. SOUDER. Whereas, how does the meth move—in other words,

if you are coming from Mexico and California organizations and

moving toward the Midwest, you have a mention of Minneapolis.

How is that being—does it get into schools? How does a trafficking

organization set up in meth different than it might in cocaine and

heroin?

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Mr. KEEFE. It may not move that much differently, sir, but what

we see with the methamphetamine specifically out of California is

a very strong command control by the Mexican trafficking organizations in California with networking now, as we mentioned, to

cells in the Midwest and through the East Coast. We see a tremendous amount of movement across the United States through the

command control, through the highways, of moving the methamphetamine to their cells in the Midwest or Atlanta, GA or up

into Portland, ME, where they then distribute it down to the street

level, sir, to the local clientele.

Mr. SOUDER. One of the things that we have seen in Indiana and

other parts of the country is, as immigrants come in, particularly

illegal immigrants who are basically necessary to sustain our work

force because our employment rates are so low in the Midwest,

small amounts of different drugs, including not only marijuana, cocaine, and heroin, but increasingly precursors or methamphetamine may be being brought that help finance the early stages or

just give additional cash. Is that a pattern you’ve seen?

Mr. KEEFE. Absolutely, sir. I would say, as we have seen through

the nineties the economy grow, we’ve seen a number of hard-working Mexicans coming into the United States, moving throughout

the country, working as construction workers, at restaurants, wherever the case may be, and setting up an infrastructure which

makes it easier for the traffickers to move into the community because there are already hard-working people there. They assimilate

themselves in small areas like Indiana, where law enforcement

may not be aware of them, may not be understanding of how they

move it. It’s very difficult communication-wise, culturally, to understand how these traffickers can just set up and they appear overnight. They’re very well-organized, sir.

Mr. SOUDER. When immigrants may bring small quantities in

and may then not be involved long term, or involved long term, or

may be what could be called ‘‘mules,’’ are they part often of a trafficking organization that has dispersed their load or does it tend

to be more random than that?

Mr. KEEFE. Well, that would be up to the individual. Obviously,

a mule may just try to make some money to get across the United

States to get started. He or she may say, ‘‘This is the way I want

to choose. I’d rather that than work hard.’’ And they’ll continue to

try to work for the organization. If they work hard and are successful, that may give them the opportunity to move up into the organization to more trusted positions and stuff like that. Or it could be

people just did it one time and decided this is not what I wanted

to do. Maybe a friend got arrested, and they said, ‘‘I don’t want to

go to jail in the United States.’’ Mr. SOUDER. Do you see the particular problem that we were

talking about as—do you have any way to quantify what percentage of the total trade that might be, and would you put that in the

80 percent you were talking about or in the 20?

Mr. KEEFE. It’s tough to percentage, sir. What I would like to say

with the 80 percent was—I’m confusing myself or you—is we estimate that 80 percent of the methamphetamine manufactured in

the United States is controlled by the Mexican trafficking organizations. I could not honestly tell you how much methamphetamine is

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also coming into this country controlled by the Mexican organizations. What I was referring to in the 80 percent is what is actually

manufactured here.

Mr. SOUDER. Certainly, at San Ysidro, where you can see all the

pharmacies right by the border on both sides, it is probably not just

aspirin?

Mr. KEEFE. Mexican trafficking organizations for years and years

have smuggled everything they can into this country, drugs obviously very predominant in that.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Gilman, we have 5 minutes left.

Mr. GILMAN. Yes, a couple of quickies.

Mr. SOUDER. OK.

Mr. GILMAN. Do you have enough personnel? I note that some

new personnel are going to be added for the meth attack. Do you

have enough personnel and funding in that office?

Mr. KEEFE. Mr. Gilman, we always say we could use more personnel and we’re always working through our budget process to request that.

Mr. GILMAN. And you are making requests for additional personnel?

Mr. KEEFE. Yes, sir.

Mr. GILMAN. The 2000 act provided funding for the University of

Iowa to continue research in rendering anhydrous ammonia, one of

the chemicals that is used in producing meth, useless for meth production. Can you give us an update on that?

Mr. KEEFE. I’m not positive, sir, where that is. Obviously, the

goal of that is because so much is stolen from farms for very small

labs primarily that it’s needed, so that we can help the farmers and

the law enforcement people in those communities that are inundated with those stuffs because it’s so easy to use to make methamphetamine. But I can get the answer, sir.

Mr. GILMAN. If you do have any information, could you provide

it to this committee?

Mr. KEEFE. Yes, sir.

Mr. GILMAN. One more question: There’s a news report out of

Oklahoma that meth test backlogs have been forcing judges to dismiss a case saying that there is a tremendous backlog at the State

drug testing lab. Is that a problem nationwide?

Mr. KEEFE. I’d have to get you that answer, sir. I do not know

the answer. I can get you that.

Mr. GILMAN. Can someone provide us with that information?

Mr. KEEFE. Yes, sir.

Mr. GILMAN. And if there is such a backlog, what can we do to

try to help with that? Thank you.

Mr. KEEFE. Yes, sir.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. The subcommittee now stands in recess.

[Recess.]

Mr. OSE [assuming Chair]. We will now resume the hearing.

Yes, Mr. Keefe?

Mr. KEEFE. Tampa, FL has been a stronghold for a long time for

methamphetamine labs and distribution, both the labs, formal labs,

and the distribution coming across. We see it in Atlanta, GA. We

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see it in North Carolina. I think we could honestly say, sir, we see

it in every State.

Mr. OSE. So the labs basically have, if you will, moved from what

might have been West Coast-centric focus and they have started to

branch out into other areas of the country?

Mr. KEEFE. Sporadically, sir. Still the majority, the 80 percent,

we still see in California.

Mr. OSE. Is there something unique about California other than

its geographic proximity to Mexico?

Mr. KEEFE. Again, I think you have the command control is very

strong out there for these organizations. Geographically is correct,

but that doesn’t mean that they won’t move out to other areas. As

law enforcement steps up pressure more and more, we often see

the traffickers move to the paths of least resistance.

I think the key for us for the laboratories, in looking at these organizations, is we need to stay after the command control groups

to help us get to the laboratories and to the distribution, sir.

Mr. OSE. All right. Generically, when you manufacture meth, it’s

got a good stink to it, you need wide-open areas—a ‘‘good stink,’’

that’s a technical term.

Mr. KEEFE. It is.

Mr. OSE. You need wide-open areas. You have to dispose of the

used chemicals. So you’re largely in a rural area. I mean you occasionally see it manufactured in somebody’s garage in an urban

area——

Mr. KEEFE. Yes, sir.

Mr. OSE [continuing]. Which just boggles my mind how somebody

doesn’t notice.

Mr. KEEFE. Right. They must have a cold like me, sir.

Mr. OSE. Allergies. I’m allergic to gridlock. [Laughter.]

From the professional side, what do you see the trend being in

these labs? Do you suspect that it is going to stay focused in California from the manufacturing standpoint or do you see it moving

into other parts of the country?

Mr. KEEFE. I would be concerned as anything that it would

move, sir. It’s always potential to move it to those areas you mention, the parts of the country, rural areas where they can set up

the larger labs, because of the smell, because of less law enforcement presence. Those issues could force it, yes, sir, and we’re always looking for that, sir.

Mr. OSE. We are talking about the manufactured side. I want to

go for a minute to the end-user side. Do you have any information

about what the demographics are of people who are susceptible to

use of methamphetamine or the demographics of who is using

methamphetamines? Is it in affluent areas? Is it urban areas? Is

it rural areas? Is it the slaughterhouse work force? What are the

demographics of this?

Mr. KEEFE. It’s often—and I don’t know totally all the demographics—it’s often been referred to as the poor man’s stimulant,

but I don’t think we can just say that anymore. I think there’s so

much available out there that people that want to have the opportunity to smoke it, or whatever, to try it, it’s there available for all

across the board, all the demographics.

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Mr. OSE. Now the stuff that I have read has indicated to me that

this is largely embedded at present in, frankly, the White population. It has not traveled or evolved into Hispanic or Black populations to the degree that it exists in White, even though that is

changing. Is that accelerating?

Mr. KEEFE. I don’t have figures on that, sir, but I would only say

the potential is definitely there for that to happen, yes, sir.

Mr. OSE. OK. So it really knows no bounds? It knows no bounds?

Mr. KEEFE. Absolutely not, no.

Mr. OSE. I mean we find it in urban New York; we find it in

rural Nebraska; we find it in rich areas, poor areas?

Mr. KEEFE. That’s correct, sir.

Mr. OSE. What about age groups?

Mr. KEEFE. Younger individuals, but I would think the people

that have been using it for longer, you’ll see them into the thirties,

if they last, physically last.

Mr. OSE. It does beg a question. If someone is walking down the

street, what are the characteristics of someone who is using methamphetamine?

Mr. KEEFE. That’s totally high at the time?

Mr. OSE. A repetitive user, either high at the time or—— Mr. KEEFE. Kind of high-strung, probably very thin, looks very

worn, very antsy.

Mr. OSE. How about their teeth? Are their teeth black? Gums are

black?

Mr. KEEFE. Probably. Well, their health would come from lack of

food, lack of sleep, taking care of themselves. Yes, a habitual user

would show all those traits, sir.

Mr. OSE. Congressman Baird talked about patients of his who

the strength of the drug basically overwhelmed their parental instincts. Is that consistent with what professionals in your area of

the field are experiencing?

Mr. KEEFE. I would say, from my experience, it’s true.

Mr. OSE. What kind of ramifications exist for, say, child protective service agencies and the like?

Mr. KEEFE. It’s going to be very difficult for them, very difficult.

Mr. OSE. The recent increase, 1996, 1998, and 2000, in criminal

penalties for methamphetamine production, possession, and sale,

have those been helpful with respect to responsibilities you possess

regarding production and sale of methamphetamines?

Mr. KEEFE. Certainly increase is always helpful, sir, no question.

To what degree, obviously, because of what we still see, it hasn’t

deterred a number of these organizations from taking that risk because of the financial gain that they have.

Mr. OSE. Are there any changes in any of those statutes that you

would recommend?

Mr. KEEFE. I’d probably have to look into that and respond to

you, sir.

Mr. OSE. If you could get back to us on that—— Mr. KEEFE. Yes, sir.

Mr. OSE [continuing]. That would be helpful.

One of the issues that exists—and my district’s largely rural;

Congressman Baird’s is largely rural; Congressman Cummings’ is

a very urban setting; Mr. Souder has a mix. Many of the counties

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or the local government entities in my area spend upwards of 60

or 70 percent of their law enforcement or justice budgets on drug

trafficking, drug treatment, drug cases, drug prosecutions, and the

like. Do you have any information as to the degree to which methamphetamine as a percent is reflected in those wholes?

Mr. KEEFE. No, I don’t, sir.

Mr. OSE. You don’t? All right.

Congressman Latham and I have sponsored legislation in the

106th Congress regarding the precursor chemicals to methamphetamine. How do we figure out how to control those so that they don’t

basically get moved into illicit production of drugs? These regulations or these constraints, do you have any feedback about how effective they have been?

Mr. KEEFE. Not that I could answer to you right now, sir. I could

get you that answer.

Mr. OSE. Do you have any suggestions as to how we might improve control of these precursor chemicals?

Mr. KEEFE. I think through outreach programs with the chemical

companies here in the United States, keep discussing with them,

explaining to them to look for people, companies and what-not, that

aren’t normally purchasers, or large quantities; ask some questions. Wonder where your product—ask where it’s going downstream and not be afraid to let law enforcement know when they

see suspicious things. Don’t just turn your eye or head away just

because of the money that’s involved. Help us out.

Mr. OSE. Is the DEA doing anything to establish a clearinghouse

or an ability to track the precursor chemicals from manufacturer

to end-user?

Mr. KEEFE. No, sir.

Mr. OSE. You do not have that ability?

Mr. KEEFE. No, sir.

Mr. OSE. OK. Has the industry been cooperative, in your opinion?

Mr. KEEFE. I think it’s improving, sir. I think we still need to

keep working toward it.

Mr. OSE. Is there anything Congress can do to facilitate that relationship?

Mr. KEEFE. Again, I would look into that, if I can get back to you

on that sir.

Mr. OSE. All right.

You talked about the staffing levels earlier with Mr. Gilman. I

think he asked a question to that. The 2000 Methamphetamine

Anti-Proliferation Act authorized $15 million in additional funding

for the HIDTA program specifically to deal with methamphetamine

and amphetamines. Can you give us some sense as to how that

money is being used to address the problem?

Mr. KEEFE. No, I can’t, sir.

Mr. OSE. Perhaps we could followup with a written question on

that.

In the 2000 act there were also some research and educational

programs that were authorized as they relate to combating methamphetamine use. Can you give us any update on the status of

those programs?

Mr. KEEFE. No, I cannot, sir.

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Mr. OSE. All right, we will put that question in writing also.

Mr. KEEFE. Yes, sir.

Mr. OSE. I don’t have any other questions.

Mr. Keefe, we are going to go to the next panel. I want to thank

you for appearing before our committee. We will be directing some

written questions to you. I would appreciate response from DEA accordingly to help us do our job here. We are grateful for the work

you do.

I just want to tell you, I didn’t beg to be on Appropriations; I

didn’t beg to be on Ways and Means; I begged to be on this committee for a specific reason, and I don’t intend to let go. So I appreciate

your help.

Mr. KEEFE. Thank you, sir.

Mr. OSE. If there is anything I can help you with, you let me

know.

Mr. KEEFE. Thank you very much, sir.

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Mr. OSE. All right. We’ll have the next panel, please. We need

to have Mr. Ron Brooks, Mr. Doug Dukes, Chief Henry Serrano,

and Sheriff John McCroskey.

I am sorry, we have Deputy Sheriff Doug Harp here, too.

All right, noting the absence of those two individuals, we are

going to go ahead and swear in the three of you, and then when

the others get here, we’ll repeat the swearing in for them, so we

can proceed with the testimony. So if the three of you would rise?

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. OSE. Let the record show that the witnesses answered in the

affirmative.

We are going to go alphabetically today. We are going to go for

5 minutes. If somebody else comes in, we will let them have the

chair and proceed. Otherwise, we will recess again, so I can go

vote.

Our first witness today is Mr. Ron Brooks. So, Mr. Brooks, for

your opening statement you have 5 minutes.

STATEMENTS OF RON BROOKS, CHAIRMAN, NATIONAL NARCOTIC OFFICERS ASSOCIATIONS COALITION; DOUGLAS K.

DUKES, SHERIFF, NOBLE COUNTY, IN; DOUG A. HARP, DEPUTY SHERIFF, NOBLE COUNTY, IN; HENRY M. SERRANO,

CHIEF OF POLICE, CITY OF CITRUS HEIGHTS, CA; AND JOHN

MCCROSKEY, SHERIFF, LEWIS COUNTY, WA

Mr. BROOKS. Mr. Ose, Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of

the subcommittee, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before

you to discuss the explosion of meth production in what I believe

is the most dangerous drug epidemic to threaten our Nation. I’m

appearing as the chairman of the National Narcotic Officers Associations Coalition, which represents 50,000 narcotic officers from 36

State associations. I’m an active narcotic officer with more than 26

years of service in California. I currently serve as the Special

Agent-in-Charge for the California Department of Justice Bureau

of Narcotic Enforcement’s San Jose Regional Office. During my career, I have seen firsthand the damage and destruction caused by

illicit drug use, and while heroin and cocaine have traditionally

been considered our most dangerous illegal drugs, they pale in

comparison to the destructive potential of methamphetamine. Also,

unlike those drugs, meth is domestically produced in clandestine

labs and is truly America’s home-grown drug epidemic.

Meth labs have a profound impact on the quality of life in the

communities in which they operate. In addition to the devastating

effects on users, the most disturbing meth-related statistic is that

California police officers found 795 children inside toxic meth labs

in 1999. Another danger is meth’s impact on the environment. Five

to seven pounds of highly toxic chemical wastes are dumped, are

produced for every pound of finished methamphetamine, and that

waste is dumped throughout the State in our farmlands, rivers,

streams, and cities.

It’s important to realize that when a law enforcement officer sees

a clandestine meth lab, they are interdicting the drug at its original source. Because of this, we have a real opportunity to dramatically reduce its availability, but we will not succeed if sufficient resources are not allocated to attack the large-scale meth-producing

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organizations operating in California and flooding our Nation with

meth.

Mexican national crime cartels that now control the meth trade

have command-and-control structures in Mexico, but maintain

manufacturing and distribution hubs in California. By operating in

the United States, these cartels are able to produce and distribute

meth without having to risk smuggling drugs across our heavily

guarded borders.

While fewer than 300 meth labs were seized in the United States

in 1992, that number rose to 921 by 1995, with more than half of

those seized found in California. By the year 2000, 8,923 lab incidents were reported by law enforcement to DEA’s El Paso Intelligence Center, with 2,239 of those incidents occurring in California.

But lab seizures alone don’t tell the whole story. Of greater significance are the relatively small number of superlabs operated in

California by Mexican cartels which generate the bulk of the meth

consumed in the United States. Last year California reported the

seizure of 138 superlabs, which are defined by DEA as yielding 10

pounds or more per reaction. Through June of this year, 79

superlabs were reported seized in California, and the number of

very large production labs, 100 to 300 pounds per reaction, has increased dramatically.

These factory labs are why California continues to produce 85

percent of the Nation’s meth. One superlab can produce as much

meth as 400 or more of the user labs described earlier. The California Department of Justice developed a California Methamphetamine Strategy [CALMS], in 1996 to counter the growing meth

problem. CALMS was funded from fiscal year 1998 through fiscal

year 2000 at $18.2 million for the methamphetamine hotspot section of the community-oriented police and services cops’ budget.

The 84 additional agents hired as a result of CALMS have resulted

in a 90 percent increase in California meth seizures from 1997 to

1999, along with similar increases in lab seizures. We’re very

grateful to Congressman Ose for leading the entire California delegation’s efforts to continue funding the CALMS program in fiscal

year 2002.

But, to be very honest, Mr. Chairman, the meth hotspots program is not adequate. One of the biggest problems State and local

law enforcement face in confronting the meth problem is the cost

of investigating and cleaning up lab sites. States’ budgets can absorb only so much of the extra expense. In this case, Federal assistance is not only needed, but in the case of the CALMS program has

demonstrated dramatically effectiveness in increasing lab seizures.

I would urge the Congress to consider expanded methods of providing financial assistance to State and local law enforcement for

meth enforcement, whether through increased funding for hotspots

or a separate authorization that would meet the needs of all States.

As a national representative of narcotic officers, I would hope

that every meth-plagued State receives adequate Federal meth enforcement assistance, but I think that it’s clear that California’s

meth problem disproportionately affects the entire Nation. Meth is

the one drug that we can truly choke off if sufficient resources are

dedicated to the eradication of superlabs.

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Chairman Souder, I want to thank you, as well as Mr. Ose and

the members of this subcommittee, for your leadership and all that

you do to address and pre-empt the effects of drug abuse in our

country. As a veteran narcotic officer, I consider that methamphetamine is worse than any other drug that I’ve seen, and as a father

of two teenagers, I hope that the Congress will do all it can to assist law enforcement in confronting this problem.

I have provided the committee with an additional handout which,

if it would be appropriate, I would like to have entered in the

record. I would be happy to take any questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Brooks follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER [resuming Chair]. Thank you. I am going to turn to

my colleague, Congressman Baird, to introduce the next witness.

Mr. BAIRD. I thank the Chair. It really is a privilege for me to

introduce Sheriff John McCroskey. Sheriff McCroskey represents

Lewis County, which is a rural Washington State county, lots of

timber country and a county that’s been hard-hit actually economically by some of the timber cutbacks. But, in spite of that lack of

financial resources, they have faced really a plague and an epidemic level increase in meth labs.

In the nine counties in my own congressional district, there has

been a 474 percent increase in meth lab seizures between 1997 and

2000. There were 46 labs seized in 1997, but 218 in the year 2000,

and just the first 4 months of this year alone there were 120 labs

seized. At this rate, there will be a further 66 percent increase in

this year.

Sheriff McCroskey, as I mentioned, has really been one of the

leaders in Washington State on this issue. He and his staff have

done just remarkable work cracking down on the labs, trying to

stem the tide of this. They are in a county that has one of the highest per capita admissions for treatment in our State, and it’s a real

privilege to have Sheriff John McCroskey with us to talk about the

challenges facing rural officers.

Sheriff McCroskey, please proceed.

Sheriff MCCROSKEY. Thank you, Congressman Baird, Chairman

Souder, Ranking Member Cummings, and my own Congressman. I

appreciate the opportunity to be here today. I thank you all for the

opportunity. It’s a privilege, and having said that, I want to also

warn you that I sometimes am candid. I know your time is valuable and I will be direct.

Lewis County, for your information, is located one corner at the

base of Mt. St. Helens, one corner at the base of Mt. Ranier. It’s

divided by Interstate 5, which runs all the way to California, and

for whatever reason, they have decided to market their meth up in

our way. That’s why Washington is now No. 2 in the country and

Lewis County No. 1. As a matter of fact, Lewis County seizes more

labs in our little county, a rural county of 70,000 people, than some

States.

So what needs to be done? You’re going to hear a lot—and I’ve

looked at my colleague Sheriff Dukes from Indiana’s notes; I’ll try

not to replicate things that have already been said. Let me tell you,

first, that our most successful strategy has been the uniformed patrol officer. They’re most likely to find it. The most labs we seized

in 1 day was three or four, and it was done on a routine traffic

stop. It happens all the time. My street crimes unit, which right

now has been absorbing the patrol when they are in uniform in

marked cars, working neighborhood problems—we’ve already

talked about the odor of meth—and working those kinds of cases,

something called ‘‘knock and talk.’’ They’re very effective. They’ve

made a number of—they make more lab seizures and find more

labs than our drug task force, which is partially federally funded.

The reason that occurs, sir, is because of the rules that are placed

upon our drug task forces. They don’t have the flexibility, at least

in their minds, to do some of the minor offenses, the small users,

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the little things that lead to these labs. Consequently, that is a

problem for us.

We find kids in labs as well. If a parent put a firearm up to the

head of a juvenile with one bullet and played Russian roulette, everybody would look at that with horror and they would have a complete fit, and there would be punishments that would fit this. We

find children, babies crawling in labs all the time. It’s not treated

the same way. We find meth oil, which is similar to apple juice, sitting next to an apple juice bottle available to a child, and that is

looked at differently. Yet, can you just imagine what would happen?

Our schools, talk to teachers; it’s inundated. I talked to a treatment provider for juveniles before I came—she’s part of my committee from the Meth Summit—in August. Most of her business is

methamphetamine-related.

What can you do? Control ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, period. They’re not rocket scientists. They can’t make it unless they

have that stuff. Precursor laws in the old days with the old labs

changed the entire process. It had an effect. This would, too.

There needs to be severe penalties. In Washington State we have ‘‘three strikes, you’re out.’’ We have not yet been able to convince

the Governor that manufacture of meth should be a strike because,

as I said, it affects every aspect and every facet of our communities, our schools, our public and social services, our law enforcement, our fire. It’s affecting our communities, and it’s burying us.

My 44 sworn, or thereabouts, when I am fully staffed, I could devote them all to fighting meth, doing meth, and they would do

nothing else. That’s how bad it is getting in rural Washington,

70,000 people, mostly Federal property.

Expand and fund the drug task forces. We are currently and constantly under attack. It seems like we’re pitted against treatment,

prevention, and enforcement. We seem to be fighting for the same

dollars. It’s not fair. I will tell you that we need to find a way to

better blend those things together and not fight about the money,

but make sure we have what we need.

This may come as a shock to you, but drug treatment for meth

is a dismal failure. It is a dismal failure. So dumping tons of money

in there may not be the way to go. Should we do it? You bet, but

prevention/enforcement seem to be a better tool.

I know when I arrest a meth manufacturer, someone dumping

chemicals, poisoning our children, and they’re in jail, I know

they’re not manufacturing meth. If I knew they were there for a

long time—it took us about 20 years to get this last fellow. He’s

gone for 30 years, but it took a long time and a lot of arrests for

manufacturing meth to get him there.

Crime is a direct result. There is violent crime, abuse, domestic

violence, all of that stuff, and those people are out driving cars,

folks, on the highways with your families and mine. They’re out

there, and they’re much more difficult to deal with.

Somebody asked about, what do they look like? If you spot one,

ever see one once, you’ll know after that. They look pretty wild.

Where we can really help us is with lab response teams, support

our State patrol, our State lab. We can’t afford to have a lab team.

It’s too expensive. But we have them in place. Our drug task forces,

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some of them have them in place. We’re trying to get some more

of our people trained by the DEA. Their training is very helpful.

So we have a minimal response, but it’s not enough.

Speaking of the DEA, please, when you send help to rural counties, if you send 10 DEA agents to Lewis County, it’s like a scab

on the front of your nose; everyone in the county knows they are

there. They’re not able to use our informants. They’re not able to

blend. We need to find a way to better blend that, and that’s policy.

It’s not the officers; it’s the policymakers. We’ve got to blend them

better, and that can be done.

Standing at the counter of my jail 1 day—what does meth do to

teeth—a man standing right there talking to me, his tooth fell out

on the counter. It rots them. The chemicals rot them from inside

out.

When they go into the jail, they are taken off any—they’ve been

deemed by somebody to be disabled and qualifying for benefits

until they come into a county jail, and then the locals have to pay

those medical, dental, and mental health. Speaking of mental

health, we’ve had a 1,300 percent increase in our jail for mental

health referrals since 1988, I think, and it’s a direct result of substance abuse, in the last 4 or 5 years, methamphetamine.

I know a lot of talk has been about asset forfeitures which has

occurred up here on the Hill. Please remember why it was put in

place in the first place, and meth is not an asset forfeiture targetrich environment. The DEA may have a lot of big Mexican and

well-organized; ours are primarily mom-and-pop stores, mom-andpop little outfits. They’re disorganized. If anything, they do communicate by teaching each other how to manufacture meth, and that’s

about it. In fact, the fellow who went away for 30 years was our

leading instructor in the manufacture of meth for others, and we

couldn’t get rid of this scourge.

Asset forfeiture, there are problems with it. There are abuses of

it, but, please, when you hear about these horror stories, use a surgeon’s knife as opposed to a meat cleaver approach. If you think

about the fact that most of the time the problems that you hear

are horror stories—and they’re real; they are real and they are serious, but maybe we can deal with ones that are wrong as opposed

to every one of us and putting us all in the same bucket.

When I left, my under-sheriff was trying to respond to a Federal

organization—and this is a continuing problem—required by them

over the Internet on line and, as normally happens, it’s not working. We’ve got to find a way—I’m a policymaker; you all are policymakers; the leadership of DEA is policymakers, the FBI. We have

to find ways to better mate up so that we get the best bang for the

buck.

I want to thank you all for the time to be here. I appreciate the

opportunity to address you. As my colleague said, I would be happy

to answer questions as well.

[The prepared statement of Sheriff McCroskey follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. You certainly scared me from driving

I–5. [Laughter.]

We’re going to wait to introduce Chief Serrano until—oh, Congressman Ose is back. OK, I will let you do that. I didn’t see you

sneak in there.

Mr. OSE. I tell you, Chief, I don’t know about these guys.

Mr. SOUDER. That’s why you’re in such good athletic shape, from

all these runs back and forth here. [Laughter.]

Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, it is a pleasure today to introduce Chief

Henry Serrano. Chief Serrano comes to us today representing the

law enforcement department of the city of Citrus Heights, which I

was involved in founding, and we successfully accomplished that

after 14 years in 1996, November 5, 1996, if I recall correctly.

Chief Serrano runs a department of about 60 officers as a part

of a larger sheriff’s organization for the county. He is under contract to the city. Henry is the second chief of police to serve in the

city of Citrus Heights. He’s basically on loan to us from the sheriff.

He has done an outstanding job and has had significant experience

in the innovative ways in which local government in an urban setting can use its resources to combat not only methamphetamine,

but drug use, drug abuse in particular. I am pleased that he is able

to join us today and has taken time out accordingly. Mr. Chairman,

thank you for allowing him to testify.

Chief SERRANO. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I appreciate the opportunity to be here with you this morning

to provide you with testimony regarding how methamphetamine is

impacting our community. I’m also deeply appreciative to our Congressman, Doug Ose, for all that he does and for making my appearance here this morning possible.

Across America drug abuse is the common denominator in much

of the overall crime problem. Drug abuse drains precious public resources and causes irreparable damage to members of our communities. As with many communities, my city of Citrus Heights, located in Sacramento County, CA, has its share of drug abuse problems. Methamphetamine is the primary drug of abuse in the city

of Citrus Heights and that region.

I am here today to share with you, with this committee, my concerns about the rapidly spreading use of methamphetamine. Because of the location of Citrus Heights and our proactive approach

to deal with this problem, I may be uniquely qualified to comment

on the methamphetamine epidemic.

Studies have shown that Sacramento County had the highest incidence of methamphetamine use amongst male arrestees in the

United States and was third in female arrestees. Nearly 70 percent

of the people arrested in Sacramento County test positive for at

least one illegal drug at the time of arrest. Furthermore, a study

of students at our city’s high schools indicates that over half of the

high school students report having used illicit drugs.

Studies show that methamphetamine is spreading from the West

Coast across the United States. Based on current trends, methamphetamine will become a major problem for U.S. cities coast to

coast. Public and private health care services are adversely impacted by drug abuse. Sacramento County has a higher rate of

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methamphetamine-related hospital emergency room admissions

than any other county in the State of California.

Children are often victims of drug abusive parents or care providers. Child Protective Services in California report that, when it

intervenes to protect a child from a drug abusive family, methamphetamine is invariably a root cause. One in every 10 babies

born in Sacramento County test positive for drugs or alcohol.

Violent and unpredictable behaviors of persons high on drugs

pose a safety risk for both the public and law enforcement across

America. In 1999, a subject who was under the influence of methamphetamine attacked two Citrus Heights police officers. During

the incident he was shot. In 2000, a violent, highly publicized hostage situation occurred in Citrus Heights. A subject who was under

the influence of methamphetamine held an 84-year-old man hostage and threatened to stab him in the throat. The subject was

shot and killed by an officer.

With the formation of the Congressional Caucus to fight and control methamphetamine, a bipartisan group of 68 Members of Congress, including some of yourselves, has nationally acknowledged

the gravity of this epidemic.

What can be done to change this scenario? The Citrus Heights

Police Department has developed an innovative and proactive drug

abuse reduction model combining prevention, education, enforcement, and training. Through a reality-based education of students

and members of the community, collaboration with stakeholders,

and early intervention through highly specialized law enforcement

training and enforcement, the Citrus Heights Police Department

has taken a first critical step toward a healthy and more productive community.

The police department would like to implement and expand a

drug reduction/prevention program that will serve as a model for

other law enforcement agencies across the United States. Our goals

are to employ drug recognition experts [DREs], to intervene and act

as resources to other officers enforcing drug-related laws and DUI

laws.

In the United States only about 1 percent of officers have this

DRE training. In my agency approximately 20 to 25 percent of the

officers are DRE-trained, and my goal is to have 50 percent trained

and certified as experts.

We work collaboratively with the University of California, Davis,

Department of Psychiatry, working to create a reality-based, innovative and progressive drug education program for students and

other key stakeholders in the community. We provide drug abuse

education materials and support service references to drug-addicted

arrestees and their family members and friends. We also identify

unsafe environments for children where drugs are prevalent and

work with Child Protective Services to place children in safe living

situations. We seek to provide support services to elderly persons

or developmentally disabled people who are neglected by drug abusive relatives or caregivers. Our agency works to obtain and analyze data regarding youth exposure to drugs and effectiveness of

drug education, prevention, and media campaigns to develop more

effective age-appropriate education materials. We are in the process of developing and implementing a survey for students and citiVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:18 Sep 03, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00146 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\80843.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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zens regarding the availability of drugs and patterns of abuse to

assist in the development of effective strategies for drug prevention. We will analyze and incorporate data from surveys to develop

a profile of the methamphetamine users: habits, patterns of use

and purchase, and other psychological traits to aid in the enforcement efforts and education of other law enforcement officers, and,

finally, to design and implement a program evaluation survey to

evaluate outcomes of the school education component, including the

effectiveness of the course over a 3-year period in preventions of

patterns of drug abuse.

I truly believe that drug abuse is, first, a community problem,

and therefore, first, must be addressed at the community level. A

broad-based program, such as the one I have just described, is necessary for every community plagued by drugs. It is only when every

community can do its part to reduce demand for illegal drugs that

significant headway can be made into what is really becoming a

national problem.

My department is doing what it can, but we need to do more. We

will always strive to be in a leadership role to reduce drug abuse

and improve the quality of life in Citrus Heights and, hopefully,

the Nation.

Mr. Chairman, in conclusion, thank you very much for the opportunity to be with you this morning. I would like to have the additional documents I have provided entered into the record. I hope

my testimony has been effective in highlighting the problems, and

I look forward to working with you toward a solution. I would be

pleased to take whatever questions the subcommittee may have.

[The prepared statement of Chief Serrano follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Thank you very much. Sheriff Dukes and Deputy

Sheriff Harp, will you stand? We need to swear you in.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. SOUDER. Let the record show that the witnesses have answered in the affirmative.

It’s my privilege today to introduce Sheriff Dukes as well as Deputy Sheriff Harp to the committee. We have worked together for

many years on the drug problem. He was one of the sheriffs in my

district that early on recognized we had a drug problem, and along

with Judge Cramer, other leaders in the county, have put a national award prevention program in place. They have one of the

first grants and efforts in the community coalition, in addition to

the youth prevention, the one where they’re consulting and working with businesses as to how to identify drug problems and get

people into the prevention programs.

It’s been a full-force pressure, and working particularly with

Sheriff Snyder over in Elkhart County, where you have a lot of

common problems moving back and forth. Because of the nature of

the communities on the western side of Noble County and the eastern side of Elkhart County, we have seen much more aggressive

law enforcement and kind of an early warning system in northeast

Indiana as far as the drug problem. It’s a great privilege to have

you today and we look forward to your testimony.

Sheriff DUKES. Thank you. It is an honor to speak to you. It is

an honor for me to be here today, and we thank all of you for inviting us.

We’re from a rural community, 43,000 people, 10 percent Hispanics, legal Hispanics. We have a large number of illegal Hispanics living in our community.

My department is 18 persons. I have one drug officer and one

field detective. It wasn’t until 1996 that we made our first methamphetamine arrest. Since then, we’ve been overwhelmed. Our department has collected just in the past year approximately 150

ounces of meth. That’s a half million dollars worth of street value—

in little, lone Noble County.

We have some stories to tell you. We keep a jail of 230 beds. It

used to be 36 beds. We have an average population of approximately 200 in jail. I could stay here today and tell you story after

story after story of the bizarre incidences with just methamphetamine. I’ll summarize, if I can. I know I’m limited on time.

A woman, 27 years old, mother of three, found face down in a

coma, clinically dead, now has gained 100 pounds, babbles when

she talks and has a tube running out of her brain. Bad methamphetamine—because you can’t tell the difference. This was made

from Decon, baking soda, and battery acid; looked like methamphetamine. These are the kind of things our youth have trouble

with.

An ex-athlete, 19-year-old girl, running naked down railroad

tracks. It was so difficult to—she weighed 95 pounds. She was so

difficult for us to handle that we shipped her to the Department

of Corrections for safekeeping. They called us and told us to pick

her back up. We couldn’t control her; they couldn’t control her.

Methamphetamine.

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A subject that was arrested for disorderly conduct broke the lock

on our holding cell, a little guy, very meek the next day, apologetic.

It took seven confinement officers to hold him down and subdue

him, high on meth.

An inmate, tackled because he was trying to do a swan dive from

the top bunk, high on meth.

Twenty juveniles arrested in a burglary ring, the sole purpose for

the thefts, the burglaries: methamphetamine, to purchase methamphetamine.

A subject, really bizarre, high on methamphetamine, that we

were following, playing with a chainsaw in his front yard, trying

to have fun with his buddy as he was gunning the chainsaw. Finally arrested that day, came in, took his clothes off, which is frequent, masturbated on the floor and actually had sexual intercourse with the floor drain—solely high on methamphetamine.

A senior high school dropout in rural—one of our three little

schools, making $4,000 a week. He dropped out of school. He said,

‘‘I could have made more, but I couldn’t hardly spend the $4,000

they were giving me.’’ Flying to Phoenix, AZ and getting right back

on the plane and coming back, never got caught until he got caught

in Tulsa coming back by an interdiction team. He had a body suit.

All he was doing is going around and filling the body suit full of

methamphetamine and coming back. He stated they had 400 clients, as he called them, mostly high school kids from our community.

These are just a few examples of bizarre behavior. I could talk

all day long. Meth is the drug of choice in Noble County.

There are some statistics and some things I’d like to tell you real

quickly. The National Drug Intelligence Center stated that the

State police laboratories, meth laboratories, have doubled every

year except for 1999, when they tripled.

In our local paper, in Tuesday’s edition, it said that an Indiana

State police officer shut down 128 labs in 1999, 315 in 2000. We’re

right around 500 right now. It is overwhelming.

A quick note from the Internet: You want to know where to make

methamphetamine. That’s what the kids do; they hit the Internet,

200-and-some recipes on the Internet, but one of them I found real

interesting, a Partnership for Free Drug America, where it states

that, ‘‘It has been brought to my attention that many people in this

country cannot easily get the drugs they crave,’’ and it goes on to

talk about methamphetamine. ‘‘Methamphetamine is one of the

most fun drugs around. It makes you smarter and increases physical performance. Meth lets you work around the clock, so you can

be a more productive worker.’’ This is the stuff our kids get a hold

of.

I want to thank you. I could tell you stories all day long. It is

a major problem. And, Mr. Gilman, we have two DEA agents in our

11 counties. We could have two working full time in our county or

twenty working full time in our county. There are not enough DEA

agents. There are not enough undercover drug agents in our area.

Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Sheriff Dukes follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Sheriff Harp.

Sheriff HARP. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share

with you our thoughts and concerns about the methamphetamine

epidemic in our community.

In 1995, I was privileged to be asked by Sheriff Dukes to begin

work as the first undercover narcotics officer in the history of our

small department. Having worked for several years as a street cop,

I felt I had a pretty good understanding of the drug traffic and use

in our county. I felt, like most people, that the big drug dealers

were in Detroit, Chicago, and Ft. Wayne, and that most of our local

dealers picked up their dope from them and sold it then in our

county. In addition, I knew that we had LSD, marijuana, and cocaine in our community. Methamphetamine, I thought, was primarily for the truckers and the bikers. What I found out over the

course of the next 21⁄2 years was I didn’t have a clue about the

scope of the drug problem in Noble County, IN.

My first exposure to meth was in 1996 when a deputy stopped

a Yugo on a traffic violation. The Yugo had an overwhelming odor

coming from the vehicle. The car had a plastic gas tank in the back

that had a hose attached to it that was vented out the rear of the

vehicle. The tank was frosted over and bulging at the seams. The

deputy knew that something was amiss, but he really didn’t know

how to proceed. So he did what he had been trained to do, and he

had the vehicle impounded and brought to the lot of the sheriff’s

department.

Imagine, if you will, how stupid we felt when the lab team from

Indianapolis got there in full gear and breathing apparatus, as

we’re standing there in our civilian clothes and uniforms and

watching them approach this car. Fortunately for us, it was a

learning experience that we lived through, and it could have ended

very tragically for all the officers involved. As we processed the car,

I was amazed at what we found. There was Coleman fuel, lithium

batteries, brake fluid, Red Devil lye—all the things they were using

to manufacture methamphetamine.

During my tenure working narcotics, approximately 80 percent of

the drug cases that I investigated involved the sale and manufacture of methamphetamine. Clan labs started appearing throughout

northern Indiana, not the major labs that are common in the

Southwest, but primarily mom-and-pop labs.

Over the course of the next several months we arrested one

Noble County resident in Noble County with 5 pounds of meth,

learning later that we had missed another 14 pounds. Another resident was interdicted in Kansas with over 20 pounds of meth which

he had purchased in California and was bringing back to Indiana.

On both these things, what I found interesting was, when you consider the average price of meth, it’s $1,600 a pound, and it wasn’t

going to Ft. Wayne, Detroit, Chicago. It was coming directly to

Noble County, IN.

In another instance a female resident was arrested after receiving FedEx packages containing methamphetamine from California.

Subsequently, she was convicted, served her time, was released,

and we arrested her again not too long ago for manufacturing meth

in her apartment.

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One of the things, as I was putting this together and reviewing

the information I had, is the surrounding theme with methamphetamine is the violence, and our county is no exception to this rule.

In 1997, we arrested a female for dealing meth and cocaine from

her home. A search warrant was conducted of her house, and we

discovered several semi-automatic assault rifles, a sawed-off shotgun, and a bullet-proof vest.

In 1997, search warrants were conducted on two separate locations in Noble County on a Hispanic dealer who reportedly had ties

to the Mexican mafia. The suspect was not located; however, several guns were, including a 50-caliber Desert Eagle. The suspect

was later shot and killed in Mexico, reportedly over a drug debt

that he owed.

In 1999, while executing a search warrant on a suspected meth

dealer, the suspect attempted to shoot officers with a 9-millimeter

handgun. Officers returned fire and killed the suspect. An autopsy

conducted on the suspect revealed that he had toxic levels of methamphetamine in his system.

In the year 2000, a search warrant was conducted in neighboring

LaGrange County and the suspect set his house on fire and then

shot at police officers who returned fire, killing the suspect.

Recently, a search warrant was conducted on a clan lab in our

county and a deceased infant was found in a duffel bag. The mother of the child, a 16-year-old juvenile, admitted that she was a regular user of meth and was using meth during her pregnancy. She

stated that the child was stillborn and she had carried the child in

the duffel bag for several weeks.

Across the country violence has increased as a direct result of

meth usage, and I believe that it will continue to escalate as meth

becomes more and more popular.

Last night in Noble County, deputies arrested a person with 28

grams of meth. This would have been a major news story for us,

5 or 6 years ago, and today I doubt that it makes the front page.

In my lifetime I don’t believe that rural America has ever had

to deal with anything as destructive and costly as meth. It is destroying communities morally, spiritually, and financially, and it is

my belief that it has not yet peaked. Usage will continue to grow

and availability of the drug will reach epic proportions.

We need your help in coming to terms with something that is

turning rural America into a toxic waste ground, destroying lives,

filling our jails, and using up all of our limited resources.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Sheriff Harp follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Thank you all for your testimony. It is a very good

mix and moving mix and challenging mix of testimony for us.

Sheriff Dukes, there was one thing that you had said that was

extremely troubling to me. You said that the one person that you

had arrested said he had 400 clients. Do you have any idea what

percentage were students? Did he give you any clue? Half? Because, to put it in context—what?—east Noble has maybe 1,200 in

the high school; central Noble, 250, and west Noble, 600?

Sheriff DUKES. Right.

Mr. SOUDER. Something like that? So that would be an extremely

high percentage from just one dealer, unless he was into the junior

highs, too, but you’re still in a pretty high number of penetration.

Given the fact that we have been very aggressive in Noble County, also, in prevention programs and treatment programs, aggressive with this, could you elaborate a little bit more? Do you think

we’re not catching in the other counties as much? You alluded to

the changes occurring in Noble County, and they are dramatic. For

those who aren’t familiar, you use a 10 percent Hispanic population, which is a jump probably close to five times since the last

census, and in Ligonier on the western side of the county, I know

when I go to the parade there, less than 50 percent can speak

English, of maybe 20,000 to 30,000 people at the parade. It is a

dramatic changing community, most of whom are in no way involved with any of these problems, but it has led to extra challenges. Could you elaborate a little bit? Because it would seem to

be a county where we have model prevention and treatment programs.

Sheriff DUKES. In that case right there, the person he was in

business with was from Goshen, and it included a lot of Elkhart,

Goshen, all the way to Kendallville, all the way to East Noble kids.

He, this kid, had a big, fancy car, the gold; he had it all, and he

attracted people. When I say he had 400 clients, that’s exactly

what he told us, around 400 clients, and most of them high school

kids. It always amazed me how, at $100 a gram or $125 a gram—

you know, I didn’t have that kind of money and still don’t. My wife

doesn’t let me have that much. Where do they get it, you know?

But that is exactly what was going on there, and he never got

caught, flying on those airplanes, using his own name. He just used

different airports. But it’s all local.

Mr. SOUDER. Several of you made references to trying to improve

prevention programs as well as treatment programs. Could you address—Sheriff McCroskey, I think you had some fairly pointed comments about that. What would you suggest we do to make them

more effective?

Sheriff MCCROSKEY. I wish I could tell you. I wish I had any answer. I can really only speak to my little world. One of the problems that I see, I’ve coached little league baseball and soccer for

many years and watched these kids grow up now, and it hurts me

terribly to tell you that some of those kids have told me they’ll be

dead by the time they’re 25 and they don’t see any reason not to

use this. At best, I guess, can call it a loss of hope.

Another phenomenon in our county, in our community, largely

because of changing timber policies, we no longer have the mills

and the jobs that were paying high dollars. Well-meaning people

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have come and said, ‘‘Well, let’s put some training dollars in here

and make them computer programmers or other things,’’ but these

are folks whose family name is on a road someplace, who have

hauled logs, cut trees, and have somehow been maligned by others

who don’t live there and think we’ve cut all the trees down or done

something horrible. They have lost hope. They are losing their

houses, and they go to the bars. Usually it starts with alcohol, and

they drink and they end up trying meth.

The message that gets lost somewhere is that meth—and I’ve

been around this a long time, and I didn’t see heroin and stuff in

our county until just recently probably, but I started in southern

California and I saw a lot of it there. The difference between then

and now, in my opinion, is that started in the mainstream stuff

and scared people and they backed away from it. Today it’s going

into the mainstream and, for whatever reason, either because of its

highly addictive nature, the loss of hope, the failing families, the

strain of just trying to eke out a living in places that are depressed

anyway, and it’s affordable, they’re using it. Once they’re addicted,

it’s too late.

So how do you connect with kids and say, ‘‘Look, it’s not marijuana. If you try it, it may be the last thing you do. There’s a good

chance you’re going to be addicted. It’s not something that you may

walk away from in a little while’’?

People that live in my jail for up to 3 years—I wish they didn’t,

but they do, and they’ll tell you when they leave, the day they

leave, that they’ll go out and find meth just as soon as they can.

They’re not in there for meth. They’re in there for driving violations or something, but they’re going to go find meth. They know

it hurts them. They know it’s bad. They don’t care, and I don’t

know how you connect with 10-year-olds and keep them from starting.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you.

Chief SERRANO. Excuse me.

Mr. SOUDER. Sure.

Chief SERRANO. If I could address on the question of education,

we’ve been fortunate. We’ve had some very, very creative officers.

Bob Johnson, one of my lead narcotics officers, is very creative in

his thought processes. One of the things we did was we went into

our freshman class at our high schools and we spent a 4-hour period with these freshman. We went over the pathology of it. We

went over what it does to your career opportunities. One of the

most effective things, I think, was we took several pictures, before

and after pictures, where you start off with a really vibrant, sharplooking young man or young woman, and by the time they’re 30

they look like they’re 50.

The things that these other gentlemen have described are absolutely true. Teeth are gone. Complexions are shot, deep boils,

scarred, just a mess.

With that, we then did a post-survey of the students and asked

them about four questions. One of them was, ‘‘Has this training

changed your thought processes?’’ Almost every one of them said to

some degree or another that it had changed their thought processes. In fact, we had a couple that were really, really sad where

the kids were saying, ‘‘You know, my parents use meth and I know

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I need to now become involved with you guys because I see what

it’s going to do to my family.’’ So that is something that we have found effective. The psychologists that we work with tell us that the freshman year is as late

as you can get in on that type of intervention. If you wait until

they’re seniors, you’ve waited too long. But it does seem to be at

least one effective tool that we can use to help educate our youth.

Mr. SOUDER. I want to add a brief comment before I go to Congressman Gilman, and it actually happened at East Noble High

School. I was meeting with seniors, most of the senior class, and

raised the question because I believe in drug testing, and immediately was jumped by a number of the class leaders as this being

a violation of civil liberties to propose such a thing. One of the students then held up his hand and said, if he hadn’t been caught in

a drug test, he said he was spiraling downhill and that was the

only thing that saved him, was a drug test as part of an athletic

team at East Noble. Then another class leader jumped in and said,

‘‘Yes, but it’s a violation of civil rights,’’ blah, blah, blah. And a couple of other students jumped in who said that they favored drug

testing and had used drugs.

The principal and the superintendent, who were in the room,

then instituted a drug-testing program because they said every kid

who had spoken up in favor of drug testing had either had a problem or had been suspecting of a problem, and every student who

had spoken against drug testing had never been suspected of a

problem, which was it turned on its reverse. It was almost as

though they were begging for help.

Now the Indiana court has kicked out the drug testing. Ball

State in Indiana has done a survey showing that the schools, of

which a number are in my district, that have put in drug testing,

now since the drug testing has been pulled, we’ve seen a dramatic

rise again in the drug usage in Indiana schools in a multiple way.

Part of my frustration is that, in addition to the education, having

a check, it’s both find opportunities so they don’t lose hope, but

they also have some accountability, and we need to look at creative

ways to do that. The court needs to be helpful rather than obstructionist.

Sheriff MCCROSKEY. Mr. Souder, may I comment on that for just

a second?

Mr. SOUDER. Yes.

Sheriff MCCROSKEY. One of the comments earlier was about the

odor. Many of the chemicals are common chemicals, acetones and

things like that. So that the odors are not necessarily going to get

you very far, depending on the environment that you find them in.

Of course, if you found them in the tank of a car, that may very

well be.

The other anomaly, speaking of your students, that I find really

disturbing is that it used to be that you could classify kids. Go to

a group and the group would be—in our area they were called the

stoners, the drinkers, and the athletes essentially. That would be

what they would call themselves. And they didn’t blend very well

and you wouldn’t find the athletes involved in these other things.

What we’re finding today is that our athletes, our best, our brightest are getting involved in methamphetamine. Again, for the life of

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me, when you talk to them and wonder why—you know, I want a

little more information from this man about the Citrus Heights

thing. Some of that we already do, but some of the experts tell me

that scare tactics don’t work. On the other hand, part of my heart

says that it might. I don’t know, but it is frightening.

Mr. SOUDER. Congressman Gilman?

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank our

panelists for being here today. You’ve described some pretty poignant pictures of what we have out there in the battlefield. Sheriff

from Indiana, Doug Dukes, you mentioned you have only two drug

agents out there now, DEA agents?

Sheriff DUKES. Correct, they’re in Ft. Wayne. They’re in the city

of Ft. Wayne and they’re overwhelmed.

Mr. GILMAN. Sounds like we need a lot more help out there.

Sheriff DUKES. You sure do.

Mr. GILMAN. And we’ll make a recommendation to that effect.

Sheriff DUKES. Thank you.

Mr. GILMAN. Have you seen—and I address this to all of the panelists—have you seen a change in the demographics of the problem

in your area over the years? Has it spread? Is it more concentrated

around the cities? Can you tell us a little bit about what you are

finding? And I address that to all of the panelists.

Sheriff HARP. Again, the thing that I noticed when I started

working narcotics was I had the perception that the larger dealers

were in the cities and that they weren’t direct pipelines into the

small counties. One of the things that just amazed me, was the fact

that we’ve got major, major dealers set up in rural county America.

Our county is only 43,000. So that part of it was really frightening

to me.

It got to be in a sense kind of comical. When we leave the office— I was based out of Ft. Wayne, attached to a task force, but if we

turned right, we went to the innercity and we bought crack cocaine.

If we turned left, we went to Noble County and we bought crank,

we bought meth.

Mr. GILMAN. Where is most of the meth coming from in your

area?

Sheriff HARP. A lot of it is mom-and-pop operations now. Five

years ago, it probably wasn’t to that extent, but today there’s a lot

of mom-and-pop operations that are cooking up an ounce to a

pound, somewhere in there, because they’re heavy users as well as

dealers. Then we’ve still got a pipeline, I think, that comes from

the Southwest and comes direct to the county.

Mr. GILMAN. So what portion of it is mom-and-pop operations?

Sheriff HARP. That would be kind of hard for me to say. In I

think the majority of the cases that we’ve seen the last 2 years, it

has probably been small operations that had been cooking their

own. That doesn’t mean that the big operations aren’t there, because they still are.

Mr. GILMAN. Other panelists want to comment on that? Yes,

Chief?

Chief SERRANO. There is a change in the demographics that I

find kind of frightening, because I hadn’t heard some of the numbers here from folks in the central and eastern portion of the country. Methamphetamine costs about a quarter of what it does for the

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rest of these folks in California. It is extremely cheap. That is one

of the things that makes it the drug of choice out there. You can

get enough to stay high for a day for about $20. It’s not $120 a

gram; it’s about $20 a gram in California.

Mr. GILMAN. Any other comment by the panelists? Yes?

Sheriff MCCROSKEY. Sir, I would just add that most of ours also

is mom-and-pop. However, we just did, and we’ve done two, international cases in our county, and the last one was a huge case.

DEA came in and spent several months involved with our task

force on it, but that’s relatively rare. I’m afraid that may be a pattern that is coming.

Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Brooks.

Mr. BROOKS. Yes, I would say in California, which is the State

that is completely flooded by methamphetamine, it crosses all

boundaries. There is no demographical lines that would delineate

who might use meth or who might not. We’re finding it among professionals. We’re finding it among the blue collar community. We’re

finding it among all race and genders. But the really scary thing

that’s been mentioned is in California it’s cheap. It’s so cheap that

it’s become a very popular drug, along with ecstacy, at rave parties

and in nightclubs. More frightening now, as a parent, we’re seeing

it into the junior high school and even upper grade elementary

school levels, available for purchase at $5 and $10 for usable quantities.

Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Brooks, is any of it coming in from overseas,

other countries?

Mr. BROOKS. We have seen a recent phenomenon of methamphetamine tablets coming from Southeast Asia into the Oakland and

LA airmail facilities, but that has not been that common. As was

testified to, California is probably producing 83 percent of the total

amount of the methamphetamine sweeping the Nation. Not to take

away from the mom-and-pop user labs that have been a problem

in all States, the big superlabs or factory labs in California is what

drives the meth trade.

Mr. GILMAN. One last question, Mr. Chairman. I know my time

is up. Have any of you received any significant help from the Federal agencies?

Sheriff MCCROSKEY. Sir, we have a drug task force that’s partially funded, but constantly the funding for it is under attack. I

guess there’s other things that are needed. So we struggle with

that.

The other area, though, that we’re desperately in need of is in

cleanup help and lab response help, and I would suggest that you

use established organizations that may be in existence, if they’re

not. We have some rural counties that do not have any of those

things, but our Washington State Patrol Lab Response Team runs

itself completely ragged trying to keep up, and we lose cases.

There’s labs that we don’t even include in the numbers because we

lose them.

Mr. GILMAN. Any other comments?

Mr. BROOKS. If I could——

Mr. GILMAN. Go ahead, Mr. Brooks.

Mr. BROOKS. What we receive in the way of Federal help, we

have an excellent working relationship with DEA, but California,

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the Department of Justice has run since 1996 our California Meth

Strategy Program. It’s been funded out of the Congress since 1998.

That gave us 84 additional agents and 59 additional technical specialists to add to what was already a very robust program that we

ran. It makes up a small portion of the $160 million that California

law enforcement spends each year on meth enforcement, but it

gave us those extra personnel so that we could concentrate on the

big, large-production, organized-crime families that are operating

these meth labs, so that we weren’t just reactive like firefighters,

but that we could be proactive in long-term strategies to work on

rogue chemical companies and cross-state and interstate distribution organizations producing in California but shipping hundreds

and thousands of pounds of methamphetamine across the Nation.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you. Any other comments? Yes, sir?

Chief SERRANO. Yes. We’ve been very fortunate where we’re at

in that Congressman Ose has been a tremendous support in helping us with Federal assistance. We currently have a program that

I talked about today. We want to expand it to its full fruition so

that we can prove it out, so that we can get it beyond the ad hoc

enforcement, education, and community nexus that we’re currently

doing. The program that I have referenced cleared appropriations

yesterday. So we’re very hopeful that we’ll be able to see that become a reality and will be able to further prove out the things that

we have going here, but we’re very, very hopeful for that.

Mr. GILMAN. Well, we commend Congressman Ose, who does a

great job at fighting this battle, wherever it may be.

And the other two gentlemen, sheriffs?

Sheriff HARP. One of the problems that we have, with the task

force I was assigned to, since I’ve left that, the numbers have been

cut in half, not by our department because we only had one representative there, but the Allen County Sheriff’s Department, who

was the primary sponsor of the task force, through some reassignments and some shortages elsewhere, had to pull half the task

force and put them back into uniformed positions. So that is really

going to hurt us in our area because we’ve lost the use of so many

personnel that we’re earmarked just for narcotics.

Mr. GILMAN. Sheriff Dukes.

Sheriff DUKES. Yes, sir. Our two DEA agents work well with us.

It’s just that we don’t see them too often because they are so overwhelmed. However, when they came—we never had them until

about 3 years ago or 2 years ago—since they came, our big cases

now go to Federal court. It has made a difference.

Mr. GILMAN. Well, it’s good to hear that.

Mr. Chairman, with your consent, I’d like to submit my full opening statement for the record.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Ose.

Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, what is the time—— Mr. SOUDER. We have 10 minutes and 21 seconds left in the vote

on a motion to go to conference on the supplemental.

Mr. OSE. Are we going to have a second round?

Mr. SOUDER. Yes, because we’re not going to be able to get Congressman Baird in before, and I have some more questions, too.

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Mr. OSE. OK, thank you, Mr. Chairman. A couple of questions,

if I might.

Chief Serrano, I want to explore these drug recognition experts,

and I want to come back to the DEA agent numbers because I

share an issue with Sheriff Dukes and Deputy Sheriff Harp here.

On the drug recognition experts, if you could elaborate a little bit

more on what that program is? Why is it important to the entire

program, and then could you share with us some of the experiences

that law enforcement personnel who come out of that program have

had when they go back to their home departments?

Chief SERRANO. Yes, thank you, Congressman. The drug recognition expert program is a 2-week training period, and they go

through everything from symptomology to what the drug is, how it

works. They receive this training at certain training sites. They are

very, very limited. Once they’ve had the 2-weeks of course study,

then they have to go out into the field and prove that they’ve absorbed what they’ve learned.

Citrus Heights is a DRE test site, which means that we bring officers in from all the northern California region to be able to go out

and make arrests and show that they truly understand what

they’ve learned.

What DRE does for the officer is officers who are well-versed in

this can be driving down the street, look in the car next to them

and tell by symptomology some good indications: sweatiness, clammy, the tweaker movement, as you might refer to it. They can identify these things.

To be certified, they have to get 12—they have to be able to do

the work on 12 individuals who are arrested for methamphetamine.

These sweeps that we do in our city that usually involve between

about 12 and 15 officers, the most people we have arrested in about

a 10-hour shift is 25, and that’s simply going out and looking for

them.

What it does for an agency is it gives them the ability to identify

it. A classic example is there’s a little community just east of us

called Rocklin, about 8 miles out of our community in Placer County. One officer got DRE trained. The following month he arrested

20 people in his community, and his comment, because he’s come

back and helped on some of the sweeps, was, ‘‘These are the same

people I’ve been stopping in the 5-years I’ve been with the agency.

I just didn’t know what to look for.’’ And that’s the real key to

DRE: It gives you something to look for. The officers are now

trained. They know what to look for. They know how to identify it

and they can take affirmative action based on that.

Mr. OSE. Mr. Chairman, the reason I asked that question is I did

a ride-along with a member of the department in Citrus Heights,

and it was uncanny to be just driving down the street, and the deputy would just be kind of going like this, right there, and would

pull that car over, and, bam, he’d find something related to the

drug issue. It was uncanny.

So for the others who are here who might wish to access this program or those who might read this testimony, I would commend

this program to them.

Chief SERRANO. Congressman Ose, we’ve trained Mounties and

we’d be glad to invite anyone else who would like to come.

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Mr. OSE. All right.

Sheriff MCCROSKEY. Sir, just let me comment on that. It’s also

in Washington. However, the biggest setback to a rural, small

agency such as myself is the 2-weeks’ training and the costs associated with that. We do send a person occasionally, but—— Mr. OSE. What is the cost? Two weeks of salary and covering the

shifts and whatever the cost to house them.

Mr. Brooks, you talked in your testimony about 670-odd children

being CPS-eligible or necessarily turned over to CPS. Can you just

expand for us the connection that you’re seeing between methamphetamine use and its impact on families, the disintegration

that takes place in those families and the impact on the kids from

those families?

Mr. BROOKS. Yes. Methamphetamine is an extremely devastating

drug in that, as described before, people that are addicted to methamphetamine become so consumed that they’re unable to provide

the care and love that they need for their children. Additionally,

it’s a drug that is sexual drug and a drug that causes aggression

and violence. So in many studies throughout California 80 to 85

percent of the child abuse cases have been related to persons, caregivers or parents or others, that were under the influence of meth.

One example is the fire in Riverside County, CA, when a meth

lab exploded in a mobile home and a mother raced to save the

meth chemicals and save her own life while letting her own three

children burn to death.

Another example was in Arizona when a New Mexico man under

the influence of methamphetamine driving down the street heard

voices that he related later he thought were from God that caused

him to cut the head of his small son off while his other older son

tried to stop him. The violence associated with meth and the violence that I can relate to you may sound sensationalized, but this

is something that I see and deal with every single day of my life.

More importantly, when we talk about these children and these

meth labs, more than 700 in 1999 eligible for treatment by the

child protective services and really that number is much higher because there are some meth lab teams that have not been trained

to take care of those kids yet. These are kids who test positive for

meth, heavy metals and the other toxins that are involved in meth

labs.

Let me just relate a real quick story. I just did a meth lab where

I went out with the men and women that work for me down in

rural San Benito County, 2 hours south of San Jose. We hit a meth

lab, a large Mexican national factory lab, almost 300 pounds of finished product, five armed suspects running that lab, and when we

hit the lab in what was the largest hydrochloric acid cloud that I

have ever seen in all the labs that I’ve hit, an extremely toxic environment, we found a woman with her three children and she was

pregnant, 8 months pregnant with her fourth child. We had been

on surveillance on that lab for 3 days. We had never seen her come

or go, which meant that her and her children were in that lab, in

that environment, an environment of carcinogens, respiratory toxins, and contact poisons, for the whole weekend that we watched

the lab. That’s but one story of hundreds, maybe thousands, that

occur across the Nation.

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Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. The subcommittee now stands in recess,

and we’ll come back to this panel when we get back.

[Recess.]

Mr. SOUDER. The subcommittee will come to order.

Mr. Baird.

Mr. BAIRD. Again, thank you, Mr. Chair, for holding this hearing

and for your leadership on this issue, and thanks to the witnesses

for their outstanding testimony, and not only for your testimony,

but for your service. You folks and your officers go in every day to

places that are terribly, terribly dangerous.

I shared with the chairman on the way to the vote when I use

to do crisis mental health and our pagers would go off. In these

days most folks who were doing crank in those days were largely

biker-type folks. When your pager would go off and they’d say,

‘‘There’s somebody here in the ER on meth,’’ you just would shake

your head and say, ‘‘Gosh, why did I get call duty today?’’

But I want to ask a couple of questions regarding the exposure

of your officers to the toxic chemicals. Oftentimes you don’t know

there’s a meth lab when you’re going to bust a place. What experiences have you had? One of our city councilwoman’s son is a police

officer whose had some severe health effects following a meth lab

bust. I’d be interested in your comments and your experiences. I’ll

open this to whomever wants to offer it. John, do you want to

start? Sheriff McCroskey.

Sheriff MCCROSKEY. Sure. Thank you, Congressman Baird. It’s

funny you should ask that. We have officers exposed less frequently

now because they’re a lot more cognizant of it, but it wasn’t uncommon to send one to the ER routinely after an exposure. One of my

deputies, a woman, which they do tell me biologically are more vulnerable than men in some ways, stopped a car, went to a house because a guy forgot his license, and said, ‘‘Hey, I’ll take you up there

and get the license for you.’’ And she followed him up there. They

walked in the door, and as they walked in the door he goes, ‘‘Oh,

gosh, I forgot about my meth lab cooking here.’’ So she was instantly contaminated. It’s routine—it’s very common or most common in domestics or in serving of warrants: routine, common police

practices, things we do all the time. So it’s very common, and a byproduct of that is increased insurance rates to local agencies

through the risk pool and others.

Mr. BROOKS. In California we run a statewide clandestine lab enforcement program out of our nine field divisions. We’re required

to have cradle-to-grave reporting for all of those agents in which

we do baseline medical testing annually. So we can track the accumulation of heavy metals and other chemicals in their system and

we report our exposures. Last year in California 22 law enforcement officers went to the hospital from injuries from exposure that

occurred at labs, but many hundreds of officers were exposed.

There’s an interesting graphic in this book that I think could be

put up on the screen that kind of shows how toxic these lab sites

are. It’s just amazing to me that we don’t get more and more officers hurt because—you may not be able to see that too well, but

it’s in your packet. You can see the thousands of gallons of toxic

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chemicals, and we’re talking about carcinogens, contact poisons,

respiratory toxins.

At one point in the heating process in making methamphetamine

using the red phosphorous pseudoephedrine method, if you overheat, it creates phosphine gas, a very deadly gas that, when

breathed just several times, can cause pulmonary edema and almost instant death. All of our agents have to carry toxiray

phosphine gas detectors, and that’s when we know we’re going into

the meth lab. So the real hazard, of course, is when officers working in uniformed patrol for local police departments or sheriffs’ offices may stumble into these environments without the protective

equipment that we normally wear, without that training and that

medical monitoring.

Chief SERRANO. In my agency what we do is, if we get into a lab

environment, as soon as it’s stabilized, we get out and we bring in

the task force. We are very fortunate; we’re there in California

where there’s a lot of emphasis way far down the track. Being at

the capital, we have all these resources immediately available, and

we just hold it down. We’re more concerned about protecting our

officers at that point and stabilizing the situation and immediately

handling it.

There have been times where we have gone in and seen it and

it was so dramatic that we have had to evacuate portions of neighborhoods in order to keep them safe.

Sheriff DUKES. The DEA training is excellent in what to do. We

do the same, stay back as soon as they find it. Very sobering, the

class is very sobering, as you see three policemen and I believe a

county coroner going into a house, all eventually died of cancer. A

body that was outside that was so contaminated that when they

turned it over, the officer got contaminated. The DEA has an excellent training program. We, as a department, have the State police

identifying team come in and show us what to be careful of every

year.

Mr. BAIRD. We intend at some level within the Methamphetamine Caucus here to try to initiate some studies, possibly through

CDC or NIH, to assess this. If you gentlemen or your offices have

data pertaining to exposures and illnesses, we would much appreciate that, if you have the opportunity. That may be helpful. Address it to my office, attention Lizzie Ivry, who is on my staff.

Lizzie’s over here.

Sheriff MCCROSKEY. Congressman Baird, along those lines, I’d

ask that you consider the fire departments at the same time, especially volunteer fire districts who they’re just folks that help out,

but the impacts can be significant to their districts as well.

Mr. BAIRD. At some point, John, we intend to do precisely that.

Thank you. Again, thank you. My time’s up. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. SOUDER. We’re going to go a second round. I had a question.

In Indiana and nationally we have had a case that is going to impact the identification of marijuana growing and being able to identify it from helicopters based on the heat sensitivity and other visual imaging. Is that also going to affect meth labs?

Sheriff HARP. Probably not to the extent that it will with the

marijuana grows. Unfortunately, we just got the thermal imaging.

We just sent the guy to training in Arizona and he just got back

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with the unit, and then I think a week later is when the court kind

of nixed us on that.

The other thing that we’ve also stumbled into specifically in Indiana with our interdiction program, where we do the rouse and put

signs up, and then we’re on a side road and that’s actually the

interdiction point. I know in Indiana they’ve nixed the sobriety

check points and they’ve also created problems for us doing those

kind of interdictions. So we’ve come to a standstill until we get

some kind of further opinion from the prosecutor in our county

anyway as far as what we can do with the interdictions. So those

are two things that’s really hurt us recently within the last just

couple 3 months as far as what we can do for proactive drug enforcement.

Chief SERRANO. Our experience is that a lot of what we find with

the labs and the major suppliers is through the arrest or the interconnects with the lower-level person purchasing. To give you an

idea, we had a situation a few weeks ago where an officer was very

proactive, stopped a gentleman. He didn’t have his license on him.

In order to work off not getting a ticket for not having his license,

he went and did a drug buy. A lot of times you can have someone

for a low-order-type situation that you work with in order to get

more information. You develop informants, and it’s usually

through—at least our experience in a community of about 89,000

people, that’s the most effective, is working informants.

Sheriff MCCROSKEY. In my rural county our idea of thermal imaging is standing next to the wood stove and going, ‘‘Man, that’s

hot.’’ [Laughter.]

So that’s not going to hurt us too bad yet, but what does hurt

us, we recently had a case that could not be charged because of a

court decision where an officer went to a door to serve a civil paper,

saw methamphetamined people, they screamed, ‘‘Cops, police,’’ ran

like crazy, and through the house. He pursued. They were ultimately all arrested. We not only found meth; we found a meth lab.

The meth lab spontaneously combusted shortly thereafter, while it

was being watched, waiting for the lab team. That whole case could

not be tried because in this particular case the prosecutor felt that

the courts had so restricted our ability to enter that house under

exigent circumstances that we were not able to pursue that. That

was my neighbor; the meth lab was.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Brooks, could you comment on the large-scale

labs in California, how that might differ in these kinds of questions

as far as (a) how you identify them, and then a second question

that Chief Serrano may want to address as well, and that is: How

does the child abuse law in California regarding meth labs work at

this point? It came up in the hearing we had in California. You referred to the increasing number of arrests in the area of child

abuse related to these type of violations, but I’ve wondered if you

could put that in specific context as we look at that possibly

spreading around the country.

Mr. BROOKS. Certainly. To the first portion of your question,

many of our large meth labs we find through cooperating police informers or, even more often now, by trying to target who we know

are rogue chemical distributors and then following the trail of those

chemicals, very large amounts of chemicals, both ephedrine or

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freon or red phosphorous or acids. Those are very labor-intensive

cases. They require around-the-clock surveillance teams with aircraft support because these people are very cagey and very aware

of surveillance, but sometimes then, after days, weeks, maybe even

months of following those persons, we’re able to then put them

down at what we know to be a large superlab or factory lab. After

waiting sufficient time for a search warrant, we’re able to enter

and process that lab, which, by the way, may take 30, 40, or 50

hours of crime scene processing, these very large labs.

The issue of the thermal imaging, we use that as collaborative

evidence only. It probably doesn’t affect us too much, but what will

out of that same court decision is the limit of our ability to use

trackers that we place in suspects’ vehicles, especially in barrels of

chemicals that are traded through cooperating witnesses, and we

use those trackers to follow the chemicals to the labs. Now there

are more restrictions on that, but I’m sure we’ll work around that.

As to the child abuse/child neglect issues, California has been

very successful in the institution of the drug-endangered children’s

program, where we work very closely with child protective services,

the courts, and the district attorney’s office, and other public health

care professionals to look at the danger the children are in in

homes where meth is present, where firearms are present and,

more importantly, in these homes and in environments where children are present when drugs are being cooked, when they’re exposed to the drugs. We have a protocol on how to collect evidence

specifics for those child abuse/child neglect prosecutions, and we

work closely with the DA’s office, with the county prosecutors to

prosecute. And that’s something that they don’t do very well at the

Federal level yet. Federal prosecutions might be something the

Congress would look at.

Chief SERRANO. On a more local level, in all candor, the major

concern we have in those situations is the welfare of the child, the

endangerment of the child. If we can take that child out of that environment and get them into the processes of the State, at least if

there wasn’t a case open on the family before, there is now and a

child protective worker will be checking on the family and monitoring. A lot of times that’s probably about the best help that we have

for that child. They’re in extremely dire straits in the environment

where the parents are either cooking or heavy users of methamphetamine. Getting that child out of that cycle is probably the

most beneficial thing that you can do.

Mr. SOUDER. And you’ve invoked that in your county a number

of times?

Chief SERRANO. Yes. Yes, we will take the child out of the home.

Obviously, it always depends—if the parent is a moderate to minor

user and we’re arresting the custodial parent, a lot of times we’ll

spend time with the parent to try to find an aunt, an uncle, a

grandparent that can take the child. In these serious cases, as

being indicated, that’s where you want to take the child and you

want to put them into a protective environment and at least get

the processes started with the State and the local government, so

that will be monitored.

Mr. BROOKS. Mr. Chairman, if I might, the biggest problem is

the children in these meth labs, they’re truly guinea pigs. There

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are no long-term studies both for our police officers, firefighters,

EMS personnel, or these children, these innocent victims, on what

the long-term effects are of prolonged exposure to heavy metals and

carcinogens. We know anecdotally a number of horror stories of

cancers and tumors and other illnesses, kidney and liver failures

caused by these meth lab chemicals, but we’re still in those early

stages, only 10 or 20 years of studies. So these children growing

up, exposed in these heavy environments, chemical environments

like I described in Hollister, CA, we really don’t know what’s going

to happen to those children when they’re adults.

Sheriff MCCROSKEY. Sir, I’d just like to add that—and keep in

mind that my perspective is completely rural—we don’t have

enough CPS, child protective services. We do not have enough foster homes. If we started doing—we have to really evaluate in

where they’re placed; they’re very limited. I mean, we do all the

things, take them out, start the case, do those kinds of things, but

the limitations, based upon what’s available in our community in

terms of housing those children, is severely limited. So very often

they end up right back where they came from.

In your packet of information that I provided was a case out of

our county where a 16-year-old—I think he’s a 16-year-old, but a

young boy—was used as a guinea pig, got to test out the meth his

folks produced. I’d like to say that that stuff doesn’t happen, but

I’ll bet it happens more than we know.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. Congressman Ose.

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chief Serrano, I want to go back to the drug recognition expert

program that you’ve got doing. How much of that program are you

able to implement with local funding and resources?

Chief SERRANO. We are very fortunate in—just about exclusively

the DRE program is something we’ve absorbed locally—we’re fortunate in that the training happens at the California Highway Patrol

Academy, which is right near our community. So it’s a day-commuter on the officers. What we have to absorb, then, is the time

for them to be in the class and the moderate tuition. I think it’s

only $200 to $300 for the 2-week training, very inexpensive. But

we can’t absorb the loss of the officers. That’s the biggest thing that

we absorb, is we have to watch that.

We are the training site, the certificationsite, where they actually

go to do their training. So when our officers go to the school and

they come back to do their training, they’re doing it right there in

our own back yard. They’re doing it within our community.

At this point we have managed to absorb that. It is sometimes

difficult. It means, instead of—because we don’t have a big pot of

money that we can pay to backfill and stuff, we send maybe—we

have 85 sworn and we maybe send two or three people to a class

instead of five or six, like we might like to, but we’re able to do

it.

Mr. OSE. Let me diverge for a minute. Of your 85 sworn, how

many of them are in the police force as a result of the COPS program successes we’ve had?

Chief SERRANO. That’s a very good question, Congressman. When

we started up 4 years ago, 32 of our officer positions were COPS

positions—allowed us to start the police force, allowed us to have

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it staffed as it should have been. This past year, with Congressman

Ose’s help, we were authorized an additional six officers through

the COPS program that are now providing our traffic safety and

our motor unit.

Mr. OSE. I bring that up, Mr. Chairman, because when we established the city, there were two or three driving issues, one of which

was the adequacy of law enforcement. It’s interesting to me, on almost a daily basis, to see the interconnection between what we do

here at the Federal level and the success that local government enjoys in addressing local concerns, at least as they relate to, say,

Citrus Heights. And I’m sure they exist in your communities also.

Chief SERRANO. Mr. Ose.

Mr. OSE. Yes?

Chief SERRANO. I might say that, from my perspective, the COPS

program has probably been one of the most beneficial Federal programs for law enforcement to my experience.

Mr. OSE. I appreciate the ability to diverge there a little bit.

Chief Serrano, you also talked—excuse me—I talked in my more

complete statement about the problems we have with meth and

other drugs on our school campuses. We haven’t touched on that

very extensively here this morning. You did a survey on one of the

campuses with the kids. It’s anonymous, so there wasn’t any consequence. But the kids talked about being able to acquire weed,

ecstacy, crank, and coke, and all that. One even, more than one

went so far as to say, ‘‘Oh, yeah, we’ve got a crank dealer in our

neighborhood,’’ kind of like your mom-and-pop AM/PM or something.

What has been your experience as to the impact of meth in the

schools that are in the city of Citrus Heights? And for that extent,

the others might want to chime in.

Chief SERRANO. The main drugs that we see in our high schools,

thank goodness, are primarily marijuana, but we do have a small

percentage of the drug users—in the survey we did I would say

that I know that at least 50 percent of the kids said, ‘‘Hey, I have

used some kind of drug.’’ I would say it’s a very small portion of

the students that use methamphetamine.

We’re lucky in the sense that we do take the resources we have

put into drug enforcement and not only worked the arrest aspects,

but we’ve really worked diligently to try to really implement the

educational and community involvement aspects. We’re also fortunate in that we have a school officer assigned to each high school,

and that becomes a really viable contact within that school. What

it allows us to do is, as kids get more confident in the officer, all

of a sudden they’re coming up and, ‘‘Hey, Officer Henry, I’m kind

of bugged ’cause Johnny’s not acting right, and I know that Johnny’s parents do’’ blah, blah, blah. It really is a good resource to

have that officer in the school.

But, yes, as far as methamphetamine in our high schools, at the

high school level it has not become a major problem that we are

aware of.

Sheriff HARP. We’re probably in that same line. Marijuana is the

drug of choice in the high school. We have seen a resurgence of

LSD somewhat into the younger crowds, high school and early

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twenties, late teens. Primarily our meth problem has been with

probably the 21 to 40-year-old crowd.

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BROOKS. I was going to say, we’re seeing in the San Francisco Bay Area an increasing amount of local law enforcement reporting teen meth use. The thing that’s really dangerous about

this, NIDA and NIH studies, and those coming out of Columbia

University are showing that meth robs the brain of serotonin and

dopamine permanently. There is permanent brain altering, maybe

brain damage, if you will.

The other thing is it puts these kids on the highway with an altered state of awareness, depth perception, and speed. We just had,

in 1998, a fine young fellow, Scott Greeley, who was a California

Highway Patrol officer, killed when he was on a traffic stop on the

side of the road, run into by a meth drug driver who wasn’t even

aware of his own surroundings.

So I think the risk of children being permanently damaged and

the risk of children being on that road with not very much driving

experience and then being under the influence of meth puts all of

us and our families in danger.

Sheriff MCCROSKEY. I won’t repeat what they said, but the ancillary problems are also, if you talk to teachers, the kids that are

coming to school, they’re not learning. They’re having all kinds of

behavioral problems. They normally say, ‘‘Oh, that’s Johnny; their

folks do meth; their folks do meth; their folks do meth.’’ And the

rest of the kids are suffering, too.

Mr. OSE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. Congressman Baird.

Mr. BAIRD. One of the things that I have seen as far as lab precursor material has been this huge abundance of pseudoephedrine.

We had a bust in Lewis County recently where they found 40,000

bottles of Sudafed. The guys were clever. Instead of dealing with

the child-proof lids, they had rigged jigs up to chop the bottoms of

the Sudafed bottles off, so they didn’t even have to waste the time

with child-proof lids and cotton, etc. They were very resourceful.

But they found bags and bags and bags.

One of the pseudoephedrine bottles I brought to my office here,

and it said it was distributed by a company called Wildcat Wholesalers. Now it sure did not seem to me to be a reputable drug distribution organization.

Do you feel like—it seems to me that there are some Federal

laws and some State laws regarding distribution and tracking precursors, but it seems that if a company, be it a mom-and-pop grocery store or whatever, is selling these kinds of quantities, we must

have some better tracking method than we do now. What is your

experience with that, and what do you think we need to do?

Sheriff DUKES. If I could, it’s exactly the way you’re talking. In

our community the kids steal a lot of it from the little convenience

stores and occasionally get caught stealing it. Of course, they have

a cold or allergy; they’re never making meth, of course. However,

there is no tracking. To my knowledge, there is no tracking. I don’t

know if you can purchase it over the Internet or not, but I wouldn’t

be a bit surprised.

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However, if I may get back to something you said earlier—and

it’s so important. It affects the kids. When you talk about education

now, we all know that, but the correctional officer who the policeman comes in and throws in the guy that’s high and stinks, he’s

affected. The ambulance or the EMS people who go to the scene,

they had their first class in meth just about 6 months ago in our

county. They didn’t even know what it was. The emergency room

doctors, the emergency room nurses that take care of these people—this is a chain reaction. I think John said the firemen, the volunteer firemen—we’re all little and they’ve never seen this stuff,

and they go into these homes and they go right in them.

Mr. BAIRD. Sheriff, if I could interject—— Sheriff DUKES. Sure.

Mr. BAIRD. I think you raise a critical point. One of my concerns,

if you were to look at funding levels for drug interdiction from this

body, from the Congress, we spend so much more money on cocaine

and heroin and the other so-called hard drugs. Yet, as you all

know, ask any sheriff, ‘‘Would you rather bust a coke, a crack

house, or a meth house?’’ You don’t have to have HAZMAT teams

to bust a crack house. You don’t have to have fire suppression to

bust a crack house. You’re not exposed to toxic waste in a crack

house. The social costs, I believe, of methamphetamine far outweigh—not that the other drugs are good, by any means, but we’re

spending billions of dollars in Plan Columbia and all these other

plans. Yet, right here at home we have these tremendously diverse

impacts, hugely costly, especially for you rural communities that

are relying on volunteer firefighters, don’t have HAZMAT teams,

don’t have bunny suits, all that stuff. It seems to me maybe our

priorities are crooked here—not crooked, but they’re in the wrong

direction.

Sheriff MCCROSKEY. I think you’re right, Congressman. I think

they changed. That’s all that’s happened is there’s been a change.

Sometimes we don’t react to change very well.

One of the byproducts of our attention to meth at home was we

missed—I was sitting in the emergency room. I’m an amateur

carver, and I mostly carve my finger. So I was in the emergency

room getting sewn up, and while the doctor was sewing me up, he

was telling me that day two people, two prominent local adult people had come in requesting help for heroin addiction. I said, ‘‘My

gosh, is that a problem?’’ And he said, ‘‘Oh, yeah.’’

Then the next thing I knew we have kids off the football team

going to treatment, kids off the basketball team going to treatment.

So while we’ve been buried down here in looking at meth, and because it is so bad and so long term—we’ve just got to be cognizant

of the things that are going around in addition to that.

Mr. BAIRD. John, just before my time’s out, have you also seen

this problem—or others—with this ready availability of mass quantities of Sudafed or any other precursors? Do you feel we need to

do more to track that availability?

Sheriff MCCROSKEY. Yes. In fact, if there’s one thing that would

really help, I think that particular thing, the controlling of that

particular substance, would make a huge difference. Two stores,

two local stores, small, convenience stores had been selling, and the

DEA came down and just did one again a few weeks ago, but they

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were the primary source. At one time our county was—we were

being told through informants that the folks in Pierce County,

which I think is the No. 1 county in Washington volumewise for

methamphetamine labs, were coming to Lewis County to buy their

stuff because we live kind of in a simple world. We didn’t know

what a rave was until one came and now we have ecstacy. We

didn’t have that before. Kids were suddenly educated. So we’ve

done some work educating our businesses, too.

Mr. SOUDER. I want to thank this panel for a number of things.

Sheriff Dukes, if you could add, just for the record, I think that you

were the sheriff who told me that actually some of the meth cookers in Noble County had actually purchased one of the pharmacies?

Sheriff DUKES. Well, what the informant has told us, they now

own the pharmacies; they now own the fertilizer places for the anhydrous. This is very recent information. This is a motorcycle gang

out of Indianapolis who’s implicated our area and said, ‘‘You’ll

never catch us because now we’re businessmen.’’ That’s what was

told to us.

Mr. SOUDER. Which is a frightening trend as far as us tracking,

if it’s a logical growth of a distribution network, is to get control

of the next thing.

I also wanted to just comment that our interrelationship with the

Mexicans and Colombians is inevitable if 80 percent is being distributed by Mexican and California-related sources, who predominantly distribute Columbian cocaine and heroin, which finances the

distribution networks. The things are inextricably intertwined.

And a last comment to Mr. Brooks: I want to thank you, not only

all of you on the front lines, but in your association, the narcotics

association, for helping connect all the people across the country

who are working together in battling narcotics in an informational

way, in an information and advocacy way to help battle these

things. So I thank each of you for coming today.

Did you want to add something, Sheriff?

Sheriff MCCROSKEY. Well, something that was not talked about

today—and I’d add here it’s not apparently a widespread concern,

but it is locally a trend we’ve seen, and that is—and I know it’s

a topic of Congress: identity theft. Our methamphetamine, our

small, mom-and-pop operations are financing themselves through

the theft of mail, the replication of ID stuff, the credit cards. It is

interwoven, at least in our area. I know that some of the folks that

we have captured doing that have traveled all the way the Mexican

and Canadian border. So it will affect others as well.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you very much.

If Susan could come forward for our third panel, she’s going to

talk about the treatment issues. If you’ll remain standing, I’ll administer the oath to you as well.

[Witness sworn.]

Mr. SOUDER. Let the record show the witness has answered in

the affirmative.

I thank you for coming and being patient as we’ve moved

through this. We’re trying to make sure in each hearing as part of

the record we include treatment as part of our anti-narcotics effort

because we cannot tackle this problem without the treatment component. So we look forward to hearing your testimony.

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STATEMENT OF SUSAN ROOK, PUBLIC AFFAIRS DIRECTOR,

STEP ONE

Ms. ROOK. Thank you. Thank you for your commitment to treatment as part of the solution, and thank you for the opportunity to

speak with you today.

As a recovery advocate, my commitment is to break the silence

of addiction and show the success of recovery. I’m grateful to testify

as part of the solution. For years I was part of the problem. It’s

particularly nice to be in a room with police officers and not have

to worry about getting busted.

I am an addict, an alcoholic, and I’ve been in recovery for over

5 years. When someone is in active addiction, we’re very visible as

part of the problem. You’ve heard that today.

Mr. Chairman, you talked about the emerging threat. I’m here

to tell you, it’s the same problem; it’s just a new drug. And you’re

going to keep having hearings like this again and again and again.

Nearly two decades of scientific research makes it increasingly

clear that addiction erodes a person’s ability to control behavior.

Therefore, if you ever hope to correct the behavior that causes all

of the social problems, you must address the fundamental issue,

and that is addiction.

Sheriff McCroskey pointed out that addiction treatment failures

are very high. Treatment failures for addiction of

methamphetamines are very high. That’s true. I would like to suggest that we have a gap in our social system. We have prevention,

we have treatment, and we have criminal justice. There is a spot

in there from early use and experimentation that is not addressed,

that does not fall into prevention because you’re not preventing

use. It doesn’t qualify for treatment because you’re not addicted.

I’ll use my case as an example. Consider, first, the issue of voluntary choice and when that choice is made, the age of that choice.

Certainly, people choose to use drugs. Very seldom are they forced

to. I chose to use drugs. I was 13 years old. Within 2 years I was

drinking and getting high every day: marijuana, PCP, alcohol,

hash, speed, LSD, methamphetamines. My parents caught me and

tried to control my actions by taking me out of school, home schooling me, no television, no radio, no phone calls to friends, keeping

very close watch on me. External controls produced forced abstinence. Forced abstinence is not treatment. Use will begin the cycle

again.

I started college at 16. By 18 I was living the double life of many

successful addicts: active on the George Mason University debate

team, student government, school paper. I got good grades, a B+

average, and I was addicted to speed. I had to take two hits of 12-

hour time-released speed, prescription speed, just to get out of bed.

When I didn’t have the money for that, I switched to bootleg speed,

meth.

A guy I was living with got so disgusted with my behavior and

what was happening, he locked me into a room and wouldn’t let me

out until I detoxed. That experience scared me so badly—I was just

about to start shooting up—that experience scared me so badly, I

stayed away from speed. Forced abstinence or the unavailability of

the drug is not treatment. Without treatment, and more particuVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:18 Sep 03, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00191 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\80843.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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larly the tools to stay in recovery, it is only a matter of time before

use and the cycle begins again.

My first reporting jobs were covering the police beat. I couldn’t

use illegal drugs and cover the cops. So I stayed away from the

hard drugs. I kept drinking, kept smoking marijuana. Eventually,

I did, of course, go back to using illegal drugs and my particular

drugs of choice: the speed-up drugs, speed and cocaine. My life

looked great on the outside, moving to CNN at age 25, moving up

in the ranks until getting my own show, ‘‘CNN’s Talk Back Live.’’ My disease also progressed.

At 35 I overdosed. CNN paid for in-patient addiction treatment

when my insurance ran out. The support of CNN management was

critical. I was told in treatment that I was not a bad person, but

that I had a really bad disease and there was hope; recovery was

available.

You don’t see people in recovery much because we now have the

option of being invisible. I talked to the sheriff before the hearing,

and he said, ‘‘Treatment doesn’t work for you people.’’ I’m here to

tell you it does, but you don’t see people who are in recovery because we pass normal. We no longer go to emergency rooms. We

no longer go to prisons. We no longer have meth labs. We no longer

destroy families. We do pretty much normal things, like getting us

stuck in traffic and mowing our lawns. You don’t see us because

we no longer stand out and have the option of hiding.

People who do not have experience with addiction don’t know

that doing these simple, adult, responsible things actually represents growth, an enormous amount of work on our part. My story

is visible, and I chose to come forward and speak out about this,

but there are millions of people just like me out there. Some are

fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to receive treatment

and enter into recovery.

As we talk about the continuum from first use until addiction,

I started at 13. I was not given treatment. Currently, 16 percent

of adolescents across the Nation—16 percent—who need treatment

get treatment. In North Carolina, where I work at a local nonprofit, that number is less than 5 percent. If you want to do anything about the long-term drug problem in the United States, pass

parity for teenagers, so they can get the separation from the drugs

and alcohol long enough to even begin to hear the conversation

that recovery is possible and hope is available.

I talk to so many teenagers. Perhaps the sheriff is right and the

adults are just frustrating and the brains are fried. Maybe just

write them off. I’m grateful somebody didn’t write me off.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Rook follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Well, thank you very much for coming forward and

raising a number of these points. I’ve got a series of questions that

kind of popped into my head right at the beginning.

First, on the question of parity for teenagers, Congressman

Ramstad had a bill here in the House on health care parity. Are

you suggesting, since we haven’t been able to move that bill, that

we might be able to move it better if we just targeted the teenagers

separately from adults?

Ms. ROOK. Well, for example, I think there’s a lot of stigma involved in addiction because it is a voluntary choice, but I think how

the public conversation is looking at it, you look at someone who’s

an adult, a 20, 30, 40-year-old, and you say, ‘‘You have a choice

about this.’’ Well, once the disease has progressed to that, no, you

actually don’t have a choice.

Looking at it in terms of children somehow shifts the conversation, so people are more willing to help a teenager than they’re

willing to help a 30-year-old. Case in point: The attorney general

in the State of Minnesota, Mike Hatch, just filed suit against Blue

Cross/Blue Shield charging that the insurance company—filed a

lawsuit against Blue Cross charging that the insurance company

was denying coverage to children. They settled the case out of

court. Blue Cross/Blue Shield agreed to pay the State of Minnesota

$8.2 million because the State picks up the tab when the insurance

company doesn’t in terms of social cost and some treatment cost.

They agreed to put a three-panel review board on. I mean, basically, the insurance company settled the lawsuit. So I think that

is an indication that perhaps not going for full parity—that’s been

before Congress time and time again, on the House side, on the

Senate side.

In North Carolina we have parity legislation every year. People

look at it, they laugh, and everybody goes home. Everybody knows

it’s not going to pass. I think the same thing is happening on the

national level, but for the first time a legal challenge was made in

Minnesota, and the insurance company settled.

Mr. SOUDER. A second question that came to mind: Early on in

your testimony, you stated that we have this kind of void. You’re

past being prevented, but before you’ve been arrested, although you

could, in effect, become arrested in that stage, but assuming you

haven’t been arrested, and you’re not in treatment—how would you

target that group or even identify that group?

Ms. ROOK. Well, several things: First of all, we could actually enforce the drinking laws in this country. Nobody wakes up at 13 or

14 and says, ‘‘Gosh, I’ve never had a cigarette or a drink of alcohol

or any marijuana, but I think I’m going to go out and smoke some

meth.’’ That doesn’t happen. Initial use is always cigarettes, alcohol, marijuana. It is more easily available.

So, in addition to enforcing what is an obvious problem now, we

can enforce the laws that are already on the books. There’s a huge

Governors’ wives initiative campaign—Governors’ spouses, sorry—

initiative against under-age drinking. That will help.

Just simply publicizing and talking about recovery as a possibility instead of—you know, I think that people get overloaded with

all of the bad news about addiction. Yes, we know it’s awful, but

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give people something to go toward instead of something to fight

against. That’s what actually happens in recovery.

The sheriff talked about locking people up for 3 years and then

they get released from jail and they go out and they use again. Do

you want to know why? You just took away the drug. If you don’t

replace that, there is a sense of ease and comfort that happens

when you take drugs that happens immediately. If you don’t give

skills training, a spiritual path, whatever works for that particular

addict, if that hole that the addiction fills is not filled with something else, then the addiction will continue. Every child who is

using drugs has that hole. Fill it with something else. Mentoring

programs—I’m not sure what Congress can do in that sense, but

you can certainly allocate more money for prevention and education

and addiction treatment for teenagers.

Now all of the prevention programs in the world are fine but,

here’s where they get shortcircuited. Kids go to school. My agency,

we work with 6,000 kids in the public school system in Forsyth

County, NC, 6,000 kids. So, great, they’re hearing that drugs are

bad, there’s more effective ways to make decisions, how to negotiate about drug use. Then we send them home to their parents or

their family, where their mom’s an alcoholic or their dad is a drug

addict. They can’t get treatment. The insurance company says,

‘‘Yes, we’ll give you 2 or 3 days detox,’’ and then they send you

back.

There’s a disconnect. All of this stuff needs to work together, and

I think one of the key things is rhetorically talk about solutions.

None of these DEA guys, none of these cops talked about any successes that they’ve seen, anybody who has gotten off of

methamphetamines. We in the recovery community are powerful—

powerful—allies for them, double team as they go in and talk to

kids.

You know, I double team with teenagers when I go talk to kids.

I’m 40 years old. Granted, I didn’t think I’d live this long, but I’m

40 years old. They’re not going to listen to me. I don’t care what

my drug use was. I double team with the teenager in recovery, and

I can say, ‘‘This person is telling you what happened at 15 or 16.

Now they’re no longer using. Let me tell you what happened to me,

as mine happened for 20 more years.’’

Now the drugs that are available nowadays, it’s ratcheting up

the problem and it’s ratcheting up the damage. So I think one of

the key focuses has to be on that early period from experimentation

to the beginning of addiction, and that is quick. I agree with the

law enforcement experts: By high school it’s too late.

Mr. SOUDER. It appears that you describe some of what Step One

is. Could you describe it a little further, what you do and what

your organization does?

Ms. ROOK. Yes. Step One is a nonprofit. We do prevention, intervention, and treatment. We’re the Statue of Liberty for Forsyth

County, NC. We’re the place that people go to when they don’t have

any money. We’re a United Way agency. We cut and paste together

funding streams and grants. We go out and beg people for money.

We’re pretty typical of the arena of treatment. We do adolescent

treatment, adult treatment. We have a Spanish component. We

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have onsite daycare. We just are starting one of the few elderly

substance abuse programs in the United States.

It is unconscionable that this country is willing to trust its No.

1 public health and public safety issue to the sole provision of nonprofit agencies that have to worry about how we’re going to pay our

light bills. If you get colon cancer, would you put up with your doctor looking at you and saying, ‘‘Go to a self-help group, pray, and

there’s a nonprofit down the street; go talk to them’’? No, you

wouldn’t think of doing that, and yet, we do this with our No. 1

public health problem and, as you’ve heard here today, our No. 1

public safety problem.

Step One is great: treatment, intervention, prevention. Can we

do it all? No, and we’re the one that’s doing it for Forsyth County.

We have to turn people away. It’s crazy.

Mr. SOUDER. When you said a little bit ago that you felt, once

you got past high school, it wasn’t possible. Obviously, your case

turned around past high school, but you feel you get diminishing

returns? Is that in effect—in other words, the earlier you reach

somebody, the more likely your success in treatment is? The later,

it’s harder?

Ms. ROOK. Absolutely. NIDA and the brain scientists have 20

years of very good research, and Dr. Lechner of NIDA could probably explain this way better than I could. I can tell you from my

experience, and I’ve looked at the brain science and know a little

bit about it. There is a period from use to addiction. In that continuum there’s a period called heavy use and continuous use. At some

point—and the scientists actually have not been able to pinpoint

where that point is, where the switch in your brain flips to fullblown addiction—catch people before that and before the repetitive

pattern of heavy and continuous use, and then you are not fighting

a brain that has been scrambled by methamphetamines or drugs

that actually makes treatment and negotiating the details of treatment more difficult. You have more help from the body because the

body is not so physically damaged, however long that damage is.

Mr. SOUDER. Part of what I am sure the sheriffs were reacting

to was a pattern that we see in many places that I, for example,

have met very few drug dealers who haven’t been through—or

heavy users who haven’t been through multiple treatment programs. Why do you think—I don’t want to say, why is it so hard?

We know why it’s hard. What is it—and I know there are several

key variables, but I would like you to put it on the record. What

are the reasons some of the treatment programs aren’t working?

Because there’s no question that to say that they don’t work at all

is unfair, because we all meet people who have completely changed

their lives. Drug courts, which are a promising approach, probably

have about a 50 percent immediate rate that drops off a little farther long term. We’re still getting long term—but that’s pretty good

for people who have already been arrested and who are there.

Furthermore, one of the things that is missed in treatment is

that, even if the person, they say, well, they failed, they got arrested again, the intensity of use and the frequency of arrest is

often less. But it’s hard to argue with the fact that most people who

commit drug crimes, the high percentage of those have gone to

treatment.

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So could you describe some of the problems, some of the types

of treatment? You said abstinence isn’t enough because there

hasn’t been a change of heart, a change of attitude about it—obviously, short term. What would be some of the variables that you

see in effective treatment versus less effective treatment?

Ms. ROOK. Two points about that: First, the definition of treatment is not uniform. Two or 3 days detox in a local hospital psych

ward is not treatment. Treatment is a psycho-educational, behavioral, and medical continuum of care. Studies have shown that the

longer you stay in treatment, the better the outcomes. But, due to

insurance restrictions, people are discharged at now less than a

week, if they are lucky enough to go. Very few people have in-patient treatment available to them. That in-patient treatment makes

all the difference in the world. CNN paid for the last 3 weeks of

my in-patient treatment. I am convinced that, had I been discharged at 5 days, I would have relapsed.

So what we have is we’ve set up a rhetorical conversation saying,

treatment doesn’t work. Well, we’re not treating people, first of all.

If you go into the hospital for hypertension and the doctor puts you

on a particular blood pressure medication, and you have to go back

into the hospital several years—let’s use Cheney for an example.

My goodness, if his doctor had looked at him and said, ‘‘Gosh,

you’ve still got heart problems. The treatment isn’t working. Well,

we’re just going to write you off’’—a perfect example. Why do we

use a different standard when we’re talking about treatment of addiction?

Treatment rates of addiction are actually higher because of the

behavioral component. There is a behavioral component to addiction. Treatment effectiveness and outcomes are actually at or above

other diseases that have the behavioral component. For example,

hypertension: food, diet, exercise contribute to the course of the illness. Diabetes, asthma, all of those require patient participation

for effective treatment, and yet, we look at addiction and say,

‘‘Well, if you don’t get it the first time, you must be resistant.’’ No.

Each time the person goes to treatment there is a higher percentage that time it will succeed.

Mr. SOUDER. Well, as you have been hearing, we have another

vote on. I appreciate your comments, your patience with us today,

and it is important that any record we have of any drug subject

we’re trying, as much as possible, to work the treatment component

in, so those who go through the hearing records and use this as a

resource on meth—let me ask you one additional question. Have

you dealt with, or are you familiar with, efforts to treat meth, in

particular, and how meth treatment differs from other treatment?

Has it been more difficult? Have you seen success stories related

to that as well?

Ms. ROOK. We are not seeing in North Carolina meth showing

up at treatment centers yet. In 1999, the State Bureau of Investigations busted a half dozen labs. In 2000, it was a dozen. In the

first 6 months of this year, it was 13. So we will begin to see the

results of these meth labs.

I can tell you of my personal experience. There’s a young man

that I know that used to manufacture, distribute, and use meth

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who’s now in school and sober. It does work. For everybody? No.

But what are your options? What you’re doing now isn’t working.

Mr. SOUDER. Well, I thank you. I think that one strong point you

made—and it is, quite frankly, true in every area of this, and I am

kind of a holistic approach person. To say this for the record: that

what we’re doing now in all areas is both working and not working.

In treatment, there are reasons and cases working and not working. In Plan Columbia, there are things that are working and that

are not working. In the border control, there are things that are

working and not working. I happen to believe that we are never

going to change completely, which I believe from my personal faith

is a matter of sin, but you can control and manage and limit the

number of people who get involved in different things by giving alternatives and working with them.

We tried to improve the prevention programs in the recent drugfree schools thing. We are working with reauthorization of the community efforts in anti-drugs. We are trying to support the treatment efforts. We are trying to work on methamphetamine. Through

a holistic effort, I think we can continue to have a higher percentage of success stories, but, ultimately, we are never going to eliminate poverty in America. We are never going to eliminate parents

who ignore their kids. We are never going to eliminate self-esteem

problems that kids have in America or a range of problems. But we

can try to manage it and make it better and give more people an

opportunity to escape.

So thank you for your efforts with Step One, your willingness to

go public, your willingness to make sure that our record today has

the treatment component to it, as well as your patience this morning.

Ms. ROOK. Thank you, sir, and I just want to add that that holistic approach, that will work. It will work. And you, I really appreciate. This is one of the first times—I mean, this signals a national ‘‘sea change’’ in the conversation, that treatment and recovery and

the success of recovery is part of this conversation. Thank you.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you very much. And with that, our hearing

stands adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 1:04 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

[The prepared statement of Hon. Bob Barr follows:]

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