STATEMENT OF U.S. SENATOR DIANNE FEINSTEIN
At the Central Valley Methamphetamine Task Force Meeting
Fresno, California
January 9, 2001

First, I want to thank you all for being here today. Each of you is on the front lines in the fight against meth in California, and it is a testament to how important this issue is that you have all come together today for this meeting.

There are two major issues for us to discuss today. First, the needs of law enforcement in attacking the problems of supply and demand; and second, the severe and increasing burdens of meth cleanup that are currently falling on local farms, businesses and governments.

THE CENTRAL VALLEY

Along with you, I have been watching and working on the methamphetamine issue for many years. What we’ve seen is that each time we target the problem in one area of California, the meth traffickers move on to another. I think U.S. Attorney Paul Seave hit the nail on the head when he said recently “It’s like a balloon, you squeeze it in one place and it bulges somewhere else.”

If we hope to get at this problem and solve it, we obviously have to work on all levels of government and in all geographic areas. That is why we have spent so much time and energy in fighting for the designation of new HIDTAs in California. In particular, the Central Valley HIDTA is, I think, vital in addressing the meth trade.

Today, the Central Valley has become perhaps the single most important area in the United States in terms of attacking the meth problem at its source.

I don’t need to tell you that California is considered the source country of methamphetamine – we supply more than 80% of the meth consumed nationwide. And the Central Valley has increasingly become the nexus for California’s meth trade. In 1994, 11 super-labs were taken down in the 9-county Central Valley. Last year, 114 labs were taken down – half of the total taken down in all of California, and more than a 1000% increase in just 5 years.

Let me just read some of the numbers we have received about what local Central Valley Sheriffs found last year:

• Here in Fresno last year, 23 lab sites and 14 dump sites;
• In Stanislaus County, 69 labs taken down; and 182 arrests;
• In San Joaquin, 45 labs taken down and more than 60 arrests;
• In Tulare, 23 labs and 17 dump sites. In fact, in Tulare County last year, 500 people were arrested for possession, 430 were arrested for Possession for Sale and approximately 3,800 were arrested for being under the influence of methamphetamine;
• In King County, 14 labs and 113 arrests;
• In Sacramento, 27 labs and a total of $2.6 million spent to fight meth;
• In Merced, 24 labs taken down;
• And in Kern County, 8 labs taken down and 40 arrests.

As a result of these trends and your requests for help, my colleagues and I in Congress fought for and won the designation of nine central valley counties as a HIDTA. In my opinion this Central Valley HIDTA continues to be funded at levels that are simply inadequate. Part of the problem is an overall funding shortage, and part of the problem is the number of new HIDTAs established around the country – there is simply not enough money to go around.

But we intend to get more money for the Central Valley, because this area truly faces a crisis. And if we don’t provide the funding here, the rest of the country will face exponentially more costs as the meth flows outward from the Central Valley.

Even at its current, low funding level, however, the Central Valley HIDTA has accomplished an enormous amount. Between January and November of 2000:

• A total of 78 labs were located;
• Of these, 54 were super-labs which can produce from 20 to 200 pounds of high purity Methamphetamine per cooking cycle;
• 25 dump sites were located.
• 21 drug trafficking operations were dismantled.
• Drug seizures netted 412 pounds of Methamphetamine, in addition to 50 pounds of heroin, 97 pounds of cocaine, 648 pounds of marijuana, more than thirteen thousand marijuana plants, and other controlled substances; and
• 38 drug-endangered children were assisted.

This last number – 38 drug-endangered children – is one of the less-mentioned side effects of the meth trade. Parents who use meth or who manufacture meth often out their children at enormous risk, and society faces a real problem of how to deal with children removed from these homes.

In fact, as many as 90% of the children in foster care in some areas of California are there as a result of methamphetamine-related issues.

THE COST OF METH CLEANUP

Another rising cost of the methamphetamine problem in America is the cost of cleaning up the toxic side effects of meth manufacturing. Traffickers dump these chemicals on the sides of roads, in the middle of farms, down drinking wells, or into pits at the manufacturing site itself.

Either way, eventually those chemicals must be removed, and that removal is very expensive.

California alone spends $10 million a year cleaning up meth labs, and this amount represents only a small portion of the actual costs of lab cleanup. Individual property owners and local municipalities face costs as well.

And the Central Valley faces much of the brunt of these costs. The California Department of Toxic Substances Control reports that the 9 county central valley HIDTA accounts for 28% of the total state cleanup costs. Let me just give one example of one farmer who was faced with the cleanup of one of these labs, found on his property, sent to me by Manuel Cunha, who I believe is here with us today.

Mr. Doug Benik from Madera was forced to spend an estimated $50,000 to cleanup a meth lab found on his farm. The clean up took approximately nine months, and required the removal of a septic tank, the removal of a wide range of soil and debris from the area, and even the total removal of a house and its foundation.

These cleanups are not easy. The chemicals can seep far into the ground, and even a trace left behind can be very dangerous. So we must do more to help prevent these situations from occurring, and to help in cleanup efforts so that innocent farmers or property owners are not bankrupted by a cleanup effort.

METHAMPHETAMINE AND THE NATION

In Washington, we have had some success in addressing this problem. The fact of the matter is, California’s meth problem is truly the nation’s meth problem. In Oklahoma, for instance, statistics show that meth cases have increased more than 8,000 percent since 1994. And much of that methamphetamine comes straight from our State.

A full one third of the total meth lab seizures nationwide each year are in California. But even more telling are the seizures of large-scale, “super labs.” California hosts about 97% of the so-called “super labs,” which manufacture large quantities of meth for distribution nationwide.

In 1995, law enforcement took down just 465 meth labs in California. By 1999, the number of meth-related lab seizures had more than quadrupled, to over 2,000. Nationwide, the numbers are similar. In 1999, the DEA participated in the seizure of a record high 1,948 clandestine drug labs, 99 percent of those involved in methamphetamine production. That number represents a 537 percent increase in just 5 years.

In addition, state and local law enforcement officers around the country raided more than 4,400 such labs in 1999. And in fiscal year 1999, DEA agents arrested 8,680 people for meth trafficking-a 113 percent increase over fiscal year 1996 arrests.

LEGISLATIVE ACCOMPLISHMENTS

After members of the California law enforcement community came to me warning that the meth problem was going to get out of hand, I authored the Comprehensive Methamphetamine Control Act of 1996, along with Senators Hatch, Grassley and Biden. That bill restricted access to precursor chemicals, increased penalties for companies selling those chemicals to meth traffickers, and increased penalties for those who possess the tools of the meth trade.

In the 105th Congress, Senator Ashcroft and I sponsored the Methamphetamine Trafficking Penalty Enhancement Act of 1998, which equalized penalties for methamphetamine crimes with those for crack cocaine. This, too, ultimately became law.

And during this last Congress, Senator Hatch and I introduced another bill, much of which was eventually incorporated into a broader bill on children’s health, that increases penalties for abusing meth, provides tougher penalties for those who endanger human life and the environment with the toxic chemical wastes generated by a meth lab, and funds a number of key anti-meth programs.

But we all know that legislation is not enough. You need on the ground help, and the best way we can do that from Washington is to give you money, to beef up federal law enforcement assigned to this issue, and to help with the designation of new High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas.

Congressman Dooley and I, along with others, ensured that the Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement received every penny of the $54 million it requested over the last few years. This year, we were unable to continue that federal funding. But we won’t give up. Now we must continue this fight.
And that is where you come in. We need to hear from you, as we have in the past, about what you need to win the fight against methamphetamine.

For instance, one issue that I take very seriously is the problem with blister packs. BNE has told me that blister packs of pseudoephedrine are indeed used to manufacture methamphetamine. But because of pharmaceutical company opposition, the reporting thresholds that apply to loose pills do not yet apply to blister packs. Last year I was able to get only a study into this issue, and I do not intend to give up the fight.

ISSUES TO DISCUSS TODAY

There are several issues I would like us to address today, and I would also like to hear where you think we can help, and where we should all go from here. Let me just briefly list some areas of concern for me.

Mexican Participation
First, I’d like to get a better handle on the participation of Mexican cartels in the meth trade. More and more, we find that meth distribution is being led by Mexican nationals, many with strong ties to their homeland. I’ve heard from local and federal law enforcement on this issue, and there seems to be a consensus that much of the trafficking is organized from Mexico and carried out by Mexican nationals in the United States. But I have also been told that much of the meth trafficking may be much more loosely tied to organized Mexican control.

I want to know how heavily the big cartels themselves are involved in this process, and what we might be able to do about it.

• One recent instance of a Mexican-controlled gang was highlighted by a recent operation based in the Central Valley, “Operation Maximum Speed.” That operation has produced more than two dozen federal prosecutions in Fresno and Dallas over 2 and a half years.
• The investigated conspiracy was led by an organization headed by the Bucio family based in Michoacan, Mexico, which has allegedly been involved in the wholesale manufacture and distribution of methamphetamine from various sites in the Central Valley.
• I’m told that police discovered the first Mexican cartel lab in the Central Valley in 1989, and that the numbers have been increasing ever since.
• Do you agree that this is the trend, or are some of the big labs also controlled by locals, or by organized groups operating outside of the big Mexican cartels?

Paperwork and Processing Time
Second, according to the recent report in the Bee papers, it takes as many as two days to process evidence and run background checks on suspects after a meth lab has been taken down. I would like to know if this time is hindering your ability to go after additional labs, and if so whether there is anything we can do to speed the process up.

Precursor Sales
Third, are there specific, otherwise “legitimate” companies that are knowingly, or even unknowingly, assisting in the illegitimate sale of precursor materials to meth producers? Are the laws on the books adequate to address these situations?

Penalties
Fourth, are penalties for various meth-related activity at appropriate levels? Are some too high? Too low?

Cleanup Standards
Fifth, should there be a state-wide, or even nation-wide, standard for how to clean up meth lab sites? No such standard exists in California. Should there be one? It seems to me that each municipality and land owner should know what the requirements are, and that we should be sure that the requirements are adequate to truly detoxify meth lab or dump sites.

Who Uses Meth?
Sixth, what is the breakdown of meth use among men and women, rich and poor, and other groups?

• For instance, according to statistics from the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring Program, 38 percent of women arrested in San Diego County in 1999 tested positive for methamphetamine, compared with 25 percent of men.
• And a similar urinalysis program conducted on teenagers entering juvenile detention last year between January and June showed that 33 percent of girls tested positive for the drug, compared with 6 percent of the boys.
• Experts say methamphetamine may appeals to women because it increases energy and acts as an appetite suppressant. Before they know it, they are hooked, and it is all downhill form there.
• Perhaps there is some work to be done on educating women or targeting certain parts of the population more directly in an attempt to stem the increases in meth use.
  
  These are just some of this issues I hope we will touch on today.

CONCLUSION

Methamphetamines have been around for a long time. But recently we have seen an explosion of meth into our cities, and then into rural areas throughout the United States. This explosion has coincided with the Internet, which makes it even easier for home cookers to find recipes for meth and get advice on how to run a meth business. If we hope to stop the meth trade, we must stop it first in California. And to do that, we need to work together.

I want to thank you all again for being here today, and to urge you to participate actively today, and to contact me or my staff at any time in the future with concerns, questions or suggestions for what we can do to help.