Mr. EVANS. Let me ask you one other question. As you know, the Judiciary Subcommittee in the House, the subcommittee thereof, has the criminal code bill-revision of the criminal code which includes a provision for decriminalization of marihuana on the Federal level. Do you have any opinion of the effect that would have on law enforcement of smuggling operations, sale operations, et cetera, plus usage of marihuana in the United States?

Mr. RAMPEY. I assume that is just for simple possession. It is now a misdemeanor, or is that right?

Mr. EVANS. Yes.

Mr. RAMPEY. I don't know that it would necessarily affect our actual prosecutions right now. I am making an assumption that it is a simple possession prosecution that we are going to eliminate from the code; it is not going to include importation for distribution, nor is it going to have amounts in it. I don't think that would significantly affect our Federal prosecutions.

Mr. EVANS. I mean, if you are not talking about amounts, if you are talking about decriminalization, then you are talking about possession of any amount, I would assume.

Mr. CARPENTIER. There is a limitation.

Mr. EVANS. What is the limitation? Do you know?

Mr. STAREK. 30 grams.

Mr. EVANS. Oh. Thank you. All right, 30 grams.

Mr. RAMPEY. If they eliminate that as a crime, I don't believe that would significantly affect our other prosecutions of larger amounts over or importation or major distributions in Federal court. I have not read that, I am sorry to say. I have seen so much.

Mr. EVANS. Well, there are so many proposals floating around, I am sure it is difficult to keep up.

Mr. RAMPEY. There is about 2 inches every morning in the mail, and I am a little behind on my reading.

Mr. CARPENTIER. There is a counterproposal sponsored by Mr. Evans and several other members of the committee to establish a citation diversion program-in other words, maintaining the Federal crime level but allowing for counseling and more of the rehabilitation, rather than the confinement as an alternative.

How do you think that would work from your standpoint, presuming that that would be one of the considerations for prosecution?

Mr. RAMPEY. Well, of course, any type program like that, I think is going to benefit the State and local efforts in that area. I think probably that would be beneficial if they decided to do that. But as far as whether or not that would adversely affect our efforts to try to prosecute major interstate importation and distribution of marihuana, I don't think that is going to affect us significantly.

Mr. CARPENTIER. No, no. That would stay intact.

Mr. RAMPEY. I remember, for what it is worth, when I was in private practice when Georgia changed its possession law. It was a misdemeanor if you possessed less than an ounce of marihuana, and as defense lawyer defending some people in this situation, I notice that numerically the number of those cases just tapered right off. You may remember that, too.

Mr. EVANS. Yes; I think that is true.

Mr. RAMPEY. I probably have seen the statistics on it in reports and candidly I can't remember in 3 years our office using the simple possession provisions of marihuana but once or twice.

Mr. CARPENTIER. It is mostly in the States rather than a Federal prosecution?

Mr. RAMPEY. Yes, sir.

Mr. CARPENTIER. That's what I thought.

Mr. EVANS. Do you have any further questions?

Mr. COUGHLIN. No further questions.

Mr. EVANS. Lee, we appreciate it very much.

Mr. RAMPEY. Thank you so much.

[Mr. Rampey's prepared statement appears on p. 93.]

Mr. EVANS. At this time, we are going to take about a 5-minute recess and start back promptly.

[Whereupon, a recess was taken.]

Mr. EVANS. We will resume the hearing at this time and take the opportunity, with being ahead of schedule, to hear from additional witnesses.

I have two witnesses from the Unified Parents of DeKalb County that I would like to call forward at this time.

Mrs. Barbara Dusik and Mrs. Barbara Linder, would you ladies come up and take the oath, please.

[Mrs. Dusik and Mrs. Linder were sworn by Mr. Evans.] Mr. EVANS. Mrs. Dusik, would you prefer to start?

TESTIMONY OF BARBARA DUSIK AND BARBARA LINDER, UNIFIED PARENTS OF DE KALB COUNTY

Mrs. DUSIK. Thank you. My name is Barbara Dusik, and we are from De Kalb County. We are members of Unified Parents of America. We are part of a group of concerned parents who offer an ongoing drug program for parents and educators, and our main purpose is to help stop the misuse of mind-altering drugs by our school-aged children.

We are both very impressed by all the large drug busts that have been made, but we feel the average parent is not getting the cooperation from the local and State law enforcement departments. And to further explain the statement, we will give you an example.

Mrs. LINDER. My name is Barbara Linder, and the example is as follows:

My family has a lake house at Lake Rinner which is in Dawson County. Last Sunday in particular we were wandering through the woods looking for old bottles and stuff. And this was on Highway 318, which is off 53 going into Dawsonville, and around an old fallen down house which is about 70 years old, we stumbled on a plastic shoe bag that turned out to have in it a tall glass cylinder which was similar to a bong-looking contraption, but it did have a glass coil going down through the center and appeared to be some type of a melting down process.

In the bag also was a folder which enclosed complete detailed, very intricate information on cocaine-cutting, and processing and so forth. It did list a few names, phone numbers, "paid," and so forth.

Also in the bag was a clear plastic bag full of about what appeared to be a pound of white crystal substance. So we immediately transported it back to Atlanta. It was very foolish, but I am going to let Mrs. Dusik continue, because from then on, what occurred was from her home.

Mrs. DUSIK. When Barbara brought it to my house, I called the DeKalb County Narcotics. We have been working with Detective Kim Taylor. And it seems like on Sunday nights, nobody works. I told them that I had some drugs. I didn't know what it was. And we would like to know what to do with it. And the woman I talked to said, "Well, we will have to get somebody to call you back."

I waited about 15 minutes, getting more nervous. I called back and said, "I have got about a pound of cocaine coming. I need somebody to talk to by 6 o'clock." They said, "Well, let me see if I can find somebody, and they should call you back in about 10 minutes."

Well, Steve Evans called back about 10 to 6, and I explained to him what we had, what it looked like. And he said, "Well, it sounds like it is cocaine." And I said, "Well, what do we do with it?" And he said, "Well, how much do you have?"

And I said, "About a pound." I said, "How much would that be worth?" And he said, "Between $22,000 and $24,000.”

And I said, "Well come and get it."

And he said, "Well, we have got a drug bust at 6:30, and we have another one after that. Would you please flush it down the toilet?" And I said, "Flush it down the toilet?"

And he said, "Yes. But do it slowly. We don't want you to stop up the toilet." And he said he would get back to me.

I hung up the phone. Meanwhile, Barbara and her husband came back and were saying, "Well, we have got this. What do we want to do with it? It is worth $22,000 to $24,000." We didn't want to flush it down the toilet. We were very interested in what it was, what all these papers contained. And just what do you do with this big contraption? So we decided to call the Chamblee police, even though we were out of Chamblee and in DeKalb County, but we had met with Chamblee several times, and they, too, were very cooperative, but they, too, don't work on Sunday. They have their little guys, but don't have anybody doing narcotics.

We still didn't want to get rid of this until we knew what it was, so we decided to call Chief Hand, and he said, "My God, don't flush it down. I will send two guys out in 10 minutes."

About 30 minutes later, two guys from homicide came out. They couldn't find any narcotic guys either. He did take it. He said he would get back with us later that night to tell us whether it was cocaine or not and tell us about any fingerprints. They would dust it for fingerprints. And he did call back that night. It was not cocaine. They still don't know what it is. They will let us know as soon as they find out. The fingerprints were all smudged up. They said they would turn everything over to GBI, and GBI would call us Tuesday. This is now Friday, and we still have not heard from GBI.

Mr. EVANS. Did you get a chance to talk to Mr. MCGREEVY?
Mrs. DUSIK. No.

Mr. EVANS. Well, what about the book with the names and the amounts?

Mrs. DUSIK. They said they would turn everything over to GBI. Mr. EVANS. Have you turned that over?

Mrs. DUSIK. Yes.

Mr. EVANS. To whom?

Mrs. DUSIK. We turned it over to DeKalb County Homicide. And they, in turn, said they would turn it over to GBI. They weren't sure at first whether they would turn it over to Dawson County or GBI. They said Dawson is so small, GBI would handle it anyway.

Mr. EVANS. Have you checked back with them to see if they did, in fact, turn it back over to GBI?

Mrs. DUSIK. No, we haven't.

Mr. EVANS. Would you do that and follow it up? I would like to know.

Mrs. DUSIK. They said they would get back with us when they did find out what substance that was, but it would take about 2 or 3 months. Mrs. LINDER. I would like to say, my main concern is the fact that I do have a home a mile from where we found this. We have been led to understand that this is a derivative or additive to something used to cut cocaine or a substance used in drugs, which leads me to believe that possibly and I am sure other things are there in the area. And the longer the things sit there, whether or not anybody knew we took the things from the area, they obviously now know it is not there.

Just for the pure safety and seclusion of our supposedly safe spots, it would be better to at least have someone come by within a reasonable length of time to see if there are still some items in the area.

Mr. EVANS. If you wish to follow it up, I would appreciate your checking to see if it has been turned over to GBI, and I would not mind contacting them to see if they have received this information and what action they are taking.

Mrs. LINDER. And one other suggestion I would like to make is, if at all possible, if you could suggest to any of the police agencies if they could at least have someone available to your basic pedestrian on the street who they can call on a Sunday. And they have told us, it is unfortunate that a lot of the drug things do go down on weekends because they do not have a staff on Sunday. And I am sure most people know this.

Mr. EVANS. Well, this is something I might suggest. Basically, we are talking about personnel problems, when you don't have sufficient people to operate. And since you are talking about municipal and county officials, I think the proper people to address would be your county commissioners or your city council on this issue about the policy for Sunday night.

I know that the Department would listen to them a lot quicker than they would to a Member of Congress.

So if you will follow up that way, and if you don't get any satisfaction, of course, we would be glad to do anything we can from the standpoint of trying to influence these people.

Mrs. DUSIK. I would like to make one other comment about Mr. Reid's testimony this morning concerning the availability of drugs in the schools.

Mr. EVANS. Yes.

Mrs. DUSIK. I have four kids that go to high school. Every day at least one of them brings me home one type of drug or another.

Mr. EVANS. Why do they do this?

Mrs. DUSIK. Because they know I am interested in drugs, and they are showing me how available they are.

Mr. EVANS. How easy it is to pick these up. And your children are in what schools?

Mrs. DUSIK. Crosskeys High School, DeKalb County.

Mr. EVANS. Do you have any questions, Mr. Coughlin?

Mr. COUGHLIN. No questions, Mr. Chairman. I just commend you for coming forward and giving us this information.

Mr. EVANS. Your children are not using drugs?

Mrs. DUSIK. No. But they can tell me more about it than I even knew existed. They have brought me not only the drugs but the drug paraphernalia.

Mr. EVANS. Are you involved in the antidrug paraphernalia movement with Sue Rusche?

Mrs. DUSIK. Yes. We have gotten books out of several different stores. We have worked with Mayor Malone of Chamblee. He has helped us get books out of the stores.

Mr. EVANS. Georgia does have a statute on that question, does it not? Mrs. DUSIK. Yes.

Mr. EVANS. I thought it had been passed.

Well, I appreciate both Barbaras coming forward and giving us this information. We appreciate the fact that you are interested enough to drive all the way from DeKalb County to come down here and not even knowing whether or not you would get to testify.

And I just wish we had more people aware and involved in the situation as far as our young people are concerned.

Mrs. DUSIK. We are trying to make them more aware.

Mr. EVANS. OK. Thank you.

Mrs. LINDER. Thank you.

Mr. EVANS. And now for a little change of pace, we will have the representatives of the Coalition for Abolition of Marihuana Prohibition, Paul Cornwell and Vicki Rosenbloom.

And I am happy to make available this time to you to testify before this committee. Although the purpose of these hearings is not to determine the advisability of decriminalization or legalization of any particular drug, certainly the question has come before this committee and has come before other committees of Congress, so that I think it is appropriate that we do hear your views.

I regret that we only have a limited amount of time, so if you would make your statements, and then if we have any questions, we will be glad to do it. I would estimate that you would have about 10 minutes to make your statements.

TESTIMONY OF PAUL CORNWELL AND VICKI ROSENBLOOM, COALITION FOR THE ABOLITION OF MARIHUANA PROHIBITION

Mr. CORNWELL. Well, I will briefly start off as is. By FBI statistics, 90 percent of all arrests made for marihuana are possessions, and any other figures to that are contrary to FBI statistics. And as in Georgia, we have 3.500 marihuana prisoners in jail today of which 90 percent of those are for possession, personal use. I speak for those thousands