KANE COUNTY GETS A BOOST IN WAR ON DRUGS

County To Receive $143,000 Grant From State

The state wants to help Kane County tackle drugs.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich's office recently announced a grant of $143,967
to the Kane County state's attorney's office to help in the
prosecution of drug crimes.

The North Central Narcotics Task Force, which oversees Kane, McHenry
and DeKalb counties, received $139,670.

The money is part of $5.3aemillion in federal funds being doled out
by the state to 20 drug enforcement agencies and eight drug
prosecution units in 66 Illinois counties.

While the drug grants were spurred by the state's push to target the
emergence and migration of methamphetamine use in Illinois, less
heavily meth-infested northern counties like Kane can use the money
to target other drugs.

Kane County State's Attorney John Barsanti said he'll look into using
the money for drugs other than meth.

One possibility is to replace $36,000 lost from another federal grant
that paid for salaries for drug prosecutors.

Another possibility is to use a portion of the new grant to beef up
the drug asset forfeiture program, ideally by adding a full-time
civil attorney to go after cars and houses owned by drug dealers.

The Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority received $50,000
from the federal grant to bring online next year a new database for
meth information.

That could help Kane County decipher just when, if ever, meth becomes
a problem.

Meth labs haven't been found in Kane yet, but they have been seized
in neighboring McHenry, Cook and Will counties. Raids on farm
fertilizers used to produce the narcotic have been reported in DeKalb County.

Before 2002, one-half of meth possession confiscations annually
occurred in rural counties. By 2005, however, 70 percent of drug
confiscations came from urban areas, and 34 percent of lab seizures
happened in urban areas, according to the Illinois Criminal Justice
Information Authority.

Kane has so far been dealing mainly with crimes of meth possession
and the occasional arrest of individuals caught transporting
chemicals or equipment for production through the county, officials said.

The new computerized networking system will supplement the currently
used national database, which has not been fully effective in
Illinois. Because the national database requires use fees, small
police departments can find it cost prohibitive. Also not all of the
state police data makes it into the national system. In 2004, only
about 85 percent of meth lab seizures in Illinois appeared in the
national database.

Illinois hopes to present more accurate data by making the new
database free and requiring information submissions to continue
getting federal drug grants. The database will help pinpoint problem
areas and allocate resources for prevention, enforcement and treatment.