note only seven Agents assigned to Pakistan and six assigned to Italy. Mexico, reportedly responsible for 32 percent of the heroin entering the United States, has 29 Agents assigned. Thailand, the center of the Southeast Asian heroin traffic responsible for 14 percent of our supply, has 26 Agents assigned. It seems to this Committee that these manpower assignments may be outdated, a holdover from the period prior to 1979 when heroin from Mexico and Southeast Asia dominated the traffic to the United States. We would like you to comment on what appears, to us at least, an inequitable allocation of manpower to meet the heroin smuggling problem as currently defined.

Answer:

DEA estimates that about 54% of the heroin affecting the United States is of Southwest Asian origin, 10% is Southeast Asian and 36% is of Mexican origin. These estimates are based on heroin signature study analyses done by DEA.

Southwest Asian heroin is produced from opium grown in Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The heroin is being moved overland through Europe to the U.S. Southwest Asian heroin is dominant in the Eastern U.S. It is only during the past two years that Pakistan has risen to significant status in heroin production. The bulk of Pakistani heroin is produced in the Northwest Frontier Province on the border with Afghanistan. DEA has recently opened an office in Peshawar, the closest significant city to this area. This new office increases the number of DEA

Agents assigned to Pakistan from seven to eight.

It should also be noted that Southwest Asian heroin is transiting other European countries before entering the United States. For this reason, DEA has maintained offices in Europe and Turkey and has recently opened an office on Cyprus.

Recent record opium harvests in the Golden Triangle of Southeast Asia and the lucrative profits from the opium and heroin traffic have accelerated trafficker activities in this area. While Southeast Asia accounts for only about 10% of the domestic heroin, we find that this area is producing the highest purity heroin available in the U.S. DEA intends to continue the commitment of manpower currently assigned to Thailand.

Mexican heroin accounts for about 36% of the domestic heroin and dominates the traffic in the Chicago-Detroit areas. All intelligence indicates that this heroin is smuggled into the U.S. at a lower level of purity and is not cut after it enters the U.S. On the other hand, the Mexican heroin in California is of significantly higher purity and, in some cases, is from the same Mexican sources as the Chicago heroin.

DEA has 29 Agents working in Mexico because, unlike the offices in Thailand, where all emphasis is on heroin, the Mexican offices also have to be concerned with heroin, marijuana, cocaine (transshipment) and dangerous drugs.

DEA Headquarters has recently completed an assessment of overseas staffing and is formulating recommendations to reallocate manpower according to needs directed by current trafficking conditions.

Question 13:

The Committee is astonished by the fact that from October 1980 to October 1982, a period of two years, not a single new Special Agent was hired by DEA notwithstanding the fact that all indications signaled a sharply rising traffic and abuse of drugs. This failure to hire and train new Agents by our calculations reduced Agent strength by 81 Agents between 1980 and 1982, a period in which we believe substantial increases should have been made. We now understand that from October 1982 through October 1983, 10 or more Special Agent classes are to be held; that about 100 Special Agents have completed training in five classes, and the total for this fiscal year is programmed to reach 400.

Please provide the Special Agent on board strength as of the following dates:

Budget constraints were largely responsible for limiting DEA Special Agent strength during the period October 1980 to October 1982.

DEA Special Agent On-board Strength October 1, 1980

October 1, 1983 (projected).

Question 14:

We note that for FY 84 your agency is requesting a total budget of $275,623,000, an increase of $20,000,000 over its request of $255,496,000 for FY 83. For 1983, you have projected 1,878 Agent positions out of a total of 3,953 employees and for 1984 these projections are 1,884 Agents out of a total of 3,988 employees. Given the indicators of the illicit traffic in narcotics and psychotropic drugs affecting the United States, are the manpower and resources you are requesting sufficient for DEA to effectively achieve the drug control objectives the Congress has assigned to it? Would you please comment on this.

Answer:

In 1973, DEA had 2,200 Agents after the merger with U.S. Customs, et al. DEA on-board Agents during recent years are as follows:

Special Agent classes were conducted and graduated in December 1980 (40 Agents) and September 1982 (40 Agents). The FY 1983 recruiting program has the utmost priority and is moving to fill the staffing requirements of the OCDETF operation, through which DEA has been authorized to hire 274 additional Agents over and above the 1,878 planned.

Seven Special Agent classes have been conducted and graduated thus far in FY 1983, adding 194 new Agents to the DEA work force. An additional 136 new Agents are expected to be on board by the end of the calendar year.

We are also combating the problem with enhanced resources via joint operations at all levels of enforcement activity and particularly with the FBI.

Question 15:

Obviously, DEA is now in the process of catching up and this Committee is pleased with this. Nevertheless, we would like some explanation as to why DEA Special Agent strength was allowed to fall to its lowest point ever between October 1980 and October 1982; when given the critical drug situation that existed, it should have gradually been increased. We have long thought DEA should never have less than 2,500 Agents and that this nation could best be served by 3,000 highly-trained DEA Agents dedicated full-time and concentrating totally on drug enforcement. What do you think DEA Special Agent strength should be?

Answer:

DEA has requested an additional 55 Special Agent positions in its FY 1985 budget request, bringing the total ceiling to 2,252.

In addition to this enhancement, it should be pointed out that the Federal drug law enforcement effort has been greatly enhanced by the support provided by the FBI since concurrent jurisdiction was granted in January 1982. The FBI is now dedicating approximately 12 percent of its field investigative time toward drug investigations, representing 800 workyears.

DEA's participation in the OCDE program is also having a positive impact on the agency's operations as a whole. The OCDE program is providing the first real infusion of resources to the drug law enforcement program in about a decade. The OCDE program is responsible for a 20 percent increase in the number of Agents devoted to drug enforcement work. This program is also enabling us to proceed with enhancements to the ADP programs, for the DEA Air Wing, for enhanced communications equipment, and for sophisticated equipment needed for court-authorized electronic surveillance.

Furthermore, as a consequence of the national attention directed toward the OCDE program, all Federal law enforcement programs directed toward organized crime and drug trafficking have been the subject of renewed interest and public support. This refocusing of attention on all DEA programs is having a very positive effect.

Question 16:

The Committee would also like to know whether the standard civil service qualification requirements for the position of Special Agent were utilized to recruit and hire the individuals brought on board since October 1982. Also, are the new Special Agents within the career civil service, traditional in DEA and all Federal law enforcement, or in the excepted service category utilized by the FBI?

Answer:

Even though DEA is authorized to appoint Special Agents to positions in the excepted service, it uses qualification standards described in the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Handbook X-118 titled, "Qualification Standards for Positions Under the General Schedule." These standards have been applied since the granting of the Schedule B Appointment Authority in July 1979.

The excepted appointment authorization did not negate this agency's authority to make appointments to positions in the competitive service. Consequently, candidates who meet the prescribed eligibility requirements can be appointed under either authority. Currently, DEA Special Agents, once they have been on board the required three years, are within the career civil service.

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Question 17:

As you know the undercover purchase of narcotic drugs from the traffickers for use as evidence in their prosecution was an investigative technique pioneered and used successfully by DEA and its predecessor agencies. It is a technique subsequently employed by most state and local narcotic enforcement agencies and many police services abroad.

Committee experience is that intelligently applied, the technique implicates entire organizations and sources of supply, as well as resulting in the seizures of large drug caches and providing the basic evidence for follow-up conspiracy prosecutions.

The Committee notes a serious inconsistency in the funds made available to DEA in recent years for the purchase of narcotics evidence as follows:

Would you please comment on this and indicate whether the appropriation of more funds for this purpose, in your judgment, would enhance your drug enforcement efforts? We would also like to know what quantities of heroin, cocaine and marijuana were purchased from traffickers in FY 80 through FY 83 to date, and what were the totals expended by DEA for the purchase of evidence each year during this period?

Answer:

DEA believes that additional resources for the purchase of evidence would enhance enforcement operations and has requested an additional $6.2 million for FY 1985 for this purpose.

DEA Evidence Purchases* (in grams) FY 1980 through FY 1983 through August 1983)

*Quantities of evidence purchases are from DEA's System to Retrieve Drug Evidence (STRIDE), which records reports from DEA laboratories. Drug evidence is occasionally purchased in various forms (e.g., marijuana cigarettes, heroin capsules, etc.) that are not analyzed by weight. These are not included here.