Mr. SONNENREICH. In examining the single agency, we discussed the concept of consolidation. This consolidation included the reorganization of the Department of Justice similar to this reorganization plan, only with an integrity unit outside of it for monitoring. It also included the creation within the Department of HEW of a similar kind of administration and for the international matters, the State Department. In other words, the consolidation would include three units.

We don't think that is as good as the single agency, but certainly it is in the right direction in terms of improving efficiency. However, if we are going to maintain these agencies within the departments, we don't feel that we should put rehabilitation, treatment, prevention, and education within the Department of Justice.

Mr. HORTON. That is not involved here, though?

Mr. SONNENREICH. That is correct. We don't think that should be done. We think that should remain within the Department of HEW. As you are aware, the Special Action Office will self-destruct, in the sense it will be converted into an institute within the Department of HEW during fiscal year 1974.

Mr. HORTON. Well what would you feel to be the best move for the functions of the Special Action Office for Drug Abuse Prevention? Mr. SONNENREICH. Well, it will transfer by statute under the Drug Abuse Office and Treatment Act of 1972, Public Law 92-255. That will transfer automatically at the end of 1974. It will be integrated within HEW.

SINGLE INSPECTION SERVICE

Mr. HORTON. You have indicated support for this concept for one agency control?

Mr. SONNENREICH. Yes, sir.

Mr. HORTON. Yet, at the same time, you indicated in your testimony that you would be concerned about a single inspection service at the border.

Mr. SONNENREICH. Yes.

Mr. HORTON. I am a little bit confused on that. I gather from what you said that you would not support that phase of the plan. But I thought that your overriding concern is that there is a dispersal throughout the Federal Government of these special law enforcement activities. Your Commission did indicate they thought they ought to be in one agency so there could be better control, more efficiency, more effectiveness. And like the chairman, I am not so much concerned about the cost here as I am about the effectiveness of how we deal with this drug problem. I wish you could comment on that.

Mr. SONNENREICH. Well, we would support the combination, however, we are not overly optimistic. It would be efficient in terms of paper flow and efficient in terms of a whole range of administrative matters. Now, whether it is going to result in efficiency in terms of interdicting drugs, in terms of being more effective, that is questionable because it is questionable whether or not you are going to be able to, no matter how hard you try, stop many drugs coming into the United States.

Mr. HORTON. Let's talk now about that. You have the Immigration and Naturalization Service?

94-735-73-6

Mr. SONNENREICH. Yes.

Mr. HORTON. You have Customs?

Mr. SONNENREICH. Yes.

Mr. HORTON. Let's not talk about conflicts between agencies and that sort of thing, let's just talk about the dispersal. You have BNDD. What other agencies do you have?

Mr. SONNENREICH. For what?

Mr. HORTON. For law enforcement.

Mr. SONNENREICH. Oh, you have the Office of Drug Abuse Law Enforcement, the Office of National Narcotics Intelligence.

Mr. HORTON. And the FBI, the CIA, the overseas operation and domestic operation?

Mr. SONNENREICH. Right.

Mr. HORTON. Now, this is all scattered at the present time through different Federal agencies. One of the concerns that the Commission had and one of the concerns that this plan addresses itself to is the concept of trying to pull all of this together into one agency, at the same time recognizing that there are some things like the education, training, research, and development that appropriately should not be under here.

If you don't consolidate some of these functions, as this plan does, it seems to me you would still have the same situation as currently exists.

Mr. SONNENREICH. No question about it. This plan, in theory, and it is hard to say whether it will be in application, is absolutely better than what we have now. There is no question about that in my mind. This is the reason why we would support it. It is not that we would hold out for our particular recommendation necessarily. We think this is a step in the right direction. It is certainly better than the existing

situation.

The only thing I caution is let us not be overly optimistic about what a reorganization will accomplish. I went through the 1968 reorganization whereby we put the Federal Bureau of Narcotics from Treasury and the Bureau of Drug Abuse Control from HEW into the Department of Justice. It worked better than the two agencies operating separately. There is no question about that. The question is—and I am sure this will work better than the existing situation-to what degree. To be overly optimistic about cutting the drugs coming in from overseas is unfounded. There are many other factors that play on this and no reorganization plan in itself can address this problem totally. We have to talk about long-term law enforcement strategies. We have to talk about whether the way in which we are investigating these drug offenses is getting at the people we want to get at. Those are the questions. Those are the key issues. I don't think this reorganization can answer all of them.

I think it can establish a structure that makes it much more viable, but I think there is another question that the reorganization plan does not and should not address itself to and that is what are we doing in the law enforcement area to get to the people we want to get to? Are we eliminating the major drug traffickers? What new approaches are we going to take in trying to get at him rather than getting at the lower end of the scale?

The Commission has run its studies on customs, on the BNDD, and the States.

Mr. HORTON. Excuse me, but all of the things you talk about would be major concerns of this new Drug Enforcement Administration? Mr. SONNENREICH. That is correct.

Mr. HORTON. And all of the concerns you express would be better handled if you had a drug enforcement agency as such, rather than to have it scattered through the various Federal agencies, right? Mr. SONNENREICH. I agree wholeheartedly with that.

SPECIAL NARCOTICS COURTS

Mr. HORTON. There have been some charges and countercharges that the court system for handling drug cases is inadequate. Did the Commission take a look at this issue?

Mr. SONNENREICH. Are you talking about the separate narcotics courts in New York State, for example?

Mr. HORTON. Right.

Mr. SONNENREICH. Well, having spoken to many people from New York State and having observed the court system there, as courts go, they are fine; but that basic question still remains that they cannot handle all of the people that are being brought in. The result is that the law enforcement people and the police are caught in a bind-if they bring in all the violators that they should from the streets, the court system cannot handle it, the prosecutory arm can't handle it.

Thus, selective law enforcement, not in the bad sense of the word, but in a very realistic sense of the word, occurs. Another result is that charges are leveled that people out on the streets that should be arrested, aren't; but if the police arrest them, there is no place to put them. We have in our present State, local, and Federal systems approximately 194,000 people in jails. We have 428,000 civily committed to mental institutions. According to last year's uniform crime reports of the FBI, 495,000 people were arrested for drug offenses, of which 220,000 were arrested for marihuana. Vast majorities of the arrests were for heroin. If we had arrested everybody and prosecuted everybody and found a fair percentage of them guilty, we would have more than doubled our entire criminal prison population in 1 year.

Now, you cannot deal with a system that is making those many arrests; realistically, the police are caught in the middle.

Mr. HORTON. What has the Commission recommended?

Mr. SONNENREICH. Our recommendation was for drug dependent people to use the criminal system to the degree that it is still a prohibitive act for all cases, except marihuana, whose private use and possession would be decriminalized. As to heroin and other drugs, it would remain a criminal act, a prohibited act, but the criminal justice system for drug dependent people would reach out and utilize the criminal justice system to hold out the threat of incarceration and to get them into treatment and to utilize our treatment modalities to try to deal with this individual under the treatment programs, including methadone maintenance.

Chairman HOLIFIELD. Mr. St Germain?

Mr. ST GERMAIN. No questions.

Chairman HOLIFIELD. Mr. Fuqua?
Mr. FUQUA. No questions.

Mr. HORTON. No more questions.

Chairman HOLIFIELD. Well, thank you very much, sir.

The next witness will be Mr. Clyde M. Webber, national president, American Federation of Government Employees.

STATEMENT OF CLYDE M. WEBBER, NATIONAL PRESIDENT, AMERICAN FEDERATION OF GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES; ACCOMPANIED BY LOUIS M. PELLERZI, GENERAL COUNSEL; CARL K. SADLER, LEGISLATIVE REPRESENTATIVE; FRANCIS P. VETERE, PRESIDENT, NEW YORK COUNCIL OF CUSTOMS LOCALS; LEE G. CREMER, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL COUNCIL OF IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION LOCALS; MICHAEL G. HARPOLD, PRESIDENT, LOCAL 1616, INS, SAN FRANCISCO; STEPHEN A. KOCZAK, DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH; AND B. N. HEMSTAD, IMMIGRATION INSPECTOR, NEW ORLEANS, LA.

Mr. WEBBER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have with me today Mr. Lee Cremer, who is the president of our national council of immigration and naturalization locals of the American Federation of Government Employees, and immediately to my right Mr. Lewis Pellerzi, general counsel of AFGE.

Chairman HOLIFIELD. What was the first gentleman's name?

Mr. WEBBER. On my left, I have Mr. Stephen Koczak, director of research for the AFGE

Chairman HOLIFIELD. And the others?

Mr. WEBBER. He is the director of research of the American Federation of Government Employees.

This is Mr. Sadler, our legislative representative, and this is Mr. Francis P. Vetere, president, New York Council of Customs Locals. This is Michael G. Harpold, president, Local 1616, of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Mr. Hemstad

Chairman HOLIFIELD. What is his first name?
Mr. WEBBER. Bruce.

Chairman HOLIFIELD. What is his functions?

Mr. WEBBER. Supervisor, immigration inspector, New Orleans.

These folks are officials of our union and our offices of our local unions, who represent the employees involved and who will be covered by Reorganization Plan No. 2.

Mr. HORTON. Just for clarification, we have three statements. We have one from Mr. Cremer and one from Mr. Harpold, and one from you, Mr. Webber.

Mr. WEBBER. Right.

Mr. HORTON. Do we have any other statements that will be made? Mr. WEBBER. Do we have any?

Mr. VETERE. I would place myself in the position to respond to any questions as to the effectiveness of Customs.

Mr. HORTON. I just want to make sure I have all the prepared statements.

Mr. WEBBER. Yes.

There is no doubt that the illegal narcotics and drug problem is today the most important criminal problem confronting our Nation. Our organization, the American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO, representing 625,000 Federal employees in exclusive recognition units, is convinced that it is imperative that the American people undertake "all-out global war on the drug menace." To conduct this war realistically, it is important that the resources of the Federal, State, and local governments be mobilized, marshaled, and efficiently used.

We believe it is not sufficient to rely on existing statutes to carry out this war effectively. New legislation is needed. And the new legislation should be comprehensive enough to serve as the basis of this all-out global war for the next decade. This new legislation should include not only the best strategy and tactics to wage this war; it shoud unify the present inadequate and separate agencies; and it should incorporate all the proposals that the best talent and expertise in our country can submit to Congress.

Because of our basic conviction regarding the need for new legislation, our organization welcomed the introduction by Senator Ribicoff of his bill, S. 942, on February 21, 1973, designed to "transfer and reorganize all existing law enforcement functions of the Federal Government related to trafficking in narcotics and dangerous drugs in a Division of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, established in the Federal Bureau of Investigation." We saw the introduction of this bill as the beginning of a comprehensive and speedy review by Congress of the drug menace and the early enactment of new laws. The fact that Senator Ribicoff was willing to create new institutions in his war on the global drug menace was the most heartening part of this bill.

Because of our basic conviction regarding the need for new legislation, we were, frankly speaking, dismayed to learn on March 28, 1973, that the executive branch had decided to short-circuit and preempt this essential congressional review of the war on the drug menace. Unlike S. 942, which provided Congress with the opportunity for a creative, constructive approach to the illicit drug menace, Reorganization Plan No. 2 offers the country only a patchwork, makeshift approach which is superficial, relying on existing statutes and accepting without reservations the questionable premise that all that one needs to do to win this war is to apply better management to current programs and resources. As I shall show later in my statement, the unquestioned acceptance of this premise by the executive branch will not solve the drug menace we face; unfortunately, it will also destroy several other law enforcement programs many of which are already threatened through inadequate funding and staffing.

However, the worst aspect of Reorganization Plan No. 2 is that it will lull the national conscience into believing that finally we are on the way to really waging global war when all we are doing under it is regrouping our currently inefficient and ineffectual forces. If this plan, which will destroy the Immigration and Naturalization Service. is allowed to go into force, we will ourselves be drugged or brainwashed into believing that Congress needs to do nothing more. But this is not the world we confront.