CONGRESS FAILURE TO INTERDICT DRUGS HOLDS UP HIGHWAYS

It was interesting to see that after being in the U.S. Senate since 1986,
Sen. Barbara Mikulski came to Frederick last week to try and take credit
for the $4 million to $5 million coming this year to Frederick County for
the Interstate 70-Md. 355 interchange. She claimed that U.S. Sen. Paul
Sarbanes, who has been in the Senate since 1976, will try to help secure
Frederick highway money in the future.

Maryland is the only state where both U.S. senators live in the same local
jurisdiction -- in our case Baltimore city.

There are 60,000 drug users in Baltimore's Social Services System. Drug
Strategies, a nonprofit research institute, estimated recently that the
cost of drug abuse and addiction to Baltimore exceeds $2.5 billion yearly
in crime and law enforcement costs, lost wages, health care, etc. The cost
to the entire state of Baltimore's drug addiction is more than $5 billion
annually. A 1995 study by the Center of Substance Abuse Research at the
University Of Maryland showed two-thirds of men and three-quarters of women
arrested by the Baltimore Police Department tested positive for at least
one drug, not including alcohol. In July 2000, the Drug Enforcement
Administration identified Baltimore as the nation's most heroin-plagued
area and the one with the most severe crack cocaine problem. In 1999, the
state's chief medical examiner recorded 324 drug overdose deaths in
Baltimore, 63 percent of all such deaths in Maryland. There have been 300
shooting deaths a year in Baltimore for a decade, almost all drug-related,
including that of a police hero last week. Drugs are involved in 85 percent
of all Baltimore felonies.

Career Sens. Mikulski and Sarbanes have yet to push through a single
successful initiative to interdict the flow of drugs into Baltimore. Had
they done so, money wasted on illegal drugs would have been available a
decade ago to build 10 I-70/Md.355 and I-70/I-270 interchanges.

Robin Ficker, Boyds