‘Drug Watch’ to Offer Reward for Arrest of Dealers : Television: But an anti-drug activist is worried that the lure of $25,000 in rewards may prompt retaliation against informers or their families.

An anti-drug activist featured in a television program tonight about fighting the drug crisis in Los Angeles says the program may actually aggravate the problem because it is offering a pool of $25,000 in rewards to viewers who call in with information that leads to the conviction of drug dealers.

“This is a lot of money for people in South L.A. and you may have people turning in their family members or the guy across the street,” said Lynda Brewer, the founder and executive director of Mothers and Daughters Against Drug Abuse. “And then they will be killing each other in retaliation or burning down the house. That’s one of my fears--that this reward money is not there to help defuse the problem or deal with the sickness. It is just going to intensify the situation and add to the body count.”

“Drug Watch--L.A.,” airing at 8 tonight on KTLA Channel 5, is designed to illustrate the scope of the drug epidemic and offer a call to action for “taking back the neighborhoods.” It depicts families in both poor and affluent neighborhoods who have been ravaged by drug addiction and includes a hot line for viewers to call to identify known drug dealers.

The reward money, put up by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, will be shared by those callers who provide information that leads to the arrest and conviction of dealers.

Brewer, whose nonprofit organization offers counseling and support groups for drug addicts and their families, appears in the program with her daughter as an example of a family that was ripped apart by drug abuse but found hope through recovery. She said that when she agreed to appear in the program, she was not told that it would offer reward money. She learned of the reward incentive when she saw the finished program at a screening.

Lee Stanley, the producer of “Drug Watch--L.A.,” said that he asked the county supervisors to put up the reward money as an incentive for average people to get involved in fighting the scourge.

“The whole concept is that the drug problem is bigger than the Sheriff’s Department, bigger than the Los Angeles Police Department, bigger than the efforts of community organizations,” said Stanley, who also produced the Emmy-winning “Desperate Passage” and has been working to help rehabilitate juvenile criminals and drug abusers for many years. “But together I think we can make a difference. We’re using the reward as an incentive, literally raising the flag and saying, ‘Hey, folks, get involved. Respond.’ ”

The program has been endorsed by the Los Angeles police and sheriff’s departments. City Atty. James Hahn served as executive consultant.

Stanley said that no one should fear retaliation as a result of the reward hot line because the entire process is sheathed in anonymity. Viewers who call will not be asked to identify themselves in any way, he said. They will be given a case number and a code name and told to call back a few months later to find out whether the information they supplied qualified them to share in the reward money. The money will be sent to a destination of the caller’s choosing without using his or her name.

“Even if you were my best friend and worked with me every hour of the day, there’s no way I can find out that you turned me in,” Stanley said. “As far as inciting more violence and all of that business, this can’t do that. A person can’t swat at things he can’t see.”

Brewer--who has four children, two of whom are addicted to drugs, and 10 grandchildren, one of whom died a drug-related death--said that she has no complaints with the way the program portrayed her and her family. Her primary gripe is that it focuses on law enforcement and turning people in rather than dealing with “the addictions, the sickness” that insures the demand for the drugs.

“This program has people saying that using drugs is criminal, that mothers using drugs are criminals,” she said, “but it’s not a criminal problem. It’s a mental and physical health problem. You can turn in all the dealers you want, but as long as people are still addicted to the drug, there will always be more dealers to sell it to them.”

She argues that in the drug-torn neighborhoods in which she works, the anonymity of the reward hot line will not be a deterrent to retaliatory acts of violence. Drug users and dealers are paranoid, she said, and just the fear that they could be turned in by family members or neighbors might be enough to incite them to violence.

Stanley said that all phone tips will be handed over to law enforcement officers, who have a great deal of experience in handling such reports. “It is the responsibility of the citizen to call in the information,” he said. “The police then review it. They don’t just run out and jump on somebody. They really do their homework and monitor the guy’s activities first.

“What we hope will happen is that this will be a signal to all concerned that people can and will get involved,” Stanley said. “Drugs affect every other family in Los Angeles County. And it will take the involvement of everyone to get rid of this problem.”