Narcotics research, rehabilitation, and treatment. Hearings, Ninety ...

NARCOTICS RESEARCH, REHABILITATION,AND TREATMENTmonday, april 26, 1971House of Representatives,Select Committee on Crime,Washington^ B.C.The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 :05 a.m., in room 2359,Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Claude Pepper (chairman)presiding.Present: Representatives Pepper, Mann, Wiggins, Steiger, Winn,and Keating.Also present : Paul Perito, chief counsel ; and Michael W. Blommer,associate chief counsel.Chairman Pepper. The committee will come to order, please.The House Select Committee on Crime today begins 7 days ofpublic hearings which will cover four separate but related areas ofnarcotic addiction. We have been examining the complex problems ofdrug abuse and drug dependence since our inception as a committeeon crime in May 1969. The heroin addiction crisis has reached threateningproportions. Our cities are beseiged. Our suburban areas havebecome infected. Even our rural areas are now feeling the shockingeffect of this malady. Drug abuse and drug dependence have becomeso unmanageable that they are now responsible, both directly andindirectly, for contributing to 50 percent of the street crime in ourNation. While our population has increased 13 percent from 1960 to1969, crimes against property increased 151 percent, and violentpredatory crimes increased 130 percent.In the face of this mounting evidence of spiraling street crime, ourcitizens are properly asking whether their Government is helpless,or corrupt, or even worse, totally incapable or unwilling to deal with apublic health epidemic.The national heroin addiction epidemic places an impossible burdenupon an overburdened criminal justice system. This heroin epidemicforces our police to allocate their resources unequally in attempting tostem the illicit drug traffic. Testimony taken by our committee in NewYork, Washington, San Francisco, Boston, and Miami vividly demonstratedthe fact that prosecutors must devote an inordinate amountof their time and staff to the investigation and prosecution of caseswhich are heroin connected. Our Crime Committee investigators haverevealed that in New York, as in most of our major cities, the administrationof criminal justice has been brought to a virtual standstill becauseof the volume of heroin related cases. Probation officers throughoutthe country have advised our investigators that they cannot begin(1)