money should be sufficient to open three or four DIU's each year, depending on their size. I believe much more should be done.

A spin-off of the DIU Program is our application of computer technology to identify problem drugs and problem registrants for investigation. In a pilot program in San Francisco, we utilized both our Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN), to identify legitimate drugs appearing most frequently in the hands of abusers, and our Automated Returns and Consolidated Order Form System (ARCOS), to pin-point registrants excessively purchasing these drugs. This project involved substantial State DIU resources and DEA support to initiate the program. As a result, nine physicians were indicted and civil actions were directed toward 21 pharmacies, with an additional 10 physicians and 16 pharmacies facing adverse actions.

With the success of this initial effort, this program is being utilized at other locations in the country.

We have made additional progress in curbing diversion at the retail level with our community-action Pharmacy Theft Prevention Program (PTP). Our pilot project in St. Louis resulted in a 27 per cent drop in pharmacy thefts. This year, PTP programs will be implemented in the following cities: Waterbury, Conn.; Buffalo, N.Y.; Philadelphia Pa Richmond. Va. Miami, Fla.: Cleveland, Ohio; Indianapolis, Ind.; Nashville, Tenn.; Johnson County, Kans.; Dallas County, Tex.; Denver, Colo.; Boise, Idaho; and San Francisco, Calif. Also, we have prepared a booklet for use by community leaders in other cities.

While progress is being made as I have outlined, curbing retail diversion over the long pull requires substantial upgrading in State monitoring of professionals. DEA has initiated an extensive contract study of State licensing boards to identify the problem areas and to develop solutions.

The Comprehensive Report is now being printed. Also emanating from this study is A Model Health Professions Practice Act and State Regulatory Policy. I am furnishing this subcommittee with copies of the Model Act together with a reprint of commentary on it appearing in the American Bar Association's Administrative Law Review. The Comprehensive Report and Model Act will serve as the nucleus for a major DEA effort to work with State governments in upgrading the State licensing functions in the policing of controlled substances. We are presently developing plans for a pilot implementation program which we will be launching within the next few months. This is a long-range program which will entail extensive coordination with State agencies to implement needed changes, to provide classroom and on-the-job training, and to supplement State efforts as necessary.

The overall effectiveness of our regulatory program is dependent largely upon the support and cooperation we receive from the health community at all levelsboth in the private and public sectors. We place a great deal of emphasis on communication and cooperative effort.

One example of such cooperation is the Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) which I mentioned earlier. DAWN is a data collection project that accumulates drug abuse "episodes" from more than 1,000 medical examiners, emergency rooms and crisis centers from around the country. For the last several years, this program has been funded jointly by DEA and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). DAWN information is disseminated to a number of Federal agencies, including DEA, NIDA, the Food and Drug Administration, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Department of Defense, as well as to State and local drug abuse planning authorities and law enforcement agencies. Manufacturers of drugs have access to this information upon request to the prime contractor, and several major pharmaceutical manufacturers take advantge of this regularly. Also, increasing numbers of scientists are using DAWN data as bases for a variety of studies.

Another example of cooperative effort is an interagency Regulatory Task Force. Members of the Task Force include senior policy-making officials from the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the Postal Service, the Federal Trade Commission, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Federal Associations of Health Regulatory Boards, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Department of Defense. It is chaired by a senior DEA regulatory official and is exploring a number of regulatory considerations that require interagency cooperation.

We have established four DEA/Working Committees which meet quarterly. There is a separate Committee for manufacturers, distributors, pharmacies and practictioners. The pharmacy group represents seven national pharmacy organizations.

Members on the practitioners' group includes representatives from the American Dental Association, the American Medical Association, the American Nurses Association, the American Osteopathic Association, the American Podiatry Association, the American Veterinary Medicine Association, and NIDA. Each committee has about 12 members plus the DEA officials involved.

The Practitioners Committee recently has been discussing quidelines for prescription writing practices and for medical practice where CSA drugs are concerned. This committee has asked DEA to finalize guidelines for prescribing, dispensing, administering and controlling CSA drugs in long-term care facilities. In a less formal example of interagency cooperation, DEA has been working closely with the National Institute on Drug Abuse in providing input and advise for NIDA's physician training courses. We also work with NIDA on the preparation of prescribing guidelines for physicians.

Our liaison with industry is also extensive, and has been quite effective in encouraging industry self-policing practices. DEA issues a quarterly newsletter called DEA/Registrant Facts. This newsletter has a limited circulation of 5,000. It is sent to registrant opinion leaders of State and national professional associations, professional schools, licensing boards, medical and science writers, selected State and Federal officials, among other key persons.

In order to keep registrant groups informed about DEA regulations, notices of Federal Register announcements are sent to editors of trade and professional journals and selected individuals. These are sent in advance of publication in the Federal Register.

We also provide speakers and exhibits for industry programs, contribute articles to trade and professional publications, and prepare and disseminate inhouse booklets designed to enhance registrant compliance with DEA requirements. Behind the most adequate regulations, the finest multi-agency interface and the strongest support of industry self-policing of course must be an enforcement capability: the DEA field investigative program. Our field investigation program, a major portion of our regulatory effort, is designed to ensure that all registrants adhere to regulatory safeguards. We have made a great deal of progress in tightening up the chain of distribution at the manufacturer/wholesaler level. Under our inspection program, we have seen substantial improvement in physical safeguards, in records accountability and in supplier monitoring of drug sales. Firms unwilling or unable to comply with the regulatory safeguards have been subjected to administrative or prosecutive action and their registration has been jeopardized. Several "borderline" firms are no longer in the controlled drug business. The following accounts of three regulatory investigations illustrate these kinds of action.

A MEMPHIS, TENN., MEDICAL DOCTOR

On February 4, 1977, a Tennessee doctor was arrested by the Memphis Metro Narcotics Unit, and charged with 14 counts of illegal sale of controlled substances, and resisting arrest.

The case against the doctor was initiated when several area pharmacies complained to DEA about his apparently indiscriminate prescribing practices. DEA investigators obtained substantial evidence from the pharmacies' records, as well as testimony of an informant who stated that the doctor was involved with illegal use and distribution of controlled substances.

The DEA investigators relayed this information to the Memphis Metro Narcotics Unit, and provided direct assistance and guidance regarding diversion techniques generally employed by physicians involved with illegal sales. As a result, an undercover officer assigned to the Unit was able to purchase 12 prescriptions for Schedule II amphetamines and barbiturates. Based on this purchase, the M.D. was arrested and placed in custody. He is currently awaiting trial.

A CALIFORNIA MANUFACTURER'S REPRESENTATIVE

In the course of a routine audit of a Colorado drug manufacturer, DEA investigators noted that certain Los Angeles area customers of that firm seemed to be buying excessive quantities of anorectics (amphetamine-like drugs).

When the investigators attempted to verify these purchases, they discovered that the practitioners in question had never ordered the drugs. The "purchases," it turned out, were made by a drug salesman for the manufacturer. The salesman had been ordering the drugs in the names of the practitioners, and arriving at the practitioners' offices when the delivery was made to explain that the shipment

was in error. He would then pay his company with a cashier's check and sell the drugs illicitly.

A search warrant was obtained for the salesman's residence. Seized were $12,318 cash and numerous sales and monetary records. The salesman was arrested, after which he cooperated with DEA and implicated his associate, who was an outlet for the illegal distribution of controlled substances. The associate was arrested later.

It has been estimated that the salesman was responsible for the diversion of approximately 650,000 dosage units of controlled substances (primarily Phendimetrazine). On October 18, 1976, he was sentenced to a term of four years, execution of all but 90 days suspended, and three years probation. His associate was sentenced to 90 days in prison. Further information developed in this case has indicated that one or more other salesmen in Northern California may also be involved.

THREE WASHINGTON, D.C., PHARMACIES

The largest Civil penalties to date assessed as a result of a DEA regulatory investigation were imposed in March 1976, as a result of an investigation of three Washington, D.C., pharmacies.

The investigations were initiated when DEA began to receive complaints about the Washington area Preludin abuse problem, and about the practices of these pharmacies in particular.

When audited, the records of these pharmacies showed large shortages of controlled substances and numerous forged prescriptions. Civil complaints were issued by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington, D.C., against all three firms. On March 18, 1976, a U.S. District Judge granted summary judgments against the pharmacies for filling forged, incomplete or mechanically-copied prescriptions, and for numerous recordkeeping violations. One pharmacy was ruled to have committed 212 violations and was assessed a Civil penalty of $35,000. The second pharmacy was ruled to have committed 840 separate violations and was assessed a Civil penalty of $65,000. The third pharmacy was ruled to have committed 134 violations and was assessed a Civil penalty of $20,000, with the agreement that the owner surrender his pharmacist license and never again handle controlled substances.

During 1976, DEA conducted 1,643 regulatory investigations resulting in 408 Letters of Admonition, 74 administrative hearings, 32 requests for Orders to Show Cause to deny applications for registration, 21 surrenders of registration, 51 reqeusts for suspensions or revocations of registrations and several significant civil fines and penalties.

Our success in all of these efforts-both enforcement and regulatory-I believe can be at least approximately assessed by an accounting of the availability on our streets of the most serious drug of abuse: heroin. Last year for the first time we established criteria to measure this availability and, therefore indirectly, the success of DEA in curbing drug abuse. These criteria are (1) national heroin purity at the retail level; and (2) the number of heroin-related deaths. Our objective is to see a lowering of both.

Retail heroin purity relates to heroin availability in that: as retail heroin becomes scarcer, it will be less potent when the dosage unit reaches the addict. Our data for assessing purity are based upon evidence obtained through retail drug purchases which in turn are analyzed by our laboratories.

In developing the purity factor as a criteria, we decided that retail measurements would be most revealing because they reflect actual "street" transactions, thereby most accurately describing the heroin addicts' market. By limiting our computations to this level, we also precluded our being misled by an artificial rise in the purity figure that would otherwise result as DEA increasingly shifts its emphasis to investigations involving wholesalers and major criminal figures. The number of heroin-related deaths correlates with heroin availability in that: within a certain range, the greater the supply of heroin, the greater the number of heroin overdoes that we can expect to occur.

Heroin fatalities are reported to the Federal Government by medical examiners in the 21 Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas (SMSA's) which account for 80 per cent of the nation's addicts. This reporting network which I mentioned earlier-DAWN-has been in operation since July 1973. DAWN also monitors drug abuse nationally through reports of drug abuse "episodes" received from hospital emergency rooms, inpatient treatment facilities and drug crisis centers. With these two measures of success-the average national retail purity of available heroin and the overall death rate from heroin overdose-I believe we can make a fairly accurate assessment of our progress. However, I do not wish

to overstate the connection, because many of the factors controlling heroin availability on both the demand and supply side of the equation-are out of our control.

DEA has very little control over drug demand and a limited ability to influence supply. That is, demand today largely depends upon societal attitude or, at least, the attitudes of large subsections of society. Supply is affected by many factorsin addition to DEA's effectiveness-including: The workings of the criminal justice system that is, will the violator go to jail? Prosecutional resources; bail; the priority the U.S. Government affords to international drug control; the attitudes, resolve and capabilities of foreign governments; the penetrability of U.S. borders; the appropriateness of U.S. drug control policy and strategy concerning assessment of responsibility, the allocation of resources and the coordination of effort; and State and local law enforcement efforts.

For the first three months of 1976, heroin availability, as indicated by the average purity of retail heroin nationwide, was at the highest level since 1971. During this period, retail heroin purity averaged 6.6 percent (it averaged 9.6 percent in 1970 and 7.5 percent in 1971).

It was encouraging, therefore, when in the course of a year heroin purity dropped from 6.6 percent to 5.8 percent-only 0.6 percent away from the recent record low of 5.2 percent during the 1973 heroin shortage following the Turkish poppy ban. Similarly, it was encouraging that as purity declined, the national average price of heroin rose. In March 1976 (when retail heroin purity averaged 6.6 percent), the average street price of heroin was $1.26 per milligram; in Marhc 1977 (when the purity had dropped to 5.8 percent), the price was $1.53 per milligram. These are quarterly figures that appear to follow a steady trend. As for heroin fatalities, the metropolitan areas of Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Miami and Philadelphia evidenced a sharp drop from the second quarter to the third quarter of 1976. New York City is the only significant exception to this trend, according to deaths reported by the New York City Department of Health.

In fact, for the first time since 1973, all major metropolitan areas-with the exception of New York and Seattle-have reported a decrease in heroin fatalities during the quarter ended September 30, 1976. Nationally, the decrease was 28 percent.

These facts do not mean there is a scarcity of heroin on the street or that a continuing trend is assured. What they do show is that we have taken a step in the right direction to reduce our nation's $10 million-a-day, tip-of-theiceberg, heroin-related property crime. They show that we are, to some extent, coping with the increasing diversity of smuggling techniques and the sophistication of these elaborate, multi-million-dollar smuggling organizations and their hard-to-reach principals. This success we can attribute partly to our shifting of enforcement priorities and to our successful joint drug control program with Mexico.

Continuing efforts will be needed to ensure that the delicate web of cooperation built up over the years is not disrupted: In the law enforcement community, involving, as we have seen, our foreign police colleagues, the Departments of State and Transportation, Customs, IRS, INS, the Coast Guard, the FBI and State and local police; in the health community involving DIU's, the DAWN Program, the Pharmacy Theft Prevention Program, Regulatory Task Forces, NIDA and FDA.

While we cannot take all of the credit for reducing the supply of heroin (with drug demand all but out of our reach and with only a limited influence over supply), I believe we can safely say that our part in the effort has been important. The facts that (1) Class I 1976 heroin arrests were up 26 percent over the previous year, and that (2) the unprecedented "SAO/MEX” campaign netted some 1,883 brown heroin violators-567 of whom were classified as either Class I or II-tell a story.

We are talking about our relative ability to control drug supplies and, our relative responsibilities. Our relative success-a decline in retail heroin purity for the past year and a 28-percent drop in heroin fatalities during the third quarter of 1976-is apparent.

We will continue to sharpen our focus. We will continue to develop our interagency cooperation. Most of all, we need continued support from the Congress, to build upon the gains which we have been making in the last year. In this instance we seek the Congress' reauthorization of the appropriations to carry out the provisions of the Controlled Substances Act.

BIOGRAPHY

of

PETER B. BENSINGER

ADMINISTRATOR

DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

Peter B. Bensinger, 40, was unanimously confirmed as DEA Administrator by the Senate on February 5, 1976.

Before his appointment, Mr. Bensinger was chief of the Crime Victims Division of the Illinois Attorney General's Office. During the past seven years, in Illinois, he has held important public posts involving virtually all elements of that state's criminal justice system.

As executive director of the Chicago Crime Commission, during 1973, Mr. Bensinger had the responsibility of evaluating public officials in the criminal justice system, investigating organized crime, and measuring the effectiveness of law enforcement in the greater metropolitan Chicago area.

From 1970 to 1973, he served as the first director of the 5,000-member Illinois Department of Corrections, with direct responsibility for all state penitentiaries, reformatories, training schools, parole supervision, and jail inspection.

The Illinois Corrections Department was formed in 1970 through the reorganization of the Illinois Youth Commission, of which Mr. Bensinger was chairman in 1969, and the Illinois Department of Public Safety, where he had previously served as administrative assistant to the director. During his tenure, the Department of Public Safety was responsible for law enforcement in Illinois, including state police, narcotics investigation, and the state fire marshal and adult prison operations.

Mr. Bensinger is a director of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency and has received the Executive Directors Award of the Illinois Juvenile Police Officers Association and the John Howard Award for excellence in corrections. In 1972, he was elected president of the Association of State Correctional Administrators, representing the directors of state prisons, major metropolitan jails, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and the Canadian penitentiary system.

A native of Chicago, Mr. Bensinger is a graduate of Yale University and is married to the former Judith Schneebeck, a physician. The couple have two children ar