CITY TARGETS HEROIN BUYERS FROM THE SUBURBS

People who drive into the city to buy drugs will not only face jail time
but now could lose their cars and driver's licenses under a new crackdown
to be announced today by Cook County prosecutors and police.

The state's attorney's office began sending letters Wednesday to school
superintendents in the six-county region, asking them to warn students that
if they head to the city for drugs and get caught, they might be hoofing it
back home, and the owners of the cars will have to pay huge fees to get
them back.

"We're trying to attack the buyers," said William O'Brien, chief of the
narcotics bureau for the state's attorney's office. "We have a huge problem
with heroin on the West Side, and the bulk of those people are suburbanites."

The initiative involves members of the Chicago Police, the Cook County
sheriff's office, the secretary of state's office and DuPage County
officials as well as the Chicago office of the High Intensity Drug
Trafficking Area, which is linked with the federal drug czar's office.

State law allows the secretary of state's office to suspend for up to a
year the driver's licenses of people who have been buying or possessing
drugs while driving. But the law is only sporadically invoked.

Since 1996, only 1,035 people in the state have had their licenses
suspended for such offenses, said David Druker, a spokesman for the
secretary of state's office.

"A lot of people aren't aware we are doing this," Druker said. "Hopefully,
saying you can lose your car if you do this, and the secretary of state
saying you're going to lose your license if a car is involved ... will
discourage people from the purchase of drugs."

The crackdown will eventually be countywide but will begin in the West Side
neighborhoods flanking the Eisenhower Expy. because of the brisk heroin
business on street corners there.

About 60 percent of all heroin deals in the city are in this area. The vast
number of people caught buying heroin on the West Side from 2000 to 2001
came from suburbs in western Cook County and DuPage and Lake counties,
according to Chicago Police statistics.

"This is to send a message to drug buyers who live in the suburbs," police
spokesman Dave Bayless said. "There will be greater ramifications than just
being arrested. Some of the younger kids will have to explain this to their
parents when their parents' cars are towed away."

In the letter to school superintendents, State's Attorney Dick Devine asks
that driver education teachers include the "consequences of driving into
the city to purchase narcotics."

When a buyer hitting the West Side open-air drug markets is arrested, the
car will be seized and towed, and the owner will have to pay towing and
storage fees that could run into the hundreds of dollars.

"It will be held hostage until mom and dad can come down and bail out the
car," O'Brien said. "We are highlighting the law, and we are going to use
it as an enforcement tool."

Arrests may initially flood the court system, but officials will give
people the option to seek treatment, O'Brien said.

If they turn it down, prosecutors will bypass preliminary hearings where
many judges throw out petty drug cases.

Instead, they will immediately seek a grand jury indictment against the buyers.

That means buyers also will have to fork over more cash for lawyer fees.

"Upon conviction, the secretary of state's office will move in," O'Brien said.