WAR ON DRUGS NO LONGER FEDS' HIGHEST PRIORITY

The drug war that once topped Washington's agenda is slipping behind
terrorism in importance.

Some 400 FBI agents once assigned to the Drug Enforcement
Administration have been transferred to the war on terrorism, and
Coast Guard cutters have been reassigned from the Caribbean to protect
warships and tankers in U.S. ports.

Meanwhile, President Bush's government reorganization plan would move
all Border Patrol and Customs agents to the proposed Department of
Homeland Security. The new department would also take in the Coast
Guard.

DEA officials admit they are feeling the changes but insist they don't
mark any difference in the long-standing commitment to fight drugs, or
will result in any diminishment in the agency's effectiveness. "We see
the DEA picking up the slack where the FBI left off," said DEA
spokesman Will Glaspy.

Glaspy said the agency does not expect a flood of drugs into the
United States with the government refocusing its resources on
terrorism. He added that the war on drugs goes hand-in-hand with the
war on terrorism throughout the world, noting that profits from
illicit drugs are funding terrorists. New efforts to tighten the
borders should also cut down on smuggling, he said.

Asa Hutchinson, administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration,
says the FBI needs to concentrate on fighting terrorism, and that he
will ask Congress for more funds to make up for the losses.

Rep. J.C. Watts, R-Okla., chairman of the House Republican Conference,
said the campaign against drugs wasn't being fought effectively
anyway. He suggested that the Sept. 11 attacks prompted the federal
government to focus fresh attention on the efficiency of government
operations.

"There was never a concentrated effort to win" the war on drugs, Watts
said. "Have we won it?"

Tim Lynch, an analyst with the Cato Institute, a libertarian think
tank in Washington, said the war on terrorism is more important than
the drug war, which should be given back to state and local
law-enforcement officials to handle.

"It makes no sense for federal agents to raid marijuana clubs in
California when there are terrorist sleeper cells plotting attacks
against us with weapons of mass destruction," Lynch said. He said that
only the federal government has the resources to track international
terrorists, and that the drug war should be a lower priority.

Lynch said that government agents admit they are intercepting as
little as 5 percent to 7 percent of illicit drugs anyway. Since Sept.
11, "the drug war is not worth the time, the money and the
distraction," he said.

Some local police don't agree. Ken Jenne, the sheriff of Broward
County, Fla., said the diversion of FBI agents from drug and
white-collar crimes could set back efforts to control crime in South
Florida.

Jenne said it's not just a matter of manpower, but that federal agents
have better equipment and can easily get wiretaps from federal judges
that local police have difficulty getting through state courts.

Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., said no one disagrees with the need to find
and track terrorists. But, "we have to pause and ask: 'How are we
going to go about the normal job of investigating all the other bad
guys besides the terrorists?' "