adequate notice, we can fully utilize the total $14.4 million if it is appropriated promptly.

The experienced personnel required under the first portion of the program outlined above would be obtained equally from the strike force program and the "mainstream" revenue program. We will expect these two existing programs to make replacements with less experienced personnel and thus assume equally the burden of absorbing and training new personnel.

In the event that this proposal receives the approval of the Department and of OMB, we would propose that the Service undertake immediately to work with Customs and BNDD in making arrangements to secure the fullest support for the IRS program. Contemporaneously, we will utilize the experience that is being gained through experimental projects now being carried out in several of our field offices. We believe that the Task Force of Service and Treasury representatives could continue to contribute towards the development of a program for operations. At this juncture, that is, assuming that the Department and OMB approve the proposal, we believe the Task Force should include representatives from the Tax Division of the Department of Justice which will have responsibility for prosecuting the cases and BNDD upon which, along with Customs, we would principally rely for information warranting the initiation of tax investigations.

DONALD C. ALEXANDER, Commissioner of Internal Revenue.

OVERSIGHT HEARINGS ON NARCOTICS ABUSE AND CURRENT FEDERAL AND INTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS CONTROL EFFORT

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1976

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SELECT COMMITTEE ON NARCOTICS ABUSE AND CONTROL,

Washington, D.C.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:10 a.m. in room 2255, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Lester L. Wolff (chairman of the committee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Herman Badillo, Charles B. Rangel, Tom Railsback, Robin L. Beard, Benjamin A. Gilman, and Tennyson Guyer. Staff present: Joseph Nellis, chief counsel; William G. Lawrence, chief of staff; and Elaine Davis, secretary.

Mr. WOLFF. The committee will come to order.

We seem to be somewhat frustrated in our efforts in this committee. We have scheduled meetings for 10 o'clock in the morning and the House decides it will come into session at that time. That is an unusual procedure.

However, we are going to continue to pursue this effort as rapidly as possible in order to get on with the work of the committee.

Yesterday I indicated that although we had been in business for less than 2 months, it required a tremendous amount of organization work to be done; and it is customary for a committee to engage in an essential amount of research prior to the hearings.

We have done this as a result of the expertise of the members of the committee. We have been able to get these hearings started in a very short period of time. In fact, our chief counsel just came aboard about 2 weeks ago.

Within that period of time we have been able to get together the material necessary for this committee to act.

Actually, I think it is important for the Congress and the people to understand that the policy goals of this select committee are to develop a working coordination for a national drug policy in the area of law enforcement to better control supply and in prevention, treatment, rehabilitation, and education. This is to better control the demand.

One of the objectives-and this becomes even more pertinent as the hearings go on-is to obtain total relief from the interagency rivalries that have fragmented our national effort; and also to try to find some method for bringing together the various agencies of Government as well as the committees of Congress.

The deeper that we go into the problem, the greater we find the need for some method of coordination.

It is not just petty rivalries that we are talking about or people being interested in protecting individual fiefdoms, but it is more importantly the direction that agencies of Government are taking and the reluctance on the part of various agency heads to take responsibility for the problems that exist.

We are told in each particular case about the great number of successes that have been obtained, of the number of kilos of heroin that have been confiscated, of the number of busts that have been made, the number of people that are arrested, and the number of people who are awaiting trial; and still the number of addicts continues to rise. That is what we are after.

We are not after statistics. To effectuate a close working relationship between the executive and legislative branches of Government is our basic desire here.

We do not sit on opposite sides of the table. I wish this could be a round table, the way they finally settled the business of having the Vietnamese and the Americans and everybody else sitting at a round table, instead of sitting across the table from the executive agencies. Unfortunately, that is not possible at the present time, but we hope it will be possible in the future.

In our current series of oversight hearings, of which this is the third, we have the opportunity today to hear from the Honorable Peter B. Bensinger, Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Department of Justice.

He is the head of the agency which has the primary jurisdiction for the enforcement of our Federal drug laws.

Every member of this committee understands the difficult situation that was created by the Reorganization Plan No. 2 in 1973. But as I have indicated informally at the start, this committee is not interested just in a review of past errors, whether they be of judgment or of execution, execpt as these errors lead us to a more effective and useful activity against the present surge of narcotics use.

We fully realize the enormous difficulties faced by the Federal Government in establishing working guidelines for the necessary coordinated, cooperative, and friendly relationships between agencies of Goverment having similar missions or parts of the same mission.

No one with responsibility in or out of Congress wants to see any inquiry into drug abuse politicized. That was indicated not only yesterday, but will be continued to be a major admonition that I place before this committee.

The mandate from Congress which this committee holds is to study and investigate the activities of the Federal agencies having drug abuse responsibilities both in the enforcement of law and in the health care delivery system, with a view toward recommending an effective national drug policy.

As has been stated before by previous witnesses from the Justice Department, the FBI, and the IRS, it may well be that Congress will want to effect new legislation and better correlate the activities of all branches of the Federal Government having to do with the plague of drug abuse which has now again reached epidemic proportions. Mr. Bensinger, if you will step forward, we would be happy to have

you.

We hope you will aid this committee by outlining, in addition to what you say in your statement, your ideas and recommendations as to how a more effective national drug policy can be created; and, in addition, by giving your best estimates as to when, by acts of your agency, we might expect some concrete results in a diminishing supply of opiates coming into the United States.

Before you proceed, Mr. Bensinger, let me say that in my relationship with you as chairman of the Subcommittee on International Narcotics Control and other committees of this Congress, our relations have been of the highest order. Any of the deficiencies of your Department, if they may be deficiencies have been called to your attention, certainly do not reflect upon you as an individual as head of that administration.

I have the highest regard for you and your abilities, sir.

You may proceed.

STATEMENT OF PETER B. BENSINGER, ADMINISTRATOR, DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

Mr. BENSINGER. Thank you very much, Chairman Wolff.

I am personally pleased to appear before you and your colleagues to briefly outline the drug situation as I see it in the United States and, more importantly, to engage in a dialog with you, answering questions and having a discussion along the lines you have indicated in your opening statement.

I would add that the expertise on this committee is significant and impressive. I think the bringing together of the Representatives with leadership in a variety of committees in Congress will help us; in fact, help all of the Federal agencies involved in narcotics control and prevention.

Mr. WOLFF. Mr. Bensinger, excuse me.

It is customary for me to swear you in.

[The witness was duly sworn.]

Mr. BENSINGER. I think that the objective that you set forth for me to answer is the single most important answer that I can give, and it is the objective of our effort that is, to reduce the amount of heroin and opiates and their derivatives coming into this country and being used in this country by our citizens and people living in this country.

At the end of my formal remarks I would like to talk about that and where we stand, where we think we are going, and when we think a significant impact will take place with respect to this specific charge.

I take that charge as an excellent challenge outlined to me as an agency head to which to respond. I am comfortable with it. It is not. an easy assignment, but I think that is what we have to concentrate

on.

Our mission is to enforce the controlled substances laws in the United States and to bring to justice those organizations and principal members of organizations involved in illicit drug activities. This is done not only through a criminal proceeding, but also through efforts, both overseas and here, that would involve reduction in the cultivation, manufacture, and distribution of drugs appearing in or destined for the U.S. market.

I say specifically that our mission is not simply criminal investigation. There is a compliance and regulatory responsibility that the agency has which is quite important.

In the past, heroin, which we consider the most significant drug and drug of abuse, has been imported into the United States from a variety of geographical areas: from France, originally from Turkey, from Southeast Asia, and from Mexico.

Cocaine predominantly emerges as a crop produced in Latin America. It is converted in laboratories primarily in Colombia.

The trend in the traffic pattern has shifted since Turkey established first a ban on opium production and then a straw poppy method of crushing the pods, which, in essence, made conversion to heroin much more difficult.

In the original statement submitted to the committee in advance of my appearance there were some statistics that made reference to 90 percent coming from Mexico. That has been reduced. The figures now vary anywhere from 67 to 75 percent, the balance coming predominantly from Southeast Asia and some percentage still from Lebanon, Syria, and some spillage from the Middle East.

The first significant Mexican heroin appeared years ago.

Mr. WOLFF. Excuse me.

Was that an error or transmission or has there been a shift? Mr. BENSINGER. There has been a shift. I felt that the percentage of 90 is an unrealistic representation.

Our lab analyses are reported monthly. These are lab seizure statistics.

I could not say that this represents exactly each and every city and each and every market and each and every user-the percentages of source of heroin, but according to the seizures that we have made, the last three monthly seizure reports have been 81, 75, and 67 percent brown heroin.

So I would say that the 75-percent figure would be much more accurate than 90 percent, which was calculated earlier this year. Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Chairman?

Mr. WOLFF. Yes.

Mr. RANGEL. May I ask the Administrator whether he can break down the statistics by country rather than by continents?

Mr. BENSINGER. We certainly can and we will be happy to forward that in detail, if I could, subsequent to my testimony this morning. Mr. RANGEL. Could you just tell whether Turkey is included in Europe?

Mr. BENSINGER. Turkey would be included in the Middle East area, but I think it would not represent for the U.S. market a percentage in excess of 1 percent.

Mr. RANGEL. Thank you.

Mr. WOLFF. Please proceed.

Mr. BENSINGER. The level of heroin purity is, we think, the most important indicator along with the number of people who die from an overdose of heroin, drug fatalities, to measure the abuse of that drug in the United States. During 1970 it averaged 10 percent; in 1971, 8 percent; and then dropped in 1972 and 1973 to a 5-percent range. It has crept up since then and hit a high of 6.6 percent in