Source: thomas.loc.gov

     _________________________________________________________________
   
       STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS (Senate -
                             February 25, 1999)
     _________________________________________________________________
   
  DETERMINED AND FULL ENGAGEMENT AGAINST THE THREAT OF METH (`DEFEAT METH') ACT
  
   Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, we live in a time of unparalleled
   prosperity. The stock market continually hits new highs, while
   unemployment and gasoline plunge to record lows. This prosperity
   brings many blessings, chief among them material comfort. But
   sometimes prosperity can mask problems as well as solve them. As
   Francis Bacon said, `Prosperity is not without many fears and
   distastes; and adversity is not without comforts and hopes.'
   Prosperity can breed apathy and complacency, weakening a society's
   ability to respond to the challenges facing it. And as for adversity,
   it is only when people realize the true extent of their challenges
   that they can overcome them.
   
   One of the greatest challenges we face is drugs, especially the recent
   rise in the production and use of methamphetamines. Despite the
   continued challenge drugs present, we have not heard enough about this
   problem recently. This administration has chosen not to make it a
   priority. A few years ago, Democrat Representative Charles Rangel
   lamented this administration's inaction on the drug war: `I've been in
   Congress over two decades, and I have never, never, never found any
   administration that's been so silent on this great challenge to the
   American people.' Former Drug Czar William Bennett agrees, having
   testified before our colleagues in the House of Representatives that:
   `The Clinton Administration has been AWOL in the war on drugs.' We
   have gone from an era of `just say no' to an era of `I didn't inhale,'
   and the numbers concerning youth drug use show that these contrasting
   messages make a difference.
   
   While the financial numbers continue to move in the right direction,
   the numbers concerning youth direction have gone in the wrong
   direction. In 1998, the percentage of 12th graders who had tried
   illegal drugs was a shocking 54%--133% of the level in 1992. This
   figure, which had decreased during the 1980s, increased in the 1990s.
   Similarly, in 1998, the reported illicit drug use by 12th graders in
   the last 30 days was more than 177% of the level seven years earlier.
   
   What is particularly alarming is the drastic increase in the use of
   heavy drugs by teenagers. In 1998, the percentage of 12th graders who
   used cocaine in the last 30 days was 178% of the level in 1992.
   Moreover, the percentage of heroin use was 250% of the 1992 level. The
   plain facts are that drug use among our nation's youth is far too
   common and becoming more so. Our nation appears to be sliding backward
   from the strides we made in the 1980s.
   
   The increases in drug use among our children are alarming. Our
   children are our greatest asset and they are at great risk from drugs.
   They are the most vulnerable members of our society. And, more than
   any other group, young people face the highest risk of being lost to
   drugs forever.
   
   The more than half of the nation's high school seniors who have
   already tried drugs run much greater risks of future drug use than
   their peers. According to the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse,
   those who do not try drugs by their mid-twenties are unlikely ever to
   use drugs. Protecting our children from drugs is the best way to stop
   adults from using drugs.
   
   The challenge before us--protecting our children from drugs--becomes
   ever more difficult in a society plagued by divorce, single-parent
   households, diffuse communities, and the never-ending beat of `live
   for today' messages coming from our culture. Every one of these
   factors makes it harder to impart the right messages to the next
   generation and to keep our children off drugs.
   
   Protecting our children from drugs is more difficult than ever. In the
   last few years, a new enemy has emerged to join the other, more
   familiar, threats of cocaine, heroin, and marijuana. That new threat
   is methamphetamine or `meth,' a dangerous, addictive substance that is
   ruining lives and weakening communities across this great land. Meth
   is to the 1990s what cocaine was to the 1980s and heroin was to the
   1970s. And the problem is growing exponentially, in both Missouri and
   the nation at large. In 1992, DEA agents seized 2 clandestine meth
   labs in the State of Missouri. By 1994, there were 14 seizures. That
   was serious enough. However, in 1997, they seized 421 labs.
   
   Meth ensnares our children, endangers us all, and causes users to
   commit other crimes. In 1998, the percentage of 12th graders who used
   meth was double the 1992 level. Meth-related emergency room incidents
   are up 63 percent over that same period. The
   
   National Institute of Justice released a report just a couple of
   months ago that showed meth use among adult arrestees and detainees
   has risen to alarming levels across the country.
   
   Meth is one of the most serious drug problems in our nation--and, in
   states like Missouri--it remains the most serious problem. Just ask
   the McClelland family in Kansas City. Their 11-year-old daughter was
   bludgeoned to death by a family friend who was high on meth. Her
   murderer admitted to beating her in the head repeatedly with a claw
   hammer after she resisted his sexual advances.
   
   This is not an isolated incident. Meth kills. Law enforcement officers
   in Missouri refer to it as a triple threat. It can kill the user; it
   can make the user kill and, in many cases, even its production can
   kill.
   
   Meth labs have been called toxic time bombs because volatile chemicals
   are mixed in the manufacturing process. There have been dozens of lab
   explosions. There are also numerous cases of meth abusers
   booby-trapping their abandoned labs, resulting in serious injuries to
   law enforcement agents. Even when not booby trapped, abandoned labs
   are like toxic waste dumps. Clean up is both dangerous and expensive.
   
   Meth production poses a unique challenge to law enforcement because of
   the difficulties in effective interdiction. Although some meth comes
   in the United States from Mexico, much of it is home produced from
   readily-available materials. It can be manufactured in clandestine
   labs and even in the kitchen of a moving RV--a literal moving target
   for law enforcement. Meth also can be manufactured in batches large or
   small. Law enforcement officials in Missouri have told me that as we
   have poured more resources into the fight against meth, some meth
   cooks have resorted to smaller and smaller batches to reduce the
   chances of detection. Other law enforcement officers report meth
   operations that contract out the various steps in the manufacturing
   process to different sites to reduce the chances of detection.
   
   Meth also has some unique attributes which appeal to users. Smoking
   meth produces a high that lasts 8 to 24 hours. Cocaine, in contrast,
   produces a high that lasts for 20 to 30 minutes. Meth appeals not only
   to those looking for an extended high. It appeals to vanity as well.
   Meth suppresses appetite and is enticing to young adults trying to
   lose weight.
   
   While meth is different from other drugs in some ways--more dangerous,
   more difficult to police--at its core, it is the same as other
   narcotics in that it imposes costs. According to Bill Bennett, the use
   of drugs `makes every other social problem much worse.'
   
   Meth contributes to a host of societal ills--violence, unemployment,
   homelessness, family breakup. I have heard too many stories of
   neglected children all but abandoned in a home turned into a meth lab.
   There are enough threats to our children that we do not need meth
   adding to our burden.
   
   I want to fight the scourge of meth because of the violence it causes.
   I want to fight meth because of the costs it imposes, on society and
   on families, on taxpayers and on communities. But there is another
   factor that motivates my opposition to meth: I want to fight meth
   because its use and production is wrong. And too few people are
   willing to stand up these days and call drugs wrong.
   
   This laissez faire attitude leads to too much permissiveness on the
   subject of drugs. And permissiveness on drugs imposes terrible moral
   and psychic costs on America's youth.
   
   In fact, much of our current predicament stems for the permissive
   attitudes that emerged from the 1960s. The decay of enforcement that
   began in the 1960s helped to cause the problems of the succeeding
   decades.
   
   Make no mistake. Enforcement is an extremely effective tool in
   diminishing drug use. During the 1960s and 1970s, the period
   coinciding with the dawn of this country's second great drug crisis,
   incarceration rates plummeted from 90 per 1,000 arrests in 1960 to
   only 19 per 1,000 arrests by 1980. Laws are what protects society from
   anarchy. And when we choose not to enforce our laws, our laws lose
   their effectiveness, and the bulwark against anarchy withers.
   
   While our society too often tends towards laxness, we also have a
   history of responding to challenges. America has never faced a problem
   that has proven too great for us to meet or too big for us to tackle.
   The meth challenge, while daunting, is no exception. If we make a
   determined and full engagement in our war against meth, we will win.
   We will defeat meth.
   
   In my four years in the United States Senate, I have fought the growth
   of meth trafficking. In the last Congress, I introduced the
   `Trafficking Penalties Enhancement Act' to provide more severe
   penalties for manufacturing, trafficking, or importing meth. That
   legislation, which was signed into law last fall, increases prison
   terms for meth possession to a 10-year minimum for possession of 50
   grams of meth or more, and a 5-year minimum for 5 grams or more. That
   law also made more meth crimes eligible for the death penalty in
   situations in which a murder is committed in conjunction with the meth
   offense. In light of the triple threat nature of meth, the
   availability of the death penalty is particularly relevant and
   appropriate.
   
   In order to protect residents of public housing, I worked with my
   colleague from Missouri, Senator Bond, to place a `one strike and your
   out,' lifetime ban from public housing premises for individuals who
   manufacture or produce methamphetamine.
   
   I also worked to set up a regional High-Intensity Drug Trafficking
   Area (or HIDTA) that covers Missouri. More recently, I organized a
   bipartisan effort by the Missouri congressional delegation that led to
   increased funding for anti-meth initiatives, including resources for
   law enforcement and lab cleanup. These steps are all important. When I
   talked
   
   with representatives of Missouri law enforcement earlier this week,
   they underscored that these programs are having a positive effect in
   the fight against meth. But winning the battle against meth once and
   for all will take continued hard work and effort.
   
   Mr. President, today I rise to take the next step in the fight against
   meth, the Determined and Full Engagement Against the Threat of Meth
   Act, or the `DeFEAT Meth Act' for short.
   
   My anti-methamphetamine legislation will have five main components.
   
   First, the bill directs the U.S. Sentencing Commission to adjust its
   guidelines to increase penalties for meth crimes. In the last Congress
   we were able to raise the mandatory minimum sentences for meth
   trafficking crimes involving over 5 grams. This provision complements
   last year's legislation by increasing penalties for meth crimes that
   do not come under the mandatory minimums, and adding a special
   sentencing enhancement for meth crimes that endanger human life. This
   provision completes the process of imposing appropriate and severe
   penalties on those who wish to tear apart the very fabric of our
   society by distributing meth.
   
   Second, my legislation will provide law enforcement officers with more
   resources for combating meth. Specifically, it is time to authorize
   more funding for the Drug Enforcement Administration's meth
   initiative. This funding is essential. In order to stop the spread of
   meth, the DEA needs to hire more agents, and provide additional
   training for state and local law enforcement officers. These agents
   will participate in the DEA's comprehensive plan for targeting and
   investigating meth trafficking, production and abuse. The DEA also
   needs to provide additional support for local law enforcement. When
   law enforcement busts a meth lab, they are taking over the equivalent
   of a toxic waste dump. The serious and unique problems cleanup
   problems created by meth demand a serious and unique response.
   
   Third, we need to educate our children about the dangers of meth.
   While DEA interdiction is vital, we also need to educate parents,
   teachers, and children--who may not yet be familiar with the dangers
   of meth--about the size of the threat. We should authorize new funding
   for programs to educate parents and teachers of the dangers of
   methamphetamine. Missouri law enforcement officers estimate that as
   many as 10% of high-school students know the recipe for meth. We must
   make sure that 100% of them know that meth is a recipe for disaster.
   
   Fourth, we need to recognize that, more than any other narcotic, meth
   can be made all too easily, in home grown laboratories, with
   readily-available chemicals. To counteract this problem, we must
   ensure that the list of banned precursor chemicals used to make meth
   is kept up to date. It seems that when a precursor chemical is added
   to the list, meth cooks figure out how to manufacture meth with a new
   unlisted chemical. We must remain vigilant in the battle against meth.
   After consulting with people on the front line--in the crime labs in
   Missouri--we have proposed adding two new precursor chemicals: red
   phosphorous and sodium dichromate.
   
   Finally, the bill amends the federal drug paraphernalia statute to
   cover meth. The current law covers paraphernalia used to ingest a
   number of specific drugs including marijuana and cocaine. It does not
   cover meth. There is no basis for this differential treatment, and the
   bill adds meth to the statute.
   
   This comprehensive plan is an essential step in the war against meth.
   While no plan will not stop the spread of meth overnight, we must
   continue the long process of stopping this onslaught. Defeating meth
   will be a struggle that takes place in schools, in communities, in
   churches, within families. We must teach the next generation the
   danger of drugs and give them alternatives to the easy short term
   answers that drugs provide.
   
   Meth presents us with a formidable challenge. We have overcome other
   challenges in the past and we can conquer this one as well. In fact,
   the history of America is one of meeting challenges and surpassing
   people's highest expectations. Meth is no exception. All we need to
   succeed is to marshal our will and channel the great indomitable
   American spirit. The experience of the past few years demonstrates
   that you cannot win the war on drugs with a half-hearted effort.
   However, experience also shows that we can win if we commit to a
   determined and full engagement against the threat of drugs. This bill
   provides full engagement. With it, we will meet the meth challenge and
   we will defeat it.
   
   Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be
   printed in the Record.
   
   There being no objection, the bill was ordered to be printed in the
   Record, as follows:
   
[Page: S2030]  GPO's PDF

                                  S . 486 
                                      
   Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
   States of America in Congress assembled,
   
   SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
   This Act may be cited as the `Determined and Full Engagement Against
   the Threat of Methamphetamine' or `Defeat Meth' Act of 1999.
   
   SEC. 2. ENHANCED PUNISHMENT OF METHAMPHETAMINE LABORATORY OPERATORS.
   (a) Federal Sentencing Guidelines:
   
   (1) In general: Pursuant to its authority under section 994(p) of
   title 28, United States Code, the United States Sentencing Commission
   shall amend the Federal sentencing guidelines in accordance with
   paragraph (2) with respect to any offense relating to the manufacture,
   attempt to manufacture, or conspiracy to manufacture amphetamine or
   methamphetamine in violation of--
   
   (A) the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 801 et seq.);
   
   (B) the Controlled Substances Import and Export Act (21 U.S.C. 951 et
   seq.); or
   
   (C) the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act (46 U.S.C. App. 1901 et
   seq.).
   
   (2) Requirements: In carrying out this paragraph, the United States
   Sentencing Commission shall, with respect to each offense described in
   paragraph (1)--
   
   (A) increase the base offense level for the offense--
   
   (i) by not less than 3 offense levels above the applicable level in
   effect on the date of enactment of this Act; or
   
   (ii) if the resulting base offense level after an increase under
   clause (i) would be less than level 27, to not less than level 27; or
   
   (B) if the offense created a substantial risk of danger to the health
   and safety of another person (including any Federal, State, or local
   law enforcement officer lawfully present at the location of the
   offense), increase the base offense level for the offense--
   
   (i) by not less than 6 offense levels above the applicable level in
   effect on the date of enactment of this Act; or
   
   (ii) if the resulting base offense level after an increase under
   clause (i) would be less than level 30, to not less than level 30.
   
   (3) Emergency authority to sentencing commission: The United States
   Sentencing Commission shall promulgate amendments pursuant to this
   subsection as soon as practicable after the date of enactment of this
   Act in accordance with the procedure set forth in section 21(a) of the
   Sentencing Act of 1987 (Public Law 100-182), as though the authority
   under that Act had not expired.
   (b) Effective Date: The amendments made pursuant to this section shall
   apply with respect to any offense occurring on or after the date that
   is 60 days after the date of enactment of this Act.
   
[Page: S2031]  GPO's PDF

   SEC. 3. INCREASED RESOURCES FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT.
   (a) Authorization of DEA Funds To Combat Methamphetamines:
   
   (1) Purpose: From amounts made available to carry out this subsection,
   the Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration shall
   implement a comprehensive approach for targeting and investigating
   methamphetamine production, trafficking, and abuse to combat the
   trafficking of methamphetamine in areas designated by the Director of
   National Drug Control Policy as high intensity drug trafficking areas,
   which approach shall include--
   
   (A) training local law enforcement agents in the detection and
   destruction of clandestine methamphetamine laboratories, and the
   prosecution of any offense relating to the manufacture, attempt to
   manufacture, or conspiracy to manufacture methamphetamine in violation
   of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 801 et seq.), the
   Controlled Substances Import and Export Act (21 U.S.C. 951 et seq.),
   the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act (46 U.S.C. App. 1901 et seq.),
   or applicable State law;
   
   (B) investigating and assisting in the prosecution of methamphetamine
   traffickers, establishing a national clandestine laboratory computer
   database, reducing the availability of precursor chemicals being
   diverted to clandestine laboratories in the United States and abroad,
   and cleaning up the hazardous waste generated by seized clandestine
   laboratories; and
   
   (C) allocating agents to States with the highest rates of clandestine
   laboratory closures during the most recent 5 fiscal years.
   
   (2) Authorization of appropriations: There are authorized to be
   appropriated to carry out this subsection--
   
   (A) $30,000,000 for fiscal year 2000; and
   
   (B) such sums as may be necessary for each of fiscal years 2001
   through 2004.
   (b) High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas:
     _________________________________________________________________