L.A. Area Expected to Be on Major Drug Center List

A new domestic drug-control strategy to be announced by President Bush Thursday will designate Los Angeles County, Houston, Miami, New York and the U.S.-Mexican border as high-intensity drug trafficking centers eligible for special aid, according to Administration and congressional officials.

The designation of high-intensity regions, including the border area from San Diego to Brownsville, Tex., is one element of the Administration’s drug-control plan.

Although Orange County will not be included in the special centers, officials said the entire Southern California area will benefit from the added resources assigned to Los Angeles County under the program.

Other elements of the plan, which Bush is expected to announce in a White House ceremony, are likely to include a new call for widened death penalty provisions for drug dealers and new rules that will allow Customs agents to assume the law enforcement powers of Drug Enforcement Administration agents.

But the high-intensity designations are likely to attract the greatest attention. Such designations have been under consideration within the Administration since drug czar William J. Bennett took office last year.

However, actually picking the areas to be named has been difficult, in part because of intense lobbying by local officials from around the country eager to obtain the designation and the extra law enforcement funds that they expect to come with it.

Earlier this month, Sheriff Brad Gates asked the Bush Administration to include Orange County in a high-intensity area because the county has been identified by law enforcement as a major transportation hub for drug traffickers.

Gates made the request to Judge Reggie B. Walton, a top aide to Bennett, who was touring Southern California to gather information on the drug problem and ways to deal with it. Walton made Gates no promises.

Bennett and his aides have been trying to play down the significance of the designations. “It’s not an honorarium or an award,” Bennett has told officials in meetings around the country.

And Administration officials point out that, at least for this year, the designations will carry only limited amounts of additional money--roughly $25 million spread among all five areas over the next nine months.

“We’re trying to lower expectations,” one official said. “There’s not a lot there. When you spread it over five areas, $25 million doesn’t go too far.”

By comparison, the official noted, various government entities in Los Angeles County estimate that the drug problem costs the area roughly $2 billion annually, increasing budgets for everything from police to prisons to treatment centers and education programs.

However, in addition to the $25 million immediately available, the federal drug-control strategy envisions a substantial increase over the next two years in the number of federal prosecutors and drug agents assigned to the five designated regions. The result will be “a much higher percentage of federal resources for these areas,” said one source familiar with the strategy.

Because the jurisdiction of the federal agencies spills across local boundaries, regions surrounding the designated areas are also likely to benefit.

For example, when the government formally designates Los Angeles County as a high-intensity drug area, the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles will receive additional prosecutors. But those prosecutors will be free to work on drug cases from throughout the federal Central District of California, which includes Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside, Ventura, Santa Barbara and Santa Luis Obispo counties, in addition to Los Angeles.

San Diego and Imperial counties will be designated as part of the Southwest border high-intensity region.

Last year, Congress directed the Administration to consider six criteria in deciding which areas to designate. Included were the amount of local resources spent on drug control, the seriousness of each area’s drug problem and the degree to which each area’s drug problem has an impact on other parts of the country.

The anti-drug strategy includes several elements designed to reduce bureaucratic confusion in drug enforcement. One such provision involves the powers of Customs agents. Originally, Customs officials had wanted all of their roughly 2,600 agents to be given the full powers of a Drug Enforcement Administration agent. After DEA objections, Bennett developed a compromise under which 1,000 Customs agents will be “cross-designated.” DEA will have some supervisory authority, but not “heavy-handed DEA controls,” the source said.

SPENDING ON DRUG CONTROL

Los Angeles County alone annually spends $1.4 billion on drug control efforts. Here are the estimated 1989/90 costs:

In millions of dollars Sheriff’s Department $328.0 Municipal and Justice Courts 124.5 County Clerk/Superior Courts 53.9 District Attorney-Criminal 88.0 Public Defender 41.9 Medical Examiner-Coroner 1.2 Probation 165.5 Health Services 248.9 Mental Health 10.4 Children’s Services 57.9 Community and Senior Citizen Services 2.0 Public Social Services 288.1 Community Development Commission 0.4

Figures for the City of Los Angeles are not included.

Source: Los Angeles County Chief Administrative Office

Compiled by Times researcher Cecilia Rasmussen