BATTLES WON, WAR GOES ON

Jackson County officials look at ways to best use sales-tax money to
get narcotics off the streets.

The number of drug cases filed in Jackson County dropped nearly 25
percent last year to the lowest level in five years.

Some people call that a hard-won victory in the first American county
to impose a tax to fight drugs. Others wonder whether dealers simply
have gotten smarter and harder to catch.

Despite the decline in prosecutions, Kansas City police officers
still spend a substantial amount of time fighting the war on drugs.
An examination of the local drug scene shows that crack cocaine
remains the city's big-money street drug, but marijuana seizures have
skyrocketed.

Jackson County officials now are pondering how best to spend future
anti-drug sales-tax money to keep the drug problem in retreat. It may
be time for changes, they say.

That money currently supports the enforcement of drug laws and
programs to treat and prevent drug abuse. Some experts say the best
way to battle illegal drugs in cities with stable or dropping usage
rates is through more treatment.

Jackson County officials want to do that, but they say they also need
steady enforcement and more jail space.

Nationwide, the sale of illegal drugs is a $60 billion-a-year
industry involving at least 16 million customers, or about 7 percent
of the population older than 12, according to a recent study.

Though the number of American users has dipped slightly since the
late 1970s, more people today use more serious drugs such as cocaine
and methamphetamine, researchers say.

That means billions spent nationwide on the drug war produced mixed
success at best, said Peter H. Reuter, a University of Maryland
professor and one author of a 2005 Rand Corp. study, "How Goes the
'War on Drugs'?"

The best way to cut drug use and related crime is to repeatedly send
addicts through treatment until it succeeds, he said.

In Kansas City, police say something also must be done about the
small dealers who evade jail or prison until they have been arrested
repeatedly.

Police constantly change enforcement tactics to keep up with the
dealers, said Sgt. Anthony Mak of Kansas City's street narcotics unit.

"They change, we change," Mak said.

The Local Market

On any given day in Kansas City, a disheveled man somewhere takes
cash and tells a customer to get his rock of cocaine nearby -- maybe
in a chink in a wall or under a box of diapers in a store. Or maybe
there is a quick handoff through a car window.

The street dealers often are addicts working to obtain some of the
product. Midlevel bosses roam elsewhere and control their help by
using cell phones.

Sergeants in the street narcotics unit would not say how many
officers monitor the streets, but they said the work is plentiful.

"We could put 2,000 down there on every shift and keep them busy," Mak said.

Crack cocaine remains the big-money street drug. Yet Jackson County
prosecution data and Kansas City police arrest data indicate a shift
from cocaine and methamphetamine sales to marijuana, possibly because
of harsh prison sentences for cocaine possession and dealing.

"We've been seeing an increase in marijuana for a while," said
Jackson County Prosecutor Jim Kanatzar.

Sale of about a fifth of an ounce of crack cocaine can prompt a
mandatory 10-year sentence. It takes about 220 pounds of marijuana to
get the same sentence.

Last year the amount of marijuana seized in Kansas City increased
more than 7,000 percent, in part because of one or two giant raids.
The amount of cocaine seized fell 70 percent. The amount of seized
methamphetamine fell 34 percent.

Overall, Jackson County's drug cases dropped from 2,223 two years ago
to 1,711 last year.

Possession cases dropped from 1,579 in 2004 to 1,037 in 2006.

Those numbers encourage Kanatzar, who said they signaled a drop in
drug use. But drug prices also are dropping -- and that typically
indicates a stronger market.

Undercover Kansas City police officers recently bought an ounce of
pure powder cocaine for $500, about half the price from five or six
years ago. And a dealer can still cook the powder cocaine into crack
and triple his money, police said.

Meanwhile, the club drug Ecstasy seems to be appearing more on city
streets, Sgt. Chris Cesena said, and it may be making the jump into
inner-city culture, a jump that methamphetamine never made.

No matter the drug, Mak and other narcotics officers admit occasional
frustration over arresting dealers and then seeing them back on the
streets the next day. Neighborhood residents complain, too.

"People get frustrated, and their frustration is taken out on the
police," Mak said. "We become the bad guy."

Police continue to do all they can, Cesena said.

"How do you tell the 78-year-old lady calling to complain about a
corner or house there is nothing you can do for her?" Cesena asked.

What's Ahead?

Jackson County in 1989 was the first U.S. county to tax itself to
fight drugs. Now officials are exploring new approaches.

County Executive Mike Sanders recently appointed a panel to audit and
assess aspects of the drug tax and the many programs it funds,
including the county drug court.

Drug court forces first-time, nonviolent offenders into drug
treatment, but the number of clients referred there fell almost 25
percent last year, in part because arrests declined.

Kanatzar recently proposed expanding the drug court to serve more
severe offenders, such as violent parolees. Both he and Sanders
propose building a lower-security regional jail where addicts could
complete six months of treatment.

Law enforcement gets them there, Sanders said, "and while you've got
them, you treat them."

From its start, the drug tax has funded a mix of enforcement,
treatment and prevention programs. The various players probably have
the unique collective experience to spot and react to new drug
problems, Sanders said.

"It's an intelligence network," he said. "It's never been used that way."

The panel reviewing the drug tax and its programs is expected to
release its findings later this year, Sanders said.

Whatever is decided, the future may bring a need for more changes,
said Bob Beaird, a county circuit court judge who each day handles a
barrage of minor drug cases.

Beaird releases most offenders on signature bonds. Most later plead
guilty and get probation.

Beaird said he cannot shove the many small dealers and users into a
jail crowded with more violent and dangerous people. Many
probationers go back to selling more than once before they push him
or other judges far enough to send them to prisons.

"If you keep at it, you're eventually going to do time," he said.

Beaird's docket numbers are way down again this year, and that could
indicate more of a decline in drug crime, he said. But he cautioned
people about getting too excited.

"It's a little like watching the waves come in on the ocean," Beaird
said. "As soon as a wave breaks, they'll be another one after it."