MBN ESCALATING WAR AGAINST DRUGS

In the 16 months Don Strange Jr. has spent overhauling the Mississippi
Bureau of Narcotics, arrests and investigations have risen. Intelligence
analysts have been hired; a five-year statewide drug law enforcement
strategy has been developed.

Seizures skyrocketed in the latest fiscal year, June 1, 2000, to May 31,
2001, with marijuana confiscation up 151 percent; LSD, 305 percent;
cocaine, 316 percent; heroin, 534 percent; and Ecstasy, 2,450 percent.

The bureau, 30 years old today, created an advisory board of 12 police
chiefs and sheriffs, published its first drug-threat assessment, and
made alliances with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the El
Paso Intelligence Center, the National Drug Intelligence Center and the
Regional Organized Crime Information Center, said Ron Pitts, the deputy
director.

"It focuses the agency," said Pitts, who says Mississippi is the only
Southeastern state with a statewide drug strategy. "It shakes out a lot
of issues involving training, equipment and personnel needs."

Drug investigations require manpower and money, said Stephen Mallory,
chairman of the University of Southern Mississippi Criminal Justice
Department.

"Strange is getting federal support, which we weren't getting under
previous administrations," Mallory said. "It helps that he comes from
the DEA. He knows what resources are out there."

The bureau recently got a $1 million federal grant to fund the state's
first methamphetamine initiative. And the DEA plans to donate a $1.5
million helicopter to the bureau this year, said Bill Taylor, assistant
director of operational support.

The difference in this administration over other administrations has
been focused enforcement, said Ronnie Frazier, the assistant director of
operations. "In the past, we worked day-to-day on whatever was put
before us," Frazier said.

Strides have been made toward healing strained relations with local and
federal law enforcement, said Lee Martin, a special assistant with the
state attorney general's office. "In the past, they have made empty
promises," Martin said. "I think that they are rebuilding and
restrengthening."

However, its 152 sworn drug agents are the lowest paid drug agents in
the nation. Starting salary is $23,976. Other states with separate
narcotics investigation divisions, all pay better: Alabama, 31 agents,
$27,063; Tennessee, 48 agents, $31,428; and Oklahoma, 93 agents,
$33,400.

In 12 years, Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics agents top out in the
$30,000 range, said Gale Mills, deputy assistant director. "Three agents
left this month for better-paying federal jobs," Mills said. "Those that
stay love the state, love the job and are dedicated to the mission of
the agency. We put our lives on the line. We just want to rid the state
of drugs."

But its record of hiring black, Hispanic and female agents has fallen
woefully short, said Claiborne County Sheriff Frank Davis, who is an
advisory board member.

"As long as the bureau is not hiring black agents, we're not doing
justice to a lot of small rural communities where white agents can't
work as effectively," Davis said.

"But I think there have been good changes," Davis said. "The advisory
board has been a help to the director and it has been a help to us as
police chiefs and sheriffs to voice our differences of opinion."

The bureau celebrates its 30th birthday today, beginning at 10:30 a.m.
at the Jim Buck Ross Agricultural and Forestry Museum on Lakeland Drive
in Jackson.

State Supreme Court Justice Ed Pittman will be the speaker.

Pittman, who served in the state Senate from 1964-72, was among those
who voted in 1971 to pass a bill creating the Bureau of Drug
Enforcement.

It was former state Sen. Ollie Mohamed, 76, a Belzoni farmer and
businessman, now retired, who proposed the single-mission agency. He is
expected to attend the luncheon.

"I was watching what drugs were doing to the United States," Mohamed
said. "I was trying to head off what was coming."