SENATORS' PLAN WOULD RESTORE FUNDING FOR ANTI-DRUG EFFORT

A drug-interdiction program devastated by funding cuts could be saved
by a group of U.S. senators from both sides of the aisle who
announced plans on Wednesday to tack on money to the federal omnibus
spending bill.

U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat, along with four other
senators, announced plans to replace money cut from the federal Byrne
Memorial Justice Assistance Grant program as part of an emergency
supplemental funding bill.

They would return $660 million to the program, which was cut to $170
million in December by the Bush administration.

In Iowa, the cuts removed 70 percent of the $4.22 million that came
to the state in federal anti-drug dollars.

The money goes to drug investigations, and slashing the program's
budget could impede or end smaller Iowa counties' ability to chase
"the real movers and shakers" in the drug business, said Gary
Kendell, director of the Iowa Office of Drug Control Policy.

"We're very pleased that they're taking this on," Kendell said. "With
the previous year's funding cuts, we're pretty much bare bones right now."

Kendell noted that 85 percent of Iowa's drug cases originate from the
multi-jurisdictional task forces that face extinction if the program
isn't supplemented.

The cuts would become effective at the start of the fiscal year in July.

Rep. Dave Loebsack, D-Ia., proposed a stand-alone bill in the House
on Tuesday night that would replace the money.

"It's difficult for everybody to come up with resources, but for a
Muscatine or Burlington or Keokuk to lose several tens of thousands
of dollars, that means they lose an officer," Loebsack said.

The Byrne program, named for a rookie New York City police officer
killed by drug dealers in 1998, has endured heavy criticism that
includes a 2005 report from the U.S. Office of Management and Budget
that said it lacked planning, specific goals and solid management.

Forty percent of the Byrne money, $520 million this year, goes to
local law enforcement like the North-Central Iowa Narcotics Task
Force; 60 percent goes to states.

The result is inefficiency and a lack of oversight, according to the report.

About $500 million was cut and later replaced in 2003. Iowa lost
about $2 million from a round of cuts two years later.

Harkin objected to the conclusions of the report, which his aides
said was "disproportionately focused" on the federal side of the
program and ignored how the grants were used at the state and local levels.

The grant program is also under fire from groups who oppose the war on drugs.

Ethan Nadlemann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance in
Washington, D.C., has said that the decisions of task forces are
"made in a void" and that the trend among federal drug-policy makers
has been to focus on treatment rather than street busts.

But Kendell said street-level enforcement wouldn't suffer as much as
deeper investigations into drug dealers in smaller counties, where
local law enforcement officials rely heavily on multi-jurisdictional
task forces for drug enforcement.