use oper ically oids and then transition into heroin, that number is very small. >> nonmedical use? >> that is correct. so, the nonmedical use of oxycontin, and the nontraditional sense of getting it from the medicine cabinet. the percentage of those who transition to heroin is about 3%. use heroin, that 80% of those have abused opioids even medical use can be a risk factor. >> that's right. itself ioid in and of

and its effect on the body, drug. veryic addictive so those individuals, whether they get them from a doctor or , riend or a family member are at risk for eventual opioid addiction if not used properly that is correct. and you cite in the testimony it's the relatively low price of heroin. and that's relatively low compared to past trends but also compared stot cost of opioid prescription drugs. correct? >> that's correct. so the street price of a gram of heroin compared to the street price, if you will, of an opioid pill or an oxy pill or something of that nature, that's correct. that's what we consider to be one of the contributing factors. avingt and the

contricting factors. >> the work we've done in this body, trying to harmonize with . e house industry since carea we believe it here, we're seeing in all of our states, if that if we don't get ahold of the culture of overprescription we're just hollowing out communities the and that was drug addiction that came out of the medicine cabinet in many instances it was a trusted professional in a white coat handing somebody this prescription saying that it's going to do you good driven by an inadequate science, by marketing scams, and that is inextricably related to this heroin issue. so i think it's kind of hard to deal with the issue in in the abstract without talking about this culture of overprescription that hopefully we're working together to reel

in. it's probably too early to know this. in terms of the growth of the number of hectres of the poppy production in mexico, do we have any evidence to suggest that that is connected with marijuana legalization? i like this notion of states as labs and we can see what happens. but i've heard it said, i don't know if there's any evidence, that the legalization of marijuana in some states that has allowed marijuana to be rown has taken hectors of land switch to and to popies. >> we've actually looked crop y kind of at the transfurnace. i can tell you whether it's too early we can't say that farmers have decided to switch from one crop to another in mexico.

we can't say that with any degree of authority at this point. >> but that's something you will continue to monitor. >> it's something that we do watch. >> twhaunching. >> to interject on that point, it's my sense and you're experts that very few people wake up and say i'm going to shoot heroin for the first time. there is a gateway to the use. a lot is driven by people who are dependent on prescription opiates. the only thing that addresses is they're not in treatment. and access to heroin. absent that what is the other gateway? how does someone get dependent on heroin minus the prescription drug gateway which we've already discussed? >> and that's a difficult question just because you're dealing with the number of variables down at the individual level as to the reasons why people engage in the behavior that we do. we do know a couple of things. that heroin in general terms is

kind of at the end of a trajectory of long-term drug use. and then a high number are actually poly drug users. so they're not exclusive heroin user. they get the drugs available to them. because of the high availability a lot of times that's heroin. the other thing that we look at and we do a number of surveys but what we realize is that youth behavior from ages about 13-18 is a very strong factor in terms of risk taking behavior, in terms of underaged drinking, tobacco, thing obvious that nature. in shaping youth attitudes in terms of risk taking behavior for using other drugs. so i think what we can't say is that we can put a finger on this for that particular reason but we do know that the

availability of drugs in society obviously increases the chances that an individual whose going to use them intersectses them at some point in time. >> so just to understand your testament we understand the pills problem that leads to that. but what you're basically saying is that someone earlier begins to use a substance, alcohol, whatever it may be, an intox can't of some sort, there now starts a potential trend the next thing is what's out there that's better rgs what's out there that's stronger. once you cross this barrier it could release this cycle, basically a set of dominos that could take you to the heroin point. >> yes, sir. and again it's not direct causation but it certainly is risk-taking bare and patterns of behavior. and that's why the prevention strategies particularly to programs like the drug free

communities are incredibly important because they're u lly based and they allow trusted individuals to speak to people at a young age. their attitudes about drugs and foreign substances. they're able through evidence-based prevention strategies, be able to talk to people when they're vulnerable and shaping their ideas that they're carry with them for the rest of their lives. >> i think this is the most important hearing we're going to have on our relations with mexico and with china this year in the congress and i thank you for it. this issue of fentnol is to my way of thinking kind of the most important threat that we have to families in the united states at this time.

i'll just give you some numbers. in massachusetts in 2015, 57% of the opioid related overdose that's in massachusetts has a positive screen for fentnol, specifically of the 1319 individuals whose death were opioid related in 2015 where a toxicology screen was available, 754 of them had a positive screen for fentnol. so we can talk about prescription drugs, we can talk about heroin, but fentnill is now the issue and we, that is new england, we're at the epicenter of it. it comes up from mexico to lawrence, massachusetts, and then it goes out to new hampshire upstate but massachusetts as well. so the pathway is china into mexico then into lawrence,

massachusetts, into hoy, into virginia, into florida. and when it's overhalf of the deaths now in massachusetts, it's clearly a looming threat. it's a preview of coming attractions to every single city in town in our country. that's why this hearing is so important because it gets to the question of what is mexico doing in partnership of china. we'll start with that. what is specifically mexico and china at the highest government level doing in order to interdict this new synthetic of a formula that is lacing heroin with a drug 50 times more powerful than heroin? so powerful that the d.e.a. doesn't even let its dogs any longer sniff for nintnill for fear that the dog will just die with the first sniff?

that three grams, three equivalent of salt grams could kill a human being if they gained access to it? at is mexico a china doing in cooperation with you, in rder to interdict that drug? >> first touch on mexico and china's bilateral relationship on this. without our support mexico and china are meeting and discussing this regularly every year. they a both involved in multilateral side of things just last month at the u.n. general assembly special on drugs, they were both there. china, their minister of public security, led the conclusion statement, fully on board, they are a member both countries to the three international drug conventions. we also sponsor in the united states two annual fentnill and

precurser chemical conferences with mexico and china. >> how successful is this effort so far? that's a good question, senator. fentnal is a new problem for the department of state and inl and it's one where we are applying lessons we've learned with other substances in other crime areas over the year and at this point we're working as hard as we can to have success. but i can't quantify that. with human rights and copyright infringement, is this issue now at the highest level of negotiations with the chinese government and with the mexican government? >> it is. mr. chester went down in march with our folks and spoke ta large intersage group head bid the attorney genel in mexico on this issue.

we regularly engage with china. our diplomats are going to china next week at a very high level diplomatic engagement where they were raised. we raise it regularly in the joint liaison group on law enforcement which has a counter narcotics working gup that meets throughout the year. and we've actually seen some positive signs from china. >> what is the evidence? if you were going to convict them of doing something what would the evidence be? >> to convict? >> convict chineo of doing something. what would the evidence bfo convicting them of doing good? >> doing good. we've seen encouraging progress. there's still lot more to do. last year their ministry controlled 150 new substances including anlogs of fent until

and have expressed high activity in continuing to receive information on new synthetic sp stances to us. so they are doing something. there is more that needs to be done. >> clearly we have the evidence in 2015 in massachusetts and it's going to be worse this year in 2016 that -- slim evidence that this thing is being slowed down. it's very clear it's intensifying. and it's going to kill ultimately tens of thousands of americans every year. every year. there's no other threat to our country that even match that is. every single year fentnol is going to be able to do that. so if we don't stop it it warfs every other issue. mr. chester, can we just go to mexico. what is the level of cooperation that you are getting from the mexican government in interdicting

fentnal coming into the united states? we know it's el chapo and his gang that's responsible for the traffic that comes up to lawrence, massachusetts, but pretty much for the whole country. what's your success level with the mex skn government getting them to understand the magnitude of the threats to the american people? >> i would tell you that i personally have been down there twice and have dealt with the mexican embassy here in the united states. i will tell you that they understand how seriously we take this issue in the united states. they understand that this is our top i will littlice drug priority and they understand that it is not just heroin but it is heroin and fentnol. i put fentnol on the table and i won't say it was first heard for them but they weren't really familiar with how serious the issue was in the united states by the time we had gone down later with the director and ambassador that

was part of the problems set that they agreed to work with us moving forward on. so i will tell you that the mexicans are understanding the importance that we place on this issue. they're very engaged on it. and they are willing to conduct joint planning with us on the issues not only of poppy eradication which addresses the heroin issue but also lab identification and nuletization specifically on issues of either creation or the milling of fentnol with dilutents and other inert matter as it's transported across the border. >> it's a little disturbing to me if from your testimony if it's a case of first impression for the prince pl law enforcement officials in mexico that they are just hearing about it and just getting on their radar screen and it's february of 2016. given the fact that more than half of all the people who died last year in massachusetts

opioid related had fen not -- fentnol in their system. it's disturbing to me. i don't like it to have just been introduced at that level. i would like to have heard that president obama has raised this issue with the president of mexico, that the president has raised this issue with the president in china just because of the incredible level of fatalities across our country. and we know specifically what he source of their death is. i -- so do you pind if i just continue a little bit? thank you, mr. chairn. so give me some hope here that there's aggressive strategy in place on fentnol and it has been elevated to a level where there's a no nonsense conversation going on. >> in response to your concern i know that the president did mexican s with the

president. >> he raised this issue with them? >> i will check if it was specifically fentnol. >> i'm asking about fentnol here that is the epidemic. it's not heroin. it's 50 times more powerful what's showing up in the majority of the deaths. so you're not sure whether or not he has raised it. >> i need to make sure between the two of them as well. >> how about you? has the state department specifically raised it at the highest level? >> we continue to raise it as the highest levels of dialogue that we have. >> what is the highest level? >> next week our deputy secretary will be in china and this is high on the agenda if not top on the agenda. i cannot promise that president obama raised it with the

chinese president but certainly secretary kerry has. >> just a couple of points. why lawrence, massachusetts? why new hampshire? why are these communities specifically targeted? in central florida how does a community wind up targeted? dwha are the characteristics as opposed to some other part of the country? >> there are a number of variables. one of which is the existing structure, the existing trafficker structure that's in place in particular areas. in some cases it's transportation networks. in some cases the traffickers from mexico have personal or business relationships with traffickers in a particular area. or that geographicically a place lends itself to further distribution. there are a lot of reasons why. >> but the northeast is far from the u.s.-mexico border. my question is why didn't they stop somewhere along i-95 and

target there? is it because of these existing structures sflr we believe that there's very strong evidence that there are. that it's the existing structures that were there before. when we specifically talk about fentnol one of the thing that is we have looked at as we have tracked the crisis is why the northeast. why the eastern united states? why so much not the western united states? and we believe that one of the strong contributing factors is the fact that it's more easily mixed into the white powder heroin which was preferred in the eastern part of the united states than it is in the black tar heroin which was preferred in the western part of the united states. and that's traditionally been the heroin market in the united states. fentnol introduced is being mixed into powder and therefore it landed in the united states. increasingly we're starting to see it pressed into pill form

and sold as counter fit opioids. but it has found a market in the eastern united states probably because of those two reasons. >> i spent some time in new hampshire and found myself in a lot of large townships that faced an overwhelming problem almost as if they were specifically targeted because of trafficking that works new that they had smaller police departments. you're not going to have a thousand departments. is they looked to set up in places where they can overwhelm local law enforcement with numbers and capability? > there's -- i don't know. i don't know whether that was -- the size of a population or the size of law enforcement was a particular reason why. but to your point. it is a matter of deep concern that you find increasing numbers of heroin or fentnol usesers in rural areas that are starting to use the product alone and they're far from

treatment and they tend to be farther from first responders. those are all thing that is make this particular crisis particularly per nirgs is the fact that it has moved into a lot of rural areas which is not something we've seen in previous outbreaks. used to f the stuff we hear were increasingly because the supply is driving the demand. that's the supply meant these traffickers who now had the supply on their hands had to be more aggressive in finding market share. one thing i heard is they were targeting treatment centers where they knew people were getting treatment and they were waiting for them outside to temperature them to buy. that they were specifically targeting recovering individuals for the sale of this. so this is a pernicious disgusting industry that we're dealing with here. so since the arrest of el

chapo, this is part of mexico's i believe concerted policy to conduct high profile arrests of drugs lors. while it's positive that these organizations are being decapitated have we seen any evidence that the arrest of a high profile individual impactings these organizations, the operation can function? or is it one of those thing it is way a corporate entity would irrespective of who is at the top? >> my personal experience is far more robust in colombia where where i led our program several years ago. we have seen where the king pin being arrested does affect an organization. the question is how big is this structure how organized is it and how quickly can it recover. that's a question far better posed to our drug enforcement

administration guys than. >> let me ask you about colombia. cocaine. they suspended their aerial eradication program ostensibly for fear of the impact that it would have on the population environmentally. there's a counter argument which i find incred built that this is also part of the process this deforestation and eradication was an irritant with the peace process with the farq and other elements. as a result we've seen numbers where for the first time there's been a massive increase in the amount of cocaine production in parts of colombia that we hadn't seen for a while and the assumption is that that co-cocaine is going to get sold. it's going to go somewhere and in xpect to see a spike

cocaine sales in the united states. do you have a view of what these new numbers mean for the u.s. in the years to come? suspension ut the of aerial eradication. it is a sovereign decision of the colombian government. we believe while eradication and aerial eradication are not magic pills they are valuable tools in any supply side intervention on narcotics. it has long been a big part of our strategy in colombia. we continue to work closely with the colombians on the and sor to plan colombia are in close contact to see which direction they decide to go, if and when president santos gets the peace process resolved. >> i thank you both for being here for your testimony and work. the work you do is important

and difficult. we now have two separate interrelated problems. the senators just pointed out a moment ago. the production of synthetic fentnol the growth of opiate popies. my understanding is that the amount of poppy based opets grown in the western hemisphere is a small percentage of the overall production in the world. in your view or do you know this, how much -- if a poppy based opiate is produced or fentnol is produced somewhere in the western hemisphere, mex coor anywhere else what percentage is destined to the united states in particular? >> we believe that mexico is the primary supplier of heroin to the united states and that the united states is the primary customer for mexican heroin. that relationship in the western hemisphere is fairly

solid. we do not see any evidence any widespread evidence of southeast asian heroin, afghan heroin, burmese heroin coming to the united states. although with the government of canada does believe that southwest asia is its primary supplier of heroin. so one of the things that we've discovered as a risk and we have identified as a risk is if we are successful against the mexican drug trafficking organizations in bringing down the supply of mex can heroin to the united states. do we open up the door for others. >> but i think it's pretty clear that if you see a heroin overdose in the u.s., that heroin or that fentnol came from mexico or maybe in the case of fentnol china through the mail. >> correct. >> here's my question. is the opiates being grown or produced in fentnol being grown in mexico or should we assume that what's being grown there we can see from camera pictures

all of that is headed to a city near you in the united states? >> that's the assumption we make. >> i want to thank you both for being here. did you have a final question? >> i thank you so much. and again, this is to me this is the top topic. it doesn't get any bigger than this and these are the gentlemen responsible for it in the united states. to have them here, to know they're the principal people working on this issue i think is absolutely central. so let me ask let me just ask you this. your title is associate director for the national heroin coordination grp. do you think it's time for us to just change the name to the national heroin and fentnol coordination group? do you think we should change the name so it advertises correctly? >> senator, when we began our work this fall as the coordination group and after the director stood up this

group in order to provide focused efforts against the heroin and the problem set, in our work what we determined is that we were going to handle it as part of the same problem set for a lot of the same reasons. what has elved over time in our work and planning and work with the interagency is that we have discovered the incredible importance of fentnol more than was identified six or eight or nine months ago. the other important thing that i would like to bring is up is emergence and he the visibility of fentnol is driven almost entirely by the post mort m testing that is done on individuals in overdose deaths around the country. in those areas where the testing is done and fentnol is tested as part of the toxicology panel you begin to see more. so it leads us to believe that in looking at the problems we

have a significant fentnol problem as you identified that we believe was being masked by this increased availability in heroin. so we handle both of them as part of the same problem set simply because it allows us to be able to deal with the trafficking the supply chain, and the effects on communities in the exact same way. i appreciate that. so that's what i'm asking. should we add fentnol to your title? in your opinion? does that make sense give whan you now know? and given how little mexico it turns out knows when you had the conversation in february of 2016 about it? they didn't have it on their radar? should we raise it so that they understand? the same thing is true for the chinese. what do you think? >> the issue being raised to the chinese i think that -- >> no. i'm talking about in mexico. they didn't know in february. >> right. >> and by the way even when i

say 57%, a lot of experts say that's an understated number because of the poor reporting that goes on in terms of the total number of deaths. so -- and by the way it's no secret why they do it. a 300% markup. you know. in terms of their ability to make money off this as opposed to heroin or other drugs. so again, from my perspective it is the issue. this dwarfs any terroris threats to the united states. this is what's going to kill people. tens of thousands ultimately hundreds of thousands of americans. it's going to be this that comes into our country. the other front line on this mexico just heard about it, i'm not sure the chinese understand the priority that we expect hem to deal with this issue.

maybe -- mr. chester earlier today in your testimony you said that there are gaps in the interdiction of fentnol from mexico coming into the united states. could you explain in more detail what those gaps are? >> we're speaking primarily about gaps in our ability to be able to detect fentnol. what was brought up earlier is the ability of k-9s being trained in order to detect it because it is so deadly. and we work very closely with cb pmp in terms of intelligence and policy to address those gaps to better detect it not only at the southwest border but in our air-freight, whether it's u.s. postal service or a commercial company. that has been an area of ongoing discussion for us so that we can better determine how much it is getting into the country and to be able to

detect it when it does arrive. and whether that's detecting the chemicals, the fentnol itself or the dilute nt with which it's mixed. >> we've got to move to the next panel. in about 45 minutes i have to preside over the floor and i turn into a pumpkin here so we've got to -- not literally. >> if i may just conclude. i would just strongly recommend to the administration that when the president meets with the president of the canada and mexico, that he raises fentnol to the highest level with them and let them know that that's the threat to our country and the same thing is true in any communications with the chinese government. it has to be at the highest level. thank you. >> this is an important issue for the northeast and country. i thaufpk both. we'll welcome our next panel. we keep the record open for a few days. if you receive any questions in writing, if you would respond as quickly as possible so we

can close the record. but we thank you both for being here. as they're getting seated and situated i'm going to reintroduce the members of our second panel. teresa jacobs, the mayor of orange county, florida, which we hope if it's not yet been finalized will be the site of the pro bowl. maybe you can give us an update. we're excited ibet. mr. steven dudley, the codirector of insight crime. and if you're ready for your testimony has been submitted in writing. we look forward to hearing from you as well. thank you. thank you for calling this very important hearing and allowing me to share a local perspective. the conversation this morning has certainly been informative for me as i'm sure for everyone here. a little background on orange county. nothing that you don't know. but for the record orange county is home to the city of

orlando and 12 other municipalities. we have a strong economy and an exceptional quality of life. we have a population of 1.2 million people that call orlando home but we also have uf6 million visitors on an annual basis and we continue to shatter national records for tourism. that's the good news. the bad news and the very sad news is that we like too many other communities across this country have seen an alarming increase in the number of heroin overdoses and related deaths. i say heroin when i say heroin i mean opioids, opiates. i mean fentnol all of them combined. last year we lost 85 lives to heroin. we lost 62 lives to fentnol. we heard this morning testimony about the increase in deaths related to opioids and opiates 200 to 400% since 2007. in orange county we've had a staggering 600% increase since 2011 alone. and already this year we've had

90 reported opioid overdoses, about one in ten resulting in death. florida's fight against this current wave of opioid addiction began about five years ago. you may recall that in 2010 florida was known as the pill mill capital of the country. florida practitioners were prescribing oxy code done at levels that exceeded all the other states in our nation combined. we respond bid outlawing unauthorized pain clinics. yet today the battlefront has moved. today we fight heroin. today we fight fentnol. given the dramentition rise in the flow of heroin and fentnol into our community one can only surmise that drug cartels perceived uzz as a right marketplace. unfortunately it's nearly impossible to access the rise. but there's a few thing that is we do now. last year approximately 2,000

heroin users moved through our county jail alone and on any given day we treat roughly 200 in our jail. we know in 2015 our county jail held 100 expectant mothers who were addicted whose babies will most certainly be born tragically addicted to heroin. we know that over 60% of overdose patients are uninsured and yet we have only one inpatient facility with 20 detox beds available for all four counties in our region with a combined population of 2.5 million people. simply put we know that our county jail has become the treatment center of last resort for far too many people who find themselves addicted to heroin, fentnol, and other opiates and opioids. for the good of our citizens we're fighting back and here's how. last summer we conveend the task force chaired by myself and sheriff. our work is having a positive impact including 2016 legislature which passed a

measure. while there is no single cure or solution we know there are some universally effective approaches many of which have have been discussed here. we must address the demand side while we attack the supply side. and in either or policy won't work. the demand side through our task force we've joined forces with our k-12 public education system, our universities our faith-based communities, our medical communities. together we're launching a social media campaign to educate the public on the risks of this highly addictive and deadly drug. we are trying to warn our citizens in advance this ising this they want to avoid. we are not only treating heroin addicts in our jail. we are complementing a new medically assisted treatment program. and this is an option for all of our addict that is are leaving our jail. but we need the federal

government's help to treat more addicts. as i mentioned a few minutes ago we are woefully short on beds and other resources. on the supply side we're also doing our best to arrest traffickers on our streets. but our local efforts no matter how highly leveraged and coordinated are simply no match for the drug cartels and organized traffickers coming across. that's why we need your help to stop the influx of drugs across the borders. to end the crisis torks save lives, to safe communities. we each have a role to play. local governments have a crucial role to play. the state government does and the federal government does. but the efforts need to expand beyopped government. we need every citizen that is a mother father or friend of an addict, we need our entire communities engaged. we need doctors, we need the clergy. we need counselors. we need teachers. we need all of them to be informed. that's why i think we also need a nationwide awareness campaign. we've talked briefly about

fentnol. it needs to include the high risk of fentnol and the low cost. quite frankly today it is less expensive for many of our addicts to get high on opioids than it is for them to go and get a happy meal. that is a sad state of reality that has to be addressed. thank you again for this opportunity. thank you for your and your committee's continued service and leadership on this shufment >> thank you. and thank you for your rk on this. you've been involved for a while. mr. dudley thank you for being here. we look forward to your testimony. >> thank you very much. as we know u.s. consumption of heroin has increased significantly in the last few years. u.s. portion of the world heroin market is quite small by comparison in terms of users but really outside in terms of potential earnings the rand corporation estimated in 2014 the u.s. consumer spent as much

as $27 billion in heroin each year an increase from 20 billion. mexican guatemalan and criminal organizations have react bid producing more heroin. as noted already in the earlier panel, mexico accounts for the bulk of the poppy production in the region. seizure data of heroin along the southwest border also indicate that mexican criminal groups are moving increasing amounts of heroin into the u.s. market. mexico criminal organizations are also the key transporters of colombian heroin to the united states and they manage and purchase the heroin produced in guatemala or buy the opium gum to process it themselves. inside the u.s. the trend appears to be the same. mexican groups are seeking an increasing amount of the market share and the distribution biobusiness itself displacing other whole sailers. in sum the picture we have is one of an increasing luke rative market with large

mexican criminal organizations managing the product from the point of production to the point of sale and seeking a greater market share of these sales. the reality of the supply chain however is much more complex. while it helps us to use well worn monikers when talking about these organizations the truth is they are not nearly as strong as they once were. they may in a cartel, still evoke fear but they are not organizations as much as brand names. in many cases the individual parts have as much contact as the local bottling plant manager might have with corporate head quarters. they are more horizontally than intzi. fore they were arrested, chicago, one of the areas of greatest interest.

but its federal intercepts of their conversations with leasheds show the two brothers negotiated independently with each of the top members of the organization obtaining different prices for the product that they were selling. even after a war started between the cartel and a rival group the brothers continued to purchase drugs from portions of the bell tron organization and the seen lowa cartel. it cuts two different myths that thgs one single organization. , that it is tightly controlled by a single leader or a single group of leaders. the point is that as shipments get further and further from the whole sale point the loyalties become dispursed and in some cases completely disappear. violence is not a long term option to ensure loyalty. the effectiveness of u.s. law enforcement has made violence

terrible for business and made the distribution change more democratic. this is evident in other ways as well. while the amount of seizures indicates that there is more heroin available in the united states it is still moved in very small quantities. the median seizure for the los angeles field division of the d.e.a. in 2014 was a single kilo gram. in denver, a 10-12 pound shipment is considered large. the case of the laredo brothers recently indicted in the eastern district of pennsylvania is indicktive of these trends. they're charged with moving one ton of heroin over a six-year period, about 1014 kilos per month. the organization was so subtle, mo and pop the mexican authorities were not even aware of the group. this brings us to mexico. the most -- the horizontal nature of the distribution chain makes it a difficultaw enforcement problem in mexico

as well. noted the once monolithic criminal organizations are shells of what they once were. due to infighting but also law enforcement efforts. many of the fragmented pieces have formed their own criminal organizations and brand names. the upshot is the chain of production is broken into numerous pieces. production transport and distribution may all be different organizations. the laredo brothers were purchasing gum from an independent broker, processing it themselves, and distributing it in those small quantities in the u.s. for years without running into trouble with the large supposedly all- controlling seen lowa cartel. to be sure violence is still a viable option in mexico so the

pendulum may swing back but for the moment the reality is there are literally dozens of small organizations from the point of production to the point of sale. in sum while the level of control that the mexican production and transport groups exert, we are not talking about one or two criminal groups but dozens of interlocking organizations whose alliances are constantly shifting. the heroin supply chain appears to be a largely horizontal diversified operation with multiple actors and one that is owe bead ynt to market forces rather than one or two single vertically integrated distributors. the result is that law enforcement efforts are largely muted. whether you debilitate the cartel or the laredo brothers you are hindering a small part. even if you did slow the heroin from mexico, you would face an insurmountable task. stopping the flow from other countries which would undoubtedly fill the void and

account for the bulk of worldwide production anyway. canada already gets up to 90% of its heroin from afghanistan and the united states once got all of its heroin from the asian markets that supply the rest of the world. thank you for your time and attention. i look forward to your questions. >> thank you both for being here. i want to begin one of the questions i alluded to during the testimony and that is my, i can't prove it, but i guess it's a bit anecdotal. we don't have a number behind this. the notion that these criminal groups are specifically argeting people recovering, in essence, they basically station themselves outside of a rehabilitation outpatient center, even inpatient. knowing these people are vulnerable and enticing them to fall back into addiction. have you seen evidence of this? have you heard about this as a recurring issue? a specific practice at the local level of targeting people in recovery for sales?

>> i have not seen evidence of targeting our treatment facilities. i will say that it does -- it certainly appears on the surface that there has been a targeting effort towards which communities to infiltrate with heroin and certainly i look to the increase in heroin coming into our communities, the increase of fentnol at the same time that we were restricting access to prescription drugs as u suspecting that there's a strong correlation between those two. and causation between those as well. but i don't have direct evidence of it. it just seems hard to imagine that there wouldn't be a direct lationship between them. >> thank you. senator, i also don't have direct evidence of this activity on a local level.

i will say in mexico that criminal groups have targeted recovery facilities but more as recruitment centers. >> recruitment centers for >> for them. for their own to basically build out their own criminal operations. >> you mean for like dealers? >> not for dealers. just for memberships. so people who would participate in the criminal organizations. so that has certainly happened especially with regards to the famous group there. to say t of this is whether or not they're targeting to pushing drugs in certain areas. i'm not sure it is as relevant as the sort of whole picture which is what the mayor alluded to which is this idea that this is largely driven from former people who use pharmaceutical drugs. and those people you can find

all over. and that accounts also for the sort of disbursed nature of this epidemic as opposed to sort of the 1970s where you had it very concentrated in urban areas. now we have it spread out throughout many different parts of the united states. >> this weekend i had a personal friend who is a police office anywhere miami dade county and he accounted the story he pulled up to a car and there was a woman in the driver's seat kind of slumped over a it caught his curiosity. so he pulled over and knocked on the windows. a nice car. obviously a person of financial means. knocks on the window and the person popped to attention. he can see that in her arm there was a needle. she was basically shooting up on the side of a road in a luxury vehicle. knocked on the window rolls down the -- she rolls down the window they interact. he makes a decision to how to treat her ten years ago he would have arrested her.

today his perception has changed because he's had several interaction including this with a person who by the way is a member of the florida bar is a successful, functional attorney, whose husband apparently also has a problem. the fundamental challenge he faces he doesn't want to take her to jail. he doesn't view her as a criminal. he views her as someone who has a disease and needsreatment. her gateway was the use of pharmaceutical painkiller for a surge skl procedure six or seven years ago which she lost access to t medicine and this is what happened. so t number one, if today you are dependent upon an opiate substae irrespective of how you got there but let's say in the case of this person because of the use of a pharmaceutical that led to this point there is still an extraordinary stigma associated with it as if you are a bad person doing a really bad thing and needs to be punished for it.

and second, even if that stigma wrr to changed so we can get people into treatment and accepting the fact that i am physically dependent on this substance in many communities there is nowhere to take them. the only place you can take them potentially is to a jail where you hope their withdrawal are managed but may not be and in essence there's nowhere for them to go. in many places we don't have the capacity to meet that reality. which leads to the third problem. the number of people who end up in the jail cell for 15 days go through withdrawal do not realize they would have lost their tolerance even in that short period of time and when they call off they go back to using the levels they were using before they went through withdrawal and it killed them. because they lost their tolerance for an opiate. so given that perspective, i'm sure there are hundreds if not thousands of cases like that. what are the impediments to getting someone who faces this now who i don't think so but could be watching c-span in

this very moment? but are watching us hearing us talk about this. what's out there today or what is missing for someone who needs this treatment and just doesn't know what to do about it next? because especially for the uninsured there aren't many options. >> thank you. and i think that is a key part of addressing the demand side. part of it is to educate people and help them make the right choices to avoid overuse of prescription drugs. the other part is how do we provide the resources to treat people that are addicted? and the treatment options are very limited for the uninsured as i pointed out 26 beds for 2.4 million people. our jail alone one out of four in the region we have on average 200 people that we're treating for withdrawal symptoms. and offering them a treatment program when they leave. we need more treatment facilities. when you ask me the question

dealers ickers are preying. the reality is we don't have enough treatment centers to prey on. your said youble that florida was specifically targeted because they knew we had the pill mill problem and once that was cut off. >> exactly. i don't have evidence. but what i have is the evidence in the increase in the flow of heroin and the increases in deaths related. in correlation to our cutting off the pill mental illness. let me also say that while we were dispensing more oxy code done than the rest of the country combined out of florida most of that was leaving our state and most of these pill mental illness you could drive up and you could look in the parking lots the parking lot would be fill and only a small percentage of those were local license plates. so the cartels may have misjudged the appetite. but they no question have flooded us with very, very

cheap drugs and the number of youth that i have seen that are struggling with addiction and have turned the corner and have been able have had the good for tune and the money to find treatment, the insured portion of that population to see that there actually is life after heroin addiction is very encouraging. but what's very discouraging is that most people who are addicts have no idea that there's life and have no opportunity to get to treatment centers. >> just to fill in the gaps. we had these facilities you just basically pulled up and said my neck or back hurts and by routine they would give you a package, it wasn't just oxy. they put stuff in there. you would have bus loads of people come in sometimes. it was a huge problem. the florida legislature chloed that loop hole. just to be fair these are not the oxy prescriptions being

driven by a doctor at his or her office. it was these specific facilities that drove it. did you want to add something? i had one more question. >> just very quickly. this is obviously framed as a law enforcement debate and certainly i was asked to talk about the criminal organizations. but as you rightly pointed out this is a public health issue. at the heart of it this is a farm suitically driven epidemic and tass public health issue. and that's really the difficulty in facing up to this, is that it isn't necessarily strictly law enforcement. throwing people into jails. we need to be talking about how to get them better treatment. >> and on the human side of it i don't believe anyone wakes up and says today is the day i become an addict. this is not something somebody wants to happen. you just see growing evidence. people don't realize the power. there's no responsible way to use it it. we know some people are more sensitive or susceptible to addiction than others but it

basically restructures the brain's chemistry in the way a disease would. i look at these statistics, for example, in florida this is an example. orlando has 83 heroin deaths in 2014. significantly -- other communities have large numbers. west palm beach 51, miami 60. but that number pops out at you as a place that's been specifically targeted. then you see the rise in deaths and the spike we've seen across the country in heroin and opiate deaths where the takeoff point has been is the introduction of fentnol. which as we've already seen from testimony today is an incredibly powerful and lethal substance which in fact for my understanding is not prescribed outside of a hospital setting to begin with on the pharmaceutical side and is now being laced into -- and i want to go to senator kaine. i want to leave with this thought. i read the other day a report

someone who was a former now recovering addict was asked about this and said when you hear that someone has died from an overdose, that was sold by a particular dealer, it makes you want to buy from that particular dealer because you know what they're selling is the strong stuff. that was -- now maybe just one interview one line somebody said but it tells you the point we've reached here where it's very difficult and debilitating condition that we have to try to understand here and i think one of the keys is to remove the stigma. i think many would be surprised the number of people we interact with on a daily basis that at some level have a dependence problem. maybe not to street heroin but to some sort as a result of what we've seen happen and hopefully we can make advances in pharmaceuticals so we can draw the line and we will be able to treat pain effectively in this country without putting people at risk. >> thanks to each of you. i'm sorry i missed your opening

testimony although i read your written testimony. i was a mayor, too, in richmond. and it was only when i was mayor that i really fully grasped the depths of the demand side. you can arrest a dealer and another dealer and another dealer. but if the demand for dru is so potent, if it has its hooks in so deeply the next dealer will appear tomorrow. we had a really tough problem in pritched and a lot of drug related homicides were taking place in this neighborhood where near where the church that goy to is. and the number of stories that would appear on the front page about something coming in to buy drugs and getting shot at the corner of second and maryland whatever. you would think about five of those stories people would quit driving in to buy drugs there but no they would keep driving in to buy drugs. that was evidence of how powerful addiction is that you would have all this objective evidence that wow this is going to be dangerous.

much less that the drug is going to be dangerous. but the need is so intense i'm still going to go. it sounds like you've seen that in your community. i was mayor 20 years ago. the drugs were different but it's the same thing of this addiction. and that's why the treatment issues are so important. the other thing we used to hear, i'm not an expert in this field. but when somebody who is under the grip of an addiction says i want treatment, that's a window that wropes the treatment if it's not there the window could close. in a month the individual may be past the point of wanting treatment. may have o.d.'s or lapsed back into behaviors not desiring treatment. so i appreciate what the chair and you were saying about the need for treatment. i'm curious if you can talk about as a mayor the way to solve some of these challenges is definitely have partnership state federal. talk about what you've done in your county to on the

partnership side how many -- do you have the right stakeholders? are there things we can do from a federal 4re68 to ensure if we're issuing funds that we do it in a way that requires regional cooperation or multilevel stakeholder cooperation? red is off in orlando. red is on here. in orlando one of the things i think we have done very effectively is regional cooperation and collaboration. and i think that is crucial on tackling any large issue such as this. so one of the reasons that we pulled together the task force that we did, we prauth in so many different disciplines to make sure that we could attack this problem from all angles. and so i would suggest that as we -- it's so important we have limited resources at all government levels. it always seems like the demand for resources outpaces splice.

so it is important that programs are structured in a way that funding is put to its best use and i think that collaborative effort is important. we have the metropolitan bureau of investigation that pulled together fdle, f.d.a., local law enforcement, police officers, sheriff, state attorney's office. that has been very effective for us on the enforcement side of this. in terms of your comments about that window of opportunity for addicts, i can't understand it either because i've never experienced a feeling of needing something so badly that i'm willing to risk my life to have it but i do understand that is the reality. i know enough people. i have -- once we formed the task force enough people came forward literally walked up to me on the street. you know what it's like being a local mayor. people recognize you they come up and pour their heart and

soul to you. it's a blessing to be at that level where you can really hear first-hand and i have seen young people that you would never in your wildest imagination have thought were addicts tell me their stories. what i also saw i think i mentioned before you walked in here, i also saw the other side. i saw that they came out the other side of heroin addiction and they're living full lives and getting college degrees and they're going to be productive members of society. and i think that most heroin addicts do not believe that's a possibility. and if they have that moment, if it's 15 minutes, two hours, two days, where they say gosh i want to kick this. the reality is they're not going to be waiting for two weeks or a month. they're going to be waiting a lot longer in most of our communities to get into a treatment facility unless they've got a substantial amount of money. and that is a huge problem. and as i said in my testimony, the best option is our county jail right now. and that is a lousy option.

now, to say we have a bad jail. we do our best. but having a record does not help the situation. so we really need to have options available. we need to have education. we need to have hope. we need to have an entirely -- the whole communities engaged. as you point out it's destroying lives. it's destroying entire communities. thank you, sir. >> we had a chart recently placed before us at another capita.about od's per the 50 states. it was unlike any chart i've ever seen. ever. if you look at a chart that's usually some kind of a problem or crime or social breakdown, high income states will be at one part of the chart and low income states will be at the other part. if you looked at the top ten most affected states they included some of the poorest and richest. if you looked at the bottom ten they included some of the

poorest and richest states in the country. this is really unlike any sort of similar epidemic or law enforcement problem identify ever seen in the traditional demographic not a predictor. it is rural, urban, suburban, it is all regions. i went to a drug court graduation kind of founding drug court in virginia and the judge who founded it who is this super far-sided thinker about the need for drug courts had a child who many years later was killed in a drug related incident. after i spoke at the graduation, one of the probation officers who helps the court run has done so is a spectacular advocate. he said this is my second drug court graduation this week. i went to my son's graduation in a community about two hours from here. this affects every level and that is why we're now spending

the time that we are. but we haven't spent time in this committee on it. and it's really important that we do so. this is not -- just like it doesn't have demographic borders this is not a problem that even has national borders. and we've got to grab hold of the dimensions. and build those partnerships not even in a metropolitan region but we've got to build law enforcement and other partnerships. thank you for being here here for your testimony. >> i just wanted to ask you about these transnational groups targeting us. i think in your testimony you talked about this. tonight reiterate it. again, if there is -- whether fentnol being produced sintsdzically or poppy based opiates being grown in the western hemisphere in particular mexico they're coming here. this is the almost exclusive market for these trafficking net works. is that correct?

>> that's correct. absoluly. there's a small market local market but it's minimal. so. >> you heard the testimony before because you would think they're crossing the border, you would think the easiest from a logistical point of view is for them to flood it into texas or california or into a border state. but you're hearing whether wr the outbreaks are. and this is a national problem. there's no community in the country that doesn't face it at some level. but you see these outbreaks in the northeast and new hampshire and massachusetts and places like central florida. so it's not even i-10 alone. what is your view of how is it winding up in these pockets? what are the distinguishing characteristics? you heard the previous testimony of the government witnesses. what in your view turn a community into a high propensity, high risk area? such a new , it's

phenomenon because it's so dispursed. but the fact that it's so dispersed is really what leads to the criminal organizations being so dispersed. and the notion that we have one ingle all encompassing oorn my cartel and once we encars rate guzman everything will be resolved, is just simply not correct just because of the nature of the market and the way in which these criminal organizations will satisfy that market. this is -- it's an odd thing because in a way there's certain elements of this epidemic that we're victims of our own success. the fact that you would create ways so you can't tamper with oxycotin, for example, you can't snort it any more. the sort of the way in which it's distributed.

well then that makes it less available to people so then they search out other things. the wayhe mexican government and united states government has captured or killed several of the larger leaders of the criminal organizations of a larger criminal organizations has led to a fragmentation of these groups. so you have groups like you which was earlier the group responsible for the massacre or supposed massacre of those 43 students that disappeared 43 students currently still. this is a group that was an offshoot of a larger group and there are several like them. so in order to wrap your hands around this as a law enforcement issue it's incredibly difficult because the terrain is so much more horizontal than vertical. and even when you take out the larger leaders, what you're left with is a fragmented

criminal landscape. >> watch the rest of this hearing and all programs on line at c-span.org. at the spoke greenbrier hotel in white sulfur springs, west virginia. >> ladies and gentlemen, this is the highlight of our conference. we have our own jay wilkinson who will carry on a carrot -- a conversation with chief justice roberts.

jay: there is no need to panic. i will not give a speech. that i do want to thank you all for inviting me to the conference again. it is an invitation i am always happy to accept. it is also an opportunity to. the judge for the past three years as a chairman of the executive committee of the judicial conference for the united states. it is the most important appointment i have to make. and once again, i have chosen very well. bill has done an extraordinary job. it is the responsibility of the chairman of the executive in settingo work national policy for the courts, rules, operations, the inevitable crises that come along. doing all that, there are met.oals that have to be

first of all, all of those questions have to be answered and handled with wisdom and good judgment. second of all, the chairman has to make it look as if i have something to do with it. i am very grateful for his success in both regards. today is a very important anniversary. this may 25, 1787, was the opening of the constitutional convention. it was a big day for what is now the fourth circuit. of course, george washington was elected president of the convention. his nomination was seconded by john rutledge, south carolina. nominations is a currently a good thing to do. washington included rutledge among the six appointees the supreme court. he had a little bit of a chip on his shoulder, to be fair. he thought he should have been the chief justice and felt passed over. i don't know if it had anything to do with it, but he resigned

in 1791 without having heard a single case. to accept the far more prestigious position of chief justice of south carolina. when john j left to accept -- left to beay rutledgeof new york, was nominated. but he was not his first choice. alexander hamilton was his first choice. but hamilton declined. so think if things had been different. the most succeful play on broadway could be a hip-hop musical about a chief justice. [laughter] which would have been a little different. jay and i are not going to conduct this interview in rap. so i think we will get started right now. [applause]

>> thank you so much for coming to our little gathering. it is great to have you here. go back a long way and we were together in the justice department during the reagan administration. that, at that judgment washief jus deeply respected. that respect has only grown over the course of the years. theow, of course, that chief justice is greatly respected by the public at large. but i think this conference is the perfect place to emphasize just how much those of us within the judiciary cherish and respect the quality of his

leadership. we appreciate the dignity and character and wonderful sense of humor with which the chief justice presides. chief justice roberts: that's probably a good place to end. [laughter] it's going to go downhill. [laughter] jay: there is one more thing. binds us all is a deep love of law. i've never met anybody that loves the law more than the chief justice of the united states. potential the the law has to preserve our liberties and to maintain order and to make more satisfying lives for the majority for all of american citizens. valuesot only shares our .

he embodies them. and we really like that. it is so nice. and welcome, chief. chief justice roberts: thank you. i know you have mourned the death of justice scalia up in he had many friends and admirers in the fourth circuit. i was particularly pleased to see all of his colleagues on your record, from across the toctrum, pay their respects not just the jurisprudence, but to the more magnanimous spirit that justice scalia exhibited. and we are particularly proud to son as aice scalia's member of our fourth circuit conference.

chief, we didn't get a chance to celebrate -- you were talking in your remarks about anniversaries. --didn't unfortunately just just because we didn't have a chance to celebrate your 10th anniversary of becoming chief justice. as you look back, i guess a decade is a time to reflect, a decade.ver a . what would you say has been the most satisfying a compliment for you in the course of your 10 years, 11 years now? what is the thing you'll look back on with the most satisfaction? chief justice roberts: i would say serving for 10 years is the most -- [laughter] t may sound facetious about -- the first thing i would like to point out is that it is very difficult for any member of the court, and certainly for a chief justice, to single out any single accomplishment as his own. we are very much a collegial

body, in the technical sense, not simply in the sense that we get along with each other, although we do. group.operate as a i think it would be better task what the accomplishments of the court over the past 10 years have been. and i think the answer is really quite simple. group, i think i'm a done our job of protecting the in the the court constitutional plan come in carrying out the separation of powers, and living up to the challenge that is carved in marble on our courthouse -- equal justice under law. where the court may be been as good at doing that as it might have been. typically, those are occasions where i dissented. [laughter] but we don't set out to accomplish great things. .

i think that is the responsibility of the political branches. our challenge is something to do our job as best we can and, looking back, i feel very pleased that i think we have done that. you are ending: -- you are nearing the end of the term. historically, most of the really big cases have come down toward the end of june. me, say, ok,asking at the end of june, everybody wants to recess on the last day of june, certainly before independence day. dong. the school bell rings and people are rushing out the door. does the adjournment date, does it effect of the june opinions? is there a rush to get things

that in some way leads to less scrutiny of those last opinions coming out the door? chief justice roberts: you know, i think that might have been true a generation ago. when i was a law clerk in 1980, the court issued 150 opinions in that term. today, we issue about half that. there is a lot of debate about the reasons for that. some of the reasons are interesting to talk about. but when you have 150 opinions you are try to get outcome i think maybe the answer is, yes. briefs ors working on other analyses, i would look at the date of the opinion carefully in that area. if the -- in that era. if the date is june 20, i would think to better look at it.

you are right, the hard ones naturally tend to take longer. at least we know we have until roughly the end of june. so we focus maybe on the easier once before that. but i don't think they suffered quality. of course, we don't have a fast deadline. we don't leave until all our work is done and sometimes it has pushed us to july. gotten a, we have even day or two out early. you can imagine -- it's hard if everybody worked on their own schedule with different priorities, nothing would come together and to the very last day. so we kind of have to sit down and say let's focus on these cases first and get it all done. if we are their past the fourth of july, that is probably my fault. judge wilkinson: you mentioned the fact that the docket has gone down from maybe 150 275.

150 ttoe stash from 75. chief justice roberts: you are doing very well so far. we have four opinions out of the fourth circuit so far. been affirmed in three of them. i have to admit, i dissented in one of those three. keep up theson: good work. [laughter] speaking of opinions and everything. we have occasion to look through the opinions of the 1930's and 1940's and 19 fifth. these and i -- and 1950's. and i am amazed at how short some of these are and the footnotes that some of these have. you look back at brown v board

and others, they were monumental cases and they were written with very short opinions. but the modern trend has been toward longer and longer opinions with more and more -- thees than the 30's 19 30's, 1920's, 1940's and 1950's. a lawyer's most valuable asset is his or her time. -- and ilong opinions think the court of appeals needs to take cognizance of this as well -- are we imposing an undue burden on the time of an issue with the length of our opinions? simply what we require, lawyers and district court judges and others to read, is that a problem? chief justice roberts: yes and no.

some of the examples you gave have particular reasons. you know, brown can i guess, was less than 10 pages. and brown 2 was even shorter than that. warren war and -- earl -- it was important to have a unanimous opinion. if he had taken one more page were two more. -- or two more pages, then the agreement would have served to unravel. so that was important. be shorte wanted it to enough so everyone could read it, not just the legal profession. the commentators and the reporters would not really have the opportunity. it would be right there. you could look at "the new york times" and it is right there. so he had reasons for keeping it short. i agree with you on the length of opinions and footnotes. . i think i have the fewest number of footnotes of any of the justices in my opinions.

busy and youe get don't often read them. why should i write them if no one is going to read them. but i do think it is a problem. you said 1930's, i guess, will that it -- it is almost a hundred years since then. the statutory production is not what it is now. it takes a few more pages to find your way out of the forest in those cases. so that might be part of it. and technology is part of it. it is too easy to write things and change them and here is for paragraphs about this issue and move it over into the opinion. i think in the older days, it was harder to make revisions. and it was harder to know -- i mean, one reason that has been suggested why we have fewer cases is that there are fewer conflicts among the lower

courts. and there are fewer conflicts because everybody knows what everybody else is doing now. even in 1980, you could go a long to the lower courts and say this and not know that the supreme court of thurmont had already come out the other way. now you push a button -- supreme court of vermont had only come out the other way. now you push a button and you know everything. judge wilkinson: change is occurring on every front. the size of a opinions and everything. area of change, i think, has been the nature of the supreme court appellate bar. powell usedustice to complain a little bit that there were all too many people coming up and arguing supreme court cases, because some of the advocates were way in over their head. now the complaint is that we it isll too few, and that

a lower calabar, especially in the private civil cases. too many repeat players. hey, let's give somebody else a chance. is the appellate bar becoming to elite and two in grounding your elite and toooo ingrown in your judgment? at thatstice roberts: time, he talked about the very trend. you go back to 1980 -- i don't remember the numbers, but adding aside the government's lawyers, i think there were two or three people that argued more than one case that ter maybe a couple more. now it is premature teen. the lawyers we see quite often in a single case.

one has done 10 arguments. one has done 30 arguments. that was unheard of back then. so it is a change. specialized.re i think the supreme court advocacy was not recognized as a specialty until fairly recently. in many ways, it is quite a good thing. . it is not like even arguing before the court of appeals. is good to have people who know that and have done it before and understand when we ask hundred questions in an hour, which has happened. involves acase bankruptcy statute, it is probably not in the supreme court because of bankruptcy issues. it is there because of how we view statutory interpretation. it is good to have people who know that. it is good to have repeat players, just as in any other court.

they know that they are going to be up there again later, so they will be a little more circumspect about how they analyze the record and explained the cases to you. iving said all that, i think and many of my colleagues sort of miss the opportunity of a "mr. smith comes to washington" moment where you have a sole practitioner with a battered shares what his practice is like and his understanding of what the court is like. and they often do a very good job. but it is just so hard. you for months focus on a supreme court case. to that extent, i think it is disappointing them. you lose a little bit of the color and texture of an argument when it is the same people. although, we benefit a great deal from having experts before us. judge wilkinson: yes, it is less and less if a ceramic chores.

i remember one of the comments justice powell had made. they don't even know our names. and they would be calling one justice the name of another justice. [laughter] at least with the repeat players, they are going to get the names right. chief justice roberts: you would have thought so, but our last case, a mistake happened. was referred to as justice o'connor. [laughter] by a repeat player. sometimes people ask what advice i have for advocates and i always say don't use their names. [laughter] judge wilkinson: that's probably true. i have a hard time thinking of any area touching the supreme court where there isn't change. one of the big areas of change involves law clerks. -- of course, the numbers of clerks have increased.

--ple keep reminded me reminding me that john marshall wrote -- with hardly any law clerks, how did he do it? [laughter] in addition, it used to be that clerks would go right from law school to the supreme court. where aave a situation number of law clerks are a hired actor, a year or two or more of government service. you have it flipped around. we used to be training in the law clerks for private practice. they see folks in private training lawyers to serve as law clerks. is this a good trend?

part of the value of a clerkship was -- at least partly -- a sentimental value. i know you felt this way about your clerks. this was our first formative professional experience. so we held it in particular sentimentally throughout the rest of our professional lives. it wasn't just another stop. in my right about the trend? and is it a good idea? youf justice roberts: well, mentioned john marshall not having any clerks. it sort of ties into your earlier question. i suspect one of the reasons that these opinions or longer is that there are more clerks working on things.

i suppose it would be a waste if you didn't put this in somewhere. [laughter] so that might be a part of the problem. i sometimes think it would be better if we had two clerks or fewer. but you are right. there is a trend of hiring people with outside experience before coming to the court. i know i've done some of that. i would say most of my clerks are still hired out of the appellate court clerkship. i think the jury is still out. i think there are disadvantages from having somebody who has been in practice for a while. without disparaging any of my clerks by saying that. i'm trying to figure it had a phrase that. in a sense it could be that it is because they get to be too good to law. at law.-- good to find theone cases on this issue and prepare

that. don't want something that is a little too polished, whether it's drafts or memos. we always proudly say we are the only branch of gernment where we still do our own work. ad if you get somebody who is little too good at producing what you want them to produce, it makes it harder for you to find a way into the writing sometimes. judge wilkinson: i don't want to go to justice powell too often, but he is toomplain that the clerk was way too green when he first came on the court. he was a managing partner of a major law firm. he had years of experience. but then as the years went on, he said it is a distinct advantage to have law clerks were green because they bring the experiences of their generation and the latest thinking from the law schools and everything. 180 onent a complete that.

chief justice roberts: yeah. to askilkinson: i wanted a question on a more lighthearted vein. when chief rehnquist came to our , he used to compare the cultures of the different circuit courts of appeal. he used to talk about the black-tie tradition. 10 he would contrast that with and he wouldd -- contrast that with what he theed the white sandals of ninth circuit. i guess in light of this contrast that was drawn, do you think the fourth circuit needs to lighten up? [laughter] chief justice roberts: i think maybe the other circuits should tighten up a little bit. [laughter] [applause]

one of the great things about my current job is that i do go to the other circuits. i come here, of source -- of course. in mye d.c. circuit is responsibility. and there is one other peer in you get a flavor for what they are like. the organizers here have a dress formal attire and evening banquet and business attire here. you mentioned the ninth circuit, no shirts, no shoes, no service kind of thing. [laughter] which makes sense. the last time i was there, the nference was on the beach in malibu and that is sort of the setting. of deral system you see it reflected in that as well. you go to new york and the second circuit pride themselves

in that everybody gives oral argument. and you do get a real sense of new york. what do you get to say? goodbye. and here, the culture is a little more genteel so it makes sense to have that kind of approach. some of them -- i was just out at the eighth circuit a month or so ago. their main characteristic is sort of goes from north dakota to arkansas. their main characteristic is sort of -- you know, it goes from north dakota to arkansas. is -- it reflects our diversity. judge wilkinson: the second circuit, where they have five minutes of oral argument of people say to me, the red light isn't really red.

in other argued circuits where the red light really did mean stop talking. cheese, it is traditional in our conversations that you will tell us what is on your summer reading list. and give us -- i know you will have a little bit of downtime, well-deserved, during e summer. what are you going to be reading and what should i read -- what should we read? chief justice roberts: i will give a little shout out to my colleagues. i'm sure justice breyer's new court."e world and the i always read my colleagues' books over the summer. judge wilkinson: do you agree with justice breyer? iief justice roberts: wouldn't phrase it just like that. [laughter] i haven't read it. it is on the last. to be honest, i think it is a phony debate. everyone thinks that we ought to

look at [indiscernible] court disagrees with that. the issue comes up when you are looking at foreign law to directly informed the interpretation of the to overtion, you know, simple five the fact that so many clerks have viewed the .eath penalty as inconsistent does that tell you how you should interpret the eighth amendment here? that's a more controversial point. i understand his messed -- his basic thesis is the world is an anchor directed -- is an interconnected place. i'm looking forward to reading the book. the challenge, of course, you can't just say the world's view on law because that is pretty different. -- know, our friends in the now the english supreme court, a

fascinating change for them -- and their legal system is a little different than the law in iran or iraq. judge wilkinson: i was thinking it would become harder for a lawyer is if they were responsible for not domestic law but also for law. it seems to me there is some danger running at the meter and legal bills if lawyers have to be prepared for the fact that this case in this country may play a role in a supreme court or a court of appeals opinion. it may increase the challenge of an attorney's job in preparation. is that a difficulty? chief justice roberts: i guess it does. there's always had a challenging job frankly in translating what is going on for the justices and for the judges.

i don't think we live in an ivory tower and all of this is foreign to us. but some of it is quite a challenge. what you see a lot these days is not for lava technology. more and more, we have cases that involve whether the antitrust area or the fourth amendment area or the first amendment area. what do you do the new technology? it is partly generational. we have had cases where it has been a real responsibility, a challenge for the lawyers to spy to us this is how this works. so it is just another challenge. theyast time i looked, make more money than we do. so -- [laughter]

there is prone -- there is plenty of other things to talk about without wading into that kind of subject. so anybody that would like to ask a question of the chief justice, please feel free to. >> [indiscernible] explain details of the virtues of [indiscernible] chief justice roberts: i don't know if you can hear in the back. the question is -- we talked often about the need for diversity, the benefits of diversity on the courts. and the question is do i find it problematic that all the justices went to to law schools

and that there are no protestants on the court. at least with respect to the first of those things come i think the answer is yes. i think it is uortunate. presidentsifferent and different parties sort of think who they take -- sort of pick who they think are all if -- are qualified. respects,t is an unrepresentative sample. way?at does that mean we bring different views in how to look at the law? if you went to a big state law school as opposed to harvard or yale? i don't think so. it is kind of hard to say they will have a different view. it's athe other hand, big country. there are a lot of law schools. you would think there would be more diversity. i can't articulate to you why or where that is reflected or what.

parts of the country is another thing. stevens and i served on the court together, we felt a little bit of a special bond in that we were from -- the only ones from the middle of the country, the midwest. everybody else was either from the east coast or the west coast. to again, it is hard articulate it. we were just talking about the circuits. with peoplen a room from new york and california the south, you kind of get a sense -- you would be able to tell a little bit, ok, i can guess where you are from. i do know, a general way of dealing with people. honest, it ise hard to figure out -- does that mean that the court -- if you have sort of an eastern seaboard bias, what does that mean? how does that reflect itself? i can't say. as far as the religion goes, i've certainly not seen any evidence that it's made an

impact. it is kind of unusual. with nine people, you would think that is the religious makeup. so i guess the short answer to your question, it is kind of strange, think. maybe it is some thing to worry about,ut i can't quite put my finger on how the difference shows up. judge wilkinson:. yes, sir >> mr. chief justice -- yes, sir. mentionedtice, you brown the board of education. how would you compare it to the styles of some of your favorite chief justices in our history? chief justice roberts: well, it is interesting. there is a great benefit that brown was a unanimous opinion. but there was another side to that. it was unanimous in many respect

because they left a lot of things undecided. there was a generation of litigation trying to figure out what does this mean and how does this work out, where does the obligation of client on what basis. a good thing.as and i understand chief justice warren's reasoning, but it was subject to criticism. some of those things resolved so people know how to implement this. so there are pluses. there are minuses. sometimes, one we have written opinions, people have said, particularly for the lower courts, they often pay the price for that. how exactly do we do this? couldn't you have spent five more pages giving us a little more guidance? muched to achieve as

consensus as i can. again, that is not something i can do on my own. you kind of have to have a commitment as a group to do that. want to speak for the others, but i think we spent a fair amount of time -- i think a little more than others may be in the past, talking about .hings, talking that out it sometimes brings you a little bit closer together. but it's been subject to some criticism that it puts things withnd say let's not deal this issue. it has something to do with judicial philosophy. should be as restrained and only decide issues when it is necessary to do so. i think that is part of how i look at the job of a judge in our system. others, youlates to know, i'm not quite sure.

big chunks of our history -- era, you could not dissent. i think it was a lot to do with john marshall and the force of his intellect and his gregarious nature. the first decision he made was, when we get to washington, we are going to all live in the same boarding house. had obligations outside of washington, so they did not have a permanent residence there. and they pretty much function does a group. if you look at history, it was not because marshall imposed his will on the others. the other views were considered and often became part of the unanimous opinion. judge wilkinson: so with respect to the question, the last question, which i think is very good one, warren burger and william rehnquist had very different management styles. conferences the

went on at great length as the justices discussed about cases among themselves. but with chief justice rehnquist, the conferences were much shorter. let's say our road's and the differences of the discussion will come out in the writing. do you have any thoughts about these very different management styles with chief justice burger and chief justice rehnquist? and whether you have a preference for orally extending the conference and irony views that way or whether we should just leave it for the writing? chief justice roberts: well, you know, if you think chief justice burger's were too long and chief were tooehnquist's short, maybe this is a goldilocks moment and we are just right. [laughter] i think it is important. it is probably true that we discussed things a little bit more than we did under chief justice rehnquist.

i think that helps move things along. -- thatet to i appoint is -- you do get to a point, you is a phrase we use, leave it to the writing. when you get to the small details, it is hard when you get nine people talking about what does this curly q in the regulation mean? you have to get it on paper so that people can focus on it more. judge wilkinson: do we have one more question? time for one final question. if not, i would say -- chief justice roberts: i think we have one out there. >> [indiscernible] chief justice roberts: the mike is right behind you. that will help. >> yes, you mentioned earlier that the court deals with technology now, which is a growing area of the law and in science. i was curious, with other

scientific and technological issues, whether it is biology or climate science or [indiscernible] what kind of science backgrounds do the sought -- to the justices have, and where do they go to for expertise? chief justice roberts: that is a very good question. i think the short answer is varied backgrounds. justice thomas is the most technologically sophisticated of us on the court. he is also advising us -- you got to get this, you've got to get that. and who knows what those machines are doing. age.t's not necessarily by some of the more junior ones may not have as much experience as some of the more senior ones. i know justice scalia was experimenting with some of the new gadgets. in dealing with research and drafting and all that. who do we go to? you know, that is a good question and i think there is

some controversy around it. it is so easy to say what it is and go online and see. but should that be part of the record on how you are viewing it? i think that is what the case is about. our law clerks are so much more adept at the technology than we are. we can ask them. a great challenge and it is a very just in question. i think we do need to be very careful. conducting our own research on law is what we are supposed to do. but to the extent that technology is a factual issue in a case come on a panted, whether this works or doesn't work, i think we have to be very careful issue in a case, in a patent, whether this works

or doesn't work, i think we have to be very careful. there are two sides to the story. i know we mentioned it, but maybe it is a little exaggerated. it's like in sports. if you say, ok, who are the 50 best baseball players. you look at it and they all played in the last 30 years, that's because that is what we know. i remember president reagan used to talk about it. his generation went from getting around on horses to going to the moon. that is a big technological change right there. and i think it can be subject to debate whether that was more significant or whether what is going on in our era was. so i think we tend to see things from our own perspective. chief justice roberts: you look at amicus briefs on technology -- judge wilkinson: does it help

to look at amicus briefs on technology? chief justice roberts: it does. if it is a case about fourth amendment issues and how they apply to iphones or something, tois really great if you go an amicus brief and says what we are going to do is expand to you how these work. as opposed to i'm going to give you the same legal analysis you get in the parties brief. this brief is devoted to the history of this particular legal provision or something. those are very helpful. ones that are kind of me, too, briefs so they can say they won , case when he comes their way those are less helpful. judge wilkinson: thank the chief justice for being here. [applause] chief justice roberts: thank you. [applause] judge wilkinson: that is so helpful. i really enjoyed it. chief justice roberts: thank you.

thank you very much. judge wilkinson: we will allow the chief justice to exit. >> [indiscernible] [laughter] judge wilkinson: i wouldn't put it that way. bill: these conferences don't just happen. they do not occur by themselves. there are two people here i want to particularly thank. unfortunately, the people from our office in richmond had to leave. i would appreciate it if you waited -- would join me in giving them a round of thanks for what they have done. [applause]

with regard to your trip back come i just want to share a story that was told to me this morning by my waiter. i was talking to him and he said, you know, i know you all are heading back. i want to tell you about the expense i had. i was driving from west virginia toward virginia the other day. it was a sunny day. the sky was blue. the sun was out. got carried away and i was going 80 in a 70 mile an hour zone good i left west virginia and came into virginia and come as soon as a got into virginia, there was a trooper on the side of the road. it was too late to slow down. the trooper pulled in and started following me. i was are going 80 so i kept going 80. and he says, sure enough, the guy turns the blue lights on and pull them over and he said the trooper walked up and said, sir, can i see your driver's license? i amrooper said, you know, a good mood today.

if you've got a good reason for why you are speeding, i will probably let you go. he said, i looked at him and said, you know, i'll tell you the truth, officer. statee ran off with a trooper and i was scared you are him bringing her back. [applause] [laughter] everybody drive safe going home. we are done.

>> president obama traveled to indiana where he talked about the 2016 campaign and the economy in a speech. this is about an hour. >> hello. it is good to be back. great to be back at concord high school. your senator is here.

i wanteded to congratulate everyone graduating tomorrow. i just met a couple of the valedictorians. seem like outstanding young ladies. my on the other hand daughter grad -- my older daughter graduates next week. so if there are any parents here, i hope you can give me some pointers on how not to clap too much at the ceremony and embarrass her. that's what i'm going to do. if you've got a chair, sit down. relax. i've got some stuff to say ere. -- yeah. so i'm not going to talk about the fact that my daughter leaving to me is just breaking my heart. i'm not going to talk about that. i'm here to talk about the economy.

i don't know if you've noticed ut this is an election year. and it's a more colorful election season than most. it's been a little unusual. no, i can't do that. the constitution prohibits it but more importantly michelle prohibits it. one of the reasons we're told this has been an unusual election year is because people are anxious and uncertain about the economy. and our politics are a natural place to channel that frustration. so i wanted to come to the heartlands to the midwest, close to my hometown to talk about that anxiety. that economic anxiety and what it think it means. and what i've got to say really

oils down to two points. number one, america's economy is not just boater than it was eight years agent it is the strongest most durable economy in the world. that's point number one. point number two, we can make it even stronger and expand opportunity for even more people. but to do that, we have to be honest about what our real challenges are and we've got to make some smart decisions going forward. is a good place to have a conversation because this is one of the first places that