Joe Barton: “we are here today engaged in a debate about whether the government of Mexico has fully complied in their efforts to…”

“we are here today engaged in a debate about whether the government of Mexico has fully complied in their efforts to cooperate with the United States of America in the war against drugs. We seem to be putting a lot of emphasis on the word ``fully.'' I want to ask the Members of this body, have we fully cooperated with ourselves? How many Members of this body have a drug testing program in their office? One, two. I have got mandatory, and the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Shaw] has one. That is 2 out of 435. How many Members of this body have a full-time antidrug coordinator on their congressional staffs in their district and how many Members of this body have done everything possible in terms of education and outreach in their congressional districts? I think we should first look at ourselves before we look south of the border. But let us look south of the border, and look at what happened just in the last year. Is Mexico trying to do its part? In 1996, they eradicated 56,000 acres of marijuana production. How many did we eradicate in this country? In 1996, they eradicated 36,000 acres of poppy production. In 1996, they seized 24,000 kilograms of cocaine, they seized 363 kilograms of heroin, and they seized 1,006 of marijuana. Let us look at extradition. There seems to be quite a bit of concern in the Congress about extradition. Before 1995, the Government of Mexico had never extradited anyone, nada, zero. In 1995, they extradited 5 non-Mexicans.…”