HIDTA Will Continue To Fight Drug War

Rep. Visclosky says his faith in the agency continues, and so will the
funding.

The Lake County High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area task force has
labored mightily the past four years to snuff out the area's drug trade.

How far they have yet to go was illustrated earlier this month when
federal, state and local law enforcement officials announced charges
on 59 men and women accused of trafficking only in East Chicago's
Harbor Section -- more than 17 offenders per square mile.

The money to fund Lake County's HIDTA for 2001 is still expected to be
approved in Washington, according to U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky, Ind. "I
have more faith in HIDTA than ever before. I absolutely believe it has
been to the benefit of Northwest Indiana that we secured the
designation and that those moneys have been put to very good use."

Lake County HIDTA, one of 26 such programs across the U.S., has
received $3 million each year since 1997 to dismantle large-scale drug
trafficking and money laundering organizations; limit street gang
activity; investigate Gary homicides and drug-related crimes; monitor
illegal purchase and use of guns and seize the criminals' assets.

The agency has taken off the streets a large amount of illegal
material: 484 firearms, 9,156 pounds of marijuana, 1,682 pounds of
cocaine, more than 4 pounds of heroin, and nearly 8 pounds of
methamphetamines.

It also has taken $3.2 million in money and property from drug
suspects, and has arrested an average of 350 men and women each year.

The number of arrests seems paltry in comparison with other
departments. Merrillville police, who have an annual budget of $2.5
million, have arrested an average of 770 persons per year.
Merrillville Police Chief Lance Huish said his numbers are larger
because they include offenses as minor as shoplifting, which take
considerably less time and trouble to investigate.

Garnett Watson Jr., HIDTA director, said drug investigations are a
labor-intensive process that deal in the quality, not quantity of arrests.

"It's not so much how many people, but who we are arresting in
connection with the violence of the offenders and their connection to
the overall drug trafficking in the area," Watson said. "Without
HIDTA, these are people who won't be arrested. They are major players,
not only in Lake County, but all over the Midwest."

Watson said HIDTA also shares intelligence with local police
departments and enables local officers to train and work with the FBI,
the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco
and Firearms. Many police departments wouldn't have the resources,
skills or the combined technology of the state, local and federal
participants of HIDTA.

"I could send people out there and get hundreds of street arrests
every day and come up with numbers that would impress people, but they
wouldn't make a bit of difference to anybody," Watson said. "Those
lower echelon people would be replaced immediately. We want to come up
with numbers that make a significant difference."

Visclosky said the work of the FBI-led Gary Response Investigative
Team (GRIT) and Gary police have helped reduce homicides in Gary by 36
percent in the last five years. He said a related federal program also
resulted in the destruction of 176 crack houses in Lake County.

U.S. Attorney David Capp said HIDTA has filled the Metropolitan
Correctional Center, the federal lock-up in Chicago, and U.S. District
Court system in Hammond to capacity with federal drug and violence
cases.

Watson said HIDTA directs the worst criminal defendants into the
federal court system where they can be detained behind bars until
their trial. That, he said, improves the odds of their conviction.

"People were afraid to come forward," Watson explained. "In the state
court system, the guy gets arrested and is back out on bond and
intimidating witnesses.

"We are fighting a holding battle until education and prevention
people win it. If we don't hold the line, we lose everything."

Despite the cooperation, the money and hard work, the area's inner
cities remain a ravaged no-man's-land in the nation's drug war. Some
civil libertarians advocate legalizing narcotics to reduce the
violence and property crime generated by addicts facing black-market
prices for their fixes. Drugs have been legalized in some European
countries.

Visclosky said that idea is a non-starter in America: "These
substances are bad for your body and they lead to very bad things. To
just say we give up is the wrong thing to do, and I would be adamantly
opposed to that.

"Have we done enough on the other side of the equation, with
prevention and rehabilitation? Absolutely not. If someone is addicted
and we don't deal with those problems more effectively and just
concentrate on the law enforcement side of this problem, we don't gain
much."

Visclosky said the commitment to law enforcement and HIDTA must
continue.

"Has that ended the drug problem in our community? No. Is it putting
more pressure on these people every day? Yes."