NEW DRUG ABUSE TEAM SEEKS INPUT OF CITIZENS

16 Meetings Are Set Across Kentucky

FRANKFORT - Gov. Ernie Fletcher's new team to fight drug abuse in
Kentucky is hitting the road, scheduling 16 meetings across the state
to seek information from citizens about drug problems in their
communities.

The goal of the so-called Drug Control Policy Summit Initiative team
is to present to Fletcher by the end of June recommendations to
establish Kentucky's first statewide drug-control policy, Lt. Gov.
Steve Pence said yesterday after the 51-member group held its first
meeting.

Delegates from the team have been assigned to conduct the regional
meetings. Citizen comments at the meetings will be recorded and
reported to the full team.

Pence said the assessment is the first in Kentucky to bring together
state, local and federal officials in every area of substance abuse --
prevention and education, treatment and law enforcement -- to examine
the state's substance abuse problem.

They will concentrate on illegal drugs, inappropriate prescriptions
for medications, and alcohol and tobacco use by youth, he said.

Asked how this effort will be different from others in the past, Pence
said, "What we are doing is not surrendering. We are seeing if we can
do things better, more effectively and more efficiently.

"Doing nothing is not an option."

Attorney General Greg Stumbo, a co-chair of the team, compared its
effort to the approach Kentucky took in bringing about widespread
school reform in 1990.

"We studied education reform every year up until then. At the end of
that was truly remarkable. I think this endeavor has a similar
opportunity. It's a very practical way of solving the problem from a
broad perspective so everyone can understand what resources we have."

Funding for the team is $160,000, with no dollars coming from the
state General Fund.

The Kentucky State Police and the state Department of Vehicle
Enforcement each contributed $75,000 in money seized from drug
traffickers and forfeited by courts, and U.S. Attorney Greg Van
Tatenhove, provided $10,000 from the Appalachian High-Intensity Drug
Trafficking Area.