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April 14, 2006
'Refocus on war against drugs'
By PHILLIP GOMEZ
To do that, Reid said local law enforcement needs the tools and the manpower to control drug use. "If the people of Nye County only knew what these people, the cops, do on a daily basis ...," Reid said. He was mainly referring to traffic stops by sheriff's deputies, during which it's impossible to know a driver's state of mind when pulled over. Law enforcement in Pahrump these days is "just as dangerous as what goes on on the Las Vegas Strip," Reid said. Reid, a Washington, D.C. capitol police officer for a period of a year and a-half while he was attending law school, had words of solace for law enforcement. "I was a police officer, but what I did pales in comparison to what these people do," he said, referring to the sheriff's deputies symbolically gathered behind him for the occasion. Drug use can no longer be considered just an urban problem, Reid said. He added that rural law enforcement needs to be taken more seriously by the federal government by providing the funding to beef up its forces. "It troubles me to see this, but in President Bush's budget this year he eliminated the (Community Oriented Policing Services, or COPS) program," said the Democratic leader. "We need more manpower, more feet on the streets," Reid said. The COPS program has been in existence for the past five years. In 2005, 50 methamphetamine labs were busted in Nevada, and authorities estimate there could be as many as 40,000 meth users in the state. Across the country, the production and consumption of methamphetamine has become rampant in recent years, perhaps especially in Nye County. Earlier this year, Reid helped pass the Combat Meth Act, designed to provide new technology for local law enforcement to locate meth labs and put them out of business. The act also restricts the sale of chemicals used in meth production and provides funding to help children who become the drug's victims. Approximately 13 percent of all kids have tried meth, Reid said. "Sheriff (Tony) DeMeo and other Nevada law enforcement officers told me the law would help them do their jobs ... to help stop the meth epidemic," Reid said. Addiction and arrest rates have skyrocketed across the country, especially in rural areas. Reid said he has fought hard to get federal funding for extra law enforcement personnel and the needed equipment to fight the war on meth. "When people think about national security, they often overlook the role played by our police officers," he said. "That's a mistake. Sheriff DeMeo and his officers are on the front lines of the fight for America's safety. If we want real security, we must make sure our local first responders have the resources they need to detect and stop the threats we face." Reid said the tragic impact of the president's cuts in funding for local law enforcement was that deputies could not be sent away for training to make them more effective in doing their jobs, "because (the sheriff) needs them here," said Reid. "This scourge of meth is awful," he said. "This is a scourge that has affected our kids. It's cheap, it's dirty and it's very powerful. ... We have to do a better job." Reid added that with the Bush administration spending $2 billion a week for the war in Iraq, the equivalent of $100,000 per minute, "Can't we spend some of that here for law enforcement to control meth?" Asked by one media person why treatment programs weren't being pushed, Reid said, "Treatment programs haven't worked very well. You have to just focus on prevention. We're not doing enough (in that area)." "We have to give these people more to do their work, these cops," he said. Sheriff DeMeo, a Republican, said party differences didn't matter when it came to Reid's alliance with law enforcement in dealing with one of the country's top law enforcement problems. He confirmed the senator's views, saying, "The Bush administration has slashed all the grants to get more (law enforcement) people on the streets. We're not in the position at this time to put more people on the street without help from Washington." The federal COPS grants were to have funded $500,000 for needed equipment for the sheriff's office this year, but for the president's elimination of the program. "Homeland security begins with community protection," DeMeo said. As a result, "We're going to be behind the curve with this problem. I thought crack cocaine was bad. This (meth) is the most insidious drug in America." Reid said "the battle plan" for the war on drugs needs revisiting to see if it is as effective now as it once was. "We need a more viable plan than the one started in the 1970s." Today, that plan is "getting no traction," he said. "As long as there is an insatiable appetite for these drugs there will be a problem," he said. Asked what he wanted President Bush to do, Reid said, "That's a long list." More specifically, he said, "Let us re-establish the (COPS) program. It's worked very well ... I hope he will not get in our way." |
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