Pubdate: Sat, 06 Apr 2002
Source: Worcester Telegram & Gazette (MA)
Copyright: 2002 Worcester Telegram & Gazette
Contact:  http://www.telegram.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/509
Note: only publishes letters from state residents.
Author: Leslie Miller, The Associated Press

POLICE LOSE RESOURCES TO WAR ON TERROR

DANVERS-- The war on terrorism is making it tougher to conduct the 
war on crime, expected to get more difficult in the near future with 
an influx of cheap heroin from Afghanistan, Massachusetts prosecutors 
said yesterday.

Essex District Attorney Kevin Burke said his office is spending more 
time prosecuting hate crimes against immigrants while bracing for the 
flood of heroin.

At the same time, fewer state police are available to solve murders 
because they're guarding bridges and reservoirs from terrorist 
attacks, he said.

"We've got guys guarding overpasses and bridges so the drug dealers 
can get from point to point safely," Burke said.

The state's budget crisis will force prosecutors to cut back even 
further -- on drug prevention and investigations, and on domestic 
violence and sexual abuse prosecutions, they said at a meeting of the 
District Attorneys Association yesterday.

"We can't send people to DARE graduations, we can't send people to 
community-based interventions, we can't send people out to do 
training," Berkshire District Attorney Gerard Downing said. "You can 
only stretch them so far." He expects $300,000 to be cut from his 
$2.3 million budget.

The state is facing a $1 billion budget deficit because of an income 
tax cut and falling tax revenues.

Burke, who expects a 15 percent cut in his $2.3 million budget, said 
a glut of heroin on the street will only get worse.

A November report from the Washington-based Center for Defense 
Information underscored his fear that the war on drugs may become an 
unintended casualty of the anti-terrorism war.

"Since the launching of U.S. attacks in Afghanistan, there have been 
reports that, against Taliban edicts, Afghan farmers have once again 
begun to prepare the soil for poppy cultivation," the report said.

Reports from Europe "claim that narcotics prices there have been 
falling since Sept. 11 -- a possible indication that Afghan drug 
dealers are dumping their stockpiles on the drug market to pay for 
weapons."

The prosecutors said it's time to reexamine how the state is spending 
money on homeland defense.

"If you ask the public now whether they want troopers to investigate 
drug crimes or watch every bridge and overpass, maybe they want the 
drug crimes investigated," Downing said.

Troopers are guarding a reservoir in Blandford 24 hours a day, seven 
days a week, he said.

"Is that a good use of a highly trained state police officer and a 
fully equipped cruiser?" he said. "I'm not saying it's wasteful, I 
don't have the expertise, but is there another way of doing it?"

"We need to take a deep breath and say 'What do we need and when'?" he said.
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