Chuck Grassley: “A few steps from this Capitol Building is a combat zone. In just a few blocks from here lies the killing ground that is…”

“A few steps from this Capitol Building is a combat zone. In just a few blocks from here lies the killing ground that is one of the consequences of the illegal drug trade in this country. On average, over 400 people in Washington are murdered every year. That is roughly 60 lives lost per 100,000 population. The national average is 6 per 100,000. That makes Washington the Nation's murder capital. Those casualties, the lives lost and maimed, occur in just a few neighborhoods. They are not spread out over the whole city. Much of this carnage is directly the result of drugs and the harm that they cause, a harm that falls disproportionately on a few neighborhoods. Now, virtually every ounce of illegal drug you can buy within a stone's throw of here--and that is just about any drug you could want in any quantity you care to buy--is produced overseas. It is imported into this country. Washington is not on the border with Mexico. We don't grow poppies in ward 6 or coca in Anacostia. These drugs find their way here in commercial cargo, in motor homes, in peoples' stomachs. They fly, walk, drive, and float into this country every day in a thousand ways. That availability is killing us. But the story does not stop here. The criminal thugs that bring drugs into this country are not philanthropists. They are in the business to make money. And lots of it. That's why they come to the world's largest emporium. And they do well.”