REGIONAL EFFORT IN DRUG WAR SOUGHT

Miss.'s Neighbors Could Play Key Role, Narcotics Chief Says

The head of Mississippi's Bureau of Narcotics has developed a five-year
drug enforcement strategy he hopes to parlay into a regional plan
recognized by Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana.

"Having been at the national level in drug enforcement," said MBN Director
Don Strange, a retired U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration chief of
intelligence, "there's nothing we would have liked better than to have seen
states with strategic plans to dismantle drug organizations.

"Nothing existed," he said. "We're one, if not the only, state developing a
statewide strategy."

Strange presented his fiscal year 2002 to 2006 drug enforcement strategy to
about 150 state law enforcement executives representing 40 states earlier
this month in New Orleans at the annual meeting of the National Alliance of
State Drug Enforcement Agencies.

Roy Harris, deputy director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and
president of the alliance, said he's not aware of anyone else working on a
regional strategy.

"It's something we'd be interested in," Harris said. "It makes sense since
Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama and Georgia share a lot of common traits in
how drugs are transported through the states by surface traffic from the
Southwest border. All of us have a piece of that pie."

Along with specific objectives and performance measures of effectiveness,
the MBN plan has six goals:

Reduce the availability of illicit drugs.

Protect the state's borders by reducing the transportation of drugs in and
through Mississippi.

Strengthen intelligence and information sharing.

Enhance coordination and cooperation among law enforcement agencies.

Bolster the bureau's management infrastructure.

Establish an effective partnership with state legislatures and other state
agencies.

"Mississippi leads the nation in illiteracy and poverty," Strange said.
"It's wonderful to think we're on the way to leading all other states in
fighting drugs."

Last year, U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi, the second ranking
Republican on the Appropriations Committee, put $1 million into the fiscal
2001 appropriations bill to counter the state's methamphetamine problem.
The money will be diverted to the MBN. Cochran is also trying to find funds
for a more modern helicopter than the Vietnam-era, 1968 models, the
bureau's pilots now fly in the marijuana eradication program.

"I have supported an aggressive effort to deal with the dual menace of
drugs and crime," Cochran said in a statement. "We are making progress, but
more can be done."

The drug strategy was written by Strange's executive staff: Deputy Director
Ron Pitts, Assistant Director of Operations Ron Frazier, Assistant Director
of Operational Support Bill Taylor, Assistant Director of Administration
Tim Rutledge, senior attorney Rod Nixon and Doug Poole, a DEA intelligence
analyst on loan to the MBN.

Pete Ahearn, DEA deputy director of intelligence, said other states should
look at what Mississippi is doing and do the same.

"Otherwise it's like sending your troops off to battle without a plan,"
Ahearn said. "The Bureau of Narcotics is trying to get some focus in
Mississippi, instead of being all over the map. We're not going to arrest
our way out of the drug problem and Don Strange knows that."

From the outset of his March 1 appointment by Gov. Ronnie Musgrove,
Strange has repeatedly said the way to reduce drugs in Mississippi is
through cooperation and information sharing with other law enforcement
agencies.

Southaven Police Chief Tom Long, a member of the MBN's 12-member advisory
board of Mississippi police chiefs and sheriffs, supports Strange's
philosophy of an organized statewide plan.

"In the past, everyone has gone in their own direction," Long said. "That's
where the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics comes in. They have jurisdiction
over the entire state. And they're making sure everyone is on the same
sheet of music.

"In homicides, armed robberies and burglaries, if you backtrack, you'll
usually find a local root. Narcotics is rarely like that," he said. "Drug
dealers have links to people in the next state and those people have ties
to other countries."

That's why the MBN wants a regional link with Alabama, Georgia and
Louisiana, Pitts said.

"The drug trafficker does not recognize state borders," Pitts said. "Just
because you traffic narcotics in Mobile does not mean you won't travel to
Mississippi to sell drugs."

Most of the cities in those Southeastern states share similar socioeconomic
characteristics. The one anomaly is Atlanta.

"It is a large metropolitan city," Strange said. "It's the only city in
those four states with a proximity (in size) to New York and Miami. That
makes it well-located for drug traffickers to do what they want to do
without drawing much attention to themselves."

In Mississippi, drug smugglers travel I-10, I-20 and I-55, as well as
commercial and general aviation, rail and passenger bus systems and by way
of a coastline facing Central and South America.

Gulfport — the fourth largest U.S. port handling containerized cargo — is
used extensively by traffickers to run drugs into the United States, said
Col. Parker Hills, counterdrug coordinator and commandant of the Regional
Counterdrug Training Academy at Naval Air Station Meridian.

Since the school opened in 1992, Hills has trained at least 16,000 law
enforcement officers at no cost to their agencies. Many of the trainees are
from Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi. Strange's plan will help
Hills better determine what type of courses to offer investigators.

"I call Don Strange the 'point of the spear,' " Hills said. "It's a
military term meaning this is the guy leading the fight. I'm very excited
by the new strategy. It will fell a serious blow to drug trafficking."

But Strange says enforcement is not enough. The bureau has a responsibility
to educate younger generations about the dangers of drugs. It is an
objective applauded by Georgia Nix-Miller, executive director of the Rape
Crisis Services of northwest Mississippi in Oxford.

"Nationally, 87 percent of all sexual assaults involved the perpetrator or
the victim using some kind of substance," said Nix-Miller. "I think it's so
important we very aggressively address this issue to keep our young people
safe. I'm thrilled we have someone taking the focus Don Strange is taking."