Some 25 metric tons of cocaine have been coming into the United States; between 10,000 to 16,000 tons of marihuana.

Over half of the cocaine is coming in a final form from Colombia. Colombia is a country which has some raw coca leaf production, but most of the cocaine coming from Colombia is derived from leaves produced in Bolivia and Peru, and in some instances Ecuador.

And in some cases the raw leaves are shipped to Colombia, where it is transformed in clandestine laboratories into cocaine hydrochloride. It comes into the United States by air, generally; it can come by sea. It can come, in many cases, by vehicle through shipments to Mexico or the Caribbean or other locations, and then be transshipped into the United States.

Cocaine traffic has continued, and countries in Latin America are producing in the case of Bolivia and Peru-about 10 times as much leaf, raw leaf production, as needed for licit or native population chewing; and that represents, I guess, a continuing problem for us until those countries have a method of crop substitution and a system of crop control to balance the raw material production with the medical and legal needs and requirements.

The diversion problem in the United States is a problem which at the Federal level we focus on with the manufacturers and wholesalers. But retail diversion does exist. And by "diversion" I mean drugs that are made available to users and abusers from pharmacies and doctors, rather than from medical companies that are shipping to retail outlets. The Drug Enforcement Administration has approximately 220 compliance investigators, 226 is our ceiling; these are investigators working to audit the manufacturers and wholesale distributors of some 20 billion dosage units of controlled substances, involving 20,000 products that are distributed through 600,000 points.

But at the retail level, it is the State and local enforcement agencies that have to make certain that the drugs are made available to patients and those who are sick and in need of treatment, and who get a legitimate medical prescription, but that such medications are not available to others. Perhaps a billion dollars of diversion exists.

Diversion methods include indiscriminate prescriptions, where doctors just write out "scripts" to make money, rather than to treat a patient. I wouldn't indict the medical profession, but there are some doctors that do that.

There have been forged "scripts," where individuals steal a pad. or forge a pad with the doctor's name.

There have been illegal sales. There have been some people who feign medical needs, line up so-called credits, just to get drugs for 25 cents and sell them for 45 cents on the street. And there is pharmacy theft as well.

We have embarked upon a number of new programs in the last several years. One of them started before my time. It was the Diversion Investigation Unit, the so-called DIU, which provides the expertise of a DEA agent and some initial seed funding; and we have some 19 States and the District of Columbia now in statewide diversion investigation units.

They have made over 2,600 arrests and seized some 10.8 million

Another program which is new this year is an operation called Operation Script, which has 24 target areas in cities and major metropolitan locations. Operation Script is designed to identify targets who have demonstrated repetitive negligence, criminal activity, and failure to follow regulations at the State and Federal level. We will be taking a number of important cases. It will demonstrate Federal concern. increase public and professional awareness, hopefully encourage the individual States to take more action, and to lift up a rock, under which I think there's a pretty serious lizard located.

It's the tip of an iceberg, really, in this diversion area.

Mr. DRINAN. Could you explain the chart here how some have State funds and some have Federal funds? How is that arrived at?

Mr. BENSINGER. With our diversion investigation unit, Mr. Chairman, we take the position that we have to provide initial expertise and funding to get the State off the ground.

But after a period of no more than 3 years the States pick up the responsibility themselves.

And that has been the case in 14 States, which reflects, I think, that the program works; that the States themselves are willing to pay the price for continuation of the program; and the Federal Government in this program seems to be accomplishing a major contribution in setting the standards, developing the training, setting a tone, and then being able to move out and work in additional States.

We hope to have about 40 diversion investigation units developed within the next 4 to 5 years, depending on the funding levels that the Congress provides.

Mr. DRINAN. I assume you are working on something for New York State?

Mr. BENSINGER. Yes, sir. We have an active program for New York State. Our discussions with the New York State Superintendent of the State Police and with another unit involved in New York State, have continued. It's really up to the Governor of the State to identify who he thinks should be the lead unit for the DIU program.

We don't put ourselves out into the position of being judge of how a State should proceed. In some cases that takes some time to work out at the State level. But we are certainly looking forward to their joining in this effort.

Mr. DRINAN. I gather from the chart there's no problem at all in Ohio?

Mr. BENSINGER. I have a question whether that would be an accurate representation. But I do have the answer in the room in the form of Al Russell.

Al Russell, who wisely sat in the second row, do you want to tell us what's the story in Ohio?

Mr. DRINAN. I think Congressman Kindness wants to hear.

Mr. BENSINGER. What is the story in Ohio, Al?

Mr. RUSSELL. We are talking to the State agency and have provided them with information on the retail division problem.

Mr. DRINAN. Thank you very much.

Proceed, Mr. Bensinger.

Mr. BENSINGER. Very good.

There's one other nonenforcement approach which is significant, and it doesn't cost a lot of money; but it does cost the commitment of the officials concerned. And that is the pharmacy theft program. We have 18 pharmacy theft programs that have been set up with local representatives working with pharmaceutical associations, the mayor, the police in that particular city or jurisdiction, to develop an increased awareness program, to give advice, "do's and don'ts."

Now, where we have developed pharmacy theft programs we have seen the pharmacy thefts go down, although pharmacy thefts nationally have gone up 90 percent. I would not recommend that the Drug Enforcement Administration take on the responsibility of responding to each and every pharmacy theft.

The DEA doesn't today have the sense of accomplishment to be able to bring the resources and immediate cure to this problem.

The Los Angeles Police Department studied this problem and discovered the following correlations between response time and apprehension:

If a law enforcement unit could respond within 30 seconds of pharmacy theft, the apprehension rate was 100 percent; within 1 minute, 90 percent; within 2 minutes it was 75 percent; within 4 minutes, 50 percent; and within 10 minutes, 20 percent.

So the real key to having a successful apprehension from a pharmacy theft standpoint clearly seems to be local law enforcement,

where they can respond on a precinct basis. The Federal agency may be 10 miles away from the theft at the time.

We feel that the pharmacy theft responsibility appropriately is vested in State law enforcement. We think we can help through our DIU's, through pharmacy theft programs, through training, which we embark upon extensively.

In addition, we think the Controlled Substances Act, which is the framework for our investigative responsibility, may need to get looked at since it's been in effect for over 10 years.

Areas in which we have problems include a continuing increase in the trafficking of marihuana; and we would endorse the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice's proposal that would double the penalties for trafficking in 10,000 pounds of marihuana or more.

Right now the average sentence is approximately 3 years for a marihuana trafficker-who literally is in business to make millionscompared to a heroin trafficker who will get between a 10- and 12-year

sentence.

Mr. DRINAN. May I interrupt once again, Mr. Bensinger?

I want to commend you for your leadership and your direction with regard to increasing the penalties for trafficking. And the subcommittee, as you know, has incorporated your suggestion into its draft bill.

Mr. BENSINGER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Bail-a sensitive issue, in which the public, the legal community, the Government, and the courts want to insure that constitutional procedures are followed, protection of the innocent is assured-and I subscribe fully to both principles.

The problem I have and that the agency has is that we have more individuals out on bail than we have agents to investigate. We have some 2,700 fugitives. We have a number of individuals who treat the posting of bail as a parking ticket or a business expense; 71 percent of our class 1 violators and class 2 violators have received bail of $10,000 or less.

Many of them have fled the jurisdiction of the court, posed a threat to witnesses, and at times have continued trafficking in the narcotics. There is no easy answer to the problem. But there is a proposal that would grant judges and magistrates the right to have a hearing, and the requirement that we as the Government and the U.S. attorney make a representation to the court when any individual would be a threat to evidence or to a witness or to the community or that he would leave the jurisdiction of the court.

And we would just suggest that this possibility gets full attention. With respect to other matters, Mr. Chairman, I defer to you and members of the committee, who may have questions. I assure you of our interest in fully upholding the law, the statutory responsibilities which we hold and which I hold personally.

And I want to express our appreciation for the opportunity of sharing with you and appearing before you and this committee. Mr. DRINAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Bensinger.

I have just one question before I yield to Mr. Kindness: And I am quoting from a GÃO study of October last year, 3 or 4 months ago, where it has an overall review of this topic.

The title begins, "Gains made in controlling illegal drugs-" and it says that the United States must take a much tougher, consistent stance to make real gains in reducing the availability of illicit drugs.

Now in my judgment it doesn't really spell out what that tougher stance might be. But it makes this proposal:

It says that the executive and legislative branches must form a partnership to agree upon and confirm a national policy for dealing with drug abuse and afford necessary legislation. A joint commission could be formed to accomplish this and to recommend courses of action to promote vigorous implementation of the agreed policy.

A broad question, as this subcommittee begins its oversight function, I wonder if you have any thought as to where this partnership that they talk about between the executive and legislative branches could be strengthened? Or what additional legislation might be necessary? Or would you have any thoughts on a joint commission as is suggested by the GAO study?

Mr. BENSINGER. That's a broad question, and one that is most welcome and most appreciated. Because oftentimes committees are not always ready to engage in joint determinations of what really needs

to be done.

I think whether it's a joint commission or separate legislative and administrative or executive action taken in concert, there are areas of inconsistency in policy; inconsistencies both internationally and domestically.

We can take them separately: If our objective is to reduce the availability of drugs-there's no question of the President's objective and the Department of Justice's-but what is yours and mine?

We look to the drug, marihuana, which is the most widely abused drug used in the United States. In fact, it probably has the most controversial implications in the level of inconsistent policy.

The best way to stop drugs from being imported into the United States is to stop them at the source. And we've seen with respect to Mexican Government's program against crops in that country-it has had unqualified success, both with respect to opium and with respect to marihuana through spraying those fields with paraquat in Mexico. Before spraying perhaps 75 percent of the marihuana coming to the United States was from Mexico, which has been reduced to perhaps less than 20 percent today.

It seems to me that Congress ought to look, or with the executive branch, at the implications of the present restriction in the Foreign Assistance Act on paraquat being sprayed on marihuana.

There have been no cases to my knowledge reported to the Atlanta Center for Disease Control of paraquat poisoning. And the Director of the National Institute of Drug Abuse advised me that if we did an incremental study on health hazards from paraquat sprayed marihuana compared to health hazards for users of marihuana, the in