CURBING DRUG TRAFFIC

As your Jan. 26 editorial "Cocaine crossroads" stated, North Carolina has
become a transshipment location of cocaine and marijuana smuggled across
the Mexican border and brought on the interstate highway network to North
Carolina, re-packaged here in smaller quantities and then distributed up
the East Coast. As you pointed out, our strategy to combat illegal
trafficking in North Carolina has to change. However, your idea of "A
better and more effective strategy" to combat trafficking by a "combined
assault utilizing the manpower and expertise of small-town police officers
who know their local areas, as well as working with federal agents" is
already in operation in Eastern North Carolina. Federal, state, and local
law enforcement agencies in our region have developed the very type of
teaming arrangement your editorial proposed. Over the past year, federal,
state and local narcotics enforcers have developed the "EastForce" concept.
Local law enforcement agencies, assisted by agents from the State Bureau of
Investigation, investigate major drug trafficking conspiracies in their
area and prepare the cases for prosecution in federal court. Intelligence
collected through those investigations is shared with federal agencies,
primarily the Drug Enforcement Administration in Raleigh, to assist other
federal prosecutions.

Since North Carolina is now a major battleground in the struggle against
illicit drugs, these coordinated efforts are valuable weapons in our war on
drug trafficking.

Frank D. Whitney

U.S. Attorney

Eastern District of North Carolina

Raleigh