And it was a great program. And those types of programs, we are having a great success with. And we really need more programs in that type of design.

Mr. COUGHLIN. I believe our chief counsel has a question here.

Mr. CARPENTIER. Thanks, Mr. Coughlin. Is this not the program that is developed by Helen Nowlis; am I correct? Are you familiar with that, Mr. McLaughlin? Is that the program you are describing? Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. The crime and disruptive behavior?

Mr. CARPENTIER. Yes.

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Yes.

Mr. CARPENTIER. Where you had the members of the staff trained in Miami?

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. That's right; came back and retrained people here in the system.

Mr. CARPENTIER. We recently had a hearing in Memphis in the school system, and we have very, very highly favorable comments given by the teachers there.

You indicate that you are making a final evaluation on May 30, but

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. That's correct.

Mr. CARPENTIER [continuing]. Can you give us any indication as to how successful that has been?

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. I will be happy if I might, and let Mr. Scott reinforce anything I might say. We picked up a grant from the U.S. Office of Education; one of our local high schools, Northeast, "Reduction of Crime and Disruptive Behavior," knowing there are several elements manifested in that.

The original training did come through the University of Miami. We sent a group of teams there from that local high school, nine on each team or each cluster, which was broadbased from a school and community base, police personnel, social agencies, principals, counselors, teachers, parents, and students. They came back with an action plan which involved strategies and solutions for problem solving.

One of the things that we plan to do was to proselyte that program into other schools. We are now in 22 schools in the county where there is a nucleus of nine people from that cadre of people I just mentioned a bit ago.

The new plan interaction, I can comment on favorably, the fact that it pulls people together to feel good about themselves and to look at ways of solving problems. So, yes, I can give you a positive evaluation on that. It has made a difference.

One of the things that we do in one of the grammar schools here, one of the elementary schools, Pearl Stevens did a weekend retreat at the police camp here. And the facilitator for that was a Macon City policeman. So, yes, it is a genuine experience. And we have now picked up a grant from the State crime commission and put some local moneys with it to keep that going.

And we have to share the other results with you. We are looking for good evaluation of that project.

Mr. CARPENTIER. Well, the initiator of the program within the Office of Education-that was HEW and has been transferred into the new Department of Education, and the committee has been looking at

this to try to give it as much support to have the Department of Education now pick that up and give it the support that I think it warrants based on the reactions, the very highly favorable reactions. And you certainly support it this morning.

But it was a pilot program, as I understand. And its funding stopped; am I correct? Do you contemplate that the State will then pick it up?

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. We are hopeful that it will. I am not sure. We are probably intending to put local moneys in it.

The person who really should address that is Walt Felder, our director of personnel. He is very much interested in that at this point and has contacted some of his counterparts at the State level. I think a lot of it will depend on the feedback, sir. But it is a logical approach to problem solving.

No revelation in it; it is just a matter of pulling community people together who care something about the community and then in turn get to care something about one another. It is a good thing.

Mr. CARPENTIER. Mr. Coughlin, I would ask if it is possible when that final evaluation is made, if the committee perhaps could be provided a copy. I don't know whether that would be out of channels. From the response, I presume that is going back to the Department of Education, that evaluation.

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Yes, sir.

Mr. CARPENTER. It would be, I think, of interest.

Mr. COUGHLIN. If you could make a copy of that available to the committee, we would be very grateful.

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Do I make that through Congressman Evans' office?

Mr. COUGHLIN. That would be fine.

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN. Be happy to.

Mr. COUGHLIN. We will break in just a moment, but let me ask one question of Mrs. Rusche, if I might. You have a display here of drug paraphernalia. And I know that is one of the things that you have conducted a very leading effort in trying to prohibit. And, of course, it presents an extraordinary difficult problem from a legal standpoint in terms of defining drug paraphernalia as to what it is and also in terms of the drug-related literature and first amendment kinds of questions.

What do you feel can be done from a legislative standpoint to prohibit the sale and advertising of drug paraphernalia?

Mrs. RUSCHE. Well, I think we have been testing that in Georgia. We have three State laws that are now 2 years old. One says you can't sell devices that are primarily intended to be used with illicit drugs. And the way you can get at that is to read the instructions. If the instructions tell you this particular device is to test cocaine and tell you how to do that, it is rather obvious that is what that particular device is used for.

The second law was written as a backup and says you can't sell devices to children, to minors.

And the third law says you can't sell printed materials that advocate the use of illicit drugs to minors. That third law was declared

unconstitutional by the U.S. district court about a month after the laws had been passed. But we are very encouraged by a hearing that took place last week at the fifth circuit court which indicates very strongly the fifth circuit is inclined toward-and I realize one can't second-guess the fifth circuit court-but the gist of it is that the fifth circuit may reverse the U.S. district court.

This gets to the meat of the problem. I think it is a very legitimate question to ask whether or not the first amendment protects speech that tells kids first of all, lies, about the fact that drugs won't affect them-it is OK to smuggle, OK to deal, and devotes entire issues of magazines taking that viewpoint.

I think journalism-we have always talked about a free press, but a responsible press. And this press is not responsible. I think that perhaps the most obvious example of that is that the May issue of High Times quoted top doctors at the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the American Cancer Society as privately assuring High Times marihuana would not hurt the lungs at all.

We wrote to the President of the American Cancer Society, and to the Director of NIDA, and sent a copy of that article. Those agencies wrote to High Times and strongly protested the misuse of their agencies' names; nobody ever said any such thing to High Times. High Times has yet to have printed those letters. It will not print retractions; it will not print comments. It continues to propagandize rather than having any interest in printing the truth.

And I think if the press or one segment of it is going to publicly be so irresponsible, the citizenry has a right to try to get at it some way. We are not saying, or the Georgia law doesn't say, let's get rid of High Times. It says let's not sell this to children. Adults can make judgments, but kids can't.

Mr. COUGHLIN. Have the Georgia laws on drug paraphernalia been court tested?

Mrs. RUSCHE. They were all court tested, and the district court refused to rule on the paraphernalia laws. And as a consequence, we had between 30 and 35 head shops in the metropolitan Atlanta area; we have three left. They are selling T-shirts and incense.

Mr. COUGHLIN. Thank you very much. It has been a very, very interesting panel and very worthwhile to the committee.

We have to proceed, but we will take a break, however, for a few moments here.

[Recess taken.]

Mr. EVANS. The hearing will come to order.

Our next panel consists of various agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration: Mr. Kenneth Miley, the deputy regional director of DEA, Mr. Raymond L. Vinsik, special agent in charge of the Atlanta district office, Mr. Gordon Raynor, resident agent, Savannah, Ga., and Mr. Bob Johnson with DEA.

Gentleman, we are pleased that all of you could attend this morning. And you may proceed at this time. If you have a statement, you can give that for the record. And who should we start with? Mr. MILY. Mr. Vinsik, agent in charge in Atlanta.

Mr. EVANS. Mr. Vinsik, if you would proceed.

TESTIMONY OF RAYMOND L. VINSIK, SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE, ATLANTA DISTRICT OFFICE, DEA, ACCOMPANIED BY KENNETH MILEY, DEPUTY REGIONAL DIRECTOR; GORDON RAYNOR, RESIDENT AGENT, SAVANNAH; AND BOB JOHNSON

Mr. VINSIK. Yes, I have a statement. First, I would like to take the opportunity, Mr. Chairman, to thank you and the Select Committee for inviting us to be here and testify on what we consider one of the most serious problems facing our country.

As the agent in charge of the DEA Atlanta district office, which covers this State of Georgia, I would like to thank you and the committee from all our personnel for your efforts in combating drugs.

Briefly, I would like to state that the Atlanta district office covers the States of Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. And when we are discussing the marihuana problem, it is very difficult to separate Georgia from North Carolina and South Carolina because of the coastal area which is unique and joint, 8,400 miles of seaways and coastalways. And in order to solve the problem of one area, you would have to solve the problem of all three States.

Because if we increased enforcement in Georgia, the traffickers would just go to North Carolina or South Carolina, which was what happened to us when they increased enforcement in Florida. They increased law enforcement in Florida and created the problem for Georgia. So that we have to try, at least in DEA's mind, to attack all three areas at one time.

Of the drugs that are coming into Georgia, our No. 1 priority is heroin. Heroin is encountered in the area of Atlanta and to a lesser degree in Savannah. Mainly, it is still the brown Mexican heroin that comes through via the airlines-commercial transportation, not private.

We are beginning to see some white heroin in the Atlanta area which is frightening and we are trying to combat it before it becomes a problem. The white heroin we are getting is transported mainly through the middle European countries and southwest Asia, which would be Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, which are the main problems now. DEA is increasing its efforts both overseas and here. We are trying to combat it before it becomes a major problem for us.

I think Atlanta is going to be an alternate city in the enforcement program on white heroin; we do have the start of a problem. Our brown heroin has been very low purity; we are talking about 1- and 3percent heroin on the streets in Georgia, which is very low and which keeps our addict population down quite a bit.

Cocaine is readily available in the State of Georgia. The degree of purity varies from up in the 90 percentile to as low as 5- or 10-percent pure being sold. We have made a lot of efforts, and we are working on several large-scale cocaine smuggling groups that are in and around Georgia and Atlanta. One of our major problems in Atlanta is the Hartsfield International Airport. Because of its unique position of being a "choke" point in the entire Southeast, almost every flight ends up going either through or to Atlanta. And they change planes and go to somewhere else.

Our concern is that we now have about 42 million passengers a year at the Atlanta Airport. And with the building of the new airport, they expect that to increase to almost 90 million passengers in the next 5 years.

During the last 2 years, at the airport, with a relatively small group we have 3 agents assigned there and 1 police officer-we have seized approximately 100 pounds of heroin and cocaine and arrested about 200 people. I think it was 70 pounds of cocaine and 30 pounds of heroin for a total of 100 pounds. Almost all of the people arrested were going between Miami and somewhere else or between Los Angeles and somewhere else. Very little was destined for Georgia. It just happened to be at the airport and going through.

We don't have a tremendous problem at the airport of drugs coming into Georgia and staying here. It is just as easy for someone to drive them up from Florida to here as opposed to flying.

One of our major problems in the Georgia area is the marihuana. In the last fiscal year, we have seized in the three-State area approximately 470,000 pounds of marihuana. And I think out of that, 197,000 pounds were seized in the Savannah, Ga., area. Normally, this is a boatload coming in from a mother ship that is somewhere either 100 or 200 miles out in the ocean. And three or four shrimp boats will go out, or other type vessels, and pick up 20,000 pounds, 30,000 pounds, and bring it back in.

We have been very successful in the way of cooperation. We have got tremendous cooperation out of the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Customs, GBI, and FAA and everybody else. Every time we work on a boatload coming in, everybody has to work together in Georgia. There are not enough people for any agency to do it alone. So we are forced into cooperation, but we haven't had any kind of problems as far as cooperation with agencies on large investigations.

Sometimes on small cases, we do run into problems because we just can't spread ourselves to do everything that everybody wants us to; but we try.

In the State of Georgia, we also have a wide problem with dangerous drugs. We have seized approximately 12 laboratories in the State of Georgia in the last year. And these were manufacturing PCP or MDA or methamphetamine. And these are drugs that are really affecting the youth of the country. So we do put considerable manpower, time and effort, working on the laboratories which, again, takes away men and money and everything else from working on marihuana smuggling or cocaine smuggling.

We normally have four people in the Atlanta office assigned strictly to working on laboratories. And they work almost every case with the GBI. And they have been very successful. That entails a lot of paperwork and a lot of surveillance work to seize a lab. It can be a very lengthy investigation where for a month you may watch a house or a building that is getting ready to manufacture something. So you tie up four or five agents for a month at a time, 2 months at a time, just watching one building. But we consider that one of our top priorities.

Basically, that is all I have as a statement except that we are currently working on various investigations with the GBI, with the