Mark Souder: “Madam Speaker, this is a worldwide battle. It is not a battle just in the United States. Yesterday five Colombian…”

“Madam Speaker, this is a worldwide battle. It is not a battle just in the United States. Yesterday five Colombian national police were painfully gassed in police headquarters in large part because of a war caused in Colombia because of American drug consumption. Last week some Members were in Venezuela at the Andean parliament session to discuss antinarcotics efforts in the Andean nations where most of our cocaine and heroin comes from. As they look at creative ways to reduce the amount of poppy and coca that is grown, as they look for ways to reduce the consumption in their area, what we do in America has a direct impact on South America and Central America. Madam Speaker, we went up to Pucalpa and we saw in the Amazonian jungle fires coming up throughout this national park as peasants stripped the woods along the Amazon basin in order to plant more coca for American consumption. While Plan Colombia is important and the Andean Initiative is important, and law enforcement efforts are important and interdiction efforts are important, the fact is, unless we concentrate more aggressively on prevention and treatment in America where the demand begins, we cannot make any other program work. The demand is beginning here, and this bill is the anchor of our Federal prevention efforts in America. This is a desperate battle we cannot afford to lose.”