U.S. Declares Central Valley a Drug-Trafficking Zone

California’s sprawling Central Valley, long renowned for its agriculture business, earned a new and more dubious distinction Tuesday from federal authorities: the “epicenter” of the nation’s growing methamphetamine industry.

Mexican-controlled methamphetamine “super labs” have grown so prevalent in the valley that the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy has named a nine-county region there one of five “high-intensity” trafficking zones in need of special attention.

The designation means that the Central Valley could get as much as $2.5 million a year in federal funds, plus extra law enforcement tools, to combat a dramatic rise in methamphetamine shipments from the valley to other regions and states. Since Southern California, San Diego and the Bay Area already have achieved “high-intensity” status, much of California from the Mexican border to San Francisco is now considered a drug-trafficking zone. There are 31 zones nationwide.

Other zones announced Tuesday were Hawaii, a frequent stopover for high-grade heroin and other drugs from Asia; New England, a popular pipeline for East Coast drug smugglers; Ohio, infiltrated by violent street gangs and cocaine dealers in the state’s “Rust Belt”; and Oregon, where methamphetamine has become the “drug of choice.”

All will share in the pot of new funding allotted them by the federal government.

Stanislaus County Sheriff Les Weidman, who helped lead a lobbying effort to win federal assistance, acknowledged that Tuesday’s announcement was a mixed blessing for the region.

“While on the one hand we’re happy to get these resources, we have to admit that we have a drug problem that’s out of control. It’s not exactly something you can stand up and say you’re proud of,” the sheriff said in an interview.

Authorities said “super labs” in the Central Valley are now thought to produce as much as half the methamphetamine in California and ship it to other states and Canada.

Although the trade was once dominated by biker gangs, Mexican drug cartels have emerged in recent years to take control of the region, establishing laboratories in abandoned farmhouses, boarded-up homes and other remote rural sites, authorities said. They typically employ illegal immigrants and migrant farm workers to produce up to 100 pounds of the cheap, highly addictive drug in each 24-hour “cooking” cycle.

“Methamphetamine is the major drug law-enforcement problem in the Central Valley, and we need all the help that we can get,” said Paul Seave, the U.S. attorney for the region.

Barry McCaffrey, director of the White House drug office, said that bringing federal oversight should provide a “catalyst of cooperation” to the 10 multi-jurisdictional drug task forces already working in the valley.

The valley’s law enforcement officials have complained that they are outmanned by the drug cartels because--despite the ground they cover--they have far fewer FBI, anti-narcotics and other officers than other parts of the state.

By better coordinating their attack, authorities said, they hope to scale back on the high number of methamphetamine users and emergency room admissions linked to the drug. And, officials said, they may make a dent in what they see as related problems, including a rise in domestic violence in some areas and extensive toxic pollution from drug lab runoff.

“The problem in the valley is very distinct,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who appeared at a news conference with McCaffrey. “Either you step up to the plate and face it, as we’re doing, or you run away and deny it.”

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said that adding the Central Valley to the drug-trafficking zones means that “a more complete, statewide drug suppression strategy can succeed.”

But critics said expansion of the zone program, created in 1990, underscores how political, unfocused and sometimes ineffective the effort has become, with resources spread too thin.

“The whole program has lost a sense of strategy,” said Stan Morris, deputy director of the White House drug policy office in the George Bush administration and now a private consultant. “When everything becomes a priority, nothing becomes a priority.”

He said the program, which has grown in annual funding from about $25 million at its inception to $185 million today, gives politicians a way to dole out “pork in the drug war” to their local communities.

But there is little to demonstrate that the money and resources devoted to past drug-trafficking zones have done much to reverse the situation in those communities, said Rob Stewart, an analyst for the Drug Policy Foundation, a Washington-based think tank that supports more resources for drug-abuse treatment.

“I’m sure [the zone designations] do some good. I’m sure they do make some neighborhoods livable again,” he said. “But in the macro sense, without a broader strategy, is it like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic?”

Central Valley officials were rejected in their appeals for federal assistance last year.

The valley region will get an immediate allotment of $800,000. California officials said they have been assured that total funding will amount to about $2.5 million a year.

The new zone, home to 4.6 million people, covers the counties of Sacramento, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Merced, Madera, Fresno, Tulare, Kings and Kern.