Pubdate: Mon, 18 Jul 2005
Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch (MO)
Copyright: 2005 St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Contact:  http://www.stltoday.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/418
Author: Philip Dine
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

CUTS COULD HURT WAR ON METH, CRITICS SAY

WASHINGTON - The administration's planned cuts in funding for local
law enforcement programs that are key to the fight against
methamphetamine would make Missouri, Illinois and the Midwest more
dangerous, say legislators and law enforcement officials.

Of about 28 police task forces in Missouri that combat the spiraling
meth problem, as many as two dozen would not survive the cuts, says
Maj. James Keathley, commander of the Criminal Investigation Bureau
for the Missouri Highway Patrol.

Virtually all task forces in the state's rural areas, where the meth
problem is the most insidious, would be wiped out, some instantly and
the others within a year, Keathley said.

"That would have a devastating effect on us in Missouri, especially
with the meth epidemic that we currently have in our state," said
Keathley, president of the National Alliance of State Drug Enforcement
Agencies.

Missouri has led the nation in meth lab seizures the past four years
and stood 50 percent above the next-highest state over the past two
years, he said. This year, meth production in Missouri has risen so
high that on the average, 11 labs are being seized daily.

"The administration was wrong to propose those cuts. We need to be
doing more, not less," said Sen. Jim Talent, R-Mo., who says he will
fight President George W. Bush's plans to slash funding for some
programs and eliminate others.

The national drug-fighting budget faces a 56 percent cut, from $227
million to $100 million.

Tom Riley, chief spokesman for the administration's Office of National
Drug Control Policy, said the White House was being criticized for
taking a fiscally prudent stand and seeking to cut "politically
popular programs."

"We're trying to be responsible, and we're getting beat up for it,"
Riley said.

The programs being cut have expanded to so many states that instead of
being strategically targeted attacks on heavy drug areas, as
originally intended, they have essentially become revenue-sharing
programs with local officials, Riley said.

"We don't think that's the best use of taxpayer dollars," Riley said.
"We had some difficult budget decisions to make this year to comply
with the president's desire to cut the deficit."

Yet the moves could have major consequences, not just in Missouri but
in other states, as the proliferation of small meth labs in Missouri
spreads to its neighbors, says Dwayne Nichols. He is Missouri's
administrator of the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas program.

"It is spreading all over the country. It's now in Kentucky,
Tennessee, Illinois, Indiana; it's spread down into Arkansas. For the
small clandestine labs, it sort of has spread out from Missouri," said
Nichols, who spent 31 years with the Drug Enforcement
Administration.

As a result, legislators from a number of other states also are up in
arms over the cuts, including Sens. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Max
Baucus, D-Mont. Talent is working with Grassley to try to restore funding.

Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, R-Mo., will hold a budget markup today on
the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas program, which falls under
an Appropriations Committee panel that Bond chairs. The House voted
two weeks ago to restore the funding to $227 million, and Bond is
overseeing efforts to do so in the Senate.

"This program provides valuable resources to local law enforcement in
the fight against meth and other dangerous, illegal drugs," Bond said.
"The last thing we should be doing is cutting a proven tool that helps
local communities."

Cpl. Jason Grellner, commander of the Franklin County Drug Task Force
and a deputy sheriff, says he's concerned the administration will
shift funds to combat narcotics at the U.S. borders and in places such
as Afghanistan.

"The cuts across the board are just going to kill domestic narcotics
efforts," said Grellner, Eastern District director for the Missouri
Narcotics Officers Association.

Along with the cuts in the High Intensity program, the Byrne/Justice
Assistance Grants program would be eliminated, and the surviving High
Intensity program would be moved from the White House's Office of
National Drug Control Policy to the Justice Department. That could
make it easier for the White House to direct money toward anti-drug
efforts overseas, in Afghanistan - a producer of poppies, used to make
heroin - and elsewhere, Grellner said.

"There will be a loss of control. Once it's under the Department of
Justice, it can be reallocated to the (Drug Enforcement
Administration) or FBI or any of the other programs," Grellner said.
"We have been fighting the drug war outside our country for two
decades," against cocaine production in South America, heroin and
opium elsewhere, with little effect, he said.

Illinois State Police Lt. Mark Bramlett, special investigations
commander for the Metro East area and director of the narcotics effort
in the area, says that "meth continues to be a huge problem here in
the Metro East."

Meth abuse has a devastating effect on families, including "a lot of
child abuse, child neglect and domestic abuse," and the proposed cuts
would reduce the ability of police to combat the problem, he said.
Just one group under his command, the Illinois State Police Meth
Response Teams, will handle "somewhere in the area of 200 labs in the
Metro East area this year," Bramlett said.

Granite City Assistant Police Chief Richard Miller said that in his
city, which has a significant meth problem, budget cuts would force a
decision on whether the department can afford to continue to
participate in local drug task forces, which have helped make the
problem somewhat manageable in recent years.

Overall, eliminating the Byrne program would cost Illinois about $14.3
million a year, law enforcement officials said, while Missouri stands
to lose about $9 million from that program. Most of the High Intensity
program money for Illinois goes to the Chicago area.

The administration in no way minimizes the seriousness of the meth
problem, Riley said, and it appreciates the role Bond and Talent have
played in helping lead the fight against the drug. He added that the
White House would soon announce major initiatives in that campaign,
though he wouldn't discuss them.

But the president has to put money where it will be most effective and
where there is accountability, Riley said. He noted that overall drug
funding went up this year in the president's budget and that there
were no cuts in areas that would have been easy to cut because of the
lack of a voting constituency, including drug treatment and
rehabilitation.

When the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas program began 14 years
ago, Riley said, there were five regional programs around the country;
now there are 28.

Both Missouri and Illinois entered the program in the mid-1990s.

"The progression is to turn the entire country into a High Intensity
Drug Trafficking Area. That's the momentum of this program; that is
why there's a bit of a philosophical difference between the
administration and some people in Congress about the nature of that
program."

The move to the Justice Department helps coordination with law
enforcement, Riley said.

Nichols worries about the practical impact on Missouri, which now gets
$4.2 million a year in funding from the High Intensity program alone.
Among the effects, he says, "it would cause the loss of nine chemists,
eight prosecutors, three analysts" in forensic labs that already "are
just overwhelmed."

Federal drug officials are underestimating the danger posed by small
clandestine meth labs to families, communities, the economy and the
environment in the rural Midwest, as well as the extent to which the
High Intensity program has sparked cooperation among state, local and
federal agencies, Nichols said.

Keathley, of the Missouri Highway Patrol, said the outcome of Bond's
hearing this week will go a long way toward determining whether the
funds are eventually restored. 
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