WAR ON DRUGS SUFFERS A BLOW

Some FBI Agents Are Needed Instead In The Terrorism Fight.

WASHINGTON -- The shooting war on terrorism has drained some street-level
agents from the Central Valley's anti-methamphetamine campaign.

As part of a larger redeployment, the FBI has removed its six Central
Valley special agents from a collaborative anti-meth effort.

But with its remaining complement of award-winning agents and officers, the
Central Valley High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program is pressing on.

"You can't argue with it, but it does create some problems for us," Bill
Ruzzamenti, director of the Fresno-based anti-meth campaign, said of the
FBI reassignments.

Ruzzamenti oversees the Central Valley HIDTA, which links state, local and
federal officers in a nine-county region from Sacramento to Bakersfield.
The program currently receives $2.5 million in federal funds, which
Ruzzamenti hopes to increase by $1 million.

Some of Ruzzamenti's colleagues, who joined him in Washington last week to
pick up awards at a national drug fighters' conference, say the federal
help is crucial.

"Because of our financial situation, we have equipment we never had before,
and it really makes a difference," said Robert Pennal, a state Bureau of
Narcotic Enforcement supervisor who runs a Fresno-based task force.

Digital cameras, thermal imagery equipment, cameras that can pick up
undercover action from a quarter of a mile away or more: It's a far cry,
Pennal said, from his first undercover assignment that's now become a
funny, self-mocking story in his repertoire.

Pennal, 45, a Merced native, joined the Merced County Sheriff's Department
in his early 20s. He looked young, so he ended up being assigned to buy
drugs undercover. His first assignment was to buy pills from a nurse's aide
at a convalescent hospital.

"You would have thought I was taking down the Colombian drug cartel,"
Pennal said.

Back in the day, the problem was black beauties -- amphetamine pills. Even
the name makes Pennal smile. Now, Pennal and his task force are targeting
the deadlier methamphetamine manufacturers who have made the Central Valley
the nation's leading producing area. An estimated 75 percent of all meth in
the United States is produced in California, a point Ruzzamenti drove home
at a conference session with a map showing links between the Valley and
drug operations elsewhere in the country.

"It was mass of red lines everywhere," Ruzzamenti said.

Ruzzamenti's request for an additional $1 million from Washington won't be
ruled on for a while. Pennal, though, is taking home from the conference
both a mess of business cards and an eagle statue honoring his task force.

Now approaching its second year in operation as part of the HIDTA, the
Fresno Methamphetamine Task Force includes 16 agents and officers from
eight different agencies. It's racked up good numbers -- 180 arrests, 81
meth labs dismantled, hundreds of pounds of meth seized -- that helped it
win a national award for "outstanding cooperative effort."

Bryan Markum, the 33-year-old supervisor of the Stanislaus-San
Joaquin-Merced Methamphetamine Task Force, is bringing home an eagle statue
for "outstanding interdiction effort." A Stanislaus County sheriff's deputy
who's bulked up some since his days as a quarter-miler at Ceres High
School, Markum oversees seven agents.

In part, the award recognizes a September 2000 operation in which Markum
and his men tracked a heroin trafficker from Modesto to Southern
California. For three days running, sometimes at freeway speeds of more
than 100 mph, the agents followed the suspect on his rounds. Many fast food
hamburgers were consumed.

The bust took brain power. The agents didn't actually see where the heroin
was being stashed, but they noticed something odd: that the suspect needed
to refuel his car after only about 30 minutes. The inference: that the gas
tank held a lot less gas because it was also holding drugs. The upshot: 22
pounds of black tar heroin were found in the car; an additional 20 pounds
of heroin were found back at the house.

"We were fortunate," Markum said, "to develop this (case) very rapidly."