Federal anti-drug cuts alarm sheriffs in U.S.

ISO2BWELL

Federal anti-drug cuts alarm sheriffs in U.S.

By JOSEPH B. FRAZIER

The Associated Press


PORTLAND — From Arizona to Oregon and east to Kentucky, county sheriffs are bracing for stiff cuts in a federal funding program that has helped them battle drug cartels.

Congress in January cut funding for the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant by two-thirds, from $520 million to $170 million for fiscal 2008. Local agencies say that's a threat to the officers who do much of the law-enforcement spadework.

The Byrne program is not without controversy, having drawn allegations of abuse. But many enforcement organizations consider it essential to their local efforts.

Sheriff Gil Gilbertson of Josephine County in southwest Oregon said pending cuts in Byrne money and in federal payments made to counties to offset the loss of timber revenues have essentially disbanded the Josephine Interagency Narcotics Team (JOINT).

"We've just withdrawn from JOINT," he said. "There's no funding. And we know the [Mexican] cartels are at work."

The Bush administration has argued that the program should end because crime is down and the money is needed elsewhere. That assessment clashes with reports from many states of record hauls of drugs, especially methamphetamine and marijuana, and increased activity by drug gangs.

"If we don't get some funding back we'll be in deep trouble when it comes to drug enforcement," said Iowa drug-enforcement chief Gary Kendall.

He said 85 percent of the state's new cases last year were by county interagency drug teams that get Byrne grant money, but the funding cuts will reduce those agencies' employees from 59 to 20.
Kendall said Iowa's problem is methamphetamine, which now comes mostly from Mexico since Iowa tightened access to over-the-counter medications that contain ingredients used in home meth labs.

Money from the Byrne program can be used for other programs as well, including anti-gang efforts, some prosecution costs and child- and spousal-abuse prevention.

But critics say the program has been tainted by abuse and corruption, sometimes racially based, with many complaints coming from Texas.

Best-known is a case in Tulia, Texas, where a 1999 Byrne-funded investigation led to the cocaine arrests of 46 people, most of them black, on evidence so flimsy that 38 were pardoned by Gov. Rick Perry in 2003.

The undercover agent responsible for the arrests was convicted of perjury, and the defendants got a $5 million settlement from the state.

The Texas ACLU has identified more than a dozen other Byrne-funded operations it says were abusive, and several other states have investigated similar complaints.

Texas has imposed strict limits on Byrne-funded drug task forces.
Some national drug enforcement leaders say it makes more sense to go after the higher-ups rather than fill local jails with lesser offenders.

"But where the rubber meets the road, it's the local sheriff and police departments" who do the groundwork, said John Cary Bittick, sheriff of Monroe County, Ga., and the congressional liaison for the National Sheriffs' Association.

In Oregon, local drug agents last year pulled up a record 262,000 marijuana plants, double the number for 2006, but their Byrne funding will drop from $3.4 million last year to $1.2 million this year.
Most seizures of marijuana "grows" in Oregon are made in the state's southwest corner, but counties there already are on the ropes from sharp cuts in federal payments made to offset revenue losses resulting from cutbacks in logging in national forests.

__________________________________________________ _

__________________



.

the.fatman.cometh

if they change their strategy to focus on real criminals, they wont have any problem

__________________

green_nobody

looks a bit like the heard the voice of time and reason finally - and so some reaction as well! If now the DEA is cut down and they can patrol the us-mexican border on foot thru Texas to California - on foot of cause! oh this nation could be great again if common sense would finally rule

__________________
Keep the gun oiled and the thumb green!

http://www.pch.gc.ca/progs/cpsc-ccsp...Canada-eng.MP3

Mogie

Leave us alone and go after the real bad guys, maybe they can remember the ones that hurt other people and steal stuff?

We are pretty harmless...too stoned to do anything destructive...lol

__________________

the.fatman.cometh

I concur.....I think that's how ya spell it lol! =)

__________________

Mogie

My spelling is too good either. I just hope that most people can figure out what I am trying to say.

__________________

MRX

See I told my peeps I was set up in TX(served 8 months)......About time they leave us smokers alone and go after the big time players..

ice#1

So Why Not Go After The Ones Pushing Meth And Leave The Pot Feilds Alone Then They Would Have More Then Enough Money

ISO2BWELL

No worries Mogie, we all speak "typo"...


Ice, seems they blew their money chasing sick folks instead of the "real bad guys", as Mogie calls them. Imagine how much of a Meth War Chest" they would have if they had left us alone and just busted meth cookers instead!!

Most folks like us hate meth and what it does to people, and love MJ. Makes for a simple choice of which to harass and arrest if one of us was picking the fight!!!

ISO

__________________



.