DRUG SUMMIT TO LAUNCH NEW INITIATIVE

Seeking input for a landmark Drug Enforcement Administration
initiative in Mobile and Prichard, Special Agent Micah Miller started
meeting with people who live in some of the area's toughest
neighborhoods.

Four dozen concerned citizens came to the Dotch Community Center in
Trinity Gardens in north Mobile one evening in early November to tell
Miller just what it's like to see dealers daily on street corners and
in dark parking lots. About the same number appeared a week later to
paint a similarly unsettling picture for Miller at Taylor's Chapel
Christian Methodist Episcopal Church in the Alabama Village area of
Prichard.

But when Miller arrived for the third meeting, at Pleasant Grove
Baptist Church in Prichard's Snug Harbor community, nobody had to tell
him he was at the right place.

"Nobody showed up," he said. Neighborhood leaders later told him
people there simply do not leave home after dark.

Following a joint request by government leaders in Mobile and
Prichard, DEA officials have selected the two cities as the fifth site
nationwide for the new program, an ambitious venture aimed at curbing
drug abuse and crime throughout entire cities. Existing sites include
Allentown, Pa., North Charleston, S.C., Portsmouth, Va., and
Springfield, Mo.

Dubbed IDEA, for Integrated Drug Enforcement Assistance, the year-old
program blends enforcement with treatment, counseling and other
measures, and could mean a leg up for the Mobile area in securing
federal grants. Administrators have not set aside grant money for the
program, but the DEA is to serve as a broker between citizens and the
organizations that can fund particular projects.

For the DEA -- an agency whose name conjures images of undercover
agents infiltrating Latin American cartels to set up massive stings --
the program represents unprecedented attention to the drug problem on
a local level.

"DEA has never partnered this closely with the community, and it's a
good fit," said the DEA's Pam Brown, the program's coordinator in
Washington. "We recognize that law enforcement is necessary. We also
recognize that we can't arrest our way out of this problem."

Miller and others involved with the new program have met with
residents in Mobile's Roger Williams community in addition to those in
Trinity Gardens and Alabama Village. And the Snug Harbor meeting has
been rescheduled for 6 p.m. Tuesday, only this time it is to take
place at the A.J. Coo-per Municipal Complex.

The neighborhood meetings are being held in anticipation of a
comprehensive drug summit Dec. 11-12 at the Arthur R. Outlaw Mobile
Convention Center downtown that will signal the program's launch.
Officials with the National Crime Prevention Council, which has
partnered with the DEA, will facilitate the conference.

DEA chief Asa Hutchinson is scheduled to attend, along with leaders
from law enforcement, government, churches, business, neighborhood
associations and social service agencies in both cities. Registration
is open but must be done in advance, as the conference has a
300-person limit.

While all the advance meetings took place in public housing areas,
IDEA is designed to generate plans to serve as models for
neighborhoods in all corners of Mobile and Prichard, organizers said.
That scope, primarily, is what sepa-rates IDEA from similar
initiatives like the Justice Department's Weed and Seed program, which
focuses on individual neighborhoods, DEA officials said.

"Drug addiction is not unique to housing communities," Mobile City
Councilman Thomas Sullivan told residents at the Roger Williams
meeting last week. "You can go to west Mobile, east Mobile, south
Mobile or north Mobile and find people with addiction problems."

Beyond addiction and trafficking, organizers hope to motivate
residents and city officials to address root causes of drug crime and
abuse -- truancy, poverty and family problems, to name a few.

"Most of your drug dealers are not straight-A students who wake up one
day and decide, 'You know, I want to get into a life of drugs,'"
Miller said. "There are social problems that guide them into that. And
so that's what we're trying to get at, not just the drugs."

Miller opened each meeting by trying to ease suspicions in the
room.

"I'm not here to put anybody into jail. I'm not here to get drug
information from you," Miller said at the Roger Williams meeting.

Miller, whose assignment as program coordinator leaves the DEA with
four field agents in Mobile, characterized the public response so far
as surprised, but positive.

"The thing that we have going for us is that DEA has never gone into a
community and said, 'What can we do to help, besides enforcement?'" he
said.

For information on Tuesday's meeting or next week's summit, contact
Miller at 340-3615 or ideamobile@aol.com. For information on the IDEA
program, visit www.usdoj.godeprogramidea.