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46–269 CC 1998

THE DRUG THREAT TO TEENS IN OUR RURAL

COMMUNITIES

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, 

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT 

REFORM AND OVERSIGHT 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

JULY 7, 1997

Serial No. 105–74

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight

(

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM AND OVERSIGHT 

DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman 

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York 

J. DENNIS HASTERT, Illinois 

CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland 

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut 

STEVEN SCHIFF, New Mexico 

CHRISTOPHER COX, California 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York 

STEPHEN HORN, California 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia 

DAVID M. MCINTOSH, Indiana 

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana 

JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida 

JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona 

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio 

MARSHALL ‘‘MARK’’ SANFORD, South 

Carolina 

JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire 

PETE SESSIONS, Texas 

MICHAEL PAPPAS, New Jersey 

VINCE SNOWBARGER, Kansas 

BOB BARR, Georgia 

ROB PORTMAN, Ohio 

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California 

TOM LANTOS, California 

ROBERT E. WISE, JR., West Virginia 

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York 

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York 

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania 

GARY A. CONDIT, California 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

THOMAS M. BARRETT, Wisconsin 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington, 

DC 

CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland 

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio 

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois 

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois 

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts 

JIM TURNER, Texas 

THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine 

HAROLD E. FORD, JR., Tennessee 

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont 

(Independent) 

KEVIN BINGER, Staff Director 

DANIEL R. MOLL, Deputy Staff Director 

WILLIAM MOSCHELLA, Deputy Counsel and Parliamentarian 

JUDITH MCCOY, Chief Clerk 

PHIL SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, AND CRIMINAL

JUSTICE

J. DENNIS HASTERT, Chairman 

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana 

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut 

STEVEN SCHIFF, New Mexico 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona 

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio 

BOB BARR, Georgia 

THOMAS M. BARRETT, Wisconsin 

TOM LANTOS, California 

ROBERT E. WISE, JR., West Virginia 

GARY A. CONDIT, California 

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland 

JIM TURNER, Texas 

EX OFFICIO

DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California 

ROBERT CHARLES, Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

SEAN LITTLEFIELD, Professional Staff Member 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on July 7, 1997 ................................................................................. 1

Statement of: 

Maakestad, Pam, parent of a victim of drug-related violence; ‘‘Jerome,’’ 

former organized drug dealer; ‘‘Derrick,’’ former drug user and gang 

member; ‘‘Connie,’’ a teenager who has never used drugs; Michael 

Coghlan, former States attorney; and Kris Povlsen, project coordinator, 

DeKalb County Partnership for a Substance Abuse Free Environment .. 4

Nakonechny, John, prevention and wellness coordinator, DeKalb Community Unit School District 428; Michael Haines, coordinator of health 

enhancement services, Northern Illinois University; Tim Johnson, 

DeKalb States attorney; Richard A. Randall, sheriff, Kendall County, 

IL; and Bob Miller, just say no to drugs parade, Lee County, IL ............. 47

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

Coghlan, Michael, former States attorney, prepared statement of .............. 10

Connie, prepared statement of ........................................................................ 12

Derrick, prepared statement of ....................................................................... 38

Haines, Michael, coordinator of health enhancement services, Northern 

Illinois University, prepared statement of .................................................. 54

Jerome, prepared statement of ........................................................................ 26

Johnson, Tim, DeKalb States attorney, prepared statement of ................... 67

Maakestad, Pam, parent of a victim of drug-related violence, prepared 

statement of ................................................................................................... 6

Povlsen, Kris, project coordinator, DeKalb County Partnership for a Substance Abuse Free Environment, prepared statement of .......................... 17

Randall, Richard A., sheriff, Kendall County, IL, prepared statement 

of ..................................................................................................................... 71

(1)

THE DRUG THREAT TO TEENS IN OUR RURAL 

COMMUNITIES 

MONDAY, JULY 7, 1997 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, INTERNATIONAL

AFFAIRS, AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE, 

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM AND OVERSIGHT, 

DeKalb, IL. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 8:32 a.m., in 

Holmes Student Center, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL, 

Hon. J. Dennis Hastert (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Present: Representative Hastert. 

Also present: Representative Manzullo. 

Staff present: Robert Charles, staff director and chief counsel; 

and Sean Littlefield, professional staff member. 

Mr. HASTERT. Good morning. I want to bid everybody a good 

morning and certainly, first of all, the first order of business, I 

want to thank the president of Northern Illinois University, John 

La Tourette, who is in the doorway, for providing this facility and 

this venue for our hearing. It is such a beautiful day and a nice 

view, and I hope everybody can concentrate on the hearing before 

us. 

So, John, thank you very much for your hospitality here at the 

university. 

I also would like to recognize State Senator Brad Bruzynski. 

Brad is in the audience. 

Thank you, Brad, for being here. 

Also the sheriff of DeKalb County, who certainly has been one 

of our key allies in this fight against drugs, Sheriff Roger Scott. 

Roger, you are here someplace too. Thanks for being with us. 

The Subcommittee on National Security, International Affairs, 

and Criminal Justice will now come to order. With me I have Congressman Don Manzullo, who represents the district to the north. 

It goes all the way from the Mississippi River to the Lake County 

side of McHenry County. 

Is that right, Don? 

And certainly it was Don’s request—a couple of months ago, he 

said, you know, in my district, the gangs and drug problems are 

moving out from the city of Chicago into the suburbs and certainly 

into McHenry County; and he said, you know, I need to do hearings 

back home to see what people are thinking, see what needs to be 

done. And I said, Don, I have been thinking about doing the same 

thing. 

2

So we teamed up today to do this hearing both here in DeKalb 

County, and we will be traveling later this afternoon to McHenry 

County for a similar hearing. Today we will examine the dire 

threat of drugs to our kids in rural communities and in suburbs. 

When residents of rural areas think of drugs and teens, often the 

first thing that comes to their mind is kids in impoverished urban 

areas being victimized by crack dealers and gangs. The rural areas 

in small towns, DeKalb, Kendall, and Lee Counties, generally are 

not thought of as places where drug abuse is a problem. 

Unfortunately, times have changed and this image is simply no 

longer true. It is a sad fact, but a harbinger of our times that no 

young person in any community in America is out of the reach of 

cocaine, heroin, LSD or methamphetamines, let alone marijuana; 

nor is any community immune from the drug violence and street 

gangs and the trafficking which accompany the arrivals of these 

poisons in our midst. 

The citizens in DeKalb and our surrounding areas have been 

shocked in recent years as we continuously see the encroachment 

of drugs, drug-related violence and street gangs. No longer are we 

insulated from the problems that used to be confined to big cities, 

such as Chicago or Rockford. One need only read the recent series 

of the chronicled articles on drug use among our teens here in 

DeKalb and the DeKalb High School to understand the magnitude 

of the problem we are all confronting. As a parent certainly and a 

former high school teacher myself of 16 years, I feel this problem 

is a devastating one and requires effort by all of us to reverse. 

A few examples are illustrative. The results of the I–Say study 

on drug use, published on May 18, 1997, is a case in point. The results are an alarming 40 percent of high school students polled say 

they have used marijuana. That is nearly half of the kids in our 

schools; 14 percent said they have used LSD, 6 percent report 

using inhalants and 5 percent have tried cocaine. That is 1 in every 

20 kids. 

The saddest part is that these aren’t just statistics, they are not 

just numbers, these are our kids right here in our communities. We 

must do a better job of educating them about the dangers of these 

drugs and their use, and protecting them from those who traffic in 

these poisons. 

And perhaps the most damning statement was made by a junior 

honor student. This student commented that while the drug users 

in school use drugs every day there are some responsible people 

who care about their future and use drugs only on a weekend 

basis. This kind of sentiment of equating responsibility in caring 

about one’s future with drug use, coming from an honors student, 

paints a frightening picture of where we are as a society and where 

we are headed. 

We must wake up to our collective responsibility, meeting this 

collective threat, and become serious about fighting drugs. I think 

we will find that our panelists today, the people who are going to 

come before us, have insight; some of them have the experience of 

having their own practical experience in this type of situation and 

some have been parents and some have been in these communities 

fighting this problem for a long, long time. So I am going to ask 

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trict which lies right over the DeKalb County line, if he would like 

to make any opening statements. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Thank you very much. It is a real pleasure to be 

here this morning. 

I practiced law in Oregon, IL, a town of 3,500 people, from 1970 

until I was elected to Congress in 1992, and handled hundreds of 

juvenile cases. Many of those were kids who got hung up with 

drugs, so this area of drugs is not new to me. 

What is new about this area to me, my 13-year-old son, Neal, is 

here today, so I have a very selfish motive and wanted to make 

sure my children—13, 11, and 9—are not exposed to drugs, that 

they stay away from drugs as a matter of life-style and as a matter 

of choice. 

Dennis and I both have children, and that is why we are here, 

both as parents and as Members of Congress. 

What is shocking today about drugs is that they are cheaper, 

higher quality and easier to obtain than ever before. We have now 

a second generation of kids being exposed to drugs, and in some 

cases, three generations. 

We had a situation happen about a month ago in Rockford where 

a family moved out from the inner city of Chicago to a home on 

the west side of Rockford for the purpose of trying to keep their 

kids away from the violence and gangs and drugs. A little 11-yearold child was sitting in the living room watching a Walt Disney 

cartoon when a shot rang through the window and pierced her 

skull and killed her. What happened was that across the street 

there was a party going on, involving gangs and people that were 

using drugs. 

So what we see happening across America today is not only the 

people who are the direct result of drugs, that is, the kids who get 

hung up on them, but a whole army of innocents out there, people 

who just happen to be in the way of rival gangs fighting over drug 

territories. What is shocking about it is that there is no town too 

small, to be immune from this scourge of drugs and from the 

gangs. 

If you look around us, this beautiful rural setting at one time, 

who would have thought that the scourge of drugs and gang activities would come anywhere near us; but that has indeed come. Congressman Hastert recognizes that and we want to thank you for 

the leadership in setting up this hearing today. 

Mr. HASTERT. Thanks, Don. 

Before we begin, let us be perfectly clear about what our goal is. 

This community and others like it that both Don and I represent 

have changed a lot in the last 20, 25 years, 35 years since the time 

that we were youths in schools here. I have a brother who teaches 

in Aurora, IL, a classroom, self-contained, kids at risk; the classroom is probably 70 percent Hispanic. Most of those kids have been 

exposed to some type of gang violence. Several of the students last 

year were killed, several in one classroom were killed. 

In my view, there is no magic formula to solve the drug problem. 

Part of it has to be the demand side, communities, faith-based organizations, fraternal organizations and groups working together to 

clean up their own communities; that is where it has to start. The 

Federal Government plays a role, State and local governments play 

4

a role; and we have to sometimes fight and go beyond where we 

can even imagine that this begins, and that is in the jungles in 

South America where this stuff is produced and it devastates a 

population and a group of people there as well. So it is a whole 

area. 

Finally, we will be remiss in fighting the war on drugs in saying 

that all the effort that is done in growing this stuff, manufacturing 

it, smuggling it, moving it across the borders into this country, distributing it, selling it on the street corners, which costs about $90 

billion a year of United States revenue that has exchanged hands, 

and about $50 billion, going back, smuggled back into Colombia or 

Mexico or the origin of where the things are. If that money 

wouldn’t be able to be moved back, then the whole issue and money 

laundering issue, there would be no reason to grow the stuff, smuggle it and distribute it in the first place; and that is something we 

many times overlook, and something we won’t be talking about 

much here today. But it is certainly a very important factor in this 

whole chain of drugs that affect our kids and communities and 

really the substance that helps gangs form and is their revenue 

source in many situations. 

So, at this time, I would like to introduce our first panel. The 

first four witnesses will provide a human face to the war on drugs. 

Some are victims, some have been involved in gangs and all will 

provide insight into the scourge of drugs into rural communities. 

The four witnesses are Pam Maakestad, ‘‘Jerome,’’ ‘‘Derrick,’’ and 

‘‘Connie.’’ I would also like to welcome Mike Coghlan, who is the 

former States Attorney in DeKalb County; Kris Povlsen is a project 

coordinator for the DeKalb County Partnership for a Substance 

Abuse Free Environment; and I thank you for all for being here 

today. 

In accordance with the House rules, we will ask to swear you in 

and so I ask at this time that you please stand and raise your right 

hands. 

[Witnesses sworn.] 

Mr. HASTERT. Let the record show that the witnesses answered 

in the affirmative. 

Pam, please start with your statement. If you can pull the mic 

up a little closer. 

STATEMENTS OF PAM MAAKESTAD, PARENT OF A VICTIM OF 

DRUG-RELATED VIOLENCE; ‘‘JEROME,’’ FORMER ORGANIZED 

DRUG DEALER; ‘‘DERRICK,’’ FORMER DRUG USER AND GANG 

MEMBER; ‘‘CONNIE,’’ A TEENAGER WHO HAS NEVER USED 

DRUGS; MICHAEL COGHLAN, FORMER STATES ATTORNEY; 

AND KRIS POVLSEN, PROJECT COORDINATOR, DeKALB 

COUNTY PARTNERSHIP FOR A SUBSTANCE ABUSE FREE ENVIRONMENT 

Ms. MAAKESTAD. My name is Pam Maakestad. My son Brent 

started using drugs when he was around the age of 12. He started 

off with casual use of pot, and then he used it more frequently. He 

started using other drugs, such as acid. By the age of 14, my son 

went to a 90-day inpatient rehabilitation program. 

Three times a week I drove to the drug rehabilitation center in 

Wacaunda, IL. I went to group counseling sessions with my son, 

5

Brent Cooper, and others who had become addicted to alcohol and 

marijuana at such an early age. Brent did well in the drug rehabilitation program. We both learned a lot. We learned each day 

would be a struggle to stay away from the drugs and alcohol. 

My son stayed sober for about a year; then he started to use 

drugs again. He was 15 years old, he started to use acid and other 

more dangerous drugs. Along with drug use, he got into trouble 

with the law. He also started hanging around with gang members 

because they sold drugs. He hung around with the dealers in the 

gangs so often that he joined the gang. 

Many people don’t realize the connection between the causal use 

of pot and street gangs. Even in DeKalb, there is a connection between pot and gangs. 

By the age of 16, Brent was back in the drug rehabilitation program. Once again, he was a model student. He graduated from the 

inpatient program and started to attend outpatient counseling. 

At age 17, he was getting his life back together. He was trying 

to stay away from the drug people, but it wasn’t easy. On August 

17, 1991, Brent was shot and murdered near the courthouse in Sycamore. He was murdered by a group of people involved in drugs 

and gangs at the time he was murdered. Even though my son was 

not using drugs at the time he was murdered, it was his past drug 

use that brought him to the place where he was murdered. If it 

weren’t for drugs and gangs, my son would be alive today. 

On August 17, it will be 6 years that have passed since Brent 

was murdered. I think of him every day, especially when I look at 

his son who looks so much like him. I especially remember 1 night 

a few weeks before he was murdered; he was having a bad reaction 

to a drug known as Wickie stick. He was shaking and trembling 

uncontrollably, and I remember holding him, rocking him back and 

forth, until the drugs wore off and he accepted that everyone in the 

family was all right and safe. 

Even today, I hear about local kids as young as 12 years old who 

use acid and pot. A lot of kids also use alcohol, which can be more 

destructive than illegal drugs. I came here today to share my story 

in order to help other families avoid the grief that drugs have 

brought my family. 

Drugs and alcohol education programs find it hard to compete 

with the example set at home. Many people are afraid to tell adults 

to look at their own drug and alcohol use. The parents need drug 

and alcohol abuse education too. 

Mr. HASTERT. Thank you very much certainly for a moving statement and something that you lived through. We appreciate your 

coming here and sharing that with us. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Maakestad follows:] 

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8

Mr. HASTERT. Next I would like to introduce Mike Coghlan, 

former States Attorney here. 

And, Mike, I think you would like to introduce one of the witnesses here. Mike, please go ahead. 

Mr. COGHLAN. Thank you, Congressman Hastert. The witness I 

would like to introduce at this time is Connie. Also, Derrick and 

Jerome hopefully should be along shortly; we have their prepared 

statements. 

Briefly, in preparation for this hearing, I interviewed eight individuals between the ages of 14 and 18; and as a theme, one of the 

things I found that was very interesting, that you may want to 

keep in the back of your mind during the information from the 

younger people, is a statement that one of the 17-year-olds made. 

These individuals were in fact providing drugs to their friends, 

and they had been through drug rehabilitation and taken a fair 

amount of drugs themselves, and their focus was very interesting. 

Their focus was that they were in fact sharing, that they were 

doing something nice, that they were turning their friends on and 

being generous, not something that individuals that are trying to 

prevent the drug problem view as something good or something 

healthful. 

So it was with this approach that four or five individuals mentioned how they supplied a significant amount of individuals in this 

specific community with drugs; in other words, they weren’t, in 

their mind, polluting the community, they weren’t hurting people; 

they were in fact helping people. And I mention that mentality because it was a little surprising to me, but I think it is important 

to keep the mentality in mind if we are going to approach solutions 

for the drug problem. 

I am happy to go ahead with my statement or introduce Connie, 

whichever is your preference. 

Mr. HASTERT. Why don’t you go with your statement and then 

introduce Connie. 

Mr. COGHLAN. OK. 

First of all, I would like to thank the panelists who bring the current information here today. This is current, local information—I 

think that is important—it doesn’t come from some other area. 

Thank you very much, Congressman Manzullo and Congressman 

Hastert, for coming to this community. We appreciate your show of 

concern for our drug situation. 

In the last 10 years, I’ve dealt with the local problem ranging 

from pot pipes to murder. I would like to share five things I 

learned about drugs in this community. 

First of all, in the DeKalb and Sycamore area, we have already 

solved the drug problem for 95 percent of the 12-year-olds, 92 percent of the 13-year-olds, 65 percent of 14-year-olds, 45 percent of 

the 15-year-olds, and 25 percent of the local 16-year-olds, so there 

are some things that are working. The reason we focus on the positive is because we believe that brings us more energy to approach 

the difficult parts. 

There are a lot of people around here who’ve led their lives without illegal drugs, so we end up giving them credit. We can also 

thank the conscientious parents, schools, and government leaders 

9

for the drug prevention efforts. By focusing on people who do not 

use drugs, we can help those who do abuse drugs and alcohol. 

Second, many people who abuse drugs and alcohol in the past 

have stopped. They represent another large group in our community who have, ‘‘solved the drug problem,’’ at least for themselves. 

People who formerly used drugs can help those who currently 

abuse drugs and alcohol, and in fact those are the people who provided the facts for the hearing today. 

Third, drugs are drugs. In many respects, it doesn’t matter what 

drug a person abuses, people abuse both legal and illegal drugs. If 

we want to reduce drug abuse, we have to look at legal and illegal 

drugs. This approach is less popular because it focuses on behavior 

of adults. We should continue to increase drug programs for adults. 

Fourth, age discrimination against young people I believe contributes to drug abuse. Society might benefit by cultural diversity 

classes where adults learn more about youth culture. As a young 

person, we could learn about young individuals’ music, clothing, 

video games and other aspects by their culture which are often 

criticized by the adults. More adults could make special efforts to 

get to know people between the ages of 12 and 17. 

Fifth, the word ‘‘goal,’’ I found in my interviews, has a negative 

context, and I was surprised to find that. The reason it did is, they 

were often confronted with the statement, don’t you have any 

goals? Well, in reality, they have goals, they are just maybe impotent goals. And that is what would keep them away from drugs is 

a series of goals; because there are young people who say, I have 

too many things to do in the day, I can’t find time to do all the 

activities. 

So when people say they are bored—goals can help people 

achieve happiness and success, but many people don’t do this because of the negative misconception about goal-setting. It is a useful skill, like reading or writing. Goals can be fun; like learning to 

drive a car, it takes more than a brief effort. 

In relation to the drug situation, goal-setting can be taught at 

age 12 and again at age 15. There are numerous commercially sold 

programs to help individuals develop the skill of achieving goals, 

so my recommendation would be there be programs available for 

eighth graders and sophomores, and again this comes from my 

interview with the eight individuals between the ages of 14 and 18. 

Thank you. 

Mr. HASTERT. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Coghlan follows:] 

10


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11

Mr. HASTERT. Would you like to introduce Connie? 

Mr. COGHLAN. Yes. I have known Connie since 1991, and Connie 

has some firsthand observations, and I think she is a great source 

of information for you for these congressional purposes. 

Mr. HASTERT. Connie, if you just pull the mic up so we can hear 

you, we would appreciate it. 

CONNIE. I was first exposed to drugs at age 12, that was 6 years 

ago, in Sycamore. At the age of 12, I saw 15 to 20 people get high 

on pot or tripping on acid almost every day. From talking to other 

kids, age 12, I estimate that 65 out of 600 junior high school age 

kids use drugs. That is a little more than 10 percent of the prehigh school age people in Sycamore. 

I went to eighth grade DeKalb. There I saw between 10 and 15 

people using drugs on a regular basis. 

When I was 14, I saw approximately 50 people my age using pot, 

acid, cocaine or some other drug. In school I saw as many as 40 

people who told me they were ‘‘trippin’’’ on acid or high on some 

other drugs. From what I heard, half my class used pot or acid. 

Most of the drug use happened away from schools, and the teachers offered programs to help kids stay away from the drugs. Most 

drug use occurred at friends’ houses, behind buildings or in alleys. 

In the last 6 years, I have seen hundreds of people in the DeKalb 

and Sycamore areas using drugs. I have seen athletes turn into 

burn-outs, students with As and Bs get bad grades, I have seen 

parents ignore their children, and a person crash their car into a 

pole. I also remember one person go into seizures and fall to the 

floor when he mixed alcohol, acid and pot. I also know one person 

who went to jail and another who lost his job, all because of drugs. 

From what I have seen only 10 to 15 percent of the drug users 

get caught by police or other people of authority, and the people 

who get caught use drugs 100 times before they get caught. 

I know four people who have gone through drug rehabilitation 

programs. I think the most effective way to keep people away from 

drugs is by friends and parents saying it is stupid to do them. 

I stayed away from drugs because I have seen how it messed up 

other people who do it. It was a help to me to see people who fried 

their brains on drugs. 

I believe presentations are more effective in smaller groups and 

get more people to pay attention. During school assemblies, I noticed most of the students look around the room at their friends 

rather than watching the drug program. 

Today I know between 200 and 300 people who use drugs and 

in my view have no intent to stop. 

Mr. HASTERT. Thank you, Connie. 

[The prepared statement of Connie follows:] 

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Mr. HASTERT. We will move next to Mr. Povlsen. 

Mr. POVLSEN. Thank you for inviting me here. I am going to 

come from the perspective of prevention. I direct the DeKalb County Partnership for Substance Abuse Free Environment, which is a 

community coalition that we’ve had in place here in DeKalb for the 

last 8 years. I am going to do something I don’t usually do and that 

is read, so bear with me. 

The root causes of substance abuse among teens is very complicated. For that reason, the solutions of the problems are complex. Traditionally the government has looked at three approaches: 

law enforcement, treatment and prevention. All are necessary. 

These three approaches also focus on two facets of the drug use, 

that is, supply and demand; and I am glad to hear that you suggested that that is important. 

I do think, however, that we need to focus more on the demand 

side than we do the supply side. However, what tends to be the 

case in our society with most issues is to react to problems, spending an enormous amount of financial, as well as human, resources 

reacting to problems as opposed to being proactive and preventing 

them. 

The analogy I commonly hear is, if the community had a problem 

with persons drowning at an excessively high rate in a swift and 

dangerous river, resources would be spent pulling the people out of 

the river, either resuscitating them or burying them, as opposed to 

going upstream to see the causes of how and why they got into the 

river. 

I want to make that statement again because I think it is an important one. If a community had a problem with persons drowning 

at an excessively high rate in a swift and dangerous river, resources would be spent pulling the people out of the river, resuscitating them, rather than going upstream and finding out why they 

are falling in in the first place. 

The drowning we see in our society, as it relates to substance 

abuse, includes increased incidents of rape, murder, assault, burglary, teen pregnancy, dropout rates, gang involvement, car crashes, medical costs, et cetera. Every problem we have in our society 

can somehow be traced back to substance abuse. While no one will 

argue we need to get criminals off the street, that we need to protect our society, as long as we continue to focus on this as the way 

of dealing with it, we will never be able to build enough prisons 

or hire enough policemen to solve the problem. 

The direction that we need to move in our society comes from 

three levels, Federal and State and local. All are necessary. Start 

with Federal, since that is who, I guess, we are talking to here. 

Leadership begins at the top, and you are the top. 

Until there truly is a belief that prevention is the key, that prevention works—and without prevention, all the jails in the world 

will not stop the problem, and I think leadership is more than just 

appropriating money in support of local efforts—the first and foremost responsibility of the Federal Government is to take what I 

think are some very tough stands against some very powerful industries and financial supporters of our legislators, namely, the liquor, tobacco, and entertainment industries. 

15

As long as we have these three industries in the Nation continuing to influence our young people in terms of marketing, advertising, and probably the most important thing, setting the norms 

of our society, we will continue to have our young people fall into 

the perilous river of substance abuse and violence. Regardless of 

what anyone says, these industries are establishing the norms and 

influencing the life-styles of our society. 

I applaud the direction that Congress has taken against the tobacco industry. It is a stance in a direction we must go and should 

have taken long ago. We must now do the same with the liquor industry and eventually deal with the violence and other problems 

that we see, that are seen in the entertainment industry. These 

types of issues can best be dealt with at the top and certainly it’s 

the role of the Federal Government. 

The second responsibility of our Federal Government is to provide adequate financial supports to States and communities in establishing and maintaining community prevention collaborations. 

While the government must not pay the way—and we have not had 

our way paid here with our local partnership—it must be there to 

support the startup costs and the continuation as local communities struggle to continue. 

This also includes the rural areas, and I am glad to see you are 

out here in the rural area, as well as the urban. In fact, rural areas 

have unique problems in establishing coalitions not present in the 

urban areas. 

I think it is also important to note that urban communities, like 

DeKalb and surrounding areas, don’t need hundreds of thousands 

of dollars, and the RFPs that I have seen come out where, unless 

you have a community where there are hundreds of thousands of 

dollars necessary, were not eligible, and that sometimes eliminates 

us from the smaller amounts, where the community can use $10, 

$15, $20,000 and do a tremendous amount of work. That is what 

I see the Federal Government needing. 

The State government, their role is similar to the Federal Government; however, it is more important in providing a modeled 

structure and guidance, and I guess I will talk to Brad on this one. 

Although it is important that each community address the prevention issues related and implemented and monitored to the outcomes of the effectiveness, the State can act as an effective administrative and fiscal agent in monitoring and distributing Federal 

funds, the State should not be in the business of doing prevention, 

but rather administering prevention, which I think Illinois does a 

good job of. 

And locally—and I think this is where the key is—it is local communities’ role to develop local community coalitions to address the 

needs of the community. Most communities are rich with service 

clubs, school prevention programs, law enforcement, religious organizations, employee assistance programming in businesses, media 

coverage, social services, recreation, parents and families. It is the 

role of the community to develop a coalition of these efforts to 

maximize their efforts to attain the common goal of reducing alcohol and other drugs. 

The community must look inward to its own resources and not 

outwards. It must develop its own strategies, it must develop its 

16

own expectations and its own community norms. I think the community needs to look at what norms it has in its community that 

glamorize or promote substance abuse, and we see that in the families, most certainly. 

Communities don’t need money to develop new programs, they 

don’t need money to start new agencies, they don’t need money to 

invent new bureaucracy; they need some financial support to begin 

developing and maintaining cooperative efforts. 

In conclusion, the drug threat to our teens in our rural communities is not going to get better until the norms of our society—and 

I want to stress that, the norms of our society as it relates to alcohol and other drugs and violence change—these norms are not 

going to change as long as we continue to embrace the very dangerous and influential industries such as the alcohol, tobacco, and 

entertainment industries. As long as we have these three industries glamorizing the very things that prevention programs are trying to address, as negative instructions to our youth, we will continue to lose the battle. 

Thank you. 

Mr. HASTERT. Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Povlsen follows:] 

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Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Coghlan, I am going to ask you to introduce 

another one of our witnesses. 

Mr. COGHLAN. Congressman, this is Mr. Cole. I have known Mr. 

Cole for several years. He is originally from the Chicago area—actually, Chicago and New York—and he has been in the DeKalb 

area for a number of years, 10 or so, and he is a very rich source 

of information. He has a statement for Congress today. 

Mr. Cole. 

Mr. HASTERT. And for the record, you will be introduced as Jerome. 

JEROME. Hi. My name is Jerome Cole. I am here to tell you about 

the drugs in the DeKalb area and the surrounding areas around 

here. 

I know a lot about the drugs because I used to use drugs. I also 

sold drugs to people, and I organized people to sell drugs in this 

area. Until recently, I lived in the area that had the highest drug 

rate possibly in DeKalb. The building I lived in was considered a 

haven for drug users and people that wanted to drop by and sell 

different types of drugs. 

I know different people in DeKalb that are using drugs right 

now, and it is getting—I can’t say it is getting way out of hand, 

because I think it is leveling off and drugs are picking up pretty 

much everywhere. I know a couple young kids, 10, 11, 12, all the 

way down to 8 and 9 years old, that use drugs. Cocaine use in 

DeKalb has leveled off a little bit, but different drugs are coming 

into DeKalb to attract a different type of people. 

For instance, like the skateboarders like to use a lot of drugs to 

make themselves trip, or what you call hallucinate. And then you 

have the athletes. A lot of athletes use a lot of marijuana and use 

a lot of cocaine. Recently in DeKalb, people have been sprinkling 

crack cocaine on blunt. Blunt is a cigar which is hollowed out and 

refilled with marijuana or weed, and this mixture of cocaine and 

pot can stop a person’s heart. 

Heroin is also used in DeKalb. I know six people in DeKalb who 

are hooked on heroin. Heroin is the lowest of the low in the drug 

chain. Most people snort it, but others pocket it or shoot it in their 

arms. Heroin is not sold in the DeKalb area, as far as I know. They 

drive to Chicago to get heroin. When the heroin high is over, the 

users usually get a lot of physical pains, like back pains, stomach 

pains, leg pains. They function when they are on heroin, but they 

walk around like zombies when it wears off. 

I have seen many people going from smoking pot occasionally to 

like full-time drug users, guys who were real close to me, athletes, 

people considered respected in the community as businessmen. 

Some police have been more effective with the young kids by 

speaking to them, talking to them, getting to know the different 

people and getting to know the people they hang around and the 

drug users. Local church programs and job programs and the youth 

activity programs are also very helpful to reduce drug use. 

I am a local business manager, and I have hired at least 25 people to help them stay away from the drugs. I have also helped organize youth activities locally. I have come into contact with 200 or 

300 people in these positive activities, and I think church programs, jobs, and sport activities keep kids away from drugs. It deVerDate jul 14 2003 13:15 Dec 02, 2003 Jkt 090402 PO 00000 Frm 00028 Fmt 6602 Sfmt 6602 W:\DISC\46269 46269
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ters their mind to doing other things when they have positive programs to help them out. 

The drug and gang uses in DeKalb will only stop when they stop 

at the top, because behind every puppet is a puppeteer, somebody 

pulling the strings. So when there are enough activities in the 

areas to get the kids to do other things, I think kids would make 

positive choices among themselves. And that is basically why I go 

with that. 

[The prepared statement of Jerome follows:] 

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Mr. HASTERT. Thank you very much. We are going to come back 

and ask you questions. 

JEROME. No problem. 

Mr. HASTERT. Let me lead off the questions. 

First of all, Mr. Coghlan, you talked about setting goals in communities and you said busy kids don’t use drugs. So you are saying 

kids that are involved in school communities or school activities, 

community activities, basically are kids that don’t necessarily—or 

aren’t apt to get involved. 

Mr. COGHLAN. As part of my survey, I also talked to young individuals who, I had assumed, never used any drugs, and they told 

me they never did, and that was based upon a lot of activities, extracurricular activities. 

And the interesting thing I would also like to note is, the individuals heavily involved with drugs estimated the people that partied 

were at 80 percent. That means people that use drugs, alcohol, 

under age are 80 percent. Whereas nondrug users estimated it at 

40 percent, which is a significant perception difference. The nondrug estimated users are lower, in answer to your question. 

Mr. HASTERT. And this is all survey. 

Mr. COGHLAN. This is a very unscientific survey of eight individuals, and I am the telephone messenger. 

Mr. HASTERT. Connie, you talked about getting involved in drugs 

when you were 12 years old or being confronted with a drug situation when you were 12 years old, and you said at that time you 

were a sixth grader, and your estimation is 10 percent of the kids 

in your class in your community that were in some way involved 

in drugs, that is sixth grade, 12 years of age. 

CONNIE. Yes. 

Mr. HASTERT. What is the defining factor between kids who get 

involved in drugs and don’t get involved in drugs, in your opinion? 

CONNIE. I feel most people that do get involved in drugs are because of like their friends and stuff, and their friends have gotten 

involved in drugs that have like older siblings, and they get into 

it, either the older siblings or the parents get them into it, and 

they see everyone else doing it. 

Mr. HASTERT. Jerome, you talked about you were distributing 

drugs and kind of running an organization. Was that a gang? 

JEROME. It was through a gang. 

Mr. HASTERT. It was through a gang. 

JEROME. It was through gang activity. 

Mr. HASTERT. Is that one of the reasons you ended up in this 

area in the first place, to run that organization? 

JEROME. I came here to go to school. I was recruited here to play 

football, and after my football career ended, things kind of got out 

of hand. 

When you are young and you look at a football career, every 

young kid playing football thinks he is going to be a big-time athlete, and when that gets cut from you, I am not saying that that 

is a reason to do that, but I needed other things to do. I was already, quote/unquote, involved with small gang activities, and they 

knew that I knew a lot of people, so I was kind of used for that 

purpose. I mean, in the gang every person has a purpose, if you 

are not a soldier. I was not a soldier, I had a position, so my purVerDate jul 14 2003 13:16 Dec 02, 2003 Jkt 090402 PO 00000 Frm 00032 Fmt 6602 Sfmt 6602 W:\DISC\46269 46269
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pose was to do other things like recruit and bring money to the organization. 

Mr. HASTERT. Why don’t you tell us for a minute, to give us some 

insight, what are the differences between soldiers and a person 

with a position. 

JEROME. It’s like an army; you have soldiers and the guys that 

go out and do the fighting or do the looting and the drive-bys, and 

then you have guys that tell them to do it, guys in the back, guys 

who recruit more gang members, to make the gang stronger. 

Mr. HASTERT. What is the appeal—if somebody in a gang would 

go out and recruit, what is their appeal of young kids? I think they 

are pretty young when they start recruiting those kids to a gang. 

What is the appeal? What is the sales pitch? 

JEROME. Well, a lot of the young kids, when activities are not 

present, they need something to do or something to be a part of, 

and the main thing is to get the energy. The energy of youth is 

misguided. If the energy was guided toward more positive things, 

it would be harder to recruit a kid. 

For instance, if I was to go to a kid and he had a strong family 

background and was involved in things, he would be real hard to 

get. There is nothing I could tell him to get him to come to the 

dark side. But if the kid is dysfunctional and is from a dysfunctional family, I could easily get him. I could tell him that, ‘‘We are 

your family now. What do you want, money?’’ And that whole time, 

if you get them high, they are not thinking clearly anyway, so the 

rhetoric that I am giving them, it sounds even more enticing, because they are not thinking anyway. 

Mr. HASTERT. One of the recruiting methods is to offer kids 

drugs. 

JEROME. Well, no. 

Mr. HASTERT. I misunderstood you then. 

JEROME. What I am saying is, if the kid is high, it is more likely 

that he is not thinking clearly, so I have an even better chance at 

recruiting him, because once he makes the oath, once he comes 

down from the drugs, he has made the oath, so he is almost automatically in. 

Mr. HASTERT. Let me ask you another thing. The function of the 

gang itself is a lot of the things that finance the gangs, the activities. 

JEROME. Drugs usually finance the gangs. 

Mr. HASTERT. So drugs are the financial arm of the gangs. A lot 

of the problems we see in some of our urban and suburban communities, even places like Aurora and Elgin, are fights between gangs. 

I mean, we hear there are turf battles. Is that really areas where 

they sell drugs? Is that part of the turf? 

JEROME. If it was an area that more drug users will come by and 

buy the drugs, the rival gangs would try to take over the area, because the area, obviously, would be the money-making area. 

If it was a building that a lot of people had drug problems in, 

drug sellers want to be in that building, because he has a lot of 

people that are consuming the drugs as product. So if a rival gang 

sees that the building is where all the drug users are going, you 

know, his team wants that, so that is where the battle begins. 

30

Mr. HASTERT. Ms. Maakestad, one of the things I wanted to ask 

you—and you have certainly been through the other side of this 

pain and problem. You may want to pull the mic over to answer. 

In retrospect, you have lost a son, kind of a unique situation, but 

it happens, unfortunately, more than it should in this country. If 

you saw and you could do things different or manage events differently, what would be the things to keep your son off the drugs 

and to actually, if he was on them, to make him whole again? 

Ms. MAAKESTAD. I think if I would have had the education, 

maybe through schooling, or through the schools, or maybe outside 

education or something, more on the gangs and the drugs, I would 

have been able to recognize the signs and the symbols and all that, 

you know, that he was doing the drugs and that he was in the 

gangs. 

Mr. HASTERT. You basically were unaware—what age did he get 

involved? 

Ms. MAAKESTAD. I was told around 14 or 15. 

Mr. HASTERT. And sometimes—I have had teenagers myself, and 

you really don’t understand the changes they are going through, 

different personalities and stuff. You sense that that is what happened at that age and that you were really unaware his involvement in drugs was going on at that time. 

Ms. MAAKESTAD. Yes, it was that strong, I didn’t realize. 

Mr. HASTERT. How did your son finance his use of drugs? 

Ms. MAAKESTAD. Through the gangs. 

Mr. HASTERT. Through the gangs. OK. 

Mr. Povlsen, a couple things. I want to tell you, first of all, I appreciate your testimony, and I don’t disagree with you; I think we 

need to have a balance, to look at the business side of this. There 

is a lot of money being made from drugs, and I think we need to 

make sure that those people who make billions of dollars from this 

business are taken out of the other end of the river, where people 

are falling and drowning as well. 

But, I just want to tell you that just 10 days ago I was at the 

White House, and the President signed the bill called the 1997 

Community Antidrug Coalitions Act, which is what you said—not 

a lot of Federal money. I don’t think throwing money at problems 

is always a solution. 

But the whole gist or focus of that act was to have organizations 

within the community come together if they needed a little help, 

some matching funds, to help them get a director or secretary or 

something. But they have to be in place, the funds have to be 

there, and there is a little help on the Federal side to help make 

that work. So I hope that is certainly in the focus of what you are 

talking about. 

One of the things I wanted to address, when you are talking 

about communities setting goals, that those—sometimes the norms 

that you speak of—how do you change from inside out? Because I 

don’t think it works outside in. How do you change the norms of 

a community or society? How would you change the norms of a 

DeKalb, IL? 

Mr. POVLSEN. First of all, you have to get the people together, 

talking and look at hard issues, and that is why I said it starts at 

the top. I think we need to look at those things in our community 

31

that made—and I just need to say something, that we are focusing 

a lot on drugs and gangs, and I think we need to focus on that, 

but I think if you look statistically, I think the most dangerous and 

destructive drugs we have in our society and if you walk into any 

high school, it is alcohol, and that’s a tougher nut to crack. We 

have to look at our own societal norms that relate to that and the 

way we ourselves drink or we promote drinking or glamorize drinking. 

So I just want to say that we don’t lose sight of what is a—

maybe not as glamorous and maybe is an intensive thing as looking at a gang-type drug deal, but going to the high school, we have 

Mr. Nakonechny here, and he can tell you—I hope he has a chance 

to speak—the most dangerous drugs we see at our high school is 

the alcohol use, and that is where we need to start. We need to 

start looking at our own homes and communities and our beer gardens in our community. We need to start looking at what our 

coaches and our teachers and our police officers and our politicians 

and things that every one of us do as a community leader, whether 

we are a Little League coach or whether we’re a teacher, that every 

one of us have a responsibility in the community to mentor youth, 

to talk with youth, to set the standards, to set their own personal 

goals. 

And, you know, the Little League coach, who goes out and Little 

Leagues does a good job and is seen at the corner tavern drinking 

in a blatant fashion, is not acceptable. That is a norm that we need 

to look at. 

And so I think that that is where we need to start in the community. We need to start with us as individuals and not point the finger somewhere else and look at our own family use. 

The one question you asked of Connie: What are the most influential things or what things would stop a child, a young person, 

from drinking? We held a youth forum here in DeKalb a few weeks 

ago, and the single most important factor that influenced the young 

people to stay off alcohol and other drinks was their parents. And 

I know that, as parents—I have children myself, you have children—we often don’t think we have influence over our kids because 

they will fight us the whole way, but children will say it starts at 

home. The example you set and the norms you set in your home 

are what make me who I am today. 

Mr. HASTERT. So part of this is communication. And, you know, 

I taught for 16 years, so I have a little bit of feeling about how kids 

communicate. You have families that, quote/unquote, sometimes 

are the ideal families, and the reality is that you also have families 

that are struggling to get along. Many are single-parent families, 

not the ideal, but it has become more the norm than the other situation. 

So you think communication—not everybody is going to be the 

ideal, whatever that ideal is, in raising them or whatever. So how 

can communities support or help that? Is it just the dialog itself? 

Are there other ways you can reach kids, in your opinion? 

Mr. POVLSEN. I think the communities need to do what they need 

to do, and there are different social services that can provide that, 

and I think we need to reach out of our own homes and reach down 

the street to that neighborhood and become aware of that single 

32

mom or that child that is struggling or is out past curfew, help the 

neighbor, as the lady at the end said, ‘‘if I could have gotten some 

more education.’’

My guess is that there were other people that recognized that 

her son was having problems. We can’t be afraid to step forward 

and try to help our neighbors out, network with each other as parents. One of the things that got me through to my teenagers, that 

are off on their own now, is that I would talk to the other parents 

and community leaders, I would not be afraid to go into the school 

and talk to the teacher. Communication is exactly it. We can’t go 

into our own shell and lock our door and think of our kid as safe 

and then the community as safe. We need to be the parents, guardians, and mentors for our entire community. 

Mr. HASTERT. Connie, what do you feel about parental support? 

CONNIE. A lot of my friends were from single homes or singlefamily homes, or single-parent, and a lot of times their parents 

weren’t around. So, you know, a lot of times they came to my 

house. They were at my house more than they were at home. Honestly, around my friends, I don’t see the parents helping them out 

or anything or that they are really there for them. 

Mr. HASTERT. A lot of parents were working, this type of thing. 

CONNIE. Well, a lot of the parents went out, themselves. 

Mr. HASTERT. I am going to turn the mic over to my colleague, 

but I would like to reserve and come back in the second round of 

questions. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Thank you, Congressman Hastert. 

The 1997 Community Antidrug Coalition Act was known in the 

House of Representatives as the Hastert-Portman Act, and I just 

want to commend Denny for the leadership. 

We have a group of about eight Members of Congress that meet 

once a month, Wednesday at 8 a.m., and we met with so many people that are involved in all aspects of this plague on our young people. But if I recall, about 2 months ago, Denny, we had the generals and the admirals in charge of interdiction of drugs coming in 

from South America. It was quite interesting. 

Mr. Povlsen, let me ask you a hypothetical question. For every 

100 kids that are involved in drugs, how many come from two-parent households? 

Mr. POVLSEN. Well, I think statistics show that only about half 

of the kids, to begin with, come from two-parent households, or 

very few. 

The question was how many drug users would come from——

Mr. MANZULLO. No, no. For every 100 kids that become involved 

in drugs, how many come from two-parent households? 

Mr. POVLSEN. I really don’t have the answer to that question. I 

would think that—I would ask you a question back. Where are you 

wanting to go with that? 

Mr. MANZULLO. Well, the reason I asked the question is that it 

is easy to make the assumption that one of the main reasons children are hung up on drugs is that they come from a, quote, dysfunctional family, and most people will translate dysfunctional family into a one-parent household. 

Mr. POVLSEN. I would not say that is the key. 

Mr. MANZULLO. OK. That is the question. 

33

Mr. POVLSEN. And nowhere in my testimony did I say anything 

about one-parent households. 

Mr. MANZULLO. All right. So the question really is, explain what 

is meant by a dysfunctional family. 

Mr. POVLSEN. From my own perspective, a dysfunctional family, 

I think, is a family where there is little direction, there is little 

support, the parents are using drugs themselves or setting standards in the household that I think are not good ones for the community. That is what I would consider dysfunctional. It doesn’t 

have anything to do with income, marital status——

Mr. MANZULLO. Or the number of parents. 

Mr. POVLSEN. Or the number of parents in the household. 

Mr. MANZULLO. I know that was a loaded question, but it was 

very critical to get that out, because there is such a misconception 

in the community that if a child is from a one-parent household, 

the chances are more likely that the child may get involved in 

drugs, and you don’t agree with that assumption, do you? 

Mr. POVLSEN. No. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Neither do I. 

Let me ask you a question, Pam. You have suffered the ultimate 

tragedy as a result of a child being involved in drugs. You said that 

if you had been able to tell the signs or to observe the signs of a 

child being pulled into drugs, that you might have been able to do 

something. What are the signs? 

Ms. MAAKESTAD. To give you an example, I have a 26-year-old 

daughter who was about 15 when she went into Rose Crantz with 

a drug and alcohol problem, and we went through the same things 

that we did with Brent, with the treatment programs and all that 

kind of stuff. 

Well, while we were going through this, we were getting information from Sheila about where they were getting their drugs, where 

they were getting their alcohol, and it happened that she was getting it from the school. 

Mr. MANZULLO. What do you mean, from the school? 

Ms. MAAKESTAD. From some man. I am not sure who it was, but 

there was a gentleman who would come to the back of the tennis 

courts and was selling them alcohol and drugs, and he would be 

there at a certain time every day and do whatever—you know, deal 

whatever to the kids, and they would do whatever, I assume whatever they had to, to get the drugs and the alcohol. 

My daughter didn’t have a lot of money. I know that, because we 

didn’t have a lot of money. When I confronted the school about it, 

they said, ‘‘Oh, yes, we have been watching that problem for about 

6 months now,’’ and I said, ‘‘But why hasn’t anything been done?’’ 

And so I called the police department, and within a couple of weeks 

the man was busted. 

But they didn’t have a clue. The school hadn’t even communicated with them that they were even watching these people. And 

then the principal of that school also told my daughter, after she 

got out of treatment, that she may as well just quit school as soon 

as she turns 16 because she was a worthless piece of shit anyways, 

and that was the exact words. So, she did quit school, and she 

never did go back. She now has three children. 

Mr. MANZULLO. So both of your children were hung up on drugs. 

34

Ms. MAAKESTAD. I have three children. Connie is my daughter 

also. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Oh, I didn’t know that. 

Well, Connie, let me ask you a question. You are how old now? 

CONNIE. 18. 

Mr. MANZULLO. What are the telltale signs? What did you do differently as a person who became introduced to drugs that parents 

should look at? 

CONNIE. I watched my brother and sister, and I seen what happened to them, how the drugs messed them up, and I didn’t want 

to be like that, so I stayed away from it. 

Mr. MANZULLO. And, Jerome, you are a very interesting person, 

and I appreciate you coming here to share your testimony this 

morning. Children get pulled into gangs, regardless of social, economic background; is that correct? 

JEROME. Sure. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Tell me what you have seen in terms of the background of the children. 

JEROME. You get a lot of kids from the suburbs that will come 

to the city just to see the life-style that they see on TV. They see 

it on TV, and they think this has got to be cool because it is on 

TV. So you get a lot of suburban kids that come out of the city, 

and those are the easiest prey. You can almost make them do almost anything, because they are trying to fit and trying to glamorize anything they say on TV anyways. 

So if I knew a group of kids that were coming from afar just to 

hang out in the, quote/unquote, hood, that is it, you could get them 

to do anything, you know. 

Mr. MANZULLO. These were suburban kids coming to the city. 

JEROME. Just to see that type of life-style that they see on TV. 

Mr. MANZULLO. How old are the kids? 

JEROME. As young as 12 or 13. 

Mr. MANZULLO. How are they getting there? Are the parents taking them there? 

JEROME. By car. 15-year-olds, 16-year-olds, 17-year-olds have a 

license, drive to the city, want to hang out in the projects, just to 

see what it is about. 

Mr. MANZULLO. A lot of that goes on? 

JEROME. A lot of it goes on because of the way the media covers 

what happens in the ‘‘hood.’’

Mr. HASTERT. I just want to followup. Some of the movies, people 

go to the movies and see the ‘‘hood’’ and all this stuff. Is that kind 

of pushing them? 

JEROME. That is exactly what will do it. 

Mr. MANZULLO. A question to you, Jerome, or you, Mr. Povlsen: 

What movies? Name them. What movies are detrimental to the 

children in getting kids hooked on drugs? You mentioned the entertainment industry. Let’s mention them by name here. 

Mr. POVLSEN. Well, I am not going to mention them by name, because I choose not to go to them. 

Mr. MANZULLO. The reason I ask the question is, one of the purposes of the hearing is so that parents can be more aware of what 

is out there. The movie producers are doing things to get our kids 

on drugs. If you don’t mind, let’s name them. Otherwise, how are 

35

people supposed to know? It is a generic answer. I do not want to 

put you on the spot. 

Mr. POVLSEN. Well, I can’t think of any off the top of my head, 

but any movie where you see violence and cigarette smoking. I 

guarantee you will not see a movie where you don’t see cigarette 

smoking, and cigarette smoking and alcohol are the gateway to 

other drugs, and it is glamorized. It is being paid for by the tobacco 

industry; it is being paid for by the liquor industries. 

Movies have violence, cigarette smoking, gangs, and it is all the 

glamorization. You walk into the ‘‘hood,’’ and people get blown 

away, and at the end you see the excitement of it and the glamour 

of it and not the trauma of it that this poor lady at the end here 

had to deal with, and that is an industry that we are not willing 

to tackle. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Connie, do you agree with that statement? 

CONNIE. In some ways. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Well, tell me which ways you agree, because alcohol and tobacco are not going to be illegal, at least at this point. 

Drugs are illegal. 

Mr. MANZULLO. I don’t think cigarettes and alcohol are the gateways—maybe alcohol. I know a lot of people who smoke that don’t 

get into drugs. I don’t feel that is a gateway to drugs. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Jerome, do you agree with the statement or disagree with the statement? 

JEROME. I can’t say that. I just think the key is to have preventive measures, regardless of what they see, as far as drinking and 

smoking. If they have preventive measures, I think a lot of them 

will make the right choices. It is the other things, besides the cigarette smoking and drinking, that are attracting the kids. I know 

that for a fact. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Povlsen is coming from a much broader perspective. 

How many kids have you dealt with? 

Mr. POVLSEN. Hundreds over the last 25 years. 

Mr. MANZULLO. And these are observations that you have made 

based upon what the kids tell you, so you have a lot of inside information to which we are not privy. 

When kids see people drinking on television, that encourages 

them to drink or not to drink? What does it do? 

Mr. POVLSEN. It is such a subtle—if you ask a kid, ‘‘Did you start 

drinking because of a movie you saw?’’ they will say no. But it gets 

back to the entire social norm. You can’t tell me an 11-year-old kid 

who is sneaking a cigarette, doing something illegal, that is exciting, enticing, something he shouldn’t be doing, doesn’t lead to the 

next step of trying to get the beer and then trying to get the whatever up the road. 

The entertainment industry and what they see their parents 

doing are what is an acceptable thing to do. It’s so subtle and so 

long—so much over a long period of time that it is not any one single incident that creates that. 

Mr. HASTERT. So what you are actually saying is that in your 

open illustration—is that every society should pull the people out 

that are drowning, and we do that, and it is very expensive, and 

treatment is expensive, recidivism is very high. Basically what you 

36

are saying is, you have to go up river anyway and stop people from 

falling in, and you put up the fences, you put up the gates, you put 

up the detours so people don’t fall in the river and drown in the 

first place. Is that what you are really saying? 

Mr. POVLSEN. Yes, absolutely, and sometimes building the fences 

forces us to look in our own pocketbooks and our own behaviors, 

and that is what we don’t want to look at. It is easier to pull and 

label the individual who happened to fall in or was pushed in. 

Mr. HASTERT. Congressman, we are going to come back for a second round. At this time, I would like to have Mr. Coghlan introduce another witness. I understand this witness has been involved 

in gangs in another life and is now working in faith-based operations to try to keep kids from getting involved. 

Give us a little introduction, and we would like to hear your testimony. 

Mr. COGHLAN. Mr. Smith is here today, and he helps perform a 

very helpful function in the DeKalb area to reaching out to individuals around the seventh and eighth grades. He has done a lot for 

the community, from organizing basketball and church events to 

this father’s program, and Mr. Smith also has familiarity with the 

street gangs from the city of Chicago, and he sees the cycles they 

have gone through in the city of Chicago from perhaps 30 years 

ago, and he also has a good idea of what is occurring here locally 

in the DeKalb and Sycamore areas. 

Mr. Smith. 

Mr. HASTERT. We welcome you as well. 

DERRICK. Like I said, I am Derrick Smith and I have been in 

DeKalb since 1972. I came to DeKalb from Chicago, and when I 

was growing up in Chicago, I was telling Mike that I was involved 

in gang activity, drug activity, of which I came up here to DeKalb 

and brought some of that activity with me. 

But in 1977, I got my life back together and turned things 

around, and so right now my crusade is to try to help individuals 

that are falling under the same umbrella that I was in and to come 

out of it. And what I wanted to do for most of the kids, I am trying 

to show them a good side as well as a bad side of the city, because 

I grew up in the projects in Chicago. 

When you see 75 percent of the good of drug use and being involved in gangs, and 25 percent of, you know, what is not good, you 

end up taking that 75 percent. But if I can show them 50 percent 

of what is good, things you can do with an education, things you 

can do with somebody as a mentor, because I found out the best 

thing we have done so far in DeKalb County with the young people 

is our mentoring program, because we found a lot of parents coming back to school in DeKalb and a lot of parents trying to get out 

of Chicago and other urban areas to try to find a better place for 

the kids. 

And you find a lot of single parents, and you find a lot of young 

people who are just not involved in positive things that they want 

to get involved with here in DeKalb. And I don’t think DeKalb at 

the time was ready, because I look at the school system, and you 

have in DeKalb and you had—we had one black teacher now that 

they hired for the fall, and one of the mentor programs that we 

started was seventh and eighth graders, because we were having 

37

a lot of problems with the African American males in the seventh 

and eighth grade Hunter Middle School. 

So we went ahead and observed what was going on, and we saw 

a lot of teachers just didn’t understand, because it is a different 

culture and they weren’t experienced in dealing with African Americans. So we came in and tried to help them make the transition 

and tried to help young people make the transition too. And we 

found out through our efforts that the teachers were more willing 

to help students with special needs and students were more willing 

to listen to what the teachers were saying. 

So with that group we had there, we targeted eight students, but 

we had maybe 20, and we ended up—with the help of Mr. 

Rodriguez, the principal at Hunter Middle School, we developed a 

relationship with their school and with those young people, and it 

was a positive relationship, because I think at the seventh- and 

eighth-grade level is the level you have to look at. That is the 

group that is looking. They don’t know what they want to do. 

And if you have someone come in showing fast money and with 

the current situation you have, currently, economically, where I 

was growing up, we had jobs they had for the summer, but through 

different Presidents that came through, that took a lot of the youth 

programs and a lot of the youth summer jobs and just kind of left 

young people out there. 

So what we are trying to do is give them something to do. And 

I think the idle time is what really kills them, and so the time we 

try to give them something positive to do, it takes care of the idle 

time and it develops a relationship where they could see some positivity with older African males and make them a positive asset as 

far as in the community. 

[The prepared statement of Derrick follows:] 

38


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39

Mr. HASTERT. Let me ask you, you came out to DeKalb in 1972. 

Did you come out here just to organize a gang, or did you come out 

here because you are an athlete, or what happened? 

DERRICK. I came out because I was in school and I was an athlete. 

Mr. HASTERT. So let’s go down to what you are doing now. You 

are working with—basically, churches, basically faith-based organizations—and the success rate you had with the kids is not just 

teaching them or mentoring them, but also giving them something 

else as a replacement that drugs gave them before; is that right? 

DERRICK. Right. 

Mr. HASTERT. How does that work? 

DERRICK. It works very well. We have men from our Men’s Club 

and we bring the young guys in. Like we had a grant from DCFS 

for positive youth development. It was a grant for $5,000 for 3 

years, which—unfortunately, it ran out. 

But we would have self-esteem workshops at a hotel where we 

would take 25 young guys from fifth grade to eighth grade to the 

hotel, and most had never been to a hotel, and so this was something outstanding to them. And at the hotel we would have eight 

men from the Men’s Club, somebody that was—had a professionalism in health. We would teach them health, we would go into 

gang prevention, we would go into drug prevention, we would go 

into all the parts of education, young fathers, sex education, and 

we would have various topics on the subjects, and we would discuss 

them thoroughly for 2 days like—the young men, and we tried to 

find out where their heads were. 

Through that relationship, that is where we began a relationship 

where if something was going wrong, like say we have a basketball 

team and one of the guys on the basketball team was using drugs 

or he knew somebody that was using drugs, one of the players, that 

got to the point where we developed a relationship, where they had 

so much faith in it, they would tell us, you know, Mr. Smith, you 

need to talk to so-and-so, because I think he is involved with drugs, 

or he is hanging out with so-and-so, or he might be involved with 

gang activities. And with my counseling background, I would talk 

to individuals and see where their head was, and I would sit down; 

and for the most part, we would do free counseling sessions with 

the individuals, and if it meant bringing in the family, we would 

do that too. 

Mr. HASTERT. It was pretty successful? 

DERRICK. Very successful. 

Mr. HASTERT. Jerome was talking to us a little bit and he came 

to DeKalb under the same circumstances you did, his career was 

over and he had a void in his life and some involvement with 

drugs—not with drugs, but with gangs, and you were kind of on 

a parallel track, right? Were you involved, when you were in Chicago, in a gang? 

DERRICK. Right. 

Mr. HASTERT. Then you came out here and did you recruit a 

gang here? 

DERRICK. When I first came out here, I didn’t really recruit. I 

was recruiting guys to sell drugs for me, but for the most part, 

40

guys who were in the gang I was in, they would come up on the 

weekends really. 

Mr. HASTERT. They recruited people to sell drugs? 

DERRICK. Right. 

Mr. HASTERT. Was that part of the gang? 

DERRICK. They didn’t necessarily have to be in a gang. Basically, 

at that time, I just wanted to make some money. 

Mr. HASTERT. When you sold drugs on the streets, wherever, in 

DeKalb and DeKalb County, was it any different than selling drugs 

in Chicago? 

DERRICK. It was basically different because I don’t think the police were aware, as aware as the police in Chicago if you were selling drugs or doing anything like that, because we would almost 

say, you go to DeKalb, you don’t have to worry about getting busted because the police there don’t really know what is going on. 

Mr. HASTERT. Has that changed? 

DERRICK. Yes. 

Mr. HASTERT. I just want to set the record straight. 

DERRICK. That was 1972, and now we are looking at 1997, so, 

you know, it has been a big change. 

Mr. HASTERT. From your experience being involved in a gang and 

selling it, now trying to be on the other end of this, what has happened? Are the prices of drugs on the streets in DeKalb County different from the prices of drugs on the street in Chicago? 

DERRICK. Yes. 

Mr. HASTERT. Much? Higher or cheaper? 

DERRICK. For the most part, cheaper. 

Mr. HASTERT. Why? 

DERRICK. Because you have a college town and most of the time, 

you have a college town, you get a better discount than you would 

get if you were selling drugs in Chicago. 

Mr. HASTERT. That is informational and interesting. 

Let me ask you also, have the drugs changed? Has the purity 

level, prices in the last 10 years, have they gone up? Have they 

gone down? What have you seen? The reason I ask this is, our information tells us, cocaine—especially where cocaine, sometimes 

cut down; if it was 30 to 40 percent pure, today it is 90 percent 

pure and prices used to be higher—it is cheaper. 

Is that true, not true, in your experience? 

DERRICK. I would think it is more potent now. I think about the 

last 3 or 4 years, you see more potent drugs on the street, because 

there was a time, especially during the 1980’s, where the quality 

was really slipping and you had less drug usage, but from the time 

of about, say, 1991 or since the 1990’s, it seems like drugs, somehow they are more potent. 

Mr. HASTERT. Jerome, do you want to put your insight into the 

same question? 

JEROME. I think what makes it more potent is by there being so 

many drug users now and drug dealers, they chop it up and put 

so many different drugs on it to make it stronger. I think the purity of it is lower now, but when people cut it and put the drugs 

on it to expand it, that is what makes the drug even more dangerous than it already is. 

41

For instance, blunt, when they take the blunt, empty the blunt 

out of the cigar and put the marijuana in it, you have people who 

sprinkle crack cocaine on top of it to make the blunt even stronger. 

So the mixture of all the drugs is what is making the drugs stronger. 

I don’t think it is the purity of it. I’m positive. 

Mr. HASTERT. At least what the DEA tells us, I think the purity 

is higher. 

JEROME. I think they chop it up so much now because there are 

so many drug dealers and users, everybody wants to be known to 

have the best drugs, so they put anything on it to make it stronger, 

rat poisoning, PCP, anything. 

Mr. HASTERT. So there is heroin on the blunt, marijuana stuff as 

well. 

JEROME. Heroin, cocaine, whatever, just to make it stronger. 

Mr. HASTERT. Mike, in your experience as States Attorney here, 

what are the most effective things, in your view, that were done 

to try to turn things around? 

Mr. COGHLAN. I think a police officer, for example, speaking directly to a drug-using individual in a respectful manner would help 

that person free themselves from drug use. I encounter a lot of individuals as witnesses on cases, and it was actually a pleasure to 

deal with the individuals. They were doing good community service, even though they had been criminally involved in the past and 

even though they had been involved with drugs or drug dealing in 

the past. 

To answer your question briefly, to get in to know personally the 

individuals who are referred to as the drug dealers, I call them 

human beings temporarily involved in the habit of selling drugs, 

soon to be extricated by our helping hand. It’s a different perspective, but that is what I see actually works, because it is our children that are selling drugs. 

These are human beings like these very helpful individuals here 

with me at the table today; and the ‘‘us versus them’’ mentality can 

be overcome on the local level, when, like a lot of very fine DeKalb 

police officers do—and these individuals at the table will tell you, 

when they stop them, even though they are going to arrest them 

for a small quantity, for possession of a drug, they will say, did you 

see the Bulls game last night, how are things at home, and they 

will engage them in a conversation. 

Community policing, I suppose, would be the general term for it. 

And that is what I have seen, and that is why these individuals 

have been kind enough to come and share some extremely important firsthand information on the local level, the front lines, people 

getting to know the individuals who are selling the drugs. That is 

what I have seen as the most beneficial in helping people move 

away from drug activity. 

Mr. HASTERT. Let me go back and ask you two individuals a followup question. 

If you go into a community and you know that community is 

going to be tough on gangs and drug dealers, can you overcome 

that as a gang leader, a recruiter, or would you stay out of that 

territory? 

42

DERRICK. That depends. You probably would try it and see what 

happens, and if you had a negative reaction, you would probably 

take what you had and move to the next town. 

Mr. HASTERT. Jerome. 

JEROME. I agree with the same thing. It is tough to crack. 

Mr. HASTERT. Both of you gentlemen are still in this community. 

Now you are working with the youth, certainly in different ways—

you in a faith-based organization and you talk about talking with 

kids and working with kids. Both of you are former athletes, and 

I am sure you both have keys into certain groups of people. 

I coached for 16 years, so I understand the ability to do that. 

What is the best message that you have for kids today, either to 

turn their life around or stay away from it? 

Derrick. 

DERRICK. You said the best message? 

Mr. HASTERT. Yes. How are you going to persuade a kid not to 

get into drugs? 

DERRICK. First, I think you tell them, you know, you don’t need 

to be involved with drugs. I think you have to develop a relationship where they believe in you, where they have faith in you, and 

you have done something that they see that they can really trust 

you. And I think that comes from the love that you have for those 

individuals, and they feel the love you have for them; and then 

they are more apt to listen and do the things you say. 

Because you can talk all day, but if they feel like you are not in 

their corner, it doesn’t matter what you say. If they feel you are 

in their corner, if this person is saying something that helps me, 

that makes a difference, because I’ve picked up young guys at 3 or 

4 a.m., and taken them home, you know, 14- and 15-year-olds and 

waited until they went into their home. And when they see me, like 

a lot of them might have their hat banging from one side or the 

other, you know, representing a gang; and if they see me, they turn 

their hats straight and say, how are you doing, Mr. Smith, how are 

you doing, Coach Smith, and that shows me the respect they have 

for me as an individual. 

And what I have been saying to them is hitting home because 

they know what they are doing wrong and they know, in my sight, 

they can’t do what they want to do. This way, it tends to make 

them say—you know, if you see a drug dealer, and you say, he has 

a car, he has all this, he has it made; but here is Mr. Smith doing 

all this in the community, and he seems to have it made, too, and 

this is somebody I would rather be than a drug dealer. 

Mr. HASTERT. Jerome, can you enlighten us a little bit in that 

area? 

JEROME. The best thing I can see is each individual to take light 

of himself. The best thing I can do to help a kid is to change myself; if I get myself together, and a kid sees I was doing this and 

now I am making an attempt to change or straighten my life out, 

because you can’t look back. 

So the best thing I can do is, get myself together, and the kids 

see that I am going in the right direction, obviously the ones that 

will look up to me, that still do look up to me, when I was in those 

activities, look at me in a different light, and they like to take the 

same road that I am taking. So my thing is that each individual 

43

makes a change within themself, makes a positive change within 

themself, and the people that are around you all the time will feed 

off of that. 

I think the young kids that look up to me or like to hang around 

me, because of what position I had when I was banging, will see 

now I am doing something positive, that now they can do the same 

thing, and that is to lead by example. 

Mr. HASTERT. Congressman Manzullo. 

Mr. MANZULLO. What turned your life around? 

DERRICK. It was a spiritual enlightenment. A lot of guys ask, did 

you go to rehab and do this and do that; and I say, no, I didn’t, 

because I had both parents at home, and I was raised, and it was 

church every Sunday and, you know, different things like that, of 

which I kind of fell off. 

But I was at a drug house, and they called it a shooting gallery 

because at that time I was shooting heroin; and when I was—I was 

high on drugs at the time, and I had this, it was like a dream 

where I was high, and it was like I saw this lady, it was something 

by a bed, and I was walking through a cloud and when I got 

through the cloud, I looked down and the person looked up and it 

was a woman, like she was praying by a bed, or kneeling by a bed. 

And when she looked up, she smiled, and it was my mother, and 

through that, it seemed like everything started coming to me. I saw 

my grandmother and I saw everybody who really cared about me 

at that time, and when I came out and opened my eyes, I wasn’t 

even high anymore; and when I got up, I was with three or four 

other guys, and I told them I had to go. 

So I ran all the way home, like 12 blocks back home, and I told 

my mom, I feel I have to go back to DeKalb, because I had a partner in DeKalb. I said that is the only way I can save myself. So 

she gave me money, put me on the bus, sent me to DeKalb. 

My partner picked me up, and for 3 days I was cold turkey, and 

he would sit there and read the Bible to me, because I was telling 

him I have to go back, I was sick, and he kept saying, just stay 

down, just lie down. And for 3 days he read the Bible to me, and 

when I woke up, I wasn’t high any more, my stomach wasn’t hurting any more and from that time on, I made a pledge to God. I 

said, if you can keep me straight like this, I guarantee I will never 

put another needle in my arm, and I haven’t. So for him to spare 

my life like that, I give my life to the young people, especially this 

community. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Three days of pretty effective treatment, I would 

say. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Connie, what gives young people hope today? 

CONNIE. I like seeing other people that have gone through the 

drugs, how they changed their life around and stuff. But like there 

are not that many out there. I mean, there are people out there 

like these guys that are trying to help the kids, but then there are 

a lot of people that don’t. So there is not much out there that does 

give the kids hope. 

Mr. MANZULLO. There was an interesting article that appeared 

in the Washington Post, April 19, 1993, by Sarah Blumenthal, writing about the death of Kurt Cobain, the rock star, who at first tried 

to overdose and then he killed himself with a shotgun a week later; 

44

and she was interviewing two young people, and one of the people 

she interviewed was a young man working two jobs who said, every 

day I wake up angry, life has no core. As I read that article—and 

I have talked to a lot of young people who come by my office, and 

I ask them the same question, what gives them hope; because if 

you have no hope, there is no vision and there is no reason for living. 

Let me go back to the movies. Let me give some names here; we 

have a little congressional immunity: ‘‘Trainspotting’’ glamorized 

heroin; ‘‘Big City, Bright Lights,’’ glamorized cocaine. Many of the 

John Belushi movies, until he died by a cocaine overdose himself, 

and a lot of the Richard Pryor movies, until he was nearly killed 

when he was freebasing cocaine—when the movies come out, do 

you do anything about it? Do you put out a press release? 

I know the risk is that more kids will go and see them, so you 

really don’t know what to do in that circumstance, do you? 

Mr. POVLSEN. I think we, as a community, have to be more active; and there are groups out there that do do that, that do write 

letters, that do try to have TV ratings, et cetera. But I think what 

we need to do from a personal use is look at those, not support 

those, not let our children go to those, do what we can at a local 

level to make sure we in a capitalistic society don’t support those 

kind of things. It is back to the individual responsibility. 

Mr. MANZULLO. It is—but it is not working, is it? 

Mr. POVLSEN. That is because—I mean, if we were to go around 

this room and look at our own individual commitments, and really 

get down to the bottom line, we may not see what we want to see 

or need to see for this community and this Nation to turn around. 

I think what we are hearing here are things that are very important. I think the individual work with the individual youth to turn 

around individual people is vital, and I do that in some of the work 

I do in the student-to-student program through the high school 

here. And I have to say that if I had a choice between the work 

I do with the individuals or the work I do with the community, the 

work I do with the individuals is more rewarding because I can see 

a kid who was an eighth grader, who was drunk on his front porch 

while he was baby-sitting, turn around with a college degree now 

and come back and say, Kris, if it wasn’t for your program, I 

wouldn’t be where I am. 

But at the same time, we need to also look at the bigger community issues and that is writing our Congressmen, that is doing 

what we can to get people to not go to the movies, mentoring our 

neighborhood youth, whatever it is in our own local communities. 

Mr. HASTERT. Thanks, Don. 

One issue, Derrick, that you brought out, in your view, that 

drugs were less potent in the 1980’s and got more potent in the 

1990’s—and I want to kind of make a general statement on this 

thing. In our work, we found—to lead into the next panel—this is 

a balanced effort and I think there are six things this country has 

to do, six energies that we have to expend ourselves in. 

In the 1990’s, or 1980’s, we did a little tougher job on stopping 

drugs coming in. We gave the Coast Guard access and interdiction 

access to stop drugs; and during that period of time, drugs weren’t 

as potent, that is what the statistics tell us, and we cut a lot of 

45

that. The Drug Czar’s office was cut back in 1992, almost 500 people to 25 people, and we lost a lot of the effort, and drugs became 

a little bit of a more emphasized problem. 

But I think there are six things, and we need to do this. It starts 

at the White House and in Congress and right down the line, and 

we need to work together; and I think we are trying to do that—

the Drug Czar or whoever you might be. 

I think, first of all, you need to be in the communities, and that 

is why the Drug Free Community Act was an important piece. People have to start at home, working together. 

The other area is, you have to treat the people who fell into the 

water and they are drowning. The treatment programs have to be 

there, and we need to find out what the treatment programs, No. 

2, work best, and then try to emulate those. We find out a lot of 

the treatment programs have 80 percent recidivism; that is not 

good, and I am not sure that is money wisely spent. How do you 

best focus those funds? 

The third area—and the next panel we are going to have, they 

put people in a different line, fighting this war, and that is law enforcement. A lot of people spend days in and days out working on 

this and they are dedicated to doing that. We need to make sure 

the right resources are there to stop the stuff in our communities 

and to stop it from getting into our communities. And it is not just 

the local police or county police or the State police; it is also the 

DEA and the other people. We find that sometimes intelligence, 

finding out where the stuff comes from, who is doing it, and 90 percent of the success in being able to stop in the next two areas I 

am talking about, comes from intelligence, being able to find out 

where this stuff is. 

The other area is interdiction. We can do a better job on the Federal side. We have—on the borders of Texas, we have the DEA, the 

INS, we have Immigration, we have Customs, we have the Border 

Patrol, all these independent agencies out there, but not very much 

coordination. If you are a Customs agent, you can bid for a job and 

be on the border for 20 years of your career, have your brother-inlaw come across the border, and it just opens the way for corruption; and we need to do a better job in our own government in making sure we stop the stuff from coming into our country. 

And the same with the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard can’t do 

everything on a low budget. We need to make sure they have the 

ability. There are 10,000 boats, as we speak, moving through the 

eastern and western Caribbean and coming up the Pacific, many 

of them with significant cargoes of drugs. They need to do a better 

job, and we need to make sure that we coordinate. 

So the other, fifth area is the countries themselves. We found 

that the guy who was so remote and so far away from us that we 

would probably never read about him, the guy who was the President of Peru, a guy named Fujimori, happened to be in the headlines because of the embassy being taken over in Lima, but he has 

a policy in Peru that is working, a shoot-down policy. And people 

that loaded up planes, about 70 planes 2 years ago, a month, they 

are loaded up with 100 or 200 kilos of cocaine—and it is what people could afford to buy—to load the planes up and at that time you 

could buy a kilo of cocaine in the Upper Huallaga Valley in Peru 

46

for about $400 a kilo. You move it to Colombia, you remanufacture 

it into crack or cocaine, and there it is worth about $2,000 a kilo, 

and then you move that up to Mexico, and Mexico, across the border into this country and it can be worth $20- to $30,000 a kilo, 

so there is added value all the way you go through it. 

But what they did in the shoot-down policy, they started tracking 

the planes, doing the radar and finding out what planes, through 

intelligence, were carrying cocaine up, and the coca paste. When 

they started to shoot those planes down, they give them a warning, 

they ask them to land and if they didn’t land, they tried evasive 

tactics. 

It was a good feeling. They were doing something wrong, and 

they shot them down; they shot down 43 planes. Today there are 

7 planes a month going up instead of 70 planes. The cost of a pilot was $25,000, now it is $250,000; people won’t 

do it unless they get a lot of money, and instead of flying up, they 

are flying through Brazil and all over. So what has happened is the 

supply of raw coca paste in Peru has gone up because they can’t 

get it out of the place. The price of coca paste has gone from $400 

a kilo to less than $100 a kilo. 

The farmers who grow this stuff, they strip the leaves and put 

it through a process and get a paste; it is a messy business. They 

cut the stuff and they separate it and it is the messiest stuff you 

ever saw; and to think people actually use it. Beyond that, they 

have the stuff sitting there, they can’t sell it, so farmers are walking away from growing it. 

Last year they cut the ability to grow it 19 percent, this year 

they think they are going to cut it down 25 percent, and that is 

where 70 percent of where all our drugs come from. 

So, there are a lot of coordinating things we have to be able to 

do to stop drugs in this country but I think one of the most important things is something we never talked about; it is the way we 

launder the money. Some drugs come up from Colombia actually in 

cargo containers. You can’t stuff the money that you get on the 

street corners—the $5, $10, $20, $50 bills, $100 bills—back in the 

containers the drugs come in, the volume of the money is for more 

than the buying of the drugs, and that is how they get the money 

back to Colombia. If you can’t get the money back to Colombia, if 

you can’t do it through wires or the money laundering or the bank 

systems, there is no impetus for the guys to grow it, to smuggle it, 

to sell it, refine it. 

So all those things work together, and it is a commitment from 

some of us in Congress, most of us in Congress, to stop it and make 

sure all six things are working together. But the most important 

is back at home, the demand site; and we have a big, big job. 

And Mr. Povlsen, you talked about the community responsibility. 

It is huge, and it is a responsibility that a lot of us like to look the 

other way and not think about and not take that on; and I appreciate everybody being here today, and some of you have been 

through very personal tragedies and some have been in situations 

where you turned your life around and some have been working at 

this thing for a long time. We appreciate all of you being here 

today and your contribution to this, and we look forward to the 

next panel. 

47

Mr. HASTERT. At this time, I would like to introduce our second 

panel. First of all, John Nakonechny—I think that is pretty close 

to how you pronounce your name—is a prevention and wellness coordinator for the DeKalb School District; Michael Haines is coordinator of health enhancement services here at Northern Illinois University; Tim Johnson is the current DeKalb States attorney; Dick 

Randall is the sheriff for Kendall County, and has been involved 

very much in Operation North Star; and Bob Miller is the founder 

of the Just Say No to Drugs parade in Dixon, IL. 

Here is a situation where there is a community—Dixon is west 

of here, about 40 miles or so—where a community and a fellow in 

that community just said, it is time to do something, and they have 

a Just Say No parade. We need to get the idea on how that works 

and what effect that has. 

I think everybody is here, except Mr. Miller, at the table. Again, 

I am going to ask that you stand and raise your right hands. 

[Witnesses sworn.] 

Let the record show the witnesses answered in the affirmative. 

Mr. Nakonechny. Is that right? 

Mr. NAKONECHNY. Just say Nak. 

Mr. HASTERT. Nak, OK. 

Mr. NAKONECHNY. I am not going to read anything. 

Mr. HASTERT. Let me say, if you have a written statement, we 

will just provide it in the record and we look forward to your testimony. 

STATEMENTS OF JOHN NAKONECHNY, PREVENTION AND 

WELLNESS COORDINATOR, DeKALB COMMUNITY UNIT 

SCHOOL DISTRICT 428; MICHAEL HAINES, COORDINATOR OF 

HEALTH ENHANCEMENT SERVICES, NORTHERN ILLINOIS 

UNIVERSITY; TIM JOHNSON, DeKALB STATES ATTORNEY; 

RICHARD A. RANDALL, SHERIFF, KENDALL COUNTY, IL; AND 

BOB MILLER, JUST SAY NO TO DRUGS PARADE, LEE COUNTY, IL 

Mr. NAKONECHNY. I will just summarize ways as a crossover 

from what has been said previously by Mr. Povlsen and others, and 

Mike Coghlan, but essentially where we stand in DeKalb schools 

is the old, hackneyed cliche of an ounce of prevention is worth a 

pound of cure, which we have been saying here for the most part. 

Let me get into the substance of what we are doing in the 

DeKalb schools trying to combat the violence, drugs and alcohol. 

We do it on four fronts: schools of students, staff development, parents, and community. Within the schools of students, we have, 

since about 1986, when we started a drug and alcohol prevention 

program, we have adopted a curriculum, K through 12, which is 

very, very important. 

Recently, you heard some attacks on D.A.R.E., for instance, that 

the long-term effects and longevity of D.A.R.E. is not there. That 

is no indictment of the D.A.R.E. program because it is probably—

it is a very good program; I know what it entails, but that is why 

you have a K–12 program, to followup and support D.A.R.E. and 

support all the other programs. 

One of the messages I hear over and over and over again is, we 

heard about the advertising industry and everything else, one thing 

48

we try to emphasize very heavily is this war, if you can call it that, 

against substance abuse is something that has to be repeated over 

and over and over. I don’t think there is a person in this room, perhaps, unless you have an IQ of 200, gets something the first time. 

It is a war that goes on and on and has to be repeated over; and 

in essence that is what our curriculum is doing, year in and year 

out. 

Hopefully, each teacher is teaching the curriculum, K through 

12. Our curriculum puts emphasis on self-esteem, on knowledge 

and refusal skills. One of the things we know now is Just Say No 

doesn’t work; you have to teach kids how to say no with refusal 

skills. 

We also publish a newsletter as often as we can with the financial resources that we have, and that continuously inflicts knowledge on students, K through 12, as well as their parents. 

We provide activities for kids, such as the National Red Ribbon 

Week. We provide DUI Day to talk about the effects of drinking 

and driving, for instance, as well as we perform skits; we actually 

have kids in our theater group go to fourth graders. And again, as 

we talked about before, we actually attack tobacco at that level because we know it is down in the fourth grade when kids are experimenting, especially with tobacco. 

We run the I–Say survey. I have a copy here if somebody would 

like it; I brought one or two copies with me. You are more than 

welcome to look at it. We only use that survey as a barometer, as 

a gauge, to tell us where we are going and what is happening. We 

don’t use it in each statistic. It seems to match with the previous 

person who said that perhaps she knew 300 kids using marijuana; 

that is just about right, if it is 40 percent, 40 percent of 700 kids 

in the survey is 280 kids, so that reflects fairly well of what is happening. 

As far as the schools go, with the limited time we have, we have 

a Discipline Committee. In the last 5 or 6 years we have really 

tightened up procedures and policies against drugs and alcohol, as 

well as touching on dress code a little bit, in terms of gang activities; and I would say, in essence, it is a ‘‘tough love’’ approach to 

the entire process, as well as a zero tolerance. 

Finally, we have also—within our schools, we have tightened up 

our security. Some schools even have cameras; we do not have cameras. We do have a liaison police officer now in conjunction with 

the DeKalb Police Department, who spends time at our middle 

schools and our high school—and it is a sad day, but it is here—

and we do have a police officer at the school, as well as security 

aids and a person who takes care of—well, just in essence, security 

matters; and we try to keep a good tab of what goes on in the parking lot. 

In terms of staff development, we, I, my office offers a lot of 

workshops for teachers, and we send people out and wherever we 

can find something on peer mediation, conflict resolution, drugs 

and alcohol, gang activity seminars, we try to encourage people to 

go. 

One of the things we try very hard to do is to have teachers understand this problem is never going to be solved unless we teach 

it across the curriculum. The P.E. teacher can’t do it alone, the 

49

health teacher can’t do it alone; it has to be the English teacher, 

the math teacher, the history teacher, the wrestling coach, right 

across the whole spectrum of the school building, K through 12. 

As far as parents are concerned, we work very hard to provide 

information, as well as a monthly newsletter to parents. Principals 

are more than willing to put it as part of their newsletter to parents. We also try to invite parents into our school system. That is 

another very difficult thing to do, getting parents into schools is a 

very tough situation; but they do serve on such things as our district-wide Discipline Committee, which I serve on, they serve on 

what we call a CAC, Citizens Action Committee, the advisory committee that deals with the schools, and they look at a broad spectrum of things from gifted programs, to drugs and alcohol, to violence and gang activity, and we openly encourage parents with 

Drug Free money and things like that; if they so wish to participate in workshops that we hold, they are more than welcome to do 

that. 

Finally, within the community, I have worked very closely with 

Kris Povlsen, the other 10 schools in this county, and Mike 

Coghlan, when he was States Attorney, with DCP/SAFE, DeKalb 

County Partnership for a Substance Abuse Free Environment—it is 

the coalition you were talking about earlier—and we have even 

gone to the extent we now have student representation on DCP/

SAFE. It has been very productive. 

We have a long way to go probably. 

Yes, you can read about somebody rolling a joint, in the Chronicle, in the classroom but you can also roll a joint during a church 

service, too, or a court of law; those things do happen. My only 

problem with that is, it gets highlighted as if to seem we are not 

doing anything, and that is just not true. 

One thing we try to do over and over, whether you read the survey—and I know you don’t have the entire survey—whether you 

read about it or hear about our activities, we emphasized, just recently, in the last 2 or 3 years, that not all kids are doing that. 

When you say 40 percent of the kids are involved in marijuana, if 

you break that down, you find out that out of that 40 percent, that 

is 100 kids, 12 are experimenting with it for the first or second 

time; and it is probably about 26 percent of high school kids using 

it on a weekend basis, perhaps on a monthly basis. You go to our 

full 6–12 survey on that, you will find out it breaks down to about 

15 percent. 

We can always improve, and so I will leave it at that. 

I would just like to say one other thing. I have been in the game 

for 29 years now, being a teacher, and I have been at this job for 

about 6 years. I still teach in the mornings—American history, advanced American history, the history of Vietnam—and over the 

years, I have to tell you, you hear this question, what is wrong 

with kids today? I don’t think there is anything wrong with kids 

today. I think 97 percent of the kids—and that is an arbitrary 

number—in 1972 were good kids; and I still think 97 percent, 95 

percent of the kids in 1997 are really good kids. 

What we have is a problem with about 3 or 4 percent who are 

now a criminal element. Back then it was bubble gum, swearing, 

cutting class, a few other things; those things still happen, but we 

50

have another element that I am not so sure we are well equipped 

to deal with, and that seems to be the problem. 

Mr. HASTERT. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Haines, you are doing the same thing only at a different age 

level. So why don’t you tell us what we are doing here. 

Mr. HAINES. Before I start, if I can get someone to get the overhead. I have a couple overheads that illustrate the point. 

Mr. HASTERT. Do you want to go ahead and let them set that up? 

Mr. HAINES. I could make some of the remarks while they are 

setting that up. 

I have been working in the substance abuse field since 1970; and 

I am a certified supervisor of addiction counselors, besides my current position at the university coordinating health enhancement 

services. 

Mr. HASTERT. Would you elaborate on that? Health enhancement 

services, what is that, exactly? 

Mr. HAINES. Health enhancement services is that portion of the 

university health service who are part of student services on campus which is charged with the responsibility to reduce risk for students for injury, disease, accident, problems; and, of course, then 

alcohol or other drugs are a part of that issue, particularly alcohol, 

because it has—plays a major role in unintentional injuries for college students. 

What you have heard today, and you will probably hear more of, 

is a lot of information which is documenting the nature of the drug 

problem and how serious it is and how it has caused tragedies for 

individuals in our community. Notwithstanding those, I am here to 

talk more about the drug solution than the drug problem, with 

some of the successes that we have had over the last 7 years, 8 

years here on our campus. 

We have tried, and it has been my experience over the 27 

years—I have been particularly pleased with the effects we have 

gotten because of the trials we have had in trying to have a measurable impact on the behaviors of populations of young people 

when it comes to alcohol or other drugs. 

In the last 7 years, we have reduced the amount of alcohol abuse 

on campus by 35 percent, reduced harmful alcohol-related physical 

injury to self by 31 percent and physical injury to others by 54 percent. That is at the same time where it hits the background nationally, where alcohol-related harm to college students has remained 

unchanged and very difficult to reach. 

We have done that through a rather unique method that I think 

could work in other settings with other populations and within 

communities, and it addresses the social norms we heard about 

earlier in some of the testimony. I think you asked a question directly, how do you go about charging norms? That is exactly what 

we went about doing. 

I will go over to the overhead. See overhead No. 1. I don’t know 

if you can all see this or not, but this describes the phenomenon 

seen on college campuses nationwide. Every campus that was surveyed for this type of information found that college students routinely and regularly perceived the use of alcohol and other drugs 

to be far greater than the actual use. 

51

The researchers who conducted this work and presented it at the 

first National Drug Abuse Conference for the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education in Washington, back in 

1987, 1988, hypothesized that if you changed this perception, you 

could actually change the behavior. Where they were coming from 

was the idea that young people, college students, respond to imaginary peer pressure. If they think everybody is doing it, then they 

feel pressure to do it as well to fit in. 

Mr. HASTERT. It is what is cool. 

Mr. HAINES. It is what is cool. 

The comments and questions were asked: What types of movies—

I think ‘‘Animal House’’ did more to set the stage, expectation and 

perceived use of alcohol on college campuses than any other movie 

could have. I don’t know if you are familiar with ‘‘Animal House,’’ 

but it sets up the idea that everybody on campus is getting drunk 

every weekend, and when they get drunk they do these antics and 

so on. 

What we found on our campus was that the perception of alcohol 

use was almost actually double the use of alcohol, and they found 

that on campuses relative to other drugs as well. Researchers at 

Wake Forest University did similar studies with eighth graders 

and high school students and found the same information. 

They went further and tested different prevention methods and 

found that prevention methods, which changed the perception of 

the norm within the peer group, actually had the greatest influence 

in reducing use of marijuana, tobacco or alcohol by junior high 

school and high school students. They found that that perception 

of the social norm was a more powerful predictor than even the 

availability of the drug itself. 

So the student could be offered the drug and you can more accurately predict whether they would use it or not based on what their 

perception of the norm was. If they thought everybody like themselves were doing it, then they chose the drug. If they didn’t think 

that was the case, they refused it more so. 

Essentially, our challenge was how do we change the perception 

that alcohol abuse is the norm on the college campus of 20,000 students, with one full-time position to do that; and the sheer economies of scale said we had to do that through media; and we used 

media rather extensively. 

What you see in much of the media is this type of headline. See 

overhead No. 2. That was run in the Wall Street Journal in December 1994 in response to the research conducted by Dr. Henry 

Wechsler at the Harvard School of Public Health. The research 

data that Wechsler produced about binge drinking behavior on college campuses could have produced this headline just as easily. See 

overhead No. 3. Same data, same study, but we have a major difference in the perception of what is the norm on a college campus 

from this headline—everybody is doing it, nearly everybody is binging—to this headline, which says, moderation is the norm and 

harm is relatively rare on college campuses related to alcohol use. 

What we did to try to change the norms on our campus. The Harvard study also pointed out this information. Again, in the paper, 

what you saw was the 44 percent who binge drank, you saw the 

52

4 percent who got into trouble with the police, the 9 percent that 

got hurt or injured, the 9 percent who damaged property and so on. 

As a society we overfocus on the deviant; and as we overfocus on 

the deviant, we unintentionally give the idea to our young people 

in the community that deviance is more normal than it really is. 

What we are trying to do is correct that misperception and we did 

that through, as I said, media; and that media was mostly through 

our campus paper because our campus paper is read by about 75 

percent of our students. We did that by producing very visible ads 

that addressed the norm issue straight on. See overhead No. 4. 

We didn’t deny the fact that DUI is a problem and a serious one, 

but we tried to make it clear that DUI is relatively rare. It is not 

the norm among college students on this campus or any other campus in the United States. We support and identify the healthy protective behaviors that are resident in the community and then amplify them by feeding them back in order to get more of them. 

It is just like when I pay attention to my dog for coming back 

to me with praise, rather than beating it when it doesn’t return, 

which just teaches it to stay away. I am trying to attend to the population who are doing the behavior well, amplify those protective 

rituals in the population and feeding it back to them. 

These are some more of the ads. See overhead No.’s 5, 6, and 7. 

Most college students don’t participate in alcohol-related harm. I 

like to call it the big lie that everybody is doing it and everybody 

is getting hurt. Because on our campus—and I think it is true from 

all the national data I have seen—the majority of students are not 

binge drinkers, the majority of students do not use marijuana, the 

majority by far do not use LSD or cocaine; and we ignore that majority quite often. We don’t pay attention to what the students who 

don’t use and have the opportunity to use do in order to get that 

usage to be reduced. Ninety-seven percent of our students agreed 

with the statement that an occasional drunk which interferes with 

academics or other responsibilities is OK. Only 3 percent felt that 

was something that they agreed with. 

Mr. HASTERT. You mean it is not OK. 

Mr. HAINES. It is not OK, right. Yes, strike that one. 

And most of the students don’t cause harm to self or others. As 

you can see, 9 percent and 20 percent. This is the result of the efforts we have been conducting. 

The very first year of the study, we conducted what would be 

called a traditional campaign, where we taught students that it’s 

OK not to drink, that here are responsible ways to use, and these 

are the negative consequences which will occur to you if you use 

heavily. At the end of the first year, perceptions didn’t change and 

use actually went up slightly—heavy use, binge use. See overhead 

No. 8. 

Once we started the normative campaign, the campaign to 

change social norms, we had a steady decline to where today it is 

27 percent. Nationally, it’s about 40 percent on college campuses. 

As I said earlier, I think this method holds promise. It holds 

promise not only for college students but I think holds promise for 

high-school-age populations and, as has been commented on earlier, for the adults in the community. I think they also have the 

misperception that everybody is doing it and that they, too, need 

53

to be reminded that the protective healthy norms of the community 

are widespread, that it is normal to be healthy. 

I think I should conclude with just a couple comments that I 

made in my written testimony of the implications for this method. 

The powerful influence of perception of social norms on personal 

drug-taking behavior is enormous. The success of this drug abuse 

prevention effort has many implications: One, mass media efforts 

which highlight healthy and protective norms may be very cost-effective ways to improve drug behavior within full communities as 

well as special target populations. 

An effort which identifies and promotes healthy norms already 

practiced by neighborhoods, communities and social groups is welcomed by those very groups. It is good news. It is good politics. It 

does not bash the community to eliminate the problem, sort of the 

burning the house to cook the pig issue. It is a community-government partnership, instead of an adversarial nature that we find so 

often. Instead of the us against them, we are working together. It 

is consistent with community policing theories, self-help efforts and 

returning control to people. 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify. 

Mr. HASTERT. We will come back with questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Haines follows:] 

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Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Tim Johnson, States attorney for DeKalb 

County. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Congressman Hastert and Congressman Manzullo. I appreciate the opportunity to speak and for you 

being here. 

I think it is important for the record to have a little bit of a reflection as to the makeup of DeKalb County. DeKalb County is 

composed primarily of small cities, villages with populations of less 

than 12,000, with the only exception being the city of DeKalb. 

The city of DeKalb, of course, has a population of roughly 38,000 

people, which represents almost one-half of the county’s population. 

Of course, DeKalb is also home to Northern Illinois University. 

Geographically, the county is large and rectangular in shape. 

Like all communities, DeKalb County continues to see the presence of drugs. The most typical drugs that we see in DeKalb County are marijuana and cocaine. Recently, however, we have seen in 

DeKalb County arrests of individuals who have been selling mushrooms, LSD and opium. The presence of these and other drugs continues to be a threat to the young people of our community. 

Mr. HASTERT. Is mushroom the name of the drug? 

Mr. MANZULLO. It is psilocybin. 

Mr. JOHNSON. That is exactly right. And, of course, we continue 

to have the use of alcohol and tobacco products by our young people. 

Although I don’t think exact statistics are available, there are 

certain trends that are clear in DeKalb County. One-quarter of felony arrests are directly related to drugs. Others are indirectly related and are, therefore, hard to quantify; but they involve burglary, forgery, deceptive practices in which individuals who have a 

drug habit are committing those crimes in an effort to feed that 

habit. Indeed, other felonies are committed when these individuals 

are highly intoxicated. The net result is, very conservatively, over 

one-half of felonies committed in DeKalb County involve drug or alcohol usage and probably much higher than that. 

The fact drugs are available in rural communities cannot be disputed. The effect on our young people is more difficult to ascertain. 

I believe there are many reasons why this is so. 

First, teens are not likely to be totally honest with authority figures when discussing drugs and alcohol. There is a code of silence 

that exists with young people. They don’t like to tell on each other. 

However, I believe any teen can tell you, if you want to buy drugs, 

where do you go to buy those drugs. 

Second, some officials have an interest in denying problems do, 

in fact, exist. They may choose to handle certain problems in-house, 

choosing not to involve the police. Other officials can underreport 

the extent of the drug activity in their school or turn a blind eye 

to the potential problems. 

Another problem that exists, I believe, is the method and criteria 

for reporting what types of activities are occurring. For example, 

some communities may choose to do station adjustments. Other 

communities may, in fact, choose to direct that individual directly 

to court. 

66

Finally, I think in any community there are always variables 

that include finances, work force available and the coordination 

and cooperation of the services that are available. 

I believe that when you consider the above, it seems relatively 

clear that to adequately address the drug and alcohol problem facing our youth we must include several things. First, the approach 

must have a prevention aspect. We must continue to be proactive, 

and I believe this requires the support of the entire community. I 

believe some of the essential players in this effort must come from 

the school systems, police agencies, prosecutor’s office and social 

service agencies as well as the teenagers themselves. 

I think, too often, we leave the teens out when discussing these 

problems. For example, as you have heard and as you have heard 

the prior speaker, we have groups such as DCP/SAFE, which is, 

again, an active group coordinating prevention services on a community basis. 

I think cooperation and communication is essential to handle this 

problem. Standards must be used for schools and police agencies to 

report drug and alcohol-related incidents and arrests so we can accurately analyze this problem. 

Second, from the States attorneys’ perspective, we must continue 

to aggressively prosecute those who choose to violate the law and 

provide drugs to our young people. Every effort must be made to 

provide the law enforcement officials the funds they need to protect 

society and especially our young children. Individuals who sell 

drugs and individuals who sell drugs to teenagers or at school need 

to understand their conduct will not be tolerated and they will be 

punished accordingly. 

In conclusion, teens need to be educated about the negative effects of drug and alcohol usage; and I think the testimony you 

heard today—they need to understand it is not necessarily the 

norm. Their perception may be different than reality. Those teens 

that are using drugs need to be referred to the appropriate agency 

to deal with their problems. The individuals that prey on our youth 

or refuse the offers of help must understand, if they violate the 

law, they will be aggressively prosecuted. 

Thank you very much. 

Mr. HASTERT. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Johnson follows:] 

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Mr. HASTERT. Also with us from a neighboring county, just to the 

south—it used to be known as a rural county. I am not sure it is 

still. It is half rural, I guess, Kendall County. Sheriff Randall is not 

only the sheriff, but he is involved with Operation North Star, and 

you might comment a little on your local issue and the bigger picture. 

Mr. RANDALL. Thank you, Congressman Hastert and Congressman Manzullo. I appreciate all of the efforts that all of the people 

are making today and that you would come out to our rural area. 

As sheriff for the past 11 years in Kendall County and a law enforcement officer for over 29 years in Illinois, I have many concerns 

about illegal drugs, gangs and violence in our area. 

Being the sheriff, these concerns take on multi-levels of approaches, not only enforcement but incarceration, investigation and 

officer of the courts, along with prevention/education and developing multi-jurisdictional task forces in utilizing as many resources 

as possible to curb that activity in our area. Even though we are 

involved and proactive in many of these areas, I have concerns of 

many other agencies doing or attempting duplication of many of 

these same efforts and lack of coordination in the more local areas, 

which you have alluded to. 

In the past several years, cooperation of all agencies across the 

board in providing services has improved greatly, but the coordination of these services needs additional help, I believe. 

With the broad brush I have painted, I would like to focus on a 

few areas to be explored for future planning and actions that could 

be taken. 

Education/prevention: On a county-wide or possibly a region-wide 

effort, developing resource information packets of services available 

and ongoing projects and programs of the region. This information 

needs updating minimally every 6 months. There are many positive, localized programs that can provide some very important information or direction to others attempting to resolve or solve an 

issue of need. 

This is not to say that each area or program used uses a cookiecutter approach, but it can afford individuals or agency ideas and 

knowledge on a broader base, hopefully for better results. The 

wheel has been invented. Each group or individual can design their 

own hubcap for their particular local need. 

Many efforts are available, but it takes people to put them in motion by providing as much information and direction that could be 

an asset in dealing successfully in protecting and leading our communities to a safer environment. The Kendall County Sheriff’s Office of COPS, the Community Oriented Police Section, are indeed 

starting that process but only in localized neighborhoods and townships, not in total concert with the coordination of other jurisdictions or resources. 

No. 2, investigation/enforcement. Working with multi-agency jurisdictions has been a very positive and successful effort; but, 

again, broader intelligence and dissemination networking needs to 

be developed, specifically in the more rural areas, a faster, more direct process of information to gain a better understanding of the 

broad scope of people, places, migrations, trends, routes, et cetera, 

70

of gang and illegal drug activity, brought down to the smaller agencies. 

Again, I believe there is a tremendous amount of intelligence information, and we need to capture it from smaller jurisdictions. A 

method or process needs to be developed to gain this information 

and, at the same time, recognize the smaller agencies for providing 

positive results without jeopardizing long-term cases. These cases 

are without a doubt more difficult. In some instances, where there 

are fewer people, anonymity is next to impossible, along with the 

small numbers of incidences. 

Again, education and knowledge of the bigger picture, along with 

total community involvement, will support positive resolutions to 

reduce and treat unacceptable behavior firmly. We law enforcement 

providers need to foster remedies, disseminate accurate information, work with other community service providers and listen to the 

community. 

No. 3, domestic violence. I know this is stepping outside the circle of your immediate concerns, but I think we need to focus on this 

area as a major contributor to drug abuse, gang involvement and 

violence. In my 29 years of experience, I believe this is a catalyst 

of the dilemma, in escaping reality, needing alternative recognition 

or striking out in frustration and anger. This is totally unacceptable behavior, and it is totally out of control, which is skyrocketing 

the antisocial behavior of drugs, gangs and violence. 

If resources can be coordinated at all levels, not only the criminal 

justice and social services, but all levels of our communities, we 

will begin to resolve this dilemma. This may be an awesome task, 

but in order to look to the future, you have to look to the past and 

identify the major factors and what are the contributors of this dilemma and attack it on many fronts. Education, prevention, sincere 

alternatives, in my opinion, will add to the stabilization of our communities and our country. 

Thank you very much. 

Mr. HASTERT. Thank you, Sheriff. 

Mr. HASTERT. Do you want to take just a minute and talk about 

Operation North Star? Because it is an interagency issue. Just in 

your own words. 

Mr. RANDALL. It is between Canada and the United States, about 

criminal activity on the border in both countries. It really focuses 

on the coordination. In fact, it has three Cs and an I—communication, coordination, cooperation and information—and that is exactly 

what we are doing today. We are fostering and trying to build that 

between both countries, our own government, Federal, State, local 

and county, to try to put this big picture together and work together and network positively. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Randall follows:] 

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Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Miller, you represent Lee County, which is 

just to the west of here. What, Mr. Miller, you have done in Dixon, 

IL, is just kind of pull yourself up by your own bootstraps and get 

public awareness out of the parade. So why don’t you enlighten us 

on your activities, please? 

Mr. MILLER. I would thank you, Congressman Hastert and Congressman Manzullo, for having me here; and I am just a country 

boy. 

Mr. HASTERT. We know all about country boys. 

Mr. MILLER. I apologize. I do not have a written statement. Your 

office was on me a lot to try and get it, and I just never got it accomplished. But I do think I have a lot to tell you, and I will go 

through that. 

About 10 years ago—in fact, 10 years ago in January—I was 

watching the Bears-Miami football game; and at half time, they 

had a small parade where they had a dignitary and a few students 

marching, saying no to drugs; and I thought that is a real positive 

thing to be doing in a community. So I went to our City Council 

and our mayor. I asked them if Dixon would support me in this, 

if I could do this. 

They gave me permission to start, told me I should start with Police Chief Short and see what we could come up with. I went to Bob 

Short, and he was in favor of it. We put together a committee of 

Bob Short, the police chief, Kathy White, who was in the city counseling center, and Kirby Rogers, who was the dean of students at 

the Dixon High School and myself. The four of us put together a 

program for not just a parade but for a whole year program. 

In October—and we have mentioned before about the red ribbons—which is a red ribbon month, we pass out 5,000 red ribbons 

to our students in Lee County. We have somewhere around 5,200 

students in Lee County. We pass out a ribbon to each student so 

that they might be aware of the sacrifice this Federal agent had 

who died and then he is honored when we pass out these ribbons. 

So we do that, and we pay for that each October. 

During the year, we try to work with the schools with different 

say no to drugs programs. Someone like maybe the two athletes 

that were here, we would have them come to the schools and tell 

the story to the students, so the students would know that here are 

a couple young men who were messed up and found a new way of 

life. So this is another positive thing we try to bring to the students 

throughout the year. 

We have also attempted to educate the parents by having law enforcement agencies come in. We had one lieutenant, I remember, 

from North Carolina that came in and gave a program at our theater. I think we had 30 parents show up, and it was a cost for us, 

and it didn’t work too well. But we feel this whole program we set 

up is an education for the parents and the students, and that is 

the only way it is going to work. 

Right after the first of the year, we send out to each school letters. They take the forms in these letters and give them to each 

student, and the students sign up for a free T-shirt. We have the 

T-shirts for our parades. 

The first year of our parade, we had the just say no to drugs logo 

on the T-shirt and furnished these to every student that would 

74

march. This is our 10th year, and we had students design their 

own T-shirts. We had a first-place winner. She designed this shirt, 

and it was different this year than the other 9 years, so we wore 

her design. 

We try to keep young people realizing the community, the law 

enforcement part of the community, the clubs, the schools are all 

behind them in their decision to say no to drugs. We want to keep 

it positive. We wanted them, we felt from the beginning, to bond 

together as a group so when they went from third grade and fourth 

grade they could see other students who had marched in the parade with them and know here is somebody else who stood up to 

say no to drugs and has marched in this parade. 

In the spring—later in the spring, after we have put out the bids 

for the T-shirts, we get buttons, say no to drug buttons; and we 

have had them for all of 10 years. We pass them out early spring, 

so young people know we are still working with the program. 

This year the second-place winner in our contest designed this 

button. I think he was a fourth grader. 

The schools have all kinds of different programs, as I mentioned 

before, during the year. We culminate at the end of the year with 

a week-long program. 

We start out in the churches. We try to encourage our churches 

of Lee County to have a program within the church, whether it be 

a prayer time or a sermon or whatever, to encourage the church 

people and students that are a part of the church to take a stand 

and say no to drugs. That is the beginning of our week. 

During the week, we have programs in the schools. We will have 

coloring book contests with the little kids, which is the say no to 

drug theme. They will color that, and we give the first-place winner 

a certain prize. 

Students make poster boards which they wear in the parade, 

which are different things, saying say no to drugs. We have them 

make banners which they carry in the parade. Also, at some of the 

schools I called on, they are still hanging around the schools, where 

they are very proud of what their children are doing. They honored 

them by keeping them there. 

We also had them decorate the bicycles that they ride in the parade and their wagons. Some are now taking last year’s T-shirts 

and putting them on the dogs and bringing their dogs with their 

say no to drug T-shirts on, which is fine as long as they are not 

the new ones. I have a hard enough time getting money to buy the 

shirts. 

We operate with about a $10,000 budget. I spend between $7,000 

and $8,000 for T-shirts, so we don’t have a lot of other money. 

The police department and the county sheriff will buy the ribbons for us out of their drug-bust money. They figure this is an 

educational thing. So 1 year, the police chief buys the ribbons. It 

will be about $300. Then that year, the sheriff buys the buttons; 

and they cost about $800. So we flip-flop them back and forth each 

year. That is how we cover the expense. 

After we have had this put together of the school program, we 

put together the parade. To this date, which is the 10th year, we 

had 24,471 students sign up and march in our parades. 

75

The first year I was a little iffy as to what was going to happen 

because this had never happened before, and I had 1,878 students 

sign up and march in the parade. So it is a thrilling thing to see 

that these students are doing this. 

In the past years, the thrilling thing for me is to see more and 

more parents marching with their students. So I am sure they are 

feeling more and more support from their families. 

The picture I sent to you might not have been a very good picture, but the police chief is there. Our sheriff is there. The lieutenant at the head of the parade was an Olympic athlete. We tried to 

have a quality thing for the kids—the athlete, we had the Bears, 

we had the Green Bay Packers. 

We ended at the school in the band shell and they signed autographs on the back of the T-shirts. The first year, they signed in 

nonwaterproof ink; and my wife washed mine off. 

We have a lot of race car drivers. They pull the cars down there 

and set up in the same area that they sign autographs, and they 

let the kids look at the cars. 

We have had track meets for the kids to participate in afterwards at the high school track. 

We had different drug programs from our Sinasippi Center. They 

bring in a program or a hospital brings in a booth where they hand 

out literature and try to help our kids. 

We are just a very active and excited group. Yet I am also on 

the task force at Dixon High School, and we just went through a 

survey profile of student life attitudes and behavior. It was performed by the Research Institute of Minneapolis, MN. We find that 

23 percent of our 12th graders report binge drinking three or more 

times in the last 2 weeks, and that was from 1996. 

We also had, which is a disturbing thing for me, 44 percent of 

our seniors in the last 12 months had driven a car after drinking 

once or twice. We had several statistics on drugs, marijuana; 52 

percent of the seniors had tried marijuana in their lifetime; 6 percent had tried cocaine; 22 percent tried amphetamines; LSD, 10 

percent; 6 percent have tried heroin. 

So with all of our programs, with all of our efforts to try to bring 

a positive attitude, this is sort of a downer, but it is not enough 

to stop us from continuing on. We don’t have much participation 

from the students when they get to high school, and I think that 

is because of a lot of peer pressure. It looks maybe sort of silly for 

them, they feel, walking down the street in a parade. We have had 

some, but very few. 

Thank you. 

Mr. HASTERT. Thank you very much. 

I was interested, especially, in high school kids. One statistic is, 

if you get a kid through age 15 without using drugs and not smoking, there is a good chance he is going to make it to 21 and then 

through the rest of his life. I think it is a very important issue. 

We come back to dealing specifically with a couple of questions, 

but I would like to start with Mr. Haines. 

I, too, sometimes would like to be able to change the headlines. 

Just people read the story and not the headlines. It works out better. I haven’t found a way to do that. 

76

But, anyway, in your essence of actually being able to give a different perspective, psychologically, if you will, have you—you know, 

you use statistics, but you are around campus day in and day out. 

Is the attitude changing? 

Mr. HAINES. I think definitely we have seen an attitude change 

over the years. 

There was just a current front page story in our summer edition 

of the campus paper which talked about marijuana use on the college campus. I believe Chief Pickens said what we may have is 

more enforcement with the same level of use. So that people perceive that there is more use going on, and that is another one of 

those perception things. 

I think some of that enforcement, at least from some anecdotal 

comment that I have heard from some of the residence hall staff, 

is that the student attitudes about marijuana are less accepting of 

marijuana use today, even among the student staff who may be 

resident assistants and so on. So things or behaviors relative to 

marijuana use that might have been overlooked or where somebody 

turned the other way or just slapped a wrist 10 years ago are now 

being written up and sanctioned. 

I don’t think that should be bad news. It gives the community 

the perception there is more marijuana use when actually there 

isn’t, and I think it is more accurately a reflection of less tolerance, 

and it could be good news. It is unfortunate that it often gets spun 

as bad news, as more evidence we have trouble. It actually should 

be seen for what it is, that there is more evidence that things are 

healthier than ever before on the college campuses. 

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Johnson, you talk about the unintended consequences and the unintended crime that happens. When you talk 

about the crime that kids when, because they are on drugs—part 

of that is burglary, purse snatching, taking money from their parents to get money to buy drugs. 

What we don’t see, when we see that that incidence is up, is a 

pharmacological crime out there, that the crimes that kids do—and 

the adults as well, because they are under the influence, much like 

what you are talking about, the injury from alcohol, that they do—

and one of the studies that just came out, that 80 percent of the 

domestic abuse cases are involved in some way with alcohol and 

drugs—I mean, it is a huge number that we spend a lot of money 

on. 

It is estimated we spend about $90 billion in this country every 

year—not just in buying drugs. That type of money, that goes 

through the system—but in apprehension and the cost of victims, 

the cost of crime, incarceration, those types of options are just 

huge. You just start to look at what a high school spends and universities spend and how we do that all across our society, it is a 

huge amount. 

So you said another thing that I want to see you repeat that and 

get your opinion on and then test it on some of the other folks here, 

that prosecution is important. You need to prosecute kids so they 

know where the line is. Tell us a little bit about that. 

Mr. JOHNSON. I think you heard from the first panel—I can’t remember. One of the gentlemen speaking in the first panel said they 

come and test an area and find out their policies and procedures 

77

in an area. If they find out you get caught and if you get a slap 

on the wrist, you go on and do your business more, that is a good 

area to settle in. So you want to send a message out. 

I think one thing that is repeatedly clear is people who commit 

crimes have networks, and they understand more than people give 

them credit for as to where the markets are that they want to locate in. They are a business, and they look for markets that are 

more friendly to them, as with any business. So I think that the 

message that we want to send out as communities is your type of 

conduct is not tolerated. 

I think the other thing is, from a juvenile perspective, these individuals do want to know where the lines are drawn. They want 

consistency. They want—I think if they are honest and they tell 

you what they believe, they want to know what is acceptable behavior and what is not; and they want to know that, no matter who 

it is, if they violate these laws, it will be applied evenly to them. 

So I think we have to send the message out, especially from the 

prosecutor’s office. Everybody wears a different hat, but I think 

from the prosecutor’s office, they have to understand when they 

make it to our office they are going to treat it seriously. The punishment will be consistent, and it will be——

I don’t want to ignore the whole aspect of referring people to 

treatment as well. I think, too often, in the prosecutor’s office, you 

get locked into this idea you are going to get a conviction and think 

you accomplished something. It is certainly a major part of what 

the prosecutor’s role is; but I think we have to get the people to 

the help they need, especially the users, to get them to the help 

they need so they don’t repeatedly come back into our system. 

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Nakonechny—I am going to get that name 

right. I mean, I don’t want to put you on the spot, but as a teacher 

and a coach, sometimes you think, gee, I can help this kid, rather 

than send them into the system. What do you see works? Does 

tough prosecution work? If kids know they are going to get caught, 

they are going to go through the court system, does that help? Or 

how do you see that? You are dealing with the kids every day. 

Mr. NAKONECHNY. Well, I think it does help. I really do. 

The tidying up of our own school procedures in terms of discipline certainly has sent out a message, but it is in combination 

with everything said here. It is in combination with the entire community. 

I don’t think Mr. Johnson can do it by himself or Mike can do 

it by himself. It is still the phrase about a village and raising a kid. 

I think we are at that point in time. It definitely has to be there. 

Just reflect on the DUI laws and what has happened statistically. We have a long way to go there, too; but I hear more and 

more people, especially in my age bracket, saying, wow, this is 

more serious business. You know, I am not doing this and I am not 

doing that. So there is a positive to it all. As long as we keep a 

positive to it in terms of rehabilitation. 

Mr. HASTERT. Sheriff, as an officer of the court, do you see that 

as a policy? 

Mr. RANDALL. That is correct; and using the multifaceted programs of what is going on, how we deal with everybody’s situation 

78

cannot be the same. You can be firm, but every situation is different, and you have to look at each one. 

Mr. HASTERT. Let me go into a different aspect you brought out 

before. DeKalb County, Kane County and Kendall County are all 

in the same judicial circuit, so there should be some cooperation 

there. 

You know, a couple years ago, we had a meeting that brought together the sheriffs and the States attorneys and police chiefs and 

others; and out of that circumstance some of the folks, it was the 

first time they sat down and talked and found out they had common problems in cooperation. What is happening is there is more 

cooperation between different levels and the courts, the judges 

themselves, in this whole issue. You mentioned coordination. 

Mr. RANDALL. Absolutely, and that helped. I think those have to 

be on a continual basis. You just can’t do it one time. Because people change, positions change, whatever; and all of that has to be 

on a continual basis to continue that positive networking of what 

is going on. 

You know, if someone has a good program up here and we are 

not aware of it in Kendall County, maybe we could steal that program, enhance it, and say, yes, we have the same issue. 

Mr. HASTERT. Is that coordination happening? 

Mr. RANDALL. Probably not as good as it should, but it is happening. It just needs to be improved. 

I know—between all the meetings that we all attend and try to 

get information and all of the periodicals that come out, attempting 

to gain as much information as possible, when you think you have 

everything, somebody else will come up and—just like this. Oh, he 

really does have a good program. Why does it work there? You 

know, he is a very enlightened person; and they get it to go. You 

have to get a sparkplug in your area to do some of the things. 

Mr. HASTERT. One of the things we didn’t do, we didn’t include 

the school community when we had the meeting, partly because 

there are some reasons—you want to keep some of the records tight 

and not expose your students to the stuff. 

Do you feel there should be more coordination between the courts 

and the schools and the judges and the police? Or is that happening? 

Mr. NAKONECHNY. I believe it is happening in DeKalb. Again, we 

could probably improve on some areas. 

But, when Mike Lauden was States attorney, we worked very, 

very closely through the DCP/SAFE. I just don’t know Tim very 

well at this point in time; but the schools and DeKalb Police Department have worked very, very closely. A few years back, if I remember correctly, there used to be almost monthly meetings, for 

instance, with the police department and the school officials. 

Mr. HASTERT. One of the things, you have talked about some obstacles and your discipline committees, and you have tightened 

down. Have you had any liability obstacles, people threatening to 

take you to court? 

Mr. NAKONECHNY. I really can’t answer that question because I 

am not an administrator. I don’t deal with discipline per se. But 

I would say, yes, there have been some problems; but I couldn’t 

verify that in terms of specifics for you. 

79

Mr. HASTERT. Finally, to finish off my question and go to the second round here—Mr. Miller, I was in Dixie yesterday at another 

parade, a nice affair you had there. But I visited a couple weeks 

ago, maybe a month ago now, while school was still in session, 

Reagan Junior High School; and I talked to all your eighth graders. 

There are about 250 eighth graders in the school, and we were 

talking about some of the things I do in Washington. We were talking about the drug issue and what we need to do and how we are 

trying to look at it from the Federal perspective. 

The kids were good, but one question I asked them is how many 

of their parents—have ever had their parents talk to them seriously about drugs. There were 250 kids; and if I remember, off the 

top of my head, there were about 43 kids that raised their hands. 

That is about 20 percent, 2 out of every 10 kids. 

You talk about getting parents involved. This is mainstream 

U.S.A., Ronald Reagan’s hometown. How could we do a better job? 

Are we doing a better job getting parents involved, sitting down 

and talking to the kids? 

We talk about norms and expectations. If parents can’t sit and 

talk to their kids and explain what they feel—we are getting into 

a pretty personal area here—we are not getting the job done. What 

is your view on that? 

Mr. MILLER. As I mentioned before, we tried to have some parent 

programs; and they just were not interested. They would not come 

to be educated. 

As the young woman earlier indicated, if she had some ideas of 

the signs of drugs that she could have looked for in her children, 

maybe she would have spotted that earlier. 

We tried to come up with those type of programs for parents, but 

they just don’t seem to want to get involved, to take that step of 

commitment that they have to take. We are going to continue to 

try to come up with programs to help them realize the need. 

I think the first program is probably that parade. Because, like 

I say, I have seen a lot more participation by the parents; and that 

is probably the first step. They are showing their kids that, hey, 

we are going to walk with you. We don’t care if somebody on the 

stands sees we are walking with you, even though they might have 

been, you know, using drugs themselves or drinking excessively 

themselves. 

Maybe this is the first step they need to take there and then 

maybe they will be educable a little later. I don’t know. I think that 

is a very important step we need to work with, but I don’t have 

the real answers on how to do it. 

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Haines. 

Mr. HAINES. I think that following along with the same sort of 

idea of positive or protective norms, where we can use our educational facilities, K through 12, as well as the university to connect those young people, even through home work assignments, 

with examples from their own family, from their own communities, 

of people who have been successful in their relationship with alcohol or other drugs. 

One of the homework assignments I had for my class was that 

during spring break or Thanksgiving break, which semester it happened to be in, is they had to go home and find examples of three 

80

responsible drinkers and they had to interview the drinkers and 

find out what were their techniques for maintaining a healthy relationship with alcohol. 

One of those people had to be related to them. One person had 

to be a friend of the family from the community. It was the intentional exercise to link them directly with healthy models from their 

own community and their own family of how to do the right behavior. 

I think we need to parade a lot more healthy, successful models 

in front of young people, notwithstanding the tragedies young people see when we have the recovering person come to class. The recovering person has a message which says, if you get messed up, 

you, too, can be cured. It isn’t a message of how not to get messed 

up in the first place. We need a greater parade of people who come 

to show young people they can be successful, because there are a 

lot of others who are. 

Mr. HASTERT. Sheriff, were you going to say something? 

Mr. RANDALL. Yes. You had a question between the liaisons of 

school and law enforcement; and the chief of police who was here 

was chairman of the committee working with the Illinois Chiefs of 

Police Association that developed a very good program that has 

been adopted Statewide for all law enforcement agencies working 

with the schools, not just on communication but cooperation. 

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Nakonechny, what about parent involvement? 

You are dealing with kids and parents; and you still send out report cards, get some reaction back. Parents basically don’t want to 

get involved or are they getting more involved or they only get involved when there is a problem? 

Mr. NAKONECHNY. I think the latter is right, when it becomes a 

problem. The tendency you see in our schools—but it is across the 

State. 

Every winter we go to Springfield for the Statewide drug and alcohol seminar with the State officials. Everybody I talked with, 

Charleston to Macomb to Carbondale, when you ask the question 

how difficult is it to get parents into schools, they say that is the 

$64,000 gem; and if we can solve that here, you are going to the 

White House. I mean, it is a tough one. It’s a very, very difficult 

one. 

From kindergarten, beginning—their early primary years, parents do get involved; but as you go up the grade scale it drops off, 

to the point, in high school, it gets very, very difficult to get people 

in there, very difficult. 

Mr. MANZULLO. You know, nobody wants to say it, but I will. The 

reason a lot of parents don’t get involved with regard to drugs is 

that they lived through drugs in the schools, and they survived it. 

They figure if they lived through and survived it, their kids will do 

the same thing. 

It’s true. If you ask parents about it, they say, well, we lived 

through it. Many experimented with it. They will tell you to your 

face, I smoked a little marijuana; and it did nothing harmful for 

me. If my kid does it, there will be nothing harmful for him. 

So there has to be two generations that need to be reached—not 

only the generation at risk but the parents. 

81

If you have the town meeting on the increase in cable rates, believe me, that place would be packed out. It is really an indication 

of the fact that so many parents are just saying—and I am not saying this in a critical manner—is that as they went through high 

school—you know, as their parents went through high school with 

the presence of alcohol and survived that, so they went through 

high school with the presence of drugs and survived that, and it 

is just something else that has to be a challenge to their children, 

something else they have to live with. 

But that is why I wrote down the first thing Mr. Nakonechny 

said, that it is hard to get parents involved and I would submit 

this: If one thing comes out of this subcommittee hearing today, if 

parents don’t get involved, we might as well all go home. 

We are U.S. Congressmen. You are involved with prevention, enforcement, education, all types of fields, volunteer work. You might 

as well go home too. Because it is simply a matter of pointing out 

to the parents the absolute necessity——

What amazes me about what you have done is you saw a corner 

that wasn’t filled and that is people take the public stand against 

something that stinks in society, to go out there and to wear the 

T-shirts and get the parents involved in doing the same thing. 

Let me just make a couple of observations and suggestions. 

Schools send literature home on a periodic basis. Public libraries 

send out literature on a periodic basis. There probably isn’t an organization, not a proper organization, that doesn’t do that. 

If there is a list of 10 things for which parents should look to see 

as to whether or not their kids are on drugs, if you put one of 

those—just one sign—dilated eyes, for example, nervousness, 

jitteriness, sleeping too long, inability to concentrate, any of those 

things are a sign that you may have a child that is at risk. 

In working with so many parents—when I was in the private sector, I worked with hundreds of parents of high school kids who 

were caught up in the juvenile system. The same thing came back 

over and over and over again. 

If we had only known, if somebody just told us—but I think if 

you put on a program at your school and say we are going to run 

a program on how parents can recognize whether or not their kids 

are involved in drugs, you might get 20 parents to show up, whereas 10 or 15 years ago, you would have 700 that would fill the assembly up. 

So I think the education process—the net has to be cast in much 

larger terms. At least I say this not only as a Congressman—from 

a person who worked in law enforcement for over 22 years and now 

from a unique and very distinct and personal responsibility, being 

a parent to three children, knowing all three will be teenagers at 

one time—and personally that absolutely terrifies me. But recognizing the fact that when my kids are past their teens, I think that 

is probably 50 percent of the battle. 

You wanted to say something, John? 

Mr. NAKONECHNY. I agree with you. I have a son who is 25, and 

he teaches in the Glen Park schools, but at one point in time, we 

were going through 15 gallons of milk a week, my wife and I—not 

my wife and I, but our four children. Even on a personal level, my 

wife smoked two and a half packs a day for years, and she was inVerDate jul 14 2003 14:08 Dec 02, 2003 Jkt 090402 PO 00000 Frm 00085 Fmt 6602 Sfmt 6602 W:\DISC\46269 46269
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dustrial strength and we had to take her to a shrink twice and finally it caught on and she no longer smokes. 

Our third son, I coached him in baseball—I coached baseball for 

17 years. I come to find out—he is going to turn 21 in September—

he is smoking Marlboros. I mean, figure it out, it is difficult; and 

I think we are pretty responsible parents. But the kid who I least 

expected to smoke is smoking cigarettes now. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Haines, this is pretty unique stuff. Not everybody agrees with you, especially when you say if you are trying 

traditional drug prevention efforts—for example, policy changes, 

scare tactics, refusal skills, et cetera. In the face of your detractors, 

you have something that is working here. We have a 16th Congressional District antidrug coalition where we bring in people from 

throughout the entire community. In fact, we have media people 

come in that are part of our group, and they are in the process of 

planning PSAs, and I would like to call upon your services, if you 

would be so kind, to help us in our PSAs, in order to gear the message. 

But let me ask you a question. Do you remember the ad with the 

fried egg. 

Mr. HAINES. This is your brain, this is your brain on drugs. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Right. That does some good. You are not saying 

those totally don’t do good. 

Mr. HAINES. They sell T-shirts in almost every university bookstore around the country I have been in, and it says ‘‘This is your 

brain,’’ ‘‘This is your brain on beer,’’ that has the hard boiled egg 

in the bottom of a mug; it becomes the national collegiate joke. 

The scare tactics have the impact of attracting attention, all the 

communications media say scare tactics attract attention, even 

negative media campaigns attract attention; but one thing they do 

is fewer people vote who are exposed to negative media. Fewer people who are exposed to negative substance media are affected by 

it, rather than being thrilled by it, it is what I call the ‘‘Jaws factor.’’ If negative media worked for young people, people who saw 

‘‘Jaws’’ would not go swim in the water where it was filmed. Just 

the opposite happened, they had to close beaches where ‘‘Jaws’’ was 

filmed because all the young people flocked to the beaches to be 

able to say I swam where ‘‘Jaws’’ was filmed. So scare tactics sometimes have the unintentional impact of exciting the population to 

the very behavior. 

Some years ago there was the documentary called ‘‘Scared 

Straight,’’ which had death row inmates talking to the camera; it 

was hailed as a prevention film to deter juvenile delinquency, but 

when it was actually studied, it found the straight kids were scared 

straighter by it, the majority of kids in the mainstream saw it as 

entertainment, and the few kids who were bent or twisted saw the 

people as role models. 

Part of what I am talking about here is, much in the field of substance abuse prevention goes untested, is not accountable for 

whether or not it actually makes any difference, and I am heartened by that one facet of the tobacco agreement, as I understand 

it, which requires a cigarette manufacturer to show actual percentages of decrease in the number of young people who smoke tobacco 

in the future or they face increasing penalties. 

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In our field, substance abuse prevention, most of the people who 

receive State or Federal money don’t have to show any effect whatsoever on the change of substance-taking behavior, and the grant 

moneys come again the next year. 

Mr. MANZULLO. There are a series of ads on television now showing videotapes of children who have been killed by drunk drivers. 

Your observation? 

Mr. HAINES. I think it will once again reinforce the message to 

those who don’t drive drunk about how serious and dangerous it 

is. I think we have another phenomenon with drunk drivers, which 

is a tough nut to crack, is that a large majority of the people are 

addicted, or are people who may not intend to drive drunk and do 

anyhow because of their impairment in judgment. They can sit 

stone sober, see that and say, drunk driving is a horrible thing. 

Mr. MANZULLO. They don’t realize they are a threat. 

Mr. HAINES. Right, and get entirely intoxicated. So to some extent we need to be working harder to empower community members at intervening. The sober people around drunk drivers who 

feel intimidated or impotent about being able to intervene, to intervene before a person gets in the car, because I don’t even think enforcement efforts reach addicted populations for drunk driving prevention because they know they don’t want to get a ticket or pay 

$7,000 in legal fees, but they do it anyhow, and they do it over and 

over again because the recidivism rate for DUI is high. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Your friend Noel Mesler, who works in the county, you get out there in the squad cars and continue to arrest them, 

and the incidence of drunk driving has gone down nationwide. That 

is the good news. The bad news is, it is increasing among the 

young people. 

But, Bob, you take programs like yours, there is no way to measure the impact or effectiveness of such a program. 

Mr. MILLER. No, and that is the question I get, in 10 years what 

have you accomplished? I don’t have an answer; we don’t have any 

statistics. 

Mr. MANZULLO. You don’t have to, because all you can say—there 

have been a lot of congressional hearings, you say you spend all 

this money on beer, but things are getting worse. Well, just a second, it could be more now if you didn’t have a D.A.R.E., and you 

can never evaluate the cost of prevention. 

Mr. MILLER. Right, but I feel—and I said there were over 24,000 

students. There has been one that I know of that has come to my 

house and was almost an alcoholic and was on cocaine. And he 

said, I need help; he knew I was involved with Say No to Drugs. 

I counseled him through my church program, and he is now a 

straight young man. So I have said and I continue to say, if only 

1 out of the 24,000 was saved, it was worth it for my time for the 

10 years. 

Mr. MANZULLO. I just want to commend all of you who have bits 

and pieces to work with on this overall problem. Nobody here has 

the total answer. You struggle within the depth of your own soul 

to come up with the best method possible to combat this, and you 

have an area there and it works. 

And, Sheriff, with all deference, I share with you the tremendous 

frustration of the agencies and organizations and task forces and 

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meetings and groups and so many people with different problems, 

and people are ‘‘meeting-ed out’’ because they are just so desperately trying to figure out which way to do this. 

We don’t have an answer in Congress, because we know something about bureaucrats in Washington, but I want to thank you 

and commend you and give you our best wishes for the tremendous 

work you have done. 

Mr. HAINES. I was just going to comment on measuring prevention. I think we could borrow from some of our neighboring fields. 

Certainly we have some information to show how the incidence of 

smallpox has been reduced within a population after an intervention. We know that seat belt usage has gone up 400 percent with 

a legislative prevention requirement to wear seat belts and enforcement of that. 

We also know with underage drinking among college students, 

their behavior hasn’t changed at all with legislation; the same 

number drink today, who are 19 and in college, who drank 10 or 

15 years ago before that legislation was passed. 

So we do know there are outcome measures that can in fact determine whether or not there are more or fewer people in emergency rooms with drug overdoses or fewer people who are sanctioned within the school district or wherever the markers might be. 

There would be no farmer in this community who would buy a pesticide if it didn’t show it was effective in killing insects, for reducing the populations in the fields, and I think we can apply that to 

our prevention efforts as well. 

Mr. HASTERT. Thanks, Don. I want to make a statement and 

then a question. 

You mentioned conflicted parents, parents who were parents of 

the 1960’s or 1970’s, that invited in one thing or another when they 

were students; let me say that things have changed. Drugs are different today, and most parents, I know one time heroin was 4 to 

10 percent pure in the 1970’s, and today it is 90 percent pure; and 

certainly we have a lot more kids in the hospital rooms who OD 

because of it. 

And we have this Smashing Pumpkins band, I think is what they 

call it, and their people OD, and I don’t know how that affects kids 

because they have seen the results of that type of thing. Twenty 

years ago, crack didn’t exist. Methamphetamines were rare and 

certainly less potent, and marijuana today is sometimes 25 times 

more potent than it was in the 1960’s. And then, if you do what 

the gentlemen talked about before, if you sprinkle it with stuff, you 

don’t know what you have; it’s a time bomb. 

So times are different, too, and I hope parents get educated with 

what they thought was drug use, certainly can be much more magnified today. 

A couple of other things. One of the things that the President has 

asked us to do is appropriate $175 million to aid through the Drug 

Czar’s office to do PR, because they said we can’t get free advertising anymore and we need to get information out in front of kids; 

and I don’t know if that is going to be on MTV or where they want 

to put that. But if you were advising a type of PR, if that $175 million does get appropriated through the process, what kind of PR 

85

ought to be out there? How do you reach kids? How do you get 

their attention? 

Mr. HAINES. One point would be, not to deny the problems exist, 

but once the problem has been recognized, to move away from inflating the problem and, instead, tend to the solution. So solutionbased public service announcements, public service announcements 

that don’t tell us what not to do but that tell us what to do, that 

provide us with the skills, the power, demonstrated abilities that 

could be modeled in PSAs or whatever, the attitudes and norms 

that would protect us from harm. These are the things that people 

who have been offered alcohol or drugs or what have you have been 

able to do more successfully, and have the models to describe how 

they have succeeded. We don’t need any more parades of people, 

who had difficulties, tell how they have been harmed because that 

doesn’t empower anybody to do anything, other than first become 

harmed in order to become healed; and we don’t want to give that 

person that message. 

I call that the Dwight Gooden message of recovery. First you 

have to be an athlete that pitches high on coke, and then you become treated and give the wrong message because it says, one, we 

can use drugs with impunity because there is treatment. 

That is the message you hear often from young people who 

smoke, well, everybody gives it up after they are 26 or 30 years old, 

so I can smoke now because it isn’t going to be a problem. We want 

to avoid that message and give people the message that models the 

behavior we are trying to reduce over and over again. 

Mr. NAKONECHNY. I couldn’t say it better than Mike. I agree 

with that. I don’t have my own thoughts on that per se. I am not 

so sure what the intent of this PR blitz—what does he have in 

mind? 

Mr. HASTERT. I’m not sure, it is the Drug Czar, ONDCP. 

Mr. NAKONECHNY. If it is going to be more automobile crashes, 

saying, Don’t drink and drive, and there are bodies all over, I don’t 

go along with that at all. My opinion is, you take a role model athlete not on anything and promote the positive. That is coming from 

professional sports, and I think they are pretty good when I see 

them. 

Mr. HASTERT. If we get nothing more out of this hearing today, 

maybe the warning could be worth something. 

I think we have gotten a lot out of this hearing. If anybody else 

has anything else to say—I think we will go ahead and dismiss the 

panel, and I want to say thank you very much for your time and, 

more than that, for what you do; it makes a difference. 

I think if you try to be quantitative in this and say, everybody 

does this work and we still have problems, I think the problems 

that would face us today if we didn’t have people out there trying 

to help them solve them would be inapproachable. And we thank 

you for what you do, Mr. Miller, especially you, for your volunteer 

work. You can’t see them and you can’t measure them, but there 

are great effects. 

Mr. MILLER. I have this pumpkin your organization brought a 

few weeks ago when they brought the float with the donkey on it. 

Was it a donkey or an elephant. 

86

Mr. HASTERT. It was an elephant, but we are not talking about 

that today. 

I just want to finish with one thing. I had a long talk recently 

with a young man who grew up in Sycamore, IL, and who today 

is a coach at one of the major universities in this country that happens to be in Illinois. He is a head coach, and he talked about his 

life in Sycamore as opposed to what the life is today. He is younger 

than I am; he is not very old—and you appreciate that, right—and 

he said, you know, he grew up on a farm and he was so tickled to 

have organized athletics when he got in junior high and high school 

because they got up at 6 a.m., and at 6 p.m. they milked cows, and 

that is what they did; and they bailed hay and did all these things. 

But if he was out for a sport, he had to practice a little early, but 

didn’t have to be home right at 3:30 and he could do these things. 

This was an incentive, and he achieved and has done great 

things. But sometimes—you know, most kids don’t have that incentive; and as you change from a really rural community to a community more suburban and more sophisticated, I know my kid’s life 

has changed a lot different from what my life was. I grew up in 

a little town called Oswego, IL, which was all farms. Today you 

can’t find a farm. 

So we have to adjust and find those new challenges, and the gentlemen who were here before talked about athletics and keeping 

kids busy, and basically busy kids don’t get in trouble. Kids that 

don’t have things to do, or a life unstructured—parents aren’t there 

and they have to kill time. 

So I think we have learned a lot. I am not sure that there is a 

fix for every problem we talk about. Ironically, I think most fixes 

come in our own backyard, at home, what we do in our communities, what we do together to solve the problems are probably the 

most important thing. So I appreciate your efforts; I appreciate everybody who is here today. 

What are we going to do with this information? We are not here 

just to sit and listen today; I hope we can take the ideas back. I 

hope that the ideas that we try to fashion into legislation take into 

account what we hear today and try to emphasize in that way. So 

we appreciate very much your input into this, and we have also 

had a request to have a public statement, so I am going to dismiss 

this panel and if the gentleman would like to make a public statement, I will give you 5 minutes, give your name and residence, and 

we will be happy to listen to what you have to say. 

Mr. BENNETT. My name is Jack Bennett. I live in DeKalb. For 

purposes of identification only, I am a retired professor of biology 

at Northern and was also, for 20 years, a Republican precinct committeeman in the community. 

I am very pleased that you are having this hearing, and I have 

been very pleased to hear almost all of the presentations. I feel better about the community right now than I did before I heard them. 

I think that is good. 

I appreciate the opportunity to present my views on the war on 

drugs, as it has been, and is being conducted. I believe I share 

many of the goals of those who have been involved in the war in 

the past, especially such goals as educating our children on the 

consequences of the use of many of the so-called ‘‘recreational 

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drugs,’’ and I would include alcohol and tobacco, both substances 

that I have used in the past, of course. I have been able to cure 

myself of tobacco for 30 years or so. 

However, I wish to be clear that the shared goals does not imply 

that I or many in our community support any aspect of the war as 

now conducted, other than the educational efforts. I am reasonably 

certain that a large number of consumers and sellers of the socalled ‘‘recreational drugs’’ in the community don’t share in the desire to see the drug war continue. In addition, many nonusers in 

the community do not share in the war in the sense, as used by 

the media. 

For example, I have repeatedly argued that the battle is futile, 

is destructive to the community, it cannot be won by any of the current efforts, other than, as I mentioned, education. The war has 

had the effect of corrupting the officials, police and the military of 

almost all of the countries from Mexico through Peru, and of Southeast Asia. And our own police and other agencies have not been 

completely immune, as the media has so eloquently shown. 

The war has led our own government to massive interference in 

the internal affairs of all the nations involved in illegal production, 

trade and transport. We have been very bad neighbors from that 

point of view in the way we have intervened in other countries. If 

other countries tried to intervene in the United States in the same 

way, we would be fighting wars. 

The war has resulted in Federal laws that have damaged many 

of our individual liberties, including freedom from unreasonable 

search and seizures. Many judged innocent have been unable to reclaim their property. The DEA officials have requested the right to 

shoot down private aircraft if unable to establish contact. Fortunately, somebody had sense enough to stop that. 

Repeatedly, innocent people have been damaged, and when found 

completely uninvolved, usually cannot even get an apology, especially from the DEA or FBI. 

The war has filled our prisons with otherwise productive citizens 

who were guilty of the same stupidity as tobacco and alcohol users, 

but with a different drug. The war regularly converts foolish 

youngsters into criminals, rather than productive citizens. The war 

has failed consistently for at least 40 years, yet we show no sign 

of having learned any lessons from this continuous failure. 

As quoted in the media, even the most successful drug war 

agents admit that their arrests barely dimmed the street supply. 

New suppliers show up immediately. The only effect is to overfill 

the overcrowded prisons and cost the taxpayers even more money. 

As these speakers have told you earlier today, nobody has a problem getting drugs if they want it. After World War I, we tried a 

great experiment of making alcohol a drug, illegal. In about 10 

years, it became apparent that prohibition had many deleterious effects, in addition to the fact that it didn’t work. 

The bootleggers, the 1920’s name for drug pushers, made sure 

that no one who could afford their alcohol would go without. The 

profits they made built the organized crime system in this country 

and corrupted many of the enforcement agencies, the same kind of 

corruption that we see today all over the world in the drug war. 

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When our citizens came to their senses in the early 1930’s and 

repealed prohibition, several good things happened. One, deaths 

from contaminated alcohol stopped, because you could buy good 

stuff in the liquor store, and it was properly labeled. Two, businessmen, often ex-bootleggers, made legal profits and paid taxes on 

them, instead of being in prison. No more otherwise productive citizens were imprisoned at taxpayers’ expense for selling or consuming alcohol. 

The sad fact is that, today, we have not profited from this experiment in government control of behavior and morality. Taxes are 

not collected on drug sales, organized crime, gangs, are enriched, 

and many die from overdoses because they have no way of knowing 

the concentrations or if the drugs are contaminated. Our citizens 

are mugged, robbed and murdered to pay the bill. 

When we have the sense to legalize the production and sale of 

all drugs, including alcohol and tobacco, tax them, and require suitable purity and labeling, we can treat them like alcohol and tobacco. We can then work on educating our children about the futility of destroying their nervous systems. No more prisons filled with 

drug users and pushers; children will find reasons to try them, if 

they can find them, but will lack the lure of illegality. The money 

currently wasted on the DEA and similar agencies, who have not 

stopped or reduced the street supply, can be used for education and 

treatment. 

I am sure there are other benefits, including safer streets, that 

will follow. 

Clearly, the battle of drugs is not shared in its present form by 

the entire community. It is quite probable that most who share my 

view are too intimidated by the mindless propaganda to publicly 

speak out. I am sad that the Congress perpetuates the head-in-thesand syndrome that has kept us from effectively dealing with this 

problem. 

Thank you. 

Mr. HASTERT. I appreciate the gentleman and his comments, and 

let me give you very briefly—and I don’t think we need to set a debate up here. I think you and I disagree in some of the aspects. 

Let me just give you, very briefly, an experience I had. I went 

to Switzerland to give a speech. I was asked by the ONDCP to participate. And Zurich and all the different provinces of Switzerland, 

which is a very small country—I visited there about 30 years ago; 

it was a beautiful, pristine country, a pretty conservative country—

that country today has basically legalized heroin, and they have 

free heroin houses, people can get up to 9 hits a day. 

They also—for those people who go on heroin, have a pension 

system. If you declare yourself as a heroin addict, they give you a 

pension of 2,500 Swiss francs a year, that is about $1,300. If you 

are married, she will get another 2,500 francs; and if you have a 

child, you can claim another 350 francs, if you have a dog, you can 

get 500 francs. So this is how the Swiss approach this problem. 

What has happened is, heroin addicts have not decreased; there 

is still an illegal supply because they can’t get heroin that is pure 

enough. People who had used heroin at one age—now has crept 

down to lower ages of use, and they are still giving away 15,000 

needles a day in Needle Park in Zurich, which was once a beautiful 

89

place, and today it has turned that town into something that you 

might see in some not very desirable areas in Chicago, Boston, 

New York or other places. 

So, firsthand, my experience is different from yours, but I have 

seen the legalization side, and not very good results, and I think 

that is where maybe you and I have a difference of opinion. 

I appreciate your being here, and I think certainly the statistics 

and ideas that you have are sound. They come from reason and 

thought. I think we disagree, and I thank you for being here. 

Ms. MEYER. Representative Hastert, will others in the community have a chance to make a comment and ask questions? I called 

your office and asked about that, and they said there would be an 

opportunity. 

Mr. HASTERT. There will be an opportunity. You can submit written questions. 

Ms. MEYER. I was told you would stay as long as we had questions and comments. 

Mr. HASTERT. I am sorry, if you have a question, I will try and 

answer it. Is it on the issue of drugs. 

Ms. MEYER. Yes. 

Mr. HASTERT. Yes. 

Ms. MEYER. There are several things that I believe very strongly 

that you as a Congressman can do to help us in our community. 

You talked a lot today about the positive approach to youngsters, 

and prevention and rehabilitation are more important than prisons; 

and I understand there was a bill recently passed in Congress, 

which you supported, which would allow—would call for the imprisonment of children down to age 14. And I understand that our law 

enforcement officials all realize that this is a disaster, and that 

adult prisons become crime schools, if not death sentences, for our 

youngsters, so I would hope you would rethink that. 

Also, there is a bill circulating in Congress, which I hope you will 

not join in with, which is denying—prohibiting affirmative action 

at any level, where there are any Federal funds involved. This 

would involve our university, and we have all indicated that youngsters need to have a goal in life, and the light at the end of the 

tunnel needs to be open for children of minority races, so I hope 

you will not join in with that bill. 

Mr. HASTERT. Your name? 

Ms. MEYER. I am Cecilia Meyer, and I am a coordinator for 

DeKalb Interface Network for Peace and Justice, and for 21 years 

I was a social worker in the DeKalb school system so I have been 

concerned about youngsters for a long time. 

Mr. HASTERT. Thank you very much. 

[Whereupon, at 11:47 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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