• • • '• ' • '- • THE WHITE HOUSE r WASHINGTON • July 15 1977 •• Peter Bourre - • The attached was returned in the President's outbox It is forwarded to you for appropriate handling • • - - • • •• Rick Hutcheson •• · - ·- 1i Re Monthly Narcotic Report #5 J OPiFHYf fq' 'IAL ATTACHMENT J • • 1 I - F •• • ' • ' • · ' • • I • J • • il THE FRESIDF NT HAS Ell THE WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON CONFIDENTIAL cc July 11 1977 MEMORANDUM TO THE PRESIDENT f • FROM Peter Bourne SUBJECT Monthly Narcotic Report #5 Colombia We are scheduled to provide the promised briefing to President Lopez-Michelsen in Bogota on July 21 1977 It will be conducted by Peter Bensinger of DEA a representative of the Central Intelligence Agency under State Department cover and myself The material to be presented has been prepared with exceptional care and consistent with your instructions we will carefully qualify the information we provide making it particularly clear the degree of certainty we attach to it It is also our intention to recommend to him that he set up with our help an Internal Security Division to further investigate corruption appoint a special prosecutor and consolidate the several fragmented law enforcement agencies dealing with narcotics We will also present to him photos of opium poppies growing in three separate locations in Colombia The first hand evidence which we have obtained only in the last week Heroin Our efforts to reduce heroin flow to this country to be successful Figure I - Shows the steady decline in heroin by quarter the actual figures for were 4 9% Figure 2 - From a recent parallel between heroin purity in the District of Columbia F B I crime figures to be released soon are expected to show a dramatic drop in nationwide crime during the last year again paralleling the drop in heroin purity It is something that you might want to take some of the credit for c f'ONFI'BI NTIAL -2 MEMORANDUM TO THE PRESIDENT FROM Peter Bourne SUBJECT Monthly Narcotic Report #5 Law Enforcement The Drug Enforcement Administration has had a series of major arrests in the last month including 3 mid-level organized crime figures They have seized more than 150 lbs of heroin Also and we hope it is an isolated event they arrested 3 Turks with 12 lbs of heroin from Istanbul the first time heroin of Turkish origin has been seized in this country since 1974 The biggest problem in the law enforcement field remains the frequent inability to get convictions or significant sentences against even major traffickers against whom the evidence is overwhelming Of those charged with Schedule II offenses the more serious group of traffickers in the last year 50 percent were released from jail prior to trial--45 percent on bail 5 percent on personal recognizance with no money bail required Most alarming is that 43 percent of the narcotics and Schedule II defendants were recidivists Of the narcotics Schedule II defendants 24 percent received probation and another 11 percent were sentenced under the Youth Corrections Acts therefore more than one-third of these serious drug violators received no jail sentence Finally the length of sentence for convicted narcotic Schedule II violators is less than three years in prison for almost half 47 percent of them For the other convicted drug violators 86 percent were sentenced to less than three years in prison To make the problem more acute the average narcotics offender serves only 34 6 percent of his sentence after consideration is given for good behavior parole and other early release opportunities Some of the steps we are recommending to you in the drug message will begin to address this issue but if we can not change the situation our chances of breaking up the major trafficking groups are not great DRUG MESSAGE - We had trememdous problems getting consensus on the drug message here in the White House and from the agencies because everyone thinks they are a drug expert even if they have no background or experience in this area The final product which we sent to you this week is the result of a carefully derived consensus which I now feel is quite good PGB ss Attachments D 9·6 NATIONAL RETAIL HEROIN PURITY 1970-1977 By Percent 7 4 I I 6 3 I I I I I 6 2 6 1 5 8 5 6 I 5 3 5 0 1970 1971 n 1972 I I I I I 1973 1974 1975 01 02 OJ 1976 04 01 02 1977 -- - -·-·-·----· -- -- i 'l 1 ·-· c Burglary -- ' 6 0 c - -g 5 0 • I • 1 • c c 0 Q c Q ' tl 5 l ·ro IF Vi · en i I l - 6 ' • 7 0 -1 u l • • Q ------ - - - - • • 8 0 -1 ---- - '• •--• I I I '·- • 1 • 10 Cll 4 '- l 0 c J t 3 10 Cl l 0 'tl 3 0 - 2 0 f 201 1 1 0 I' I I · _ _ _ _r_· _ · I' f ' '·1l· 'nf i_ '·· ik 1 1 H_ -- __ tf'• ·- alh 8 ·''j j ' a i th ii Q Purity I _ _ ' i' d j'·j · 1 11 p'f i Ji' · li·· 1 1 ' ' ii ' •1' · -- --- -- - 3 4 1 I I I 2 3 4 ----r 1 1969 -l-11970-l - '''l r 2 3 1971 4 1 2 3 4 1 - I - 1972 -I- 2 3 1973 4 1 -I- 2 3 4 1974 - 1 2 3 4 I 1975- 1 mlh i·' s j Jf l-1976 j'- j •·p · I' ' Figure Retail heroih purity and reported burglary in the District of Colum bia 1969-1976 r li i j'' j · 1 1' ti lji' J i · MEMORANDUM THE WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON July 11 1977 TO Rick Hutcheson FROM Peter Bourne p B• The President asked that I provide him monthly a two page summary on narcotics Attached is report #5 PGB ss