continued vigorous pursuit of a strong law enforcement program. Furthermore, we must lend our fullest possible efforts toward the education of our citizens about the hazards of drug use.

I am

I strongly endorse the drug abuse prevention efforts of Mrs. Reagan and the many programs with which she works. encouraged, too, that professional associations and parent groups such as Pharmacists Against Drug Abuse and the National Federation of Parents for a Drug Free Youth are actively involved in the national education effort. The continued interest and participation of the various elements of our society, both inside and outside the government, is our strongest weapon against the drug abuse problem.

The President has said that the campaign against drug abuse in the United States is a campaign we cannot afford to lose. Mr. Chairman, I am optimistic that the significant inroads we have made in limiting the availability of illicit drugs in this country will continue, and that we will reach a point where we see broad reductions, not only in the availability of drugs, but also in the demand for them by our citizens. DEA is proud of its role in this campaign and pledges its full dedication to the goals of the Federal Strategy.

Thank you for this opportunity to discuss our role in the implementation of the 1982 Federal Strategy and for your assistance and support.

AFTERNOON SESSION

Mr. RANGEL. The House Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control will resume the hearing. This morning, we began our examination of the law enforcement aspects as related to the Drug Enforcement Administration, and we heard from the lead narcotics enforcement agency.

This afternoon, we will take a review of the Coast Guard role in the strategy of law enforcement, as the Federal agency with primary jurisdiction for maritime law enforcement, the Coast Guard shoulders the major responsibility for interdicting drug smuggling by sea, particularly marihuana.

The challenges confronting the Coast Guard in performing its tasks are enormous. First, the quantities of drugs are staggering. Americans consume, at a minimum, an estimated 9,600 to 13,900 metric tons of marihuana each year. Over 90 percent of this comes from foreign sources, 60 percent being smuggled into the United States being transported by sea.

Second, the Coast Guard's resources are limited. The Coast Guard's responsibility for a number of other important missions, such as search and rescues, fishery enforcement, in addition to their responsibilities in drug interdiction.

Over the past 5 years, the Coast Guard's operating expense budget has increased almost 65 percent in terms of absolute dollars, but the purchasing power of these dollars has remained relatively static.

In 1981, the Coast Guard had to curtail Pacific drug law enforcement patrols by 90 percent because it could not afford to buy fuel. Moreover, many of the Coast Guard vessels and aircraft are old and require extensive and costly maintenance, reducing their availability for enforcement and other missions.

Third, the nature of drug smuggling is constantly changing to avoid law enforcement. Prior to the initiation of the Vice President's South Florida Task Force on Crime, most of the marihuana smuggled into the United States entered Florida through the Caribbean.

As a result of the concentration of Federal resources in south Florida, however, drug smuggling routes are shifting to the Pacific and northward along the Atlantic Coast.

Unlike the Caribbean, there are no natural chokepoints for these new routes that smugglers must pass, thus increasing the difficulty of detecting and intercepting the drug smuggling activity.

We congratulate the Coast Guard for what it has been able to accomplish in the area of narcotics interdiction within the limits of its resources.

I will put the rest of this statement in the record.

[Mr. Rangel's opening statement appears on p. 217.]

Mr. RANGEL. I want to thank you for the cooperation that you have given to this committee, outside of these formal hearings. And as I indicated, Admiral Gracey, that I do hope that we will continue to use those informal formats to exchange information and, of course, you recognize that we have a congressional responsibility to hear public reports as to what you see the problem as, what resources you need, and where we can improve on legislation.

Having said that, we do have your statement, and we hope you will proceed.

TESTIMONY OF ADM. JAMES S. GRACEY, COMMANDANT, U.S. COAST GUARD, ACCOMPANIED BY VICE ADM. BENEDICT L. STABILE, VICE COMMANDANT, U.S. COAST GUARD, AND REAR ADM. NORMAN C. VENZKE, COMMANDER, SECOND COAST GUARD DISTRICT

Admiral GRACEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I really was hoping you would finish your statement, and then we didn't need-you were right, there wouldn't be much need for us to testify.

Mr. RANGEL. Maybe it would be easier for me to say those things. Admiral GRACEY. It sounds like you have it all already.

It is a pleasure to be here with you today, Mr. Chairman, to report to you on our efforts, the Coast Guard efforts, in support of the Federal strategy.

I would like to summarize my statement, if I may.

Mr. RANGEL. Without objection, your full statement will appear in the record.

Admiral GRACEY. Thank you, sir.

I have at the table with me today, Mr. Chairman, on my left, Vice Adm. Ben Stabile, who is the Vice Commandant of the Coast Guard; and on my right, Rear Adm. Norman Venzke, who is Chief of the Office of Operations.

As you know, the Federal strategy basically encompasses five interrelated programs, international efforts to stop drugs as close to the sources as possible; domestic law enforcement, including the interdiction of drugs; detoxification treatment, education and prevention, and research.

The Coast Guard's role falls, as you have already said, primarily within the interdiction phase, and is directed at illicit maritime traffic in controlled substances.

Due to our unique multimission resource capability, and broad enforcement authority, the Coast Guard serves as the primary U.S. law enforcement agency at sea. We share enforcement responsibility with the U.S. Customs Service within Customs' waters, and of course, we receive intelligence from the Drug Enforcement Administration, from Customs, from the Department of Defense, and anybody else we can get it from, wherever we are operating.

A look at the Federal drug interdiction efforts shows that each of the involved Federal drug law enforcement agencies seizes many types of controlled substances during the routine course of its operations.

But each agency's particular dedication of resources, in accordance with mission responsibilities, leads to the interdiction of certain specific drugs. Marihuana is a bulk commodity, commonly shipped by sea, and readily detectable during at-sea boardings.

So, the Coast Guard seizes more marihuana intended for importation than any Federal agency.

Interdiction efforts by the United States cannot be focused in one or two agencies, since drug traffickers use all modes of transporta

tion while transiting areas where perhaps only one, or sometimes many agencies possess jurisdiction.

These traffickers possess a vast number of resources within their many formal or informal crime structures. To combat the problem, the Federal effort is coordinated across departmental and agency lines.

It hits all modes of transportation, strikes at the financial basis of the organizations, and brings to bear much of the national capability, including defense assets, as can be used effectively and legally against the criminal elements.

With regard to our primary area of jurisdiction, the maritime transit zones, in the Atlantic region, most drug traffic originates in the Caribbean, generally along the north coast of Colombia in the vicinity of the Guajira Peninsula.

Historically, as the smuggler sailed north, he passed through one of four channels, or chokepoints, between the Yucatan Peninsula and the Leeward Islands. He then proceeded toward the Bahamas, Florida or the gulf coast.

Some vessels attempt to avoid the law enforcement pressure on Florida by offloading further north along the Mid-Atlantic or New England seacoast. In the Pacific, there are no chokepoints. The enforcement effort depends almost entirely on intelligence and transit zone surveillance, as it does for the Atlantic, north of Florida. The National Narcotics Intelligence Consumers Committee estimates that about 60 percent of all marihuana smuggled into this country comes by sea. Coast Guard drug enforcement strategy is directed at interdicting larger vessels, mother ships, intending to offload their cargo to smaller vessels once they are adjacent to the U.S. coastline.

One mother ship seizure may remove as much marihuana from the smugglers as would 10 to 20 smaller seizures closer in to shore. In short, we get larger quantities of marihuana for the effort by seizing mother ships, more bang for the buck, if you will.

There is no doubt that the levels of pressure that our at-sea interdiction efforts are applying cause diversion of drug traffic to other routes, other modes of transportation, other supply sources, and other offload points.

For example, Coast Guard patrols in the Atlantic coast area, north of South Carolina have experienced a 169-percent increase in vessels seized. These figures are between calendar year 1981 and 1982. A 169-percent increase in vessels seized, a 452-percent increase in marihuana seized, and a 252-percent increase in persons arrested.

Now, this may well be due to the smugglers' attempt to go around the enforcement effort in the Florida area. It probably also reflects our improved intelligence, better resource utilization, and more experience.

Coast Guard-wide, we are proceeding with efforts to procure offthe-shelf technology which will enhance our mission capability. These items include stabilized optics and night vision devices for our cutters, and forward-looking infrared radar for our aircraft.

We are also improving our efforts by better coordination with the Department of Defense. There are also strong indications that

our increasing pressure has affected materially the overall level of maritime smuggling activity.

During the period from January 1 to March 1, 1982, the Coast Guard seized 53 vessels for narcotic smuggling, and interdicted a total of 697,939 pounds of marihuana. During that same timeframe, in 1983, our forces seized only 15 vessels, carrying a total of 269,000 pounds of marihuana, roughly one-third.

The result of our continuous enforcement presence has been a drop in seizures. I attribute this at least in part to the deterrent effect of having our forces in place. Our intelligence sources confirm that source country shipments are down and that a significant portion of the smuggling community is adopting a wait-and-see attitude as to whether or not we will sustain our efforts over the long

run.

There are a number of additional international efforts taking place in this hemisphere which involve the Coast Guard. The InterAmerican Maritime Intelligence Network, IAMIN, is in operation, linking the U.S. Coast Guard with the Coast Guard or Navy of the Bahamas, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, and Venezuela.

We are providing assistance to the Lesser Antilles in establishing a communication link between the many island nations to promote interisland cooperation for drug interdiction, among other things. In November 1981, an agreement was formalized by exchange of notes between the United Kingdom and the United States. Under its terms, the Coast Guard may board in the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea, and up to 150 miles off the Atlantic coast of the United States private vessels flying the British flag if we believe the vessel has on board a cargo of drugs for importation into the United States in violation of U.S. laws.

To date, we have made 10 seizures under this agreement. Ongoing discussions with other Caribbean countries will, I hope, produce similar agreements to enhance our operational effectiveness.

In my judgment, it is too early to tell if our efforts have raised the deterrence level to the point where long-term patterns of maritime drug smuggling have changed. However, there is little doubt that our efforts are having an impact.

Drug smugglers are being forced to resort to more devious and complex, and thus more costly, strategies in their attempts to elude us. As we continue to succeed in interdicting more and more of these vessels, and prosecuting their crews, our deterrent effect will increase.

Furthermore, every vessel seized is one less available for this heinous trade; so too with crews jailed. Perhaps some day, maritime drug smuggling will become too risky to be attractive to smugglers. I hope so.

That concludes my summary, Mr. Chairman. I am prepared to answer any questions you would like to ask.

[Admiral Gracey's prepared statement appears on p. 221.]

Mr. RANGEL. Thank you, Admiral.

What percentage of your budget is involved in enforcement of the Drug Code?

Admiral GRACEY. It is about 25 percent, 28 percent, I can't remember the exact figure, Mr. Chairman.

30-598 0-84-9