BENTON HITS DRUGS WITH NEW TASK FORCE

It's been more than a year since the Valley Interagency Narcotics
Team was disbanded amid concerns over mishandled evidence, leaving
Benton County without a dedicated drug enforcement task force.

Now the Benton County Sheriff's Office and the Corvallis Police
Department are teaming up to change that.

The new Street Crimes Unit, composed of two sheriff's deputies and
two Corvallis police officers, is designed to address the void left
by VALIANT and to focus anti-drug efforts in the hands of skilled officers.

According to Capt. Jon Sassaman of the Corvallis Police Department, a
team has been chosen and will undergo two weeks of training in
Portland. They will receive instruction in dealing with informants,
meth lab safety and how to do detailed criminal investigations.

Benton County Deputy District Attorney Christian Stringer will work
with the unit.

"I'm excited," he said.

The District Attorney's Office can be an active part of the effort to
curb drug trafficking, Stringer said. Even if some of the cases don't
ever get to court, he can still subpoena testimony from people
arrested for possession before a grand jury.

"I can ask them under oath, 'Where'd you get your drugs?'" he said,
and detectives can use the information to track dealers.

The unit is expected to be up and running by January.

A Pervasive Problem

Methamphetamine addiction affects the life of every Oregon resident,
old or young, rich or poor, illegal immigrant or family that's been
here for generations.

Car burglaries, identity thefts and other property crimes are
frequently the result of drug addiction, according to Benton County
Sheriff Jim Swinyard.

"When you arrest people for property crimes, you ask how they got
into this," Swinyard said, "and it's to support a meth habit."

People who say it's expensive to pay law enforcement to deal with
drug addicts and the drug problem are ignoring reality, Swinyard added.

"We're already paying that now," he said. "It's in the prices of
stuff on the shelves, the cost of insurance."

Oregon ranked fifth in the nation for property crimes per capita,
according to 2004 numbers from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. And
yet in the same year, Oregon ranked last for the number of police and
sheriff's officers per capita, behind Vermont, North Dakota and Idaho.

The number of drug arrests and the amount of meth seized in Corvallis
show that police continue to tackle the problem.

Methods for combating illegal drugs in general and meth in particular
are well-known. Law enforcement officers use undercover operatives to
get information on the street about who the dealers are and where
they get their supplies. Intercepting drugs before they get into the
hands of teens is important.

"Know where they are, what they're doing and what they're putting in
their bodies" is Swinyard's advice to parents. "There's never going
to be an easier time to deal with this than when they first find out
that their high school-age child might have a drug problem."

Elusive Numbers

But it helps to know the bigger picture. How many meth labs are
operating in the county? How much meth is being sold?

Getting answers to these questions can be tough, and a lack of solid
information could be making it harder for law enforcement to do its job.

Oregon Attorney General Hardy Myers recently released the first
report ever on organized crime in the state, including drug trafficking.

"First and foremost, what we have learned is that there is much we
simply do not know," the report said. "Systems for recording valuable
statistics are sporadic; information sharing among the numerous and
varied law enforcement agencies has a long way to go."

Meth and marijuana production, which Myers identifies as the most
serious drug trafficking crimes, do not have to be reported to state
or federal agencies by local law enforcement.

Unlike crimes such as burglary and homicide, there is no law
requiring that meth lab busts or marijuana seizures be reported to the FBI.

And federal agencies such as the Drug Enforcement Administration and
the Forest Service aren't required to pass information about their
drug busts on to local law enforcement. So if DEA agents or forest
rangers find a lab on federal land, the state is not necessarily informed.

As a result, the Oregon Department of Human Services, which actually
cleans up meth labs, shows no labs closed in Benton County in 2005
and one so far in 2006, while statistics from the federal
High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas Program, known as HIDTA, say
there were two labs found in Benton County last year and three so far in 2006.

Locally, no statistics on meth labs are being kept by the Benton
County Sheriff's Office, according to Undersheriff Diana Simpson,
although the Street Crimes Unit should change that.

A Stubborn Challenge

In part because of Oregon's laws restricting access to the chemicals
used to make meth, such as pseudoephedrine, there is general
agreement that Oregon meth production is down.

"However," Myers' report says, "there has been an increase in
trafficking of precursor ingredients and finished product, such as
the highly addictive Mexican-made 'ice.'"

Superlabs in California and Mexico have replaced local production.

"The price of meth has not changed that much," said HIDTA's interim
director, Ken Rubin. "Reducing labs has not impacted drug availability."

The Meth Challenge Remains.

"I've been trying to interdict drugs in one way or another since
1985," Swinyard said, "and it's like stepping on a balloon."