O.C. Task Force Is at Center of Drug Legalization Debate : Narcotics: Authorities say program is having an impact on drug war, but some judges and others question effectiveness of law enforcement.

In six years, Orange County’s top narcotics task force has seized more drug money than nearly every other local law enforcement agency in the nation. It has confiscated tons of cocaine, collected an arsenal of guns and arrested hundreds of major drug traffickers.

So why, despite the efforts of the Regional Narcotics Suppression Program, are drugs still flowing into the county in large quantities?

That is a question being asked by a small but growing number of advocates of drug legalization, including several Orange County judges, who have concluded that law enforcement, despite a tremendous commitment of resources, is barely making a dent in the ballyhooed “war on drugs.”

It’s a question that has put authorities at the county’s premiere narcotics task force in the center of the drug legalization debate, forcing a critical look at their enforcement strategies and measures of success.

“We are having an impact,” said Orange County Sheriff’s Capt. Tim Simon, who heads the task force, which comprises 67 officers from local police departments and state and federal agencies. “We’re driving the cost of the drug dealers’ business up. And for somebody to sit in his chair and pound his chest and say our stats don’t mean anything . . . well, that’s not true.”

Since its formation in December, 1986, the task force has been involved in more than 280 major drug investigations, seized $121 million in cash, 46,346 pounds of cocaine, 32 pounds of heroin and 2,408 pounds of marijuana, Regional Narcotics Suppression Program officials said.

Still, Simon warned that statistics don’t show the whole picture and shouldn’t be used to gauge the success of the task force. The task force’s impact in fighting the drug war, he maintains, can’t be neatly calculated or charted.

There is good reason for his caution. For all the seizures nationwide, the Drug Enforcement Agency estimates that only about 10% of the drugs coming into the country is seized. Local estimates are not available.

Simon and other drug enforcement experts readily concede that police will never stop the flow of drugs. But it’s important that they frustrate, slow and financially hurt the drug dealers, and deter people from entering the lucrative trade.

“We have informants who tell us . . . that Orange County is an unsafe place to come if you’re a drug dealer,” Simon said. “This is a pretty tough place for them to do their business.”

But perhaps the best argument for today’s heavy emphasis on law enforcement is the alternative, officers say.

“Legalization is a dangerous path to go down, not knowing where it can ultimately lead,” said Ralph Lochridge, a spokesman for the DEA in the Los Angeles field office. “To think legalization is an alternative better than law enforcement is naive.”

Task Force a First

A large office on the first floor of a nondescript, brown stucco building in Santa Ana serves as RNSP headquarters. Inside, undercover officers discuss investigations, tips from informants and organize enforcement strategies with other agencies.

The walls of the office are lined with photographs of their greatest seizures--piles of cash and drugs stacked like huge brick houses. The photos are a testament, the officers say, to the cooperative efforts of many agencies.

Regional Narcotics Suppression Program was the first in the nation to bring together the resources of local, state and federal agencies into one unit with the single-minded mission of targeting large drug traffickers.

Currently, the Sheriff’s Department, 22 city police departments, the California Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement, the FBI, DEA, U.S. Customs Service and the Internal Revenue Service participate in the task force. Its annual budget has swelled from $300,000 to nearly $3.8 million--all of which comes from the drug money the officers seize. The remainder of the seized money is divided among the agencies that belong to the task force.

“All the agencies started pooling their resources, banding together to effectively match the power and strength of the cartels,” said DEA’s Lochridge. “That’s why it’s so successful.”

One area where the Regional Narcotics Suppression Program claims success is in taking high-level drug traffickers off the streets. In its six years, the task force has been responsible for more than 290 arrests of “major” drug violators.

Though statistics on the disposition of the RNSP cases are not available, Deputy Dist. Atty. Carl W. Armbrust said the suspects arrested by task force usually serve long prison terms.

Armbrust, head of the district attorney’s Major Narcotics Violators Program, said of the 70 cases handled by his office last year, which include the Regional Narcotics Suppression Program cases, the conviction rate was 96 percent. Of those convicted, 86 percent were sentenced to state prison for an average of 82.7 months, he said.

In addition to cases tried in Orange County Superior Court, the Regional Narcotics Suppression Program often helps to prosecute drug traffickers in various other parts of the state or even the nation, depending on where an investigation leads the officers. Statistics on the conviction rates of those cases were also not available, but law enforcement authorities say nearly all the defendants in RNSP cases are found guilty.

Armbrust praised the efforts of program and said that drug legalization advocates are wrong when they say law enforcement is ineffective. He said the officers are doing their job, but the judges aren’t.

“The drug laws are adequate, it’s the application of the laws that isn’t,” he said. The judges “are just slapping them (drug violators) on the wrists.” He added that if judges imposed the proper sentences, law enforcement would have a greater deterrence value.

To some drug traffickers, the current sentences are no deterrence at all.

“Hell, we’re running into the same guys we put away six years ago,” one RNSP officer said.

Help or Hindrance?

Where law enforcement officials measure success, others see failure.

Eric E. Sterling, president of the Washington-based Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, said task forces like the Regional Narcotics Suppression Program are not only ineffective in eliminating drugs from society, they make matters worse.

He said that as RNSP puts pressure on traffickers and seizes tons of dope, the result is higher drug prices for those who are addicted to narcotics. The addicts, in turn, are generally “anti-social,” unemployed members of society who have to steal and commit more crimes to pay the increased price of drugs.

“If you’re a citizen of Orange County you can applaud the task force’s stepped up enforcement of drug laws, but if you want to be rational, you have to recognize that it is an effort that increases the amount of property crimes in the county.

According to the state attorney general’s office, property crimes in the county increased only slightly since RNSP was formed, from 12,487 incidents in 1986 to 13,461 in 1991. No statistics were available to determine how many of those crimes were drug-related.

But James M. Donckels, special agent in charge of the Santa Ana office of the FBI, maintains that bank robberies, which occur at the rate of about one a day, are largely related to drugs. “About 85% to 95% of the bank robbers in Orange County are robbing banks to support a drug habit,” he said recently.

To Sterling, drug laws only perpetuate more crimes.

“The enlightened role is to argue that prohibition is a catastrophe for law enforcement, that it exposes officers to unjustifiable dangers of being shot and killed.”

He also challenged the impact of the Regional Narcotics Suppression Program’s arrests and the value of its drug informants.

“Usually it’s the weakest, lamest drug traffickers who are pulled out of the system and not the most wily and the most dangerous,” he said.

Sterling, former counsel to a congressional committee that oversees the DEA, founded the nonprofit organization. The foundation specializes on violence prevention issues, as well as drug policies, said Sterling, who supports the decriminalization of drug use.

Others have also called for drug legalization or, at least, an examination of alternatives to law enforcement, including U.S. District Judge Robert W. Sweet, Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke, economist Milton Friedman, former San Jose Police Chief Joseph McNamara and former Secretary of State George P. Shultz.

In Orange County, Superior Court judges James P. Gray, James L. Smith and U.S. Magistrate Judge Ronald W. Rose have also publicly supported some sort of plan to legalize or decriminalize adult drug use.

“It isn’t that (narcotics officers) aren’t doing a good job, it’s just that law enforcement isn’t working,” Gray said. “It’s flat not working.”

As proof, the judges point to law enforcement’s own admissions that the supply of drugs into the country is not being significantly reduced. They say large drug seizures are only indicative of the scope of the problem; strong enforcement in one area just pushes the problem to another, and, the focus on punishment, rather than treatment, is crowding the courts and jails at a tremendous cost to the taxpayer.

The judges’ solution is to take the “financial incentive” out of the drug trade by having the government provide the drugs to adults. Drug laws applying to the selling of narcotics to minors would still be enforced.

The proceeds from the drugs would be pumped into drug treatment, education and prevention problems. Instead of concentrating on the supply, efforts would be concentrated on the demand side of the equation, they said.

“Our drug laws have failed us,” Gray said. “The seizures are merely a cost of doing business. . . . Do the arrests deter people in Columbia from engaging in this conduct? The answer is no? Do we get the kingpins, the answer is clearly no.

” . . . The bad guys are laughing at us.”

Legalization Opposed

“Maybe it’s a moral issue,” said Santa Ana Police Chief Paul M. Walters.

Since statistics and information can be manipulated and interpreted to reach vastly different conclusions, “maybe it comes back to morals. Maybe it’s just as simple as that,” he suggested.

Walters said he believes legalization is too simplistic, too dangerous. To him, and most police officers, there is a visceral opposition to such a plan.

“I think police officers see the effects in the community of drug abuse that not many other people see, particularly judges,” the chief said.

“We see the broken homes, the abused children, we see the violence firsthand. We see the other crimes that are related to drugs,” Walters said. “Why would you ever want to make them legal?”

To Walters and Simon, whatever the problems with law enforcement, legalization would be worse. To them, it is an unrealistic alternative.

“What gives anyone a cause to believe that an entire criminal organization is going to throw up their hands and go home just because you change the rules here?” he asked. “You don’t think they could beat the government at the game? You don’t think they could offer a better price, a better purity or larger amount?

” . . . I’m convinced they play with the price of cocaine like OPEC does with oil,” he added. “Who’s going to have a greater supply, the government or the cartels? There are no rules for these guys except to win.”

Drug Money Bonanza

The Regional Narcotics Suppression Program has returned almost $50 million of confiscated drug money to local law enforcement agencies during its nearly six years of existence. The amount of money received depends on when it joined the organizations and the number of officers participating.

In millions of dollars

Jurisdiction Amount O.C. Sheriff $13.6 Santa Ana 5.3 Westminster 3.3 Garden Grove 3.1 Anaheim 3.0 Huntington Beach 2.6 Costa Mesa 1.7 Tustin 1.7 Newport Beach 1.6 Placentia 1.3 San Clemente 1.3 Fullerton 1.2 Irvine 1.2 Laguna Beach 1.0 Orange 1.0 Brea $924,000 La Habra 800,000 Cypress 657,000 Buena Park 437,000 Seal Beach 311,000

AN RNSP SNAPSHOT How Many in Operation? Sworn personnel: 67 Non-sworn: 5 Where Do They Come From? City agencies: 22 Federal agencies: 4 State agency: 1 County agency: 1 What Have They Bagged? The 282 investigations have yielded: Arrests of narcotics suspects: 296 U.S. currency: $121 million Cocaine: 46,346.3 pounds (or 207.6 million “lines”) Heroin: 32.6 pounds (11.5 million injections)* Marijuana: 2,408 pounds (2 million cigarettes) ** * Calculation based on approximately 31 pounds of heroin ** Calculation based on approximately 2,228 pounds of marijuana Source: O.C. Sheriff’s Department Researched by MATT LAIT / Los Angeles Times