[House Hearing, 108 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
FIGHTING METHAMPHETAMINE IN THE HEARTLAND: HOW CAN THE FEDERAL
GOVERNMENT ASSIST STATE AND LOCAL EFFORTS
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE,
DRUG POLICY AND HUMAN RESOURCES
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
FEBRUARY 6, 2004
__________
Serial No. 108-179
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house
http://www.house.gov/reform
______
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut TOM LANTOS, California
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JOHN L. MICA, Florida PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
DOUG OSE, California DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
RON LEWIS, Kentucky DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
CHRIS CANNON, Utah DIANE E. WATSON, California
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
NATHAN DEAL, Georgia C.A. ``DUTCH'' RUPPERSBERGER,
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan Maryland
TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio Columbia
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas JIM COOPER, Tennessee
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee ------ ------
------ ------ ------
------ ------ BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
(Independent)
Melissa Wojciak, Staff Director
David Marin, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director
Rob Borden, Parliamentarian
Teresa Austin, Chief Clerk
Phil Barnett, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana, Chairman
NATHAN DEAL, Georgia ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
JOHN L. MICA, Florida WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
DOUG OSE, California LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia C.A. ``DUTCH'' RUPPERSBERGER,
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia Maryland
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee Columbia
------ ------
Ex Officio
TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
J. Marc Wheat, Staff Director
Nicholas Coleman, Professional Staff Member and Counsel
Nicole Garrett, Clerk
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on February 6, 2004................................. 1
Statement of:
Burns, Scott, Deputy Director for State and Local Affairs,
Office of National Drug Control Policy; and Armand
McClintock, Assistant Special Agent in Charge,
Indianapolis, IN, District Office, Drug Enforcement
Administration............................................. 5
Carraway, Melvin, superintendent, Indiana State Police;
Curtis T. Hill, Jr., prosecuting attorney, Elkhart County
Prosecuting Attorney's Office; Bill Wargo, chief
investigator, Elkhart County Prosecuting Attorney's Office;
Daniel Anderson, Starke County Sheriff's Department; and
Tony Ciriello, Kosciusko County Sheriff's Department....... 35
Enyeart, Kevin, Cass County prosecutor; Doug Harp, chief
deputy, Noble County Sheriff's Office; Sergeant Jeff
Schnepp, Longansport-Cass County Drug Task Force; Brian
Connor, Acting Executive Director, the Center for the
Homeless, South Bend; Barry Humble, executive director,
Drug & Alcohol Consortium of Allen County; and Benjamin
Martin, Serenity House, Inc................................ 87
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Anderson, Daniel, Starke County Sheriff's Department,
prepared statement of...................................... 61
Burns, Scott, Deputy Director for State and Local Affairs,
Office of National Drug Control Policy, prepared statement
of......................................................... 8
Carraway, Melvin, superintendent, Indiana State Police,
prepared statement of...................................... 38
Ciriello, Tony, Kosciusko County Sheriff's Department,
prepared statement of...................................... 68
Connor, Brian, Acting Executive Director, the Center for the
Homeless, South Bend, prepared statement of................ 106
Enyeart, Kevin, Cass County prosecutor, prepared statement of 91
Harp, Doug, chief deputy, Noble County Sheriff's Office,
prepared statement of...................................... 98
Hill, Curtis T., Jr., prosecuting attorney, Elkhart County
Prosecuting Attorney's Office, prepared statement of....... 46
Humble, Barry, executive director, Drug & Alcohol Consortium
of Allen County, prepared statement of..................... 112
Martin, Benjamin, Serenity House, Inc., prepared statement of 117
McClintock, Armand, Assistant Special Agent in Charge,
Indianapolis, IN, District Office, Drug Enforcement
Administration, prepared statement of...................... 20
Schnepp, Sergeant Jeff, Longansport-Cass County Drug Task
Force, prepared statement of............................... 101
Wargo, Bill, chief investigator, Elkhart County Prosecuting
Attorney's Office, prepared statement of................... 53
FIGHTING METHAMPHETAMINE IN THE HEARTLAND: HOW CAN THE FEDERAL
GOVERNMENT ASSIST STATE AND LOCAL EFFORTS
----------
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2004
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and
Human Resources,
Committee on Government Reform,
Elkhart, IN.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m., in
the Elkhart City Council Chambers, 229 South Second Street,
Elkhart, IN, Hon. Mark Souder (chairman of the subcommittee)
presiding.
Present: Representatives Souder and Chocola.
Staff present: Nicholas Coleman, professional staff member
and counsel; and Nicole Garrett, clerk.
Mr. Souder. The subcommittee will now come to order. Good
morning. Thank you for being patient as we are setting up here.
Let me kind of briefly, before I do my normal opening
statement, describe a little bit what this subcommittee is. It
is the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human
Resources of the Committee on Government Reform, and I chair
this.
We have many agencies that we do oversight--HHS, Department
of Health & Human Services, Department of Education, Department
of Justice, Department of Commerce, Department of Housing &
Urban Development are all under our subcommittee. We spend
about 50 percent of our time and staff on narcotics policy. It
is the main narcotics committee in the U.S. Congress. We not
only have oversight over any department, whether it is Defense,
State Department, DEA, whatever the agency is, on narcotics
policy. We also authorize, which means we write the laws that
relate to the Office of National Drug Control Policy [ONDCP],
commonly known as the drug czar's office, in addition to the
community action funds that go through our committee--COPS,
Drug Free Workplace, a lot of different bills move through. So
we are unusual in that we are authorizing and oversight on
narcotics policy.
We do many different hearings and this one is focused on
meth. On Monday, we will be in Florida on Oxycontin where last
fall they had something like 10 deaths in the high schools in
just a couple of weeks and much of the center of the Oxycontin
addiction problem is there, so we will be there on Monday.
We deal with lots of different issues. In a little over 2
weeks, we will be doing a hearing on the heroin problem coming
out of Afghanistan in Washington. But that gives you kind of an
idea of the range of this.
Also, in our House Rules, you are supposed to have a
majority and a minority Member unless the minority is going to
waive. We have a very collegial atmosphere in our committee,
that meaning we get along very well and Elijah Cummings, the
ranking Democrat, with the Congressional Black Caucus, is a
close friend of mine and we work together on the different
hearings. He gives me a lot of flexibility, he does not like to
travel as much and so he is willing to give me a waiver, we do
so on multiple hearings. He has been in Fort Wayne with me as
well as Congressman Davis. Congressman Davis would have been
here except for the Democratic retreat this weekend and they
decided that they had better show party loyalty as opposed to
loyalty to me today. But I appreciate their willingness to go
along to work on the narcotics issues on a bipartisan basis in
the U.S. Congress. They too are very concerned about meth, even
though meth is not the biggest challenge. The Democratic
members on my committee are mostly from urban big cities and
meth is not the biggest challenge in their cities, but they are
supportive in helping us tackle problems that are more in our
districts just like we try to help them. Elijah represents the
city of Baltimore, which is one of the highest drug abuse areas
for cocaine and heroin, among other things, and we are trying
to work with him.
With that, it is a pleasure to have you at this hearing in
Indiana. I would like to thank you all for coming. This hearing
continues our subcommittee's work on the problem of
methamphetamine abuse, a problem that has been ravaging our
region, our State and our Nation.
Meth is among the most powerful and dangerous drugs
available. It is also relatively easy to make from common
household or agricultural chemicals and simple cold medicines.
It comes from two major sources of supply. The most significant
source comes from the superlabs in California and northern
Mexico. Most meth in Indiana comes from those superlabs as
well, even though what we read about are the small labs. These
superlabs account for over 70 percent of the Nation's supply of
meth. The superlabs are operated by large Mexican drug
trafficking organizations that have used their established
distribution and supply networks to transport meth throughout
the country.
The second major source of meth comes from small local labs
that are generally unaffiliated with major trafficking
organizations. These labs have proliferated throughout the
country, particularly in the Midwest. The total amount of meth
actually supplied by these labs is relatively small; however,
the environmental damage and the health hazard they create make
them a serious problem for local communities, particularly the
State and local law enforcement agencies charged with the duty
to uncover and clean them up. In Indiana, for example, more
than 20 percent of the labs raided by police were discovered
only after they had exploded and started fires. Children are
often found at meth labs, and have frequently suffered from
severe health problems as a result of the hazardous chemicals
used in drug manufacturing.
By the way, our first major meth hearing was I believe
about 5 years ago where Congressman Mica and I went to northern
California after a lab blew up and killed a young daughter and
led to the creation of California's legislation that made
having a meth lab where children were present a crime in
California. Other States ought to be doing that. They have had
lots of child deaths, particularly from these superlabs.
Our previous hearings, held in Washington, have looked at
the problem from a national perspective, but today, and at
those hearings on the national perspective, we had testimony
from the States. Indiana is not the highest, we are increasing
and we are high, but the highest are actually Arkansas and
Missouri after California and Hawaii, which is up almost as
high as Arkansas and Missouri. We have had testimony from those
States in Washington and we are looking at doing more field
hearings as we look at the meth problem there. For example,
Hawaii got a $2 million supplemental to try to tackle their
health problems in the recent budget, related to
methamphetamine.
Our previous hearings, held in Washington, looked at from a
national perspective, but today we are going to look at a
specific region that has been hard hit by meth trafficking and
abuse right here in northeastern Indiana. In Indiana alone, the
State Police reported that 1,260 drug labs were raided in 2003,
up 26 percent from the 998 seized in 2002. And most of those
labs were meth labs. The problem is particularly severe in our
rural areas, where meth cooks can steal precursor chemicals
like anhydrous ammonia from local farmers, and then manufacture
the drug in secrecy. Major meth trafficking organizations have
also made inroads. Roman J. Montero and Cesar Anguiano, for
example, were recently sentenced for running the largest meth
trafficking organization in Indiana history.
The Federal Government has responded to the meth problem
both here and elsewhere with stricter laws against the
precursor chemical trade, tougher enforcement, and farsighted
treatment and local assistance initiatives. The growth of the
problem has spurred calls for further action. Most proposals
have focused on the need to assist local law enforcement in
finding and cleaning up numerous small meth labs. A well-
balanced approach, however, will have to address both the
smaller labs and the major traffickers that supply most of the
Nation's meth. The Federal Government must also find new ways
to help States and local communities provide treatment for meth
addicts, and prevent meth abuse from starting in the first
place. Outreach to treatment providers, schools and pharmacists
is crucial to success. We will hear from Superintendent
Carraway about the $700,000 that just passed the Senate. We
passed it in the House in December and the Senate passed it in
January for $700,000. I believe it is for Indiana and how we
might use that money on the meth issue.
One proposal, offered by our colleague Congressman Doug
Ose, provides for a broad range of initiatives aimed at the
meth problem. Among other things, H.R. 834 would provide funds
to help States and localities find and clean up meth labs,
including expanding assistance under the Community Oriented
Policing Services [COPS] grant program. Additional resources
for treatment and prevention at the local level are also made
available. I am a co-sponsor of this bill and strongly support
it.
This hearing will address these and other potential
solutions to the difficult issues surrounding the meth problem
here in Indiana. I first want to thank Congressman Chris
Chocola for joining us today. I am actually joining him, this
particular spot is in his district, and I appreciate him
hosting us here and for the assistance that he and his staff
provided for our subcommittee in setting up this hearing.
We also welcome two witnesses who have joined us to discuss
the Federal Government's response to the meth problem: Mr.
Scott Burns, Deputy Director for State and Local Affairs at the
White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, and Mr.
Armand McClintock, Assistant Special Agent in Charge at the
Indianapolis District Office of the Drug Enforcement
Administration.
At a hearing like this, it is vitally important for us to
hear from the State and local agencies forced to fight on the
front lines against meth and other illegal drugs. We welcome
Mr. Melvin Carraway, superintendent of the Indiana State
Police, who we all see at the gas pumps every day; Mr. Curtis
Hill, prosecuting attorney for Elkhart County; Mr. Bill Wargo,
chief investigator at the Elkhart County Prosecuting Attorney's
Office; Detective Daniel Anderson of the Starke County
Sheriff's Department; Corporal Tony Ciriello of the Kosciusko
County Sheriff's Department; Mr. Kevin Enyeart, the Cass County
prosecutor; Mr. Doug Harp, chief deputy of the Noble County
Sheriff's Office; and Sergeant Jeff Schnepp of the Logansport-
Cass County Drug Task Force.
We also welcome three witnesses whose work in the field of
drug treatment and prevention is of vital importance here in
northeastern Indiana: Mr. Brian Connor, acting executive
director of the Center for the Homeless in South Bend; Mr.
Barry Humble, executive director of the Drug & Alcohol
Consortium of Allen County; and Mr. Benjamin Martin of Serenity
House, Inc.
We thank everyone for taking the time to join us this
morning, and look forward to your testimony.
With that, I would like to yield to my friend, Congressman
Chocola.
Mr. Chocola. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you very
much for taking the initiative to hold this very important
hearing on a very important topic.
I would also like to thank all the witnesses for joining us
today and braving our beautiful Indiana weather. It is always a
great thing to have people get up in the morning and slush
through the snow.
But this is a very important issue. It is hard to pick up a
paper in the morning and not see a report on a meth lab that
was raided or someone picked up for dealing or usage of
methamphetamine.
I have only been in Congress a year, and just since I have
been in Congress, I have seen that it is a growing problem that
is faced in essentially every community in my district and I do
not think my district is unique. My district is relatively
rural and working with local law enforcement officials, we see
that it is an ever-increasing problem every single day.
I think last year there were over 1,200 meth labs
confiscated, and that was a large increase over the year
before. So it is an ever-increasing problem.
I guess it is good news that we are finding more, but the
bad news is probably that there are more that we do not know
exist. And that is growing every day.
So it is clearly going to take cooperation between local,
State and Federal officials to address this problem and I think
rectify the situation. I think we are very fortunate today to
have representatives from every perspective on how we can
effectively address the problem.
So thank you again for coming. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for
having the hearing today and I look forward to the testimony.
Mr. Souder. Just a couple of procedural matters. I ask
unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to
submit written statements and questions for the hearing record
and any answers to written questions provided by the witnesses
also be put in the record. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Second, I ask unanimous consent that all Members present be
permitted to participate in the hearing. Without objection, it
is so ordered.
Let me explain one other thing. Mr. Burns and Mr.
McClintock are both familiar with this, the rest of you may
think this is a little strange, so let me explain this. It is
the standard practice of this committee, because we are an
oversight committee, to swear in all of our witnesses. To put
in context what Government Reform oversight does, we are the
people who did the Waco hearings, the Chinagate, who hired
Craig Livingstone, where were the FBI files, and it is one of
the only committees that has actually prosecuted people for
perjury. So tell the truth today. [Laughter.]
We are actually not going to do that. So if each of the
witnesses would stand and raise your right hands. Just the
first panel. We will do it one panel at a time.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Souder. Let the record show that both the witnesses
responded in the affirmative.
I appreciate that you battled through the snow yesterday to
come in from Washington, Mr. Burns, and up from Indianapolis,
Mr. McClintock, and we appreciate that you can help give us a
national perspective on this. And we will start with Mr. Burns,
who has been a leader for quite awhile over in the National
Drug Control Policy Office. He travels all over the country
meeting with different locations, with leaders and particularly
on our borders and our HIDTAs, and we appreciate you coming
today.
STATEMENTS OF SCOTT BURNS, DEPUTY DIRECTOR FOR STATE AND LOCAL
AFFAIRS, OFFICE OF NATIONAL DRUG CONTROL POLICY; AND ARMAND
MCCLINTOCK, ASSISTANT SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE, INDIANAPOLIS,
IN, DISTRICT OFFICE, DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION
Mr. Burns. Thank you, Chairman Souder, Congressman Chocola,
and distinguished staff members of the subcommittee. I want to
thank you for the opportunity to testify about the use,
trafficking and production of methamphetamine in America. I
intend to keep my verbal testimony relatively brief and I would
ask that the written statement I prepared be entered into the
record.
Mr. Souder. So ordered.
Mr. Burns. Thank you.
I would also like to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your
leadership in Congress, not only dealing with these issues on a
national and international basis, counter-narcotics issues, but
for your strong voice for rural America. I would also like to
thank you, Congressman Chocola, for your strong leadership and
support of counter-narcotics issues in Washington.
You talked about slushing through the snow, I am especially
glad to be here with you today in Indiana, part of the
heartland of this Nation. Before going to the White House and
before going to Washington, I was a prosecutor elected in my
hometown of Cedar City, UT in Iron County, about the size of
Cass County, where I served for 16 years. And methamphetamine
hit, as you know, the western part of the United States in the
mid and late 1980's and I have been dealing with this issue for
some time.
Like my fellow prosecutors and law enforcement officers
here in Indiana, I have seen first-hand the damage that
methamphetamine labs cause to a community. And like my fellow
prosecutors here today, Curtis Hill and Kevin Enyeart, I have
worked with officers through the night processing meth labs and
gathering evidence and left them to wait hours for a meth
cleanup company to arrive, taking its toll on overtime and
precious budget dollars. And like my fellow prosecutors and law
enforcement officers here in Indiana, I have seen the
destruction and toll methamphetamine takes on lives and
children and families.
And like many here today, Mr. Chairman and Congressman
Chocola, I have struggled to come up with a strategy and
commensurate funding to deal with this drug in a rural setting.
I think it is important initially to recognize that
methamphetamine poses a different sort of threat than
marijuana, cocaine or heroin. On the one hand, nationwide, use
of methamphetamine in America is still much lower than
marijuana and cocaine, and just as heroin seems to be a more
significant threat in some regions, for example the northeast,
in other parts of the Nation, we know that methamphetamine has
struck particularly hard in not only the west and midwest part
of our Nation, but in rural areas.
As we seek to disrupt the market for methamphetamine, it is
instructive to look at where it is coming from. As you have
stated, Mr. Chairman, we know on a national basis that the
small labs, by sheer number, are the greatest, which usually
produce the smaller amounts of methamphetamine. At least 80
percent--our numbers at the White House--of methamphetamine
circulating in America is a product of the superlabs that you
have seen first-hand, defined as a lab capable of producing
more than 10 pounds of methamphetamine in a production cycle.
Some of these labs are found within our borders, some outside,
especially in Mexico, but they constitute the most serious
production threat for America.
Our Federal enforcement efforts are focused on coordinating
intelligence and enforcement efforts to take down the largest
methamphetamine labs. At the same time, the smaller labs pose a
serious threat to the environment as well as to the most
innocent of our society, our children.
Where methamphetamine labs exist, children who live in or
near them have been found with serious and life-threatening
burns and other serious health risks by exposure to the
chemicals. In response to this problem, the Bush administration
is proud to have done several things to initiate and buildupon
the DEC, or Drug-Endangered Children Program, which we are
underway trying to take nationwide. Treatment and early
intervention programs to include drug court and treatment
facilities, specifically designed to deal with methamphetamine.
The National Methamphetamine Chemical Initiative that is
working on a national and international basis to bring together
the women and men in the field that are actually working
methamphetamine cases. They discuss trends, best practices, how
to stop the flow of precursors into the United States, and all
other issues specifically relevant to methamphetamine. It is an
initiative funded through the High Intensity Drug Trafficking
Area and it is an attempt to bring the men and women that are
actually working on methamphetamine cases together semi-
annually.
Mr. Chairman, Congressman Chocola, the HIDTA program, which
has several hundred initiatives, has 300 specifically aimed at
methamphetamine. That is, initiatives directly dealing with
this issue, and that is more than any other drug.
And while there are additional and important efforts by
DEA, which Mr. McClintock I am sure will address and OCDETF and
U.S. Attorneys and others on the Federal level, I do not need
to tell you that 94 percent of law enforcement in this country
is State and local, 98 percent of all drug cases in this
country are prosecuted by State and local prosecutors. So it is
not an issue that the Federal Government alone can have
success.
I applaud you for bringing this hearing to an area
representing hundreds of towns and cities and counties that are
dealing with the problem of methamphetamine as we speak. Again,
I thank you for the opportunity to appear before you in my
current capacity with the Bush administration and I am happy to
answer any questions you may have about our anti-
methamphetamine efforts, both in major cities and more
important today, in America's heartland.
Thank you.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
Mr. McClintock runs the Indianapolis office of DEA. We are
thrilled to have an outpost in Fort Wayne as well as Evansville
now in Indiana and we hope it will continue to expand. Having
those types of posts has enabled us to find not just how to
pick up the daily user that we see and the small time guys, but
we are able to trace this back to get the bigger organizations
and the DEA has been a tremendous help in Indiana in doing
that.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Burns follows:]
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Mr. McClintock. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Souder
and Representative Chocola, my name is Armand McClintock and I
am assistant special agent in charge of the Indianapolis
District Office of the DEA.
First, let me express my sincere appreciation for your
ongoing support and for this hearing on fighting
methamphetamine in the heartland.
Mr. Chairman, the rapid rise and spread of methamphetamine
use and trafficking in Indiana has created a unique and
difficult challenge for Federal and State law enforcement
officials. Unlike more traditional drugs of abuse,
methamphetamine presents some distinctive challenges.
First, it is relatively easy to manufacture, anyone who can
read and measure can make methamphetamine.
Second, many productionsites are located in the rural areas
of Indiana where there is limited day-to-day law enforcement
presence.
Third, methamphetamine is a particularly intense stimulant,
highly addictive and devastatingly dangerous.
The combination of these factors has led DEA to pursue a
multi-faceted response. Overall, DEA offices in Indiana expend
approximately half their investigative resources on
methamphetamine-related cases, a substantial increase since
1999 when approximately 35 percent of cases were
methamphetamine-related.
These investigations target Mexican trafficking
organizations while working closely with State and local law
enforcement to eliminate the spread of small toxic labs and
alleviate their consequences.
DEA investigations into Mexican drug trafficking
organizations distributing methamphetamine within the State
have more than doubled since 2001, totaling 36 last year. In
addition, the number of methamphetamine traffickers and dealers
who have been arrested and charged in Federal court, has grown
from 80 in 2001 to 111 in 2003.
While more labs were seized in Indiana during 2003, the El
Paso Intelligence Center [EPIC], has documented 506 clandestine
methamphetamine laboratory seizures, which is sixth among all
States. Adding dump sites, chemicals, glassware, and equipment
seizures together resulted in 805 incidents, fifth among all
States.
In response to the rise of these labs, in 2000, DEA
launched a new training initiative to provide clandestine
laboratory awareness training to Federal, State and local law
enforcement agencies and fire departments. The demand for
clandestine laboratory training has been immense. DEA has
provided clan lab methamphetamine awareness training for 540
State and local officers in the State of Indiana since 2000.
The small toxic labs I describe in my testimony generate
significant quantities of hazardous waste during each
production cycle. Small rural communities within Indiana
ultimately must pay the price of the fiscal, environmental,
health, and safety hazards associated with these drug
trafficking organizations.
The methamphetamine trade is particularly insidious because
of its direct, alarming, and negative impact on our youth.
Federal and State law enforcement officials remain vigilant in
our efforts to keep youth in Indiana and across the country
from the devastating effects of this drug. Each of DEA's field
divisions has a victim witness coordinator to ensure that
endangered children are identified and the child's immediate
safety is addressed at the scene through coordination with
child welfare and healthcare service providers.
DEA has joined forces with our State and local partners to
address methamphetamine-related trends from large trafficking
organizations down to the small time producer operating out of
their homes in Indiana. Placing emphasis on DEA's priority
target program, eliminating small toxic labs, combining Federal
regulations with local initiatives to reduce the availability
of pseudoephedrine in the illicit market, and enforcing our
chemical controls on meth precursors all represent DEA's
intense focus on combating this epidemic on several fronts.
To see an example of our efforts with local law
enforcement, you need only look back to last December when DEA
and approximately 90 local law enforcement officers concluded
Operation Sweet Home Alabama. This was a 6-month investigation,
which resulted in the arrest of 18 defendants. The priority
target involved a Mexican national who oversaw the largest
methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana ring ever exposed in
Indiana. Just last week, a Federal judge sentenced the head of
the organization, Ramon Montero to 20 years in prison.
In conclusion, the seriousness of the problems resulting
from the methamphetamine threat cannot be overstated. Perhaps
more than any other drug, methamphetamine puts all of us, users
and non-users alike, at risk. The innocence of children, the
fortitude of law enforcement, and the pristine state of our
ecosystem are not immune to methamphetamine's dangers. As a
single-mission agency, DEA will continue to devote its
resources to identify, investigate, and dismantle the
organizations responsible for the spread of meth across Indiana
and our country.
Thank you again for the opportunity to testify before the
subcommittee today. I will be happy to answer any questions at
the appropriate time.
[The prepared statement of Mr. McClintock follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Thank you. All statements, the full statements,
will be in the record. There were a couple of things I noticed
in your written statement that I think it would be good to
highlight for purposes of discussion today.
You said that DEA, in your written testimony, devotes half
of its Indiana investigative resources to meth?
Mr. McClintock. Yes.
Mr. Souder. Is most of that southern Indiana, a mix, Fort
Wayne office too?
Mr. McClintock. It's a mix of all areas of Indiana,
Congressman; largely Indianapolis, being the largest DEA
office, has had a role in each of these. Fort Wayne and
Merrillville, Evansville, the entire State.
Mr. Souder. Did you say that Evansville is devoting a
higher percentage to meth?
Mr. McClintock. Yes, sir, I would.
Mr. Souder. We will hear more about that, but while we have
a big problem in northern Indiana, in southern Indiana, it is
the dominant problem, is that correct?
Mr. McClintock. Yes, it is, Congressman.
Mr. Souder. You also said that you have dismantled 61 and
disrupted 35 priority target methamphetamine trafficking
organizations throughout the United States. And I wanted to ask
both you and Mr. Burns about, in particular, the precursor
chemical. I have been very active in working with the
Canadians. That is where there is a big problem with precursor
chemicals coming from. Do you believe their new regulations in
progress are sufficient or should we be pushing them in this
next session of their Parliament to even tighten up further?
Mr. Burns. At this point, Congressman, I would say wholly
insufficient.
Mr. Souder. Wholly insufficient?
Mr. Burns. Through the National Methamphetamine Chemical
Initiative, we held our last conference in Ottawa and we did
that, frankly, at the request of law enforcement and others, to
bring a message to help Canada, that they must do more, they
must do a great deal more.
Law enforcement still does not know the quantities that are
coming in and have difficulty tracking and identifying where
the ephedrine and pseudo-ephedrine is going. So we need your
help.
Mr. McClintock. I think a representative example of the
problem is in September 2001, the Indiana State Police stopped
a Ryder truck on Interstate 69 just north of Indianapolis for a
traffic violation. A consensual search of the truck revealed
1,200,000 tablets of pseudoephedrine. The driver and his
passenger, both of Middle Eastern descent, had crossed the
Windsor bridge and came down I-69 to I-70 and initially headed
toward California. Unfortunately, the terrorist attack of
September 11 happened at that moment and they changed
directions, frightful of what awaited them in this country and
they turned around and headed back to Canada through Detroit,
hopefully, is what their plan was but they were stopped by the
Indiana State Police. With their tablets of pseudoephedrine,
you are looking at about 82 loads of methamphetamine if it got
to a clan lab.
Mr. Souder. There were two other cases that have been in
the media, and I do not know how much you can talk about it,
both in Detroit and Chicago, where there were suspected ties to
some of these different groups, some may have been just
profiteering, some may have been connected to some of the
terrorist groups. Do you know of other cases that the Indiana
DEA has worked with, Mr. Burns, in looking at that particular
area coming out of Detroit crossing into Canada?
Mr. Burns. I do not know of any others at this time,
Congressman. I can research that if you like and get back in
written form to the subcommittee.
Mr. Souder. It is important to understand anhydrous ammonia
is a critical thing that we will be dealing with later in this
hearing this morning, but I am trying to understand the
pressures that we have here. The multiple pressures for job
creation and how we control narcotics and how we deal with
terrorist funding. What is clear is that these things are
colliding at the Windsor Bridge, and that is the bridge, it is
the largest trade bridge in the world. More trade goes over
that bridge than all the United States does with Japan, for
example. And that bridge is the choke point for much of our
economic development in northeast Indiana. For example, the GM
plant in Fort Wayne, there are 100 border crossings at that
bridge in the making of each pickup. So we are constantly kind
of doing this battle of how much checking should we do at that
border, how much do we slow down the border, but what we need
to understand is these little meth labs that we are picking up
are getting these precursor chemicals because this stuff is
coming through in large illegal quantities. Now some of them
rob, like the Oxycontin robberies, but much of this is coming
through this type of network.
You also mentioned in your testimony that it is about $90
to $100 a gram, $500 to $1,200 per ounce, $5,000 to $8,000 a
pound at a purity level of 24.8 percent. That is the Indiana
figure.
Mr. Burns, do you know, or Mr. McClintock, how that
compares to nationally? If you were buying this stuff in
California or Washington State or Texas where it is moving
through closer to where the labs are, is the price going up as
it comes to Indiana?
Mr. McClintock. The price increases as it comes eastward
and the purity. We have had purity all the way up to actually
100 percent. Our DEA laboratory in Chicago has analyzed
numerous samples of methamphetamine ranging from 24 percent all
the way up to 100 percent. It just depends on how much cut the
distributors put on it here in this State. The purity was
higher, 2 or 3 years ago. It has dropped a little bit because
they are cutting it with more adulterants in an attempt to
stretch the amount of methamphetamine and increase their bottom
line, so to speak.
Mr. Souder. Is the purity from the self-cookers higher than
the purity from the superlabs?
Mr. McClintock. The superlab purity has been 70 to 90
percent pure, sometimes 100 percent.
Mr. Souder. So it is the reverse. So the stuff coming in
from outside is actually more dangerous to the individuals in
the purity sense than the stuff that is being locally cooked.
Mr. McClintock. That is correct. The local cooks are just
cutting it more with adulterants.
Mr. Souder. So they are buying the large stuff and then
breaking it up.
Mr. McClintock. Yes, sir.
Mr. Burns. A good rule of thumb, Mr. Chairman, at the White
House, we look at it as a business. They produce and
manufacture, they have transportation routes, they have
wholesale and retail distribution and then they have the
financial aspects associated with this illegal business that we
call methamphetamine trafficking. A good rule of thumb is the
further away from where it is manufactured in the Central
Valley of California, that comes across from Mexico, the higher
the price.
Mr. Souder. Higher the price, less the purity.
Mr. Burns. Correct.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Chocola.
Mr. Chocola. Just briefly.
Mr. Burns, did I understand you that 80 percent of the
methamphetamine used comes from the superlabs versus the local
labs?
Mr. Burns. Yes.
Mr. Chocola. And is that a trend that is steady or is it
changing?
Mr. Burns. That is pretty steady. I mean the difficulty
with this issue is the mass quantities come from Mexico and
Central Valley, CA, but the number of actual labs of small
amounts in the back of a car or a Motel 6 clearly are within
the midwest. So as far as quantity, superlabs; as far as the
number of actual lab sites, midwest.
Mr. Chocola. Is that similar to the experience in Indiana?
Mr. McClintock. Yes, Congressman.
Mr. Chocola. Mr. Burns, you mentioned several initiatives
the administration has engaged in. How do those interact and
interface with local law enforcement?
Mr. Burns. Well, for example, the National Methamphetamine
Chemical Initiative is an attempt to bring the real people that
actually work methamphetamine cases together at least two or
three times a year. And we fund that. Officers say have you
seen a green meth? No, I haven't. I just talked with a
detective up in Minnesota that saw some green meth. What do you
think that's about? They talk about common cases that they are
working on to try and put together trends and the ability to go
after them on a nationwide basis.
The Drug Endangered Children Program helps State and local
law enforcement because prosecutors like me 15-20 years ago
would come across a methamphetamine lab and the last thing we
were worried about was the two or three children that were
there. We would find a neighbor or a friend or just get them
out of the way. We have now come to realize that the most
important thing at that meth lab site are those two or three
children. And so the Drug Endangered Children Program brings
together law enforcement and a child protective person, usually
a guardian ad litem. Children are taken to a medical facility
and they are checked for toxicity or burns. The juvenile court
will be brought in to find a safe placement for the child. And
many States are passing laws that make it a felony, similar to
child abuse. So we are trying to take that program nationwide,
we initiated that in Iowa about 6 months ago.
Mr. Chocola. A lot of the articles I have read, a lot of
these labs are detected by the odor when they are actually
cooking. Being exposed to that odor, is that hazardous to
anybody's health, like children, if they are around it? Does it
just smell bad or is it harmful?
Mr. McClintock. Both, Congressman.
Having started my DEA career in San Diego, California in
1983 and having worked in a clan lab group as a young agent
before we used any protective gear or breathing apparatus, not
only do they smell badly. They are harmful to everyone's health
and the environment.
Mr. Chocola. I need to go way out on a limb here and make
the prediction that all these programs you are talking about
are not over-funded?
Mr. Burns. No.
Mr. Chocola. There are obviously limited resources. Where
are the most effective kind of focus of resources? Is it the
precursor stage or the cooking stage or the distribution stage
or is it the user stage? If you had to pick a point in the
process to focus the most resources, where would it be?
Mr. McClintock. I would say, Congressman, all the above,
but the precursor availability is certainly the first place to
start. If they do not have the ingredients, they cannot make
the drug. We need education, we need awareness training,
especially for our youth in school, about the dangers of the
drug and drug abuse in general. We need a concentrated law
enforcement effort combined with State and local help with the
Federal Government to alleviate these Mexican drug trafficking
organizations and all these small toxic labs.
Mr. Chocola. Where do the precursors come from? I mean
locally it seems that they are stolen from the local drugstore
or they try to buy large quantities. Are there programs with
retailers to try to make them aware? Are they aware and do they
have programs in place to try to prevent precursor purchases?
Mr. McClintock. Absolutely, Congressman, there are programs
in place with retailers that limit their ability to sell
pseudoephedrine, for instance, which is a common ingredient in
cold medicines, which is an over-the-counter drug found in all
drugstores and places like that. And a lot of times, there is a
form that has to be filled out and people have to give
identification, which drug traffickers do not want to do, to
buy over I believe 9 grams of that.
Mr. Chocola. Do you think that is being effective?
Mr. McClintock. I think it is. However, I think it is again
education of all the public who is involved in retailed sales
to know about it. We get calls occasionally in that regard.
Mr. Chocola. Do the superlabs get the precursors the same
way as somebody out in a trailer somewhere in a field, just
larger quantities, or do they have sources for pseudoephedrine
that's different?
Mr. Burns. It's in truckloads in the back of tractor-
trailers over the border from Canada and up from Mexico, and to
buildupon Mr. McClintock's response, if we could have better
successes in Canada and Mexico, I think it would be extremely
effective. If they do not have the flour, they cannot bake the
cake.
With respect to those States and jurisdictions that have
had success, it has to be prevention and education, it has to
be treatment and it has to be law enforcement. The communities
that I have seen that have successfully dealt with
methamphetamine are when everybody gets involved. When big box
stores, retail stores, know that somebody is buying tubing and
glassware and tincture of iodine, they give a call to local law
enforcement. If somebody knows that a methamphetamine lab
smells like cat urine. If they are educated, if they smell that
when they are walking to the store, to school or in any
setting, and call law enforcement. And when the message goes
out in the community that this is dangerous to our children,
this is dangerous to our citizens, you are polluting our rivers
and we are not going to take it. You are not wanted here. That
is when we have seen serious declines in methamphetamine
production, distribution and use.
Mr. Chocola. Thank you both.
Mr. Souder. Thank you. I want to do a few followup
questions.
Could you describe a little bit, either of you, why this
started in Central California and how its progression is
moving. And Mr. McClintock, for the record, actually was with
DEA in San Jose as well as down in San Diego.
Mr. McClintock. The close proximity to the international
border and the port of entry at San Ysidro being the busiest
land border crossing in the world made it a readily accessible
entry point for any Colombian organization utilizing Mexican
nationals to work in the area of being a transshipper, to bring
it through Mexico and into the United States through California
or Texas or any border State. The epidemic of methamphetamine
has worked its way eastward. The original drugs that started
coming across the border were marijuana, heroin and cocaine.
These are poly drug Mexican drug trafficking organizations that
added methamphetamine when they realized that there was a
demand here. They are entrepreneurs and in it comes and it
traverses our great country.
Mr. Souder. In the pattern that you are describing, let me
ask one other question as a followup. In this network of how
the small labs get their precursor chemicals, and I know there
are lots of different ways that they do it in Indiana, are
there middlemen where they know there is somebody receptive
where they know they can buy the precursor chemicals?
Mr. McClintock. Absolutely.
Mr. Souder. So there is like a wholesale dealer that you
kind of know, a friendly drugstore that you know. Penetration
with the pharmacies is one of the problems we had a number of
years ago that was raised to me in Noble County. So you would
know that this guy will sell you a larger quantity of this than
other places or is it like an undercover guy who says hey, I
have a load in my car? How exactly does that work?
Mr. McClintock. Congressman, it can be either of those
situations. With the Internet today and communication via the
Internet, it is not uncommon for people to even share their
suppliers for these precursors over the Internet, as well as
formulas to make methamphetamine. They explain on the Internet
quite readily how methamphetamine can be made and a variety of
methods and if a precursor chemical cannot be found that you
need, you have other things that are common household chemicals
that you can buy and make a different--hydriodic acid, for
instance, or any chemical that you need. There is a lot of
networking going on.
Mr. Souder. You have described two different things. One of
which is, I am going to ask you how it came from California
across, it was a poly drug, Mexican-Colombia connection coming
in and then moving gradually, adding this to their market mix
as they developed the market. But we also have the Middle
Eastern groups bringing in these huge quantities of precursor
chemicals from Canada and we are concerned about Canada.
How do these two things fit together? Are Canada's laws lax
enough that they are bringing them in and then hooking up with
the Mexican networks in the United States? Or are they
supplying two different things; the precursor chemicals
supplying the small labs and the superlab stuff being sold in
the street through a different network?
Mr. McClintock. The large quantities of precursor drugs are
going directly to the Mexican drug trafficking organizations in
large quantities for the superlabs.
Mr. Souder. I hesitate because this is not good news,
because one of the things we have been watching is if the
Middle Eastern networks hook up with the Mexican network, all
of a sudden, the south border becomes a more complex question
in regards to terrorism as well as other things in the deal. We
do not have a lot of information, these groups have hooked up
before and if this is the way they start to hook, we have
deeper problems in our country in addition to the narcotics.
One other question, Mr. McClintock, for you. On the west
coast, there is a new form of meth called yabba. Have you seen
that from southeast Asia, has that been in Indiana yet?
Mr. McClintock. It has not been to Indiana yet, that I know
of.
Mr. Souder. One other question for you, Mr. McClintock, and
then I have a few more for Mr. Burns. A lot of meth trafficking
used to be with bike gangs like Hell's Angels, much like Tibet
gold and some of the high grade marijuana coming from the
eastern side of Canada is done through motorcycle gangs
bringing it in. Some of the busts in this district in a number
of counties over in the northeast side have been with
motorcycle gangs. Do you still see that in meth or is that a
change?
Mr. McClintock. We still see it in methamphetamine.
Recently, DEA and our State and local counterparts in Vigo
County worked a large methamphetamine organization headed by
the former president of the Diablo's motorcycle gang. We
dismantled that organization. Now the Sons of Silence and the
Outlaw motorcycle gangs are still in the State and
participating in methamphetamine trafficking, but not to the
extent that they did years ago when they dominated the market.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Burns, one of the things that you mentioned
was the HIDTA program which, for people who do not know the
initials, is High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, and the only
one in Indiana is up in Lake County, correct?
Mr. Burns. Right.
Mr. Souder. So we have Chicago with a HIDTA and Lake County
with a HIDTA, but the rest of Indiana not really being in a
HIDTA at this point. But do you agree that one of the
priorities of HIDTA should be to focus on the large labs? How
do you see that being directed to the smaller labs? How do you
see the HIDTA program working with the meth problem in
particular?
Mr. Burns. I would agree with you, Congressman, in that the
intent of the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program is
to attack the problem on an international and a national basis.
And as such, a great deal of our focus and from your oversight
has been to go after the large precursor transactions, go after
the superlabs. We have sent additional moneys, we have sent
additional technical assistance and frankly, I think we are
having success. Notwithstanding the attitude in Canada, the law
enforcement effort along the borders and in California as we
speak I think is fluid. I think that there is a great debate
going on among and by and between those in the trenches with
respect to whether now we have shifted that to Mexico.
Mr. Souder. In the evolution of how we look at HIDTA
programs, it seems like more of those HIDTA programs are
becoming almost statewide programs, as they move into that. As
you look, and not necessarily answering this question now, but
as I look at how we deal with Indiana, we are trying to keep a
proliferation of HIDTAs everywhere.
Mr. Burns. Yes.
Mr. Souder. In our new draft legislation, we said OK, here
are the highest areas that should get this much money, the
second tier, the third tier. But in that, to be able to access
into the information in Fort Wayne, South Bend, Evansville,
Indianapolis with a HIDTA, any suggestions you would have of
how to do this, and what the pros and cons of that would be,
would be helpful.
Mr. Burns. And I think that it is the responsibility of the
White House and the Office of National Drug Control Policy, and
I know John Walters, the drug czar, when he directed me to come
out here made it clear that we do not just operate under a
HIDTA. It is my intent to send folks back here to Indiana and
we are going to have a series of meetings with State and local
law enforcement and treatment people. I intend to come back
again if I can, and we are going to provide assistance through
the office but not necessarily, as you say, making every area
in every State a HIDTA.
Mr. Souder. I appreciate that. As we were talking and have
been working with this hearing, Director Walters had called and
made that offer to northern Indiana, because we still need
assistance even if we do not set up a HIDTA. And to come in
today as the star of this program to work with our State and
local law enforcement, to get interconnected, we appreciate
that.
One other area we have in the President's new initiative on
drug treatment. Do you know of anything, and have you heard any
discussions whether any of this is going to be meth treatment
oriented specific? It is an area, because the larger cities,
including even in Indiana, the larger cities of Fort Wayne,
South Bend, Indianapolis are as likely to have a meth problem
as the smaller towns, but drug treatment funding tends to be
oriented on treatment, research and treatment related to other
types of narcotics. Do you know whether there will be anything?
Mr. Burns. Are you talking about the 100 million Access to
Recovery?
Mr. Souder. Yes.
Mr. Burns. The intent of that--the numbers that we have,
there is a treatment gap of about 3 or 4 million people in this
country. We identified in 2003 about 100,000 people who woke up
one morning and made that incredible commitment to get
treatment and could not. In America, that is not right. If
100,000 people wanted treatment and could not get it, the
President's initiative, Access to Recovery to spend $200
million a year over 3 years, $600 million, to at least help
those that have made the commitment to seek treatment from the
disease of addiction. We got half of it.
That will be administered through the States and that will
be something that the State of Indiana can have the greatest
impact on where it goes and I would assume a great deal of it
would go to treat those that are dealing with this terrible
drug, methamphetamine.
Mr. Souder. Well, we are going to explore this a little
later on one of our panels, but one of the things I want the
drug czar's office to look at, because in working with HHS, and
Charlie Curry is from Indiana, who heads the substance,
alcohol, mental health area, but sometimes different drugs have
different impacts and require different types of treatment. And
if we do not have accurate information on how best to deal with
those types of addicts, and each State is too small a unit of
dollars to actually do the distinction between the different
types of things, and particularly do the research with it, we
need to look at the Federal level of how best to set this up or
say to the States, OK, for meth people, this is the type of
thing you need. It may not be able to be farmed out over the
whole State, it is a different type of a treatment center than
say treating somebody who is addicted to marijuana or cocaine.
Mr. Burns. I would love to have those discussions with you.
Spent all day yesterday in Tulsa, OK where they are wrestling
with that very question you raise.
Mr. Souder. Thank you. Do you have anything additional?
Mr. Chocola. I just have one more quick question. I
understand that there are Web sites on line that will go
through step-by-step process of how to manufacture
methamphetamine?
Mr. McClintock. That is true.
Mr. Chocola. Is there anything that Federal officials can
do about that? Is it illegal to do that or is there nothing we
can do?
Mr. Burns. Well, at the White House, we have set up a
subcommittee, we have the FTC involved and DEA and others, in
addition to the illegal prescription drug popups and Internet
ads, we also go after those. We have had great success. The
DEA, whenever they do something good, we take credit, with the
paraphernalia.
Mr. Souder. That is on the record, by the way. [Laughter.]
Mr. Burns. The paraphernalia cases in the United States,
and we are looking at trying to do something with the Internet
as well.
Mr. Chocola. Are they abundant, those Web sites? Are they
part of the problem? I would assume they are, but are they part
of the problem?
Mr. McClintock. Yes, sir.
Mr. Chocola. But there is no program to try to actually get
them shut down, or are you working on it?
Mr. Burns. As soon as you shut one down, as I understand
it, they can switch to a different site. But there is an effort
underway in our office in conjunction with going after the
prescription ads to work with the FTC to see if we cannot come
up with a way to deal with that.
Mr. Chocola. Thank you.
Mr. Souder. But you also, if you have any suggestions of
international coordination that we can work with the U.N.
Office of Narcotics, we have in this year's parliamentary
group, we have people who work on narcotics committees all over
the world are getting together and it is going to be down in
Miami in late May, and it is coordinated by the U.N. narcotics
control people and we are the hosts this year.
But one of the problems on the Internet is it does not even
have to be a U.S. source, so U.S. laws may not cover it. And if
we crack down, how do we do that. We need to try to figure out
how to address this question from an international perspective
because if we do not have the different countries working with
us, they just pop right over to Canada or somewhere else.
I thank each of you for coming. We will probably give you
some additional written questions for the record.
Mr. Chocola. Thank you very much.
Mr. Souder. If the second panel could now come forward.
That would be Mr. Melvin Carraway, superintendent of the
Indiana State Police; Mr. Curtis T. Hill, Jr., prosecuting
attorney, Elkhart County Prosecuting Attorney's Office; Mr.
Bill Wargo, chief investigator for the Elkhart County
Prosecuting Attorney's Office; Detective Daniel Anderson of the
Starke County Sheriff's Department; Corporal Tony Ciriello,
Kosciusko County Sheriff's Department.
If you will stand and raise your right hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Souder. Let the record show that each of the witnesses
responded in the affirmative.
We will start with Mr. Melvin Carraway, superintendent of
the Indiana State Police. Thank you for coming up today.
STATEMENTS OF MELVIN CARRAWAY, SUPERINTENDENT, INDIANA STATE
POLICE; CURTIS T. HILL, JR., PROSECUTING ATTORNEY, ELKHART
COUNTY PROSECUTING ATTORNEY'S OFFICE; BILL WARGO, CHIEF
INVESTIGATOR, ELKHART COUNTY PROSECUTING ATTORNEY'S OFFICE;
DANIEL ANDERSON, STARKE COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT; AND TONY
CIRIELLO, KOSCIUSKO COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT
Mr. Carraway. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr.
Chocola as well for this opportunity to address you this
morning on the issue of methamphetamine in Indiana.
With me also today is Major Mike Mettler, who is the
commander of our Laboratory Services Division as well.
Methamphetamine, the highly potent, dangerously addictive,
controlled substance is spreading as an epidemic in the State
of Indiana to the extent that it threatens to disrupt and
destabilize various governmental programs and services. Law
enforcement, health care programs, the courts, corrections and
child protection agencies are all suffering from the effects of
the spread of this drug and the associated kitchens of death;
clandestine laboratory operations.
Methamphetamine and meth labs were first identified in
southern Indiana in 1988. Realizing that this poison had
finally reached the State, a drug lab investigation team was
formed by the Indiana State Police. Responding at that time to
only three drug labs in 1994, the number of labs processed has
nearly doubled every year since. In 2003, 1,260 meth labs were
identified in this State.
An equally disturbing trend is the significant increase in
the number of meth case submissions to our State Police
Laboratory facilities. In 1994, State Police reported receiving
only 401 methamphetamine case submissions; 8 years later, the
number of submissions has skyrocketed to nearly 2,800
submissions. In 2002, the number of meth submissions exceeded,
for the first time, the number of powdered cocaine submissions.
Demand for this drug is increasing at an alarming rate, as
is evidenced by the recent seizures and convictions of local
meth traffickers that you have heard before my testimony.
However, in a recent investigation in Indiana, 25 individuals
were arrested and were alleged to have distributed more than
100 pounds of meth a month. This prompted U.S. Attorney Susan
Brooks to state, ``I think this shows we have an incredible
demand here in Indiana.'' In another investigation, it was
established that another organization had distributed
approximately 1,600 pounds of meth over the course of just 2
years. Realizing that clandestine laboratory operators or cooks
generally arise from the user population, as user populations
increase a proportionate increase in drug lab activity is also
to be expected.
In the spring of 2002, the Indiana State Police and the
Indiana Criminal Justice Institute co-hosted the first
statewide Summit on Methamphetamine. Bringing together law
enforcement agencies, health care workers, judges, prosecutors,
probation officers and representatives from children and family
services, discussions were held to assess the impact meth was
having on these vital services. The findings were clear. Meth
threatens to disrupt and destabilize all of the governmental
respondents' ability to provide their conventionally mandated
services by inundating these agencies with methamphetamine
related issues.
Law enforcement agencies throughout Indiana have responded
by increasing and directing enforcement activities focused on
methamphetamine. In 2003, more than 950 individuals were
arrested on charges related to illegal drug lab operations.
Nearly 200 children have been removed from parents who create
these chemically toxic home environments. For example, in 2002,
110 children were removed from 57 families in Knox County, IN
and 48 children were removed from families in Vigo County due
to methamphetamine offenses. Foster case expenses in Vigo
County, IN have amounted to $250,000 to $300,000 in 2002.
House bill No. 1136 has been introduced in the Indiana
General Assembly. The purpose of this bill, if enacted, will be
to establish a Methamphetamine Abuse Task Force. The goal of
the task force will be to develop and update a coordinated
strategic plan to combat methamphetamine and to protect the
citizens of Indiana.
We are certain by bringing together these combined forces
of Federal, State and local law enforcement, our strategic aim
shall be to reduce the availability of methamphetamine at its
two sources. Illegal foreign importation and domestic
clandestine laboratory operations. Our goal is to rid the State
of this threat.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this opportunity.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Carraway follows:]
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Mr. Souder. I would like to point out for the record that
Superintendent Carraway is one of the greatest singers that I
have heard and the whole country would have been much better
off if he had been the Super Bowl half time show. [Laughter.]
Mr. Carraway. Thank you very much.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Hill. I want to particularly thank Mr. Hill
for his leadership, which is a lot of the reason we are here
today. When he first decided to run for prosecuting attorney
and we got to know each other and I saw his intense interest,
actually from way back when he was interested in being U.S.
attorney, and we talked in my office long before I ever knew I
was going to represent Elkhart County. I was very impressed
with his aggressive commitment and had he been the final choice
for U.S. attorney, he was committed, as I am sure the current
U.S. attorney is as well, but he was very focused on this
issue. And when he ran for prosecutor and then got elected
prosecutor, I said we are going to do this together, and we are
finally getting it done.
So I thank you for really hosting us here in Elkhart today,
along with Congressman Chocola, and look forward to your
testimony.
Mr. Hill. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Representative Chocola,
my name is Curtis T. Hill, Jr. and I am prosecuting attorney
for the 34th Judicial Circuit, Elkhart County, IN. As a
resident of Elkhart County, which is a part of the second and
third congressional districts, I am also honored to be so ably
represented in Congress by Chairman Souder and Representative
Chocola. Furthermore, I would like to thank Chairman Souder for
convening this field hearing, appropriately entitled ``Fighting
Methamphetamine in the Heartland'' here in Elkhart County,
which is a community truly indicative of America's heartland.
By way of brief background, Elkhart County is comprised of
approximately 183,000 people disbursed among medium sized urban
centers of Elkhart, Goshen and Nappanee as well as the towns of
Bristol, Middlebury, Millersburg, New Paris and Wakarusa. While
maintaining a significant agricultural base, Elkhart County is
also nationally recognized for manufactured housing,
recreational vehicles and other manufacturing industries. This
has resulted in a generally low unemployment rate here in
Elkhart County. If you cannot get a job in Elkhart County, you
do not want one bad enough.
I would like to also point out that the geographical
location of Elkhart County adds to the characteristics that
make this area red-hot for distributors of methamphetamine. A
relatively close proximity to the major metropolitan centers of
Detroit and Chicago, along with our access along the Indiana
Toll Road, literally makes Elkhart the cross roads of the
midwest. As a result, this particular area of the country,
where this committee is sitting today, is a prime location to
do business, both legitimate and otherwise. Many of the
characteristics that attract legitimate business and industry
to this area are the same characteristics that attract the more
notorious and corrupting influences that engage in organized
criminal activities, including the distribution of
methamphetamine. As a representative of the Indiana criminal
justice system, I appreciate the opportunity to address this
committee on the difficulties facing our local communities and
on working together proactively and finding real solutions to
these difficulties.
Within the past few years, the criminal justice system has
witnessed a dramatic increase in the use and distribution of
methamphetamine. It has seemingly come out of nowhere to become
the dominant illegal drug of choice in this area. Our courts
are not only deluged with delivery and possession of
methamphetamine crimes, but a growing percentage of other
crimes indirectly related to methamphetamine activity continue
to increase as well. The corrosive effects of domestic
violence, child abuse, robberies, burglaries and identity
thefts are indirect consequences of methamphetamine activity
and are devastating our communities. Philosophically, I
recognize that education and treatment programs that work are
vital to decreasing the phenomenal demand that fuels the
methamphetamine monster. However, interdiction combined with
swift and effective law enforcement is the best hope for
destroying the organized networks that pump these poisons
through our communities.
I became Prosecuting Attorney in January 2003. I believe
that it is incumbent upon every productive citizen to take a
part in saving our communities from this spiraling decline
brought on by illegal drug use. If left unchecked, the
deterioration here and in the remainder of the midwest region
will continue to escalate until we see a time in the not so
distant future where it will seem normal for young children to
smoke marijuana cigarettes. If unchecked, it will become
ordinary to live next door to a crack house. If the
deterioration goes unchecked, users, manufacturers and
distributors of methamphetamine will no longer hide in the
shadows of our community like so many cockroaches under a rock,
but they will be out openly, spreading their pain because the
rest of us let it happen.
So you want to talk about fighting methamphetamine in the
heartland. Let us talk about it.
To fight methamphetamine in the heartland, we should begin
with the word fight and what fight means. It is a word that is
used by many people for many things, but for me, it means fight
to win. No one ever won a fight by digging in or holding his
ground. If the fight ends in a draw or your opponent withdraws,
the only thing that is assured is that your opponent has a
better understanding of how you fight and an opportunity to
come back and fight another day. To win a fight, we need to
take the fight to our opponent and remove our opponent's
capacity and will to fight on. That is called winning. I have
no doubt that if we begin with the premise of winning the fight
rather than merely fighting the fight, we will then come to
terms with the resources that will be required to achieve our
objectives.
While clandestine laboratories are the more typical source
of methamphetamine in the rural communities of the midwest as
well as many of my neighboring counties, the largest source of
methamphetamine in Elkhart County is, oddly enough, the
importation from Mexico and the superlabs out west through
expansive organized criminal networks taking advantage of our
strategic location as the midwestern gateway to the east and
their ability to blend into certain aspects of our community to
establish major distribution lines. Chief Investigator Wargo
covers this area in greater detail through his testimony.
While we would appreciate assistance from the Federal
Government, we have started our local fight against
methamphetamine. Before taking office, we began to develop our
anti-drug strategy utilizing the resources available to us
locally. The central piece of our local strategy is
information. Information is the single most important and
powerful weapon in proactive crime fighting. Centralizing
information as well as distributing information along a line of
communication through law enforcement allows us to combine our
efforts, reduce duplicity and confliction, and ultimately be
more effective. If I can point to a single advantage that
organized crime has over law enforcement, it is that they
recognize no jurisdictional boundaries and they work together.
By borrowing a page from the criminal's handbook, local law
enforcement as well as State and Federal law enforcement cannot
be limited by jurisdictional boundaries and must work together
when it comes to organizing a plan for fighting
methamphetamine.
Local communities such as Elkhart County have sub-
communities which have their own separate and distinctive
characteristics. Therefore, the tactical planning must be
flexible enough to adapt to local circumstances. For example,
the city of Elkhart and the city of Goshen, though separated by
only 11 miles, do not share precise issues regarding
methamphetamine, crack cocaine and marijuana. Therefore, we
sought input of all our local law enforcement partners in
designing an organization that would serve as the central
repository for criminal intelligence and dissemination among
law enforcement, coordinate and strategize the overall anti-
drug effort, and supervise and conduct long term investigations
concerning organized criminal activity including manufacture,
distribution and use of methamphetamine.
The result of this collaborative effort was the creation of
the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Unit which is housed in
the Prosecuting Attorney's Office and supervised by my chief
investigator. The personnel of this unit are on assignment to
my office from various law enforcement agencies within our
county. The most exciting aspect of our organized effort is the
establishment of satellite anti-drug teams working within the
city of Goshen's Police Department and the city of Elkhart's
Police Department, retaining their respective independence in
dealing with shorter term street level interdiction while
remaining an active regular partner in the overall effort.
We have a philosophy that not all drug activities require
the same approach. In many instances, a long term investigation
involving confidential sources and undercover drug buys is the
correct approach. However, many other situations require a
swifter, more decisive action that may or may not result in
arrests but is designed to restore neighborhoods and remove
criminals. The development of this prototype allows us to
target minor to mid-level problems and make them go away. By
responding to neighborhood complaints quickly, members of the
community are getting a stronger sense that their complaints
are not being ignored and, therefore, more complaints and
reports of suspicious drug activity are being reported to my
office and disseminated to the appropriate response team and
addressed within appropriate time limits.
On a weekly basis, 20 to 25 police officers and prosecutors
meet at my office to exchange intelligence information. We
refer to this process as our Criminal Intelligence Sharing
System. Each law enforcement agency in the county has
representatives from their department participating, as well as
representatives from the Indiana State Police and the DEA.
Through this communication process, we have set specific
targets and, working together, we have been very successful in
bringing many of those targets to justice thus far, with great
confidence for others to come.
I firmly believe that the Federal Government needs to step
up to the plate and join us in recognizing that there are other
areas in northern Indiana outside of Lake County that are in
need of assistance in fighting back organized criminal activity
and drugs. While we wait for the Federal Government to
strengthen border controls and immigration policies addressing
undocumented aliens, we here in Elkhart County need Hispanic
law enforcement officers and/or Hispanic undercover operatives
to assist us in gaining access to information that is hidden,
largely out of fear of deportation. Although my office has
developed a very sound relationship with the South Bend office
of the U.S. Attorney's Office, we need to develop initiatives
that go beyond being merely supportive of each other's efforts,
and being partners in a truly collaborative process that allows
the resources of the Federal Government to be fully operational
by the leaders of local law enforcement.
When it comes down to it, we need money, people and
information. Money to supplement and expand investigations into
areas that we know of but are limited due to financial
constraints. People in the sense of broadening our scope,
limited by the resources available to us locally and the lack
of Hispanic confidential sources. Information as it pertains to
developing stronger and greater regional intelligence and
strategies, given our recognition that a delivery of
methamphetamine on a street corner in Elkhart County tonight
has implications far beyond the confines of that particular
location.
I would like to thank this committee again for providing me
an opportunity to address you on these issues and for taking
seriously your responsibility in providing assistance to local
communities in winning the fight on methamphetamine.
Thank you.
Mr. Souder. Thank you very much. We will next go to Mr.
Bill Wargo, the chief investigator for the Elkhart County
Prosecuting Attorney's Office.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hill follows:]
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Mr. Wargo. Thank you, sir. Chairman Souder and Congressman
Chocola and guests, I appreciate the opportunity to appear
before you today. My name is Bill Wargo, I am the chief
investigator with the Elkhart County Prosecutor's Office and I
have been a police officer for 27 years. I currently supervise
and coordinate all the illegal drug investigations throughout
Elkhart County.
There are several monumental concerns confronting law
enforcement in this county in its efforts to investigate and
prosecute the manufacture, distribution and use of
methamphetamine. Not the least of these, however, is that while
methamphetamine distribution and use has become our No. 1
single drug enforcement problem, we still must face and
maintain a focus on the interdiction of the distribution and
use of other illegal substances such as crack cocaine, powder
cocaine, marijuana and the diversion of prescription
medications.
African-American street gangs, such as the Gangster
Disciples and the Vice Lords have long cherished Elkhart County
as fertile territory for their illegal enterprises. The primary
base of operations for these organized criminal organizations
is Chicago. And these two entities are primarily responsible
for the wholesale distribution of crack cocaine in Elkhart
County.
The spotlight on lower level and street level interdiction
initiatives requires a significant commitment of personnel, yet
rarely results in a large seizure of product. These types of
investigations have a positive, but cosmetic effect. Because
these types of dealing operations are highly visible, they
generally produce a large number of citizen complaints and
these complaints require a law enforcement response.
Our dilemma is balancing the response to highly visible,
yet low yield, investigations with upper level, high volume
investigations. The commitment of police manpower and manhours
gives the appearance to the community that the police are being
effective in their efforts. While the police effectiveness is
naively measured by body count statistics, the actual impact on
the total problem is minimal.
This is not to say that these street level enforcement
efforts should not be undertaken. In fact, they are an
effective law enforcement tool to develop intelligence and
informants to assist in the investigation of mid-level, upper-
level and wholesale traffickers. The quick hit interdiction
efforts are the foundation of addressing all these other
issues.
Mid to upper-level drug trafficking investigations require
an ongoing commitment of personnel and a mechanism to prevent
confliction of investigations that are being conducted by other
agencies; Federal, State and local.
The explosion of methamphetamine use and its associate
manufacture and distribution has been partially exacerbated by
the stepped up efforts of Federal law enforcement agencies to
interdict the importation and distribution of cocaine from
South America.
Meth distribution has several distinct advantages over
cocaine. The primary advantage is that the substance can be
manufactured from chemicals and items that can be purchased at
numerous retail locations. The process clearly is not rocket
science and while it is extremely hazardous to the manufacturer
and anyone who may be in close proximity, individuals of
relatively low mental capacity are able to combine the
materials together and make a reasonably high quality
substance. The fact that we have as few conflagrations and
explosions as we do is probably a testament to luck over skill.
The local production of meth, using primarily the Nazi
methods, is prevalent in this area for several reasons. One of
the primary reasons is the ready availability of the primary
ingredients such as anhydrous ammonia. The primary cookers are
biker types that have received their training in manufacturing
from other equally unsophisticated individuals.
The Indiana State Police and their clandestine meth lab
teams are the sole agency qualified to dismantle these
operations on a local level. This places an appalling onus on
that agency.
While this local production problem is of major consequence
in this county and we are constantly vigilant to investigating
clandestine labs, we have not established that as our primary
focal point.
Our focal point has been determined for us by the huge
influx of Hispanics into Elkhart County. Over the past several
years an environment has evolved that has made this county a
significant distribution point for Mexican nationals dealing in
methamphetamine.
Elkhart County, by anyone's definition, is heartland
America. Elkhart is nationally known for its manufactured
housing, recreational vehicle industry as well as other
manufacturing activities and this situation means that there
are numerous jobs available. In addition, this county has
historically been a leader in the State of Indiana in poultry
and agricultural employment. These factors have made Elkhart
County an encouraging destination for immigrants looking for
steady employment. It could easily be estimated that 90 to 95
percent of the Hispanics that have located in this area have
done so in search of the American dream. They have come here
for employment, to raise a family and to make a life that will
be better for their children than what they themselves have
experienced.
The unfortunate aspect of this is that this has also
provided an opportunity for Hispanics that have a separate,
illegal agenda, to also infiltrate this community. Historically
in this country, new immigrants have held onto their own
culture, language and life style through at least the first
generation. These newly arrived Hispanics are doing the same
thing. This creates a situation wherein law enforcement has the
added hurdle of trying to infiltrate illegal activities of the
minority of the Hispanic population. Law enforcement officers
that do not have a background in Hispanic culture are hard
pressed to conduct covert investigations into the sub-culture
that is drug trafficking.
The purpose of these hearings on this matter are to try to
determine what the Federal Government's role in addressing
these heartland issues can and should be.
Our office currently has a good working relationship with
the U.S. Attorney's Office in South Bend. We have also
developed strong ties with DEA's Merrillville office through
the designation of one of our officers as a Task Force Agent.
The coordination of our investigative efforts has been a
positive in our ability to understand the scope of the problem.
And we have agreed to investigative strategies that support and
supplement each entity's effort.
The deficiencies that we have is that we do not have
sufficient Hispanic undercover operatives. Sworn personnel and
reliable confidential sources that are Hispanic and fluent in
the language are a prerequisite to infiltrating the Hispanic
drug cartels and distribution networks.
The other deficiency is funding for long term
investigations. The quantities that are commonly being sold in
and around Elkhart County are large. Where several years ago,
we felt that a multiple ounce buy of cocaine was a major
accomplishment, we now find ourselves with the ability, but not
the resources, to make multiple pound purchases of
methamphetamine.
There are several initiatives that can be promulgated. Some
of the initial steps have already been accomplished.
Initiatives that have been successful in other
jurisdictions but not put in place and dedicated to Elkhart and
St. Joseph Counties are such as: A posted duty station for this
area; designation of an OCIDETF Task Force to focus on this
Elkhart/St. Joseph County problem; establishment of a HIDTA
group for Elkhart and St. Joe Counties; and maybe most
importantly, the assignment of a criminal analyst to focus on
the methamphetamine distribution problem in Elkhart and St. Joe
Counties.
A prime example of the ready availability of the Mexican
methamphetamine in Elkhart County is the price points that have
been established in just over the past 9 months. Since last
summer, when a pound of methamphetamine was going for $7,500,
through the fall, Thanksgiving, Christmas and now into January
where we are now under $4,000 a pound tells anyone that the
supply and demand is there. The laws of supply and demand apply
to illegal as well as legal commerce.
The comparison of cocaine and methamphetamine seized or
purchased by law enforcement agencies in this county over the
past 5 years is reflected in the attached graphs, which I have
submitted with my written testimony. It demonstrates very, very
graphically that the meth problem is growing at an alarming
rate.
If we are unable to find ways to attack this problem with
appropriate funding levels and additional law enforcement
personnel and equipment, there is little hope that we are going
to be able to stem the tide of the meth explosion relying on
our resources alone.
Thank you, sir.
Mr. Souder. Thank you very much.
Detective Anderson.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Wargo follows:]
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Mr. Anderson. Good morning, distinguished Chairman Souder
and Congressman Chocola, my name is Detective Daniel Anderson
from the Starke County Sheriff's Department located in Knox,
IN. I would like to request that you use my written statement
because I will go off of that a little bit.
Our county is very small, population, 25,000 people. Our
drug task force is very small. We have one full time officer
and two part time officers assigned to narcotics
investigations.
The last 5 years or so the meth lab count has just kept
going up and up and up. Two years ago, we did approximately 80
controlled buys in Starke County for different various
narcotics. Last year, we did approximately six. The majority of
our efforts have concentrated on the methamphetamine problem.
The money that we use to purchase illegal drugs has now been
spent to buy equipment for the officers for safety to enter
these meth labs and investigate the meth labs.
In my prepared statement, I talked about our first
methamphetamine lab was a rather large lab and I gave a quoted
price of street value of $2,300 per ounce. In our area, we do
not have an influx of Mexican methamphetamine, the majority of
ours is all homemade, small clandestine labs and they average
about half ounce to an ounce per manufacturing process.
I listened to the DEA and they were talking about large
scale pseudoephedrine. The majority of our groups are traveling
in a vehicle to dollar stores, WalMart, whatever. They will
take six or seven individuals, go into the store, buy three
boxes of cold medicine and stay under the suspicion level and
exit the store and go to the next store. It is a round shopping
trip, how they do it. The average batch, like I said, is around
an ounce per batch. Seven individuals doing that or five
individuals in the course of a day can get enough products to
produce an ounce of methamphetamine.
We have two Farm Bureau co-ops in our county which are the
supply for anhydrous ammonia. We have worked investigations on
theft cases there and tried to limit that and then they started
hitting the local farmers that have the product. So we have
tried to concentrate our efforts on just the precursors and the
chemicals needed, to not much success. We have met with
retailers, tried to talk to them about their issues and it
seems like lately the only conversation we have with retailers
is when their shoplifter or theft loss rate gets up to the
point where they are alarmed.
As far as the county goes in the last year with meth labs,
we handled 23 illegal drug lab cases, 11 of those were where
the Indiana State Police clandestine lab team came in and
assisted. One of those labs, we netted nine individuals and
three separate batches of methamphetamine were cooking at that
time. All nine of those individuals went into court, asked for
speedy trials, requested pauper attorneys and it bogged down
the system.
Then as we went on through the year, we kept finding more
labs, more individuals and the court and the prosecutor staff
just became bogged down. There was no way that they could get
small claims court issues, civil issues through the court for a
period of time. The docket right now stands with 12 or 15
settings and the majority of them are all criminal cases, per
day. The probation department has been overwhelmed as well as
the jail. Our jail was originally designed for 45 inmates. At
periods last year, we were running in the 80's. At the time I
typed this up, our population, inmate population, 50 percent of
what we had in the jail were methamphetamine related inmates.
Initially when they come in, they need to go through a
period of time where they come down off the drug. We have to
put them in separate areas to protect themselves and protect
other inmates from them due to the violent, abusive nature, and
that takes valuable space in the jail that we could use for
work release and other individuals. So we talked about that a
little bit.
And as far as our coroner in the county, we went through
and looked over the last couple of years and our problem is
kind of unique in the fact that we have a large Oxycontin,
Oxycodone problem with the methamphetamine problem. So we
looked at the amount of deaths in a 2-year period related to
those two drugs, and it was in the area of 16 deaths. For a
population of 25,000, that was quite a bit.
I am not going to burn up as much time, but what I would
like the Committee to do is look at what they can do for the
small counties, the small town areas of the State. We do not
have the Mexican meth problem, we have just the local problem.
We need to look at trying to help from the beginning of child
endangerment all the way to the jail, to the court, to the
prosecution, to the probation office and then to the Department
of Corrections.
I have seen individuals go to jail for 365 days, get
released from jail and be re-arrested for methamphetamine 2
weeks later. There has to be some treatment or something we can
do besides just housing them.
We had one case where in December a girl that we arrested
with an illegal drug case, methamphetamine, was out of jail for
a week and then she was found with an overdose in another
county. So we have to do something.
I pointed out what the future is with the methamphetamine
problem. Every county in the State is affected by the illegal
methamphetamine problem. We will soon run out of funds from
this epidemic in one form or the other, whether it is the jail,
the prosecutor, the court, child welfare, child services. Every
State in the country that is affected by the illegal
methamphetamine problem will run out of funds to fight this
epidemic. In Indiana now, every year we are doubling our stats
almost on illegal drug labs taken down, and at some point,
Indiana is going to run out of money.
And my third issue on that is every citizen in the United
States will bear the cost of this epidemic or become a victim
to a methamphetamine related incident. And by that I mean we
all pay the cost of these cleanups, drug cases, inmates and
treatment of the inmates.
What can be done to solve the problem? Our key issue in our
area is pseudoephedrine and ephedrine. We talked about it being
imported into the United States through Canada and Mexico.
Somewhere, if you take away that product, you cannot, as the
other officer said, you cannot bake the cake. And I do not know
what the recommendation for that is other than to go to by
prescription only or to just take the product off the market.
But something has to be done.
The second issue is you have to increase funding to State
and local governments that have had the problems with the
manufacture of methamphetamine and the influence of Mexican
methamphetamine coming in and help clean up the existing
problems and hinder a further one.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Anderson follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Thank you very much. And maybe before we go to
Corporal Ciriello, you mentioned that Starke County is about
25,000 people, so if somebody looks at this record, to put this
in context, we have a pretty wide range today. Elkhart County
is 170,000-180,000 people, Kosciusko is 70,000-75,000 people.
We will have witnesses on the next panel from Noble, Cass and
DeKalb Counties which are more in the 35,000-50,000 ranges and
then from Allen County, which is 320,000. So we have Fort Wayne
in Allen County, is a mid-sized city; Elkhart kind of at the
lower end of mid-sized cities to smaller and rural counties. So
we will have a good mix of the meth problem throughout northern
Indiana and really tracking the country.
Corporal Ciriello, thank you for coming up from Warsaw.
Mr. Ciriello. Chairman Souder, Congressman Chocola, thank
you for having me here today. My name is Tony Ciriello, I am a
Corporal with the Kosciusko County Sheriff's Office assigned to
the Drug Task Force.
We are a small task force made up of five officers, three
from the Sheriff's Department and two from the Warsaw City
Police Department. We do operate off of a Federal grant, that
is the majority of our budget and funding for our unit.
As was mentioned, our area is approximately 76,000 full
time residents, but due to the fact we have 101 lakes in our
area, our population doubles in the summer time, and with the
population doubling, we also see an increase in our drugs
doubling in the summer.
We have three bulk facilities within our county that handle
anhydrous ammonia and supply it to the farmers and also we have
13 cities or towns within our county that our drug task force
provides drug enforcement for.
Our task force started back in 1988, went full time in 1989
and in moving into the 1990's, we saw a lot of cocaine moving
in and a lot of marijuana that we have dealt with. We heard
about meth coming in but we did not see it. In fact, we did not
see methamphetamine that we knew of in our county until the
last 5 years. And within the last 5 years, we have seen it
skyrocket. Dramatic increases in the amount of meth being sold,
imported and made in our county.
We started finding our first meth lab in 2001, a
clandestine lab in the basement of a home. In that year, we
ended up finding five active drug labs within our community. We
were pretty devastated by that: it is something we never had to
deal with. And in 2002--I am sorry, in 2001, we dealt with 10
labs and in 2002, we dealt with 5. And those were active labs
where we had to call in the State Police Clandestine Lab Team
for cleanup. We found just as many that were not in the process
of cooking, but had all the precursors and reaction vessels and
everything ready to cook, but they were not in the process at
the time we did those. In 2003, we increased to 11 labs and
more than 30 where we just found the precursors. So there is a
continuing increase. Right now, we are finding mobile labs, we
are finding labs in wooded areas that are very hard for us to
detect. When they are doing it in a neighborhood, the neighbors
smell the fumes, as was discussed earlier, and call and report
it. But when they are going out in the middle of the woods to
do their chemical part of it, we are missing a lot of it.
Farmers are finding it or hunters are finding it and calling us
and reporting those.
All of our labs that we have dealt with use anhydrous
ammonia, we have yet to see a red phosphorus lab in our area.
However, I have recently received information that there are
people buying large amounts of iodine that live in our area.
Iodine is a component in a red phosphorus lab. So we may begin
to see those in northern Indiana a lot more.
Besides the problem with our locals manufacturing meth, we
also have a large Hispanic population in Kosciusko County and
that has led to a lot of importing of high grade
methamphetamine. The majority of methamphetamine we get in
Kosciusko County is imported from Mexico. We work closely with
the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement out of Texas.
They have sent agents up to work with us and we were very
successful last year in arresting several illegal aliens and
seizing large amounts of marijuana and meth as well as cocaine.
It is not the majority of our Hispanic population but a
large part of them are illegal aliens. They travel around, stay
with different people. We make cases on them for
methamphetamine dealing, they move away. We issue warrants for
them, they come back 3 weeks later as somebody else. It is very
hard to keep track of them.
We have determined that most of the people we have been
dealing with, at least in one family, have ties in Mexico, they
come to Chicago, IL; Warsaw, IN; Pasco, WA and recently we
discovered Gwinnett County, GA as being a part of that.
With the large importation of Mexican meth in 2002, we
thought we were doing really good. We had about 4 ounces of
meth, of which we made undercover buys and received. In 2003,
we did 2 kilos. That is a lot for a small unit. But again, the
majority of that is imported Mexican meth.
We have a lot of resources made available to our unit but
funding is something that we lack. As I said, we operate on a
Federal grant that provides us some money, but we only get
$1,500 a year for training out of that budget for five
officers. To be able to send them to quality meth lab training
is impossible. Currently our grant runs out at the end of March
and a new grant takes over April 1. I am down to $212 worth of
buy money to buy drugs for the remainder of that time. So, you
know, with the increase in the meth and the increase in meth
cases, it has been tapping us financially.
In 2002 our unit made 100 cases. We thought we were doing
really well. In 2003, we made 190 cases, 46 of those being
meth. That averaged out to 3.8 cases per month involving meth.
Up through last night, we have now made 11 cases of meth so
far. We are way above our average, we just made an arrest last
night. So our meth cases are increasing, we are seeing more of
that than any other drug.
We do see a large importation of Mexican marijuana too,
which we have taken almost 300 pounds of marijuana off the
street last year and the majority of that came from Mexico.
But meth continues to be our biggest problem and it is a
problem that like anybody else in this room, we are doing our
best to battle it, but we are all struggling in the funding end
of it and the resources throughout the United States. And I
think these hearings are pulling us altogether and giving us a
chance to meet other people, work with other people and maybe
solidify our war on methamphetamine and maybe try to slow it
down.
We have had good luck with our cases. We are an aggressive
unit and we look forward to working with other agencies, and I
wish to thank you for the honor to testify in front of this
committee.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Ciriello follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Thank you. I know you were trying to be
respectful of the time, but my first question to you is going
to relate to something you have in your written testimony, the
town of Burket. Would you go through that part of the story,
because I have a particular question I want to ask about that.
Mr. Ciriello. Certainly. I talked about the three bulk
facilities we have. One of them is located within the town
limits of Burket, surrounded by houses, a school, churches and
a few businesses. On November 21, we had surveillance cameras
set up to try to catch the people who were stealing anhydrous,
but on November 21, in the middle of the night, we thought we
might have some problems, so we were out and about and we
decided we would check on this facility. And when we did, we
found two men in there trying to steal anhydrous. They were
taken into custody without a problem.
However, the problem we found out, once we got company
officials there to work with us and see what all they had got
into, we discovered that they were unscrewing a plug on a inch
and a half main fill line on a 45,000 gallon bulk tank that was
85 percent filled. The company representatives told us they
were three threads away from getting that plug out of that
tank. And that is what they told us and I sincerely believe
them, knowing what anhydrous can do. If they that plug out, it
would have killed the majority of the people in Burket, IN.
Burket, IN is a small area, about 250 people, but it is 250 of
our citizens that were endangered by these two men.
Being in the middle of the night and as rapidly as the
anhydrous would have come out of that tank on an inch and a
half line, evacuation would have been impossible. There would
have been no saving any of them.
Mr. Souder. You mentioned then about a potential
regulation. Could you explain what kind of regulations you
would think, ideally would be done at the State level, but even
at the Federal level, where there are large units? Our goal is
not to restrict farmers or wholesalers, but there needs to be
some way that you do not all of a sudden in the middle of the
night wind up dead because some idiot decides he wants to do a
meth cook.
Mr. Ciriello. And when you were at our office a month or so
ago, I discussed this with you. You take a propane facility
that has bulk propane tanks, they have to be fenced and secured
from the public, to try to prevent thefts and because of the
explosion hazard and a lot of safety issues. Well, anhydrous is
just as dangerous, maybe not as much with explosion hazard but
with a health hazard. And I think, on these large bulk
facilities, requiring them--the same regulation, of being
fenced in. It would provide more security to them. People who
really want in are going to get in, whether there is a fence or
not, but it is going to stop a lot of people from getting into
the bulk facilities.
The downside to that is they will target more the farmer
and their tanks sitting out in the field. But generally a
farmer's tank sitting out in the field is in a remote open
field, and not in a heavily populated area like we find a lot
of our bulk facilities.
It is regulations like that that could help slow down the
theft and the real danger involved with the bulk facilities
like we could have had in Burket.
Mr. Souder. Well, thank you very much.
First, I appreciate all of your grassroots level work in
each of your communities. It is very important, there is never
enough tribute. Eventually I want to ask some questions of each
one and so will Congressman Chocola. But maybe for the record,
just like we have heard about how the town of Burket could have
been taken off the face of the map, could you describe, I know
both in Elkhart and Kosciusko, I have heard and I am sure it is
true for the State Police and also in Starke County, could you
describe the struggle that the individual officer has when he
goes into a place where there is a lab and how we are putting
each of you at risk? Let me ask a question of Detective
Anderson, you said you used your money on vests?
Mr. Anderson. No, we bought personal safety things such as
masks.
Mr. Souder. Have you ever worked with the Federal
Government where they make different things available? Is there
anything available to get protection in that program for
officers?
Is Scott here? There. In the CTAC funds, do you know if
there is money for safety equipment for officers when they go
into a meth lab?
Mr. Burns. That has come primarily from First Responder
money. You are talking about the hazmat suits and the DEA
training? Is that not right, Nick?
Mr. Souder. Can you come forward. This is Scott Burns who
testified from the first panel. I will have to swear him in
again.
Mr. Burns. Let me answer it this way, Congressman, I have a
meeting at 1 p.m., with several of the State and local folks
and I will commit to you and Congressman Chocola that we will
find out whether it is from Homeland Defense First Responder
money or from CTAC, how we can assist.
Mr. Souder. Because it seems like if there is this huge
demand at the local level, that ought to be one of the things
we are offering to local law enforcement.
Mr. Carraway. Homeland Security is making available the
purchase for those first responder equipment. Some of those
dollars, to my recollection, have not all been distributed, but
my understanding is that the purchase for these hazardous
material suits will be available out of those Homeland Security
dollars.
Mr. Souder. Is that an Indiana Homeland Security?
Mr. Carraway. Yes, that is for every State that does its
homeland security initiative strategic plan, those are those
Federal dollars that come down for the use of that equipment.
Mr. Souder. Thank you. I know we have legislation moving
forward through our Homeland Security Committee right now----
Mr. Carraway. These are the old 2002-2003 dollars.
Mr. Souder [continuing]. To address some of that, because
we would like to see a similar thing, which they are trying to
set up inside Homeland Security, like we have in CTAC in
narcotics, where they offer different equipment. There is an
analysis of what an individual community needs, what the risk
level is, whether they can maintain the equipment.
But here is an unusual thing, because one of the problems
we have in Homeland Security is that, for example, Coast Guard,
Border Patrol, Customs are now under the Department of Homeland
Security, and they clearly have the large part of the narcotics
mission. In addition, FEMA and emergency response kind of
relates to this and it is over in Homeland Security, but here
we are using drug money, buy money, to get protection for the
individual officers who are going in. Something is messed up in
that process.
I got myself digressed from the first question. We have
made the case that we need to do something about the vests.
Could you describe, Corporal Ciriello, maybe you can because
you are out there in the task force, what is it like walking
up--what are you fearful for, what are you watching, have you
seen individuals, you or your friends who have been caught up
in this, and maybe you can describe some of the things in the
other places too.
Mr. Ciriello. Well, given the chemicals that they use to
manufacture meth, being anhydrous, ether, paint thinners, drain
cleaners; you know, they are all hazardous chemicals when they
are breathed in by anybody. Most of these guys that make the
meth, you will find them having their masks or at least dust
filters or things that they are wearing to try to protect
themselves.
When we walk in on a lab, especially unsuspecting, we do
not know what we are going to get into. And two of the biggest
things are the health hazards associated with the fumes in it
and the explosion hazard if a spark is set off. Because most of
these that we find in the buildings are done in garages or
basements where, you know, they are fairly air tight or as air
tight as they can be to keep people from smelling it. And those
are two of the biggest things we have.
One of our officers, about 2 years ago, we went to check on
a tip of somebody possibly dealing in meth. It was a knock and
talk at the door. Well, come to find out they had a lab up
there, so we were doing some searching and there was a large
Coleman cooler, opened it up and it was filled with liquid
anhydrous. Our officer got the fumes of it, just a big faceful
of it. He spent 7 hours in the hospital taking breathing
treatments and then went to outpatient breathing treatments for
a few days afterward and was on medication, just for that one
large faceful.
That is something that we are facing a lot in these labs
and at these anhydrous facilities when we are out sitting on
them at night trying to catch the people that are stealing it.
And a lot of times when these guys come in, they don't know how
to handle it, so they will come in and get their little dip and
run off and leave the valve open and we end up with the fire
department down there to try to wash things down and some
evacuation. But those chemicals are very toxic to the human
body, and not only the officers going in, that is one of our
big concerns, but as testimony has told a while ago, the
children in there.
We had one guy we got three times last year, three
different labs and his twin children were in the house every
time. And we removed them with the help of child protective
services all three times. The family has now since moved away
from our county to a county in the northern part--a little
farther north of us to get away from us because they feel that
we are targeting them and picking on them. But three active
methamphetamine labs in 6 months.
Mr. Souder. I am trying to figure out what county.
Mr. Ciriello. It would be north and just a little west, not
quite your county, just a little west of you.
Mr. Souder. Anybody else want to share anything on that?
Mr. Carraway. It is very important to understand,
Congressman, that we stress time and time again to law
enforcement agencies, to the public, to those that have a
suspicion that someone is cooking methamphetamine or that
anhydrous ammonia is being utilized, to make a call to the
Clandestine Lab Team. It is obviously against the law to go
into these places without the appropriate protection, but also
because of the zealousness of law enforcement in trying to do
the right things, these accidents end up happening. But we urge
again and again to make a phone call and get the appropriate
responding agency. Sometimes it just happens and we all
understand that, but realizing that they are very, very
dangerous situations, particularly if you suspect that is
happening, a phone call to the appropriate responding agency
may avert a tragedy.
Mr. Souder. So how, as a practical matter if knock and tap,
is that what you said?
Mr. Ciriello. Knock and talk.
Mr. Souder. Knock and talk. Sounds so friendly. [Laughter.]
Knock and talk, and they say they have a meth potential
cooking situation and you do not know----
Mr. Carraway. Back out of the situation, make a phone call
to those----
Mr. Souder. How long does it take the State Police to get
there?
Mr. Carraway. We have 100 officers that are part of the
Clandestine Laboratory Team. There is not a day that goes by
that the team is not called out to either remove an abandoned
site or an active site. So certainly the timeframe is
insignificant to the danger and the amount of harm that could
happen to them. I do not have any stats about how long it would
take, but these teams are strategically placed across this
area.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Wargo.
Mr. Wargo. Sir, our office, along with the State Police,
hosted a presentation here early in 2003 and invited everyone
in Elkhart County that works for the various cities and county
agencies; building inspectors, fire personnel, volunteer fire
personnel, State police personnel, put on a very extensive
program. What we had hoped to accomplish by that, and we
invited all of our law enforcement officers as well, is that as
soon as you suspect that you have a meth lab, back out, secure
the perimeter, contact Indiana State Police. So our officers
are very much aware that they have no skill in trying to deal
with what they may encounter in this situation. The problem is
making sure that they are aware of their surroundings if they
see 300 empty boxes of Sudafed and they start putting two and
two together coming up with four. But the main thing is to
secure the perimeter and contact the people who have the
expertise, the equipment and the ability to dismantle it.
Mr. Souder. Detective Anderson and then Corporal Ciriello.
I need to yield to Congressman Chocola, but I want to kind of
play this out.
All that sounds really good, but you are saying you are
using drug buy funds to buy protective equipment. They are
saying the State Police is supposed to come in and do that. Why
do you need protective equipment? You are saying your officers
were there in the middle of it, they did not necessarily know
what exactly they were getting into. What is your reaction to
that? Let me be really kind of inflammatory here for a second.
If you are from Allen County or St. Joe County or Elkhart
County, are they big enough, do you get response fast enough?
What is the deal here?
Mr. Anderson. We bought the equipment after we raided the
lab with nine individuals and three batches cooking at the same
time. We had one individual down in the house and we had no way
of assessing even what was going on. They were at the point of
using what is called an HCL generator and there was just a lot
of smoke in the house. As you got near the door, you could feel
the acid burning on your tongue. So that is when we decided
that we needed to protect ourselves, because eventually, even
after the clan lab gets there, we are still going to be in
there helping them process the evidence.
Mr. Souder. But do you agree that the best approach and
that that is functional to say OK, this looks like we see some
materials, back up?
Mr. Anderson. Yes, we call them every chance we can.
Mr. Ciriello. And we do the same thing. Every time we find
a lab, we do call them to come in for the cleanup process. Our
thing is, and we talked about the hazards to our officers, is
when we first pull up and discover the lab, and we have
individuals in there working the lab cooking, we have to make
the arrests on them and get them out and secure the area. Once
we get the individuals that are doing the manufacturing out of
there, we secure it, we stay back, we call them and let them
come in and do their thing.
Mr. Souder. We will followup on this a little bit more. Mr.
Chocola.
Mr. Chocola. Just to followup on that. If you have
information that there is a potential lab, do you call the
State Police to go with you or do you go by yourself, if you
had previous knowledge?
Mr. Ciriello. If we know that we have a lab that we are
going to be going to, we go ahead and contact the clan lab team
from the State, let them know where it is at, and they have
questions that they need answered, so they know who to call
out, how many to call out and so on. We answer them the best we
can. We have not in the past waited on them to get there.
Generally where we are at, the closest place to us is Fort
Wayne and it takes 2 or 3 hours. It is not their fault, I mean,
you know, the equipment has to come or they may be tied up on
other labs. We go ahead and serve a search warrant and get the
individuals involved and again secure the area from there. But
they are notified as soon as we are going to get a search
warrant on a meth lab, we call the lab team and let them know.
Mr. Chocola. Detective Anderson, you brought a kit with
you.
Mr. Anderson. Yes.
Mr. Chocola. Could you describe that just briefly?
Mr. Anderson. Basically that is a safety kit that the three
officers have. There is a respirator in there with different
cartridges for whatever gases they might encounter, whether it
be anhydrous or phosphene, and then some field test kits for,
you know, sampling the drugs to determine what you do have.
One of the things that I have been called out to several
times is leaking anhydrous cylinders, and one of them that was
another reason that I purchased the safety equipment, kids went
to get on a school bus at a house over by North Judson and
there was a big white cloud like a fog coming out of the woods
back behind them. Apparently their father had bought some old
anhydrous tanks to convert to propane for irrigation systems
and somebody had found them and started stealing the leftover
anhydrous and left the valve open. So I went out there with a
fire department person and we had to shut the tank down because
it was blowing right at the two houses there.
So sometimes, we do not have the luxury of waiting or
calling and waiting for the State Police, we have to go in and
secure suspects and secure the area to keep other innocent
people from becoming involved in the mishap.
Mr. Chocola. Are these people that are operating these
labs, are they typically violent and do you have to go in there
fearing for your personal safety? I am sure you do, but do you
typically encounter violent situations or not?
Mr. Wargo. In our experience, I would say yes, sir, and
also in addition to all of the hazards associated with the
chemicals, the precursors, I do not think we have done a search
warrant on a meth operation where there were not firearms also
recovered.
Mr. Anderson. We are finding a lot of firearms in our
arrests. Most of them usually run or fight or we find firearms.
Mr. Chocola. Do they use other drugs as well? Are they
typically involved in several different drugs or are they
pretty much strictly on methamphetamine?
Mr. Wargo. No, they are very much multi. They will be
smoking pot, snorting meth and cooking at the same time. If you
take someone who is really not very sophisticated, they have
picked up this recipe--I heard some folks talking about the
Internet, that is one source. These people exchange this
information amongst each other in jail and other places. A very
unsophisticated person putting together and cooking a bath of
meth, smoking dope and doing it all at the same time. Obviously
you put all those ingredients together and it is probably the
most dangerous thing I think that law enforcement has to deal
with.
Mr. Chocola. One of the most revealing things to me that we
have heard in testimony today, I had the impression that most
of the methamphetamine in our local area was the result of
local manufacture in these labs, but we heard from the previous
panel that 80 percent of it is coming from outside of our area
and Mr. Hill, you testified that is probably the experience
here in Elkhart County. Is that correct?
Mr. Hill. Yes.
Mr. Chocola. Starke County may have a different experience.
Mr. Anderson. I am not aware of any of it.
Mr. Chocola. The question I have is why does anybody engage
in local manufacture? Are they doing it because it is cheaper
for them or are they doing it because there is effective
enforcement of things coming in, so that they do not have the
supply coming from these superlabs so they resort to doing it
themselves? Why are they engaging in it?
Mr. Hill. Actually if you do have the stuff coming in from
out of the area, it is better quality, you can get it fairly
cheaply and you do not run the risk of blowing yourself up. So
it is a much better deal for someone. I think in the areas
where it is being cooked, it is probably an example of less
availability on the organized networks and then along that
line, I want to emphasize one point. We have talked a great
deal about this coming in from Mexico and Hispanic organized
criminal contacts. This is not a, methamphetamine is not a
Mexican problem or Hispanic problem in that sense. We have
large populations of Hispanics that are in the area, many
legal, some illegal, and many of those who are in the area that
are illegal are not here to engage in criminal activity. We are
really talking about a small minority that is taking advantage
of the availability of these Hispanic communities here to blend
in, to hide among them, and to become a distribution line. So I
think it is important to understand that this is not an issue
of Hispanics are here and so is the meth, and let us blame all
Hispanics. That is not the issue. It is a matter of taking
advantage of the fact that there are people who want to be in
this community and hiding among them.
Mr. Chocola. If we were to shut down every lab in Indiana,
we still have a huge problem. That is accurate, right?
Mr. Hill. Yes, sir.
Mr. Wargo. In addition, I think Mr. McClintock referred to
it and I referred to it early in my testimony, our crack
cocaine wholesale operations are primarily out of Chicago. We
have developed intelligence very recently that some of our
local African-American organizations have developed contacts
with some of the Hispanics here and are getting cocaine product
from them as well.
Mr. Chocola. Thank you.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Carraway, we recently--I mentioned the
budget and we were talking a little earlier that, is it
$700,000 that the Indiana State Police has?
Mr. Carraway. Yes, sir.
Mr. Souder. Could you describe, that we specifically in the
appropriations bill earmarked for meth in Indiana.
Mr. Carraway. Sure.
Mr. Souder. So could you describe a little bit what you are
likely to use that for and what your greatest need areas are,
as we look at next year's budget?
Mr. Carraway. As you can imagine, the largest portion of
any of the resources that are utilized to clean up
laboratories, to be there to collect evidence, to be part of
the investigative team, is the manpower hours that are
utilized. Individuals are called out at all times of night. As
I explained, there is only about 100 of these certified
officers in the State and there is not a day goes by that I do
not get a report of at least two to three of these labs in the
middle of the night that have been assembled. So overtime
manpower dollars is a large portion of that. Another portion is
for equipment, both personal protection equipment as well as
laboratory services equipment; breathing apparatuses are very
important, evidence kits for the technicians are very
expensive. Also the containers in which you collect and then
dispose of, trailers utilized to move this back and forth to
disposal areas are also very expensive. Laboratory analyzing
equipment has also been utilized and also manpower dollars to
hire technicians to actually analyze a lot of the submissions
that we receive. As you heard, our submissions are up
enormously.
Another part of the dollars have been spent is for
training. Training of officers, training of hotels and motels,
training of social services workers, training of co-op farmers
as well as co-op opportunities. So those are some of the areas
where those dollars actually have been spent. As you can
imagine, they do not last very long.
Mr. Souder. Particularly if you are paying people $180,000
a year.
Mr. Carraway. Now, now.
Mr. Souder. Our officers in the line of duty are not
overpaid, I think most of us agree with that, no matter what
their level is.
Mr. Carraway. Sure.
Mr. Souder. In listening to Mr. Ciriello's point and as we
try to work this through, do you see if labs are doubling every
year and their drug task force has five people. How many would
you say on a bust like that would be involved, two officers or
your whole team?
Mr. Ciriello. No, we use the whole team.
Mr. Souder. So the whole team is there and if somebody
cannot get there for 3 hours, the entire county's team is tied
up waiting. Do you see additional staffing posts around or how
do you see addressing that question? Otherwise, the police
departments are not going to be able to function with this,
particularly if it is doubling every year.
Mr. Carraway. I think each one of these gentlemen addressed
the issue and so did Mr. Burns and Armand in their
presentation. One of the most vital ingredients to helping
eliminate and take down a meth lab is information,
intelligence, to share that information, to get a broad sense
of what really is happening before action has been taken.
And I think we can do that in a number of different ways.
Mr. Hill talked about the criminal intelligence sharing, which
is an initiative that is taking a broad approach across the
country. We understand how difficult it may be to establish a
methamphetamine HIDTA but Mr. Burns talked about bringing a lot
of resources into the community with which to deal with that.
One of those ingredients, one of those resources will be that
of sharing intelligence information, criminal intelligence
information. What we probably need to establish again, this is
just simply my take on this initiative and something we are
going to try in central Indiana, is to create an intelligence
fusion center. By doing that, bringing together again all the
partnerships here in the area, share that criminal intelligence
information, whether it be drugs, violent crime, fraud
investigations. All of those issues in ways will address the
issue of drug movement in the area but will also address
probably another issue that we do not think so much about,
terrorism. And we can accomplish that and then utilize those
homeland security dollars to accomplish it.
Mr. Souder. Can I ask you a very particular question, there
are State Police folks on I-69 in Fort Wayne, and they have lab
training. That is where they would move out of?
Mr. Carraway. That is correct.
Mr. Souder. Is there a similar one up in the South Bend
area?
Mr. Carraway. Another laboratory?
Mr. Souder. No, a place where----
Mr. Carraway. We have a post in Bremen, yes. And the toll
road.
Mr. Souder. And if somebody called for help for clandestine
lab, any of those posts could respond?
Mr. Carraway. Yes.
Mr. Souder. How many total people do you have that would do
that?
Mr. Carraway. Again, 100 individuals that are certified.
Mr. Souder. For northern Indiana or that is for the whole
State?
Mr. Carraway. That is the whole State, 100. That is very
important because they have to be certified, OSHA certified in
doing this. As you can imagine the liability issue is very
important, so they have to be certified to do this.
Mr. Souder. Do the posts have multiple teams trained in
this?
Mr. Carraway. Yes.
Mr. Souder. And you felt it is better to have them
concentrated than have them----
Mr. Carraway. Well, again, as you can see, this issue is
all over the State, but we have to be able to call them out at
a minute's notice. So yes, sometimes it may take that long for
officers to get there.
Mr. Souder. Do the people who are responding when they call
and say I need a cleanup team, that 100 is designated
specifically for that issue, they cannot be diverted to another
issue?
Mr. Carraway. Oh, yes, certainly. It is not all 100.
Mr. Souder. Part of the problem, Fort Wayne is the biggest
area in my district and it is 330,000 people in Allen County,
about 220, 240 in the city with annexation, which rapidly
changes every day it seems like. That was a political
statement.
Mr. Carraway. I understand.
Mr. Souder. Allen County is sitting there with 330,000
people, the tremendous demands on the State Police post there,
how does that impact if that is the primary area, all of these
smaller counties where the meth labs have the greatest pressure
and Allen County does not have that? I am just wondering how
that tradeoff occurs when you are the commander and you have
cocaine busts going down, huge truckloads of marijuana coming
through, heroin on the street, Oxycontin, Ecstacy and all this
going on in Fort Wayne. Trying to deal with all that and then
these smaller counties call up and say we are sitting at
somebody's house, he has got meth and they are told they cannot
go in. I mean is there any way we are going to be able to do
more training down so it does not have to be concentrated just
with the State Police is kind of what I am asking.
Mr. Carraway. Sure, I think that can occur, certainly. The
DEA obviously is having a rough go at trying to train everyone
in that aspect of doing it, but it is very important. This is
highly explosive and toxic material that people are dealing
with. And I think the training is 40 hours just to be certified
and being able to dispose of this issue.
So yes, that can occur, but it is going to cost dollars, it
is going to cost manpower. We do not have all the resources,
and you are exactly right, Congressman, we do not.
Mr. Souder. If it is going to double every year.
Mr. Carraway. What we try to do is simply meet the need
that has been happening and with all your help, the dollars
that you have been providing to us has been allowing this
overtime to be spent on these officers to respond.
Mr. Souder. And it is hard for us, particularly with all
the media stories, to understand the problem is actually
greater in southwest Indiana.
Mr. Carraway. That is right.
Mr. Souder. Oh, by the way, I wanted to have Mr. Wargo go
through that chart he started because one of the things we
measure as to whether something is effective or not effective
is the price going up or down. You have a chart in your written
testimony that you alluded to that is really dramatic about
meth in Elkhart county.
Mr. Wargo. Yes, sir. Over the past 9 months, purchases by
undercover personnel, in the summer of 2003, $7,500 a pound; in
the fall of 2002, $6,500; Thanksgiving, $5,500; Christmas,
$4,500 and into January 2004, it dropped below $4,000 a pound.
Mr. Souder. That is a really rapid and consistent
reduction, which is kind of worrisome.
Mr. Wargo. Yes, sir.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Hill, you as well as Mr. Wargo mentioned
about the lack of Hispanics to work undercover. I remember when
I worked with Dan Coats and we were focusing on a lot of this
type issue I think back in 1989, in the entire State of
Indiana, we had one undercover Hispanic who was working out of
Kokomo and who was fearing for his life because every police
department in the State was using him at that point.
Mr. Hill. That is right.
Mr. Souder. What efforts are done, we have looked at this
in the terrorism area of needing a rapid expansion of people
who understand Arabic. Right now something could come across
the bridge and be anthrax in Arabic and we would not even know
unless we caught it another way.
But in the Hispanic language, it would seem to a person who
walks in here that there are plenty of Hispanics around who can
speak Spanish. Do we need to do specific, targeted recruitment
programs aimed at law enforcement to welcome people in, to work
through this, what needs to be done to boost this?
Mr. Hill. I think generally speaking, we would all, all of
us in law enforcement would love to see more minority
representation across the board or representation of all the
multi-faceted people that are in our community. It is always
helpful. And that would just be from a regular patrol officer,
let alone undercover operatives.
The nature of the undercover operation is such that it
takes a particular type of individual. Not every police officer
is really qualified or good at being undercover. So that is
something. We need to, because as Mr. Wargo indicated, we are
in this phase of having so many people first generation, there
are some cultural buildups of mistrust in terms of what this
community, how we treat, for example, domestic violence, and
how it is treated in other areas. I spoke at a forum several
months ago where the issue of domestic violence came up and the
concern was we cannot come and talk to you in your office about
domestic violence because we are afraid that you are going to
report the abuser. We get into those concerns.
So I think it is very important that we try to concentrate
on ways to get people in. Now we can send out signals and say
we would like for people to apply, but because we have had in
the last 5 years a huge rise in the number of people here, we
may just not have the pool of available people who want to
engage in law enforcement. That is from the police officer
standpoint. From the confidential source standpoint, that is
always an interesting subject in terms of who wants to step up
and help the police. That is not exactly an easy thing to do at
all times. So we are working on those things as well. It would
be very, very critical to us to gain information on who are the
bad folks, and we talk to people about that. And I think the
Hispanic families that I have talked to here in this community,
their understanding, they do not want to be associated with
that negative stereotype that all Hispanics are bad or all
Hispanics are on drugs. And that is the message we would want
to send, if we can get information about who the bad people are
that are making them susceptible to the stereotype. We can help
ferret those people out of here so that we can all live
together in one happy community.
Mr. Souder. I assume it is especially hard to penetrate
certain families that have a history of criminal activity, who
are inter-connected? Talking about the one family that may, if
it is Pasco, WA, that is a big migrant labor area that deals
with fruit and vegetables; in Indiana we have some of that; so
does Gwinnett, GA. The vice chairman of this committee, Nathan
Deal, happens to represent Gwinnett County, GA and we see this
kind of pattern of movement. But I would assume if you have
large, and not in the local cooker part, but in the large
dollars coming through, what we have is inside certain sub-
groups that are not necessarily, but probably has intense
pressure on the families. Could you describe a little bit how
this would relate to trying to penetrate into that larger
network which comes in in both Elkhart and Kosciusko? You said
those were networks. And then the second thing is the ranking
Democrat member on this committee, Elijah Cummings, caught me
on the floor the night before last and said we have to do more
for witness protection.
In the ONDCP reauthorization, we have a thing, in tribute
to the Dawson family in his district in Baltimore, where a lady
started working with law enforcement and one of the drug gang
people fire bombed her house and burned her and all her kids to
death. There has been a rise in intimidation in a lot of these
big cities in particular, but I am sure it is elsewhere, of
witness intimidation. Have you seen any of that? When you say
people are unwilling to come forward, part of it is look who
you are cooperating with, are you being a traitor to my family,
but another thing is the actual danger to the individuals.
Particularly the bigger the type of case. If it is part of the
transportation network that is putting a lot of narcotics into
a zone, I presume it is a lot more pressure than a small one
where they can basically abandon it and run to something else
or move to another county. You are looking at potential Federal
violations, life sentences, all sorts of different things.
Any comments?
Mr. Wargo. There is very much an intimidation factor that
we have to try to overcome, especially with the first
generation individual. Whether they are from Latin America,
Central America, Cuba or Mexico, they do not trust law
enforcement, they do not trust the judicial system. So they are
very reluctant to talk to us at all. So it is even more easy to
intimidate those people, because you not only convince them
that if you talk to the police I am going to kill you or cut
your throat. Or No. 2, if you talk to the police, you know they
are all corrupt, they are all crooked and, you know, they are
going to tell me that you have been talking to the police. They
are predisposed to believe that what they have experienced in
their home country prior to coming here. It would be very easy
for someone to convince them that both of those things are
true. No. 1, I will cut your throat. No. 2, if you talk to the
police, they are on the take and they are going to tell me that
you have been talking to them. So the intimidation factor is
huge.
We have had several homicides in Elkhart County in 2003
that are directly related to the drug trafficking and
intimidation. We had one witness that was murdered that was
going to testify in a trial the following week. We had another
person that was murdered as part of another drug investigation
that was ongoing. And it is very easy to point to those
murders, and in some cases I think they take credit for murders
they do not commit, and say you see, you saw what happened to
him, right? Well, that is what will happen to you. So that is a
huge problem that we have and then complicate that even more by
the language barrier. And that is what we are trying to
overcome.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Ciriello, do you have anything to add?
Mr. Ciriello. The things that Bill said are the things that
we see also.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Anderson, you said you had some deaths in
your county due to Oxycontin.
Mr. Anderson. Yes.
Mr. Souder. If you lump the two together, how many were
Oxycontin?
Mr. Anderson. I do not have those exact stats. They have
what they are mixing and calling a Knox cocktail, and that is
where they are mixing Oxycontin, Xanax, methamphetamine
together and what I looked at on those 16 deaths were one of
any one of the three as a combination in overdoses.
Mr. Souder. OK. Do you have any additional questions?
Mr. Chocola. Just one last, Detective Anderson, your
testimony today and our conversations earlier, it strikes me
that you say somebody could be incarcerated for a year and
within a week they are back at it. What is a deterrent? I mean
are prison sentences, harsher sentences, is that a deterrent
for this or not?
Mr. Anderson. Well, we certainly would hope so. Here in our
jurisdiction, we firmly believe in utilizing long prison
sentences for dealers as an effort to deter and essentially
raise the stakes and say if you are going to come into this
community, here is what you are going to look at. Is that the
complete solution? Probably not, but I also hear talk about
treatment which we all would like to see. But with the
treatment aspect, unless someone is willing, No. 1, to seek
treatment and then also willing to take the medicine, if you
will, treatment can sometimes go up in smoke as well. So it is
going to be a multi-faceted approach.
But certainly if you have major distributors of
methamphetamine in your community and you want to send a
message to that person and you want to send a message to all
his buddies that are out there waiting to take his place, it is
come on out and we will send you down to prison once we get
you. That is the message that we continue to drive home.
Mr. Chocola. I unfortunately will not be able to stay for
the completion of the third panel, but I wanted to ask this to
the folks on that panel. If someone is willing to engage in
treatment, rehabilitation, is there success? Have you seen
success? Or is this a tougher or different drug than some
others?
Mr. Hill. I would say the first thing is if someone is
willing, that is half the battle right there. What we see
sometimes in law enforcement and the court system is everybody
steps up to the plate when the judge is on the bench and says
Judge, I need help. And that is a little disingenuous at that
time. We do not know if that person really needs help, desires
help or wants to show contrition for the sake of getting
through the system.
From my standpoint, any time someone steps up and says I
need help, I need treatment--if we had somebody that came to
our office today and said look, I am a large methamphetamine
user, you have not caught me yet, and I need help. We are not
going to arrest that person. We are going to do what we can to
find that person some help, because they are somebody who said
I need help and I am willing to step up to the plate. It is a
little bit different once we have caught them in the net in
terms of how at least I view it.
Mr. Anderson. What I have been seeing a lot in our area is
the local doctors are prescribing methadone or methadose to try
and bring them off of the meth and the Oxycontin and the last
problem we had, we were finding methadose tablets all over this
lab location, so I am not sure that is a cure either. You do
not use a drug to break another drug.
Mr. Chocola. Thank you.
Mr. Souder. Thank you. I really appreciate the patience of
the third panel, but I want to do one other thing before we do
this. And we do not usually do this at a hearing but there is a
particular circumstance.
Mr. Murtaugh, you have been here this morning, if you
could, would you like to say anything? If you would come up, I
will briefly swear you in because he is from the U.S. Marshal's
Service.
[Witness sworn.]
Mr. Souder. Will you state your name and position for the
record?
Mr. Murtaugh. David Murtaugh, U.S. Marshal, Northern
District of Indiana.
Mr. Souder. You have been able to listen to two panels
here.
Will you spell your name for the court reporter?
Mr. Murtaugh. M-u-r-t-a-u-g-h.
I believe I can only support what they have said here. The
information highway is what needs to be brought here. As the
superintendent said, we have information from Elkhart County
and it is not being shared with information from St. Joe County
or Starke County or Kosciusko County. And that is what the
HIDTAs are intended to do. They are intelligence driven and
that is what we are trying to do, is to try to develop
intelligence data bases so that we share information, so that
we share jail records, so that we share what other task forces
are doing, because criminals go from one area to the next and
if we are not in a position to be able to share the information
with our fellows in law enforcement, then we are breaking down.
That is one of the other things that I think we really need
to move forward with and we need help in those areas because
that is something that is very easy to do with the information
technology that is available today and data bases. If we put
those in, then data bases can be built and they can be shared
statewide.
Mr. Souder. Thank you. And if you want to insert anything
additional in the record, I wanted to make sure that I got it
into the record that you are here because the U.S. Marshal's
Service is often not as recognized in the process because you
are the executing division. The bottom line is if you do not
get the warrants served, if you do not get the guys from place
to place, the whole system breaks down. And we appreciate the
efforts that you have done in northern Indiana in assisting in
the narcotics effort.
Mr. Murtaugh. Thank you.
Mr. Souder. With that, this panel is adjourned. We are
going to take a brief recess, very brief, and if the third
panel will come forward.
[Recess.]
Mr. Souder. The subcommittee is now back in session. If
each of the witnesses for the third panel will raise their
right hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Souder. Let the record show that all the witnesses
responded in the affirmative.
First up on this panel is Mr. Kevin Enyeart, he is the Cass
County prosecutor. We appreciate, let me say up front, the
third panel always gets kind of the short end of the stick in
one sense because everybody in the first two panels will tend
to go, although a few will be around I can see here. But under
our committee procedures, the standard is pretty clear that the
Federal Government representatives are in the first panel and
then we try to do a mix on the other panels and I appreciate
your patience with this. It will all be there the same
regardless. But I appreciate your willingness to be patient
with us getting a little bit of a late start and then having
lots of witnesses.
This has been very comprehensive as you can see, and as we
move through this, we are continuing to move through the law
enforcement side and then into prevention and treatment
questions, because we cannot just do it with the law
enforcement side. That is why it is a good balance to work
through the process in the hearing of identifying the problems
and then what we are trying to do to help with the problem, not
only with law enforcement, but also with the treatment side.
So, thank you, Mr. Enyeart, for your willingness to be here
as a prosecutor dealing with what we heard earlier of some of
the challenges. I will yield the floor to you.
STATEMENTS OF KEVIN ENYEART, CASS COUNTY PROSECUTOR; DOUG HARP,
CHIEF DEPUTY, NOBLE COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE; SERGEANT JEFF
SCHNEPP, LONGANSPORT-CASS COUNTY DRUG TASK FORCE; BRIAN CONNOR,
ACTING EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, THE CENTER FOR THE HOMELESS, SOUTH
BEND; BARRY HUMBLE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, DRUG & ALCOHOL
CONSORTIUM OF ALLEN COUNTY; AND BENJAMIN MARTIN, SERENITY
HOUSE, INC.
Mr. Enyeart. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon now.
My name is Kevin Enyeart, I am the elected prosecutor for the
29th Judicial District of Indiana which is Cass County. I have
been in that position as the deputy prosecutor/prosecutor for
over 8 years now. I want to add something that is not in my
written testimony.
When I was a part time deputy prosecutor, I also
represented the Division of Family & Children, something I took
a great of pride in. And I could not agree more with the
testimony of Mr. Burns earlier when he said this should be
about children first. I say that for a lot of reasons, one of
them being an example. One of our methamphetamine labs that we
shut down, we went in and a 5-year old boy was helping his
father cook methamphetamine. The boy told law enforcement ``I
am helping daddy make medicine.'' I think that underscores the
importance of putting children first and we need to do that
also in the methamphetamine problems that we face.
I consider it a great privilege to be able to be here today
to testify and I will start out by telling you a little bit
about Cass County. We are a rural county. Logansport is the
county seat, we are just under 41,000 people. And the reason
that is important is because the large methamphetamine problem
that we have is directly related to the easy access of
anhydrous ammonia in our community.
Prosecutor Hill said earlier that a large part of the
problem here appears to be outside sources of methamphetamine,
and I do not want to underscore that enough. I think that in
Cass County, we also have outside source problems with
methamphetamine, but what we are seeing in the lower socio-
economic levels is methamphetamine labs that are made, set up
to sell methamphetamine. You also have the low level users who
are doing it just for their own use, but we are seeing a lot of
people who are actually setting up their own lab in order to
effectively market and make a profit in the methamphetamine
problem.
We in Cass County have been overwhelmed by the
methamphetamine problem. We have had an additional court added
recently. We have a great number of cases in our system. We
tried just one this week. There are both direct and indirect
consequences to the use of methamphetamine, but from a criminal
justice perspective, it is very important that we focus on the
indirect. The direct is obvious, the people who are hooked on
methamphetamine, the people who are distributing
methamphetamine and the people who are manufacturing
methamphetamine. But in my opinion, as a prosecuting attorney
and looking at what we see in the criminal justice system, the
most important things that we need to look at are the indirect
consequences--the health of the people involved, the loss of
jobs, the loss of homes, the problems that we have dealing with
children and the long-term effects on them.
One thing that I have not heard highlighted today is the
highly addictive nature of methamphetamine. I think it is so
well recognized among everybody who testified, we take that for
granted. But in the criminal justice system, what I have seen,
once we have somebody charged with felony offenses, it is not
uncommon--in fact, it is rather regular for us to see someone
bond out on an A or B felony methamphetamine charge and then be
picked up again while they are out on bond. Previous people who
were testifying talked about as many as three or four labs at a
time while they are waiting for the first case to go to trial.
And Cass County, IN is no exception to that. The burden on our
criminal justice system is extraordinary. That is the one thing
that I would like to highlight.
As a prosecuting attorney, I am concerned with not only the
enforcement of our existing laws, but the long-term negative
impact that methamphetamine has on our family members, our
friends, our neighbors and our children. The cost is not just
in dollar terms, but it is extraordinary. I think that is one
of the things that I think is part of the job of a prosecuting
attorney, to get that message out. I often say that a
prosecuting attorney has a pivotal role in our criminal justice
system and to our communities in general because we have the
ability to be the mouthpiece in areas such as methamphetamine.
And in Cass County, our Chief Deputy Prosecutor accompanied
me today, her name is Lisa Swain. We have taken very seriously
reaching out to young people. I think we need to go even
younger than we have, but we have been concentrating on high
school aged children. And recently, when I was speaking to
children, to high school students, I was shocked, because we
started talking about methamphetamine and one of the things I
have been trying to do as a prosecutor is tell young people do
not do it. In my opinion, methamphetamine is much worse than
cocaine. And when I was speaking to that classroom group of
high school students, two girls, one of them turned her back to
me, looked at one of her friends and I saw her roll her eyes.
That was shocking to me. It was a rural, small community high
school, and that really opened my eyes to the problem that we
have.
Our first meth lab was in January 2001 and each year we see
more and more of a problem. In Cass County, we were able to, in
2001, obtain a Byrne Drug Grant. That has been essential to me
as a prosecutor because that money that is administered by the
Indiana Criminal Justice Institute allowed me to hire another
prosecutor. The problem is that money is drying up this year
for our office. We will not have that money next year unless
Congress does something to restore that funding and make me
eligible for yet another year of that funding. And I think the
consequences of us losing that money would really hurt our
office.
I believe that criminal prosecution is necessary and should
be used in a large number of cases. However, whenever possible,
our society should look at incarceration as a last alternative.
And I am looking at that from a small town perspective. I was
born and raised in Cass County and a lot of the people that we
see on methamphetamine are hopelessly addicted to it. And that
is why I wanted to talk about the highly addictive nature. Our
recidivism rate is extremely high. I do not know what the
numbers are, but I can tell you that my guess would be at least
9 out of 10 people, when they are sitting in jail, as soon as
they get out, they are going to go try to find or make some
more methamphetamine. And I have actually talked to criminal
defendants who have spent time in prison who will tell you
honestly as soon as I get out, I'm going to go set up another
lab and I'm going to take some more meth. That is why we need
to look at education and that is why we need to look at other
alternatives to incarceration.
As you know, Mr. Congressman, the cost of incarceration is
the most expensive thing that we can do in our criminal justice
system. I believe in a large number of cases, that is what we
should do. But we also need to look at other alternatives. And
what I think that Congress can do to help at the local level is
to help us set up money and resources for drug court programs.
In limited cases, people who I consider to be low level users,
we could consult with judges, probation, prosecutors and other
community services to decide who would be allowed to get into
that program. If we do not educate these people and give them
the resources necessary, then we are just going to see them
back again and again and again. And I have seen in the criminal
justice system people lose everything. I have had mothers lose
their children, I have had people lose their jobs, their homes
and everything that they have ever worked for in their lives.
And that is why that is really important, that we need to look
at alternatives to incarceration.
Some people that are on methamphetamine are hopelessly
addicted and we need to do whatever we can to help them get off
that drug. In my opinion, the Federal Government can assist
local prosecutors and local law enforcement in two ways. First
and most importantly, education. Education on a national level,
whether that be through print media, television media or other
ways, it is very important. Second, as everyone else previously
has said, we need money. We need to finance our other efforts,
our other alternatives and we need that assistance from the
Federal Government. Programs like the Byrne Drug Grant have
been essential to local prosecutors and they should continue.
Funding of these programs is difficult in these times, but we
need to keep doing that because every dollar we spend in those
kinds of programs helps us from spending $10 more in the
future.
Methamphetamine and that problem is not going to go away
any time soon and we must address it, and that is the reason
why I am here today. And I do appreciate the time and offering
to let me testify. I appreciate that very much.
Mr. Souder. Thank you for that testimony. We now have a
recidivist of sorts, Mr. Harp, who has actually testified
before this committee before.
Mr. Harp. That is correct.
Mr. Souder. In Washington, DC. Thank you for being patient
and we look forward to your testimony.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Enyeart follows:]
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Mr. Harp. Thanks for having me again, I do appreciate it.
In 2001, I testified before this committee, along with
former Sheriff Doug Dukes. And one of the things that we talked
about at that point in time was the growing trend of meth usage
in our county, Noble County, and we also cited at that time a
lot of the examples of cases which exemplify the bizarre
behavior of the meth user and the increasing violence
associated with the users.
At that time, we were certain that we had not peaked in
terms of meth usage and production. And unfortunately, our
predictions were correct. We currently have the distinction of
ranking 10th among the 92 Indiana counties in meth lab arrests.
In 1996, Indiana recorded just six meth labs for the entire
year. And this year, investigators shut down 1,260 labs
throughout the State. So the increase is just incredible. If
you look at that in terms of percentages, it is mind-boggling.
The cost for disposal of these labs is estimated to be in
excess of $66,000, which I think is very conservative. And one
of the factors not included in this is the cost of the manhours
involved.
The statistical information regarding the increase in meth
production and usage is staggering and very frightening. A
recent study conducted by the Rural Indiana Profile reports
that eighth graders in rural settings are 108 percent more
likely to use meth than eighth graders in urban areas.
According to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, arrests for meth
offenses in Indiana rose 81 percent from 1995 to 1998. I cannot
imagine what type of increase we have had since 1998.
We have seen a dramatic increase in the anhydrous ammonia
thefts. I know a lot of people have talked about that. We have
farm supply facilities in our county and we also have a lot of
production facilities that also use anhydrous in their
production process and we have seen thefts in those areas as
well.
I know one of the things that was talked about was the
pricing, and we have seen that decrease in pricing as well. Our
prices are going down. I worked in an undercover capacity for a
couple of years and, you know, any time you see the price of
narcotics going down, you know that you have a lot. It has been
flooded, your market has been flooded. And we have seen it just
like everybody else has, in the decrease in meth prices.
One other area of concern for us, which just really has
happened recently, is one of our neighboring counties has an
active chapter of the Outlaw Motorcycle Club and the Outlaws
historically have maintained a very sophisticated
methamphetamine network. They are also known to absorb puppet
clubs to assist them in the drug distribution. And this very
scenario is taking place in our county. I know that a couple of
people have addressed the motorcycle clubs and I think
downplayed that a little bit with the Mexican nationals, you
know, and so on. But I still think that's a very, very good
source of methamphetamine distribution and we are very, very
concerned about that. And association with that, obviously the
violence that comes with motorcycle clubs, motorcycle gangs.
What can be done to stem some of these meth trends? We feel
pretty good in certain areas, we feel in training our deputies,
our firefighters, our EMS personnel throughout the county, we
have done a lot of training and we feel very good about that.
We have also done a lot of programs, conducted a lot of public
awareness programs, both in the schools and the community as
far as education. We have a lot of work to do in addition to
that yet, but we feel pretty good about that right now.
What can be done to help us at the local level, and one of
the things that we obviously need is funding for training,
equipment and manpower. And one of things that I do not think I
have heard addressed today, which in looking at the past couple
of years is something that we have had to do in terms of our
budget. To try to decrease spending in our budget, we looked at
overtime that the officers were paid and we went to
compensatory time in lieu of overtime dollars. And on the face,
it makes us look really well, you know, it is an
administration, we have knocked down the overtime budget
considerably. But when I got to looking at what it meant in
terms of available police manhours last year alone, 2,132 hours
in 2003 where we normally we have had a police presence, we had
officers off because they were off on comp time. You know, if
we are going to fight meth and fight it effectively; you know,
we have gotten a greater increase in meth production and meth
labs and we have gone backward in terms of police presence that
we have on the road. A lot of our cases are generated by the
road officers out making traffic stops because, as you have
heard today in some of the other testimony, a lot of the labs
right now are very mobile and we get a lot of results from
traffic stops.
So the big thing for us, again, is like everybody else,
manpower, equipment and funding.
But again, I would like to express my gratitude for being
invited here again and I appreciate everything that Congressman
Souder has done. He has always been very helpful in this
problem and we do appreciate it.
Thank you.
Mr. Souder. Thank you. Sergeant Schnepp.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Harp follows:]
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Mr. Schnepp. Thank you. I would also like to express my
gratitude for being here to tell you all the problems in Cass
County along with my Prosecutor Kevin Enyeart.
I have been assigned to the Cass County-Logansport Drug
Task Force for 5 years and I have been a police officer for 23
years. Our task force consists of four officers; myself, two
Logansport Police Officers and an Indiana State Trooper.
Our first lab discovery was January 2001, we are averaging
12 to 14 labs a year.
I will skip through a lot of this and make it go quick if I
can.
We have two labs this year, we recovered a partial lab
Wednesday night. Anhydrous thefts are doubling. We have three
distribution centers. We also have three or four businesses
that use it for cleaning purposes. We are doing stakeouts on
the distribution centers when we can and when we have the
manpower.
Our probation department has 1,200 people on probation.
They just really started testing for meth the last few years.
They have had a 5-percent increase in the last year on meth
tests for positive results.
The problem we are getting into with the meth labs, the
last three we have taken down have all had some type of
surveillance equipment. They have cameras on the barn,
telescopes in the windows, they have night vision equipment,
they have radio frequency detection to see if we have a wire if
we send an informant in to them.
The bottom line is the bad guys are better prepared than we
are, they have better equipment than we do. We do not have any
night vision. We are a small department, we have really been
running into problems with some of these guys with all their
counter-surveillance on our officers and also their equipment.
They are watching our office, they are doing counter-
surveillance on our vehicles. I just ran a wire on a buy
Tuesday night, I just got a new vehicle 3 weeks ago and they
were talking about what kind of vehicle I had on the wire. It
kind of amazed me.
What I would like to see is a multi-county federally funded
methamphetamine task force within maybe our district. I
personally, and the other guys on our task force, we call
Howard County, Miami County, White County, we try to give them
as much information, we work together as much as we possibly
can. But with cocaine buys, marijuana buys, Oxycontin buys, we
just do not have the manpower to focus straight on
methamphetamine, which I believe we need to do.
That is about all I have.
Mr. Souder. Thank you for your testimony. We are going to
make a little bit of a transitioning in my questioning. I will
split that too. We are now going to go to Mr. Connor, who is
the acting executive director of the South Bend Center for the
Homeless.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Schnepp follows:]
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Mr. Connor. Thank you.
I appreciate the opportunity to testify today on the
important issue of methamphetamine use in this State and also
the influence of drugs on our community.
I would like to thank you for drawing attention to
resources, for the needs of communities dealing with the
effects of illegal drug use.
I am here today representing the Center for the Homeless,
one of many service providers in this region who witness daily
the effects of alcohol and drug use on those living in poverty
and on the brink of homelessness. The Center for the Homeless
offers residential services to 200 people daily, including 22
families with 60 children.
We collaborate with many partner agencies from the
community, all dedicated to breaking the cycle of homelessness.
We provide a broad range of onsite services, including shelter,
food, medical care, pediatric-occupational therapy, Montessori
pre-school education, case management, drug and alcohol
treatment and adult education. All services provided by our
partner agencies are free of charge to guests of the center.
The goals and the objectives of our programs and
partnerships are designed to help people transition from
homelessness to self-sufficiency and to help them create a life
in which they can give back to their community.
The overwhelming majority of people who seek services at
the center suffer from serious problems such as mental illness,
drug and alcohol addiction, poor medical health, illiteracy,
unemployment and isolation from a supportive network of people
and resources.
The center's services are targeted to address the depth and
diversity of needs present among homeless persons, especially
families.
Among the population we serve, at least 60 percent are
struggling with drug or alcohol addiction and 30 percent suffer
from mental illness which is often undiagnosed. Many are dually
diagnosed with mental illness and substance abuse issues. Among
our population with substance abuse issues, the majority abuse
alcohol and cocaine. While the percentage of those with a
methamphetamine addiction is not nearly as high as with either
cocaine or alcohol, the number of methamphetamine abusers has
steadily increased over the last several years.
Typical treatment options for people with addictions issues
are individual and group counseling sessions as well as
Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous meetings. For those who are
dually diagnosed, their mental illness is also addressed, often
through medication and case management. Many meth users who
come to the doors of the Center for the Homeless do not stay in
treatment for long enough periods of time to allow for a
complete recovery. Many are seeking treatment for the first
time and do not have the necessary desire to stay clean. Others
are seeking treatment solely because it is court ordered. We
believe that for both of these groups, relapse occurs because
they do not desire sincere change in their lives. We hear that
it often takes six or seven attempts before you are able to
stay clean and sober with treatment.
Based on our experience, for lasting change to take place
in a person's life, you must have a strong desire to change
your lifestyle. The AA and NA model instructs those in recovery
to change their people, places and things, meaning they must
not associate with the people or frequent the locations where
they lived while they were using. These life changes are only
successful when people have a sincere desire to change their
ways. In many instances, this happens only after they have lost
everything important in their lives as a result of their
addiction; literally hitting rock bottom.
The difficulty in changing one's lifestyle can be
compounded by other issues that affect those living in poverty.
Many of those we serve also do not possess a high school
diploma or GED. Without a proper education, it is difficult to
obtain sufficient employment to support a family. In addition,
a lack of transportation is a tremendous barrier for people who
live in poverty. With these limitations, the people we serve
have a lack of choices in where they can live and what types of
jobs they can hold. With limited options, many people who have
sought treatment for substance abuse return to the negative
influences in their lives as it is the only thing they know.
This often leads to a cycle of poverty that can affect several
generations as children pick up the behaviors of their parents.
While the research is clear that methamphetamine is a
highly addictive drug, one of the most frightening aspects of
its use, from the perspective of a service provider, is the
long-term effects that it can have on the brain in cognitive
functioning of users as well as the severe health issues that
it can create. The health effects of meth use can include
cardiovascular problems such as irregular heartbeat, increased
blood pressure and rapid heart rate. Withdrawal effects can
include depression, anxiety, fatigue, paranoia and aggression.
Damage to the brain caused by meth use has been compared to the
effects of Alzheimer's disease, stroke, epilepsy and
Parkinson's disease.
From our perspective, successful treatment is only the
first step in true recovery for a meth or any drug user. After
treatment for substance abuse issues, we recommend that persons
addressing the underlying issues that led them to use drugs or
alcohol in the first place. Only after beginning to address
these issues does our organization seek to prepare guests for a
return to the work force. Many times, a chronic substance
abuser will have a very poor job history or long periods of
unemployment due to their drug use. In this case, it can be
very difficult for a recovering drug abuser to obtain a level
of employment that offers a livable wage and will allow them to
live in a neighborhood that is removed from serious drug
infestation. If the drug abuser is a mother, she often has
additional barriers to work due to the childcare and
educational needs of her children.
The greatest needs we can identify for those seeking to
overcome drug addiction are in the areas of housing and
employment. Without safe, affordable housing options, those who
have received treatment for drug abuse are forced to return to
neighborhoods where drug use is rampant. This increases the
difficulty in remaining clean and sober. In order to pay for
safe housing, those in recovery must learn new job skills
through training programs or through advanced education.
Without improved employment options, people are forced to work
for wages that do not allow them to support their families.
This drives many to become involved in illegal activities, such
as prostitution or selling drugs.
For service providers to be effective at bringing all of
these services together for those in need, there must be
support at all levels of the government for organizations that
effectively address these issues. This support is most needed
in order to continue service provision for people as they move
through this process and work to improve their lives and become
self-sufficient.
I would like to thank you again for the opportunity to be
here today and to testify on this important issue.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Connor follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Thank you. Next, we will hear from Mr. Barry
Humble, who has worked up in Noble County and now down in Allen
County. We appreciate you coming up today.
Mr. Humble. Like my predecessors who have already had a
chance to speak, I express my appreciation for this opportunity
to share some information and experiences and hopefully some
recommendations about dealing with meth in northeast Indiana.
My level of understanding concerning methamphetamine took a
serious spike when I began my duties as executive director of
Drug Free Noble County in 1999. I like to tell people that
previously in my professional life I became a recovering school
teacher and had that opportunity to work in a rural school
corporation for 21 years and my major responsibility was as a
substance abuse educator and student assistance program
coordinator, so I dealt with the baggage that young people came
to school with every day.
Then before I went to Noble County, I worked for the
Governor's Commission for Drug Free Indiana and worked with
seven different counties and this idea about the negative
impact of alcohol and drugs has already been there, but the
situation dealing with methamphetamine just increased
dramatically.
The devastation that is caused not only by the use of
methamphetamine, as has already been brought out, is not
limited to just the cooking process, but also needs to be
included is the disposal process of the toxic waste. And that,
here in Indiana, could be incredible. In my professional life,
I have not accounted a substance that is so quickly addictive,
is so readily available and is so difficult to treat.
My responsibilities as a former executive director of Drug
Free Noble County and currently of the Drug and Alcohol
Consortium of Allen County emphasize the roles of prevention,
treatment and justice. It is within that framework that I share
a concept developed within the State of Kansas that is being
pursued within the 15 northeast counties of Indiana. The
following counties each have a community anti-drug coalition
and participate in a confederation known as the Northeast
Regional Advisory Board. Those counties include Adams, Allen,
Blackford, DeKalb, Grant, Huntington, Jay, Kosciusko, Lagrange,
Miami, Noble, Steuben, Wabash, Wells and Whitley, which
actually covers three Congressional Districts. I am currently
the chairperson and we receive guidance from Kelley Wilson, who
joined me today from the Governor's Commission on Drug Free
Indiana and her three staff persons. During 2003, there were
134 meth labs found in these counties, according to the Indiana
State Police. Deaths, property loss from fires and
environmental contamination has resulted from these labs. The
Northeast Regional Advisory Board was looking for a means that
a community could effectively address these issues and
discovered a program called Kansas Meth Watch.
The key fixture of this program includes employee and
management training of stores that sell precursor products
involved in the manufacturing of meth. With some modifications
and additional pieces, we would like to replicate this program
to be called the Northeast Indiana Meth Watch. Our program has
three features.
First, community awareness. A PowerPoint presentation will
be developed by the former information officer for the
Kendaville Police Department, Mick Newton, in cooperation with
the Indiana State Police. This presentation will be used by
each community coalition with service organizations, fraternal
groups, churches and whomever else they can get in front of in
each of their counties. Their presentation will be supplemented
by pamphlets, billboards and media coverage.
The second piece is employee and management training.
Information will be provided to retailers that sell legitimate
products that are precursors to the manufacture of meth. Many
of these products are sold at convenience stores that
historically have high turnover of employees. Information that
can be a part of new employee training as well as ongoing
training will be made available to assist retail employees with
protocol when a suspected sale of precursor products occur. In
addition, signage will be available to retailers to identify
their store as a member of Northeast Indiana Meth Watch. In
addition, we would like to partner with agribusiness agencies
to distribute tamper tags for anhydrous tanks. Currently,
farmers can purchase a lock to put on their tank that might be
sitting out in the field that costs $150. What that results in
is a loss of a $150 tank lock and still the farmer is at risk.
I have done some investigating with farmers to ask them, you
have this big tank sitting out there, would you be able to tell
if you lost 500 gallons worth of anhydrous? And their common
reaction is they would have no clue. Well would you be able to
tell if you lost 100? No. Well, the guys that are out there
stealing take about 10, they don't know that their tanks are
missing. What we would like to do is get these agribusiness
agencies to get these tamper tags that cost about 20 cents
apiece and then a farmer would know if his tank has been broken
into. When they have done this in Kansas, they found some
places that they had to change and have multicolors because the
tanks had been broken into so many different times. What we
will be able to do is hopefully prevent a dangerous accident.
The other concern with employee management training is when
I was in Noble County, we conducted a workshop that was
entitled Meth in the Workplace. And what we were able to do is
create an awareness for employees, but sometimes the
mentalities that, particular manufacturing based agencies hold,
is that they are working by production and if they are working
by pieces and the employee knows that they are going to make
more money, a lot of them will purposefully use meth to be able
to go at high rates of speed for a period of time, knowing full
well that after they have had this experience, they may not
show up for work. So that was an awareness that a lot of
employers were not aware of, that the mentality that they
created also creates an environment to encourage meth use.
The third thing that we are looking at doing is developing
a tip line. We have had great cooperation from the Indiana
State Police Post there in Fort Wayne, and the post had
distributed throughout these 15 counties some posters a couple
of years ago working very diligently with employers and helping
employee training. They had developed an 800 tip line and that
would be made available to us to use for folks who can call in
when they notice things that are kind of disturbing or might be
indicative of meth development.
The reasons for this cooperative venture are many. First
the manufacture and distribution of meth is not limited by
county lines. Because of the high quality of investigative work
and previous awareness by law enforcement agencies, cookers are
purchasing precursor products in one or more counties,
conducting the manufacturing process in still another county.
While Allen County has had only one meth lab busted in 2003,
police agencies acknowledge the amount of meth on the streets
of Fort Wayne is increasing. I give this point of evidence.
Allen County Probation in 2002 had in their drug urine tests,
six cases of meth showing up. Now remember, these are people
who are already in the system, not first time, but are already
in the system. In 2003, that number was over 100. So if people
who are already in probation and they are having dirty urine
screens because of meth, you can kind of multiply that
astronomically to the potential number of people who are using
it.
Second, a unified message for the region, led by the
coalition in each county will create an effective and credible
effort. This unified message allows for diversity of delivery
with a common theme. The intent is not to hinder the sale of
products used in a lawful manner, but rather create awareness
that the unlawful use of these products to manufacture and
distribute methamphetamine will not be tolerated in northeast
Indiana.
The effectiveness of the program requires a great deal of
cooperation and the Northeast Regional Advisory Board intends
to bring together its resources to make this endeavor possible.
In terms of what assistance the Federal Government can provide,
I have these recommendations.
First, as has been stated before, financial assistance with
the development and production of videos to be used for
employee/management training. Information concerning
identification and protocol would be put in a convenient format
that would be of great assistance to retailers and their
employees.
Second, assistance in developing media campaign material
such as newspaper slicks, billboards and radio/TV spots.
And finally, and this may be the most important, we already
have a significant number of people addicted to meth. Treatment
providers indicate it is difficult at best to have a successful
treatment leading to recovery. Research and effective treatment
modalities need to be developed. In the Northeast Region, we
might be able to come up with the means to cover the first two
requests, but we are really struggling to answer the third.
Thank you for your concern about meth in the heartland and
we do appreciate this opportunity to share our thoughts.
Mr. Souder. Thank you very much. Our cleanup hitter is Mr.
Benjamin Martin of the Serenity House.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Humble follows:]
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Mr. Martin. Thank you, Congressman Souder. I am not going
to read my whole report. I am going to highlight a few items
that I think are important, and the first one I think is most
important because I do not think the Federal Government
believes, understands or whatever it might be, but recovery is
not treatment. I am in the recovery business, I am not in the
treatment business. It is a way of life as outlined in the Big
Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Treatment, on the other hand, is
medical oversight with scientific and medical information given
to the person being detoxed and then evaluated in a way that
prevents relapse. However, there is very little chance of
treatment alone working for sustained recovery without peer
support that they get, that structured recovery programs offer.
It makes the scientific numbers of success look real good
because they get their recognition for their success number
when in fact because there is no differential between treatment
and recovery by the Federal bureaucracy all the credit goes to
the scientific and medical community. However, without the
recovery programs themselves they would be largely
unsuccessful. Hence, funding is only given to the scientific
and medical community for prevention, treatment and research.
The specific purpose of this testimony as stated in your
invitation letter to me was to examine the state of
methamphetamine trafficking and production in the midwest
region and how the Federal Government can assist State and
local authorities in combating this growing problem. First and
foremost, we must stop recidivism among offenders. We spend
billions of dollars on research and largely disregard our
incarcerated population who by the National Institute of
Justice's Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring Program [ADAM], has
evidenced that 70 percent of all males and 67 percent of all
female arrestees for felony crimes ranging from larceny/theft
to homicide test positive for illicit drug use at the time of
their arrest and this figure does not include alcohol.
Shelving, if one can, the cost of human life and the
collateral damage inflicted upon families and dependents and
the communities in which the alcoholic and addict reside, it is
clear that just in the area of public and fiscal policy, both
in terms of prevention, research and treatment, incarceration,
our current efforts are proving an abject waste.
So what do I believe the Federal Government can do to help
us at the State and local level? No. 1, make it mandatory for
all Federal, State and community prison and jail facilities to
provide both treatment and recovery programs available to the
incarcerated individuals. These inmates are not going anywhere,
why not treat them while they are there.
Train and educate prison and law enforcement employees that
drug addicts and alcoholics are not to be treated as scum but
as people who have an affliction as they would anyone that
suffers from diabetes or heart failure. You can go to any
county jail or anything and watch how one of these people is
treated by the jailer and you would see exactly what I am
talking about.
Third, train the treatment community to identify those
individuals addicted to alcohol and drugs to ask specifically
about sexual abuse especially in their childhoods. It has been
my experience that approximately 70 percent of all women who
seek treatment and 50 percent of the men suffered from some
form of sexual abuse. However, I have no data to substantiate
these figures. They are my best guess from my experience. At
the present time seven of our nine female residents and 11 of
the 24 men have sexual abuse issues. Why this is important to
know, most people who come to us state that they have never
been asked this question while in treatment and those who do
not address this issue are much more likely to relapse. It also
indicates a very large contributing problem to addiction beyond
just low self esteem from other areas of alcoholism in an
addict's life. These figures only speak to the numbers seeking
help from addiction, considering that that is largely believed
to be only 10 percent of all alcoholics and addicts ever seek
help, how big is the problem really?
Fourth, specifically fund research on the sexual abuse
correlation to alcohol and drug abuse. I believe if my figures
are even remotely accurate, and many think I am way low, this
needs to be addressed.
And fifth, fund recovery-based programs such as ours to
further the recovery rate by enabling more people to be served.
Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous and Cocaine Anonymous
by tradition cannot take outside contributions; however,
facilities such as the one we operate is operated under the 12-
step recovery principle. There are thousands of facilities like
ours in every State of the union and the recovery community
will help if asked.
Sixth, offer a reward system for the person willing to
locate, identify and testify against those who would
manufacture and/or distribute illegal substances other than
just the Crime Stoppers programs. This program would be self
sufficient if the fines levied against offenders were directed
toward the informants.
And seventh, increase the penalty for supplying minors with
any controlled substance including, but not limited to alcohol.
Certainly if you buy a keg of beer for a minor it is only a
misdemeanor.
Eighth, increase the number of excise officers to regulate
illegal sales and fund police departments with more money to be
dedicated to the investigation of meth labs and other illegal
drug distribution points.
Ninth, most importantly, decrease the billions of dollars
going into research and redirect it to the aforementioned
programs. If you read the Doctor's Opinion, page xxv, in the
Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, which I have supplied you
today, you will find through all of the research that has been
done we still do not know much more about this disease--other
than the chemical imbalance and how it relates to the synapse--
than Dr. Silkworth did in 1939 when the book was authored. Not
a very good return on our dollars spent. Further, I can state
irrevocably that I have never met the first alcoholic or addict
that would take a pill offered to relieve his addiction or to
drink normally. That is not why we afflicted individuals drink;
we drank or used to get drunk.
In summation, I would like to also say that I have attended
the past five CADCA conferences and while I sat through some
wonderful, informative and outstanding workshops, specifically
regarding methamphetamine, I regret to say that for the last 2
years not a single recovery-based workshop has been offered.
Moreover, much of the professional discussion that did take
place proved inadequate, misinformed factually and occasionally
just plain wrong. This is worth attention as there is a
valuable resource that scientists, doctors, counseling
professionals and the greater legal communities have left
largely unmined and which your district in particular would
benefit immeasurably from. Please believe me when I say I do
not discount what the scientific community believes to be the
best they can do, nor do I think they are short of passion or
dedication. However, I do believe unless they themselves have
walked in the boots of the alcoholic and/or addict they should
give serious consideration to including the recovery community
in whatever they are investigating. This should not be about
degrees and how much smarter one is than the other, but what a
community of dedicated scientists, doctors, clergy and
recovering people can do to help one another understand each
other and what is the best way to serve the people, both
addicts and victims of their actions.
I also want to acknowledge how grateful I am to you,
Congressman Souder, for the work that you have done to
eradicate the substance abuse problem in the United States.
Through your leadership Congress is striving to do the right
things, and my colleagues are very, very grateful. I also thank
all concerned for the opportunity to address this committee. It
says to me that we little guys do count.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Martin follows:]
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Mr. Souder. I want to thank you each for your testimony. I
am trying to think, I think maybe I will go in a reverse way. I
think I will start with the law enforcement and kind of finish
up some of the law enforcement and then go to some of the
interrelationships.
Mr. Enyeart, you said in your testimony that you believe
more money ought to be spent for education. In particular, I
think you are talking about education and prevention. Would you
spend it there rather than--in other words, one of the things
that is not happening here, there is not going to be a big pool
of money. The question is, should some of what we are spending
in law enforcement move to prevention and treatment? It is a
somewhat zero sum game here.
Mr. Enyeart. From my perspective you need to do both. I
understand when you only have so much money, just like the
individual, you have to decide what you are going to do and
what you are not going to do. In my specific case, if you take
the money, the Byrne drug money away from me, given the
tremendous burden that has been placed on my office--I am a
five-prosecutor office, and we are literally processing
hundreds of these kinds of cases. That prosecutor that is paid
for through that drug grant would not be there. Because in Cass
County we have over a $1 million budget shortfall this year and
there is no way that my county council is going to give me
extra funds for another prosecutor. So that is the dilemma I
find myself in.
Mr. Souder. We are trying to struggle through it. What I am
trying to--it is a very difficult dilemma because the Cass
County budget shortfall is less per population than the Federal
Government shortfall. The Indiana shortfall is less than the
Federal shortfall. So what it means is, they do not want to
raise taxes. The State does not want to raise taxes and the
Federal Government does not want to raise taxes. I am a
Republican and I do not like to raise taxes and the people do
not like me to raise taxes, so our constant dilemma is how do
we divide up the money. What really comes down to a touchy
question here is, if you do not get certain dollars to
prosecute then there is no point. In other words, if they do
not get enough dollars to arrest and make the case, then you do
not have anybody to prosecute, and if you prosecute and we do
not have anybody--if we do not have enough in the prisons that
does not do any good. What we are really saying is, if we take
a dollar out of that, where we know we have a person cooking
meth and we know we have a person who could be prosecuted and
who could be locked up, if we move that dollar over to
prevention, are we as confident that we will get an actual
result for it because at least you can see the tangible. On the
other hand, if we never spent any dollars over here, this pool
keeps getting larger and we are chasing it with fewer and fewer
dollars. We just heard Noble County is chasing it with fewer
dollars, you are potentially chasing it with fewer dollars. One
of biggest dilemmas is how do we do that tradeoff, because we
are under a tremendous amount of pressure right now to convert
more to the prevention and treatment side because ''the law
enforcement side is not working.'' And when law enforcement
says put more money in prevention and treatment it is coming
out of your budget. That is the dilemma that we are facing in
Congress.
Mr. Enyeart. Right. And I would liken that, if you want a
comparison, to domestic violence. You never know--every case
that we prosecute could save a life. We had a case in Cass
County where we prosecuted for domestic violence. That specific
perpetrator later killed the victim in that case. Not in my
county. He followed her to another county. How many hundreds of
cases do we do in domestic violence where we are saving a
person's life? We will never know that. The same thing with
methamphetamine. Although, I think it is even clearer, because
I know people that I have prosecuted and put in prison, I have
saved their lives, just that person, not to mention the effect
on their children and the community at large. And while they
are in prison, they are not out setting up more clandestine
methamphetamine labs and distributing more meth. The problem
that I see is for every person that I send to prison, because
of the financial benefit of doing this, there are three more
people that are willing to step up and take their place. So
from a cost effectiveness standpoint, if you have to choose one
or the other, prevention. That is my opinion, and that is a
prosecutor who believes strongly that these people ought to be
incarcerated. But I think if you have to choose which dollar
goes where, you have to start out with prevention first.
Mr. Souder. Or at least how you are dividing it. Let me ask
in a followup question to the prisons. At the Federal area we
are looking--there is some increase in funding. The some
increase in funding means we are looking at 4.1 percent and
there is 2.2 percent inflation, then that gets divided
differently by different categories and we are hoping that we
can get additional in the narcotics area because it is
underneath a lot of crime and breakup of families and all kinds
of things. I did not mean to make it a hard zero sum, but it is
kind of a hard zero sum.
In the mix of things, the Federal Government has most
jurisdiction over Federal prisons. We could, however, have
money that goes into State prisons or local prisons. Do you
agree with the premise that was stated? I think; I know Mr.
Martin made the statement. I think one of you two may have--did
you say something similar to that, Barry? In other words--Mr.
Humble--[laughter.]
It makes me feel like I am back in school or something. Do
you feel that the group--because you stated, and almost all of
the law enforcement people here have stated, that you lock them
up and sometimes they are on probation and right back out doing
it again. It is heavily addictive. Would that not be the
logical first place as opposed to necessarily in a school
where, when you spend a dollar in the school on prevention 98
percent of those kids were not necessarily at risk in the first
place? So you have wasted 98. If you get the person in the
prison you are pretty much 100 percent sure. Or the jail, that
they are a problem. Would that not be the first place to target
prevention?
Mr. Enyeart. I disagree with that premise and here is why.
When I ran for prosector, one of the main reasons I did was
because I think you can make the biggest difference with
children, and that is why our juvenile program in Cass County
is extremely good in my opinion. If I have to choose where a
dollar is going to go, I will spend it on a juvenile delinquent
every single time before I will spend it on an adult offender,
and the reason is recidivism. Especially with methamphetamine,
considering the highly addictive nature of it.
I guess I would also disagree with the fact--this girl that
I told you about that I was talking to in that high school
class, when she turned around and rolled her eyes that shocked
me, because looking at her, I would not have ever thought she
was an at-risk student. I think in a rural community like ours
where you get some marijuana use and these other drugs are out
there, and then they give you a little bit of meth to try. I
think the risk is a lot higher than maybe we recognize. I do
not know. But I think the premise of treating people who are
already in the system versus younger people who maybe you can
avoid ever getting hooked on it in the first place, I disagree.
Mr. Souder. Now you said juvenile offenders. Did you mean
the technical term juvenile offenders on probation or do you
just mean juveniles who are breaking drug laws who we may not
have even picked up?
Mr. Enyeart. Juvenile offenders who are in the system and
those who we do not know. I think that is why the prevention
and education is so important. So I disagree with that. I think
it is----
Mr. Souder. Would you agree that prevention--the Drug Free
School's money has shown no--I mean this is research. Has shown
absolutely no impact on drug use?
Mr. Enyeart. You can make statistics say anything you want
to in my opinion.
Mr. Souder. Well the fact is that one of our frustrations
is as we put this money into different counties, you can argue
that, but what we are hearing--for example in Indiana, we have
spent a lot of money on it and meth use has doubled. So what is
the problem?
Mr. Enyeart. That is a good question. I do not know the
answer to that.
Mr. Souder. Well we are going to be zeroing on that, too.
It is a tough question for us because my assumption is, and I
am not arguing with your, I am arguing with your premise a
little, but I am probably trying to test your premise. Because
what happens is, when we take money from a hard program where
it may not be as successful as we would like and move it to a
softer program where we have no real track record at this point
that it is at all effective, it is; we are giving up kind of
the bird-in-the-hand to chase two or three in the bush. The
game would be great if we can get the prevention programs to
work, but it is slugging it out on the prevention programs.
Now there are some efforts that the Federal Government has
tried to do with this. One is the National Ad Campaign. And for
the last few years, despite criticism, marijuana use went down
last year by 10 percent. 10 percent in the last 2 years, which
is the biggest drop in U.S. history in the short-term for
marijuana use. So the Ad Campaign, counter to the criticism, is
working in a prevention way. So that is one where we see some
substance. We have really had to work on these community anti-
drug groups. Noble County was one of the first in the country
to get one of the first 50 grants through ONDCP and Allen
County was in the second 50. But it has been frustrating to be
perfectly honest, and it is frustrating to the people in Noble
County and in Allen County that we have not seen more of a
drop. It is sure not from effort because they are out there,
they have hundreds of kids involved. We are doing programs in
the school and maybe the fact is that drug use is going up so
much that we cannot hold prevention as accountable because it
would have gone up. It would have doubled and gone up at a
faster rate. It is very hard, because what we know is this:
Violent crime has dropped dramatically in the United States
because we locked up the criminals. I mean all you have to do
is look at the murder rates in the United States, look at the
rape rates in the United States, and what we see is boy, it
dropped. Now the problem is that is a short-term solution. Now
they are all going to come piling out like the reentry program
in Allen County. They have not recovered. They have not even
been treated for the most part and they are pouring out of the
prisons back into the system and we have not addressed it. But
short-term, at least we lowered the crime rate. That is the
dilemma we are working through with that.
I just wanted to probe. I know you had the passion there
and you enunciated that passion and I wanted to make sure it
was clarified for the record, because in effect that is an
important statement. That a prosecutor in a small county
believes that he would actually take some risk in allowing some
people to be on the street because he cannot keep up is
basically what you are saying.
Mr. Harp. To just address a little bit the Noble County
drug free school drug free money, and so on. The criticism that
I hear a lot from fellow officers and from, really from a lot
of the school people, is that the kids that participate are not
the kids that we are worried about anyway. They do a lot of
programs. They do a lot of after-school things and the private
program is fantastic. My daughter participates in that. But the
kids that participate in those are ``the good kids.'' They are
not the kids that typically the school is having problems with
or probation or law enforcement.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Humble, would you--we have talked about
this subject a number of times. First all, and I want to say
for the record, we all understand that all kids are at risk,
but that simply statistically is not equally true. As Mr.
Martin pointed out, if you have been sexually abused you are
higher risk. If you have a single-parent family you are higher
risk. If you are low income, it does not mean that all--my son
goes to Homestead High School which is a higher income high
school of a public school system in Allen County. Nobody will
disagree that it is also one of the higher drug use schools
that has a problem right now. So it is not just lower income.
But it does not take you too long to figure out that
disorganized communities are terrorized by drug dealers and
often those people in the suburban schools are going down into
those neighborhoods. There is a much higher risk. When I go
into an inner city school in Fort Wayne and ask this question;
have you heard a gun shot fired in anger at somebody else? I
will get 90 percent in inner city Fort Wayne and less than 5
percent almost anywhere else in the district. Therefore, they
are bearing the brunt of a lot of that, and they are more
exposed to a lot of it. If I asked, have you seen a coke dealer
or a marijuana dealer on the street outside your house, I am
going to get a substantially different answer in some
neighborhoods than other neighborhoods. If I ask the question
have you seen somebody cooking methamphetamine, I am going to
get a different type of an answer. And the question is, are our
prevention programs, because we do not want to be politically
incorrect, we do not want to prejudge, are we not targeting as
efficiently or designing, because that is one of the common
complaints. The people who join the programs are the people who
are not the highest risk. It does not mean they are not risks,
but they may be a 10 to 15 percent risk factor as opposed to
the subgroups that are 80 percent.
Barry, you have taught in a small school. Mr. Humble, you
have taught in a small school, you have worked in Noble County,
now you are in Allen County which is a whole different type of
ballgame. So do you want to comment a little on this, because
it is the knottiest thorn in the prevention question.
Mr. Humble. Definitely correct. I think the prosecutor hit
the nail on the head, because we actually do not know if we did
not do a program what the rates were going to be. So we are
judging. We are forced into judging by funders and other
community activists to prove how effective that we are. I take
this perspective from working with young people. I still coach
wrestling, so I still work with kids. I agree that, I agree
that there are children, young people, even adults that are a
little more predisposed to the problem because of the
environmental setting, hereditary, all those other kind of
factors. But I am constantly amazed at the attitude that a lot
of adults promote that kids will be kids and they are going to
let them do this or they going to let them do that. We have
tried to direct a lot of our prevention program toward parents,
stepping up and being a parent instead of being a buddy. We
have done billboard campaigns, media pamphlets, contacts. The
prevention avenue is so widespread that it takes a lot of
different things. So you work with the parents, you work with
the kids. You try. The community also has to step up. You know,
a child can go out of a prevention program and walk down to the
drugstore and all of a sudden see more than a thousand messages
about alcohol, tobacco. I mean you go to what I call your local
stop and robs, the convenience stores, and you look on the
counter and there is all these kind of ephedrine products and
rolling papers. Now I am not, I guess I am not of this
generation, but how many people actually roll tobacco?
Legitimate tobacco to smoke? Everybody knows that they are
rolling them for marijuana. So the community is sending some
messages that the community needs to be more involved in the
prevention message for their own neighborhood and community. So
we are trying to work more at that. My last year that I was
working in Noble County, and it is a privilege to get to be
with Ben and Doug again because we worked on almost a daily
basis, but it is to work with the workplace. Because in the
workplace you have parents and you also have people that just
live in the neighborhood or up there, other adults, to get them
to understand the significance that they can play. So I am
frustrated. I wish we could see greater results. I do know that
Noble County has made some significant strides when you
compare, you know, the pen and pencil survey results. It is
still not what they would like it to be. We are frustrated in
Allen County by the fact that even getting the schools to do a
survey to be able to acknowledge it, and that is based mostly
because the school officials are afraid of what the community
is going to say when they really know what the deal is.
Mr. Souder. Yeah. And the same thing would happen in the
drug-free workplace. A few people did a test and all of a
sudden they find in Noble County, what, 15 or 20 percent of
their employees, and they had denied that they had a drug
problem.
Mr. Humble. Right.
Mr. Souder. But it was amazing when they did a drug test
what actually happened.
Mr. Humble. And the end result of that was that the places
that started having a program, they had greater production,
better safety records and they actually rewarded their
employees with the money that they saved, so the employees made
out like--really well.
Mr. Souder. Well today has been very informative because
clearly we have heard that Cass and Starke County have a
different nature of a problem than Kosciusko and Elkhart and
Noble and Allen who are at the very edges of a meth outburst.
It is hopping up, but it is at the edges of that. Probably
South Bend, similar as we heard. So this question really
applies more to the Elkhart, Kosciusko, Noble, DeKalb, Fort
Wayne and probably South Bend, than it does Starke and Cass.
Looking at Noble County in particular, Mr. Harp, tell me if
there's any error to this. I understand the testimony from
those counties, including Noble, particularly, was we have meth
coming in through large Mexican organizations that represents
most of the meth. This is true for Fort Wayne, by the way, too.
That the second biggest cluster are cookers, where there are
more of them that are involving the local police department,
but the quantity they are picking up is smaller than when they
get a bigger bust. The two groups in Noble County that were
most affected by that were the Mexican networks that are hiding
inside those who have come in to help try to keep our
businesses going, which we would not be able to function
without, and they are hiding among them. And the second were
biker gangs.
Now coming back to the question, is there a program, for
example, in drug-free Noble County--because this is our
challenge as we look at prevention programs--the kids in the
programs, are they the people that are likely to be or are kids
of the people who are in the biker gangs or those networks? I
know personally it is a frustration that mostly they are not.
And so we have a disconnect, particularly when you take it down
to meth, that our prevention programs, how can we get them to
reach the people who are at the highest risk? I know there has
been these kind of discussions, reading more Hispanic language
things. Do we need more Hispanic counselors who are working
with it? If the kids who are most likely, whether it is for
spiritual reasons or other wind up in control of these clubs
and they do certain events, does it become something that those
kind of kids often do not even feel welcome at just because
they are uncomfortable socially? How do we work? This is a huge
challenge, and if we really are going to invest taxpayer
dollars and then they are going to come back to us and say but
you have just poured a bunch of money into the meth problem
prevention and it did not hit the target on the meth, it is
gone. It will not be there the next time or two. I mean we have
to have some kind of a plan, and what we are hearing today is
it is a little bit different in the rural counties. We know
what the pattern of this is, that the wealthy kids get it
first. So probably in Allen County it will hit the suburban
schools first, then it will move to the middle and then the
lower income. The information systems and the prevention
programs will hit the kids in the upper income families. They
will move to another drug and get off of it, like crack
cocaine, and it will be left in the poorest and they will
become addicts. And that is where most of the people who wind
up going to prison and dealing will be. We have seen this
pattern with drug after drug after drug after drug. So how can
we get at the front end of this? Is there a way? That is a
challenge, and if anybody has any thought or wants to add
anything else.
Mr. Connor. You know, I would say we do know where those
kids who are at risk are. They are places like the Center for
the Homeless. They are the kids whose parents have been
incarcerated for drug use, for drug manufacturing. It is those
kids with single-parent families that are suffering abuse. So
being able to target funds and programs specifically toward
those groups is a very effective use of prevention dollars. I
know a lot of the programs that we offer for our kids. We have
started a new teens program. That is a huge focus of it,
abstinence, you know, avoiding drugs. Getting kids who are
already in a system. We know their parents are homeless. They
are 50 percent more likely to be homeless just from that fact
alone. Add in the fact that they may never live in a decent
neighborhood that is not drug infested and that gets amplified.
So being able to provide prevention programs, but also making
rehabilitation a part of the treatment. Going through a
treatment program is one thing, but especially with
methamphetamine where there may be significant mental cognitive
delays that do not return. You are talking about somebody who
after they have used is a different person than they were
before. How do you rehabilitate that person and get them where
they can be successful, get them into a decent job and a
neighborhood where they are not going to be exposed to drugs
like they would where they are going to automatically go back
to? You know, being able to identify kids where their risk
factors are very high, and I think those are well known. I
agree with you, a lot of the DARE programs and things like that
are not as effective because they are spread so thin. They are
spread across every single school. You are right, they are
going--the kids that are going to those activities are the ones
that like that social network. It is not the kid who is
isolated, who has got one parent who is working that cannot get
him to an after-school function who is probably the most at-
risk kid in that whole school or that whole class that has to
be in that program. What happens about that child?
Mr. Souder. I want to do a followup question with you and
then move to Mr. Martin on looking at this concept of recovery.
The Center for the Homeless in South Bend I visited years ago
when I worked for Congressman Coats. How long has it been in
existence?
Mr. Connor. Since 1988.
Mr. Souder. I must have been there in 1989.
Mr. Connor. It has changed.
Mr. Souder. Then I was up there again though a few years
ago. The concept was to try to have not just basically a flop
house but a place for people to have an integrated service
provider system that would then do a followup kind of what I
think Mr. Martin is describing as a recovery system. In other
words, unless you can get--if you do not--if you cannot read or
write it is tough to hold a job. It is pretty tough, even in
those first stages, and if you are doped out it is not clear
you are going to show up for work it becomes a multiplicity and
it is an attempt to do that. Now there are a couple of things
that are unusual. Is the South Bend Center still tied in with
Notre Dame?
Mr. Connor. Somewhat.
Mr. Souder. Do you get fundraising from them?
Mr. Connor. They are one of our founding partners. They own
one of our buildings still.
Mr. Souder. Do you get students coming through there?
Mr. Connor. A lot.
Mr. Souder. That type of model, when I worked for Dan
Coats, we held it up a lot. I think--did the President visit? I
know that he uses an example.
Mr. Connor. Jime Touwey came from the Faith Based
Initiative's Office.
Mr. Souder. And it is the type of thing that we need to be
looking at because there needs to be a university component. I
know when I went to Notre Dame you had certain requirements and
volunteer hours. Furthermore, one of the things that I have
looked at in social services that could be used in narcotics
areas as well in other types of that is that in business, as
Mr. Connor well knows, one of the things you could do is work
with small business loans to help them fill out forms and get
them reorganized. Well why in the social service departments of
the different units cannot kids either be required or give
volunteer work to do that? We are trying to work with
Americorps to try to tie this kind of thing in because unless
we can figure out in at least the highest--we know that it fits
the highest risk population because they have already been
arrested. Obviously it is better to get them the first time
than the last time. By the time they are up to seven it is
pretty big. If you can get them. There are kids who are clearly
higher risk and there is a tier of risks here. We will be
better off.
Now, Mr. Martin, could you describe in identifying further
your difference between recovery and treatment, if we can make
this very explicit, because you were pretty explicit. But you
are defining treatment as we would go into X-facility in Fort
Wayne, we would supposedly have research on what makes it
effective. Presumably the length of time they are allowed to
serve is about half as long as the research showed they would
be----
Mr. Martin. Or as long as the insurance company will pay,
yes.
Mr. Souder. So it is not even--what good does the research
do if you do not follow through? But basically they go into
that treatment program and then they leave and then after a
while they go back into their problem and they go back to the
treatment program. I have never met an addict who has not gone
through lots. I do not know whether you would agree with that.
Mr. Martin. Well, first of all, I am going to address a
couple of things in answering that. One is the prosecutor. When
he is talking about the kids, I was one of those kids. I never
cared a darn about any consequence, never thought about it, it
was not going to happen to me. I was going to use what I was
going to use because I was having fun and I was impressing my
friends and that is all I cared about because I did not feel
good about me. And until you take that away from a child and
make them feel good about themselves you have no chance. That
is why I believe it is better to do it the other way. Treatment
comes from the scientific community. It has evolved out of
research and so forth and so on.
Recovery started in 1935 when Dr. Bob and Bill Dudley got
together on a first call on Alcoholics Anonymous. It all
started in Akron, OH. Neither one of them knew it was going to
work but it did. Was the book divinely written? Probably. I
think it had something to do with it. It has been successful
with millions and millions and millions and now there are over
100 12-step programs identifying everything, bipolar,
narcotics, alcohol, cocaine, food. I mean it goes on and on and
on. What makes the AA and CA and NA system stand apart is they
also have the traditions that treatment has. They do not accept
any outside contributions from anybody for anything. They take
no political stance on anything. They are not looking for
anybody's help, they are not looking for hand outs, they are
not looking to do anything but affect the person by giving what
I have been given, a way to someone else is the only way I can
keep it. That is the whole premise of recovery.
Why does it work? Because first of all, the person I talked
to when I came around knew what I was talking about because he
had been there. You know, you can study all the books you want
and you can get all the Ph.D.'s you want but if you have not
been there you will not understand it. I use a premise and
people might see it as something that is crude but it makes a
point to the average person. I had an interview out here
outside today by one of the reporters and she said she
understood there was such an addictive drug, but, you know,
certainly it is not like alcohol or cocaine because, you know,
for those you can use willpower. I said willpower? You cannot
use willpower for those. She said well sure you can. I said
well look ma'am, what you maybe ought to do is go home and take
a box of Ex-Lax and then do not go to the bathroom and use your
willpower and you will find what compulsion and mental
obsession is all about. Well that is what the alcoholic goes
through, and you wonder why they turn right around and go back
out? Because if they did not get anything while they were in
prison, they are still the same person they were, only they are
a little lower because they just served time in prison.
I heard a couple of them talk about people who offended,
got out and then 2 weeks later they were back in. I have
watched that happen the very same day. Well what is the
difference, you know? Well, they did not get anything, you
know. And then I had somebody say well what you are asking is
that we brainwash these guys. Well, I needed my brain washed
when I sobered up. You know, that is what it took for me. You
know, I am not just one guy. We are talking about millions of
people who have sobered up and gotten off drugs through this
the first time. I have never been back out since April 10,
1980. It does not make me better than anybody that went back
out five or six times, just their bottom was different than
mine. But the point I am making is, it can work the first time
if a person is willing and is hurt bad enough, and God knows I
hurt. You know, I was not allowed in my own parents' home the
last 2 years of their life, and I came from a good home. My
home was not broken. I did not have parents who abused drugs,
alcohol or anything. They were loving parents. I was different
though.
I was born with buck teeth and got to hear Bucky, Bucky
Beaver until I was blue in the face in 1958 when that
toothpaste came out, you know. That hurt. I went and told my
mom about it--and this is the other thing I want to talk about.
Every alcoholic and addict has a perception problem. We do not
see the world like everybody else sees it. You know, when my
mamma put me on her lap and said do not worry, honey, we are
going to get that taken care of when you are older, because she
said when you are 12 we will get braces. That is not what I
heard. What I heard was her reinforce that there was a problem
with me, you know. And I grew up hearing four eyes my whole
life, you know. Well the other thing about addictive
personalities is we are a little on the over-sensitive part.
Now whether that is a benefit today that I am overly sensitive
because it plays into my life today and helps me do what I do,
it sure was not a benefit as a child because I did not know how
to react to other people. I only ended up getting to know two
feelings, you know. One of the feelings was anger and the other
one was happy and that is the only two I knew. If I was sad, I
was really angry. Why that is important is because that is the
very thing that often times you cannot even identify through
treatment. This is a long-term deal.
When I talk about the sexual abuse, I mean I got to the
point where I came right out and started asking people. We had
a young lady come in yesterday. I caught her totally off guard.
The thing about catching them off guard, they usually tell you
the truth. I said any sexual abuse issues in your childhood?
Well, yeah. How did you know that? Well, I did not, that is why
I am asking because it is something we need to identify and
deal with. Am I qualified to deal with her sexual abuse
problems? Absolutely not, but I know where to take her to get
her some help. That is where we go back to the treatment route
again, because those are real, they are serious.
We do not have an opportunity to cut the fat, you know,
with the Federal Government about this recovery thing, but
seriously so many institutions are facilities like we have.
People are willing to help, they are there but they are getting
no funding, you know. And what they have always shied away
from, like the Mental Health Association of Indiana would love
to see us become licensed. Why? So they can put an MSW in
there. You know, I mean that is insane to me. What we do, we do
it very well. But the thing that bothers me most is, when I was
in Washington I heard two speeches that really upset me. One, I
tried to get a copy of and have not been able to, the NIDA
speech. I believe her name was Dr. Baughcall who is the new
NIDA director. She got up and she talked about what they are
doing in research in a prevention mode and they were doing this
with monkeys. She made the statement I believe, so I would like
to see it and read it. Maybe I have a perception problem and I
did not perceive what she really said. But what I thought I
heard her to say was that they thought they could eradicate
this disease through the prevention mode because of what she
had discovered with a monkey's brain and reaction to different
tests they gave the monkey. What I wrote back to her and told
her was, well, that is great but maybe you ought to check with
some recovering people who felt what it feels like to have that
drug in them and why they started to begin with. And monkeys
have never had a problem with peer pressure nor have they ever
been sexually abused, you know. Those are factors. I mean you
cannot ignore the factors. Yet I believe the scientific
community has all the good intentions in the world. I mean, I
applaud them for their enthusiasm, but I really believe they
need to say, you know, maybe we do not know so much. Maybe we
ought to check with the people that have been through it, done
that and now are better.
Did I answer that question?
Mr. Souder. Yeah, that was really helpful.
Let me--I want to ask a couple of technical law enforcement
questions yet because I did not get a chance to do this. I want
to check from the first panel with Mr. Harp and Mr. Schnepp.
What did you think of the Indiana State Police. In other words,
one of the questions I know in Noble County is should there be
somebody from the Indiana State Police based in Noble County or
is the current system working well? What was your reaction, Mr.
Harp, to the discussions you heard?
Mr. Harp. Obviously any manpower that, if I am hearing
correctly, the manpower issue is one that really cripples us.
Mr. Souder. When you find a lab do you wait for them to
come out?
Mr. Harp. Yes.
Mr. Souder. And how long do you have officers there?
Mr. Harp. It can vary from--you know, if they are close and
already out, but generally you are looking at--I would say a
couple or 3 hours.
Mr. Schnepp. At least.
Mr. Souder. Is that--yours come out of Peru?
Mr. Schnepp. Out of Peru. But if they are at another lab
already, 3 hours, 5 hours, it depends. What I have been doing
in the last years, if it is not an active lab, if it is just
like Wednesday night we found a fire extinguisher full of
hydrous pills and stuff like that. I just called EMA out. Their
director is certified and he took care of the problem. That is
what I have been doing. I called the post and advised them of
what I had and then the EMA director took care of the problem.
We are talking about 15 or 20 minutes instead of 2 or 3 hours.
It was not an active lab, but it was still a fire extinguisher,
a plastic container with rags, ammonia, Sudafed, all that
stuff, but there was not any chemicals actually brewing.
Mr. Souder. Let me ask one other question related to the
types of labs you are seeing when you are working with meth in
particular. The people you are dealing with--we are talking
about different types of counties, different kinds of networks.
Are they--how is it different from what you have seen in other
narcotics or do you think if we get control of meth they will
just move to something else? Or is this kind of a different
subgroup we are dealing with in meth?
Mr. Schnepp. I am seeing all kinds. We had a plant manager
that actually had a $200,000 home, they got into it and he was
stealing the anhydrous from his workplace. He had a 200-pound
tank out in his pool and he was cooking meth in his pool shed.
And we have the little guy out here in the mobile home making
it. I do not think you could really say it is one society. I am
going to take the heat off the Hispanics and say we were having
pounds delivered by Vietnamese. It was coming from California
to like a Hispanic gang type thing out of Fort Wayne, I
believe.
Mr. Harp. Are you saying--I mean if we drastically reduced
methamphetamine are these people going to gravitate to
something else? Is that it? I am not real sure.
Mr. Souder. What I am trying to see is, we need to work on
prevention, getting all drug use down. I'm trying to figure out
if the meth--it sounds to me--and maybe Mr. Martin or Mr.
Humble can just--it sounds to me that meth is more like crack.
Mr. Humble. It is.
Mr. Souder. Than other types of drugs. You might start with
marijuana, start with alcohol, smoke cigarettes, move to other
types of things, but because of its instantaneous pop and
highly addictive nature that it behaves differently than other
types of narcotics.
Mr. Harp. I did not go verbatim on my written statement,
but one of the cases that I cited in there, one of the problems
that I have seen is we will have career pot smokers that have
functioned, you know, and went to work every day and provided
for their family every day. I even cited a personal case of an
acquaintance of mine. Once they get involved in meth, they--you
know, they are done. They lose everything. They lose their job,
they do not want to work, they lose their family and their
priorities are totally about getting more meth.
Mr. Schnepp. They will not feed their children. They will
send their children out to buy and knowing that if the children
get caught stealing the pseudoephedrine or the ether cans or
whatever, they will not get in near as much trouble as the
adults. They are using their kids.
Mr. Souder. Well we have had a wide range of things. I
really appreciate your patience because it has been a long day.
Do any of you--I will just go down. Do any of you want to say
anything? Do any of you want to say anything in conclusion?
Mr. Enyeart. I think Mr. Martin's comments are very
valuable but looking at my comments, I was not looking just at
one way to handle it. I think it is the drug court program that
I talk about.
Mr. Souder. I understand.
Mr. Enyeart. The drug court program would be directed at
people who are in the system. When I say low-level user, I mean
someone who is addicted and doing it for their personal use. We
ought to be looking at putting them into programs so that they
do recover so we are not just treating them constantly. We want
them to recover. And a good way to do that I think in the
adult, once the adults are in the system, is through a drug
court program where the court maybe even on a weekly basis
brings that person in. They are tested for drugs. If they test
positive they get a weekend or two in jail. Say this is where
you are going, and help them through the treatment process.
Maybe even some incarceration is part of the treatment. Make
them be in full recovery at some point.
Mr. Souder. Do you have anything, Mr. Schnepp?
Mr. Schnepp. No.
Mr. Humble. I think I kind of like what the prosecutor had
to say when he said we need to win. We need to develop that
mentality to win. The problem is all of this drug problem has
been with us long enough now through some generations and
people want to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I do not
know where the light at the end of the tunnel is, but I like
that win idea.
The second thing is, in my line of work I have to work with
treatment, justice and prevention. I agree very much with Ben
that while these people are in jail there is some neat
opportunities there. We have a wonderful program, a drug
program that is housed in the Allen County jail. There is
assignments, there is information, there is things that they
have to do. It is not a very expensive program, but that at
least plants the seed. So that when they do get out and they
decide that they need a place to stay there are places left
like Ben has and other recovery houses, that they have a
chance. It is a big--it is a cooperative thing.
Mr. Souder. This sounds naive and it is always dangerous.
But we are doing a reentry program in Fort Wayne, and we have a
number of things with the prisons, but I think everybody agrees
first off that probation officers have far too many kids to
begin to track them.
Mr. Humble. Exactly.
Mr. Souder. Have you seen any programs with the kids in
probation? That seems like a step before.
Mr. Martin. My son runs one in Coldwater, MI. It is kind of
like a teenagers day care. If they are not in school then they
have offended through Teen Corps, Drug Corps or whatever the
particular offense is, then they go there. If they are not at
home with parents--if their parents are not home they are at
this place or they are in school. There is no exception. He has
really--it is kind of a model thing, but it is pretty
impressive because it gives them control. You know, he can wash
the brain a little bit.
Mr. Souder. Because that may be part of the targeting risk
before they are into the heavy end of the criminal system.
Mr. Humble. We are funding a program that is trying to be a
model where they are taking juveniles who are already in the
system and putting them in. They get counseling and treatment
that is a part of that and they work their way through it. You
know, funding issues, again, how many can you work with? Well
with this group that we have, we have pretty good results, but
that is only a drop in the bucket compared to all of those that
are on probation.
Mr. Souder. I thank you for your time. We all agree that to
actually get somebody, there is two things. One, getting them
off the streets so they do not endanger other people and they
do not blow up the whole town of Burket, to use an example from
earlier today. And the second thing is that on an individual
basis in changing their lives, unless an individual makes a
commitment it is pretty tough to run through the prevention
treatment programs. The problem we have is we do not quite know
what triggers that moment. Sometimes it is purely voluntary
when they hit bottom, other times it is somebody from their
family. I had one kid come up to me at one school afterwards
and said a friend of mine committed suicide last night and I am
afraid it is going to happen to me. So all of a sudden he hit
bottom because of something that happened with his friend. It
is hard to tell. If I can quote this, one of the things I have
used as an example a lot of times because it was really
interesting because we had worked really hard in Noble County.
By the way, one thing I want to say for the record, part of the
reason Noble County's statistics may be a little different is
because Noble County knows they had a problem. They went after
their problem; therefore, their arrest rates, their testing
rates, the measurement of kids shows a problem that other
places in other counties--you know, hear no evil, see no evil
type of stuff. So I did not mean to pick on them.
One of the things that is really interesting after a number
of years of working, I was speaking to East Noble High School
seniors and raised the question, because I am a big advocate of
drug testing, there should be drug testing. Immediately the
student council president started berating me, a civil
liberties question, we do not need to do this, etc. Another
person jumped all over my case. One student said that they had
been in an athletic program where there was testing required,
they basically got caught, were forced to confront their
parents and would have never gotten off drugs if somebody had
not held them accountable because nobody seemed to care. Then
somebody else said yes but everybody should not have to go
through this, blah, blah, blah, and another kid raised their
hand and defended the concept of drug testing and we went back
and forth. The superintendent and the principal both got me in
the hall and said East Noble is going to start a drug testing
program, all of which is kind of suspended right now with the
court decision. We are going to start a drug testing program
because every single kid who raised their hand has either been
counseled, arrested or we suspected had a drug abuse problem
and every kid who opposed it has never been on any watch list.
Backward from what people say, which kind of I think gets to
this question that some of them are just out there looking to
be held accountable and then others just are not prepared. It
is how to identify them and find them is our challenge and
prevention and treatment.
Meanwhile we thank not only those who are helping and
working with them, but those who are keeping the rest of us
safe as we work this through, not to mention their children and
families. Yes, we hope we can do more in prevention but
meantime protect the ones we can protect. We appreciate you
taking the risks of walking into homes not knowing what you are
going to do, not knowing what kind of retaliation the threats
that every prosecutor gets into
and the risks to your family and so on. We appreciate all that
you do in these kinds of things too.
With that, the subcommittee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 2:06 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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