and $240,000,00 for the fiscal year endin

(3) by striking out "(other than its e

curred in connection with carrying out s

(b) Section 103 of such Act (21 U.S.C

Mr. ROGERS. We are very pleased to have Peter B. Bensinger, Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, here with your colleagues. If you would like any of them to sit with you at the table, we are pleased to have them.

Your statement will be made a part of the record in full following your summation.

STATEMENT OF HON. PETER B. BENSINGER, ADMINISTRATOR, DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, ACCOMPANIED BY KENNETH DURRIN, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF COMPLIANCE AND REGULATORY AFFAIRS

Mr. BENSINGER. Thank you very much, Chairman Rogers, Representative Carter.

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

Mr. ROGERS. Certainly.

Mr. BENSINGER. I appreciate your comments in respect to the DEA authorization. Our arrests in 1976 did show a significant increase in class I and class II violators. These are major criminal organizations whom we have targeted and who have in fact been distributing heroin and other dangerous drugs and narcotics in the United States.

The increase in class I and II arrests on a combined basis is 43 percent. Our total arrests, Mr. Chairman, did not go up. I don't think it is our objective to just have a statistical game on making more arrests. It is really who we arrest and what happens after those arrests that has a greater impact.

We have as a matter of fact targeted our efforts more directly against those organizations which provide the greatest supply of drugs. We have 2,068 agents, special agents, out of some 4,000 employees and we have offices in some 39 countries around the world.

Our efforts domestically of course represent only partially the dedand reduction effort that is being made by the U.S. Government. We work closely with the State Department, our Customs Service, Departments of Transportation, Treasury, IRS, and FBI and particularly the State and local police agencies in the United States.

Mexico has made a major contribution to reducing the availability of heroin in the United States through its eradication program. This is a method the Mexican Government has adopted by which a common herbicide spray is sprayed on poppy fields in Mexico. Some 25,000 fields were in fact sprayed already this year.

We have seen an increase in the price of wholesale opium and heroin at the border locations and in our cities. Our major kind of key indicator, heroin purity, is going down. It has gone down from a high of 6.6 percent last March to a present retail purity level of 5.8 percent. Heroin overdose deaths have decreased for the first time in 3 years. For the last reporting quarter some 392 overdose deaths were reported by the 21 major statistical metropolitan areas. That compares to some 540 heroin overdose deaths that were reported in the quarter prior. This complements the decrease in retail purity. It indicates at least one measurement method that not as much heroin is being used in that large quantity by individual users.

We have worked as you know with governments all over the world. The Turkish heroin supply has not leaked, if that is the right word. It has not spread morphine base or heroin into the U.S. market. Turkey is operating a program to provide straw poppy. It has enforced that law so that literally we are not faced with the Turkish heroin in the United States that was the case 5 years ago.

In Europe heroin abuse has risen dramatically. Most of the heroin that is used by traffickers in Europe is Southeast Asian variety.

One of our most important parts of our mission is working with manufacturers and pharmacies in the regulation of controlled substances. We do have experts here as well. I can be more precise with respect to the regulatory and compliance program. We have 540,000 registrants which DEA has the responsibility of providing with registration procedures and control.

Following registration we monitor and investigate registrants to insure that they are accountable for the controlled substances handled. When violations are uncovered, appropriate actions, civil, criminal as well as revocations take place.

During 1976 we provided a model act as a matter of fact in this general field that I would like to submit for the record.

Mr. ROGERS. Without objection it will be received. [See p. 28.]
Mr. BENSINGER. Very good.

Since the passage of the Controlled Substances Act in May 1971 we have taken a number of actions which I have listed which I would also like to submit for the record.

Mr. ROGERS. Without objection we would like to have that for the record. [See p. 24.]

Mr. BENSINGER. That would be listings that would include the movement of amphetamines and methamphetamines from schedule 3 to schedule 2, ending with our recent order placing darvon under schedule 4 effective March 14, 1977.

Since 1971 we have controlled 28 drugs. Nine have moved to one schedule. We have decontrolled five.

We work very closely with FDA and the National Institute on Drug Abuse. As you indicated, Mr. Chairman, U.S. amphetamine production was 66,000 pounds some 7 years ago. The quota for 1977 is 7,700 pounds.

We are looking at amphetamines with FDA. We don't want to deprive anyone with a legitimate need for these drugs. But substantial production decreases have been effected on phenmetrazine, preludin, methaqualone, quaalude, and three fast-acting barbituates.

In October of last year we created the Office of Compliance and Regulatory Affairs. This is an Office that reports to the Deputy Administrator and myself. Previously the compliance effort was supervised by the Office of Enforcement. This I think brings the Office additional direct reporting accountability and responsibility. We have in our budgetary presentation requested 29 additional positions in Compliance and Regulatory Affairs. We have presented that budget to Chairman Slack of the House Appropriations Committee.

Under the Controlled Substances Act we have a responsibility to work closely with State and local licensing and pharmaceutical investigative boards. We have been directing attention to that effort. Memorandums of understanding have been signed with 45 States and the

District of Columbia. We have worked on a variety of investigations where there has been diversion of legitimate controlled substances and dangerous drugs.

The program is called the diversion investigative unit, DIU. It is supported by the Drug Enforcement Administration. It is State-run and State-manned with a DEA representative provided to these DIU units for training, seed money and investigative support. We do have a budget of $1 million this fiscal year and next year to bring on new units.

But I should say, Mr. Chairman, we really should do more in this area, to have more States embarked upon a dangerous drug controlling effort. We have seen some very good results from units that are now operating in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, North Carolina, Georgia, Michigan, Illinois, Texas, California, and Alabama.

A spinoff is the application of computer technology to identify problem drugs and problem registrants for investigation. An investigation in San Francisco pinpointed registrants who are excessively purchasing drugs. Nine physicians were indicted. Civil action was directed against 21 pharmacies.

We have also worked with a pharmacy theft preventative program. A pilot project in St. Louis was so successful that we have implemented the same type of program in 13 major locations throughout the country this year. We saw in St. Louis a 27 percent drop in pharmacy thefts. I talked earlier about the Model Health Professions Act. I have made available data as an exhibit. We are presently developing plans to have long-range classroom and on-the-job training to supplement State efforts. We have worked with NIDA to get information from the medical exams, from emergency rooms and crisis centers around the country to be able to keep abreast of changes in drug patterns and also to be better appraised as to fatality and injury rates.

We have seen that the fatality and injury rates for heroin have decreased steadily over the last 9 months. We have an ongoing monitoring program that will look at heroin purity and will look at heroin overdose deaths as well as those of barbiturates, amphetamines and the other drugs that are controlled by DEA.

During 1976 some 1,643 regulatory investigations were conducted which resulted in 408 letters of admonition, 74 administrative hearings, 32 requests for show cause for denial of application, 21 surrenders of registration, and 51 requests for suspension.

Our criterion for measuring the Drug Enforcement Administration's effectiveness can be looked at at the retail heroin purity level and the overdose level and in price as well. We have seen an increase in the price per milligram of heroin. It has increased from $1.26 in 1976 in March to $1.53 for the last month of 1977 in March.

We know that the efforts to control drugs relate not just to supply reduction but to demand reduction. We work closely with our colleagues in the HEW community and with the Departments of State and Transportation in the supply reduction community, including Customs, IRS, INS, Coast Guard, FBI, State and local police.

I think the Drug Enforcement Administration's efforts have been better focused in the last year. The menace of dangerous drugs and narcotics still exists in this country. The resources of our Agency and

the talents of our agents and compliance investigators our professional support, we believe is still needed. T seek a continuation of our authorization to perform trolled Substances Act and appear here today for that [Testimony resumes on p. 134.]

[Mr. Bensinger's prepared statement and attachment STATEMENT OF HON. PETER B. BENSINGER, ADMINISTRATOR, DR ADMINISTRATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICI

I am pleased to appear before this subcommittee to discuss progress, and goals. We are all too aware of the tragedy of di nation. As has been noted time and time again, the "cost" of d country is staggering-both in terms of dollar loss and huma DEA study completed this February, we determined that her are responsible for 19 per cent of all property crime in the Uni From this fact we can conclude that-apart from the hun volved and the addicts' wasted productive potential, and apart drug law enforcement and treatment programs-in terms of cri abuse "costs" our society more than $10 million per day.

The opium poppy-the plant of the species Papaver somnij source of all opiates, including morphine base from which her flower produces opium, which is then scraped from the incised p to illicit laboratories to be converted to the heroin appearing on smuggling process is diversified and sophisticated. It may be individuals or small groups of individuals, but more often we large criminal organizations-organizations with managemen unlike those of many of our nation's major corporations.

For more than 20 years, most of the heroin seized in this count from Turkish opium that was converted to heroin in illicit labo seilles. In the late 1960's and early 1970's, these opiates accounte 80 per cent of the heroin on our streets.

Then in 1972, and effective in 1973, Turkey successfully p (gum) production and French law enforcement authorities bro heroin laboratories in Marseilles. The legendary "Turkish/Fre was broken.

Cocaine is produced from the leaf of the coca bush grown pr America. The leaf is converted to coca paste in Peru and Ecu quently, into cocaine hydrochloride in Colombia. From there, the ally has been smuggled into the United States either directly or vi ica, Mexico or several Caribbean countries.

The cannabis products-marihuana, hashish, and hashish oi the U.S. streets are produced primarily from a tall, fibrous Mexico and to a lesser extent Colombia, Pakistan, and the North of Morocco.

Psychotropic substances such as amphetamines and barbit duced illicitly in the United States, Canada and Mexico or ar stocks of licit prescription medicines.

In the months immediately before Reorganization Plan No. 2 DEA took effect, a heroin shortage in this nation took place, pa the East Coast. This shortage was attributed primarily to the "Turkish/French Connection." However, the severe scarcity of o serious drug of abuse was short-lived. Even before the Drug Enfo istration became an administrative reality, opiates from Mexico, extent Southeast Asia and other areas, were beginning to fill th The history of our Government's efforts to control the illicit be said to have started in earnest on June 14, 1930, when the of Narcotics (FBN), under the Department of the Treasury, 1965, the Bureau of Drug Abuse Control (BDAC) was created istered by the Food and Drug Administration of the Departm Education, and Welfare.

The Department of Justice had no role in drug enforcement February 7 of that year, President Johnson proposed that bot BDAC be merged into a new organization to be known as the Bure and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD). President Johnson's proposals in Reorganization Plan No. 1 of 1968, and implemented on April 7. gative bon