STRIDES MADE IN DRUG WAR

Miami Has Made Significant Progress In Combating Substance Abuse,
City Leaders And The Nation's Drug Czar Said

Miami leaders boasted Tuesday their city has shed its 1980s
cocaine-capital reputation and cited statistics that placed Miami's
drug-usage rates below state and national figures in several
categories as proof.

Some examples, released by the federal government last year and
compiled from surveys taken between 1999 and 2001: About 5.7 percent
of Miami-Dade County residents over the age of 12 reported using an
illicit drug in the past month. The national rate was roughly 6.7
percent. For the state of Florida, it was roughly 6.1 percent.

Marijuana use in the past month and cocaine use in the past year for
the same age group were also slightly lower for Miami-Dade than for
Florida and the nation.

"That's not an accident," said John Walters, director of the White
House Office of National Drug Control Policy, who attended a news
conference Tuesday. "No city in America was more devastated by
cocaine and drug use than Miami in the 1980s. You have learned by
pain, and you have learned by experience."

'Miami Advice'

Walters held up Miami as an example of a city comprehensively
attacking its drug problems, and the city Tuesday released a draft of
a strategic plan it hopes will achieve more progress and help other
municipalities. Miami Mayor Manny Diaz proclaimed his city has
evolved from "Miami Vice to Miami Advice."

To be sure, not all the research data on Miami is positive. The
city's plan notes that, among new drug users, the use of powder
cocaine is on the rise, and that South Florida continues to be a
major narcotics entry point and base of operations for drug
traffickers. Miami-Dade County residents spend an estimated $570
million annually on cocaine and marijuana, the plan says.

A proposed new wrinkle in Miami's anti-drug efforts, included in the
strategic plan, is designed to shut down open-air drug markets in the
impoverished Overtown neighborhood. Between 2003 and 2005, about 70
percent of those arrested for drug offenses in Overtown didn't live
in the neighborhood. Those individuals, police say, are fueling the
area's problems and need to be kept out.

Within a month or so, first- and second-time offenders who drive into
Overtown from other places to buy or sell drugs may find themselves
eligible for probation only if they agree to not return to the
neighborhood. For those offenders, getting spotted by police in
Overtown without a valid reason -- such as commuting to work -- would
be deemed a probation violation and could result in jail time.

The tactic, known as "mapping," has been used for several years with
prostitutes arrested in the city's most notorious red-light
districts. In exchange for not being placed behind bars, prostitutes
promise to stay away from where they once worked.

Deputy Police Chief Frank Fernandez said prostitute mapping has led
to fewer repeat offenses, though he conceded that some prostitutes
simply may have taken their trade to other parts of town.

In the case of Overtown's drug transactions, Fernandez said the key
to eliminating the business -- as opposed to just moving it elsewhere
- -- is successfully partnering drug-use prevention and rehabilitation
programs with law enforcement. Miami's anti-drug plan calls for
exactly that, and attributes the city's broader successes so far to
its use of a unified approach.

Solid Strategy

"All these things coming together is what makes this strategy so
solid," Fernandez said.

Nevertheless, Overtown activist Irby McKnight expressed skepticism of
the proposed "mapping" in his neighborhood, which he said amounted to
limiting private citizens' movement.

"Is that legal in America?" McKnight asked. He suggested economic
development would do more to get drug dealers off the street. 'These
little boys . . . a lot of them come to me and say, 'Can you help get
me a job? I'm sick of running from the police,' " McKnight said.