Even more alarming is the emergence of Middle Eastern heroin on the market. In 1976 Middle Eastern heroin represented approximately 2 percent of the heroin in the U.S., but by 1977 this figure had grown to approximately 8 percent. While the U.S. has been relatively untouched by Middle Eastern heroin, thus far, our successes in stopping traffic elsewhere will virtually insure that this situation will have to be monitored and diplomatic efforts initiated to curtail the problem at its source. All we need to do is look at what has happened in West Germany. Last year Middle Eastern heroin represented 20 to 30 percent of the heroin available in West Germany and now it constitutes 70 percent of that country's today supply.

Last April I had the privilege of meeting with DEA officials in Vienna and Rome. Both offices were anxious to discuss the emergence of Middle East heroin which is from opium poppies grown in Afghanistan and Pakistan and processed in laboratories located in Iran, Pakistan, Turkey, and Afghanistan. Stopping production and trafficking of heroin from this region presents a serious challenge for our diplomatic and enforcement personnel. The instability of the governments involved, the absence of sound diplomatic relationships, and the inaccessibility to the sources of the poppies are all difficulties which need to be solved in order to halt this new threat.

We must remember that the State Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration must be accorded the ability to develop flexible and viable international supply reduction programs. Each country with which DEA and the State Department must work presents different enforcement and supply reduction problems. Enforcement programs must be tailored to the specific requirements and cultural background of the targeted area. However, no matter what drug we are attempting to curtail or what region we are focusing on, the most effective method for curtailing drug trafficking is to reduce production at the source.

Our successes with Mexico with respect to marihuana and our current diplomatic efforts with Colombia serve to illustrate this point. Until just three years ago Mexico was the primary source of marihuana as well as heroin. At that time Mexico expanded the spraying of the herbicide paraquat and the smuggling decreased significantly.

The void was filled by Colombia and Jamaica. Now approximately 70 percent of all marihuana smuggled into the U.S. is from Colombia. The present government of Colombia has begun a military campaign to interdict both marihuana and cocaine and is seriously considering crop destruction programs. Yet economic considerations for Colombia are staggering. DEA estimates that proceeds from drug trafficking approach $1 billion annually, which surpasses coffee revenues. Just as in Mexico, the U.S. must find creative solutions to these complex issues, and then be prepared to shift to a new front.

Despite some successes in reducing smuggling and consolidating Federal programs, we still seem unable to control the massive drug abuse problem. I think the problem is one of focus and attention-an unwillingness on the part of the White House and the Congress to admit that drug abuse and its related tragedies is a priority domestic problem which must be attacked with the same vigor as discrimination, poverty, and unemployment.

Prevention programs are underfunded, DEA is understaffed, and U.S. embassies address narcotics problems only as an afterthought.

Perhaps it is up to the Congress to take the lead and demand that this problem no longer languish on everybody's back burner. By calling this series of hearings, Mr. Chairman, you are indicating that the Senate is concerned. We in the House will continue to study and to preach the message to the American People-we must have an all out war on drug abuse, now.

Senator BIDEN. Thank you.

Before I call the next witness, I would like to share with all the witnesses a major problem I have. I have received a polite note from the majority leader that since I suggested a compromise for the entire Democratic position on the tax question, seven chairmen of full committees have been waiting since 10:30, along with the majority leader, and the whip on the Democratic side, for me to expound on my position. Unfortunately, I am not likely to be able to stay here much longer if I intend on keeping the chairmanship of this committee or my office. I have asked the staff to check with Secretary Falco and

Ambassador Asencio, and the folks from the CIA, and I would like to suggest the following course of action if it is possible: We can recess for a few minutes to work out a new schedule.

What I would like to suggest is, rather than my delaying you further, we might consider the possibility of postponing the hearing until next week. I understand that is convenient to everyone except the witness from the CIA, who will be out of the country for 2 weeks. Therefore, I suggest that the public witnesses all testify at some convenient date next week, and then at a mutually convenient date we have an executive session with the Agency, and folks from State who might wish to attend.

We had planned on having part of today's hearing in executive session, and so the format is not going to fundamentally change, but the timing does change.

Does that create any particular hardship beyond the one I have already caused you-which is to ruin your whole morning?

Mr. Ambassador, you are in town until

.?

Ambassador ASENCIO. Until the 22d, and I will be coming back the 26th for the second go-round.

Senator BIDEN. Is it possible to try to work out something?
Ambassador ASCENCIO. Certainly.

Senator BIDEN. I cannot tell you how badly I feel about this.

I guess I should feel very flattered that leadership thinks me so important at this moment. But in light of the fact that I have inconvenienced you so much, I really do apologize.

If it is all right with the witnesses, I will ask Mark Gitenstein, the chief counsel for this subcommittee, to be in contact with your offices in the next couple of hours or even now if it is convenient for you, to work out a convenient time next week, and together with Mr. Piper work out a time that you think may be the most convenient after your

return.

I also apologize not only to the witnesses, but to all who have come today, and all who had planned to listen to what the witnesses had to say. I am very sorry, but the resolution is being considered right now. We have 3 days to make a decision. No one anticipated the particular problem that is now underway. So with that, we will recess the hearing until the call of the Chair, sometime next week.

Thank you very, very much.

[Whereupon, at 11:16 a.m., the subcommittee recessed until the call of the Chair.]

DRUG CONTROL PROGRAM
OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1979

U.S. SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE,
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY,
Washington, D.C.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to recess, at 10:35 a.m. in room 2228, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr. (chairman) presiding.

Present: Senator Biden.

Also present: Mark Gitenstein, chief counsel; Michael Gelacak, staff director; and Edna Panaccione, chief clerk.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BIDEN

Senator BIDEN. The meeting will come to order.

Our first witness is Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics Matters, Mathea Falco. Ms. Falco is an expert in the area of drug abuse and narcotics control. Quite apart from the expertise she has gained in her current position, she has served as a special assistant to the President on the Drug Abuse Council. She is professionally and personally familiar to us on the Judiciary Committee as a result of her being the chief counsel and staff director on the staff for the Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquents.

Secretary Falco, I would like to suggest that Ambassador Asencio also come to the table, if you would.

We are pleased to welcome our Ambassador to the Country of Colombia for nearly 2 years. The Ambassador has worked in an area of vital concern to the United States. Perhaps more than any other individual he has been instrumental in improving ties between the United States and the Government of Colombia to combat narcotics and their processing in Colombia. The Ambassador and I met briefly at a meeting of the Chiefs of Police last April, and I was very impressed with his knowledge and competence at that time. I am looking forward again to hearing what he has to say.

Ambassador and Secretary Falco, I have not only read your prepared statements but reread and outlined them. I know them thoroughly, and I would like to suggest, unless you want to go through your statements, that you summarize or add to them or do anything you would like to. I am delighted to hear from you.

I am anxious to get to certain areas for amplification with regard to your testimony. So it might be helpful for you both to summarize your statements and we can move forward rapidly into a discussion

of what you both acknowledge and I recognize as the thornier problems that we face.

Why don't you begin, Secretary Falco?

STATEMENTS OF MATHEA FALCO, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INTERNATIONAL NARCOTIC MATTERS, DEPARTMENT OF STATE, AND DIEGO ASENCIO, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO COLOMBIA

Ms. FALCO. Thank you. I am very pleased to be here today and to hear that you have read the Department's statement. I will cover very quickly the major focuses of our program which, as you know, comprises about 5 percent of the overall Federal expenditures in the area of drug control and treatment. With our $40 million annual appropriation, we have developed a number of bilateral drug control programs which are primarily designed to curtail the availability of illicit heroin in the United States. In recent years, we have increasingly focused on other illicit drugs, primarily cocaine from Latin America. Ambassador Asencio will be talking more about that in his presentation.

In addition to our bilateral assistance programs, which have proved quite successful in reducing the availability of illicit heroin in the United States, as I have noted in my statement, we also participate in a number of multilateral projects, primarily with the U.N. commissions as well as increasingly now through the international financial institutions. This is part of our continuing attempt to focus the energies of other governments and other major financial institutions toward the goal of curtailing illicit narcotics production and trafficking.

We have two major goals that I would like to make clear to you in your capacity both as the chairman of this committee and as a member of the Foreign Relations Committee. First, and most important, is to renew the plea that we have been making for several years, and that is that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee promptly take up the Psychotropic Convention, the treaty which would in fact let us join with over 50 countries in establishing controls over psychotropic substances. This treaty has already been adopted. It has been in effect. The President has signed the necessary legislation. I would just add my voice again to those of other administration representatives that we would like to see this treaty adopted as soon as practicable. Not having done so makes our standing very difficult when we ask other countries who are signatories to do things for us with regard to drug control.

The second point relates to something which you mentioned in your hearings last week, and that is the emerging importance of engaging other governments, particularly Western European governments, in the struggle to work together to control illicit narcotics. You personally could have an enormous impact in helping that effort move forward. We have initiated a number of actions this last year which I have described in my testimony, particularly at the OECD. At a very preliminary level, the subject has been discussed in NATO.

Senator BIDEN. What has been the reaction? I read the actions that you mentioned we have initiated; but do you get the feeling there is any real movement to deal with this problem in a joint effort?

Ms. FALCO. I would say that, with regard to Western European governments, it is very hard to get them to be enthusiastic, because it is very hard for many governments, including our own, to recognize that this is a very serious problem that we have to deal with.

The German Government, because of its own terrible problems with regard to heroin addiction, has taken some really good steps in the last year, but, for the most part, it has been very, very difficult to engage these governments on a high level. Fortunately, over the last few months, there has been a great deal of publicity in major European magazines and newspapers about the heroin that is swamping Europe. I am hoping this will then have some political impact. But we feel very strongly that it is an initiative that the United States

has.

Senator BIDEN. I won't interrupt you any more, but this is an interesting little sidelight. Two months ago, I returned from Germany after meeting for 2 days with the leadership, individually with Schmidt and others, primarily on military affairs. As I was walking down one of the corridors, we were talking to one of the deputies in the Bundestag who raised the question of jobs being taken by American wives of the servicemen in Germany. It was an issue relating to our mutual cooperation and a minor point. I went on to discuss SALT. To make a long story short, he said that our military people have created a heroin epidemic. That was the only level that I have had any indication of concern, and he is a low-ranking member of the Bundestag who, strangely enough, vocalized an awareness of Germany's heroin problem. But, again, it was convenient to lay it on the doorstep of the American troops in Germany.

Ms. FALCO. We are not the culprit in that instance. In fact, the culprit is the high-quality heroin that is now coming out in enormous quantities from the Middle East, particularly from Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Total production will exceed 1,000 metric tons of opium, which is several times the amount which is coming out of the Golden Triangle, which has been the traditional source of Western Europe's drugs.

The German officials with whom I have been speaking have begun to see what is happening to them domestically, and that there is a flood of heroin coming into their country. Those are the two particular areas, Europe and the Psychotropic Convention, where I would hope to engage your efforts because they are areas where you could be uniquely helpful to us in our efforts.

I think in the interest of time, perhaps Ambassador Asencio might outline his statement, and perhaps we could both respond to questions. Senator BIDEN. Fine.

Ambassador ASENCIO. I would like to return the compliment. I enjoyed our meeting very much in San Diego and listened with great interest.

Senator BIDEN. The chiefs of police enjoyed your testimony a bit more than they did mine.

Ambassador ASENCIO. But I would like to, first of all, announce a couple of things that happened just this past week.

On the evening of September 10, the national police in Colombia raided three laboratories simultaneously and made a seizure of 800 kilos of cocaine, and I say this because this is a world record. The pre

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