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. - --- MAP posted-by: Josh