John Mica: “Tonight is Tuesday night and it is the night that I reserve to come before the House on the issue of illegal narcotics…”

“Tonight is Tuesday night and it is the night that I reserve to come before the House on the issue of illegal narcotics and how the problem of drug abuse and illegal narcotics affects our Nation and the impact that illegal narcotics has upon our society, this Congress, and the American people. Tonight I want to provide a brief update of some of the information that we have obtained. Our subcommittee, which I am privileged to chair, the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources of the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, has as one of its primary charters and responsibilities to help develop a coherent policy, at least from the perspective of the House of Representatives, and working with the other body, the United States Senate and also the White House, the administration, to come up with a coherent strategy to deal with the problem of drug abuse and illegal narcotics. I have often cited on the floor the impact which really knows no boundaries today in the United States. Almost every family is affected in some way by drug abuse, illegal narcotics, or the ravages of drug-related overdose and death. I have cited a most recent statistic, which is 15,973 Americans died in 1998, the last figures we have total for drug-related deaths. And according to our drug czar, Barry McCaffrey, who testified before our subcommittee, over 52,000 Americans died in the last recorded year of drug-related deaths either directly or indirectly.”