FEDS ADD CASH TO WAR ON METH

Fresno County Sheriff's Department To Get $500,000.

WASHINGTON -- The San Joaquin Valley will be getting new federal funding to
fight methamphetamine, while the country will be getting a new drug czar to
oversee the efforts.

A massive end-of-year spending package expected to be signed by President
Clinton this week includes $500,000 for the Fresno County Sheriff's
Department's anti-meth efforts. The money is relatively open-ended but
could target either the production or distribution end of the illegal speed
business.

"I would hope they use it in conjunction with ongoing anti-meth programs,"
Rep. Cal Dooley, D-Hanford, said Monday. "This is important, because the
San Joaquin Valley remains one of the primary production areas for
methamphetamine."

The Fresno County funds, moreover, are only part of the boost being given
the nation's meth-fighters. The nation's High Intensity Drug Trafficking
Area program, or HIDTA, is getting an 8% budget increase, some of which
could trickle down to the Valley.

The Central Valley HIDTA, covering the area from Sacramento to Kern County,
focuses federal funding and local law enforcement offices on the industry
thought responsible for producing 80% of the nation's illegal meth. The
Valley project is the only one in 31 HIDTA regions nationwide to focus
primarily on methamphetamine, although the drug's spread also has been
reported in the Midwest and other regions.

So far, the federal funding has helped establish a Valleywide drug
intelligence support center and meth task forces in Sacramento, Modesto,
Fresno and Bakersfield.

As part of the fiscal 2001 omnibus appropriations bill, finished 21/2
months after the start of the new fiscal year, Congress boosted nationwide
HIDTA funding to $206 million. The nine-county Valley region gets $1.5
million of the total, which officials hope will grow to about $2.5 million
with the newly approved funding.

"That will be a good thing," Bill Ruzzamenti, the Fresno-based director of
the Central Valley HIDTA, said Monday. "At the level we're funded at right
now, we're really restricted.'

The new anti-meth funding won't be affected by the scheduled Jan. 5
retirement of Barry McCaffrey, the former four-star Army general who has
led the Office of National Drug Control Policy since February 1996.

McCaffrey's pending retirement, though, is being closely watched because of
the larger changes it could portend for the drug czar's office.

A hard-charging, highly regarded combat officer, McCaffrey showed himself
to be a tough bureaucratic infighter with regard to the nation's
$20-billion-a-year drug-fighting budget. McCaffrey built up the drug czar's
staff to 154 workers after it had been sharply cut in Clinton's first term.

McCaffrey also made considerable use of uniformed officers detailed from
the Pentagon, and cracked the whip on an office that experienced a very
high 68% staff turnover, according to a critical outside audit completed
this year. His successor will confront the inherent Washington turf battles
that caused other federal agencies to oppose creation of the drug czar's
office during the Reagan administration.

High-profile candidates have not yet arisen as possible successors to
McCaffrey, who characterized meth as "the worst drug that has ever hit
America," and who personally checked out the Valley's anti-meth project
earlier this year.

"General McCaffrey brought an enormous amount to the office," drug office
spokesman Robert Weiner said Monday. "We fully expect his replacement to be
a national leader ... someone who can really organize well, and speak well
to the issues, and who can bring the government together."