Pubdate: Sun, 28 Feb 1999 Source: Standard-Times (MA) Copyright: 1999 The Standard-Times Contact: http://www.s-t.com/ Author: Polly Saltonstall, Standard-Times staff writer DEALING WITH IT: CITY FIGHTS BACK WITH BUSTS, TESTS, TREATMENT Some people know houses by street numbers. New Bedford Police Sgt. Al Pacheco knows them by drug busts. "I've personally raided just about every one," he says while driving his undercover surveillance car down a street in the city's South End. "That one. And that green one over there -- they finally tore it down." He points to another house and says with disgust, "This one was really infested with drugs." The repeated raids eased the neighborhood drug problem. But the dealers adjusted to the police pressure by moving operations to another part of town. New Bedford is a small city, but it is big in heroin and cocaine. In 1998, the city police seized more than three times as much heroin as four other cities its size and almost twice as much cocaine, according to the state Department of Public Health's Bureau of Laboratory Sciences. The bureau tests and tracks all the illegal narcotics seized by state and local police. Between 1995 and 1998, the total amount of heroin seized in the city increased from 120 grams to 355, while the number of submissions rose from 341 to 478. The number of cocaine submissions dropped from 473 to 357, but the amount of cocaine seized tripled from 3,255 grams to 9,530 grams, the bureau said. Increases of that size likely are due to the presence of more drugs on the street, said Ralph Timperi, assistant commissioner of the Bureau of Laboratory Sciences. "On a population basis, there is more heroin and cocaine being found in New Bedford than in most other cities its size," he said. But police say their enforcement efforts have paid off in recent years, drastically reducing the numbers of drug dealers and prostitutes on the streets. A shift in the nature of the drug trade and increased law enforcement has driven dealers inside. Instead of buyers coming to the dealers, the dealers, equipped with cell phones and beepers, are now coming to the buyers, says Lt. Melvin Wotton, head of the city's vice squad, formally known as the Organized Crime Intelligence Bureau. Lt. Wotton concedes law enforcement efforts sometimes simply displace problems from one neighborhood to another. But he contends city streets today overall are safer, especially compared to the mid- and late-1980s when dealers and prostitutes were highly visible. "We've tried to make New Bedford a better place to live and I really think we've accomplished that," he says. Prostitutes can still be found on city streets, but there are now so few of them that some officers know them all by name. On a recent cold winter afternoon, Sgt. Pacheco pointed out four or five prostitutes walking between the city's South and North ends. "They only stay out long enough to get $20 for their drugs," he said, "instead of staying out all night like they used to." Like Lt. Wotton, Sgt. Pacheco says he sees far less action on New Bedford's streets today than in the 1980s when he was first starting out as a narcotics cop. "You could pull up at a street corner and dealers and prostitutes would crowd around. It was crazy," he said. "We went after them on the streets and they went into houses. We went after them in the houses and now we're having a problem in bars." The state drug lab compared the amount of drugs seized in New Bedford to Lowell, Brockton, Cambridge and Fall River. While the number and quantity of heroin and cocaine seizures increased in New Bedford, the amount of those drugs seized in Lowell as well as the average of the four other cities dropped between 1995 and 1998. New Bedford police counter that one big bust in any given year can skew the numbers. They point out that in 1998, one raid involving about 7 kilos of cocaine represented more than half of all the cocaine seized during the year. Also, a shift in enforcement strategy targeting middle to upper-level dealers has resulted in the seizure of more drugs, says Lt. Wotton. Just a few weeks ago, police seized 18 grams of pure heroin and 2,000 bags during a drug bust. Instead of two or three major dealers who cut the heroin and then distribute it to sellers on the street, the city's drug trade now is dominated by smaller operators, Lt. Wotton said -- people who drive down to New York City, buy 1,000 bags for a wholesale price as low as $2.50 a bag, then sell it in New Bedford at a whopping profit of 200 to 300 percent. Lt. Wotton, who says that many of the local dealers are transplants from New York or Providence or illegal immigrants, worries about the trend toward cheaper, purer heroin. "We have to try and deal with it. If there was no demand, there would be no supply." Heroin use has been on the rise nationally. The 1996 National Household Survey on Drug Use found a fourfold increase in new heroin users between the ages of 12 and 17 between the 1980s and 1995. The 1996 Drug Abuse Warning Network, which collects data on drug-related emergency room cases, found a 108 percent increase in heroin-related episodes between 1990 and 1996. New Bedford institutions are trying to cope with the constant pressure exerted by the problem. The city is organizing comprehensive after-school programs to keep children off the streets; it has also increased police patrols and strengthened the alcohol licensing board in a bid to crack down on barrooms where drug dealing is rampant. It also has instituted the random drug testing of certain city employees, including all police officers and those workers with commercial driver's licenses. Mayor Frederick M. Kalisz Jr. has even asked the nation's drug czar, Gen. Barry McCaffrey, to send a team to New Bedford for a strategic analysis of how best to organize an anti-drug effort. In the meanwhile, he argues that improving economic conditions in the city will help lessen the drug problem. Treatment options In the trenches, there is some optimism. Carl Alves, executive director of the New Bedford Prevention Partnership, cites improvement in the way the various agencies involved in drug treatment collaborate with one another. One result, he says, is an increase in the number of people receiving treatment in the SouthCoast region. The increase reflects the effectiveness of programs designed to get addicts into treatment, he says. Treatment that builds the addict's self-esteem has a champion in Third District Court Judge John Markey. The judge has seen the same offenders rotate through his courtroom. He has watched individual prostitutes age and lose their looks, getting a little more haggard each time. "You see these guys walking around, their shoulders slouched over," he says. "Every human being has skills and ability. Our job is to encourage these people to use them." District Attorney Paul Walsh agrees and says his prosecutors ask that drug offenders be required to undergo counseling and treatment. "But the judges just throw up their hands and say none is available," Mr. Walsh says. No approach to the drug problem can work without the community addressing the issue of demand, says Police Chief Arthur Kelly, an advocate of greater emphasis on treatment. The data indicates that treatment can help. Since December 1997, Project Coach has offered a counseling program for drug and alcohol offenders referred by Third District Court. Those whose treatment included counseling, job search and educational programs failed random urine screens only 17 percent of the time during the past six months, compared to a 53 percent failure rate for those not enrolled in counseling, according to Florence Choate, executive director of Project Cope. "We are going to have to be more proactive, to step up to the plate, provide more education and be more attractive in terms of getting people to come in and build businesses so we can employ more people and give our young people some hope that there's a future for them," she says. - --- MAP posted-by: Derek Rea