the House of Representatives has jurisdiction over legislation in that field.

In the case of the bill under consideration at our hearings this afternoon, about which I will say a word in a moment, the bill was referred to the House Committee on Education and Labor.

That committee is in turn divided into six subcommittees; three dealing with labor management problems and three dealing with problems in the field of education.

One of these education subcommittees is the Select Education Subcommittee of which I have the honor to be the chairman. Our subcommittee deals with a variety of problems in the field of education, one of these problems being the one to which we are directing our attention today.

Customarily, we first set days on which public hearings will be held, witnesses are invited to come in and present the point of view of the President and the Administration, of whatever department of the executive branch may be involved in administering the programs authorized under that proposed bill. We also hear testimony from interested Senators and Congressmen, from State and local officials, from educators, from people in private life, from whoever indicates an interest in having his views heard by our subcommittee.

Sometimes we are not able to hear orally all of the witnesses who request to testify, and we therefore invite them to present their views in writing to the subcommittee.

At the conclusion of hearings, and the hearing that we have this afternoon is the last hearing that we shall hear on the particular bill under consideration, the hearings are printed up. I shall see to it that a supply of the hearings on this legislation is provided for the schools in this county.

Next we go into what is known as a "mark-up session," where the members of our subcommittee, both minority and majority, sit together and go through the bill word by word, line by line, considering changes and amendments that may be proposed by any member of the subcommittee.

We then take a vote on the amendments and on the final bill. Hopefully in this case the bill will be approved by the subcommittee and thereafter sent to the full Committee on Education and Labor where it will be in turn subject to amendment by any member of the full committee.

After that the bill is voted on and if it is favorably reported it can be sent to the Rules Committee of the House of Representatives which will in turn consider the conditions under which the bill will be debated by the entire House of Representatives.

The bill is then sent to the Floor of the House where debate is conducted on it and where amendments may be offered to the bill by any of the 435 Members of the House of Representatives. The bill is then voted on.

A similar process goes on in the Senate. If the Senate passes a bill on the same subject that is in any way different from the bill passed by the House, the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate customarily appoint what is known as a conference committee composed of majority and minority members of the committee which had jurisdiction of the bill originally.

That conference committee meets, considers various compromises and accommodations and ultimately agrees on a single bill which in turn must be subsequently passed by both the House and the Senate. It is then sent to the President of the United States for his signature. The day before yesterday I had the great privilege of going down to the White House and being on hand when President Nixon signed into law a bill that my colleagues and I here this afternoon wrote, the Older Americans Act of 1969.

Then when the President signs his name to the bill, it is, of course, the law of the land.

Having commenced our hearing with that brief civics lesson, I want to say how pleased I am to welcome to Indiana and to the district I represent my distinguished colleagues on the Select Subcommittee on Education of the House Education and Labor Committee.

On my right is my friend and colleague from the State of Washington, the principal sponsor of this bill, Congressman Lloyd Meeds of Washington.

On my left is another valued friend and distinguished colleague, Congressman Orval Hansen from the State of Idaho.

The subject of our hearings today is H.R. 9312, the Drug Abuse Education Act of 1969, a bill introduced by Congressman Lloyd Meeds of Washington, and nearly 100 Members of the House of Representatives. Such wide sponsorship indicates the great interest in Congress in developing effective approaches to solving the problem of the abuse of dangerous drugs.

Reports almost daily reflect the rising urgency of the drug abuse question. For example, members of our subcommittee were alarmed to learn that during the month of June, 1969 alone, over 100 persons, with an average age of 22, died in New York City from the use of heroin.

The Drug Abuse Education Act is aimed at working through our educational institutions, particularly our elementary and secondary schools, to attack the increasingly serious problem of the abuse of dangerous drugs.

The bill would grant Federal funds to local schools for drug education projects as well as support programs to train teachers, counselors and others to teach such courses.

In addition, the bill would make funds available for community seminars on drug abuse and for research and curriculum development in drug abuse education.

During the hearings which we have been conducting over the last several weeks, we have heard from many authorities on the subject of drug abuse education.

During the testimony which we have received from educators, students, judges, lawyers, medical authorities, national organizations, civic groups, and others has strongly supported the proposal.

Typical of the testimony in support of the bill is that of the American Medical Association. Dr. Henry Brill, chairman of the AMA's Committee on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, stated that this bill would provide an opportunity for a well coordinated and scientifically developed program of drug abuse education and information.

He said that the leadership of the U.S. Office of Education in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare would bring assur

ance that our teachers and our schools would become directly involved in attacking the problem of drug abuse.

Our subcommittee has also learned from the hearings that the Federal Government has so far done almost nothing in providing support for education on the abuse of dangerous drugs.

The Federal Government supports: No program for teacher training in the drug abuse field; no direct grants to our schools for drug education courses; no means of testing and evaluating existing materials for drug abuse education.

The bill we are today considering aims at filling the education gap in the drug abuse field. For the abuse of drugs is no longer solely a police or medical problem. It has now developed into a grave threat to the health and well-being of millions of Americans, both young and old.

Nor do drugs have any respect for race, economic background, or area of the country. Although our subcommittee has held hearings on this bill in Washington, D.C., New York City, Los Angeles, and Seattle, the problem of the use of dangerous drugs-especially by young people affects smaller towns and cities and rural communities as well. Therefore, we have met in South Bend this morning and are meeting in Warsaw this afternoon to hear from persons in northern Indiana concerned with the drug problem.

Let me add that since the inception of these hearings, I have been encouraged to see that various individuals and groups have undertaken efforts to educate their own communities on drugs and the dangers arising from their abuse.

I have been particularly impressed with the work undertaken by the Times-Union in Warsaw. The articles which have been carried in this newspaper have been the most useful in drawing public attention to this problem.

I am very glad Mr. William Mollenhour, executive editor of the Times-Union, is among the witnesses scheduled to testify before our subcommittee today.

We have several witnesses to hear from, and I know that some of you may have to leave shortly. But I should like to call on either of my colleagues, or both, to make a brief opening statement before we hear from our first witness.

Mr. Hansen?

Mr. HANSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

May I express my own personal deep appreciation for the opportunity that has been provided for us to conduct this hearing in this community. I would also like to acknowledge our indebtedness to the chairman of our committee for his efforts in making this hearing possible, and to acknowledge likewise the leadership that he has furnished within the committee, not only in the advancement of this legislation, but on the other important matters that are under study within our committee.

I think it is proper to point out that a hearing such as this is a vital part of the legislative process. We have before us only a proposal which represents the best efforts of the sponsors of the bill which, I might say, in this instance has broad bipartisan support.

It is only when we can have the comments, in many cases the critical comments and the benefit of the collective judgment and experi

ence and wisdom of those who are close to the problem that we shape. an initial proposal into a workable law that will accomplish its purposes.

I might say, Mr. Chairman, also that in the time that I have been in the Congress, which is not a very long period of time, I have never seen a hearing conducted under circumstances such as this.

I am overwhelmed by the expression of interest evidenced by the attendance here and I hope it will be only the first of a number of hearings of this kind that we can bring to this community and perhaps other communities in the State of Indiana.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BRADEMAS. Thank you. Mr. Meeds.

Mr. MEEDS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I too would like to express my pleasure in being in Warsaw, Kosciusko County, and I pay tribute to the people who have made this hearing possible: First of all to my chairman, the very fine chairman of this subcommittee and a very valuable member of the U.S. Congress, and to the school officials who have taken upon themselves to make this hearing available to the students.

I, like Mr. Hansen, am very impressed that this is done, and it is a great deal of pleasure, Mr. Chairman, to see the young people that are here for this hearing.

You know, I have always heard about the famous Hoosier basketball teams, and I was thinking when I came into the gym here that it appears now in Kosciusko County that congressional hearings may provide some competition for basketball games.

Mr. BRADEMAS. Thank you, Mr. Meeds.

Mr. MEEDS. Not much chance of that. I would also like to say that we have now had hearings in Washington, D.C., New York City, Los Angeles, and Seattle, Wash. We have gone around the perimeter of the United States and today we are in the heartland of America. After we finish this hearing we should have a good idea and a good scope of the problems of drug abuse in the United States. And I thank all of those who have enhanced us with this knowledge.

Mr. BRADEMAS. Thank you very much, Mr. Meeds.

The Chair would like to observe for the benefit of all of you that the following will be the witnesses to appear this afternoon. Mr. Jerry Cochern, Sheriff David Andrews, Mr. William Mollenhour, Miss Martha Spurgeon, the director of the Elkhart Welfare Department, and Rev. Paul Tinkel, the president of the Warsaw Community Ministerial Fellowship.

Our first witness is Mr. Cochern. Would he please come forward? [Applause.]

STATEMENT OF JERRY COCHERN, WARSAW TIMES-UNION

REPORTER, WARSAW, IND.

Mr. COCHERN. Primarily I would like to express my gratitude and appreciation for this opportunity to present my thoughts on this question. It is one that is, of course, very essential. It is one of great importance to all concerned.

I offer this statement primarily in hopes of clearing the atmosphere, so to speak, on some of those points concerning the drug culture and

35-525-70-pt. 2-28

its members that up to now have seemed to be so completely covered in mystery, and also in hopes of promoting better and more meaningful relations and communications between the generations. It is my opinion that the lack of these communications is the foremost cause of the drug abuse problem.

I, of course, have experimented with, I have been involved with, I have learned and suffered from the drug culture that currently is sweeping the country, and I have seen many of the things that we have all heard about but don't really understand. So I would like to briefly summarize the statement which I have written.

Mr. BRADEMAS. That would be fine. Let me simply say that your entire statement as you prepared it will be included in the hearings. Mr. COCHERN. Fine. First I would like to say a word or two about the problems that young people have in attempting to find their place in society and in the world, because this is a very major area that must be considered if we are going to attempt to make constructive, solid citizens of the young.

The first thing probably is the fact that being young, we are inexperienced with those areas in which our elders have had so much more experience. We have lived in a society that is amazingly rapid. Those things which we have witnessed have been accomplished practically overnight; where it would have taken our grandparents days to tour the country, it now takes us hours to reach any point in the world.

We can talk to anyone in the country in a matter of moments. We can solve Einstein's theories on computers in seconds that took him a lifetime. It is only natural, having been raised in this particular forum of life and society, that we would want those things which we desire quickly, we would want them now. We are not accustomed to waiting for things.

Perhaps this is our flaw. Certainly it is. But at any rate we do tend to attempt to gain those things we desire overnight.

Basically we are idealistic, we see a lot of things wrong with the world, with our Government, with society in general. We pretty well have it set in our minds what we want, those things we would change and attempt to improve. But unfortunately at this stage of our lives we are almost useless. We can't vote, we can't hold any office, we can't even make a citizen's arrest. We are too young to be members of any community organizations. There is just very little we can do.

So we become somewhat frustrated and recently you have seen the results of those things, which, of course, started in Berkeley 5 years ago with the free speech movement when the young people banded together protesting, demonstrating, expressing their grievances to government leaders.

Now, by and by these things, of course, turned into violent confrontations with authorities, things that 99 percent of those demonstrating didn't want to happen, things that 99 percent of the authorities involved wanted to happen no more. But, nevertheless, they did happen. The entire young people's movement was tainted, was stained. So community leaders told us to become involved politically, to campaign for candidates of our choices, to work diligently and vigorously for those people we thought had our best interests and the world's best interests at heart.