DRUG CZAR SAYS HIGH-PURITY HEROIN A THREAT TO NEW ENGLAND

BOSTON -- New England faces the threat of an influx of heroin so pure that
users can inhale, snort or eat it instead of injecting it with needles,
White House drug czar Barry McCaffrey warned Tuesday.

McCaffrey will meet Wednesday with law enforcement leaders from the six New
England states to discuss how to combat the problem.

McCaffrey said the high-purity heroin comes to the area primarily from New
York City, but the Canadian border also remains vulnerable to drug smugglers.

"It's essentially unguarded," McCaffrey said. "The northern border is a
frontier. ... Cooperation between the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has
been superb. But there's very little manpower up there. It's a question
mark that has to be closely considered in the following years."

Last year, McCaffrey established the New England High-Intensity Drug
Trafficking Area with $1 million in federal funding. The funding has
allowed local law enforcement officials to link up with FBI agents, federal
drug enforcement agents, and other agencies that could assist in the arrest
of drug smugglers.

There are 30 other such zones across the country. McCaffrey said the goal
was to "target these people (smugglers) for prosecution, to focus on the
pipeline, and not just take small-scale criminals off the streets."

The New England effort only covers 12 counties in the six states. That
means that the program still hasn't arrived in some counties that have
heroin problems, such as Middlesex County, which has a substantial heroin
trade based in Lowell.

McCaffrey said he would ask New England law enforcement officials which
counties should be added to the program and he thought Middlesex would be
among those suggested. The program's budget this year has increased to over
$1.85 million. McCaffrey said more funding would be needed to add new
counties and he promised to seek it.

McCaffrey said it was too early to tell how well the program was working.

"I think the payoff will happen in the coming years," McCaffrey said.

Col. Edmund Culhane, head of the Rhode Island State Police, said that in
his state, more large drug seizures have been made since the HIDTA program
began. He also said that working with other states would enable him to
dismantle much larger drug operations.

The theory behind the HIDTA program is that local police in drug-riddled
areas need help to fight criminal organizations that can easily spill over
jurisdictional boundaries.

McCaffrey said that Connecticut's Bradley International Airport, as well as
airports in Manchester, N.H.; Burlington, Vt.; and Warwick, R.I. were
vulnerable to drug traffickers.

John Gartland, special agent in charge at the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration in New England, agreed with McCaffrey.

"(High-purity heroin) is everywhere," Gartland said. "We're seeing it in
Bangor, Maine; we're seeing it in Cape Cod."

But cracking down on high-purity heroin isn't going to solve all the
problems, Gartland cautioned. Gartland said that reducing the amount of
very pure heroin could simply lead dealers to dilute their mixtures -- and
could lead addicts to return to injecting heroin.

In another indication of the threat posed by heroin, the Massachusetts
Department of Public Health said Tuesday that, in 1992, 15 percent of
people admitted into state-run rehabilitation programs listed heroin as
their primary drug.

By 1999, the number of people claiming heroin addiction had more than
doubled to 32 percent, while the numbers claiming addiction to cocaine,
marijuana and alcohol declined.