When you say that, I think you are speaking of marihuana.
Mr. BROTZMAN. Yes.

Dr. BING. People who use this drug commonly take it by smoking it in tobacco or something else. Now, these people are generally not involved in crimes of violence as opposed to those, for example, using cocaine, who may have real delusions and hallucinations, and who become very frightened.

Mr. BROTZMAN. This is completely at odds with my experience with those who smoke cannabis. We found many crimes of violence in our jurisdiction from those under the influence of this particular-well, under the influence of marihuana. Isn't this the case?

You say that people are not prone to crimes of violence; yet, if the person is addicted and can't get a narcotic, he will do virtually anything to get it and that includes getting a gun and holding up a business house or an individual, if necessary; is that not correct?

Dr. BING. Yes. I think we have to distinguish between crimes which may be a direct result of the drug, itself, as perhaps in the case of cocaine, and other crimes which are committed as you suggest to get money for the drug.

I should point out, however, that marihuana is not a drug which produces physical dependence.

Mr. BROTZMAN. I understand you don't have the physiological changes that you do from heavy drugs.

Now, the end result, not to belabor the point, is that whether a person is under the addiction of a drug or if he is merely getting a gun to get the drug, the end result, as far as society is concerned, is the same; they are both related to the drug, so we have to look at it from that viewpoint, I believe.

Dr. WIESNER. I would suggest we file a copy of our narcotics report with our testimony.

Mr. BROTZMAN. I don't mean to get into too much detail in this regard, but you mentioned this report in your statement and I am trying to pull something specific out of your statement so that I can understand it.

Dr. WIESNER. We will send you a copy of the report.

I believe there are proceedings of the President's Conference on Narcotics and Drug Abuse.

Mr. BROTZMAN. To make myself very clear, I want to know what you did in this specific area, what your agency did and what the effect of it was in this overall problem.

I am just picking one out because that is the only way I can test it. Dr. WIESNER. I would like to repeat, as I did, that this particular problem is a special one; narcotics addiction is not a problem that my office is concerned with in a continuing way.

The President felt that he should call a conference on narcotic addiction because it was a national problem of some importance. To prepare for that conference, we took on the responsibility of conducting this study and producting the document we are talking about. We have not retained the responsibility for implementation of the recommendations of that study and I have not followed it, so I don't think I should testify on it.

I could take some other areas where I do have a continuing responsibility and we could talk about those.

Mr. BROTZMAN. Let me ask one more question about this one point because obviously there is research going on in this area. Dr. WIESNER. That is right.

Mr. BROTZMAN. Now, you say this is not under your jurisdiction; is that what your last testimony was?

Dr. WIESNER. No. The research is, but the problems of narcotic addiction are not. The President's Conference on Drug Abuse ranged broadly over problems of narcotics addiction and research was one small problem along with the legal aspects and the rehabilitation problems.

Mr. ROGERS of Florida. May I interject to say that I think probably, Doctor, it might be helpful that the function of your office is really a coordinating agency for the President.

Dr. WIESNER. That is right.

Mr. ROGERS of Florida. Not going into responsibilities of research in themselves. I think that is the point you are trying to get out, looking at the overall program for the President and pointing up the problems?

Dr. WIESNER. We may follow a specific area of research if we think it is very critical. For example, we do follow space activities with great interest.

The point I am trying to make in regard to the narcotics study was that it was not something we normally would have done. It was done in that way because of the importance of having good preparation for the President's Conference.

Mr. BROTZMAN. May I take one more comment?

I happen to think this is a very important area of endeavor. I also happen to believe that the problem requires integration and

coordination.

I noticed on page 2 of your statement, paragraph 3, it seems one of your duties is to review, integrate and coordinate." I suggest there might be some coordination to make it more effective.

Dr. WIESNER. The President has established an Advisory Commission on Narcotic and Drug Abuse to provide the coordination you are talking about, but this is a result of the study which we did and the White House Conference which we had in the fall. You are right. There should be and apparently there is such a coordination.

Mr. BROTZMAN. I think you were making a distinction a moment ago when I interrupted you about a subject that falls within your realm more specifically, and something such as the narcotics report which you said, was a kind of a one-shot program or at least you had this implication.

Now, talk just for a minute about the overall general programs that you are working under.

Dr. WIESNER. For an example, take the field of water resources. We are attempting to maintain continuous surveillance of the research activities in the field, and we have established a Federal Council Panel on Water Resources.

We have brought into my office a staff man who will have full-time responsibility not only for bringing together, as we are now doing, all the research activities and having inter-agency meetings to try to decide who will pick up new responsibilities, but also it is going to be his job to get familiar enough with the details of the research in this

field to have his own judgment as to the quality of it so that, unlike the narcotics study, which was a one-time activity, we will maintain a continuing effort to coordinate, understand, and plan water research activities in the Government.

Mr. BROTZMAN. This is a matter of great interest to me coming from Colorado.

Dr. WIESNER. Yes; I imagine it would be.

Mr. BROTZMAN. How many difference Federal agencies are presently making studies of water?

Dr. WIESNER. Well, including the different aspects of it, I would not be surprised if there are at least a dozen or more, although a few very large agencies like Interior, Defense, Health, Education, and Welfare, are the biggest.

I am sure that Commerce has some specialized activities and I suspect that if you look around you would find things that we would not classify as water resources research in several other agencies.

Mr. BROTZMAN. Are you going to try to pull all of these together? Dr. WIESNER. Well, we did last year, in preparation for the fall budget hearings. We assembled it all and, in fact, we issued a rather substantial report in the early spring for the Congress on water resources research in the Federal Government. In preparation of the budget we had a number of sections in which we tried to understand the objectives of each of the agencies to fit them together.

Now, if you recall, I said these were new operations and just precisely how effective they are going to be in some of these areas, I would not like to predict. In some I think we will be able to make major contributions; in other fields, by their very nature and the present distribution of responsibilities, it may not be necessary to do very much to coordinate them.

Mr. BROTZMAN. What is being done in desalinization?

Dr. WIESNER. That is largely the responsibility of one agency, the Department of the Interior, and there is a very extensive program there of building plants, supporting basic research and attempting to find cheaper ways of taking salt out of water. As you know, the problem is not one of being able to take minerals out of water; the problem is finding an economically feasible process.

We have all the activities of the Department of the Interior's office in the desalinization of water. In addition to that, we have an interagency group of the Department of the Interior, Atomic Energy Commission, and my office making paper studies to see if we should go more deeply into the development of an atomic energy plant for this purpose. These organizations are studying the problem and if it looks feasible when we finish the paper studies, we will probably recommend that we carry out experimentation in the field.

Mr. BROTZMAN. Do you work with the assistant director? You asked to have each of these different departments, as I understand it, appoint an assistant director of science and research.

Dr. WIESNER. Several of the departments have; not all the departments. Some departments don't have enough research and development to need it.

But in the Department of the Interior, the Department of Commerce, and the Defense Department, we have such people. I believe that such a person is needed in the Department of Health, Educa

tion, and Welfare, although there is not one at the moment to coordinate their internal activities and to make a more effective liaison with our office.

Mr. ROGERS of Florida. Doctor, I would like to go into this business of overall coordination.

For instance, you mention fallout protection where you had coordinated the agencies here. I believe three agencies you mentioned, trying to bring in the proper judgments as to the level of fallout, I presume, the hazards there and also the possible biochemical effects of fallout, bringing in integration for the national monitoring network.

This work, now, is this a continuing responsibility of your office? Dr. WIESNER. This is a complicated problem.

Several aspects represent continuing work; others not. The responsibility for making recommendations to the President on the problem of fallout is vested in the Federal Radiation Council and that Council has members from the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, the Department of Agriculture, Department of the Interior, the Defense Department, Atomic Energy Commission, Department of Labor, I believe, and then the Director of the Budget ex officio.

That is the group which makes the recommendations to the President and is supported by the medical staffs and physical science staffs from the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and the Atomic Energy Commission.

Mr. ROGERS of Florida. Let me ask you: Have you established the level which is hazardous? Has this level been established?

Dr. WIESNER. No. There is no such thing, sir, as a level of hazard. Mr. ROGERS of Florida. There is not?

Dr. WIESNER. There are degrees of danger which go from zero to unity, depending upon the intensity of the radiation.

Mr. ROGERS of Florida. I think in the public mind

Dr. WIESNER. In the public mind there is a feeling that there should be a number and here again is an area where it is hard to make judg ments because of the scarcity of information.

In all of these problems, like the pesticide problem and the radiation problem, you are not concerned with the doses of a chemical or radiation that are going to make obvious effects. What you are concerned about are very small and long-term exposures.

In the case of the pesticides, we are interested, for example, in whether a 50-year exposure of DDT has any significant effects.

In the case of radiation, we know from research already done and from studies of natural radiation how to put bounds on the effects of radiation. We can say it is not larger than a given quantity but it could be a thousand times or more smaller.

The data are so bad that in trying to deal with these problems we are finally forced to go back to the medical people and say, "Tell us the ranges in which you think it is perfectly all right to expose people and the range above which we should be concerned."

In the case of fallout, the data still seem to indicate that fallout, even at the levels at which we are operating, is very far below the levels in which you would have to regard it as a health hazard. On the other hand, if you look at it from a quite different perspective, the levels of fallout are certain to cause some effects. The numbers of

people affected are undoubtedly small but, nonetheless, one has to admit that there is going to be 1 person in a million or 1 person in 10 million or 1 in a number which you cannot tell who may contract leukemia or cancer or some other difficulty as a result of the testing. So, it ends up being a judgment again.

Mr. ROGERS of Florida. I realize that.

Dr. WIESNER. The only thing the medical people have been willing to say so far with any surety is that the levels of fallout today are far below those which we should be concerned with. When we ask, Should we be concerned whether they go up 10 times or 100 times or a thousand times? they all shrug their shoulders, and so far have not been willing to commit themselves.

Mr. ROGERS of Florida. Just 1 minute.

This is the point that I thought you were coordinating on, for in-stance, to make these judgments.

Dr. WIESNER. No. The Federal Radiation Council, which the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare

Mr. ROGERS of Florida. He and not you?

Dr. WIESNER. Yes. I work with him and he is making a very determined effort to provide better standards.

I am just describing his difficulty with the scientists.

Mr. ROGERS of Florida. I can realize the difficulty, but that is what I thought.

Dr. WIESNER. Let me go on.

Mr. ROGERS of Florida. Pointing up the problems that have to be met.

Dr. WIESNER. I would like to finish answering your question. There is this ongoing activity which he is in charge of and I participate in but, in addition to that, there is a budget process. At one stage last year, there was a request for supplemental money from Health, Education, and Welfare, I believe, for additional monitoring equipment for fallout. Well, we knew that the Atomic Energy Commission and the Defense Department and HEW already carried out monitoring activities, and by coordinating them we were able to greatly reduce the total amount of new money that was needed. Mr. ROGERS of Florida. Thank you.

Let me get back now quickly to two or three questions about NIH. I believe you say that NIH supports grants of about two-thirds of the Nation's biometric research activities. Now, if these grants are used to support, say, across-the-board activities rather than specific objectives, then I presume we are faced with a different problem as it comes to evaluating the effectiveness or the shortcomings of such proposals.

Would this be true?

Dr. WIESNER. I don't believe so, if you accept the principle of the desirability of basic research support, because then one has to judge it in terms of whether or not it is good research.

Mr. ROGERS of Florida. How much of the budget is devoted to the basic research?

Dr. WIESNER. By their definition, about 40 percent of the NIH budget goes for basic research in the sense that it is trying to find underlying knowledge.