TASK FORCE SPENDS MILLIONS IN LOCAL DRUG WAR

Boulder County authorities have spent more than $2 million in local
tax dollars over the past three and a half years, cracking down
primarily on cocaine and marijuana dealers. Their efforts have led to
426 arrests, 314 convictions and 11 prison sentences.

And while law enforcement officials say the Boulder County Drug Task
Force is preventing drug use from rising, one county commissioner says
the effort wastes millions of dollars going after "soft drugs" such as
marijuana.

"The real question is should society be continuing to deal with
something which is either a consensual crime or at worst a medical
problem through this police mechanism, which has spent well over $100
billion at the federal level alone," Commissioner Paul Danish said.

Last week, Danish was, as usual, the lone dissenting vote as the
three-member Board of County Commissioners voted to support the task
force's pursuit of a fifth year in federal funding. Now halfway
through its fourth year, the task force is an assemblage of nine drug
enforcement officers from the Boulder County Sheriff's Office and
various police departments across the county.

Together, the officers share information, and survey and crack down on
links in the local drug trafficking chain. The officers focus
particularly on school campuses, the University Hill area and the
Pearl Street Mall.

Between June 1998 and July 2001, the task force spent $2.9 million,
including $2.1 million in local tax dollars and $824,000 in federal
grants, going after drug dealers and manufacturers, records show.
Current and former task force members say the relatively high "local
match" in funding represents salaries that would be paid by the
departments to enforce against drugs if the task force did not exist.

In addition to collecting tax dollars, the task force seized more than
$500,000 in cash from drug dealers during its first three years of
existence. Most of that money was spent by the task force on equipment
and training, said Lt. Jim Smith, coordinator for the task force.

Commissioner Danish said Boulder County has no business participating
in what he called the federal law enforcement equivalent of a military
industrial complex.

"The grant was originally sold to us in terms of opposing hard drugs,"
Danish said. "But a good proportion of those arrested are busted for
marijuana possession."

Slightly more than one-third of the arrests made between June 1998 and
July 2001 were related to cocaine, one-third were for marijuana, and
the rest were made in relation to a variety of other drugs, including
heroin, methamphetamines and ecstasy.

Smith said that, given the fact that marijuana is by far the most
prevalent drug on the streets of Boulder County, the fact that it
represents only one-third of all arrests means the task force has the
issue in proper focus.

"It's not the guy smoking the joint on the Tuesday afternoon that
we're looking to get," Smith said. "It's the ones causing problems in
their communities."

Former District Attorney Alex Hunter sat on the founding board of
directors for the drug task force in 1998. He said that as long as
most of the marijuana busts are either aimed at large quantities or
focused on school campuses and the Pearl Street Mall and University
Hill areas, the task force is fulfilling the mission he envisioned for
it.

Boulder County Sheriff George Epp anchors the task force's board of
directors, which is also composed of police chiefs from cities around
the county. He said he is pleased with the task force's
achievements.

He consistently butts heads with Commissioner Danish over the virtues
of the task force, and specifically its prosecution of marijuana
dealers, growers and users.

"We never promised we were going after hard drugs," Epp said. "To
classify marijuana as a soft drug is very misleading. Lots of kids we
see are addicted to marijuana. It's a terrible social problem. It
makes people lazy and stupid."

Danish represents residents of Boulder and the county's mountain
towns. Both he and Epp will be forced out of office in 2004 because of
a term limits law. Epp has said he is considering a run for Danish's
vacated commissioner seat.