SPECIAL ACTION OFFICE FOR DRUG ABUSE PREVENTION FRIDAY, JULY 9, 1971 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND ENVIRONMENT, COMMITTEE ON INTERSTATE AND FOREIGN COMMERCE, Fort Worth, Tex. The subcommittee met at 3 p.m., pursuant to notice, in the U.S. Public Health Clinical Research Center in Forth Worth, Tex., Hon. Paul G. Rogers (chairman) presiding. Mr. ROGERS. The Subcommittee on Public Health and Environment, U.S. House of Representatives, will come to order, please. The committee has already held about 20 weeks of hearings in Washington to consider various legislative proposals concerning a very serious problem of drug abuse and drug addition. go This morning, we held hearings in St. Louis, and tomorrow, we will to further hearings in New Orleans. We are sorry to have been off schedule about 30 minutes here. We apologize. We have come to Fort Worth at the urging of Congressman Teague and Congressman Wright to conduct hearings in regard to supposedly recent decisions to turn over this center to the Bureau of Prisons at a time when an urgent need for drug treatment facilities exist in this country. We feel like this decision deserves a very thorough reconsideration and we are concerned that the decision might jeopardize the efforts of this Nation to insure that all those who need treatment for their drug problems receive it promptly. Now, in order to provide adequate drug treatment facilities, we are considering, among other things, not only the President's proposal for a representative in the White House to coordinate action but, also, a bill which most of the members of the subcommittee have introduced, and this legislation would state that Congress feels that the Public Health Service hospitals and their clinics should not only remain open but funds should be made available for continued operation for such hospitals and clinic, and additional funds be made available for modernizing and updating our preexisting facilities. So today, we want to examine, in the time we have, not only the drug abuse problems that may come before the committee, but also a very critical decision of the closing of this hospital as a public health center treatment for drug addition and its transfer to the prison system. The members of this subcommittee present are as follows: To my right, Mr. Satterfield, Mr. Preyer, Mr. Roy, Mr. Hastings, and on my left, Mr. Kyros and Mr. Symington. ( 453 ) We are particularly pleased to welcome our distinguished colleague and one of Fort Worth's outstanding representatives in Congress, our good friend, Congressman Jim Wright, who has been on top of this problem from the very beginning, and his request for the committee to be here, and also to welcome and receive his testimony. STATEMENT OF HON. JIM WRIGHT, A REPRESENTATIVE IN Mr. WRIGHT. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee, and colleagues. To say that our colleagues, Olin Teague, and I are deeply grateful for your having responded to our request to come to Fort Worth would be putting it mildly, indeed. As a matter of fact, I feel like the father of a sick child who has just opened the door to let in the doctor. I am awfully sorry it was necessary for you to come, but I am glad that you are here. Congressman Teague, was unable to be here today, but he asked me to convey to you his continued strong feeling on this problem, Mr. Chairman. He is represented here today by Oliver Meadows. Mr. Chairman, never before in our history has drug abuse reached such epidemic proportions. And yet the administration has decided to respond by closing to the public one of the country's only two U.S. Public Health Service facilities anywhere in the United States with the capacity of treating large numbers of drug addicts. It seems to me thoroughly inconsistent that the administration asked Congress for approximately $15 million to build new facilities, which certainly are needed, but at the same time, proposes the closing from inventory of the only such facility we have anywhere west of the Mississippi. To me, that just doesn't make sense. I shall support the administration in any amount of money needed to come to grips effectively with drug abuse in the United States. The administration is asking us to rely wholly on an untested concept and a new idea-that we might be able to complete a group of small out-patient clinics scattered throughout the country, and try to treat the drug abuse in those new clinics. I think we need both the bed hospital and the base clinics as a complement, one to the other, and the simple truth is that the communitybased clinics just do not exist yet; certainly not in any such numbers to take up the slack they would receive by closing such a facility as this. This facility can treat 750 patients and, at times during World War II, it treated 1,100 patients at one time. As you came in and have had a chance to look around you will see there is room for expansion, and it would seem more logical to me, at this moment at least, when all hospital facilities are crowded, that we should be talking affirmatively of expanding such facilities as this, and certainly not of closing them to public use. Now, I conducted a personal telephonic survey following the announcement that 14 community-based centers had been established throughout the State of Texas. It was represented that these might be able to take up the slack caused by the closing of this facility. This facility serves not only Texas but every State west of the Mississippi River and, as I am sure you already know, the County of Los Angeles has already objected to the closing of this facility because an ever-increasing number of commitments, forced and individual voluntary commitments, under the Narcotics Addict Rehabilitation Act, are coming to this hospital. Of the 14 clinics that are supposedly available in the State, only two of them have any inpatient facilities, and they are extremely limited. One in Austin, which seems to have the greatest capacity, is actually, nonetheless, a State mental hospital. Most of the others are community mental health clinics whose primary purpose is to work out problems for the mentally retarded, but that is no more akin to drug addiction than it is to say that a tubercular hospital can take care of cancer victims. It seems quite clear to me that when they have no inpatient facilities, and only outpatient programs that have a limited background. They admit they don't really know whether they can come to grips effectively with drug addiction. It seem thoroughly incredible at this time that we should permit the closing to the public of this facility which could be expanded and used to meet the greater need. Congressman Teague and I, jointly along with our colleague, Senator Bentsen, have expressed a deep desire not to close it, and I would like to leave you this one thought: that if it should be decided that we don't need any big hospitals, if it also should be decided that narcotic victims can be effectively treated in the environment which ensnared in the first place, we first must make sure that the necessary community-based clinics have really been established. To take this hospital out of service otherwise would be like sinking the ocean liner before the lifeboats are built. I thank you very much for coming and letting me tell feelings. you of my I thank you deeply on behalf of the Texas delegation, Congressman Teague, Senator Lloyd Bentson, and Senator John Tower for you having come here today. Mr. ROGERS. Thank you very much, Congressman Wright, for your statement on behalf of your colleagues. I might also say that I have received a letter in just the last few moments from Senator Ralph Yarborough, who held hearings in the same matter some few years ago, and he suggests we might like to incorporate those hearings by reference to our hearings, and we will do so, and I would ask his letter be made a part of the record without objection. (The letter referred to follows:) Congressman PAUL ROGERS, Chairman, House Subcommittee Public Health and Environment, Fort Worth, Tex. AUSTIN, TEX., July 8, 1971. DEAR CHAIRMAN ROGERS: There are only two Federal Narcotics Research and Treatment Centers in the United States, the one at Fort Worth to serve states west of the Mississippi River, and one at Lexington, Kentucky, to serve states east of the Mississippi River. In these days of increase in narcotics addiction, both are desperately needed. They are the regional centers in the United States for the training of personnel in research and rehabilitation techniques, in dealing with narcotics addiction. It would be shortsighted and tragic to change the Fort Worth Center from a research and treatment center to a criminal confinement institution. When this attempt was made two years ago, the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Public Health held extensive hearings on the subject at Washington, Fort Worth and San Antonio. I request that those hearings be incorporated by reference in your hearings. Following the 1969 hearings, and as a result of those hearings, the Administration dropped its plans to drop the Fort Worth Center as a treatment and research center, and a Senate Subcommittee on Alcoholism, Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs was created, with Senator Harold Hughes as Chairman. I respectfully submit that the Fort Worth Center has served the nation well, and that the need for its teaching, training and treatment expertise is greater today than it ever has been. Respectfully submitted, RALPH W. YARBOROUGH, Former Chairman, Senate Health Subcommittee. Mr. ROGERS. I think there may be some questions. I am not sure. Mr. Satterfield? Mr. SATTERFIELD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Congressman Wright, I just want to say that I think you zeroed in on the problem of drug abuse and I would like to say that I appreciate much. it very Mr. WRIGHT. Thank you very much. Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Hastings? Mr. HASTINGS. I want to compliment and assure you that it will be taken into consideration, and I thank you very much. Mr. WRIGHT. Thank you. Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Kyros? Mr. KYROS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I also want to welcome our colleague here, Congressman Wright. Is this hospital and treatment center for the rehabilitation of drug addicts the only Federal hospital doing this kind of work? Mr. WRIGHT. There are two U.S. Public Health Service hospitals, and two only, in the United States with the capacity to treat narcotic addicts. One is in Lexington, Ky., and the other is this facility here in Fort Worth. This is the only one west of the Mississippi River and it serves a very wide area of drug abuse, and we have had complaints registered from as far away as Los Angeles and San Francisco as well as other parts of the country that if this facility were closed, they wouldn't have any place for their voluntary commitments to go. So I think it is important, recognizing that this is the only U.S. Public Health Service facility anywhere west of the Mississippi. Mr. KYROS. If this were closed, where would the case loads or patients who require hospitalization for narcotics rehabilitation, be sent? Mr. WRIGHT. I have asked this question repeatedly of the representatives of the Public Health Service, and their reply to me is that they are going to create a lot of community-based outpatient clinics. But these clinics don't exist today in a capacity to serve people. I think we do need community-based centers of that type, but we don't have them yet, and even if we did, I don't think that's the whole answer. |