STATE AGENCIES RECEIVE MOST DRUG GRANTS

State crime-fighting agencies were the big winners -- and local
communities' DARE anti-drug programs the losers -- as more than $6.3
million in federal grants were awarded this week to fight drugs and
violent crime.

The state Drug and Violent Crime Grant Board chose 41 grant recipients
out of 101 applications that sought more than $13 million. The board
is made up of representatives from state and local agencies that deal
with juveniles and law enforcement.

The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation received more than $600,000
to hire 10 agents and buy equipment to analyze methamphetamines and
other drugs.

"Basically, it's to help us address the explosion of meth labs we've
had across the state," bureau spokeswoman Kym Koch said Thursday.

The Oklahoma State Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control got
nearly $360,000 to boost its wire interception unit.

The intelligence unit, which relies heavily on telephone wire tapping,
"is extremely important to us," bureau spokesman Mark Woodward said
Thursday.

"It's a fantastic unit," Woodward said. "We've been able to plug some
major drug organizations working in Oklahoma through that unit."

Grants totaling $1.8 million were given to five state bodies to create
a statewide criminal history computer network. The joint project
involves the District Attorneys Council, the Criminal Justice Resource
Center, the Department of Public Safety, the Office of Juvenile
Affairs and the OSBI.

District attorneys' offices and state bodies claimed the bulk of grant
funds, with local communities' share dropping substantially from past
years.

The grants came from the U.S. Justice Department's Bureau of Justice
Assistance, said Lou Jones with the Oklahoma District Attorneys Council.

Noticeably absent from the list of grant winners were funds to support
local communities' Drug Abuse Resistance Education programs.

In setting priorities for the grant money last fall, the 18-member
grant board decided the computer network and multijurisdictional task
forces were more important than DARE programs.

"We made a hard decision, and now we need to move forward," board
Chairman Malcom Atwood, director of the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics
and Dangerous Drugs Control, said at a meeting in March.

Another board member, Stillwater Police Chief Norman McNickle,
remained upset Thursday about the amount of grant funds given to state
agencies.

Basic services funding that should come from the Legislature instead
was allocated to state agencies from grant funds, leaving a much
smaller pie to fund creative local programs, McNickle said.

"I think the Legislature ought to be coming up with money for that,"
he said of the computer network. "I'm also still disappointed that the
DARE programs across the state pretty much got cut off without warning."

Five of the 47 grant applications from police and sheriffs'
departments, cities and counties were successful.

Many of those local agencies applied for DARE funds, unaware of the
board's change in priorities. The board did allocate almost $148,000
for the public safety department's statewide DARE training center,
which will benefit local communities that fund their own DARE programs.