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“THE PROBLEM OF DRUG ABUSE IN AMERICA” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H3826-H3831 on June 8, 1999.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
THE PROBLEM OF DRUG ABUSE IN AMERICA
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Shimkus). Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor again tonight to talk about the problem of drug abuse in our Nation and the tremendous toll that illegal narcotics have taken across our great land.
It is getting so that almost every family, certainly every community across the United States, can today claim that they are victimized by illegal narcotics trafficking in their communities and their schools, among their family members. The statistics are really mind-boggling and do not make the front page of today's newspaper, Mr. Speaker, but indeed they are dramatic.
Last year, over 14,000 Americans died in drug-related deaths. That is only the tip of the iceberg, because now we find that many thousands more that were killed in other accidents and suicides and other causes of death are not counted in that toll. In fact, the figure is much, much higher.
I said before on the floor of the House when we had the terrible tragedy at Columbine with a number of students and faculty who were killed in that tragedy, that we have multiple Columbines across our Nation every day. They are sometimes in the silent but violent deaths of our young people through the use of illegal narcotics.
Today heroin has become the drug of choice, and it is destroying lives by the thousands. I come from Central Florida and represent the area from Orlando to Daytona Beach, a relatively peaceful area. But Central Florida now has had such an epidemic, particularly among our young people, of deaths from illegal drugs and overdoses, that a recent headline in the Orlando Sentinel said that illegal drug overdoses now exceed homicides in Central Florida. That is how severe the problem is in my district.
That is one reason why I chose to accept the Speaker's appointment as chairman of the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice Drug Policy and Human Resources. I had the great privilege and opportunity to serve in the last Congress with the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), someone who folks are just learning more about, who is the Speaker of the House of Representatives.
When the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), the gentleman I refer to, served as chairman of the Subcommittee on National Security Criminal Justice and International Affairs, I served with him and at his side. I had the privilege of watching the gentleman from Illinois
(Mr. Hastert) bring together a consensus in this Congress and in the House of Representatives to re-start the war on drugs. You must remember, and I will detail that in just a few minutes, that the war on drugs basically stopped with the election of this President and his taking office in 1993. I will talk more about that in a minute.
But, again, someone who restarted our national effort now leads the House of Representatives, and I am very proud to have served with him in that effort during the past several years as the new majority gained control here in the House of Representatives.
The record of death and destruction across our land we were very much aware of when we took control of the House of Representatives and we saw the change from the Reagan and Bush administration, where we saw a decline year after year in drug use and drug deaths across the Nation. What should be astounding is that since we really had this new policy with this new administration, that the figures began to really go off of the charts. In fact, I brought a chart tonight to illustrate the problem that we had.
Remember what I said just a minute ago. If you look at this chart for a minute you will see these different lines of drug use illustrated in color. You see that drug use was on the decline. This shows that from 1989 on down to the 1992-93 period here, where the Reagan-Bush administration ended their efforts, the ``just say no'' campaign, the eradication, the enforcement efforts stopped, and a policy of working primarily on treatment, treating the wounded in this battle began. We saw the increases in drug use that these colored lines represent in almost every area.
Only in the last 2 years, again under the leadership of Speaker Hastert as Chair, have we seen any leveling off, but we still see incredible figures, particularly among our young people in illegal narcotics usage.
Let me give you one figure. Since 1993, again when this administration took control, changed the policy, the figure is this; that we have had an 875 percent increase in heroin usage by our teens. I think if we looked at the charts we would see a dramatic increase in the deaths of our teens. If we look at those more than 14,000 deaths I cited, many of them are among our young people who are now being victimized by very potent illegal hard narcotics that are coming in in an unprecedented stream.
The cost of this whole drug debacle is immense to this country and to the Congress. Right now we are working in our subcommittee to try to coordinate the expenditures of $17.9 billion directly into the war on drugs. That is only the tip of the iceberg, because we spend around a quarter of a trillion dollars in a year. When you take in incarceration, the cost of our judicial system, the social cost, welfare for these drug victims and narcotics users leave a trail of social disruption that is unbelievable, not to mention the pain to their loved ones and families.
So that is a little bit of the direct toll and cost in dollars and in lives, and, as I said in Central Florida we have had just a dramatic increase in deaths, particularly among our young people.
In our prisons across this land we have almost 2 million incarcerated citizens and other individuals there. Seventy percent of them are there because of drug-related offenses. Our U.S. Attorneys tell us that statistics, our Federal Marshals, our DEA agents, and even in conducting hearings in my local community, our local sheriffs told us that 60 to 70 percent of those individuals behind bars at public expense are there because of drug-related offenses.
So if we look at the crime in this country, we can directly relate it, 60 to 70 percent of it, to illegal narcotics.
One of the interesting myths of this whole drug problem is that people behind bars are there for casual use or for possession, and that is simply not the case. I just reviewed a report from the Commissioner for Crime and Enforcement in the State of New York, and they had a very revealing report which in fact indicated that very few individuals are there for mere possession. Almost all the individuals in that State prison system that are there because of drug-related offenses are there because they were selling substantial quantities, participating in the act of a felony, when they were under the influence of illegal narcotics. So many of the crimes are not victimless. Most of them have victims and are felonies and serious offenses against our community.
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So we have an incredible problem, but we have also incarcerated almost 2 million Americans at great cost to the taxpayers because of this problem.
Let me say that, again, the war on illegal narcotics, the war on drugs, died in 1993 with the election of this President and with a majority on the Democrat side that controlled both the House of Representatives, the other body, and the White House from 1993 to 1995.
Sometimes people come to me and say the war on drugs is a failure. I say, yes, the war on drugs is a failure because it died. It not only died, it was killed in 1993. In fact, what this administration did was dealt a death blow to the real effort started under the Reagan administration.
I know because back in the early eighties I worked with Senator Hawkins from Florida when we had a cocaine problem and a drug problem. Under her leadership and under the leadership of the Reagan administration, they began a series of legislative initiatives to stop drugs at their source, to have tough interdiction of drugs as they came from their source, to involve the military and the Coast Guard and other resources in getting drugs before they got to our border, stopping drugs at our border, and then tough enforcement across the land.
We know that works. The statistics prove that that works. Unfortunately, this administration abandoned those policies in 1993. In 1993, and these are facts, this is not partisan rhetoric, but the other side with Democrat control in the White House and the Congress, they stopped many of the eradication programs, the source country problems.
I will tell the Members, if they want to have the most effective way to stop hard drugs at their source, they have source country eradication programs, where we have those countries become involved in alternative crop production, where we have tough enforcement, and where we have eradication of the growth of illegal narcotics. Again, at their source is most cost-effective. There is no question about it.
This administration, the Democratic-controlled Congress, killed those programs in 1993, or severely crippled them. What happened is we saw more and more production.
In 1993, the administration took the first steps towards really cutting the military, not just as we see today and we are trying to make up for, and the many deployments in Kosovo, in Bosnia, on and on, military exercises. But they basically, under the guidance of President Clinton, took the military out of the war on drugs and really changed their mission. It was not their mission to help stop drugs once they came from the source; again, stopping the source, eradication programs, country programs, and then stopping the military involvement, then also cutting the Coast Guard dramatically.
The President led the effort to cut the Coast Guard. That particularly affected my district and the State of Florida, because we had a rush of heroin and cocaine come through Puerto Rico, and Puerto Rico is really guarded. It has a coast all the way around, and it is guarded by the Coast Guard.
The cuts in the Coast Guard dramatically increased the flow of heroin and cocaine and other illegal drugs into Puerto Rico, which is of course part of the United States, and the entry-way. And with no protection, those drugs started coming back into Florida in incredible quantities. The deaths we see in central Florida and throughout the State of Florida, again exceeding homicide, are drug-related, and those drugs we can trace coming through that trail.
Then of course the President made a horrible decision in appointing Jocelyn Elders, the infamous now fortunately ex-Surgeon General who said, just say maybe. When we have a mixed message coming from the White House, when we have a mixed message coming from the chief health officer of the United States to our young people, our young people are not dumb, they pick this up. They get the message that maybe, just say maybe; or if I had it to do over again, I would inhale; or kids, do it if it feels good.
That message went across this land. Fortunately, that Surgeon General has been replaced, and we do not have a Nancy Reagan or leadership at the national level really to bring this message of ``just say no'' and what drugs can do to our young people.
Those direct actions, and again, this is not political rhetoric but those factual actions took place, and they resulted in, again, this chart we see and the dramatic rise of young 12th grade use here we see by this chart, but also in drugs by numerous strata of young people; again, not just in 12th graders. That is what we are suffering from today.
Stopping illegal narcotics, hard narcotics coming into this country is not a rocket scientist's venture, really. It requires a simple review of where narcotics are coming from. Let me get another chart up here, if I may.
We know where illegal drugs are coming from. This is very interesting because DEA has produced this chart, and this chart is 1997 heroin signature program results. This is an interesting program because technology is so amazing. Just like we can trace DNA to individual human beings, we can trace and DEA can trace through their labs in this case heroin, and they can tell almost the field that it came from and certainly what country of origin, or where it came from.
This little pie chart shows that 75 percent of the heroin came from South America in 1997. We know that from sampling seizures across the land. We know that 6 percent came from Southeast Asia; I am sorry, 5 percent from Southeast Asia, 6 percent from southwest Asia, and 14 percent from Mexico.
This is a very interesting chart because it tells us where the source of most of the death and destruction to my communities and many communities across the land is coming from. That is heroin, 1997.
Let me tell the Members an absolutely startling statistic. If we took this chart back to 1993 or 1992, there was almost zero heroin coming from South America, almost none in South America 6 years ago, at the beginning of this administration. How did we get 75 percent of the heroin coming into the United States in 6 years? It is simple. It is through the policy of this administration. This administration for 6 years blocked any aid or assistance to the country of Columbia in the way of helicopters, in the way of eradication equipment, in the way of ammunition, in the way of resources to stop cocaine and heroin production.
Here we are talking about heroin. Again, it would be almost zero at the beginning of the Clinton administration, and it is 75 percent now coming from South America, and almost 99 percent of that is coming from Columbia. Six years ago there was almost none. So their policy, their direct policy has resulted in these startling figures.
Mexico, which on this pie chart accounts for 14 percent, was also way down on the bottom. It was in single digits as far as Mexican heroin coming into the United States. In 6 years they have managed to make Mexico not only a trafficker and conduit and transit country, but they have also made Mexico a producing country rather than stopping it.
Repeatedly this administration has certified Mexico as cooperating in the war on drugs. As required by Federal law, the President must certify whether this country is cooperating, any country is cooperating to stop the production and transiting of illegal narcotics. Certainly Members can see that production is up by this chart. Again, we would be in single digits in the early 1990s, and almost no heroin coming from that area.
What is absolutely startling, and this chart does not show it, and this is just an unbelievable statistic, but 6 years ago there was almost no coca, no base for cocaine produced in Colombia, almost none. In 6 years, again the policy of this administration stopping aid, stopping resources, stopping equipment in the war on drugs from going to Colombia, Colombia is now the number one producer of cocaine in the world. So we have heroin and poppies growing in unprecedented amounts, heroin coming in in unbelievable quantities in these sources from Colombia. Most of this, again, is due to the policy of this administration.
I do want to say that there is some hope on the horizon. Through the efforts of the gentleman from New York (Chairman Gilman), who chairs the Committee on International Relations, through the efforts of the full committee on which I serve, the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, the gentleman from Indiana (Chairman Burton) and so many others, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. McCollum), we have repeatedly requested, we have repeatedly helped appropriate, and again, through the tremendous leadership of the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), who now presides over the House of Representatives, we have succeeded in getting the first equipment to Colombia.
I participated with several of the committee chairmen recently in a ceremony at the Sikorsky Helicopter Division, where the Black Hawks are produced in Connecticut, in a contract and delivery ceremony. Soon those helicopters that will be able to get to the high altitudes to eradicate, to go after the drug traffickers at their source, will be there. We will see a dramatic decrease in the amount of heroin, the amount of cocaine coming into this country; a small amount of money, a great amount of results, stopping drugs where they are grown, where they are produced, and interdicting those illegal narcotics as they come from that source, not when they are on our streets, when it is the most difficult to get those.
What I need to do tonight, Mr. Speaker, is show Members and the American people how we got into this situation. It is a direct policy of this administration and the Congress that was controlled by the other side.
I wanted to also talk about the other primary source of illegal narcotics. In addition to the source country now becoming Colombia, and through the policy I described, this chart shows Mexico's statistical tables and it shows opium seizures, cocaine seizures. I believe the dark blue here shows the opium seizures for 1997. The red, the first column is opium seizures, down in 1998. The second is cocaine seizures, down in 1998.
The next is the production. The red shows the yield in 1998 is up. Here is Mexico, our close ally that the United States and this Congress and this House of Representatives have done incredible deeds to assist. In financial trouble we have backed them and actually given them financial stability. In trade we have given them benefits as far as assistance. NAFTA, we gave them almost an open commercial border. We have lost thousands of American jobs to give to lower-paying Mexico jobs.
We have done everything as a good ally, and what have they done? The law requires under certification that the President must certify a country as cooperating in helping to eliminate both the production and the trafficking of illegal narcotics. This administration, this president recommended to this Congress, and we have pending before us a recommendation, to certify Mexico.
From 1997 to 1998, last year there were less seizures of heroin, there were less seizures of cocaine, actually reduced seizures in the country, and more production of illegal narcotics; in this case, heroin.
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I showed my colleagues the other chart that showed how production has risen again repeatedly over the past 6 years, and it was in single digits. So this is the result of what we get from Mexico.
Let me talk a little bit about Mexico, which is the source of 60 percent of the illegal narcotics coming into the United States. We know that DEA, our Drug Enforcement Agency, has confirmed that. The hard narcotics, the heroin, the cocaine, the methamphetamine are coming in unbelievable quantities through our Mexican border.
Now this Congress has, under the leadership of the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), who brought to the floor several years ago a resolution asking Mexico to take certain actions. It has been now over 2 years ago that we asked Mexico to take those actions, again, the source of 60 percent of the hard drugs, the death, the destruction, those 2 million people that are behind our bars in our prisons. We asked Mexico to help us.
What did we ask for? We asked Mexico, first, to extradite to the United States Mexican nationals who are major drug traffickers, send them to the United States for prosecution. We have indicted them. We have requested their extradition. They are guilty of breaking the United States Federal law. We want to try them.
We do not want them in a kangaroo court. We do not want the corrupt judicial system of Mexico to deal with them. We want to try them and bring them to justice. The biggest thing drug dealers fear in the world is being brought to justice in the United States, because they will pay a penalty for their crime here.
To date, the Mexicans have not extradited the first Mexican national. Only after coming to the floor of the House repeatedly, only just before Memorial Day when I, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. McCollum), the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Gillmor), and other leaders on the issue introduced a drug kingpin bill that will tie up the assets of these drug dealers did we start to see any action.
Do my colleagues know what the Mexican Government did? They extradited in the last week one U.S. national who was on our list, one U.S. national, but to date, not one Mexican national. We have requested over 40 major Mexican national drug dealers to be extradited. Instead, what they did with the Masquez brothers just a few weeks ago, and before we introduced this bill, was to kick dirt in our face by judges in Mexico releasing the Masquez brothers, who are the kings of methamphetamine production and trafficking into the United States.
So until we got tough just before Memorial Day, they kicked sand in our face, allowing the kingpins not to be extradited. Fortunately, some of the brothers are still held in prison there.
But we will not give up till these 40 Mexican nationals, whom we know are involved, who have been indicted in the United States, on whom we have a request for extradition pending, some for 6, 7 years, are brought to justice.
So we asked for extradition, and what did we get? Nothing to date. Zero, zip, nada. We asked for the enforcement of Mexican laws. Mexico passed laws, their National Assembly, but they did not enforce the laws. They have not enforced the laws.
What did the Mexicans do to the United States after we made this request again, 2 years, this House of Representatives, what did they do last year? One, the most offensive thing that has ever taken place to our law enforcement officials, what they did is disrupt Operation Casablanca
Operation Casablanca was a U.S. Customs sting operation which was to identify money laundered in the United States and through Mexican banks and Mexican banking officials; and our U.S. Customs officers led that effort. I know that we informed them of what was going on.
Do my colleagues know what they did? The only reason for informing them was limited, because we can trust so few of the Mexican officials; most of them are corrupt from the policeman on the beat all the way to the office of the president. I will talk about that in just a minute.
But what they did was threaten to arrest our Custom officials. We knew that hundreds of millions of dollars was being serviced through these Mexican corrupt bankers. They had the audacity and nerve to threaten our officials.
Only until just before President Clinton went down to meet with President Zedillo did they back off of this threat, and only just before the question of certification by this administration came up did they back off of the threat of going after our Customs officials.
So we asked for enforcement of the laws. What did they do? Again, we got dirt and dust kicked into our faces, and actually threatening our officials.
We had asked over 2 years ago for our DEA agents, and we have a small number in Mexico, and we did have an incident where one of our agents was brutally and savagely murdered back in the 1980s, so we want our DEA agents to be able to protect themselves, and we want assurance of protection and, in some cases, to be able to carry arms. We still have been denied that right by the Mexicans to ensure the safety and security of our drug enforcement agents in that country.
That was another request that we had. We asked that the drugs that are coming in from Colombia that are produced there in South America and transiting, the 60 percent of the drugs, hard drugs, coming into the United States be stopped at the southern border of Mexico; and that could be done by installing radar and other devices at the border. To date, zero, nothing has been done to comply with our request; and that request of this House of Representatives is over 2 years old. Again, the Mexicans have ignored a simple request of cooperation.
Finally, signing a maritime agreement: We know if it is not coming over land, it is coming over water. The Mexicans still deny us a maritime agreement. They refused to sign a maritime agreement, to my knowledge, in the Caribbean, in Central, South America. Only one other country, Haiti, which is still in total disruption, even after we spent 3-plus billion taxpayer dollars to improve their legislative, judicial, and law enforcement system, they have not been able to have their parliament meet and sign a maritime agreement or confirm one. But the Mexican Government still has refused to sign a maritime agreement with the United States.
So here we are again, you know, with the situation. After the introduction of the bill that I described, major drug kingpins bill, which will go after the assets of these drug traffickers, we got a little attention of the administration. The Secretary of State, Mrs. Albright, was to go to Mexico. She was diverted to Kosovo.
I believe they sent the Attorney General to Mexico over the weekend. We also, I believe, had our Drug Czar, who is doing the best job he can, General McCaffrey, under very difficult circumstances. Hopefully, in this high-level working group with the Attorney General, with other officers from Mexico, some additional progress will be made.
But I can assure my colleagues in this Congress this House of Representatives will not sit idle until they begin an honest effort for enforcement, interdiction, cooperation on the agenda, items that are over 2 years old. So some action hopefully was taken this weekend. We do not know; it is not public yet. But we will continue to pressure Mexico because it is the source of so much of the illegal narcotics coming into the United States.
We also know that in order to get from Peru and Bolivia and Colombia, where 100 percent of the cocaine and coca is produced now and where 75 percent of the heroin comes from Colombia, we know that it must transit again by land either through Panama, through the isthmus, and those Central American countries, and/or through Mexico to get to the United States.
Now, what is the policy of this administration relating to stopping drugs in Panama? This is an absolutely unbelievable scenario. What was started under the Carter administration to give away the Panama Canal and 10 billion American dollars in assets, 5,500 buildings is being sewed up into a neat package by the Clinton administration and given to the Panamanians, and at the same time, we have made one simple request. Could we please continue the drug surveillance flights from Howard Air Force Base in Panama, which cover the entire South American region, which cover the area that is producing the hard drugs that I have cited here? That was our question and request.
Now how could a State Department bungle negotiations for a simple request like that with the Panamanian Government? I do not know. But, Mr. Speaker, the administration's State Department managed to bungle the negotiations for having our forward drug surveillance flights go out of Howard Air Force Base.
They did that in an incredibly bungling fashion, and we were basically kicked out May 1. Since May 1, there has not been one drug surveillance flight over the drug-producing or drug-trafficking area of South America from Howard Air Force Base. The United States of America was kicked out of Panama. We closed Howard Air Force Base. We had 15,000 drug surveillance flights last year from Howard Air Force Base covering the whole region.
When I took over as chair of the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources in January, we went down there to Panama. We met with folks. ``Can you negotiate?'' No, they did not think they could negotiate.
``If you cannot negotiate, can we move our forward surveillance drug operations to other areas?''
``Oh, yes, we will have it taken care of, Congressman Mica. Chairman Mica, it is going to be in place. It will all work out.''
I am here to tell my colleagues that it is June 1, and May 1 is when we were kicked out. The two other operating locations that were chosen, one was in Mana, Ecuador, in Ecuador. The other was in Curacao and Aruba, Netherlands, and Antilles.
From Mana, today is June 8, not one flight has taken off for surveillance in the drug-producing areas or drug-trafficking areas from Ecuador. There is only an interim agreement in place.
Aruba and Curacao, we sent staff down there this weekend to examine what is going on. At best, we might be at 30 percent capacity of surveillance flights. So we have a gaping hole in our drug surveillance program, almost no flights taking off to cover that area either where drugs are produced or where drugs are trafficking.
An incredible situation, incredibly bungled, as I said, by the State Department. Now the Department of Defense is scrambling, only with an interim agreement in Ecuador, and our staff reported to me on their return from Ecuador that that airfield may take $100 million to $200 million to get it into working order.
Now, is the United States of America going to invest, with an interim agreement that expires in September, any money, hard-earned taxpayer dollars, in a forward surveillance location and increasing and improving the infrastructure in that area when we have no assurances of a permanent operating base?
So they bungled it in Panama. They bungled it in Ecuador. Aruba is operating at maybe 30 percent of capacity, and a gaping hole again in our drug surveillance program.
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So that really is where we are tonight in some of the war on drugs: Panama, a disaster. No forward operating bases. What that does, too, and what is sad about that is it denies countries that have been cooperating, like Peru and Bolivia, and now Colombia that is going to get additional equipment, it denies them the information they need to go after drugs at their source; it denies them the information they need to go after traffickers.
Peru has had a very brave shootdown policy. They ask planes to identify themselves, and when they do not identify themselves and they try to scramble away, they shoot them down. And they have been provided intelligence and surveillance information by those forward operations, again out of Panama, that have been closed down.
Now, it is easy for me to get up here and to criticize this administration, and I do not mean to do it in a partisan manner. I mean to do it in a factual manner. And, hopefully, we will not repeat the mistakes of this administration in this Congress or in the years ahead, because we know we can stop drugs at their source. We know we can interdict hard narcotics. We know if we give information to other countries and a little bit of assistance they can help us in a cost-
effective manner before that ever gets into our streets, into our communities, into our schools and becomes a tough task for law enforcement.
But let me, as I conclude, just say again what the Republican Congress has done, what this new majority has done, and under the current Speakership. And again I must give full credit to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), who is now the Speaker of the House, who chaired this responsibility and who I worked with in the last Congress, who brought together the source eradication programs that, again, were destroyed by a previously Democratically-controlled Congress and by this White House.
Let me mention, Mr. Speaker, what just 2 years of effort in working with Peru and Bolivia have done. The cocaine production in those two countries is cut in half. In half. There has been tough enforcement. We must salute President Hugo Banzer, President of Bolivia, for his courageous efforts. We must help Bolivia, because Bolivia has committed in 2 years to eliminate that drug trafficking, and they have cut in 2 years by 50 percent. So this is not a ``pie in the sky'' proposal. It is something we know we can do, and with very few bucks; with very few taxpayer dollars in assisting them.
So, additionally, President Fujimori in Peru, with a tough enforcement, with a tough shootdown policy, with a tough eradication and a productive alternative crop program is making great progress in that country. So we know these programs will work.
This Republican administration, again under the leadership of the current Speaker of the House, when he chaired the subcommittee, has helped us now get aid to Colombia. We are reversing a failed policy there. We will stop the production of heroin and poppy production in Colombia. We will eliminate major drug traffickers. We will give the Colombian National Police, that have done a courageous job, losing 4,000 of their police officers in this battle, hundreds and hundreds of public officials have died in this war, we will give them the arms and the assistance and the aid, the resources to eradicate, to enforce and to interdict drugs cost effectively. And those Blackhawk helicopters are on their way. That is something we have done.
And this Congress, this House and the American people will see a reduction in the amount of heroin coming into the United States. And also cocaine, which again they have turned in 6 years, Colombia, into the major producer of cocaine. Not just a processor or a transiter but the major producer. In 6 years they have managed to do that. We will start eliminating that through the policies of this new majority in the Congress.
We have restored the cuts in the Coast Guard and we are dramatically increasing the assistance that the military provides in getting them back into the war on drugs. I know it was very nice for the Vice President to take the U-2s out of South and Central America in the war on drugs and bring them up to check on oil spills around Alaska. I know it was nice to divert the money for eradication programs of drugs at the source country, which President Clinton did, and put it in Haiti, which basically was more money down the tubes; but, in fact, we do know that getting the military involved in interdiction close to the source does work.
We know that the Coast Guard protecting Puerto Rico and restoring their assets does a great job in protecting our coastlines, both of Puerto Rico and the United States, and we have brought them in 2 years back.
We know that tough enforcement works. In the next week I will be holding hearings on legalization of illegal narcotics and decriminalization. There is a big wave across this country that we must look at decriminalization, make it a health problem, and we should not be tough on drugs and it will all work out.
Mr. Speaker, it does not all work out. Look at the statistics in New York City. We can see since Mayor Rudy Giuliani has taken office what tough enforcement has done. The murders, which were at 2,000 when he took office, 2,000 murders in New York City a year, and most of them drug related, I would venture to say without any question, have been reduced by 70 percent. Just over 600 murders. From 2,000 to 600.
It is safe to walk in New York City because Mayor Guiliani, through a tough enforcement policy, has stopped the violence, the crime, the drug trafficking and he has gone after these folks with a tough enforcement policy that works.
Now, Tom Constantine, who unfortunately is leaving as the head of our DEA, and that is a very sad fact for this Congress and the American people, he produced this chart. This chart should be an eye opener for every Member of Congress and for every American. This shows the heroin addiction population in a city that decided to adopt a lackadaisical enforcement, a tolerant policy. In 1950, the population of Baltimore was over 900,000. In 1996, it was 675,000. In 1950, they had 300 heroin addicts in Baltimore. Listen to this. Three hundred heroin addicts. In 1996, through a liberalized policy, they had 38,985 heroin addicts in Baltimore. This is what a liberalized policy gives us. And on the other hand, look at New York City; 2,000 murders down to 600 murders through tough enforcement, tough prosecution. So we know this policy works.
Now, we are going to have a full hearing and we are giving all sides the opportunity to be heard in our hearings next week about this process of decriminalization, about tough enforcement, about legalization. And I try, as chairman, to be fair, so we will hear from everybody, but I believe that these statistics, these facts, are irrefutable.
So this new majority on our side has started a program, and again I started to mention the things that we have done in replacing the military, the interdiction, the source country, getting the Coast Guard cuts restored, but we have also put in almost $200 million in the past year in education programs, which is matched by the private sector. So it is almost a half billion dollars in education. And we are putting our money where our mouth is so our young people and all Americans know the dangers of illegal narcotics.
So we, again, I believe, are taking the right steps. They took the right steps under the Reagan and Bush administration. Education, enforcement, interdiction, eradication at the source, and treatment are important, but it cannot just be treatment. This cannot just be treating the wounded in a battle. If we went to war and we did not spend any money on armaments, any money on forward surveillance, any money on eradication of the enemy, any money on ammunition, we would not have a war on drugs, we would not have a war. And if we only treat the victims in this war, it does not work. We have seen it does not work.
So tonight, as I close, I ask for my colleagues' assistance to move together in a bipartisan cooperative effort. Mistakes were made in a bipartisan fashion, hopefully, we can make progress in a bipartisan fashion. It is my hope that we can get every Member on both sides of the aisle not to repeat the mistakes of the past and to move forward together. We know that these policies will work. They are tried, they are proven, they are tested.
It is my hope that we can do that because I never want to talk to another mother or another father or another brother, another friend of a young person in my district who has died of a drug overdose. I talked about the cost, the people behind bars, and I talked about what Congress is going to have to appropriate, but we cannot restore a human being, a son or a daughter, to a parent who has lost that child in the war on drugs.
So it is my hope that I will not have to make these speeches every week in my next term in Congress; that I will not have to come before the Speaker and the House and plead for their assistance in restarting the war on drugs.
Mr. Speaker, although I have a few minutes left, I will yield back the balance of my time and pledge to be back here again next week.
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