[House Hearing, 107 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
ECSTASY: A GROWING THREAT TO THE NATION'S YOUTH
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE,
DRUG POLICY AND HUMAN RESOURCES
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 19, 2002
__________
Serial No. 107-229
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house
http://www.house.gov/reform
______
88-329 U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON : 2003
____________________________________________________________________________
For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland TOM LANTOS, California
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
STEPHEN HORN, California PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii
JOHN L. MICA, Florida CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana DC
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
BOB BARR, Georgia DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
DAN MILLER, Florida ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois
DOUG OSE, California DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
RON LEWIS, Kentucky JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia JIM TURNER, Texas
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
DAVE WELDON, Florida JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
CHRIS CANNON, Utah WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida DIANE E. WATSON, California
C.L. ``BUTCH'' OTTER, Idaho STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia ------
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma (Independent)
Kevin Binger, Staff Director
Daniel R. Moll, Deputy Staff Director
James C. Wilson, Chief Counsel
Robert A. Briggs, Chief Clerk
Phil Schiliro, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana, Chairman
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois
JOHN L. MICA, Florida, BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
BOB BARR, Georgia DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
DAN MILLER, Florida JIM TURNER, Texas
DOUG OSE, California THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia JANICE D. SCHAKOWKY, Illinois
DAVE WELDON, Florida
Ex Officio
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
Christopher Donesa, Staff Director
Nicholas P. Coleman, Counsel and Professional Staff Member
Nicole Garrett, Clerk
Julian A. Haywood, Minority Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on September 19, 2002............................... 1
Statement of:
Hutchinson, Asa, Administrator, Drug Enforcement
Administration; and Dr. Glen R. Hanson, Acting Director,
National Institute on Drug Abuse........................... 7
Patton, Kate, Kelley McEnery Baker Foundation; Lynn Smith;
and Dr. Terry Horton, medical director, Phoenix House...... 39
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Hanson, Dr. Glen R., Acting Director, National Institute on
Drug Abuse, prepared statement of.......................... 22
Horton, Dr. Terry, medical director, Phoenix House, prepared
statement of............................................... 56
Hutchinson, Asa, Administrator, Drug Enforcement
Administration, prepared statement of...................... 11
Patton, Kate, Kelley McEnery Baker Foundation, prepared
statement of............................................... 43
Smith, Lynn, prepared statement of........................... 50
Souder, Hon. Mark E., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Indiana, prepared statement of.................... 3
ECSTASY: A GROWING THREAT TO THE NATION'S YOUTH
----------
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2002
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and
Human Resources,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 1 p.m., in
room 2203, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mark E. Souder
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Souder, Cummings, Dan Davis of
Illinois, and Jo Ann Davis of Virginia.
Staff present: Nicholas P. Coleman, counsel and
professional staff member; Roland Foster, professional staff
member; Nicole Garrett, clerk; and Julian A. Haywood, minority
counsel.
Mr. Souder. The subcommittee will now come to order.
I would like to thank everybody for coming. I look forward
to this hearing this afternoon.
Unfortunately, as I am sure most of you know here, it does
not take an expert to know that the abuse of the drug ecstacy
among young people in America continues to increase to
unprecedented and alarming levels. You can look at the
countless newspaper articles from virtually every city and town
across America describing the concern of parents and educators
for the safety of children and teens. You can look at a popular
culture that glamorizes the ``club scene'' that provides much
of the base for the spread of ecstasy use, or you can look at a
television program like HBO's ``Small Town Ecstasy,'' which
showed a California father who not only actively permitted and
encouraged his children to use ecstasy, but joined them.
What may not be readily apparent to the public or to our
impressionable children, however, is the growing severity of
the ecstacy problem for our country, our society, and, most
importantly, for the victims who use the drug and their
families. It should not have been much of a surprise that one
of the last scenes in ``Small Town Ecstasy'' took place in a
doctor's office, where one of the kids learned that he had a
form of brain damage. And yet there are some so-called
scientists who even today try to perpetuate the myth that
ecstasy is not harmful or even, bizarre as it may seem, has
some sort of therapeutic value.
Anecdotal evidence aside, the hard numbers and the science
similarly tell us that there is real cause for alarm and
heightened action on the part of families, law enforcement, and
health care providers. The new National Household Survey on
Drug Abuse, released 2 weeks ago, shows that the most dramatic
increase in all illegal drug use has been from ecstasy. In
2000, an estimated 1.9 million Americans used ecstasy for the
first time, compared to 0.7 million in 1998. Thus, usage has
tripled in just 2 years. Similarly, ecstasy linkage to
emergency room visits has almost doubled from 2,850 in the year
1999 to 5,542 in the year 2001. Some 9.1 percent of college
students, 9.2 percent of twelfth graders, and 6.2 percent of
eighth graders reported that they have used ecstasy in the past
year.
But behind all these cold numbers, we return to real,
stark, and immediate problems that require prompt action from
the Government and the drug control community. For starters, we
must educate American parents and youth of the reality and the
consequences behind the so-called glamour drug of ecstasy. One
such effort was undertaken over the summer by the Partnership
for a Drug Free America and incorporated into the Office of
National Drug Control Policy's National Media Campaign. I would
now like to take 2 minutes to screen four advertisements that
have been running across America, and I commend the Partnership
for its excellent work in this area.
[Video presentation.]
Mr. Souder. At today's hearing we will hear from two panels
to expand upon the fundamental messages that were so eloquently
conveyed in these ads. On our first panel, we are honored to
once again have our former colleague with us, the distinguished
head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, Mr. Asa
Hutchinson. He will testify with respect to DEA's broad efforts
to control ecstasy abuse in the United States, and we very much
appreciate his leadership on this issue and so many other
critical issues during his still-short tenure at DEA. The
subcommittee will also receive scientific testimony from Dr.
Glen Hanson of the National Institute on Drug Abuse on recent
findings from NIDA and the NIH with respect to the significant
harmful effects which ecstasy use has on our children.
On our second panel, we will move from the national level
to the community level. We will hear personal testimony from
Ms. Kate Patton and Ms. Lynn Smith on the devastating impact of
ecstasy on users and their families. We will also hear from Dr.
Terry Horton of the Phoenix House regarding the challenge of
drug treatment for ecstasy abusers.
I thank you all once again for coming and look forward to
the testimony on this important issue.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Mark E. Souder follows:]
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Mr. Souder. I would now like to recognize Mr. Cummings, our
ranking member, for an opening statement.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. One of the
most alarming trends in the area of illegal drug consumption in
America is the growing use of ecstasy and other so-called
``club drugs'' among our Nation's youth.
A thriving youth subculture has developed around the all-
night ``rave'' parties and dance clubs where these drugs are
widely used by teens and young adults to enhance sensory
perception and boost stamina. What makes the trend so dangerous
is the fact that most users seem to believe that these drugs
are soft or benign. In fact, there is simple scientific
evidence that they are not benign. Indeed, just like heroin or
cocaine, these drugs can be lethal in large doses or when
combined with other toxic substances such as alcohol or other
illicit drugs.
Moreover, in addition to the immediate short-term
psychological and physical effects they induce, these drugs
appear to have long-term, irreversible effects on brain
function, permanently impairing thought and memory. Apart from
the dangers that result from voluntary use of club drugs, the
malicious abuse of GHB and petamine as ``date rape'' drugs,
employed to sedate unsuspecting victims, provides additional
cause for alarm.
It should concern all of us that the ``club drug'' trend
shows no signs of letting up. On the contrary. National surveys
on drug abuse show that the use of these drugs has been
steadily on the rise since at least 1992, and that it continues
to increase despite a growing recognition that the use of
``club drugs'' involve serious health risks. The trend is also
spreading demographically. Once concentrated among middle-and
upper-class predominantly white users, ecstasy is finding its
way into America's inner-cities.
We will hear today from Administrator Asa Hutchinson about
the Drug Enforcement Administration's efforts to combat the
``club drug'' trend through interdiction and community
outreach. We will hear from Acting Director Glen Hanson about
the National Institute on Drug Abuse's efforts to conduct,
evaluate, and disseminate scientific research on the harmful
effects of ``club drugs.'' Lynn Smith will give us a personal
perspective of a former user of ecstasy. Kate Patton lost her
daughter Kelly tragically to an ecstasy overdose and will tell
us about her efforts to enlighten other parents about the
dangers ``club drugs'' pose to young people. Dr. Terry Horton,
Medical Director of Phoenix House in New York City, will
discuss the unique characteristics of the ``club drug''
phenomenon, including the spread of club drugs to the inner-
city.
As always, Mr. Chairman, I commend you for holding this
important hearing and for your commitment to this important
issue. I look forward to hearing the testimony of all of our
witnesses today, and I want to thank all of you for taking time
out of your busy schedules to be with us so that we can make
every effort to address this issue as best as we possibly can.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
Before proceeding, I would like to take care of a couple of
procedural matters. First, I ask unanimous consent that all
Members have 5 legislative days to submit written statements
and questions to the hearing record and that any answers to
written questions provided by the witnesses also be included in
the record. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Second, I ask unanimous consent that all exhibits,
documents, and other materials referred to by Members and the
witnesses be included in the hearing record, and that all
Members be permitted to revise and extend their remarks.
Without objection, it is so ordered.
Would the witnesses on the first panel please rise and
raise your hands and I will administer the oath. As an
oversight committee, it is our standard practice that all of
our witnesses are asked to testify under oath.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Souder. Let the record show that both witnesses
responded in the affirmative.
The witnesses will now be recognized for opening
statements. We will begin with Administrator Hutchinson. We
will allow 10 minutes, with some flexibility, for your opening
statements.
STATEMENTS OF ASA HUTCHINSON, ADMINISTRATOR, DRUG ENFORCEMENT
ADMINISTRATION; AND DR. GLEN R. HANSON, ACTING DIRECTOR,
NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON DRUG ABUSE
Mr. Hutchinson. Thank you Chairman Souder and Ranking
Member Cummings for both your opening statements and your
interest in this issue and your conduct of this hearing today.
Clearly, this is one of the most dangerous threats emerging on
America's youth today, both ecstasy and other club drug abuse.
MDMA, commonly referred to as ecstasy, is a deceptively
dangerous drug. Once MDMA was limited primarily to the ``rave
club'' scene, but we have certainly seen that it is readily
available on the street and it is just as likely to be peddled
nearby schools as it is in a club scene. In making a couple of
observations, I would describe it as the No. 1 drug problem of
urban youth today. Second, there has been an explosion in
demand by teens and young adults, as indicated by the DEA
seizures, which are demonstrated on the chart over to the left,
which shows the DEA's seizures of ecstasy have exceeded 9
million dosage units last year.
Another problem that we see with ecstasy is the
distributors employ very savvy marketing techniques such as
creative dye stamps in colors and leaflets boasting of security
in different events of alcohol-free environments when in many
instances it is an environment that is very open to the drug
culture, if not ecstasy being promoted. And finally, there is a
false perception that the ecstasy is safe, which is a dangerous
perception. It is promoted by organizations such as Dance Safe
that tries to encourage young people that this can be handled
in a safe fashion. That is very dangerous information. There
has been numerous instances of overdoses and deaths as a result
of the use of ecstasy.
Clearly, not everyone that attends a rave does so for the
drugs. But drug use and abuse is a common element of raves. I
know because I have gone out and seen it for myself. Last
weekend I visited a rave club in the Washington area and
observed first-hand the dangers in public health issues
associated with raves. Despite what appeared to be significant
security precautions, you did not have to be in the club very
long before you observe what appears to be drug transactions
taking place in the open.
Ecstasy, a Schedule I drug, is the most widely abused club
drug in America. It allows the users to experience both
hallucinogenic and stimulant effects which last several hours.
Mr. Cummings mentioned other club drugs such as GHB and GBL,
and many times ecstasy is taken in combination with these other
drugs, one, for the up, the stimulant, and the other for the
depressant. And so the drug mixture is a very serious health
problem.
I appreciate the playing of the ads, Mr. Chairman. I
applaud ONDCP's advertisements which have raised the awareness
of the ecstasy crisis. Clearly, it tries to counter the
misinformation out there that somehow this is a ``love'' or a
``hug'' drug. The harm is clearly demonstrated by the emergency
room episodes, as demonstrated on the chart on the left, which
shows that according to the Drug Abuse Warning Network
nationwide hospital emergency room mentions for ecstasy rose
from 637 in 1997 to over 5,000 last year. Teenagers and young
adults have been the primary users of ecstasy. Some 77 percent
of the ecstasy emergency room mentions were attributed to
patients who were 25 years old or younger.
Now if we go to the production of ecstasy, this is a drug
that is not produced in the United States in any significant
amount. Ecstasy is synthetically manufactured in clandestine
laboratories predominantly in the Netherlands and Belgium which
produce the vast majority of ecstasy consumed worldwide,
estimates being 80 percent of the world production of ecstasy
occurs in those countries. I recently travelled to the
Netherlands to meet with the Dutch police officials. Certainly
I encouraged them to take more aggressive enforcement actions.
The Dutch police have initiated a new program which centers
around the synthetic drug unit to target ecstasy and synthetic
drug organizations and they have allocated approximately $90
million in support of this initiative. This includes five units
that enforcement activities will be carried out throughout the
Netherlands. We hope that it brings some measure of success.
The profit margin is frightful as to who it encourages to
get into this business. A typical clandestine lab produces 20
to 30 kilograms of ecstasy per day. One kilogram yields
approximately 7,000 tablets. At $20 to $30 per tablet, one
kilogram would conservatively generate $140,000. If it was $30
a tablet, it would be $210,000.
Currently, ecstasy traffickers utilize major airports in
Europe as transshipment points for ecstasy destined for the
United States. I do have a chart here that reflects the
trafficking patterns for MDMA coming to the United States. As
you can see, it primarily comes from Europe. But it comes
through various means, sometimes via South America, into the
United States and so there are a number of different routes
that we have to watch looking for the MDMA traffickers. Los
Angeles, New York, Miami are currently the major gateway cities
for the influx of ecstasy and law enforcement efforts have
increased in those airports and from an investigatory
standpoint.
Even though they are produced through labs in the
Netherlands and Belgium area, the organizations that transport
those are many times of Israeli or Russian organized criminal
entities. They dominate the ecstasy market in the United
States. Other drug trafficking organizations based in Colombia,
the Dominican Republic, Asia, and Mexico have entered the
ecstasy trade. We have noted intelligence that indicates
cocaine from Colombia is being shipped to Europe in exchange
for MDMA. So that opens up the market for the Colombian
traffickers, which is certainly an alarming fact for anyone who
has followed their involvement in recent years.
The DEA is engaged in some very significant operations.
Just to name a couple of them, in August 2001 we culminated
Operation Green Clover, a major operation that netted dozens of
arrests, 85,000 tablets of ecstasy, and $1.3 million in
currency. It came to public attention because the ecstasy
killed a 16 year-old Brittany Chambers, who took one ecstasy
tablet on her 16th birthday. After a 2-year investigation, we
expanded that operation and really brought it down to the major
traffickers that ultimately brought in that ecstasy with the
green clover logo.
That same month we concluded another investigation,
Operation Rave I and II, which was coordinated by the Special
Operations Division, arresting 247 individuals, seizure of 7
million tablets of ecstasy, $2 million in currency, and over $1
million in other assets. It was a cooperative effort with our
international partners, the Israeli National Police, the German
National Police, and numerous European partners.
More recently, less than a month ago in August of this
year, a Federal grand jury in Houston, Texas returned two
indictments charging 34 individuals and two corporations with a
variety of drug and money laundering offenses, including the
distribution of more than 1 million ecstasy tablets.
And so although ecstasy is the most popular club drug, as I
mentioned before and as Ranking Member Cummings mentioned,
there are other club drugs, such as GHB and its analogues,
commonly used in conjunction with ecstasy. GHB is a central
nervous system depressant which was banned by the FDA in 1990.
In the year 2000, the DEA documented 71 GHB-related deaths and
seized 17 GHB laboratories with State and local law
enforcement. It has been used in the commission of sexual
assaults because it renders the victim incapable of resisting
and may cause memory problems that could complicate case
prosecution because they cannot remember the experience or the
terror that happened to them.
Today, just a few hours before this hearing, Attorney
General John Ashcroft and I announced the conclusion of
Operation Web Slinger, a 2-year investigation to combat drug
trafficking on the Internet. This investigation targeted four
distribution groups who distributed date rape drugs GHB, GBL,
and one for butanedyle, or BD, on the Internet. This was in
four major cities, four different Internet operations in which
they were marketing what appeared to be industrial solvents,
cleaning solvents, and there is no mention on the Internet site
that this drug could be used for human consumption, but in fact
it was marketed for human consumption. There is at least one
death that was attributed to that. We have arrested over 100
individuals yesterday in connection with that national/
international operation.
The DEA and our law enforcement partners continue to focus
on the enforcement aspect of MDMA trafficking. The combination
of what we are doing in the enforcement arena with what groups
like this committee is doing in the education arena hopefully
will make a difference and will help get the message out to our
young people that it is extraordinarily dangerous. This is an
example of a drug that is being marketed through drug
availability. Demand is not everything in this particular case
because availability created the demand, and that was part of
the marketing strategy targeting our young people. We have got
to be able to reverse the tide for that. Thank you for this
committee's attention to this and your interest in this
subject.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hutchinson follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Thank you very much.
Dr. Hanson.
Dr. Hanson. Chairman Souder and distinguished members of
the subcommittee, I want to thank you for the opportunity to
come and share with you some of the latest scientific findings
about MDMA or ecstasy. I am Dr. Glen Hanson. I am the Acting
Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. This is a
component of the National Institutes of Health.
The timing of this hearing is particularly relevant given
some of the new data that has been released by SAMSHA, which
you referred to, and data from NIDA as well that MDMA continues
to be a very popular drug especially among students and young
adults and it continues to attract new users. The initiation of
the MDMA use has been rising steadily since the early 1990's
and currently more than 8 million young people have used MDMA
sometime during their lifetime.
As you mentioned, the demographics of MDMA use is changing
and this is very disturbing. New populations are starting to
use it. It is being used beyond the rave scene or rave
environment. It is being used on a daily basis and being used
in homes and in other settings. This indicates a process of
dependence and addiction that goes beyond just recreational
use.
Despite what some of its users, some of the public media,
and, as you mentioned, even some researchers suggest, 3,4-
methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or ``ecstasy,'' clearly has
substantial risks associated with its use. There is a large
body of scientific evidence to support this. MDMA is not benign
and it is not a harmless drug. The research demonstrates that
MDMA can potentially cause serious short-and long-term
physiological and psychological consequences. The overwhelming
message of a conference which we held last year from some of
the leading scientists in MDMA research is that MDMA can be
extremely dangerous. There are some individuals where even a
single exposure can cause serious consequences, and on occasion
has even caused death. Repeated use of MDMA, moderate or to
intense use, has been shown to cause damage to critical brain
cells which can affect memory and other cognitive functions.
These effects have been demonstrated very clearly in laboratory
animals over the last 10 to 15 years and are being confirmed in
human studies as well.
Research shows that drugs sold to individuals as ecstasy
often times contain more substances than just ecstasy. It is
not unusual to find other potentially harmful drugs included,
such as methamphetamine, cocaine, ephedrine, dextromethorphan,
an over-the-counter cough suppressant, DCP, Ketamine, LSD, etc.
The fact that so many of these tablets are really drug
combinations makes the problem even more difficult and more
complex to deal with in terms of treatment as well as
prevention.
MDMA is a unique drug pharmacologically. It does have
characteristics of both stimulants as well as hallucinogens. As
was mentioned, its acute effects last for hours, depending on
the dosage, and users report distorted time perception as well
as enhanced sensory input while under its influence. The
stimulant properties can cause substantial cardiovascular
stimulation. It can elevate heart rate, it can increase blood
pressure, it can cause arrhythmias in the heart, it can
disabled the body's ability to regulate its own temperature
which can be very serious, especially in an environment such as
a rave or a club where it is very warm and engaging in
strenuous activity for extended periods of time can result in
life-threatening hyperthermia or elevated body temperature. It
can also cause serious dehydration, hypertension, and even
kidney and heart failure in susceptible people.
Like other stimulants, MDMA has the potential to cause
addiction. This has been an issue of some discussion in the
past. Recently, a study demonstrated that the majority of users
of ecstasy meet the diagnostic criteria for abuse and
dependance. And this goes back to the issue of a changing
demographics and changing patterns of use. We are seeing more
intense and more frequent use which suggests these addictive
patterns.
The brain's mechanisms whereby MDMA exerts its effect are
critical to understanding both its short-and long-term
consequences. And without getting too complicated or
sophisticated, let me just say that MDMA is known to cause
dramatic effects on a brain chemical called serotonin.
Serotonin is a critical messenger molecule that brain cells use
to exert their effects and send messages. It is important in
exerting effects such as sleep, emotion, mood, memory, pain,
and appetite. Moderate to high MDMA use depletes the brain of
its serotonin, it causes free radical production, and free
radicals are very destructive molecules that can damage tissue
and cells. So it is clear that MDMA has the capacity and the
properties of killing brain cells under certain kinds of
conditions.
We do not know completely to what extent the brain can
recovery from this damage. This is still an active area of
investigation by scientists. But you can see in some animal
studies, and that is shown on this poster, this researcher in
this study looked at monkeys or nonhuman primates. They
administered the drug twice a day for 4 days, and then they
observed for a period of a couple of weeks, and then 7 years.
The white squiggly lines represent brain cells that have the
serotonin, that chemical messenger, in them. You can see on the
left the concentration is fairly high. But on the middle panel,
most of that has been wiped out in this particular brain
region. After 7 years, there is some recovery but it is not
returned to its normal levels. This is a monkey, this is a
nonhuman, but we see a similar pattern in other laboratory
animals. We understand the mechanism underlying why this
happens and it is of great concern to us that some similar
things may be happening in humans that are using moderate to
high doses of this drug.
In closing, I would like to say that as someone who has
spent over 15 years of my own scientific research career
studying the pharmacology and neurotoxic effects of psycho-
stimulants, and that includes MDMA or ecstasy, I am convinced
from my own personal research and the research of my colleagues
that moderate use of MDMA can damage brain cells, and likely
has significant consequences on brain functions and on
behavior.
Thank you very much. I will be happy to respond to any
questions you might have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hanson follows:]
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Mr. Souder. I thank you both for your powerful testimony.
We have been joined by Congressman Davis of Illinois and
Congresswoman Davis of Virginia. I will start out with some
questions here under the 5-minute rule.
First, Administrator Hutchinson, in trying to understand
the production of ecstasy in the Netherlands and Belgium, could
you give a little more why it would be concentrated there and
why it has not dispersed more, why we do not have more
production in the United States, and whether you think that
will change.
Mr. Hutchinson. One of the reasons it has not occurred in
the United States in terms of the labs that would produce MDMA
is because we have very strict regulation of the precursor
chemicals that go into it. We have strong controls that has
diminished that capability. In addition, the pill presses that
are used to manufacture the MDMA, that is not readily available
for those purposes yet here in the United States. It is much
more difficult here.
In regards to the Netherlands, you have a combination of
factors. You have, one, a law enforcement structure that has
not been historically strong. You have a permissive society
when it comes to drug use. You also have chemists who have
congregated there that have developed this industry. So a
combination of those factors. One of the chemicals that is used
as a precursor or to make MDMA is PMK, and that comes primarily
out of China. And to give you an illustration of the problem
they face there, they do not have an exchange of information
for these precursor chemicals coming from China because they
are concerned about the human rights violations in China and
will not have any information exchange. So we are having to act
as an intermediary on that.
So, it is a very slow process engaging and pushing the law
enforcement community there to get a handle on this. Hopefully,
their synthetic drug unit will be a step in the right
direction.
Mr. Souder. Is the government of Belgium becoming more
aggressive too, or is this relatively new there as compared to
Holland?
Mr. Hutchinson. I think it is a spill-over effect from what
we see in Holland. Clearly, Europe, in particular the
Netherlands, realizes that they have a problem with ecstasy
production. It is not considered a soft drug there. They have
not moved toward decriminalization of it in any way. They are
very focused on the problem that they are right now, investing
a substantial amount of money, I believe it is $90 million,
toward enforcement activities. So hopefully that will change.
Mr. Souder. There has been a lot of times in the American
media this kind of romance of how Holland's non-harmful drug
policies actually not only have spilled into the United States
and around the world, they have gone into Belgium where they
did not have those policies and undermined their laws, which is
partly why there is a new government in Holland. Do you get the
impression that the new leadership is more committed to trying
to tackle these problems?
Mr. Hutchinson. Yes, I do. I think we have to wait and see
but I think there is potential for a shift in drug policy. And
certainly on the enforcement side, I believe that they have
been cooperative. I hope that they will be more cooperative.
Mr. Souder. You had a reference in your written testimony
to Indonesia and them increasing as a potential production
point. Did that seem to be headed toward the United States, or
is there a growing market in Asia?
Mr. Hutchinson. There is a growing market in Asia. Right
now there is limited nexus between Indonesia and the United
States. But it is something that we are watching very closely
because that would open up a whole new arena in terms of
production.
Mr. Souder. Thank you. I have plenty of additional
questions but I will yield at this point to Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Administrator Hutchinson, let me ask you this. Do you find,
the DEA, when you talk about some arrests that have been made,
do you find that the people who are dealing in ecstasy also
deal in other drugs or is it pretty much zeroed in on and
specialized just in ecstasy? Are you finding any connections
when you arrest these people?
Mr. Hutchinson. Yes. In a number of instances today and
yesterday, as our agents made arrests targeting the GHB and
those type of chemicals, we also found methamphetamine in
substantial quantities, we found other drugs at these sites. It
is not always that case. So some individuals believe this is a
niche market for them and they are engaged in this network of
club drugs. Others are looking for any drug that brings a
profit and so you will see them shifting. But, yes, in the
arrests that we accomplished in this operation, in many
instances we found other drugs than simply these club drugs.
Mr. Cummings. Is there any reason why ecstasy started off
as a so-called club drug or a rave drug as opposed to drugs
sold on the corner of inner-city streets? I mean, starting out,
was it the cost, the easy way to distribute them? Do you have
any theory on that?
Mr. Hutchinson. Well, I think it was a marketing technique.
That is where the suppliers targeted as having a ready audience
of teenagers, of people who were engaging in some very frenetic
activity and that is a good market for the sale of the MDMA.
And so it was targeted there. But it did not take long for it
to expand way beyond that. Many of the tragic cases that we see
today, from Brittany Chambers to others, it was MDMA that was
purchased not at a rave scene but it was on the street or
through some other associate. So I think we make a mistake if
we only talk about MDMA in terms of the party scene. As you
said, that is where it started and had its first impact, but it
has spread far beyond that.
Mr. Cummings. And what are we doing to address that spread?
Do not get me wrong, I am not trying to minimize the fact that
it is out there anywhere, but I am just wondering what are we
doing to try to make sure it does not continue to spread all
over the place? And I also want you to talk about the money
involved. I mean, this is a phenomenal amount of money when you
broke it down to how much this stuff yields. And what makes you
think that when you are dealing with that kind of money that
folks will not find a way. It sounds like a person could become
a millionaire almost overnight.
Mr. Hutchinson. Well, they can. Whenever you can
manufacture it for 25 cents and sell it for $25, there is an
enormous profit margin. And drug traffickers that have
traditionally been engaged in cocaine may look to this because
of the profit margin in it.
You asked what we are doing about it. In each division, we
have increased our prosecution effort. If you look, and I would
be glad to provide the statistics, but if you look in each
division that we have in the DEA, we have targeted more MDMA
traffickers, they have become priority targets for us, and we
have enhanced our prosecution and efforts.
In addition, we have engaged on the education side. I have
personally spoken at club drug conferences where we brought in
law enforcement, educators, prevention and treatment
individuals focused on the problem of ecstasy. I will be going
to Fort Collins, Colorado in a couple of weeks for a similar
conference. And so we are doing enforcement side but also the
education side. But whenever you are looking at a small pill
that can be brought in to a club very easily, it is a law
enforcement problem. We can work hard at it, and I mentioned I
went to this club scene for an educational and law enforcement
purpose.
Mr. Cummings. Were you dressed like you are today?
Mr. Hutchinson. No, sir. [Laughter.]
I do not know if it is possible for me at my age to work
under cover, but I was trying.
Clearly, there was some effort on the outside for security,
even to the point that someone brought in a glass bottle that
had eye solution in it and they made them squeeze it in their
eye to make sure that it was eye solution and not some other
product, and they pat everybody down. But you go inside there
and you can identify the transactions. Clearly, drugs are
prevalent in this environment. Obviously, with pills that can
be easily disguised, hidden very easily, whether it is in a
medicine bottle that has other pills or be hidden in a whole
host of different ways, it is a difficult law enforcement
problem.
We are making extraordinary cases on it and I think that
makes a dent. But, clearly, the education aspect is critical.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you.
Mr. Souder. Ms. Davis.
Ms. Davis of Virginia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize
I was not here to hear the testimony, I wanted to hear yours,
Asa, but I had another hearing. This is all a learning
experience for me. I just went to the Caribbean with the
chairman and learned a lot in the countries down there. And I
understand that just yesterday I think you busted a lab in
Hampton, so I know this hits home in my State.
The only thing that I can tell you is that as the mother of
two sons, and I do not really have a question, but as the
mother of two sons, I know my older one, the things I found out
after the fact, after he turned his life around, really threw
me. I think the public just is not aware of the dangers of
these little pills.
I appreciate your being here and I appreciate the public
hearing, Mr. Chairman, so that we can learn. Anything that I
can do to help, I am ready and available. Thank you.
Mr. Souder. Thank you. It was amazing, when we were in the
Caribbean in Jamaica, the Jamaican trafficking organizations
that come up to the United States and the Dominican trafficking
organizations, like you stated in your testimony, they link
back to Europe. Literally, one of the things that we have not
really looked for before is how many of the islands down there
are still associated directly with European countries. St.
Martens with the Dutch. So if they get Dutch citizenship, they
move in and they come in as though they are European rather
than other types of visa rules, which would include the
Spanish, the Dutch, the Portuguese, the French, and the
British. It is a different dynamic because we have European
rules working to our South which you can kind of see in the
trafficking patterns now coming up when you run into things
coming out of Europe as opposed to South America.
Mr. Davis.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Mr. Administrator, for the work that you are
doing and also for visiting with us in Chicago. We appreciated
that and enjoyed it very much.
It seems to me that there are two things that are central
if we are to block further proliferation. One, obviously, is to
try and prevent the drugs from entering the country. The other
is to try and convince people or make them aware of the danger,
which requires a tremendous amount of what I call ``organized''
education. How much of that are you aware of, of what people
are doing in different places to try and seriously acquaint
young people especially with the dangers of the drug? I am
remembering 25-30 years ago and there were other drugs and
people who just could not quite believe that there was as much
danger. Of course, some of these same people today are still
experiencing difficulties from LSD and from all of the
hallucinogenic activity in which they were involved. So how
much education are we doing that you are aware of?
Mr. Hutchinson. Well, it is a vast ocean out there in terms
of the American public and teenagers and it takes a lot of
people involved to accomplish the education, and it takes some
time, and it takes the cooperation of the media. I noted that
in Operation Green Clover after the death of Brittany Chambers,
the headline the next day in the newspaper was ``Tainted
Ecstasy Pill Kills Youth.'' Now there is something wrong with
that headline. The implication to every teenager who reads that
is that she got a ``bad'' ecstasy pill and if it were pure
ecstasy everything would have been OK. And so a lot of messages
out there are important.
I know your next panel is very important. I am pleased that
you have called people who have suffered under this in various
ways to help tell the story. They are doing great work in the
education arena. Parents are the greatest key in this because
parents want to do the right thing. But you can go to many Web
sites and you get false information that is out there, and then
the teens' word of mouth gives you false information. I was
talking to my teenage son about a death because of ecstasy in
Arkansas and he said the word among kids on the street was that
the place was not properly ventilated, they overheated, and
they just did not have the right environment.
It is misinformation out there. And so we have to have the
schools involved, we have to have the parents critically
involved in this. And we are working on it but it is a vast
ocean that we have to fill.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. It would just seem to me that if we
could convince school districts, colleges and universities,
enlist the aid of popular radio personalities, disc jockeys,
people who kind of promote parties and places of recreation,
that peer influence is probably as great as any kind, and if
there could be a peer influence movement coupled with what
parents and others could do, perhaps we could get a handle on
it.
But I certainly appreciate the kind of research that is
taking place, the kind of information that we are gathering,
and the work that you and your associates are doing to try and
help us get a better handle on it. So I thank you very much.
Mr. Souder. I will probably followup with some additional
written questions for the record, but I wanted to ask a couple
of things of Dr. Hanson and then if you want to provide more
detail. In the National Institute for Drug Abuse, Institute for
Health, do you have any idea of the current range of dollars we
are doing to study impacts of this drug and then other drugs on
the human body?
Dr. Hanson. Our total budget approaches $900 million a year
to study various aspects of substance abuse. Within that, we
have the psycho-stimulants such as methamphetamine, cocaine,
and we also have a significant budget that is being spent on
the study of ecstasy. We actually started to study ecstasy
about 1985 when it was originally scheduled. So this is the
second wave of ecstasy problems we have had in this country.
And as a researcher, that is when I began to research it, I
received a grant from NIDA to study ecstasy. And so there has
been a number of researchers who have continued for over a
period of 15 years. And we actually know a great deal about how
this drug works, what it does, why it causes damage, and its
potential long term consequences.
Mr. Souder. Has that budget been fairly even in the sense
of adjusted dollars, or as we get new drugs that come in, do
you switch some of the dollars? We have not had a hearing for a
number of years here on the actual drug treatment research
side.
Dr. Hanson. We certainly evaluate what the need is. For
example, we just recently put out a call for applications on
GHB, which is a relatively new phenomenon that has hit the club
drug scene. We know very little about this substance so we are
trying to enlist the help of scientists to give us a better
handle on how GHB works. So there is a case where we have
targeted money. We are going out to get additional information.
Ecstasy, we have quite a stable of investigators who have
had ongoing research projects looking at ecstasy. And so while
we certainly encourage it, we put it as a high priority, we
have not done a special announcement calling for a special
group of applications for it. But we are clearly very
interested in it.
Mr. Souder. You raised an incredible complex question both
for the prevention and the treatment community about this. I
mean, we think of multi-abusers as maybe being alcohol and
marijuana or cocaine and marijuana and maybe some alcohol. You
threw everything but the kitchen sink and a lot of things under
the kitchen sink into the mix. How do you research that, the
interactive effects? I mean, we have seen on tobacco these
signs that say rat poisoning. You probably had in some of your
lists six or eight different types of rat poison and things in
the mix of what these kids are mixing together. How do we look
at that and what impact that has on the human body?
Dr. Hanson. It is very difficult to sort out. That is part
of the criticism of those who claim that our knowledge of
ecstasy really is not legitimate. Because in humans that is the
general pattern. It is not very often you find a person who has
overdosed on ecstasy alone, it is almost always in combination
with other substances. So if this person has serious medical
consequences or actually dies, is it the ecstasy that did it,
is it the methamphetamine that did it, is it the alcohol that
did it, is it the GHB that did it, or is it a combination and
interaction of all of those things. Those are difficult studies
to do. You cannot do them in humans for obvious reasons. And it
becomes more problematic when we do the animal models because
the critics say, well, animals do not predict what happens in
humans, although that is not true. But that is a criticism.
So, you are right, it is very complex. And it is even
harder for people who are doing the treatment in emergency
rooms. What do you treat when someone comes in? Do you try to
treat the MDMA, the alcohol, the GHB? About all they can end up
doing is treating the symptoms and hoping that they can somehow
get the thing under control and the person can survive. It is a
difficult issue.
Mr. Souder. We can all talk about treatment but the
treatment is only going to be as good as your research saying
what impact it has on the human body and how to treat it.
Dr. Hanson. Right.
Mr. Souder. One last question. Do you do research into
possible recovery on things? Do you believe that after usage of
ecstasy you can--in other words, that is the natural phenomena,
but are there treatment methods that give hope for recovery and
do you study those types of things too?
Dr. Hanson. There is recovery that occurs. Is this person
ever going to go back to where they were before they used the
drug? My guess is no, I do not think they ever will.
Mr. Souder. Loosely defined, I would not define on that
relatively simplistic example much recovery if you are saying
there are 10,000 little dots here and 50 of them are back.
Dr. Hanson. Right. This is a fairly high dose. It is not
out of the clinical range. We find people that are doing this
but it is fairly high. Most people that are moderate users
probably are going to be half this or a fourth of this. They
will still have the deterioration of that system in the brain
but they are likely to have more recovery as well. It is just a
basic rule, the less you traumatize the system the greater the
chance it will be able to come back on line eventually and
restore some of that function. But we are looking into how can
you help these people, not only MDMA but methamphetamine is a
serious neurotoxin that causes even worse damage than this. How
do you get these people so that they can return to normal
lives, be functional again, get their cognitive faculties back
in line, and go out and have relatively normal experiences in
the workplace and in families.
Mr. Cummings. What did you think of the ads, Doctor?
Dr. Hanson. I think that they can form an important part
but you need to give them the whole story. This is the story of
someone who dies immediately in an environment, in a rave. We
do not know why, probably cardiovascular. Those people that die
after a single administration, usually it is a cardiovascular
incident that is occurring, it may be a hypothermic incident.
So it gives you a sense of the potential risk on individuals.
But it is important that everybody understand the level of risk
for others, not the 1 out of 100 or 1 out of 1,000. But all
those folks that are using it, they have used a tablet or they
have used two tablets and they have done it every other weekend
and they seem to be able to go back to their normal life, a
little bit of a hangover but get back to normal, they need to
understand the risk that is there for them as well.
Mr. Cummings. I guess when you see something like this the
normal statement is, well, that is not going to happen to me.
Dr. Hanson. Right. That is not me.
Mr. Cummings. Therefore the ad would not have the kind of
impact you would hope.
The reason I asked you about the ad is because we have been
engaged in trying to make sure that the ad campaign is as
effective as it can possibly be. And, certainly, prevention is
the key to all of this. I look at the money that this
Government spends, I look at the lives that are lost, I look at
the parents that are just devastated by seeing this wonderful
child that was born 16 years ago now a whole other person. I am
just trying to figure out ways that you think, and perhaps this
is a better question for the next panel, that you think we can
get this word out most effectively and efficiently so that
people do not have to go through all of this. This is a lot to
go through.
And then you talked a little bit earlier about productivity
and the job. I assume a person could be taking this ecstasy
every other night or whatever and still go into a classroom and
do fine. Is that right?
Dr. Hanson. We do not know that precisely, but I would not
say that they are doing fine. I would say that they have
probably been compromised. It might be a subtle effect. It may
be the difference between taking an exam and getting 95 percent
versus taking it and getting 80 percent. If you look at that
individual, you will say, oh, 80 percent, they are still doing
OK. But they are not doing to their potential. You compromise
them in their ability to process complex information, which is
a lot of what life is all about. The better your executive
function is the better, more successful you are going to be in
life. If we compromise that, then your potential has been
compromised. And my guess is that is what is happening with the
casual user of these kinds of drugs, that you have compromised
their potential. They are not going to become institutionalized
likely except in extreme cases, but you have just knocked them
down a notch from what it is they really could have done and
from what they could have accomplished.
Mr. Cummings. Administrator Hutchinson, just one last
thing. This whole thing of the ecstasy moving into, say, the
inner-city, how do you all come to that conclusion, and to what
extent do you see the movement? In other words, I assume this
is based upon arrests, what you find during the arrests,
research.
Mr. Hutchinson. It would be based upon arrests but also on
drug availability, the seizures, where they are headed, where
the organizations are marketing. So a whole host of those
things. And when I say it is the No. 1 problem of urban youth,
I am speaking of where it started in the club drug scene, it
expanded to the streets. It is something that rural youth is
not immune to, they travel to the cities, that is where parties
take place, that is where they can get drugs as well. But the
No. 1 problem in rural America is methamphetamine. So what we
have in the United States is you have to look at the different
geographic centers, what the No. 1 problem is, and there are
different drug problems in different areas.
Mr. Souder. Would it not also be this tremendous potential
to cut price, because if there is this much inflation in the
price, it could be a little like cocaine and crack where you
came up with variations to drop the price which then gets the
addicts among the poor as the education efforts and the parents
and the treatment programs hit the suburbs. It is not like we
have not watched this pattern.
Mr. Hutchinson. Certainly possible.
Mr. Souder. Do any of the members have further questions?
I thank both of you for coming. We appreciate your
testimony and will followup with some additional questions.
Mr. Souder. Would the second panel now come forward. If you
will just remain standing, I will give you the oath before you
sit down.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Souder. Let the record show that each of the witnesses
responded in the affirmative.
I would like to thank you for coming today, for being
willing to speak out on this important issue, not only here but
in your home areas and around the country. We hope that by
sharing your experiences here other Americans will learn, and
this will become part of a hearing book to use as we work with
various legislation as well. We would like and appreciate if
your statements could be within 5 minutes and then we can ask
further questions and draw it out and give your more time
later.
We will begin with Ms. Kate Patton.
STATEMENTS OF KATE PATTON, KELLEY MCENERY BAKER FOUNDATION;
LYNN SMITH; AND DR. TERRY HORTON, MEDICAL DIRECTOR, PHOENIX
HOUSE
Ms. Patton. Good afternoon, Chairman Souder, and other
members of the committee. I appreciate your inviting me here
today to testify on what has become an ever growing problem in
this country--ecstasy abuse.
It has been 2 years and 10 months since I lost my daughter,
since I heard the four words that are every parent's worst
nightmare, ``your child is dead.'' I lost my daughter to an
accidental overdose of ecstasy. But more correctly, I lost
Kelley three times to ecstasy; first when she started using it,
second when she began to sell it, and third when she died from
it. I am here today to put a face on the devastation that
ecstasy has on a family.
I saw Kelley take her first breath the day she was born. I
gave her her first hug. I was not there for her last breath and
I never got to say good-bye to her. I was robbed of hugging her
good-bye. My life is forever changed, as is that of my younger
daughter Tori, who lost her only sister to a drug that so many
people feel is harmless.
Before Kelley's death I had never heard of club drugs, let
alone ecstasy. I now know more about the very drug that took my
daughter's life than I ever thought possible. Ecstasy took my
daughter but it will not take me. A year ago I started a
foundation in her memory, the Kelley McEnery Baker Foundation
for the Prevention, Education, and Awareness of Ecstasy Use. I
speak to high schools and youth groups to share Kelley's story
with the hope that they will learn from her deadly mistakes. I
also speak to parents groups and town hall meetings to
encourage parents to become what I now call ``information
junkies'' when it comes to knowing about all the drugs that may
cross the paths of their children. I mention to them that they
go to the grocery store very prepared with their grocery list
in hand but are they as prepared to sit down and talk to their
children about drugs, something that is as important as their
children and something that may kill them?
My goal is to reinform the misinformed and to enlighten
those who know nothing. During the past year, I have talked to
well over 3,000 kids. I use a power point program but I mostly
talk from my heart as a mother who has lost a child to ecstasy
and club drugs. I encourage questions and I have plenty of
questions of my own. One question that I never fail to ask the
kids is how many parents have sat down and talked to them about
drugs. Sadly, very few hands are raised. At one particular
school I visited I went on to ask if they knew anyone who had
overdosed from drugs. Surprisingly, far more hands went up. And
when I mention ``overdose'' it is not necessarily someone who
died but someone who has gone to the hospital for overdose. But
they shared their stories with me and there were plenty of
deaths that they told me about.
I was dumbfounded by what they had told me. It is my
experience that there is a huge population of parents who do
not talk to their kids about drugs. Perhaps they are unaware of
the many harmful drugs that their children are exposed to on a
daily basis, or maybe they feel, as many parents do, ``my child
would never try drugs.'' I know of what I speak, I was one of
those parents and I had to pay the ultimate price for my
ignorance.
The time is now to find a way to impress upon parents the
urgent importance of becoming knowledgeable about all drugs and
sharing that information with their children. Drug awareness
and information must start at home. I am proud of the State of
Illinois, I wish Mr. Davis was still here, and its lawmakers
for taking a hard stance against ecstasy and club drugs by
passing House Bill 126. It was a labor of love for me to have
been involved in lobbying for it. It is now known as Kelley's
Law.
Kelley's Law targets criminals who seek to profit from
selling illegal club drugs. It took effect January 1, 2002.
People convicted of selling as few as 15 pills and up to 200
doses of ecstasy with intent to distribute will face Class X
felony penalties of 6 to 30 years with no chance of parole. It
is the toughest law of its kind in the country. Without
Kelley's Law a person would have had to sell more than 200
grams, approximately 900 pills, in order to be charged with a
Class X felony in Illinois. Before that it was just a
misdemeanor. Chicago DEA supervisor George Karountzos recently
told me that he has seen a marked decrease in people wanting to
get involved with selling drugs in Illinois because of Kelley's
Law.
There is much to be done on so many fronts in order to put
a significant dent into the war we have waged against drugs. I
believe that our priority needs to be education and awareness,
which should start in the home and continue with support from
our school system and faith-based organizations such as
churches and synagogues. The phrase ``it takes a village to
raise a child'' is a good metaphor in that to be effective drug
education must be approached from many different angles and
directions. We must learn to accept that drug abuse and
addiction is an illness, as is recognized by the AMA. There are
many drug offenders that land in jail repeatedly with no help
for their illness, they will just land in jail, get out, and
land back in jail again. They need to be treated with the help
of programs and drug courts. Illinois and Kelley's Law sets a
good example that stiffer penalties do work. I feel every State
needs to review their drug laws and update them accordingly.
This is a bipartisan issue and is of paramount importance in
order to help protect every child in this country.
I want to close today as I close all my presentations to
the many kids I speak to. I ask for a volunteer and ask them to
read a poem that I selected to be read at Kelley's funeral by
one of her high school classmates. At one particular school,
actually the school that my young daughter goes to high school
in Palatine, Illinois, this one young man was in the last row,
he was waving his hand, and I felt he really wanted to read the
poem. So I called him down and he pulled me aside and said
thank you, Mrs. Patton, for selecting me. My mother took
ecstasy when she was pregnant with me and I have had problems
ever since. That was very telling to me. He said I just feel
like I am giving back a little something by reading this poem
for you.
The poem is titled ``Remember Me.''
To the living I am gone.
To the sorrowful, I will never return.
To the angry, I was cheated.
But to the happy, I am at peace.
And to the faithful I have never left.
I cannot be seen, but I can be heard.
So as you stand upon a shore, gazing at a beautiful sea--
remember me.
As you look in awe at a mighty forest and its grand
majesty--remember me.
As you look upon a flower and admire its simplicity--
remember me.
Remember me in your heart, your thoughts and your memories
of the times we loved, the times we cried, the times we fought,
and the times we laughed.
For if you always think of me,
I will have never gone.
After the poem is read, I ask the kids to look around and
think of a friend or a buddy that they are sitting next to and
I ask them can you imagine reading that poem at their funeral,
having their mother call you up and reading that poem at your
friend's funeral. Or worse yet, can you imagine having one of
your friends read that poem at your funeral. The silence is
deafening. I am hoping that this exercise drives home the point
that drugs cannot only harm them, send them to jail, or, worse
yet, kill them. Thus far I feel my point has been very well
taken.
I commend you, Chairman Souder and the committee members,
for holding this hearing and doing what you can for drug abuse
in this country, not only ecstasy but all drug abuse. But as we
heard from Director Hutchinson, ecstasy is unfortunately
running rampant in our country and I am doing what I can to
help. I do not want another mother feeling the way I have had
to feel the last 2\1/2\ years, and that is why I do what I do.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Patton follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Thank you for being willing to come forth today
and also for all your work in the schools. Hopefully it will
have a good, positive impact on lots of other kids and their
families down the road.
Ms. Patton. Thank you.
Mr. Souder. Ms. Smith.
Ms. Smith. Thank you. I feel very fortunate to be sitting
here today not only as a citizen of this great country but as a
survivor of an insidious drug called ecstasy. I get all choked
up sitting next to Kate here who I have grown to love. It could
so have easily been my mom sitting here today with a picture of
me on her lapel. I feel very, very fortunate.
I guess I will start by telling you a little bit about
myself and where I grew up. I grew up in a really tiny, tiny
town called Danville, which is in Pennsylvania. Lots of cows,
lots of pastures, lots of farms. I was a straight A student,
well liked, popular, all of those things, a boyfriend. All of
those things you want when you are young I had. I had always
dreamed of moving to New York City to pursue a career when I
was old enough and when I graduated.
My dream came true when my mom brought me to New York City
when I was 19 years old. So, as you can imagine, it was a
completely new way of life. No pastures, no cows. It was city
streets, city lights. It was a whole new way for me to get used
to. I was exposed to new people from acting school I just
thought were so exotic, so intelligent, so amazing. At every
party we went to there just seemed to be an endless supply of
drugs. I was turning 20 and I was unable to go to bars with my
friends--I could not get into most bars, I could not even have
a Heineken if I wanted--but we were sitting in apartments of
different friends and there would be cocaine, there would be
ecstasy, heroin. And I was drug-free until the time I moved to
New York City. It was just all so shocking to me but at the
same time very alluring. I thought, wow, I am on my own, I can
do whatever I want.
One particular evening I fell in love with ecstasy. My love
affair began that evening when my friend pulled out a card and
said, ``We are going to order some pills, do you want
anything?'' I was like, well, should I. She is like, ``Don't
even answer, we will just order you some, and if you want it
you can have it.'' So like calling Dominos Pizza, 30 minutes or
less there was a messenger at our door with a bag of pills with
little smiley faces, very interesting emblems, Nike symbols,
Mitsubishis. It was just like, OK, pick out your favorite
color, pick out what represents your personality. It was a way
to pick out a pair of jeans or sneakers, that is the way people
were diving into this bag, like, oh, I am going to take these,
this is a smooth high.
So I just closed my eyes, put my hand in the bag, and
swallowed one not really thinking about it. I had seen them all
do ecstasy before and it just seemed so--I mean, everything I
learned growing up was it was going to be a dark, scary alley,
there was going to be a dark, scary man selling me drugs. It
was going to be scary. But it wasn't. It was in a beautiful
Greenwich Village apartment, nice, smooth lighting. My drug
dealers were my friends. And the awful feeling that I thought
came from drugs, it looked very amazing to me--everyone giving
massages, hugging, and talking. And I did it.
After that pill, nothing was ever the same again. I just
thought, oh, my gosh, this is what true happiness is. For those
of you who have never used ecstasy, although it is a chemical
reproduction, it makes it feel no less real. You feel amazing;
no anxiety, no worries whatsoever. I just felt so complete and
whole while I was doing it. I did not have a lot of time on my
hands, I was working a full-time job and putting myself through
school. When I graduated and my friends changed, I had more
time on my hands, and of course graduating from acting school
is like, OK, here is your token and a cup of coffee; there is
not much guarantee of anything. So it was a really cutthroat
industry that I was going into and failing at, my friends
changed, I was bartending late hours, and I began to use
ecstasy more and more.
I was going out to clubs. And it was basically during a 5-
month period that I was getting involved with people who sold
ecstasy. It was just so readily available to me. I was not
paying for it half the time. So I was really just socially
addicted to this drug, going out, being in clubs dancing, and
just feeling amazing. My weekends started out Thursday to
Saturday and then went Thursday to Monday and I was just
popping these pills like they were candy.
The reverse effects soon set in. I was having panic
attacks, I was feeling like I wanted to rip my skin off, I
wanted to die. I could not sleep at night, I could not eat, I
was not talking to my family, I was not going on auditions, I
was not showing up for the 2-days of work that I had per week.
My life was just in a downward spiral within a matter of
months. It was not like years I was using this drug. At the end
of this spiral, I was sitting at home in my apartment in
Brooklyn with my boyfriend and my roommates. We had just
finished a movie, it was late, I stood up from the couch and
within seconds I just felt changed. I felt like something
inside me had snapped. I could not catch my breath, I felt like
I was having a heart attack, I was hallucinating, I did not
know who I was, I did not know where I was, I was so paranoid,
I did not know what was going on. I was trying to make myself
vomit, I was pacing around, I was trying to run outside into
traffic. Luckily, my boyfriend stood by my side the whole time
whereas my friends went off to bed, they told me to have a
cigarette or a shot and that was actually the last time I saw
those people.
So the only sane and reality-based thought I had was to
call my mom, call my mom, that was all that was in my head. So
my boyfriend called my mom. I got on the phone and said you
have got to come get me, I am dying, I am going crazy, I am in
hell, you have to rescue me. Of course, probably every parents'
second worst nightmare, the first would be your daughter is
dead. She very calmly said I will be right there. She got in
her car and drove in the middle of the night to New York City.
By the time she got there I was so completely out of reality
that when she pulled up to the curb I did not know who she was
and I refused to get in the car with her because I just did not
believe who it was, I did not believe it was my mom. So my
boyfriend had to force me in the car. During the drive home I
kicked and I screamed, I was praying to God to wake me up from
this nightmare that was not a nightmare, it was real life.
We got to the emergency room where--and my mom had no idea
of what I was doing in New York City, she thought I was still
the model child that I left as--I told the doctor that I was
using ecstasy and that I was using it all the time, I did not
know where my life was going. And then I really do not remember
much. All I know is that I had to sign papers to go into a
psychiatric ward in my hospital and that if I did not sign it
the State would sign it. So basically my mom convinced me to
sign it. So I signed it and it was done. I was in a psychiatric
ward for 14 days. The first few days I refused to take
medications because I was so paranoid and I was afraid I was
swallowing more ecstasy, so I refused to take medications which
were to help me sleep because I was not sleeping.
So, basically, I came out of this and started to take my
medication and at the end of 2 weeks I left. I got out of there
thinking, OK, this is it. OK, life was better but I had no job,
I had no apartment anymore, I had no money, I had no friends, I
had a whole new way of life to start, making some decisions, a
lot of soul-searching, a lot of medication, a lot of
counseling, a lot of AA meetings. And the only thought that I
had the whole time I was in the psychiatric ward when I was
back to reality was I need to talk, I need to tell this story,
and I kept saying to my mom I need to talk. And my mom was
like, well, let's get you better. And I was like, no, I need to
talk, I have to be heard, this needs to be known because I
never thought this drug could do this to me.
Everything I read about it, everything I saw, everything I
heard was so--you know, the New York Times Magazine, I do not
know if you all read that a few years back, with a tall,
beautiful model with the word ``ecstasy'' wrapped around her,
and I read that article thinking, this was after I got out of
the hospital, thinking why am I not still doing this. It was
saying how great it was and what the amazing affects were. And
I thought I am alone and I am the going crazy and I am the only
crazy person.
So I contacted MTV, I was writing letters to anyone who
would listen to me, and MTV decided to do a show on ecstasy
called ``True Life: I'm on Ecstasy,'' which I was a part of.
And from that it just kind of snowballed. My place began and
people were listening and interested. I was contacted by the
Partnership for a Drug-Free America, who I now volunteer for
and I am on an advisory board there, and I began just speaking
locally and now I speak throughout the country. I feel like I
really do have my finger on the pulse of kids, of young people.
I am a young person. Luckily, I came out of this alive. I know
what they are up against. And when I talk to them on a daily
basis, I receive thousands of e-mails, some of which I
included, from kids from all over the country talking about
thank you for coming forward, thank you for going public, you
were the first person I could see and relate to and think, wow,
this happened to her, it could happen to me, or it did happen
to me and now what do I do.
So it has definitely been an amazing experience for me to
talk to kids and to be a part of drug education, which I think
is so crucial and important, and a whole new wave of drug
education and the way we approach kids and what we do in
schools now. I wish there were 15 of me that I could just send
out. I want to do all I can. It is just not enough, there just
needs to be more done. I thank you so much for inviting me here
and listening to what I have to say. I guess I just want to say
my voice speaks out for all of those who no longer have one and
all of those who do not know how to ask for help. I want you to
look at me as a daughter talking to their father or their
mother or their sister or brother, I just want you to look at
me as your own child. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Smith follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Thank you very much for your moving testimony
and your enthusiasm. It is hard to imagine you on a stimulant.
[Laughter.]
It was incredibly moving and it is really good for us to
see that, both as parents and as legislators.
Dr. Horton has the unenviable position now of--when you go
to testify for a hearing you always wonder what the testimony
before you is going to be like and the pressure. But we
appreciate your coming today and informing us a little on what
might be done in the treatment area.
Dr. Horton. Mr. Chairman and members of this subcommittee,
I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak to you about
the use of ecstasy and other club drugs among addicted young
adults. My name is Dr. Terry Horton. I am a physician and the
medical director of Phoenix House, which is the Nation's
largest residential drug treatment program, now treating about
5,500 adolescents and adults throughout the country.
I have watched with mounting concern the rising incidence
of club drug use and the impact of that use among teens and
young adults entering treatment. We have seen over the last 5
years a dramatic increase in the number who report using club
drugs, most notably MDMA, also known as ecstasy, and among them
a significant number experience problems specifically
associated with the use of these drugs. Experiences of these
young people are a useful guide to the parameters of club drug
and ecstasy use. They are consistent with the previously
reported patterns and make clear that the use of ecstasy has
been essentially a middle-class phenomena and is most readily
found in the suburbs that we serve. It is no longer exclusively
or primarily restricted to the club scene or all night
underground dance parties called raves. Initial exposure for
our teens and young adults is, in fact, more likely to occur at
a friend's house, a school function, and the initial age of
exposure is 14 years.
Until now the use of ecstasy has been rare in the inner-
city. But there is a threat posed by recent glamorization of
the drug by hip-hop musicians, and, indeed, a growing number of
minority youngsters entering Phoenix House in New York City now
report ecstasy use, a trend we have never seen before.
Now let's understand something about the use of ecstasy.
Few people are addicted solely to ecstasy. They use ecstasy and
other drugs as well. Among teens in our Phoenix academies,
which are residential high schools for teens in treatment, the
norm is poly substance abuse, abuse of more than one substance.
Most start early with alcohol, tobacco, marijuana. We actually
view regular use of club drugs like ketamine or ecstasy as a
marker for serious, well-evolved drug history. At our Phoenix
academies in Austin, Texas, Santa Anna, California, and
Westchester, New York, more than half of the students have used
ecstasy, a significant increase over the past year. We are also
now beginning to see a new trend where ecstasy is becoming a
drug of choice for adolescent users. At our academy in
Ronconkma, Long Island, two-thirds have used ecstasy and 17
percent report it is their drug of choice.
Ecstasy use has clearly been shown to damage sensitive
areas of the brain involved with memory and learning, it has
been associated with elevated impulsivity, sleep, mood, anxiety
disorders as well as possibly enhancing vulnerability to other
psychiatric problems. Both animal and human models suggest that
the damage may be long lasting, perhaps persistent. When we
look at the behavioral impact of chronic ecstasy use, the
outcomes we at Phoenix House see are much the same as those we
find in young people whose drug abuse is restricted to other
drugs such as cocaine and heroin. At Phoenix House, use of
ecstasy and other club drugs is associated with disruption of
education and a loss of career opportunities, HIV, risk
behaviors, criminality, co-occurring psychiatric and
psychological problems.
Addiction to ecstasy, as with other drugs, robs individuals
of opportunity, hope, self-esteem, and health. Yet American
teenagers seem somehow to have gotten the message or the
impression that ecstasy is safe. So we must make every effort
to disabuse them of this notion and stem the rising incidence
of club drug use. It is no less important to save people who
are already on the path of self-destruction from the dire
consequences of prolonged ecstasy use.
Treatment works when it is available. Because treatment is
not just how you stop people from using drugs, it is how you
keep them from using drugs. It is about the person, the whole
person, and what treatment does is help drug users to
understand the underlying reasons for their drug use and
confront them, change their negative attitudes, accept
responsibility for themselves and their behaviors, and start a
new and positive way of life. At Phoenix House we have been
treating young drug addicts for 35 years. We recognize that no
matter what drug is used treatment, whether it is outpatient or
residential, takes time to initiate or to change ingrained
patterns of behavior. Treatment must be demanding. And while it
takes motivation to succeed, at the start it generally takes
some pressure from parents, schools, employers, and the courts.
And, of course, treatment should involve the whole family--
parents, siblings, husbands, and wives.
At Phoenix House, treatment is based on a therapeutic
community model. This model uses peer group to change behaviors
and attitudes that lead people to drug abuse. Young people in
our programs take an active part in their own recovery and are
partners in the recovery of their peers. We foster self-
awareness, teach social values, and provide a road to maturity
for young men and women whose maturation was thwarted by drugs.
We help them acquire skills to sustain recovery, education and
career training so they can reunite with their families as
drug-free and productive individuals.
Relearning fundamental skills and reshaping lives takes
time. Typically, residential treatment can last 12 to 18 months
and may be followed by after-care. Research shows us that these
efforts are not wasted. However our clients come into
treatment, by their own decision, family coercion, or criminal
justice referral, long-term success is correlated directly to
the length of time in treatment. And long-term success means
sustained sobriety, employment, and freedom from criminal
activity.
Treatment works when it is available. But as the National
Household Survey, conducted by the Substance Abuse and Mental
Health Services Administration, reported earlier this month,
nearly 80 percent of those who need treatment do not receive
it. What the survey does not show is what we have been seeing
at Phoenix House, which is the rapidly rising level of ecstasy
use among kids in all of our adolescent treatment programs
throughout the country. And what is truly frightening to me as
a physician is the number of addicted kids today throughout the
country who are probably also abusing ecstasy, placing
themselves in harm's way, and who have no access to treatment.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Horton follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Dr. Horton, you said a high percentage had used
ecstasy at least at a couple of your locations, 17 percent at
one had it their primary choice. When somebody comes in with
ecstasy, how are they different from people who come in others,
both in how they are entering psychologically, how you treat
them, is the physical addiction the same?
Dr. Horton. All drugs of addiction act on the central area
of the brain, which NIDA has been really good about explaining.
The consequences of that are behavioral consequences, and they
are really quite common regardless of the drug of abuse, and
that is what we have found for 35 years, be it marijuana,
alcohol, cocaine, heroin, ecstasy, whatever.
We really have two different populations. We have the
adolescents and the adults. The adults who use ecstasy or have
used ecstasy have been primarily our younger adults and ecstasy
was clearly one of the mix. Frequently these individuals call
themselves ``garbage heads'' as a description for a poly
substance abuser. Among our adolescents coming into treatment,
those are primarily drug abusers with their chief drug being
marijuana and alcohol, daily, chronic use of marijuana and
alcohol. And what we have been describing in the last year is
really a rapid increase in that group who--particularly the
ones from the urban settings, which is a major chunk of our
clients, particularly in New York City--have not used ecstasy
and are now starting to have that as part of the mix.
They do not on the surface look any different or act any
different than any of the other of our clients. But I would
like to share with you an anecdote that came to me this week
from one of the directors of our outpatient programs in
Manhattan, a program that primarily serves adolescents that are
from more affluent and private school populations, an after-
school program. Fifteen of the children there, and for 5 years
there has been more of an ecstasy exposure in this group,
fifteen kids are currently in the program, seven were regular
chronic users prior to coming into the program, two of that
group flat out stated that this was their drug of choice.
And in the dynamic of that program, which is a group
therapy--you ask how do these kids act any differently, and it
is very interesting--the group responds differently to these
two children. They are not quite cognitively as aware, they are
a little slower. This is a program that tries to teach abstract
concepts, there is a lot of thinking, soul-searching. The group
responds by accommodating perhaps to the impairment that these
two have incurred. One of those children is a student at
Julliard--I am talking about someone who is extremely high
functioning, who composes, who is a pianist--and he reports
separately the feeling of not quite performing at where he was
before and he reflects that in his composition.
So I would say that research has not caught up to this
place yet and this perhaps is the front edge of the problem. We
are seeing cognitive impairment.
Mr. Souder. Ms. Smith, what is kind of your reaction to the
media anti-drug campaign and the drug-free schools and how we
could make those more effective for kids?
Ms. Smith. I ask, because most of the young people who I go
speak to think I am a lot younger, which works for me, and they
just trust me instantly. I show my MTV video when I speak and
that hooks them right in. And I ask them after, especially with
this new ecstasy campaign that the Partnership has launched, I
say, ``Have any of you seen those commercials?'' and most all
of them raise their hands. And I say, ``Honestly, tell me what
you think? What would work for you guys? What would you want to
see? What would change your mind if you had something in front
of you that you were about to swallow but you saw it, what
would impact you?'' And there are no teachers, no principals
there. And I ask them straight out. And they say they laugh at
those commercials. They say it is just so kind of Hollywood and
it looks just splashy and not real. That is all I get from
these kids. They say it is does not convey truth or reality to
what is going on. Yes, the ultimate price you pay with this
drug and with any drug is with your life. But it is the stuff
that you live with, that you survive the panic attacks, the
lapses of reality, all of those things.
It is just such a slippery slope and it is hard to say what
would work. But I am seeing more young people like myself
coming forward and telling their stories and getting out there.
You know, this brain imagine that was shown on the MTV video, I
never thought my brain would be so famous, I get calls for it
everyday, could we have a copy of your brain, this is what gets
through to kids. They saw this, and obviously it looks pretty
awful, it is not holes in my brain, that is not what it is, but
they see that, this is like a tangible thing they look at and
they say, wow. Looking at me, looking that I am a young person,
looking at what I have done, knowing that I did do ecstasy for
a very long time, most kids e-mail me saying I saw the MTV
thing, wow, your brain, your brain, I was going to go do
ecstasy tonight at a party and all I had was that image of your
rotating brain on the MTV special, or I got your picture up on
the Web site and your story just really impacts me.
I never thought it would be--I just thought I was telling
my story. I did not think I was really going to be recognized
for it. I guess it is just truth. The truth conveys and that is
the best kind of message out there. I think maybe just people
who are willing to come forward and really just give
testimonies to the camera saying this is what happened to me,
or showing pictures. I do not know. There are so many ways to
go about it. I would love to be a part of it and really help.
Mr. Souder. Thank you. Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. I want to thank all of you for your
testimony.
I am just curious, Ms. Smith, if you had heard you, do you
think you would have tried ecstasy?
Ms. Smith. If I would have heard me today would I be a
user?
Mr. Cummings. In other words, before you even tried it, if
you had heard you, somebody like you sit up and say what you
said, do you think you would have still used it? Let me tell
you where I am going. One of the things that you said that was
very interesting is that you would be in these apartments I
guess and whatever and it was something very attractive. I
guess it is the same kind of thing that draws young people to
smoke cigarettes, it looks----
Ms. Smith. It is seductive.
Mr. Cummings. Yes, right. And so I am just wondering,
hearing your own story, would that have been enough?
Ms. Smith. You know, for me I think it would have been.
Like I was just really naive. I had no kind of drug education
growing up from my family or from school. I think I had one
teacher in health class say that marijuana is very bad.
[Laughter.]
And the ``Just Say No'' kind of thing and then, OK, on to
the next subject. It was nothing, no kind of life skills. I
could tell you the square root of pi and balance an equation,
but if you asked what are the side effects of cocaine use or
what are the real consequences of you using ecstasy, I would
have no idea. And I did not do my own research. I was 20 years
old and I was not going to the library thinking MDMA. I was
thinking, wow, it is a smiley face, it looks like a Tic-Tac, it
is not a needle, people's heads are not rolling off their
bodies.
I had never heard anything bad about the drug until this
happened to me. And I saw myself, I was watching the MTV thing
and saw my own story and thought, oh, my gosh, I wish I would
have seen this. I wish there had been someone else who survived
this who had came forward and done this. I cannot say
definitely no way would I have done it. I think it really,
really would have helped.
I think most of the kids that I talk to are really
intelligent and they want to know, they are thirsty and hungry
for information. It is not like, oh, I am a rebel, I just want
to use drugs. They really do not know any better. Like Kate was
saying, most of the kids I ask too, do your parents talk to
you, do you have health classes. Some of them do not even have
mandatory health classes and the last thing they remember was
maybe in the third grade having a DARE officer come in and talk
to them.
Ms. Patton. And they tune out.
Ms. Smith. They tune out. Someone comes in, you know, I go
in, I dye my hair different colors, I just want to be one of
them and I feel so close to them knowing what they are going
through and being a young person, not saying the DARE officers
are not great in their own right but at the same time there has
to be a whole new way and a whole new approach to the issue.
And it is a whole new generation of kids, very intelligent
kids, very savvy kids, knowing a lot more than I did at that
age, and that was only 6 years ago that I was in high school.
So I think there just needs to be a much more respectful and
intelligent approach and truthful, very truthful.
Mr. Cummings. The thing is that we serve not only as
parents here but as legislators to affect young people before
they get to the point of using. And the more I listen to your
testimony it reminds me of one time in Baltimore, the area I
represent, and I brought in someone to a high school class who
had sold drugs and used drugs and had gone to prison, had been
through a lot, and the interesting thing was about 6 or 7
months later I was talking to the teacher, just ran into her in
the supermarket, and I said, ``Do you think we had any
impact?'' And she said, ``The kids were so impressed they
wanted to try it.'' It was very interesting. Here I was
thinking that I was actually doing something to prevent and
they again thinking it will never happen to me, that is the
exception to the rule, they would take the part, for example,
in your presentation when you said how you felt in the
beginning. And I want to make it very clear that I admire you
all for coming, your testimony is very important, but a lot of
these kids took the glamour of the piece and just discarded the
rest of it based on, well, that is not going to happen to me.
We struggle so much.
Ms. Smith. It is so hard. But I have the exact kind of
opposite experience with kids saying that it is the scare
tactics that do not work. And you have to be truthful and say
it does make you feel amazing because it is a chemical that has
a reaction and it does make you feel all these things, but you
have to include all of the awful things that it forces you to
live with, if you are lucky enough to make it.
Mr. Cummings. Just one question, Ms. Patton. The thing that
you said just kind of struck me was when you said there were
three--I forgot how you said it.
Ms. Patton. I lost Kelley three times.
Mr. Cummings. Yes. And one of them, the second one was you
talked about her selling. How did that come to your attention?
Did you find out about it after----
Ms. Patton. After. I did not even know she was doing drugs
before the police came to my door to tell me she had died. You
feel like you have just been slapped in the face. And then I
thought it must have been a car accident, and I said, ``How?''
And the police officer said it was an overdose of ecstasy. Well
then I was faced with well what is that. And again it is
another blow. They said it was a very popular drug among young
kids, it was a club drug. I mean, I absolutely knew nothing
about ecstasy or club drugs before the police came to my door.
But it was afterwards, a couple of weeks after she died
that they told me. They did not lay all that on me then, they
told me a couple of weeks afterward that she was involved in
selling it. But that is the grasp that drug has on people. It
is the seductive grasp that drug has.
Mr. Cummings. Talking to parents, do you get the impression
that maybe parents just want to avoid this subject and just
sort of hope that----
Ms. Patton. Hoping it is going to go away? Yes, and I was
one of those. I asked her, ``Do you do drugs?'' And she said,
``I've tried some things, I've smoked some marijuana. That's
it.'' And that was it. Our drug talk lasted 30 seconds because
I was one of those parents that thought it could not possibly
happen to my kids. She grew up in an affluent family and I
never did drugs, she knew my stand and my feeling on drugs, so
I guess I thought that will just rub off on her and she will
never try drugs. Well, I was sadly mistaken. We as parents
cannot take that cavalier attitude thinking that just because
we did not do it they will not. There is just so much
temptation out there.
I really feel it starts at home. And if your kids sit there
and roll their eyes when you are talking to them about it, they
are still listening. Just as an example, my young daughter was
down with her dad for the summer and he never asked her where
she was going or told her to come home at a certain time. She
is 14. She would just say good-bye and he would never say where
are you going and be back at a certain time. She came home and
she said, ``You know, mom, I just don't think dad cares about
me.'' And I said, ``Yes, he does.'' She said, ``Well he never
asks where I go and he never tells me to come home at a certain
time. I know you care because you tell me to come home at a
certain time.'' And I think that is the same about drugs.
You care about your kids and you have got to sit down and
talk to them about the drugs. You have got to be knowledgeable
and know what you are talking about, and there are so many ways
to become knowledgeable nowadays that there is no excuse that
people cannot. But you have to take the time. I know people
have two jobs and blended families and what have you, but it
has got to be a priority. Parents have to realize that it
starts at home. I think some parents also feel that, well, the
schools will do it. I do not have to do it, the schools will do
it. Well, yes, the schools will, hopefully, not guaranteed,
perhaps touch on the subject. But we cannot rely solely on the
schools. Schools cannot solely rely on parents. As I said in my
statement, it takes a village to raise a child. And this is
what it is going to take for kids to stay away from drugs.
And you were mentioning about the commercials. I know the
Office of National Drug Control Policy did all the commercials,
John Walters is the Drug Czar, it was not his tenure, but they
said it was a bust. They said it was an absolute bust. I had
the distinct privilege of meeting with President Bush a couple
of months ago and he was telling me about it and he said that
we wasted so much money on those commercials because they felt
that kids were going out and trying the drugs after looking at
those commercials. I think you have to be very careful what
commercial you put up there, that it not somehow instead make
them curious as to, well, what is all the big hullabaloo about,
let's go try it and find out.
Mr. Souder. We need to say for the record that actually is
not true. They were disappointed that they did not make more
progress. And we are trying to make the program more effective.
But the problem in this whole field is that would be equivalent
to if you would talk to a high school and then it was found out
that some of those kids had used drugs and holding it
accountable to your presentation. There are so many different
aspects, of what is going on simultaneously, in fact, even the
drug data itself in different subgroups. We have had a lot of
hot debate how to do it. It is not as effective and we are
looking at how to make the things more effective.
But we need to say for the record we have mixed studies on
DARE, in some communities it has worked extremely well, in
others it has not. We have mixed studies on different treatment
programs. Frankly, there is mixed data on all this kind of
stuff. That is what we are wrestling with of how to do it. Do
you try to cover more people for shorter periods, or fewer
people for longer periods, which type of treatment programs.
We have had in front of this committee, I have been in
Congress since 1994 and have been on this subcommittee, we have
had unbelievably compelling testimony from mothers, spouses who
have been beaten by their spouses on marijuana, from kids who
come forth. I remember one in Phoenix where the mom was laying
the cocaine on the table for the kids to snort after they came
home from school. And in Florida, a young son with his dad, who
was an elected official, and the son said he was basically
trying to get his dad's attention. His dad broke down and cried
in the hearing, and it was the first time he had gone public as
an elected official in that community. Really powerful
testimony.
It is not like we have not had the Partnership for Drug
Free America--these ads are difficult to do. Those are some of
the smartest ad guys in the country. They have been trying to
research, to figure out how effectively to do it. We have been
going back and forth between do you scare, do you acknowledge,
don't you acknowledge. If we acknowledge, we have the problem
you are talking about, do we get somebody interested who was
not previously. If we do not acknowledge, are we being
artificial. If we do not scare, they do not understand the
seriousness of the consequences. But if we do scare, those who
have not had that----
Ms. Patton. It is a tough nut to crack.
Mr. Souder. We really appreciate your testimony today
because what we know is, it is almost like every campaign,
after you do something for a while, unless you freshen it up,
it is not going to work. And we are very disappointed with the
national ad campaign results. It is not what we had hoped to
get. We are very disappointed in our interdiction program. We
are very disappointed in what is happening in Colombia. We are
disappointed that so many people in treatment wind up back in
treatment. I have never met an addict who has not been in
multiple treatment programs. That does not mean we give up on
treatment. It does not mean we give up on interdiction. It does
not mean we give up on drug free schools. It does not mean we
give up on ad programs. What we are looking for and what you
are participating in today is how do we make this stuff more
effective. And it is an honest study and we need everybody's
input.
I want to see if Ms. Davis has anything. We have a vote
called.
Ms. Davis of Virginia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I will make
it sort of brief. I think you have just sort of put it all in a
nutshell of how there is no silver bullet for this problem. It
takes a lot of different avenues to try and reach these kids. I
do not think we can give up on any of the ways that we are
trying to stop the drug abuse and to save our kids.
Ms. Patton, I understand what you are saying about it
starts at home. But even if you are a parent who sits and talks
to your child, that is not the silver bullet that says that
child will not try it. And Ms. Smith, I think your going out
and talking to the kids is--my own son turned his life around.
I felt he was doing some sort of drugs and I talked to him,
talked to him, and talked to him until I was blue in the face.
As a parent, I did not know how to reach him. He constantly
denied it and I had no proof. He has since, 4 years ago, turned
his life around and now he is going into the ministry and he is
out ministering to other kids, which is fantastic. So prayer
saved him. Now I do not think we can legislate prayer, but
prayer did work with him.
Ms. Smith, you said we need a whole new wave of education.
So you are saying that the ``Just Say No'' the DARE program did
not work with you or you did not have that in your school?
Ms. Smith. I did not have that in my school.
Ms. Davis of Virginia. How can we do a whole new wave of
education in schools? What is your suggestion there? I mean, we
cannot go out and get, we cannot clone you. I do not support
cloning, we are not going to pass that. So what would you
suggest?
Ms. Smith. I guess it is just I encourage people who e-mail
me and tell me their stories so much worse than mine and so
much more devastating, and if they are able to they ask me what
can I do. Look, I have seen your story posted, what can I do or
how can I be heard. I say go out right where you are, your
local area, go to the church, go to a local school, go wherever
and tell your story. Just start out. I mean, I went to a
juvenile detention center 2 weeks after I got out of the
hospital because I just needed to. That is when I realized,
wow, all of these guys who are in there for murder, for selling
drugs, they had already pretty much hit rock bottom and they
were listening to me and they were asking me questions. And I
realized that, wow, I think this could work.
I think the more e-mails I get, the more people call me and
say can you come here, can you come there, I figure maybe
something is working and something is clicking in a lot of
young people's minds, maybe not all of them.
It is kind of ironic. I was contacted by Dance Safe and The
Partnership for a Drug Free America around the same time after
my MTV show aired, both asking me to work for them, to
volunteer for them. Emmanuel, the head of Dance Safe, said if
you want to fly out here and put some testing kits together, I
will put you on a salary. And then the Partnership called and
said how about coming here and telling your story, putting it
on a Web site, not getting paid a thing, just doing it. I was
like, OK, I think that one sounds better. And a lot of young
people look to this Dance Safe, too. Like you were saying,
there is just no one silver bullet.
Ms. Davis of Virginia. You have to try everything. If you
save one, you are successful.
Ms. Patton. Exactly. And you keep plugging away and look at
the big picture. For me at least, it is difficult at times to
go out there and talk. Two days before Kelley's birthday I had
a big 500-kid presentation and I thought I have got to look at
the bigger picture, I am helping kids here and I have got to
overcome the way I am feeling right now, as hard as it was.
Mrs. Jo Ann Davis. I thank you all for coming and
testifying. That is all I have, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Souder. Ms. Smith, you said in your original testimony
that you had not seen your friends where you had your overdose.
Have they been affected by your comments, and why not?
Ms. Smith. You know, no one contacted--with ecstasy, it is
a very tribal drug, too. Kids doing it, not just kids, anyone
doing it, they just feel a real sense of community, a sense of
family. That is what I felt with ecstasy too, that with all of
these people gathered, we came together and I felt like I was a
part of something, that I was in some sick way doing something
better together with other people. And your question was?
Mr. Souder. Have they changed? Has what happened to you
impacted them?
Ms. Smith. When I left that afternoon and I went home to
Pennsylvania never to return to that apartment, I returned to
New York City, and no one called me while I was in the
hospital, no one contacted me. None of those friends that were
just like hugging and kissing and giving you massages, not a
trace of them anywhere to be found. To this day I have not
talked to one of them. I never made an effort to kind of go
back and talk. It was just they are still in the same life,
they are still going to the clubs, they are still doing the
same thing.
Mr. Souder. Why wouldn't your life have scared them?
Ms. Smith. Why didn't it scare them?
Mr. Souder. Yes. I mean, it is a profound question we are
trying to figure out, and that is to some degree our prevention
programs are oriented toward people who are not in the
immediate temptation stage. We are trying to brace them before
they get there. Then even if we brace them, when they actually
get in the temptation it is like they forget everything they
heard beforehand. Your friends, you look at it, you say it is
not going to happen to me, I am different. And one of our big
challenges is what can we do that penetrates while you are in
your period of risk, and your friends are still in the period
of risk, the people you are talking to may or may not be
predominantly, and the question is how do we reach that group?
Ms. Smith. Very good question. I was thinking, wow, they
are all going to change because of what happened to me being so
close, being what I thought was close friends during that time.
They were almost--it scared them in a lot of ways I think
because I was so vocal about what happened to me and I was on
MTV. They were scared. They were scared that I was going to say
something, like I was going to go on a national television show
and hold up their pictures and say that these guys--that kind
of thing. So I think right away the wall went up. They did not
want to talk to me because all of a sudden I went from being in
a dingy apartment to you know.
Mr. Souder. Well thank you very much for your testimony. We
appreciate all the work that Phoenix House does all over the
country. We need more treatment programs. I understand your
basic point about the length of time, that these 8 week
programs are why we have a lot of repetitiveness, because it is
complex as to why the people get it and trying to figure out
what gives the best iron will before it happens. But how to
reach that at-risk group and how they will not fall back are
the incredible challenges we have, and to keep the supply down.
So it has been enlightening. It has been enlightening on
ecstasy and the particular allure. I hope that you will each
keep up your aggressive efforts at the grassroots level.
With that, we stand adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:05 p.m., the committee was adjourned, to
reconvene at the call of the Chair.]
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