Mr. EVANS. How would you characterize the drug problem over the last few years? Has it increased or decreased or remained constant, or what is the situation?

Mr. Woop. From the people, Mr. Chairman, that I deal with usually in the rural area, occasionally in the city-I will stick with the rural area outside of the city limits of Dublin-the problem is growing. We are getting a bigger problem and more of a problem each year, each month.

I see in the rural area more of a change to maybe cocaine instead of marihuana. I think it depends on the availability of each drug. I think we have in the rural area maybe a change of a little backoff of marihuana on occasions, and into cocaine.

We have more coke sniffers, I think, now, than we have recently had. I'd say within the last 6 months, we are seeing more evidence of people messing with coke than what we have had in the past.

Mr. EVANS. Do you have any trouble with people being able to get out on bond too easily with bond being set cheaply or being able to get out several times after they commit several offenses?

Mr. WOOD. No, sir, I don't really think so. If it is a bondable offense, superior court judge most of the time is the one sitting in the driver's seat for setting bond.

Mr. EVANS. How do you deal with the problem in your opinion as an observer and law enforcement official of this backlog of cases? I mean, suppose you have another judge. I know you have got several counties in the circuit. Suppose you have somebody there full time for Laurens County. Do you think that would handle the job?

Mr. Wood. Yes, sir. Within Laurens County we have an awful lot of cases that the public defender represents people in. I would say approximately 80 to 90 percent of the total caseload the public defender represent these people. We only have one public defender. If we had two public defenders and two judges, this would speed things up a considerable amount for Laurens County.

And we have had in the past one or maybe two special terms of court for some reason or another. We are going to have a special term starting March 10.

Mr. EVANS. If you happen to have a large case or a complicated or involved case, are you aware of being able to go to the Federal district attorney to have the case tried?

Mr. WOOD. No, sir, I am not aware of that.

Mr. EVANS. We had testimony earlier that the Federal district attorney is certainly willing to take the cases of a substantial nature, or an involved nature. So you might consider this. And in the event you do have future cases that

Mr. WOOD. Mr. Chairman, December 24 we had a case on which I worked. I won't call any names, but-until approximately 6 days ago. We find the postal authorities were able to get the indictment and a warrant for this individual. The local authorities took a warrant 2 days after the 24th, and this guy was extradited from another State. So we had problems getting the people in Savannah to even give us a warrant for this individual.

This is not a drug-related case.

Mr. EVANS. What Federal authority?

Mr. WOOD. Yes, sir.

Mr. EVANS. That's right, you are within Savannah jurisdiction. Mr. WOOD. Yes, sir.

Mr. EVANS. Any further questions?

Mr. COUGHLIN. No questions, Mr. Chairman. We appreciate your coming here and presenting your testimony.

Mr. EVANS. Thanks. And I appreciate your testimony. And you have contributed to our information that we need.

Mr. WOOD. Mr. Chairman, I would like to make one final statement, and I believe Chief Owens, formerly with ATF, and he knows a good bit about the folks in the illegal liquor business, and was in Laurens County for a number of years. And we are finding that this is the type of people, the people with money are the people who are in the illegal liquor business. And people who had money and made money in it, these are the people we are having to fight, have been the upper echelon of the drug business, not the local streetwalker. These are the people that we are having to fight from surrounding counties. And even in our own county. They are old people that have records, have been bootleggers. We are seeing a lot of that.

Mr. EVANS. So your testimony is very similar to that of Sheriff Bittick, of Monroe County, in that the former moonshiners are now in the narcotics trade?

Mr. WOOD. Yes, sir.

Mr. EVANS. Well, we should have files on that.

Mr. CARPENTIER. Could I follow up on that? The claim was made before that if they sent a larger group of Federal agents, using the same technique that was used against the moonshiners, that perhaps they would be effective. Presuming that you should be going against the same people, is that what was behind this?

Mr. WOOD. Yes, sir. I would think so. The Fed will need almost to deal with some locals that knows the background on these people, where they live, their mode of operation. And a strike force, I think, may be something of what you are describing.

Mr. CARPENTIER. That's what I mean.

Mr. WOOD. We have got four, five, or six adjoining counties and each county located around us, their manpower is slack, and it is almost impossible for me to go from my county to another county and three or four counties to do this type of work. If we had someone in a strike force situation, maybe an attorney that could go with them and help them prepare search warrants and things of that nature and tell them exactly what they did or didn't need, someone to guide them into the legal field, this would, I think, be a good tool against drug trafficking.

Mr. CARPENTIER. May I ask one more question?

Mr. EVANS. Sure.

Mr. CARPENTIER. From your experience, Mr. Owens, do you think that would be effective? Would that be your view, based on your past experience with ATF?

Mr. OWENS. Yes, sir, it is.

And the reason I mentioned it a little bit earlier, drug investigation is really the type of investigation that is as close to a liquor investigation as any crime that we have. I try to be there when the crime is actually committed. And this is the type of investigation. It takes surveillance of undercover operations. And of course, ATF is one of the agencies that has that type of experience, not just in the South,

but throughout the Nation. The U.S. Customs Service is another one that uses the border patrol.

These people have expertise in that field. And all we would do was change instead of looking for a border violation, you look for a drug violation. But there are many agencies, The military, that was mentioned, the military flights. Instead of pinpointing a courthouse as a target, as they fly, as coordinates on a certain building, certain capital, and something as a bombing raid or flight mission, instead they would actually be conducting an investigation into a drug situation.

Another agency would be the game and fish people. They could be a valuable service. They work the waterways, the coastal areas. They know these areas probably better than any of the Federal agencies, because they are in that same area daily, the rivers, the inlets. They know all that.

If we could take the expertise of these different agencies and put them together in a strike force or some type of regional outfit that would not have to answer to anything in politics, whether it would be a State agency or a Federal agency, and most of all not have to come up with numbers at the end of each quarter-in other words, when you are working on a No. 1 in any organization, you may work on that individual for 2 years before you finally drop a hammer. If the agent in the field, whether it is city, county, State, Federal, whatever, if he has to have numbers at the end of the month or numbers at the end of the quarter, then his tendency is to go out and catch the little guy because an arrest is an arrest.

And, you know, if we can just disassociate these two, I think we will be on the right track.

Mr. CARPENTIER. Thank you.

Mr. EVANS. Thank you, gentlemen, very much. We will take a recess for a few minutes. We have another witness scheduled for 4 o'clock.

[A recess was taken, during which the hearing was moved to the judge's chambers.]

Mr. EVANS. What we are doing is just trying to get a picture in Georgia of drug use. There is a suspicion on the part of a lot of us that as Florida has become more and more strict in enforcement and Federal enforcement down there, that we are getting an increased load in Georgia.

We are trying to establish whether or not that in fact is true. And second, we are trying to establish the problem areas of cooperation between State and local and Federal officials.

Third, we are trying to explore the possibility of the military becoming involved in just the reporting and surveillance end of the traffic coming in off the coast, planes and boats, so that we can cover the area better without having to put millions and millions of dollars into it.

We would have to have an increased aircraft for Coast Guard or Customs or other agencies involved in that type of interdiction and surveillance.

And fourth, just any suggestions that we can come up with to decrease the availability of the drugs to our young people.

And so I think that since we know the judge is going to tell the truth, if we could have whatever remarks that you would like to make, then Larry, Pat, and I may like to ask some questions.

Judge PHILLIPS. I wish you would. That would be fine.

Mr. EVANS. So, if you would proceed to say whatever you want to say about it?

TESTIMONY OF TAYLOR PHILLIPS, JUDGE, STATE COURT

Judge PHILLIPS. Well, primarily, let me say that we in the central area of Georgia, which Macon is of course, by "central" I mean the middle part of Georgia-we have a very large drug trafficking problem, I believe. I am not as certain as the illegal drug traffic is quite as dangerous as the legal drug traffic, and I will explain that in just a

moment.

This court deals, of course, with the misdemeanors, the marihuanaless than an ounce cases, of which we have a general policy of, on the first offense, we fine them $150 and put them on probation. We don't put anybody in jail on a first offense-marihuana case. We never have.

I know some places, they are right severe, and they do this, but it has always been my feeling that a first shot, you ought to be as tolerant as you can, and if people are going to continue to do things, you have to tighten up a little bit.

We also handle some other drug cases, pills of different kinds, but not the big ones, or not the hard-type drugs. That you see in Superior Court.

The drugs in the schools-and I am closely connected with the schools, teaching at Mercer University Law School, as I do, and also teaching up at Tift College, which is a Baptist institution, and you probably think they have no drugs at all there, but they are right free. The students tell me that all they have to do is know who to go to to buy them, and how they get in here, I don't know. That is something that perhaps the Congress knows a lot more than I do about how they get in. The law enforcement people probably know that. But kids tell me, and I talk to a lot of them-I have three teenagers, one 16, one 18, one 20; one is in a State institution, not mentally, but educational, down at Valdosta State College, and it is a good school, and they tell me those kids down there can buy anything.

She tells me she doesn't; I hope she doesn't.

My 18-year-old is at junior college out here in Macon, and told me out there all you had to do is go up and tell anybody you wanted to buy whatever you wanted to buy, and you could get it, from angel dust to down or up stuff.

My 16-year-old, who is in a Catholic school here in town-Mount DeSales and has been since she started the eighth grade-is a junior there she tells me that there are very few drugs being sold in that school; that she hasn't encountered any of them.

Now, you know, maybe she just doesn't come in contact with them. I don't know, but I have an idea that the tighter the school administration, the tougher it is to get your drugs, while the looser the school administration, as the public schools generally are, the easier it is to get drugs.

Now, in saying what I did about legal drugs, I have some good friends in the drug business, that own drugstores, and I know that there are doctors in this town that will write prescriptions without ever seeing a patient. They will write them for Quaaludes and other type drugs without ever seeing a patient, just for a number of dollars.

And to me, this is one of the real dangers that you have got. So many of these kids are getting drugs that their parents take, whether as tranquilizers or other drugs, that by far the greater traffic is in your legitimate, legally bought drugs that go over a drugstore prescription counter that some doctor has written a prescription for. And I think that is one of the big dangers, and the big problems we have got in the drug traffic right here in Macon.

Mr. EVANS. Judge, in that respect, I don't want to interrupt your remarks, but we had indications from the GBI that there was a very great deal of reluctance on the part of local law enforcement to report doctors in prescribing these type drugs, and that it is very difficult for GBI or any other State or Federal law enforcement to deal with the medical society when they can't get the reports from the local people.

Judge PHILLIPS. Well, that's true, and some of the Federal people that inspect the drugs the drugstores, for prescriptions and things that are being written, are investigating one or two doctors right now, as I understand it. And they ought to be.

Of course, I think you are aware if you are not, Dr. Outlar is a typical example out in Warner Robins, a medical doctor who has been sent to prison for writing drugs. And he spent some time up here in our jail; he is out doing it again.

Mr. COUGHLIN. He has his license, too?

Judge PHILLIPS. He has a license to do it. It is just like a doctor; he has a license to operate. Every time he needs a little money, a woman has to have a hysterectomy. There just couldn't be one doctor performing 90 percent of hysterectomies in this town, unless something is wrong, but I don't know what to do about a man like that, and I don't know what you do about these doctors.

Some way, somehow, some law ought to be better drawn, and this, I think, addresses itself to the Federal Government, really, because you control these Federal drugs that cannot be dispensed except by prescription and your different class drugs, and all.

But so many kids, they tell me, they say:

"Shoot; all I got to do is pay the doctor so much money and I can get anything I want."

You have got your nose and throat doctors that prescribe Quaaludes and Demerol just like it is nothing. These doctors don't prescribe that sort of stuff; it is just something that normally isn't done. I am a pretty good judge, and I know what doctors can do and can't do, because I catch up with them very well. I have to because we try 90 percent of the medical malpractice suits right here in this court that are tried in this county.

Mr. EVANS. You might state the jurisdiction you have, in addition to the misdemeanor jurisdiction on a criminal basis.

Judge PHILLIPS. Besides just being limited to misdemeanors on a criminal basis, we have unlimited jurisdiction on civil matters, and we try, as I said, 80 to 90 percent of the damage suits tried in the county, and 95 to 98 percent of medical malpractice suits filed, because there is no limitation on the amount we can try.

And we just have a busy court in that regard.

But I don't know what we can really do about it. I am glad that you all are looking into it, and I hope out of some of this maybe some legislation may come that will strengthen the penalties.