Narcotics research, rehabilitation, and treatment. Hearings, Ninety ...

560cant when you consider that Out of the total, the estimated total ofabout 110,000 addicts in the State of New York, already 1,200 of them,again an estimate, are returning veterans. It is our fondest hope, Mr.Chairman, that the promise of policy that has recently been enunciatedwill be transformed by this administration and by the Congress intothe performance pi-ogram. We, of course, have some pretty fixed ideasas to the directions in which these programs should move and to thingsthat should be done, perhaps to quickly implement the programs thatJiave been announced, willi the help, of course, of this Congress.Chairman Pepper. Mr. Jones, do you loiow that one of our members,Mr. ^lorgan Murphy of Illinois, was one of the Representatives who,with Representative Steele, made the i-epoit on the world heroin problem;his particular interest is the pro}:)lem of addiction among ourveterans in the Indo-China war ?Mr. JoxES. Yes, I heard of Mr. Murphy and his trip and his report.I look forward to some meaningful exchanges, as a matter of fact,between our commission and the Congressman.Because of the large number of heroin addicts in tlie State of NewYorlc and, indeed, in the country and because of the fact that the matterof heroin addiction carries with it such a large impact on the rest ofsociety with regard to crime and the effect of crime, understandably,much of the concern, both at the Federal and State levels, has beendirected toward the heroin addict. The first observation we would liketo make, of course, is one that I am sure is familiar to the gentlemenof this committee. That is that heroin addiction is merely a tiny fractionof the total problem of drug abuse in the Nation. I think it wouldbe helpful, therefore, if generally speaking, we thought in terms—thatis, for defining program differentiations—if we thought in terms offour main categories of drug abusers : The experimenters, the recreationalor social users, the involved users, and the disfunctionalabusers—^tlie latter group, of course, including but not limited to narcoticaddicts.Certain essential facts, I think, must i-emain in the forefront ofour thinking and our planning. One outstanding fact, Mr. Chairman,is that the drug abuser today is younger, much younger thanhe was even 4 or 5 years ago. He is much more inclined' to take risksand more importantly, he has been found to be a multiple drug user.Just 4 years ago, for example, when our commission first beganoperations, the average age of the heroin addict in New York was29. Today, that median age is estimated at 21. Today, 35 percent ofthe 12,000 addicts under our direct jurisdiction—and by "our," Imean the commission itself—are under age 20 in the State of NewYork. Similarly, I think your own studies will show that whereasonly 15 percent of the addicts admitted to the Federal hospital atLexington in 1936 were 20 years or yomiger, today 53 percent of them,as I am sure you know, are under age 19.I think these statistics simply highlight what we all know to bethe clear evidence of a growing epidemic, really a pandemic, in thecountry today.Mr. PePvIto. Based upon your vast experience do you believe thatpandemic would be a more ])roper classification than epidemic?Mr. Jones. Indeed I do, and I think recent developments will bearthat out, especially with the incidence of returning veterans, com-