We have developed a 30-second public service television announcement about the risks of PCP, which has been distributed to all TV stations in the United States.

Mr. WOLFF. When was that distributed?

Dr. CZECHOWICZ. It was distributed, I believe, in April of 1978.

Mr. WOLFF. Do you have a record of usage?

Dr. CZECHOWICZ. Oh, yes, I have observed it, seen it.

Mr. WOLFF. Could you furnish for this committee a record of use? Because I am particularly alerted and I haven't seen it.

Dr. CZECHOWICZ. I was in Chicago last week and I saw it three times on TV.

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Chairman?

Mr. WOLFF. Mr. Rangel.

Mr. RANGEL. In connection with this, there is no question that the administration is convinced we are dealing with a time bomb that is rolling around. Our problem is-I appreciate the fact that statistical data is being collected for those that have abused the drug, or used it, and have visited clinics and emergency wards. But what I would like to know is what has the administration done to alert the general community as to the dangers of the drug?

With all of the fact sheets, and also as the chairman pointed out, the reason I interrupted is I have never heard of these public announcements. So if it is an education to me, and I come from an area of high drug abuse, it would be helpful if we could see the mechanism you are using to distribute this.

I would like to ask this: Are Members of Congress alerted at all as to any of these findings that are being researched?

You tell us you contact emergency wards, you contact drug rehabilitation centers with these alerts. Are we alerted or invited to participate?

Dr. CZECHOWICZ. I do know that some Members of Congress have been alerted, because we have been involved in discussions among several Senate subcommittees and representatives of the subcommittees have met with key staff people at NIDA to discuss the efforts within NIDA related to PCP and how we disseminate the information, and what information was available.

In fact, they took from us much of the material that we were able to provide.

Mr. RANGEL. I didn't state my question correctly. There are 535 of us. Do you send out anything to us alerting us as to the research you are developing, and the warnings and the public service announcements, so that we can encourage television stations to participate? These fact sheets, are they sent to Members of Congress?

I just don't see where the communities have seen the efforts that are being made by the administration. As a matter of fact, I had not known that these efforts had been made. I assume judges are not aware of the serious nature of the abuse of this, and they are just ordinary people, so if they don't know, they can't sentence properly. I don't see the concern that is demonstrated by this panel this morning.

Can you give us something concrete? Has Dr. Bourne, when he was with us, since he had an ability to attract the press, spoken concerning PCP? Perhaps it may not be time for the President to speak out, even though he has been rather silent on drugs generally in my opinion.

But who is talking about this, except NIDA and groups of Cabinet officials and select committees and Senate subcommittees?

Yes, sir, would you come forward and be sworn? That might be helpful.

Dr. CZECHOWICZ. Can I address that, and then I will ask my colleagues to respond to some of your questions. I do think there has been extensive media coverage of PCP and PCP-related problems. I will ask Dr. Petersen from NIDA to address some of your other questions. [Mr. Robert Petersen sworn.]

Mr. WOLFF. Mr. Rangel.

Mr. RANGEL. You have heard the questions. I just have not seen this concern in the community, in my office, and in talking with members of the Select Committee, they haven't seen it and we are missing something.

I assume we will get the schedule and we will see in some of the districts how the public service announcements are going out, and these factsheets, if you are sending them to Members of Congress.

We don't want to just be critical, we want to help. But this great concern and effort that is being made by the administration, I haven't seen it, and I don't know that too many Members of the House have seen it, or the Senate, for that matter.

Mr. WOLFF. If the gentleman will yield, I have just checked with the staff of this committee, and we have not received it in the committee. We are perhaps the most interested party involved. There is a line of communication that is missing. Perhaps that line of communication is the problem. We do, I must say, we get regular communications from Mr. Bensinger's office and someone assigned to come over and keep our committee informed of everything that is going on. I wish that same situation were apparent in other areas of the Government that have responsibility for these various programs.

Dr. PETERSEN. I think there is one thing that should be kept in mind with respect to the PCP issue. We have provided hundreds of informational materials to the various news media. The fact that we have been in some significant measure successful in this, is, I think, indicated by the fact that press accounts of PCP have been virtually uniformly negative. In short, there have been no reports I have seen, at least, even in the underground press, suggesting that PCP is a groovy drug that you ought to go out and try.

If anything, users themselves are well aware of the negative consequences, at least the more regular users.

Unfortunately, one of the problems we have with youth in the United States and elsewhere as well, I suspect, is the very fact that it is risky, is for many youngsters appealing in the same sense as driving a motorcycle 90 miles an hour may be appealing because of the very element of hazard.

The impressive thing to me is unlike any other drug that has been encountered in my career, the press, with respect to the PCP, has been uniformly negative, unlike LSD or marihuana, where there was a mixed reporting and a measure of advocacy.

As I read it, there has been no advocacy of PCP by any source, aside from the users themselves, and even they have significant misgivings. Mr. RANGEL. What has that got to do with my question?

Dr. PETERSEN. I would certainly agree it is desirable, imperative, that this committee, and other committees concerned with the problems of drug abuse be adequately informed. If they have not been, that can certainly be corrected.

What I am trying to suggest is as far as the efforts to make the general public aware of the hazards of the drug

Mr. RANGEL. The press isn't saying anything nice about cancer either. What has that got to do with the administration's effort to educate the Congress, the parents, the educational institutions, the judges, the general public. We are dealing with a time bomb that can explode in any community, and as far as I am concerned, there is every indication that this has to increase. You are giving out the formulas, everyone knows it, it is inexpensive, difficult to detect the laboratories.

So I think it is safe to say that we are going to find an increase in abuse. The only way we can counteract that is through the efforts of the administration to educate those of us who have a forum and to get materials out.

Now the chairman is saying the committee has received no materials. I am saying I have received no materials. I don't know what agencies, if any, in my community have received it. You tell me about the newspaper reporting negative reactions to its use. I am asking what is the administration doing to get this educational information out to the people to alert the public at large that we may have a danger approaching us that far exceeds what we already know. That is my own question. Dr. PETERSEN. Very specifically, we sent out 18,000 letters, as Dr. Czechowicz testified.

Mr. RANGEL. To whom?

Dr. PETERSEN. To the various treatment facilities, the various agencies that have anything to do with drug abuse, to make them aware of the problem.

Mr. RANGEL. I have sent out 18,000 letters every time I think about something I want to say, so that is not too dramatic. If you are sending them out after someone has already abused a drug, it is kind of late.

I am asking, when you say 18,000, with our population that is a little tragic. But we do send out newsletters here. Do you think there is any information that the Members of Congress could put in their newsletters? Do you have any suggestions how you can beat the 18,000 number?

Dr. PETERSEN. These 18,000 were not to the general population, they were to agencies and individuals who deal specifically with drug problems. They are people who are definitely interested.

We also send out hundreds of copies of materials————

Mr. RANGEL. Apparently I am not framing my question correctly. Mr. DOGOLOFF. Let me address the overall issue

Mr. WOLFF. Just one moment. I would like to get some information. The Administrator of DEA has indicated that he is unhappy with the sentencing. Has any communication been made to the Judiciary Committee relative to the dangers of PCP?

Dr. PETERSEN. To the best of my knowledge, with respect to HEW, I don't think so, except through the medium of the press itself.

Mr. WOLFF. Do you think after this meeting there might be? There has been a very strong suggestion made that this is not being treated by

the judicial branch in a fashion that is consistent with the dangers that are involved. I think it would be advisable to do that. I think it also would be advisable to engage in a crash type of campaign. Someone said that we really do not know, and this is true of virtually every area of drug abuse, we really do not know of the actual magnitude of the problem, because of the confusion that exists on the reporting procedures. On that basis, it would seem to me that the problem is much more widespread than is illustrated in the information that we have or the figures we have. If the problem is that widespread, then it is our duty to inform the public and even pull some of the announcements you have on now on other drugs and concentrate on this one, the same way that the campaign was run on "speed."

I think that was the most successful campaign that has ever been run by any agency of Government on the question of drug abuse, because people understood that speed kills. PCP-"Angel dust, can send them to Hell." I think it is about time we let them understand that this type of thing is a dangerous substance, that we must give as widespread education as possible.

It is not just the idea, Mr. Bensinger, of increasing the sentences. Increasing the sentences hasn't done the job for us in a number of other situations. I think the important element is to alert people to the actual dangers that exist with this drug. Somebody said this is a time bomb; it is worse than that, it is a handgrenade that is going off.

I think, Mr. Dogoloff, we are going to ask that with the same dilligence that your special task force in the White House went to work on drug abuse in the military-we don't have to go and seek another meeting with the President, I am sure, that with the combined energies of the agencies we have here, you can come back to us in a short period of time and give us a new approach to this problem.

It is not a case where the agencies of Government are not doing their job. But the magnitude of the problem is so great, we don't know where to go first. We must direct attention at specific areas, in order to make some sort of mark and some sort of dent in a growing problem.

If we see something like this which is getting out of hand, we have to take emergency measures in order to see to it that it is stopped.

One way of doing this is alerting the kids to the dangers. When the kids understand that the various sugar substitutes had the possibility of genetic damage, the first people that went off these substances were the kids of our country. I don't think we level with them enough. That is basically the problem. I think if they are alerted to the dangers, then we will have less people coming into the scene than are coming in today. I think that is basically where it is at.

Mr. DOGOLOFF. We will be pleased to submit a report to you, similar to the one we did for the Southeast United States, in draft form for your reactions and suggestions. After that we can put it together in a final format and have it as our new blueprint.

There are many things that have already been done by the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the National Institute on Drug Abuse. But there is obviously always room to do a better job. Some of the things we discussed in the last several days include better ways of notifying judges. The regional directors of the Drug Enforcement Administration have already met with U.S. attorneys in their various jurisdictions to alert them.

I think there is more we can do in this vein, and we will put that together and submit it to you.

Mr. WOLFF. There will be no hiatus period while the White House is searching for a replacement, I take it?

Mr. DOGOLOFF. There has been no hiatus period, no, not at all.

Mr. WOLFF. Just so we understand that that is not given to us as an excuse that something can't happen because Dr. Bourne's replacement hasn't been selected.

Mr. DOGOLOFF. Absolutely not.

[Dr. Czechowicz' prepared statement appears on p. 97.] Mr. WOLFF. Mr. Gilman.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Czechowicz, how long has your task force on PCP been in place?

Dr. CZECHOWICZ. Since the summer of 1977.

Mr. GILMAN. Have you formulated an educational program nationwide with regard to the warnings as to the dangers of PCP usage?

Dr. CZECHOWICZ. The education efforts of NIDA have been included in many different areas, particularly the prevention effort of NIDA, and all of the materials were made available to the national prevention campaign. We have worked together with the State agencies on developing education programs and coordinating those programs at the State level, in each individual State.

Mr. GILMAN. I was hoping you are not wholly relying on the existing NIDA educational efforts, which we have found leave a lot to be desired in many parts of the country where we visited, where we have raised the issue of the effectiveness of the NIDA campaign, and found it to be grossly wanting.

I would hope that you have embarked on a separate campaign focused entirely on PCP. Have you any thoughts about something of that nature?

Dr. CZECHOWICZ. We have done it in an effort to work together with the States in providing the drug abuse education materials, training and educational efforts within the States.

Mr. GILMAN. Is there a separate PCP educational program now in NIDA?

Dr. CZECHOWICZ. Not drug-specific to PCP.

Mr. GILMAN. I don't understand that response. We are talking today about PCP, one of the most dangerous drugs, one of the most widely used drugs. Now you are telling us there isn't a specific educational program of that nature.

Dr. CZECHOWICZ. Not with the national prevention campaign. That includes PCP, but is not drug-specific. But in the effort to work together with the States, this was PCP-specific, because we recognized the need at the State level, and particularly through the Division of Community Assistance, we have disseminated this information and worked closely with the States in developing programs to disseminate PCP information within their States.

Mr. GILMAN. Considering the information that has been presented to the committee today, do you think that possibly NIDA should be reconsidering its educational effort and attempting to focus more attention on the dangers of this drug?

Mr. DOGOLOFF. Excuse me. The issue may be whether it is more appropriate for the Federal Government to have a nationwide cam