AGENCY URGES MORE STATE FUNDING FOR WAR ON DRUGS

In 1991, the state contributed $1.7 million to its drug-fighting task
force, which at the time deployed 58 agents in the war on illegal drugs.

Now, the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency can only afford 36 agents and
is seeking an emergency appropriation of $536,000 to avoid further
cutbacks.

"We can't carry out our mission to identify and arrest drug dealers
without it,'" said Roy McKinney, director of the state agency since
1997.

The Legislature's Appropriations Committee holds a work session today
on the Public Safety Department's budget proposal, which includes the
request for fighting the drug trade.

The number of drug dealers arrested statewide has hovered between 700
and 900 a year for the past eight years, according to state
statistics. But police say drug problems have worsened: Hard drugs
like heroin are creeping for the first time into rural parts of
central and northern Maine, and drug use by youths has jumped, they
say.

The MDEA, the state's intergovernmental drug task force, was created
12 years ago to better fight drug trafficking. Officers are drawn from
local departments to work with the task force. The agency assists
local departments in making drug arrests and by training the local
officers on loan to the agency.

The effort has been successful, say supporters. Year after year, MDEA
agents make more than half the arrests in the state for drug
trafficking.

"The only way you're going to be effective in doing drug
investigations is through multi-jurisdictional task forces,'' said
South Portland Police Chief Edward Googins. "The same players are
doing the same thing in multiple locations. You cannot do justice to
that type of operation in your own little world, your own little
community.''

When the war on drugs was a high-profile public issue, the agency was
well-funded. But since 1991, its state funding has steadily dropped
from $1.7 million to less than $400,000 a year from 1996 to 1998.

Some of the reason, McKinney suspects, is that the public felt the war
on drugs should have an end.

"Drug trafficking and combating it was a big topic,'' he said. "Now,
the issue has lost focus with society in general. "Unless you have a
drug dealer living across the street, the average citizen may not see
that impact,'' he said. But communities will see the impact in
increased drug-related crimes, court and prison costs and youth drug
use, he said.

Sen. William O'Gara, D-Westbrook, a member of the Criminal Justice
Committee, said the agency's work needs to continue and that means
having state support.

"They need the money to continue tracking down not just the people
buying and selling on the street, but those who are providing it to
them, the bigger fish,'' he said.

The decline in funding has left the agency's seven offices across the
state understaffed, he said. The Augusta office C2AD with a supervisor
and two officers C2AD covers Kennebec, Waldo, Knox, Lincoln and Sagadahoc
counties, he said. The Portland office covering Cumberland County has
six officers but could use 10, he said.

The shortages mean less contact between local departments C2AD which
often are the first to discover drug activity C2AD and the agents
dedicated to investigating drug crimes. The agency has had to disband
specialized investigative units: one focused on collecting
intelligence about drug activity, another pursued drug dealers' assets
and a third targeted pharmaceutical drugs.

The Legislature increased funding to $787,000 this year, but has
budgeted the state share to drop to $261,000 next year. In recent
years, the agency has also collected about $80,000 in proceeds from
property seized from drug dealers.

Most of the agency's funding comes from a $1.3 million federal grant,
part of a Justice Department program to encourage similar task forces
across the country.

McKinney says if the state does not increase its share, it runs the
risk of losing some of its federal money, which requires $600,000 in
state matching funds. Even if the Justice Department money continues,
the agency would not have enough money to pay for operational expenses
like unmarked cruisers and laboratory analysis of drugs, he said.

The federal MDEA money covers the salary and benefits of 24 officers.
The remaining 12 are donated to the drug-fighting effort by local
departments like Portland, South Portland and Westbrook.