Mark Souder: “Colombia is critical to our efforts to keep the devastation of narcotics from American streets but just as importantly…”

“Colombia is critical to our efforts to keep the devastation of narcotics from American streets but just as importantly to the overall security of our hemisphere. I chair the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources, which is the authorizing subcommittee for the Office of National Drug Control Policy and the oversight committee for all anti-drug efforts in all branches of our Federal Government. Mr. Chairman, I want to clear up as we begin this debate a key point. I have also worked on the Drug-Free Schools Program in the Committee on Education and the Workforce. We authorize the Drug-Free Communities Act through our committee. I support efforts to boost drug treatment funding. I have worked in the student loan area with the drug-free student loan amendment. I have worked across the board on treatment, on prevention, on interdiction, on law enforcement, on eradication, and alternative development. But we cannot have a fair debate if we continue to have a distortion of where our expenditures go. Five percent go to international. Thirty-three percent to prevention and treatment.”