San Diego

The San Diego City Council and the County Board of Supervisors held a meeting Wednesday billed as a drug summit to debate drug-related crimes and the drug addiction problem in the county.

Council members and supervisors vowed to push for more federal funds to combat drug abuse and extend the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program from elementary schools into the junior and senior high schools.

City and county officials laid out plans to fight drugs and also called for a five-year drug and alcohol abuse master plan that encourages active participation from school and community groups.

San Diego Police Chief Bob Burgreen offered some startling statistics to illustrate the severity of the local drug problem. According to Burgreen, in 1989, 82% of all men booked into County Jail had traces of drugs in their systems. About 50% showed traces of more than one drug, and 42% showed traces of marijuana. Burgreen called the figures the highest in the nation.

Furthermore, Burgreen said that two-thirds of the drugs that enter the United States from Colombia now come across the Mexican border and through San Diego County. Burgreen said the drug epidemic can be beaten only through “education in our schools and our homes.”

However, several speakers who work with drug users also called for more rehabilitation programs, especially for addicts who come from lower-income families. Geronimo Blanco, from the Barrio Station community group, argued that drug addicts should be “cured, rather than warehousing them in prison.”