GILMORE LAUNCHES WAR ON DRUG SELLERS

More Troopers, Bounties Part Of Plan

In a major election-season proposal, Gov. Jim Gilmore yesterday rolled out
a $30-million-a-year fight against drugs, including the hiring of 210 new
state troopers who would be deployed in areas of high drug dealing.

"Today, illegal drugs become public enemy No. 1," said Gilmore, a former
chief prosecutor in Henrico County. "Virginia will be the most dangerous
place for drug kingpins in the U.S.

"I want to send a message directly to drug kingpins and to their pushers:
Your reckless and destructive law-breaking lifestyles are over," he said,
using get-rough talk and describing his proposal as the nation's toughest
anti-drug initiative.

Standing on the majestic south portico of the state Capitol and surrounded
by lawmakers and government officials, Gilmore issued a warning to drug
dealers.

"No more fancy cars, resort lifestyles and guns," he promised. "For you --
for the damage you've done, for the damage you do -- there will be only a
prison cell."

Besides the proposed new special drug-eradication division of the Virginia
State Police, the governor wants to offer first-in-the-nation bounties of
up to $10,000 to informers in order to catch and imprison dealers of drugs
to children and

to impose life-without-parole sentences on convicted drug kingpins.

While "tough on drugs" was the governor's dominant message, he also would
require mandatory testing, treatment and community service for all
first-time drug offenders as well as treatment programs for parolees. He
held out help for addicts and casual users, he said, "so you can recapture
your dreams, your

hopes, your aspirations, but you'll need to help us do it right."

But there was a clear partisan message to Gilmore's agenda in describing
his proposed projects, whose funding and legislation would have to be
approved by the General Assembly next winter.

It is "a tough, but smart, Republican answer to the threat of illegal drugs
in Virginia's communities," said Gilmore, castigating the Clinton-Gore
record on drug fighting as "disgraceful and damaging to America's future."

Law-and-order issues often are major themes in election years, and this
year is no different, especially with the stakes so high.

On Nov. 2 voters will decide all 140 seats in the essentially evenly split
legislature. Republicans hope to win their first majorities since
Reconstruction in both the state Senate and the House of Delegates.

The results are equally important to Gilmore and his agenda, so the
governor and hoped-for GOP majorities will be able to redraw
Republican-friendly electoral districts in 2001.

Yesterday, some Democrats, without questioning Gilmore's sincerity, claimed
that he is tough on drugs but soft on allowing guns on school grounds.

"Illegal drugs are abhorrent, but I don't think drugs are the major worry
on the public's mind," argued Leslie Byrne, the former congress

woman from Northern Virginia who is seeking to regain her Fairfax County
seat in the state House. "They're much more worried about kids being safe
at school."

She spoke to reporters after she and two other Democrats -- Del. A. Donald
McEachin of Henrico and Senate candidate Linda T. "Toddy" Puller of Fairfax
- -- again slammed Gilmore and dozens of suburban Republicans for voting to
allow students to keep unloaded rifles in their locked vehicles parked on
school grounds.

Although some Democrats supported the loophole, which failed in the General
Assembly, the trio yesterday called for "zero tolerance" for guns on school
property. They promised to close three other loopholes, including one that
permits a hunter to fire a weapon within 1,000 feet of school property.

One of the targeted Republicans, Del. James H. Dillard II of Fairfax, said
he already had requested legislation to close the loopholes.

Ron Jordan, the administration's deputy secretary of public safety and a
former assembly budget expert, estimated it will cost about $60 million
over the first two years to pay for Gilmore's proposal.

For all the threats against drug kingpins and the proposed easier criteria
to punish certain dealers, the administration expects it would take off the
streets only about 99 kingpins in the next decade.

Gilmore's mix of toughness with treatment is a departure from the
anti-crime orientation of fellow Republican George Allen, who pushed for
the abolition of parole and stripped the budget of cash for treatment of
sex offenders.

But some doubted that Gilmore's "getting tough" on sellers would make a
significant difference.

"It's been the premise of the 'war on drugs' for nearly 20 years," said
Mark Mauer, assistant director of The Sentencing Project in Washington.
"People who don't expect to get caught selling drugs -- and most don't --
aren't thinking about the penalties involved and are not deterred by them."

In addition to the hiring of 210 state troopers over four years and the
payment of a bounty of up to $10,000 for information leading to the arrest
and conviction of those selling drugs to children, possessing or dealing in
large amounts of drugs, or operating methamphetamine labs, here are some
other aspects of Gov. Jim Gilmore's drug-fighting plan:

Changing the law to call for mandatory life sentences without parole for
drug "kingpins" convicted of making a $100,000 profit in the previous 12
months, selling 1 kilogram of heroin, 10 kilograms of cocaine or 1 kilogram
of crack cocaine. For the first time, people selling 100 grams of
methamphetamines would qualify as kingpins. Marijuana growers moving 260
pounds or 500 plants or more, regardless of weight, also would qualify as
kingpins.

Mandatory 20 years to life in prison for dealers who possess illegal drugs
in the same amounts as the revised kingpin amounts, except for marijuana,
which would have a threshold of 20 kilograms.

Increased minimum, mandatory penalties for selling drugs in drug-free
school zones, selling steroids and for chronic drug possession, or drug
sales to support drug addiction.

New, five-year minimum, mandatory prison terms for those selling or
furnishing firearms to a child, and up to five years in prison for a minor
who possesses or transports a handgun or assault firearm.

Mandatory testing, treatment and extensive community service for first-time
drug offenders and those being released from prison.

SOURCE: Office of the Governor

Staff writer Frank Green contributed to this report.