τ DESIGNER DRUGS CIS RECORD ONLY: HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIME OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY NINETY-NINTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION ON H.R. 2014, H.R. 2977, H.R. 3936, and S. 1437 63-720 O Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE WASHINGTON: 1986 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, Congressional Sales Office JACK BROOKS, Texas COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY PETER W. RODINO, JR., New Jersey, Chairman ROBERT W. KASTENMEIER, Wisconsin West Virginia JOHN BRYANT, Texas HAMILTON FISH, JR., New York F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., BILL MCCOLLUM, Florida E. CLAY SHAW, JR., Florida WILLIAM E. DANNEMEYER, California PATRICK L. SWINDALL, Georgia CONTENTS Hon. Lawton Chiles, a U.S. Senator from the State of Florida Richard Hawks, Ph.D., Chief, Research Technology Branch, Division of Pre- clinical Research, National Institute on Drug Abuse, Public Health Service, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, accompanied by Vernon Houk, M.D., Director, Center for Environmental Health, Centers for Dis- ease Control, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; Edward C. Tocus, Ph.D., Director, Drug Abuse Staff, Center for Drugs and Biologics, Food and Drug Administration, U.S. Department of Health and Human James N. Hall, director, Up Front Drug Information Center, Miami, FL; Robert T. Angarola, Esquire, Hyman, Phelps & McNamara, Washington, DC; Lester Grinspoon, M.D., associate professor of psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, MA; Everett H. Ellinwood, Jr., M.D., professor of psychiatry and pharmacology, Duke University Medical Center, on Page DESIGNER DRUGS THURSDAY, MAY 1, 1986 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIME, Washington, DC. The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:20 a.m., in room 2237, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. William J. Hughes (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Present: Representatives Hughes, Smith, Staggers, McCollum, Lungren, Shaw, and Gekas. Staff present: Hayden Gregory, counsel; Eric E. Sterling and Edward O'Connell, assistant counsel; Charlene Vanlier Heydinger, associate counsel; Phyllis Henderson, clerk. Mr. HUGHES. The Subcommittee on Crime will come to order. The Chair has received a request to cover this hearing in whole or in part by television broadcast, radio broadcast, still photography, or by other similar methods. In accordance with committee rule 5(a), permission will be granted unless there is an objection. Is there objection? Hearing none, so ordered. Today the Subcommittee on Crime is continuing its examination of the problem of designer drugs. Two years ago, in the course of our examination of the diversion of controlled substances from medical purposes to the black market, we looked at the problem of designer drugs such as the fentanyl analogs, and MPPP, which were causing death and paralysis, particularly on the west coast. In conjunction with the DEA, we developed an approach to the problem that allows the Drug Enforcement Administration to schedule these substances on a very short timeframe on an emergency basis. This process for temporary scheduling freed DEA from the usual time-consuming requirement of scientific study that is the basis for determining what drugs ought to be controlled and in what schedule they can most approximately be controlled. Since the law became effective, as part of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984, DEA has used the authority 5 times to control some 13 substances. We have already obtained convictions of chemists who have manufactured drugs that have been controlled under this emergency authority. On December 2, last year, a chemist in Wilmington, DE, was arrested by DEA as he attempted to pick up more than a quarter of a million dollars as payment for fentanyl analogs. This man, a chemist with a major chemical company, was a dealer in schedule I drugs and sentenced to 18 years in prison. He had faced a maximum of 40 years in prison. The record of that case starkly |