HIGH HEROIN DEATH RATE LEADS HYDE TO DEMAND ACTION

Alarmed that Chicago has been leading the country in heroin-related
deaths, Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) urged the nation's drug czar
Wednesday to make more room in drug-treatment programs and boost
efforts to wipe out opium crops in Colombia.

In a letter to John P. Waters, director of the Office of Drug Control
Policy, Hyde said he was concerned about "the impact the importation
of illicit drugs is having in my own neighborhoods in the Chicago area."

The DuPage Republican, chairman of the Committee on International
Relations, pointed to a June report that shows heroin has been
devastating users in the Chicago area more than anywhere else in the
country.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse said 323 people in the six-county
area died of heroin overdoses in 2001, and there were 112
emergency-room visits for every 100,000 people because of the drug
that year.

Hyde told Waters the government can "demonstrate our leadership by
helping to prevent additional overcrowding in treatment programs in
Chicago and elsewhere in the country by people who have been
victimized by Colombian heroin."

He also gave Waters a five-point plan to eradicate opium in Colombia,
one of the world's leaders in growing the crop used to make heroin.
Among Hyde's suggestions was that the drug czar support Colombia's
proposal to pay ex-rebels to destroy opium.

Heroin addiction has been a growing problem in the Chicago area over
the last five years. In 2000, state Rep. Sara Feigenholtz (D-Chicago),
chairwoman of the House Human Services Committee, warned about the
need for more funding for treatment centers.

Last year, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) was instrumental
in obtaining a $2 million increase in the local drug czar's $5.4
million budget to break the link between money laundering and sales of
heroin and other drugs in Chicago. The funding for the High Intensity
Drug Trafficking Area office came after a Chicago Sun-Times series
spotlighted the problem.

Chicago police and federal authorities have been cracking down on
heroin sellers this year, concentrating on the West Side where the
majority of suburban users have flocked to open-air markets in their
cars.