GIAMBRA ADVOCATES LEGALIZING DRUGS

Erie County Executive Joel A. Giambra said Wednesday that a rash of
drug-related killings in Buffalo over the past few days should prompt
a serious discussion about legalizing some narcotics.

Giambra noted that the alleged killer of Sister Karen Klimczak
confessed that he was high on crack cocaine when he committed the
murder on Friday, while drugs are thought to be involved in other
recent slayings. Drugs also are listed as the cause of many of
Buffalo's 56 homicides last year, according to city police.

Any course other than some type of legalization amounts to
"pretending" that current anti-drug efforts are working, Giambra said.

"Until we get real about it, this problem is going to continue to
build on the streets of urban America," he said. "We have to talk
about legalization."

Area law enforcement and narcotics detectives battling drugs day in
and day out were flabbergasted on learning of the county executive's
comments.

"He ought to take a ride around the streets," said Lt. Joseph Leo, an
11-year veteran in the Lackawanna Police narcotics unit. Leo said
drugs "alter the mind" of the user, creating addictions that feed
crime and lead to violence. Legalized or not, that wouldn't change.

"What's going on out there is that people can't afford their habit, so
all they're doing is stealing and robbing from family and friends or
whoever gets in their way," he said. "People can't afford what it
costs to buy a bag of crack . . . so, for $10 the guy goes nuts."

Buffalo Police Commissioner H. McCarthy Gipson also is against
legalizing narcotics. "Allowing for narcotic intoxicants to get
further entangled in our society is not a positive and is not going to
bode well for anybody," Gipson said. "It just has catastrophic
potentialities."

Lt. Thomas Lyon of the Buffalo narcotics and vice unit says his
detectives see the tragedies drugs wreak on families and neighborhoods
all the time. It wouldn't be any different if they were legal.

"We're in the trenches every day. We see the damage the drug culture
has done to neighborhoods and people," Lyon said. "Doctors, lawyers,
kids, people from all walks of life who you'd never expect to see
huddled up in the corner of a crack house having lost everything they
ever had. Legalizing it is not the answer."

Some national figures like conservative commentator William F. Buckley
and former Secretary of State George Schultz have raised the issue of
legalization, while U.S. District Judge John T. Curtin of Buffalo also
has publicly discussed it. But Giambra said Wednesday he believes he
is the first local elected official to raise the possibility.

"It's easy to sit back and pretend you can fix the problem, but based
on the number of homicides and deaths we're seeing, the criminals are
winning," he said. "We need to look at what other countries are doing
and see what might be more effective than doing what we're doing.

"I don't believe anyone looking at this nationally believes that
current methods to eliminate the problem are working," Giambra added.
"They have failed miserably."

Leo attributes much of the problems to judicial leniency at sentencing
time, Gov. George E. Pataki's recent rollback of the state's strict
"Rockefeller drug laws," and underfunding police narcotics
enforcement.

Despite those limitations, Lackawanna has realized its share of
success in the "War on Drugs," Leo said. Parts of the city used to be
"like a candy store" for drugs, and with it came crime, he said.
That's changed dramatically in recent years with tough crackdowns on
dealers, users and houses peddling drugs.

"It's a lot better than it ever was out here," Leo
said.

The county executive offered no specifics on a plan to legalize drugs.
He also did not say what drugs should be afforded noncriminal status,
or how any new laws should be enforced.

But he did say he will continue to discuss the situation to stimulate
some kind of new thinking. "I'm just trying to stimulate a different
kind of discussion to get people away from pretending," Giambra said.