Pubdate: Mon, 09 Oct 2006 Source: Daily Herald (Arlington Heights, IL) Copyright: 2006 The Daily Herald Company Contact: http://www.dailyherald.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/107 Author; Tona Kunz, Daily Herald Staff Writer Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine) KANE COUNTY GETS A BOOST IN WAR ON DRUGS County To Receive $143,000 Grant From State The state wants to help Kane County tackle drugs. Gov. Rod Blagojevich's office recently announced a grant of $143,967 to the Kane County state's attorney's office to help in the prosecution of drug crimes. The North Central Narcotics Task Force, which oversees Kane, McHenry and DeKalb counties, received $139,670. The money is part of $5.3aemillion in federal funds being doled out by the state to 20 drug enforcement agencies and eight drug prosecution units in 66 Illinois counties. While the drug grants were spurred by the state's push to target the emergence and migration of methamphetamine use in Illinois, less heavily meth-infested northern counties like Kane can use the money to target other drugs. Kane County State's Attorney John Barsanti said he'll look into using the money for drugs other than meth. One possibility is to replace $36,000 lost from another federal grant that paid for salaries for drug prosecutors. Another possibility is to use a portion of the new grant to beef up the drug asset forfeiture program, ideally by adding a full-time civil attorney to go after cars and houses owned by drug dealers. The Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority received $50,000 from the federal grant to bring online next year a new database for meth information. That could help Kane County decipher just when, if ever, meth becomes a problem. Meth labs haven't been found in Kane yet, but they have been seized in neighboring McHenry, Cook and Will counties. Raids on farm fertilizers used to produce the narcotic have been reported in DeKalb County. Before 2002, one-half of meth possession confiscations annually occurred in rural counties. By 2005, however, 70 percent of drug confiscations came from urban areas, and 34 percent of lab seizures happened in urban areas, according to the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority. Kane has so far been dealing mainly with crimes of meth possession and the occasional arrest of individuals caught transporting chemicals or equipment for production through the county, officials said. The new computerized networking system will supplement the currently used national database, which has not been fully effective in Illinois. Because the national database requires use fees, small police departments can find it cost prohibitive. Also not all of the state police data makes it into the national system. In 2004, only about 85 percent of meth lab seizures in Illinois appeared in the national database. Illinois hopes to present more accurate data by making the new database free and requiring information submissions to continue getting federal drug grants. The database will help pinpoint problem areas and allocate resources for prevention, enforcement and treatment. - --- MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman