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

NARCOTICS RESEARCH, REHABILITATION,AND TREATMENTTUESDAY, APRIL 27, 1971House or Representatives,Select Committee on Crime,Washington^ D.C.The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 :05 a.m., in room 2359,Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Claude Pepper (chairman)presiding.Present: Representatives Pepper, Eangel, Mann, Brasco, Waldie,Wiggins, Steiger, Winn, and Keating.Also pr(;sent : Paul Perito, chief counsel ; and Michael W. Blommer,associate chief counsel.Chairman Pepper. The committee will come to order, please. We arevery pleased to see in the audience this morning a large niunber ofyoung ladies and gentlemen. We hope you will find something ofinterest in the hearings we are holding today.Yesterday, the Crime Committee heard testimony from threeuniquely qualified and eminently distinguished scientists and medicalresearchers. Doctors Seevers, Eddy, and Brill all agreed that we nowhave sufficient synthetic substitutes for morphine and codeine capableof satisfying the painkilling and cough suppressing needs of ourNation.For those who were not here yesterday, let me say that the SelectCommittee on Crime is trying to find some way to diminish the menaceof heroin addiction in this country. We have already heard evidence toshow that in spite of all the efforts of the Federal Government andall those agencies cooperating with the Federal Government, we seizeonly about 20 percent of the heroin that is smuggled into this country.The other 80 percent comes into this country to be the largest singlecause of death of young adults in some of our largest cities.Last year, in Dade County, Fla., my congressional district, we had41 deaths from heroin. We have already had nine this year. The numberis in the several hundreds in the United States each year.So in view of the difficulty of stopping heroin from coming in, weare looking at some options, or some alternatives, as it were. If wecould just stop the worldwide cultivation of the opium poppy altogether,that would, of course, eliminate that problem. It would makeit unnecessary to spend so much money trying to intercept the opiumsmuggled into this country in the form of heroin.But in order to do that, we have to eliminate a very large legitimateneed for derivatives of opium, because doctors use morphine and co-(77)