Pubdate: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 Source: Muskogee Daily Phoenix (OK) 616001&SearchID=73211527757340 Copyright: 2005 Muskogee Daily Phoenix Contact: http://www.muskogeephoenix.com/customerservice/contactus.html Website: http://www.muskogeephoenix.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3319 Author: Chris Pryor FORCES FACE LESS CASH TO FIGHT DRUGS State agencies that interdict and stop the manufacture of drugs may lose funds that officials say help them combat drug trafficking and the growing meth epidemic. The White House has proposed eliminating a grant that gave Oklahoma $3.8 million to pay for the state's drug task force network this year, according to the Office of Management and Budget's fiscal 2006 budget proposal. The state task forces would lose the bulk of their budgets by July 2006 under the proposal. "It is the life's blood of the task force," said Gary Sturm, chief investigator for the Muskogee County District Attorney's Office. Muskogee County's task force is one of 22 in the state that receive grant money. The state task forces are independent agencies under district attorneys' offices that network intelligence and enforcement capabilities to enforce Oklahoma's drug laws, including the manufacture of methamphetamine and monitoring major narcotics arteries such as Interstate 40 and U.S. 69. During the past 20 years, between 22 and 27 such task forces have received the federal grant each year, said Lonnie Wright, director of the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics. Wright said state drug enforcement officials are going to pressure state and federal lawmakers in the coming months to either secure the federal grant or to come up with alternative state funding to make up for the loss. Funding questions For about 20 years, the states have used federal money from the Edward Byrne Memorial Grant to pay for their drug task forces. On Tuesday, the U.S. House of Representatives voted down an amendment that would have protected the Byrne program from elimination and restored federal money to state task forces. Rep. Dan Boren, D-Muskogee, who voted for the amendment, said the task forces have proven effective at fighting the state meth problem and ending their funding now would be a detriment to drug enforcement in the state. "Cutting these programs would significantly undermine our fight against methamphetamine, particularly in border counties where local law enforcement continues to battle the interstate trafficking," Boren said. According to the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics, officials seized 10 meth labs in 1994. In 2002, they seized 1,254. Since 2003 and with the passage of tougher meth laws, the number of labs task forces seized increased to 812 in 2004. As the meth epidemic grows, the physical impacts of meth have many people with irreversible harm. "It just makes you psychotic," said Prinda Heaverin, a substance abuse counselor at the Jim Taliaferro Community Mental Health Clinic in Lawton. Almost three quarters of her 180 patients who receive counseling are addicted to meth, and counseling has a very high failure rate with meth users, she said. The impact Sturm said without the grant money, the Muskogee drug task force would be forced to close. "We would have no control" of the drug problem, he said. The task force here received $150,000 from the grant this year, which constitutes more than 60 percent of its budget, Sturm said. The district attorney in Guymon, James Boring, said his district is the largest geographically in the state, and without the grant money, he said his task force also would be eliminated. "Bottom line, what it means is we won't have one," he said. "Drug investigations are more or less going to cease." State task force officials remain optimistic that funding will be secured before July of next year. Congress would have to have funding secured by October, which is when the federal fiscal year begins. If money isn't allocated by that time, it would then be up to state lawmakers to set aside funding by the end of their legislative session next spring - --- MAP posted-by: Josh