DRUG WARRIORS FIGHT ON

There's something missing from the nightly news these days: tables heaped
with illicit drugs, stacks of $100 bills and wicked-looking weapons flanked
by serious-looking cops announcing that week's big drug raid.

Does that mean the drug war is over?

The United Nations recently reported that cocaine and heroin use is down
worldwide -- cocaine by 70 percent in the United States.

But ask local and federal narcotics officers, and they'll say the war rages
on in central Ohio, only now a little more quietly because of smarter
criminals and more covert law enforcement.

"We're not necessarily in that mode anymore," Columbus police Sgt. Steve
Overholser said of the regular news spots on drug raids.

It's difficult to tell by looking at the amount of drugs seized and arrests
made over recent years whether the good guys are winning or losing in
central Ohio.

Illicit drugs are showing up in the county morgue, too, where lethal drug
overdoses have more than doubled since 1995.

Columbus police report seizing an average of a ton of marijuana and 49
pounds of cocaine a year, but arrests declined to 566 last year, from a
high of 878 four years earlier.

Cocaine and crack sales on Columbus city streets dropped in the 1990s when
police successfully targeted such gangs as the GI Boys and Short North Posse.

But the drugs are still out there.

Fad drugs -- such as methamphetamines and ecstasy, a pill that is part
stimulant and part hallucinogen -- are the new threat in central Ohio,
narcotics officers said. And an old nemesis, heroin, is making a comeback.

Heroin kills more

The leading killer in drug-overdose cases in 1997 and 1999 was heroin, said
Franklin County Coroner Brad Lewis.

"We're seeing a pretty steady trend upward for drug overdoses," Lewis said.
"When you look at the numbers, it gives you an idea of what's moving into
the community and what's prevalent."

The drug fighters know because drugs are easy to find.

"My people can go out right now and buy coke or heroin, and the stuff is 80
to 90 percent pure," Chief Deputy Sheriff Steve Martin said.

Even so, the drug fighters say, the dealers have become less conspicuous by
moving their homes to the suburbs, driving less expensive cars and selling
smaller amounts per transaction.

"There's a higher sophistication these days as far as dope dealers. Over
time, they have come to understand how we function" and they have adapted,
Martin said.

"They are all less likely to be seen in flashy cars now because they know
we can seize them. They are using more rentals," Overholser said.

Last year, as part of the nationwide Operation Impunity II, a Columbus
police-U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration task force charged five people
locally in connection with a cocaine ring operating here. They included
Dominican immigrant Robert Santana, who lived in a townhouse apartment
complex along Park Road near Westerville; another Dominican who lived in
Gahanna near Easton Town Center; two other men from Columbus; and one from
Houston.

The local investigation, which included federal wiretaps and surveillance,
took three months and the entire city narcotics bureau to crack, Overholser
said.

With a squad of 65 detectives -- eight short of their authorized strength
- -- Columbus police narcotics supervisors have had to be more selective with
their investigations, he said.

More cases are being referred to federal court, where drug-trafficking laws
carry stiffer penalties at out-of-state facilities. Federal sentencing
guidelines, however, carry a reward: Those who cooperate earn reductions in
their prison time. For federal prosecutors, this is a very useful lever.

Federal agents aren't seeking publicity, either.

"We have to be covert to get some of these people to cooperate with us,"
said DEA Agent Chris Bik.

Battle's hot in Dayton

Columbus has one of six DEA district offices in Ohio, but it isn't the
busiest, said Frank Magoch, the Columbus-based special agent in charge of
all six bureaus. That distinction goes to the Dayton office, which has been
flooded with new cases of heroin and cocaine trafficking, he said.

Some believe Dayton is a hot corner because it's a straight line south on
I-75 from Detroit and because two major interstates cross there.

"The stats are down in Columbus. We are not focusing as much on the street
stuff because I wanted our office to set their sights a little higher,"
Magoch said. "In all the meetings we've had lately on a national scale,
Columbus seems to be in the middle of it all. The demand is here."

Some major drug seizures last year with Columbus ties include:

Operation Tar Pit targeted Mexican heroin franchises in nine states,
resulting in the March indictments of 13 Ohioans, with help from Sheriff
Jim Karnes and Dublin, Upper Arlington and Westerville police. Two of the
men arrested had Delaware County addresses.

In July, authorities seized 150 kilograms of cocaine at the Mexican border
that were heading for Columbus, according to the driver of the truck,
Magoch said.

Another 11 kilos of cocaine were discovered last summer under the bed of a
pickup in Utah. State police there learned the drugs were headed for
Columbus and struck a deal with the driver, who in return for leniency
agreed to betray the load's recipients. Then the Utah police alerted
Columbus DEA agents, who arrested four men here when the cocaine was delivered.

Santana and the four other men arrested in Impunity II were part of a
Mexican cocaine-distribution cartel operating in 10 cities nationwide,
including Columbus.

But Santana and the three Columbus men also trafficked in marijuana and
heroin from an East Coast source.

"Heroin is coming back. We are getting more of it through Mexico," Magoch
said. "It's taken over the heroin we used to get from southeast Asia."

The drug is popular "because it's more powerful; it's cheaper, sometimes
cheaper than coke," he said.

Heroin and cocaine sell for $100 a gram here; ecstasy pills and crack
cocaine are available for as little as $20 a dose, he said.

Still, Columbus narcotics officers have taken less than 12 ounces of heroin
off the streets in the past four years.

"Heroin users generally don't cause the problems crack and cocaine users
bring to themselves," Overholser said.

Crack dealers in Columbus are notoriously more aggressive and tend to
commit other crimes to feed their habits, he said.

Meth labs spread

The number of methamphetamine laboratories also appears to be surging
locally. DEA agents in Columbus have arrested 26 people at 27 labs in
central Ohio only since October, compared with a total of 59 since 1998.
Also known as speed, ice and crystal, methamphetamine is a potent
brain-stimulant powder that can be smoked, snorted, injected or taken orally.

Peter Tobin, chief of the narcotics division at the Ohio Bureau of Criminal
Identification and Investigation, said his agency for months has been
assisting rural departments in investigating "meth labs."

"It is an epidemic that has been moving eastward from California for the
last 10 to 15 years," Tobin said.

Overholser said although ecstasy, cocaine powder and methamphetamines tend
to be drugs consumed by young whites, crack and heroin also have an
attraction for blacks and teens.

"Trends have changed, and types of drugs have changed," he said. "This city
is very spread out now, and we believe the users have spread out into the
suburbs."

Drug-treatment centers are filled with Ohioans, as well. More than 73,000
Ohio residents sought or were ordered into drug treatment at 423
state-certified programs last year, the state Department of Alcohol and
Drug Addiction Services reported.

Users who declared their primary drug of choice reported small increases in
the use of heroin, marijuana and club drugs over 1999 figures, state
records show.

Drug addiction is an equal-opportunity disease with no respect for
demography, said Paul H. Coleman, president and chief executive officer at
Maryhaven, an alcohol and drug-addiction treatment center in Columbus.
Central Ohio's largest treatment center handled more than 5,000 patients
last year, an increase from 1999. Many came from the suburbs.

"Particularly in our adolescent section, we are seeing kids from all school
systems," Coleman said. One TV ad he's seen shows two kids smoking
marijuana in a housing subdivision with attached garages on a cul-de-sac.

"The voiceover is that: 'Statistics show 40 percent of all youth who use
marijuana live in the inner city. Guess where the other 60 percent live?' I
think that pretty well sums it up here, too," Coleman said.

Even Ohio's smaller towns are not immune.

A Portsmouth surgeon pleaded guilty last week to a corruption charge after
a Scioto County drug task force found that he was writing prescriptions for
powerful pain relievers to people who were not his patients. John Lilly,
48, will spend three years in prison, lose personal assets and forfeit his
medical license. Investigators became suspicious of Lilly when a line of
people formed outside his office door.

One major drug raid in Marysville followed a domestic-violence call from
the reputed drug dealer's girlfriend. Authorities seized $282,000 in cash,
6 ounces of cocaine, a computer and two Mercedeses from Mark C. Noonan, who
was charged with felony possession in November.

Misperceptions persist

"Kids think ecstasy is safe because they don't have to smoke it or drink
it," Magoch said.

"Treatment programs should be a part of the final solution. We want the
early user to get some kind of education and treatment. That may stop some
of the dealing, and it's a way just to get some of the traffickers off the
street."

The national DEA office has pledged an extra $2 million to Columbus in this
year's fiscal budget for wiretaps and more covert sting operations, Magoch
said.

Local detectives are looking for rave parties, all-night dances staged for
the consumption of drugs such as ecstasy.

Columbus police have had some luck in interdiction.

Narcotics detectives and canine units have hit a mother lode of drugs
coming into central Ohio at Port Columbus, where they monitor up to 6,000
flights a year. Another success story is a 2-year-old package interdiction
team that spot-checks packages that arrive at delivery service hubs, such
as those of United Parcel Service and Federal Express.

Both units combined seized 3,030 pounds of marijuana, 18 pounds of cocaine
and all of the ecstasy recovered last year by narcotics officers in central
Ohio.

"With the amount of drugs coming across the border, it's really
frightening," Magoch said. "The war really starts when it gets across the
border, and it's so easy to come across."

Martin said U.S. Border Patrol agents working at El Paso, Texas, have told
him they're lucky if they catch 10 percent of the drugs crossing over.

"In terms of national security, if drugs were like an enemy airplane
approaching our shores, we'd shoot it down," said Martin, the chief deputy
sheriff, who is a former Vietnam helicopter pilot. "Until we make the
consequences serious and make trafficking less appealing, we're not going
to get on top of this thing."

The movie Traffic, which was filmed partly in Columbus and released
nationally last month, depicted the battle at the border against drugs and
has re-energized talk of the war on drugs.

No one has all answers

"You're not going to find anyone in Washington who's going to say we're
winning this war," Traffic director Steven Soderbergh told movie critics
recently. The movie took home two Golden Globe Awards last month for best
screenplay and best supporting actor.

The movie's Mexican connection to central Ohio is based in fact, said
Sharon Zealey, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Ohio. Just weeks
before the release of Traffic, the Columbus DEA and U.S. attorney's offices
collaborated on Operation Impunity II, which linked Ohio to a Mexican drug
kingpin known as "the friend-killer," Osiel Cardenas Guillen.

The DEA has offered a $2 million reward for his capture.

"Drug organizations are run very meticulously, like a business," Zealey
said. "Our job is to intervene in that business and disrupt their
distribution network."

Prosecutor near departure

As a Democratic appointee, Zealey acknowledged that her days are numbered
in the new Bush administration, and it has been frustrating to deal with
the normal turnover in other federal agencies around her, too.

"I'm working with my third FBI special agent in four years," she said.

Zealey grew up in Nashville, Tenn., in the 1960s. She remembers being
forbidden by her parents to walk in a nearby park because it was known to
be frequented by drug dealers.

"I had multiple people offer me drugs back then. This cuts across all
economic lines and racial lines. Our goal in any investigation is to make
sure the higher-ups in any organization see the most jail time."

The smaller distributors are "flipped" and offered a deal if they help
authorities make a case against individuals higher in the network, she said.

"Everybody's cooperating lately, it seems," Bik said. "Those that don't,
end up calling later to make a deal."

Zealey's office has indicted an average of 300 people each year on drug
cases, which constitute half of all criminal cases handled by the office,
records show.

It has been nearly three years since Zealey's office indicted 44 GI Boys
street gang members from Gary, Ind., operating in Columbus; more than two
years since 46 cases against the Short North Posse disbanded a dangerous
gang that ruled a 42-block neighborhood on the North Side; and two years
since agents discovered three South American brothers were smuggling
cocaine into the United States from Belize and Cancun, Mexico. The brothers
employed 50 couriers, acting as tourists, who had kilos of cocaine stuffed
into the soles of oversized tennis shoes. The trio -- Mark, Gary and Duane
Seawell -- are still at large.

In November 1999, U.S. Customs agents tracked an imported BMW carcarrying
24,000 ecstasy pills from Newark, N.J., to a driveway in Bexley. Four
Russian immigrants were arrested after they took apart the gas tank. Inside
was $500,000 worth of the drug.

The four men are serving federal prison terms of up to five years.