ATLANTA IS THE NEW MIAMI--FOR DRUGS

When the Office of National Drug Control Policy announced in late
February that 26 additional counties across the nation would be
designated as High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA), astute
observers might have noticed that almost a third were located in Georgia.

Eight counties--Barrow, Bartow, Cherokee, Clayton, Douglas, Fayette
and Forsyth counties, all part of suburban Atlanta--were added to
Georgia's existing HIDTAs: DeKalb and Fulton counties,
Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport and the city of Atlanta
itself, which have been designated HIDTA since 1995.

"The Atlanta metropolitan area has become the hub of East Coast drug
distribution," says Jack Killorin, director of the Atlanta HIDTA
program. "If you were going to make the television show, 'Miami Vice,'
today, it would appropriately be called 'Metro Atlanta Vice,'" he says.

Atlanta has overtaken Miami because the bulk of illegal drugs are no
longer flown or floated into Miami from Colombia. The Colombians now
sell directly to Mexican cartels, who then move the drugs across the
U.S./Mexican border.

Killorin points out that this change in the narcotics business can be
traced to the effects of the bloody drug war waged by the U.S. and
Colombian governments in the 1980s and 90s, a war that demoralized the
Colombian cartels. The Columbians started selling to the Mexican
cartels, letting them shoulder the risks of bringing narcotics into
the U.S.

Most of the narcotics that arrive in Atlanta do not stay here. The
city's accessibility to major interstates and highways, such as I-95
and Interstate Highway 20, make it an ideal distribution point for
Miami, Washington D.C./Baltimore and New York City. Many of the drugs
arrive in bulk and are then cut and shipped out. The money gets packed
and sent back to Mexico.

According to the Atlanta DEA's Rod Benson, Special Agent in Charge,
the goal of law enforcement isn't just to stanch the flow of drugs
into the U.S.

"Ultimately, our goal is to disrupt and dismantle those criminal
organizations," he says.

HIDTA designation may be one of the most potent tools law enforcement
officials have for doing that. A HIDTA isn't just an area--it's an area
that gets special attention from what is, in Killorin's words, "a
collaborative partnership among agencies at all levels of government,"
including the DEA, the ATF, state and local police, U.S. Postal
inspectors and even the Georgia National Guard. That partnership
relies to some extent on SAINT, the Statewide Analytical Interdiction
and Narcotics Team, which works with the Georgia State Patrol to
monitor trafficking on Georgia highways.

The takedown of an ecstasy ring in Atlanta last November that resulted
in the confiscation of 65,000 MDMA (methylenedioxymethamphetamine)
pills shipped in from Canada was a HIDTA operation. In that case,
local law enforcement worked with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
The following month, the special attention paid to designated HIDTAs
again paid off when several million dollars in cash, along with 17
pounds of crystal meth and 111 kilograms of cocaine, were seized
during a bust of two Mexican drug rings. An investigator for the
Atlanta Police Department and a DEA agent directed that effort, though
other agencies were involved as well.

The HIDTA program was begun in 1995 by the Office of National Drug
Control Policy, which itself came into existence through the Anti-Drug
Abuse Act of 1988. The office's directorship is a presidential cabinet
position known as the "drug czar." The czar's office determines which
areas can be designated HIDTA and funds anti-drug efforts in those
areas.

When asked why the new HIDTAs were added in Georgia, Killorin replies,
"Because we asked for them."

With the eight new counties in Georgia, Killorin's office will be
given more funding. He explains that unlike some government agencies,
HIDTA is not allocated an annual budget; it gets a grant, which does
not have to be spent in one fiscal year. The idea is to stretch the
funding as much as possible, so HIDTA grants usually last between two
and five years.

Georgia's Got It All

The biggest cash crop coming over the border is marijuana, with an
estimated 20 million illegal users in the U.S. Killorin believes that
many people, especially Baby Boomers, have an antiquated view of
modern marijuana, thinking that it's the same kind they may have
experimented with in their day. But this is not the kind commonly used
during the 60s, 70s or 80s, which had a potency level of about 4
percent. This is high-potency marijuana that's industrially produced
in Mexico, with an average potency level of 10 percent, though in some
cases it's almost 30 percent. And not only is today's weed stronger,
it's being introduced to kids at a much younger age. Scott Burns, the
deputy drug czar, points out that whereas the average marijuana
initiation age used to be between 18 and 20 years of age, it is now
between 11 and 13.

Though marijuana is a national problem, the impact of other drugs can
vary according to region. Burns says that methamphetamine is not a
widespread problem in New England, or much of the East Coast. But it
is ravaging the Pacific Northwest, and according to the DEA's 2008
"Briefs and Background on Georgia," methamphetamine has "continued a
five-year trend as Atlanta's fastest growing drug problem." Some
believe meth to be the most dangerous drug because, Killorin says, it
"eats through" the user extremely quickly, leaving little time for
intervention or rehabilitation.

Georgia seems to offer a smorgasbord of drug problems. Just consider
a few counties to the south, east and north of Atlanta: Clayton
County has been designated HIDTA for cocaine and marijuana; Barrow
County has been targeted for the trafficking, distribution and lab
manufacturing of methamphetamines; and Cherokee County struggles with
marijuana, cocaine, meth trafficking and MDMA/ecstasy.

The problem is even closer to home than the counties next door.
Killorin and Burns see the next big drug coming not from Mexico but
from the family medicine cabinet. The abuse of prescription drugs like
oxycodone, under the brand names OxyContin (called "OxyCotton") and
Percocet, and hydrocodone, sold under the brand Vicodin, is growing,
thanks largely to Internet sites selling prescriptions.

Seventy-percent of this particular drug problem is estimated to
originate in the U.S., and though national illegal drug use, on
average, is declining, prescription medication abuse is not. It is
estimated that there are 6 million prescription drug abusers in the
U.S., compared to 3 million cocaine users and 1.5 million meth users.
SP