Barry in Call for Regional Talks in Capital Drug War
District of Columbia Mayor Marion Barry called Wednesday for a summit meeting of regional political leaders to deal with the area’s drug and drug-related violence problem.
Barry also pledged that city officials will work closely with national drug chief William J. Bennett to make the region a leader in the war on drugs.
“I plan to ask the (region’s) chief executive officers to come together in a private setting to talk frankly and confidentially about our tactics,” Barry said at the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, a regional body of local government officials.
“We’re going to work with Mr. Bennett,” Barry said. “We’re glad he’s indicated this is a regional problem, not just a D.C. problem.
Bennett on Monday announced an emergency $80-million federal plan to combat the city’s escalating drug-related violence.
Bennett’s plan includes measures to expand prison space, establish a local-federal anti-drug task force and temporarily assign 10 military prosecutors to the local U.S. attorney’s office.
Barry said many of the open-air drug markets the city is targeting are near the city’s borders with counties in Maryland.
“We don’t want to push the drug dealers and drug pushers across the line into these counties,” he said.
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