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Paris, Friday, December 17, 1999

Local 'Epidemics' Thwart U.S. In Battle Against Illegal Drugs

By David A. Vise and Lorraine Adams Washington Post Service

WASHINGTON - The drug problem in the United States is increasingly

evolving into a collection of local ''epidemics,'' according to a report

by the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

The report noted, for example, that marijuana had become the No. 1 cash

crop in poor areas of Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia, and that

there had been a large increase in the production and use of

methamphetamines, or speed, in Missouri, Kansas and Iowa.

Barry McCaffrey, the national drug control policy director, said Wednesday

that Americans must face the reality that vast quantities of illegal drugs

used in the country were not from abroad. And he said the country must

step up its efforts to combat domestic production and consumption. He also

said that the challenge for law enforcement was to use local, state and

federal resources to attack the difficulties afflicting some communities

and help the nation's 4 million chronically addicted drug users.

''We do not just have a national drug problem,'' he said. ''What we really

have is a series of local drug epidemics. It is not just cocaine out of

Colombia.''

Mr. McCaffrey made the remarks after a two-day conference on 31 regions

around the country with drug difficulties that law enforcement officials

have targeted. The $190 million program is aimed at local problems that

are growing even as the nation's overall rate of drug abuse has been cut

in half since 1979, to about 6.8 percent, officials said.

Portions of Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia alone produce more than

1.6 million outdoor marijuana plants - more than 40 percent of the

nationwide total, the study said. In poor regions, marijuana growers

defend their $4 billion bumper crop with lethal weapons and booby traps,

the study said, ''resulting in an increase in potential threats to law

enforcement-officer safety.''