SUCCESSES, QUESTIONS FOLLOW TAX

This summer's biggest non-event is the campaign to renew the Jackson County
anti-drug tax.

Supporters lack the cash to mount a major effort. Opponents are short on
numbers, money, name recognition and message. The quarter-cent sales tax,
known as Combat, appears headed for a quiet renewal on Aug. 5.

And that's too bad. Not because the tax shouldn't be renewed; Combat, short
for Community-Backed Anti-Drug Tax, does many good things. But a $15
million-a-year program should never receive a free ride, especially when it
touches people's lives as profoundly as this one.

Politicians, police and others have appeared at carefully scripted news
conferences to show that Combat changes lives for the better.

They produced a study showing that Jackson County teenagers use drugs less
than teens in other counties in the metropolitan area. Residents of city
neighborhoods applauded the reduction in numbers of drug houses.

I don't dispute any of it. After a halting start in the early 1990s, Combat
has achieved some impressive successes. It has caused law enforcement to
work as a team with treatment and prevention providers. Jackson County has
good treatment options. Its special drug court keeps offenders out of
prison and helps some overcome addiction.

The people whose lives are touched in negative ways aren't seen at the news
conferences. They are elderly people and children who have lived through
the terror of drug raids on their homes. They are people carrying felony
convictions for the smallest of possession offenses. They are small stories
in the big picture, and I will talk about them more in a column next week.

The anti-drug tax began at a time when drug dealers were terrorizing
neighborhoods. Crime and the panic it created have receded since 1989,
raising the logical question of whether increased resources for law
enforcement commitment are still essential. Indeed, the one entertaining
part of the renewal campaign has been watching officials explain that the
tax has made the streets safer, but not safe enough.

The Kansas City Police Department presented a report to the City Council
this spring, stating that "the increased demand for illegal drugs has
created a drug market riddled with violence as drug trafficking
organizations compete to supply the growing demand."

Yet when a radio interviewer asked county Prosecutor Michael Sanders to
explain why the drug problem "rages on," Sanders said: "I would say the
problem doesn't rage on. Last year in Jackson County, crime hit a 23-year low."

I asked Sanders whether he thought the day would ever come when the
anti-drug tax, renewable every seven years, would see a sunset.

"That's an interesting question," he said. "Hopefully there will come a day
when we're not going to need the resources we find in Jackson County."

But this is not that day, and not simply because drugs remain a problem.

Combat's tentacles reach deep into the community. At a time when charitable
donations and government funds are shrinking, it provides funding to day
care facilities, neighborhood organizations and schools. Read the list of
grant recipients and you see that "treatment and prevention" forms a wide
umbrella.

For better or for worse, Combat has become so much a part of the fabric of
Jackson County that if the drug threat went away tomorrow, it might
actually be missed.