SHERIFFS SAY DEEP CUTS IN FEDERAL FUNDS WILL HURT WAR AGAINST DRUGS

Portland, Ore. -- From Arizona to Oregon and east to Kentucky, county
sheriffs are bracing for stiff cuts in a federal funding program
that has helped them battle drug cartels.

Congress in January cut funding for the Byrne Justice Assistance
Grant by two-thirds, from $520 million to $170 million for fiscal
2008. Local agencies say that's a threat to the teams that do much of
the law enforcement spadework.

The Byrne program is not without controversy, having drawn
allegations of abuse. But many enforcement organizations consider it
essential to their local efforts.

Sheriff Gil Gilbertson of Josephine County in southwest Oregon said
pending cuts in Byrne money and in federal payments made to counties
to offset the loss of timber revenues have essentially disbanded the
Josephine Interagency Narcotics Team (JOINT).

"We've just withdrawn from JOINT," he said. "There's no funding. And
we know the (Mexican) cartels are at work."

The Bush administration has argued that the program should end
because crime is down and the money is needed elsewhere. That
assessment clashes with reports from many states of record hauls of
drugs, especially methamphetamine and marijuana, and increased
activity by drug gangs.

"If we don't get some funding back we'll be in deep trouble when it
comes to drug enforcement," said Iowa drug enforcement chief Gary
Kendall. He said 85 percent of the state's new cases last year were
by county interagency drug teams that get Byrne grant money, but the
funding cuts will reduce those agencies' employees from 59 to 20.

Kendall said Iowa's problem is methamphetamine, which now comes
mostly from Mexico since Iowa tightened access to over-the-counter
medications that contain ingredients used in home meth labs.

Money from the Byrne program can be used for other programs as well,
including anti-gang efforts, some prosecution costs and child and
spousal abuse prevention.

But critics say the program has been tainted by abuse and corruption,
sometimes racially based, with many complaints coming from Texas.

Best-known is a case in Tulia, Texas, where a 1999 Byrne-funded
investigation led to the cocaine arrests of 46 people, most of them
black, on evidence so flimsy that 38 were pardoned by Gov. Rick Perry
in 2003. The undercover agent responsible for the arrests was
convicted of perjury and the defendants got a $5 million settlement
from the state.

The Texas American Civil Liberties Union has identified more than a
dozen other Byrne-funded operations it says were abusive and several
other states have investigated similar complaints. Texas has imposed
strict limits on Byrne-funded drug task forces.

Some national drug enforcement leaders say it makes more sense to go
after the higher-ups rather than fill local jails with lesser offenders.

"But where the rubber meets the road, it's the local sheriff and
police departments" who do the groundwork, said John Cary Bittick,
sheriff of Monroe County, Ga., and the congressional liaison for the
National Sheriffs' Association.

In Oregon, local drug agents last year pulled up a record 262,000
marijuana plants, double the number for 2006, but their Byrne funding
will drop from $3.4 million last year to $1.2 million this year.

Most seizures of marijuana "grows" in Oregon are made in the state's
southwest corner, but counties there already are on the ropes from
sharp cuts in federal payments made to offset revenue losses
resulting from cutbacks in logging on national forests.

The sheriff of one county in that region, Mike Winters of Jackson
County, says Mexican cartel activity has spilled into his
jurisdiction from Northern California.

Kentucky, the second-largest marijuana producer after California, is
in similar straits.

"Local governments have already put up money and they can't put up
any more," said Van Ingram, branch manager for compliance for the
Kentucky Office of Drug Compliance.