# DEA/FBI Reorganization: Hearing before the House Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control, 30 March 1982

Canonical: https://mobfiles.org/items/house-1982-dea-fbi-reorganization-hearing/

House hearing on the 1982 decision giving the FBI concurrent jurisdiction over drug offenses. The FBI Director and the DEA's Acting Administrator testify that the FBI will focus on drug cases involving "traditional organized crime."

The House Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control heard FBI Director William H. Webster and Francis M. Mullen, Jr., Acting Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, on the Justice Department's decision to give the FBI concurrent jurisdiction over drug offenses. Their joint statement says that the DEA "will continue to function as the principal federal drug enforcement agency."

It continues: "The FBI has been directed to focus its resources on (1) drug investigations involving traditional organized crime and violence-prone non-traditional criminal groups such as outlaw motorcycle gangs, (2) financial investigations and (3) white-collar and corruption investigations, insofar as they are related to drug trafficking." Webster cited a joint investigation in southern Florida that he called the "Black Tuna case."

The FBI later described the Pizza Connection investigation as its first major drug case after this change ([FBI history](/items/fbi-history-pizza-connection/)). Only the opening and the joint statement of this hearing were read in detail, from the microfiche OCR, and the printed page numbers of the quotations were not recorded.

## Sources

- Internet Archive, microfiche scan of the Government Printing Office print: https://archive.org/details/micro_IA41152810_0396