TERRORISM WAR HAS MUCH IN COMMON WITH WAR ON DRUGS

November 25, 2001 - There are some advantages to similarities between these
two wars Our new war on terrorism has much in common with one of our
ongoing struggles: the war on drugs. Both are nontraditional wars. Both are
against enemies that kill indiscriminately. Both are here, on our own soil.
Indeed, so closely are they related that it is the ill- gotten profits from
one set of killers that serve as a major source of funding for the other.

In an odd way, however, there are advantages to the similarities between
these wars. Some of the measures that we can take to fight one may also
help us against the other. For example, in the months before the Sept. 11
attack, I began planning a series of field hearings of the Subcommittee on
Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources, which I chair, to
investigate issues along the U.S. borders with Canada and Mexico. I
convened the first of those hearings two weeks ago in Vermont and New York.

Border control issues affect both our war on terrorism and our war on
drugs. The enemies of our nation attacked from within. Tightening and
reinforcing of borders and border procedures may prevent those who wish to
do further violence from entering our country.

Reinforcing our borders will also help to stem the flood of illegal
narcotics that is feeding an ongoing epidemic in America. In every city,
town, county and village in this country, alcohol and illegal drugs account
for 70 to 85 percent of all crime, including child abuse and domestic
violence. We have a huge problem in the United States. We do not just have
problems with anthrax, which is scary. One of my colleagues has said it
well. We are already under chemical attack. The chemicals are illegal
narcotics.

In the early years of the Clinton administration, be it from the reduction
in interdiction or the casual treatment of drugs by our political
leadership - "I did not inhale" - or, as is most likely, some combination
of those and more, drug use in the United States soared to such a level
that just to get back to where we were when Bill Clinton took office, we
would have to have a 50 percent reduction in drug abuse.

Now there are new, more dangerous drugs crossing our borders. At my
hearings in New York and Vermont, we heard about Quebec Gold and BC Bud
marijuana as well as Ecstasy and methamphetamines heading to New York and
Boston through these border crossings. In many places, Quebec Gold and BC
Bud is selling for more than cocaine. Don't be fooled by its name: it is
not marijuana. It is far more potent than traditional marijuana, and is as
dangerous as cocaine.

The men and women guarding our borders are brave and hard working. But
there are simply not enough of them, and those we have do not have the
resources to stem this deadly flow.

There are concrete steps we can take toward securing our borders, and thus
decreasing the threat of future terrorism and slowing the flood of deadly
illegal narcotics.

We can work to hire more border personnel. This is not as easy as it may
seem. We passed a law in 1996 directing the Attorney General to increase
the number of Border Patrol agents by 5,000. We fell far short of those
goals. We've passed new legislation since Sept. 11 to increase personnel on
our borders, but the same structural problems that made hiring goals
difficult to meet in the 1990s still exist.

We can waive the overtime cap for current border personnel. Due to the very
long hours they have been working, they will reach that cap soon, and if it
is not waived we will be faced with the unenviable choice of asking them to
work for free, or not having them work at all.

We could reform the pay scales for border guards. There is a salary cap for
border personnel, and it is not very high. We have to make these jobs
competitive.

It might also mean making it easier for border agents to earn bonuses by
increasing their own skills. Language skills, for example, are vital for
those who protect our borders. But the tests that border agents must
currently take to earn bonuses for learning a foreign language are so
difficult that we heard the story of a native French speaker who could not
pass the test.

Both terrorists and drugs are killing innocent Americans. We can make great
strides in fighting them, and we can start by securing our own borders.