RURAL COUNTIES CAN'T FIGHT DRUG WAR ALONE

Sanders County's loss of help with drug crimes from the
regional Northwest Drug Task Force is a blow to drug law enforcement.
Rural counties need help with this challenge.

Sanders County Sheriff Gene Arnold has the unenviable job of keeping
law and order in the rural parts of a 120-mile-long, 60-mile-wide
county with four patrolling deputies, himself and one detective. He
could use 12 deputies, he said recently, but that's not going to
happen. He lost a deputy whose salary was paid with grant money about
five years ago, and voters have rejected mill levies for new officers
and communications equipment twice in recent years.

Thus the recent news that the Northwest Drug Task Force could no
longer help Sanders County with undercover drug investigations because
of lack of money to fund a Sanders County officer hit Arnold hard.
Montana is not rich, but we need to figure out a way to help rural
counties deal with the burgeoning illegal drug problem, especially
methamphetamine labs and marijuana grow operations that take lots of
time and officer power.

The task force, funded 70 percent with federal money through the state
Board of Crime Control, is an 11-person agency with 14,000 people for
every task force officer to cover in northwest Montana. Trying to
stretch over Sanders County was weakening coverage of the entire area,
the task force management said. Other counties' sheriffs' departments
and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes have enough deputies
to assign one to the task force, but Arnold doesn't.

Arnold calls Sanders County drug traffic "mind-boggling." His county,
Lake and Flathead counties are on a distribution link to Coeur d'Alene
and points west.

In 2000, Sanders County reported 47 drug offenses to the Board of
Crime Control, which estimates that 60 percent of the crimes go
undetected and unreported. In 2001, the county reported 62 drug
offenses, and in 2002 it reported 54. The task force has done a
substantial amount of work with the sheriff's department, Arnold said,
helping investigate and bust up a big meth lab in the Dixon area and,
18 months ago, a meth trafficking operation by a trucking company,
where the indictments numbered in the 40s.

Montana is not immune to serious drug crimes. Measured in number of
crimes per 100,000 people, Montana in 2001 saw 526 such crimes per
100,000. Idaho's number was 442 per 100,000, and New York state's was
650. Between Oct. 1, 2002, and June 30, 2003, Montana law enforcement
busted up 79 meth operations that required cleanup, at a cost of
$208,506. The year before, 122 such toxic operations cost $1,400,895
to clean up, according to the Division of Crime Investigation.
Taxpayers pay for that.

Like nature, meth cookers abhor a vacuum. Arnold can get help for
specific investigations and busts when he needs it - for instance,
from the state Division of Criminal Investigation regional office in
Missoula - but it's the ongoing presence of law enforcement that's a
deterrent. Without it, a rural county looks like a wide-open
invitation. It makes sense to find a way to deter, prevent and stop
illegal drug operations early.