Our cooperative efforts are not confined to other federal agencies. One of DEA's most valuable programs involves the State and Local Task Forces now operating in 24 cities. These Task Forces, staffed by State and local officers under DEA supervision, provide a unique bridge between federal enforcement activities and corresponding efforts at the State and local level. Information can be exchanged, special techniques used, and enforcement resources integrated for optimal results. Also, participating State and local officers acquire practical training from their DEA counterparts. Of course, State and local cooperation also takes place in areas not covered by the Task Forces, and these less formal arrangements too are encouraged.

The importance of developing close working relations with local prosecution and enforcement agencies was demonstrated by the Department's recent participation in an operation initiated by officials in Dade County, Florida. Through the United States Attorney's Office in Miami, DEA's Regional Office, and the Customs Service, we arranged with the Dade County State Attorney to defer federal interception of marihuana and barbiturates entering the United States and to monitor the actual distribution of the drugs. This was a highly problematic situation, involving both the federal interest in interdicting the illicit entry of drugs and the County's interest in pursuing major distribution networks, and a final assessment of its success has not been made. The Criminal Division is conducting a study of the case, and, together with DEA, is developing guidelines for handling similar situations in the future. While our experience indicates that federal approval cannot be given for all operations of this type, I believe that they can be implemented under well-defined standards and controls.

I would like to turn now to the Deputy Attorney General's responsibility for insuring adequate oversight of the narcotics enforcement program, a responsibility which is met in many different ways. I have continued Mr. Civiletti's practice of meeting frequently with Administrator Bensinger to discuss all aspects of the operations of his agency, and these meetings are supplemented by regular written reports.

As I mentioned earlier, it is vital that DEA and the prosecutors who try narcotics cases work together. To this end, Assistant Attorney General Heymann and Administrator Bensinger represent the Department on the "Principals Group" of the Strategy Council on Drug Abuse. The Chief of the Narcotics and Dangerous Drug Section participates in the Administrator's frequent meetings with the DEA senior staff, and the Section is represented at the daily staff meetings of DEA's Office of Enforcement. These relationships are new, but they are growing strong and productive, and they assure that the prosecution interest is an integral part of DEA enforcement activities.

One of the most important vehicles for oversight, useful both to DEA and Department management, is the DEAM Domestic Operations Guidelines.

The guidelines were issued in December, 1976, by Attorney General Edward Levi, and they have been continued in force by Attorneys General Bell and Civiletti. The four sections of the guidelines cover the four major aspects of DEA's domestic work. The first, enforcement activities, sets standards for initiating and continuing investigations, and for liaison with the United States Attorneys. The second governs use of informants, defendant-informants (i.e., persons subject to, or under, arrest and prosecution for a federal offense), and sources of information (such as a disinterested observer of an event or a credit bureau). The third sets standards for use of undercover operations. And the fourth governs electronic surveillance and related techniques.

Earlier this year, at the direction of then-Deputy Attorney General Civiletti, a senior-level team drawn from the Criminal Division, DEA, and the Deputy's office, began the first comprehensive review of the guidelines since they were implemented in early 1977. The field work for the study consisted of reviewing over 240 randomly sampled investigations and the use of associated informants in six representative DEA district offices. These reviews were done in considerable depth, with full access to DEA files, interviews with all levels of DEA enforcement personnel, and interviews with prosecutors in the Major Drug Trafficker Prosecution Units in the cities visited. The results of this field work recently have been analyzed and tabulated, giving the Department a unique empirical base for assessing operations and procedures under the guidelines.

The study was designed primarily to answer two major questions. First, are the organizations covered by the guidelines (DEA field offices and Headquarters, United States Attorneys, and the Criminal Division) operating consistently with both the intent and the specific requirements of the guidelines? Second, does the experience to date suggest that either agency operating procedures or the guidelines themselves should be changed?

Without preempting the final results of the study, I believe that both of these questions can be answered in the affirmative. On the first question, for example, the general sense of the study team is that all the affected organizations are operating in compliance with the major requirements of the guidelines. On the second question, I believe that it is both likely that DEA and the Criminal Division will amend some of their procedures and that certain guidelines may not, in practice, serve the goals that they were intended to promote.

I look forward to reviewing the study report. I can assure the Subcommittee that any changes that are made either in agency procedures or in the guidelines themselves will meet the strict tests of control and accountability for DEA operations that underlay the guidelines as originally promulgated.

I would also like to add a more personal perspective on the issue of assuring adequate oversight of DEA's activities. In 1975 I served as Chief Inspector of DEA under then-Acting Administrator Henry Dogin. At that time, the integrity of certain DEA officials and practices were under close scrutiny. While I believe that the efforts of the agency at that time successfully resolved many of those problems, a longer-term benefit has been to assure the growth of DEA's office of Internal Security into an operation of recognized professionalism and reliability. It is noteworthy that Mr. Bensinger subsequently chose one of my successors, John Evans, to serve as the Assistant Administrator for Enforcement, the senior agent position at DEA.

DEA officials in this area also work closely with the Department's Office of Professional Responsibility, which has the principal Department-wide responsibility for integrity matters. The Deputy Attorney General looks both to DEA and to the Office of Professional Responsibility for the handling of this difficult task.

I would like to conclude by discussing two major, and closely related, aspects of effective drug law enforcement: the making of enforcement policy and the assessment of our performance.

We are, of course, cognizant of both the Department's responsibilities and the President's broader interest in setting drug abuse policy for the entire federal government. Internally, many of the steps that I have described contribute to the policy-making process, and I should re-emphasize the role of the Administrator and his direct consultations with the Deputy Attorney General and the Attorney General. Similarly, the Criminal Divison's role in drug policy development is one which will continue to grow.

Of course, as the members of the Subcommittee know, the annual budget and authorization process afford a regular opportunity to assess current policy and to invest the available resources effectively. In formulating our budget request to the President for fiscal year 1981, all agencies of the Department, including DEA and the Criminal Division, began detailed planning over a year ago. Their budget estimates have been analyzed by a special staff in the Department, and extensive hearings chaired by the Deputy Attorney General were held this summer. The final details are being worked out, and our budget must be reviewed by the Office of Management and Budget and presented to the President. Drug investigations and prosecutions are an announced priority of the Attorney General, and I am confident that these functions will continue to be supported adequately in the final budget sent to the Congress.

Our internal policy process also covers broader issues. For example, DEA and the Criminal Division have reported extensive growth in marihuana trafficking and availability. Data provided by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, show that marihuana use, especially among high school students, is increasing annually. These developments call into question our current assumptions about how to deal with the marihuana problem. Under the direction of my office, DEA and the Criminal Division are examining our current policies and will explore some new approaches in this area. Given the responsibilities of this Department, we are principally concerned with developing an effective pragmatic and credible enforcement policy, but enforcement can only be effective if it is developed in the context of a broad program of education and research. This work is now underway, and we should see the results later this fall.

Such issues as these are only part of the broader federal interest in drug policy. The Strategy Council on Drug Abuse, of which the Attorney General is a member, is charged by statute with preparing the federal strategy for controlling the availability and use of drugs. I can assure you that the Attorney General and I take this responsibility seriously. The Council's annual Federal Strategy document is reviewed closely in the Department and serves an important function in the allocation of our enforcement resources.

As Mr. Dogoloff of the Domestic Policy Staff will inform the Subcommittee, the Strategy Council is supported by a "Principals Group," which includes two senior members from the Justice Department. This arrangement affords continuing high-level review of all aspects of federal drug-related activities and problems. As we move forward with our examination of marihuana policy, this group, and supporting staff, will become increasingly involved in the broad range of issues involved in the study.

In the end, enforcement policy must be tested by the results we achieve. As the Subcommitee knows, assessment of performance in the law enforcement area is a difficult matter, and the vehicles now available are by no means perfect. Yet, recognizing these limitations, we can identify some meaningful standards of measurement. One consistent measure that originates within DEA is the GeoDrug Enforcement Program, known as "G-DEP." While the Administrator can describe this program in greater detail, it can be summarized as a measurement system designed to rank investigations by several major criteria: importance of the violators, type of drug involved, and the source of the investigation.

By using this system, the Administrator is able to monitor the development of the DEA caseload. When applied to actual enforcement experience, data from the G-DEP system demonstrate that DEA has made substantial improvements in the past few years in implementing a "quality over quantity" investigative approach. For example, DEA has shown annual increases in the number of major cases, and particularly those involving heroin. I am aware that the G-DEP system, like other law enforcement performance measurement systems, has some limitations. Yet, by using consistent measures over time, the system does offer the Administrator a "quality control" device that he uses in resource allocations and management direction.

A more difficult development to measure is our success in the more complex prosecutions of the type that I mentioned earlier. One measure, of course, derives from the G-DEP findings that increased numbers of major violators are being investigated, arrested, and prosecuted. In his statement to the Subcommittee, the Administrator has summarized some of the major cases, and the resources devoted to them, that have resulted from our renewed emphasis on major traffickers. While we can continue to collect information on specific cases, and the incidence of success, we need to develop a better system for assessment of results in this area. Turning to the prosecution of cases, it is noteworthy that controlled substances cases made up 24 percent of all criminal cases pending in the U. S. Attorneys' offices at the end of last September. Significantly, the same percentage of federal prisoners are incarcerated on drug charges.

When we look beyond these data from an historical perspective, we see that annual filings of controlled substances have declined from a high of 16,000 cases in fiscal year 1973 to about 7,000 cases in 1978. When we match those data against DEA's increased success in apprehending major violators, it is a reasonable inference, and I believe an accurate one, that higher quality cases are being prosecuted, with consequent increases in time and expense demands. Specific case reports from the United States Attorneys and the Criminal Division support this inference.

Mr. Chairman, I have attempted in this statement to give you an overview of what I believe are the most critical aspects of the Department's obligation to control the production and distribution of illicit drugs. As I am sure that these hearings will illustrate, our record has been good, but could be better. The required attention will be given, and I look forward to future reports to you on our progress.

I will be pleased to answer any questions that you may have.

Senator BIDEN. Thank you very much. Our next witness is Mr. Lee Dogoloff.

Before you begin, our next witness after you is Mr. Bensinger, and then Dr. Pollin and then Donald Pomerleau.

Now, to help you with your schedules, I am going to stay straight through, but some of you may very well want to go get a bite to eat. I expect we will be roughly 20 minutes to half an hour on each witness. I am not recommending the commissary food, but that is about all you can get in that time. There is no need for all of you to stay through, although we will try to finish this directly.

Mr. Dogoloff.

STATEMENT OF LEE I. DOGOLOFF, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR FOR DRUG POLICY, DOMESTIC POLICY STAFF, WHITE HOUSE

Mr. DOGOLOFF. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure to be here today and, with your permission, I would like to summarize briefly my statement

Senator BIDEN. Surely.

Mr. DOGOLOFF [continuing]. Which is fairly detailed.

I see this as a beginning of a close working relationship that our Office and you and your staff can enjoy in working together in resolving one of the foremost problems facing our society today, that is drug abuse. I am particularly pleased to see the overview that you are taking in looking at enforcement as part of the larger whole, that enforcement is a very important part of that process. But in order to appreciate it completely, it is critical that we look at the demand reduction activities as well as the international activities that go on in the overall program. In terms of where we are with the problem, there is some good news, and there is some bad news. The good news is that heroin availability in this country is today at its alltime low in terms of measuring the thousands fewer people who died from heroin overdoses in the last 12 months of record, the number of people coming into emergency rooms with health problems associated with heroin use, the price and purity of heroin in our country. This is largely attributable to a coordinated approach on the Federal level involving good treatment services, effective enforcement measures and, most importantly, the cooperation that we have received from the Government of Mexico in destroying the opium crop at its source through their herbicidal eradication program. And that has, in fact, shown real results.

The bad news is that marihuana and cocaine use continues to rise in our society, and I am particularly concerned about the increasing social acceptance that seems to be growing to the use and abuse of these substances. That provides a very clear and special challenge to all of

us.

My office is a unique one, and it is the only one in the domestic policy staff that is established by Executive order of the President. We have responsibility for oversight and policy setting of the entire Federal drug program, both domestically and internationally for all executive agencies. I also serve as Executive Director of the Strategy Council, and this is my primary almost everyday day-to-day mechanism for assuring that coordination and consensus building around policySenator BIDEN. Who do you report to directly?

Mr. DOGOLOFF. Stu Eizenstat.

The primary mechanism is a meeting of the principals. These are the principal program directors of each of the programs, that is, Mr. Bensinger of the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Commandant. of the Coast Guard, the Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotic Matters, the Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the head of the Criminal Division in the Justice Department, as well as a representative from the Secretary of HEW's office, and this group meets on a regular basis to formulate policy, to discuss problems, to figure out where we are going and how we are going to get there.

There have been, recently, extensive hearings in the House on the

entire program and I sat through most of those, hearing each of those principals testify in turn, and I came away with a clear notion that we know what we are doing, what we are about, and where we are going. It is embodied in a document called "The Federal Strategy,' and the Strategy Council has responsibility for overseeing that strategy. I serve as Executive Director of that Strategy Council and, indeed, Commissioner Pomerleau, who is here today to testify, is one of our public members of that Council.

The drug program enjoys solid competent leadership in each of the areas, the coordination is good. I don't want to appear before you and suggest that there are no problems. There are, in fact, problems. Senator BIDEN. What is the biggest problem?

Mr. DOGOLOFF. I think the biggest problem in terms of coordination is to get a message down to the troops in the field that things are different in Washington over the past couple of years, and that has been an evolving process. That really has taken hold and as I visited, for example, places like Miami and others where we have agencies working together, the Coast Guard, the Customs Service, DEA, they really are beginning to establish the kinds of coordination that is going on here in Washington in regular meetings, in working together, in joint operations, and so forth. I think that the coordination is good. Much more needs to be done.

Senator BIDEN. When you say the troops, are you talking about the agents in the streets or the ones in the high-powered boats?

Mr. DOGOLOFF. I am talking about people at the regional director level, and the special agent in charge at various posts around the country who are now working together effectively, DEA and Customs.

Senator BIDEN. Up to this point, what type of relationship have you had with the regions? Can you explain your statement about "getting the message down"? Have they been of the opinion that there has been no coordination?

Mr. DOGOLOFF. I think prior to 21⁄2 years ago, there was a lot of competition, not all of which was healthy, particularly between the U.S. Customs Service and the Drug Enforcement Administration as an example, and that has clearly changed. A lot of that change has been directly the result of the close working relationship between Mr. Bensinger and Commissioner Chasen, and that has begun to filter down and indeed goes down at the operational levels in the field. Senator BIDEN. Thank you.

Mr. DOGOLOFF. As I said, I think much more needs to be done, and we look forward to working together to make that progress together. Senator BIDEN. I know you have a very long and thorough statement, but tell me more about what needs to be done.

Mr. DOGOLOFF. One of the things that I believe needs to be done is. to think in longer terms about where we are going. Heretofore the Federal effort has looked on a year-to-year basis, using the Federal strategy document as the primary instrument of where we are going and sort of how we are going to get there.

The principals group and the Strategy Council is now involved in the process of looking where we want to be 5 years from now. That is true. That has never happened in this program before and we are now outlining the objectives in all of the aspects of our program, supply reduction of illicit drugs, where we want to go with diversion of licit