Drug task force targets Detroit area

The designation in June by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy came with a $2 million federal grant, and includes Wayne, Oakland, Macomb and Washtenaw counties.

"It's a federal empowerment zone (for) fighting drugs," Wayne County Sheriff Robert Ficano, who chairs the task force, told The Detroit News for a story yesterday

Since 1990, the drug policy office has designated 22 high-intensity areas. Support has grown to $162 million nationwide, up from $25 million seven years ago.

The southeastern Michigan task force is targeting 32 major drug trafficking organizations, 17 groups that support those organizations and 17 gangs involved in drug distribution, according to a report released Wednesday at the close of a two-day conference in Washington.

Southeastern Michigan has become a major transportation, distribution, importation and money laundering area, the study said. Those activities are aided by the region's extensive interstate freeways, a 700-mile international border and the state's waterways.

Ficano, who attended the Washington event, said the task force will initially concentrate on Detroit, Ecorse, Hamtramck, Highland Park, Melvindale, River Rouge and Redford. The plan calls for a sweep of drug houses and street dealing.

The programs also will include treatment and recreation, preventative steps that will work in concert with more traditional police work.

"From a law enforcement standpoint, it's not realistic to think you're going to build more prisons and solve the drug problem," Ficano said.

"The long-range plan to solve the drug problem is treatment and recreation and starting to change peoples' behavior," he said. "It's like a three-legged stool. Each leg is necessary so the stool doesn't tip over."

12-05-97