D.C. ANTI-DRUG EFFORT HAS NEW LIFE, LEADER

He's a soft-spoken federal prosecutor, on temporary assignment to the
District government. Few D.C. residents have ever heard of him, but Erik P.
Christian has become a point person in Mayor Anthony A. Williams's new
effort to reduce the drug-related crime and violence that plague some
neighborhoods.

It is Christian who was chosen by Williams to be a liaison between the
mayor's office and a cluster of public safety agencies, including the D.C.
police department and the Department of Corrections. Christian's official
duties are numerous: to help formulate a long-term plan to reduce
drug-related crime, identify ways to curb substance abuse in a city with an
estimated 65,000 users, get residents involved in the mayor's program and
work with police to close drug markets.

But perhaps Christian's real job is this: to help make sure Williams's
effort is not all style and no substance, like so many showy anti-drug
sweeps orchestrated by D.C. officials in recent years. Those well-publicized
efforts largely amounted to temporary crackdowns by D.C. police on open-air
drug markets; soon after the television cameras went home, it often was
business as usual.

Christian, like Williams, believes those initiatives failed because they did
little to address the reasons that drugs have such a foothold in several
low-income neighborhoods. Generations of addiction, a lack of drug treatment
and job opportunities, and few recreational programs for youths have
combined to make the buying, selling and taking of drugs an insidious part
of the city's culture.

That's why, Christian says, the Williams administration's anti-drug plan,
aided by a $15 million federal grant, will involve increasing drug
treatment, education and mentoring sessions for youths, frequent meetings
between D.C. officials and community groups, and the resurrection of the
Criminal Justice Coordinating Council, a panel that will give residents
another way to air their concerns to city officials.

And yes, there also will be persistent drug raids and patrols, focused
initially on a half-dozen particularly troubled areas across the city.

Christian acknowledges that the mayor's program will face pressure to
quickly show results from within D.C. government and from some residents,
but he insists that neither he nor the mayor's office will support the type
of quick-fix policies that have doomed previous anti-drug efforts.

"We want more police presence on the street," Christian said. "The first
thing we hear in the community is that there are not enough officers on the
street.

"But it's important to find the right solution," to the various social
problems generated by drugs, he added. "Whether it takes a day, a week, or
over a six-month period, it's important for us to have a sound plan. We want
the right solution, and we want a quality approach to the problem."

Christian, 38, will remain a special assistant to the mayor after his
original 90-day assignment ends in a few weeks. D.C. officials say that
Christian's move from the Justice Department may wind up being permanent; he
is widely considered to be the top candidate for deputy mayor for public
safety, a position Williams hopes to create soon.

D.C. residents have seen anti-drug initiatives come and go, and Christian
said he understands the skepticism of those who wonder how Williams's
program--and its prospects--could be so different from the short-lived
crackdowns of the past.

Williams's program is different, Christian said.

"This particular strategy has community participation," he said. "The
community is directly providing us with the means by which we can abate
open-air drug markets. It's a community approach; it's not the mayor and the
chief of police telling the community how they are going to handle the
problem. That's the difference."

Leroy Thorpe, an advisory neighborhood commissioner in Ward 2 who for years
has been part of a community patrol in the Shaw neighborhood of Northwest
Washington, agreed that involving the community is crucial in anti-drug
efforts, but said that the Williams administration should get the community
even more involved than currently planned.

Thorpe said, for example, that city officials could do more to support and
learn from citizen patrols that operate in troubled neighborhoods like his,
where Thorpe says such patrols have helped close about 50 crack houses.

"You need residents involved in the anti-crime initiative," Thorpe said.
"You need people who will come forth as witnesses and citizens who will give
police information. We need citizens to give us information, to tell us
where the drug boys are, what they look like and what kind of cars they are
driving. Without community involvement, the strategy will be a failure."

Williams's initiative reflects not only his attempt to revitalize
long-blighted neighborhoods but also pressure from Congress, which has told
D.C. officials that it will consider the District's progress in reducing
crime and improving access to drug treatment next year when it reviews the
city's budget for fiscal 2001.

Williams said federal grants, along with an additional $9 million in city
funds, will allow the District, among other things, to put 200 more officers
on the street and to increase its narcotics investigations unit.

The mayor also is proposing a variety of after-school programs and other
youth initiatives and wants to increase the city's capacity to offer drug
treatment. Recently there were about 1,000 D.C. residents on the waiting
list for treatment at the city's Addiction Prevention Recovery
Administration (APRA).

Complaints about APRA within D.C. government are giving Christian a glimpse
of some of the political challenges he and Williams face.

D.C. Council member David Catania (R-At Large) believes the mayor's strategy
should include an overhaul of APRA. Citing what he called widespread
organizational problems in the agency, Catania is calling for Williams to
remove the agency's administrator, Deidra Y. Roach.

Catania's complaints have annoyed Williams's office, where aides said the
council member never told them he had such concerns when he expressed
support for the mayor's program.

"Personnel issues should not be used for political fodder," said Ken Snyder,
a spokesman for Williams. "David Catania should have brought this issue
directly to the mayor before stating it to the press. The fact that he did
not indicates that he may be more interested in bringing attention to
himself than this important issue."

Christian, who has worked in the U.S. attorney's office for 11 years and
rarely has been in the public spotlight, now finds himself on the front
lines of such political wrangling, and under scrutiny from residents such as
Samuel Foster, who are demanding safer streets.

"It's long overdue," Foster, executive director of the Concerned Citizens on
Alcohol and Drug Abuse in Ward 8, said of Williams's plan. "The police are
doing a good job, but they are not consistent. We need to let [drug dealers]
know that these days are over."

Christian, a D.C. native who grew up in Ward 4 and still lives there, said
being from the District gives him "extra incentive to make the city a better
place."

Williams is counting on him.

"Erik has a keen eye for integrating approaches and policies, and he
understands execution," the mayor said. "Most games are won not because of
new plays but because of execution. I have every confidence in Erik."