OFFICIALS DOUBT DRUG REPORT

Dec. 5 The federal drug czar says Denver has more kids under 13 who smoke
marijuana than any other city in the country, and Colorado ranks fourth
overall in the country for marijuana use, according to a report released by
his Office of National Drug Control Policy.

But local health and police officials are skeptical of the report.

For instance, Bruce Mendelson, who keeps statistics for the Alcohol and
Drug Abuse Division of the Colorado Department of Human Services, said he
has seen an increase in marijuana use but says his office does not keep
statistics for 13yearolds and under.

"We've seen increases in the use of marijuana (in Colorado),'' said
Mendelson. "Clearly, we are seeing an increase in new users. In 1991, 15
percent of the people who sought treatment for drugs were new users of
marijuana. That figure in 1996 jumped to 31 percent, which is a clear
indication of a growing problem.

"Last year, there were roughly 5,200 people who sought treatment for use of
marijuana, and 42 percent of them were under the age of 17. We don't keep
statistics younger than that, and we don't have national comparisons,'' he
added

The report also stated that drugrelated deaths in Utah, Wyoming and
Colorado have increased 250 percent in the past five years. And "Wyoming
has the secondhighest national percentage of cocaine or freebase users,''
it stated. Freebase, usually inhaled, is a concentrated form of cocaine.

But the report, which listed no statistics and was not footnoted with
sources, surprised local officials, who were skeptical of the figures.

The report is based on analysis of statistics from the Denver Police
Department, surveys conducted by the Drug Abuse Warning Network and
household surveys.

Denver Police Chief David Michaud said he hadn't seen the report and
wouldn't comment on it. Dan O'Hare, chief of the investigation division,
said, "I don't know a thing about the report.''

Craig Cook, chief operating officer of Denver Public Schools, said through
a spokesman that school officials see "an occasional, rare report of this
kind of drug activity in the middle schools. But we just don't see the kind
of numbers the report uses.''

The report, called a "threat assessment,'' was released by drug czar Barry
R. McCaffrey Wednesday in Washington, D.C., during a news conference
concerning High Intensity Drug Traffic Areas Program, a druginterdiction
effort funded by McCaffrey's office.

Colorado is one of 22 areas in the country designated as having large
volumes of illegal drugs moving through them.

"That's an internal document that I don't think was meant to be released,''
said Tom Gorman, director of the Rocky Mountain office of the High
Intensity Drug Traffic Areas Program.

The report was prepared by the office's Investigative Support Center and
approved by Gorman and the board of directors, made up of police chiefs and
sheriffs from 10 Colorado counties, five counties in Utah and three in
Wyoming.

The report also stated that "methamphetamine trafficking and production in
the region have reached epidemic proportions.''

Substantiating that, the Drug Enforcement Administration in Denver released
statistics Thursday for Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico showing that
arrests for methamphetamine have more than doubled since 1994 and that
seizures of methamphetamine "labs'' have increased 618 percent. A spokesman
said the greatest number of labs seized were in Utah. Seizures of
methamphetamine are up 371 percent since 1994.

Mendelson's office reported that hospital treatment admissions of
methamphetamine users are up 300 percent in the past five years. New users,
defined as someone who first started using the drug in the past three
years, are up 21.5 percent, which indicates a growing number of people
using the drug.