ENFORCEMENT GROUPS VIE FOR FEDERAL FUNDS - DAY 5C

Inland police agencies must demonstrate the severity of the
area's meth problem to get help from the feds.

It's not a coveted title. But nationwide, police and politicians know
the five-word phrase can boost their pleas for help in the fight
against methamphetamine.

Meth capital of the world.

In the 1990s, the label has been applied variously to San Bernardino
and Riverside counties, San Diego, the Central Valley, Iowa and
Missouri. Each has its own meth problem, and authorities know state
and federal money often goes to areas that are hardest-hit.

"Everybody's got their hands in the kitty trying to get the money,"
said Ken Carter, director of the Iowa Division of Narcotics
Enforcement.

With so much at stake, police agencies nationwide feel pressure
to show the depth of their own problems, said Paul Wilmore, a
special agent with the California Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement in
Fresno.

"It's important for each office to be recognized N to have the
statistics N to show they have a certain problem," he said.

The spotlight on California also started to shine on the Midwest in
the mid-1990s, when lab increases became a high-profile issue. Stories
in national and regional publications highlighted meth's spreading grip on the nation's heartland, including Missouri, Kansas and Iowa.

Drug agents in California argue the state's meth problem dwarfs
troubles in other areas.

"I kind of get angry, and I hate to use the word anger," said
Riverside County sheriff's Sgt. Steve Rinks. "Sure, they have their
problems, but I don't think it's the scale we have on the West Coast."

Outside California, meth labs tend to be small operations that produce
a few ounces of speed.

Authorities here say California accounts for 1,770 of the 3,263 labs
discovered nationwide in 1998.

And California is saddled with large Mexican-cartel labs that can
produce more than 100 pounds of the drug in a day or two.

Police in Iowa say California provides more than 85 percent of
the meth on their streets.

"We are the gateway for drugs coming into the country," said Riverside
County Sheriff Larry Smith. "If we focus attention here, we prevent it
from getting to Montana."

Incomplete statistics and hazy definitions can muddy the big picture,
Smith said.

Reports to Congress or state legislatures sometimes are based on
information about labs discovered by the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration. In some states, DEA agents focus on labs more than they do in California, so the agency's statistics aren't comparable
from state to state. That can make it appear that other states have
more labs than California, agents argue.

Another problem is that the number of labs throughout the country has
been inflated, authorities agree.

Police in some areas count pieces of lab equipment N like a coffee pot
stained with red phosphorous and a can of lye N as a full-blown lab,
even though those supplies alone could not produce meth, Smith said.

The issue of what constitutes a lab raised questions about counts in
Iowa, according to Carter, the state's drug enforcement chief. Now, a
lab is defined as any site that contains the ingredients for a
functional lab and evidence that it was functional, Carter said.

Most large police agencies in California, including those in San
Bernardino and Riverside counties, have adopted a similar definition,
state officials said.

Lab numbers also may be inflated, either locally or elsewhere, when
several agencies working on a case that nets a single lab include the
find in their own statistics, Smith said.

Police intelligence units, such as the locally based Inland Narcotics
Clearing House, are tracking labs more closely than in the past, Smith
said. Analysts decide whether a lab is really a lab and review
agencies' lab tallies to ensure single labs are not counted more than
once.

Congressman Ken Calvert, R-Corona, said he will propose legislation
this year to establish a national drug intelligence center in Los
Angeles. Such a center would give police and policy-makers better
access to data about smuggling trends, Calvert said.

The center would operate out of the Los Angeles County Regional
Criminal Information Clearinghouse, a multi-agency group that tracks
drug-enforcement operations in Riverside, San Bernardino, Los Angeles
and Orange counties.

A center in Los Angeles County could augment, or replace, functions of
the El Paso Intelligence Center, Calvert spokesman Chris Pedigo said.
The center in Texas is a clearinghouse for drug information, headed by
the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

The two centers' roles would be determined by the White House Office
of National Drug Control Policy. The White House office has estimated
a center in Los Angeles County would cost $2 million a year, Pedigo
said.

"L.A. is such a clearinghouse for meth, it's a real advantage to have
the center right in the middle of it, right where the problem is,"

Pedigo said.

As police nationwide grapple with meth problems, Smith acknowledges
that people worry most about the problem closest to home. That's
understandable, he said, but money for fighting meth must be focused
where it does the most good.

For now, that is California, Inland authorities argue.

If manufacturing and trafficking operations shift and another region
steals the title of meth capital of the world, the money should be used there, Smith said.

"We would be more than willing to give ... (the title) away." he said.
"Who'd want that title?"