Pubdate: Fri, 23 Mar 2001
Source: Montgomery Gazette (MD)
Copyright: 2001 Gazette Newspapers
Contact:  1200 Quince Orchard Blvd., Gaithersburg 20878
Fax: 301-670-7183
Website: http://www.gazette.net/
Author: Robin Ficker
Note: Title supplied by editor

CONGRESS FAILURE TO INTERDICT DRUGS HOLDS UP HIGHWAYS

It was interesting to see that after being in the U.S. Senate since 1986, 
Sen. Barbara Mikulski came to Frederick last week to try and take credit 
for the $4 million to $5 million coming this year to Frederick County for 
the Interstate 70-Md. 355 interchange. She claimed that U.S. Sen. Paul 
Sarbanes, who has been in the Senate since 1976, will try to help secure 
Frederick highway money in the future.

Maryland is the only state where both U.S. senators live in the same local 
jurisdiction -- in our case Baltimore city.

There are 60,000 drug users in Baltimore's Social Services System. Drug 
Strategies, a nonprofit research institute, estimated recently that the 
cost of drug abuse and addiction to Baltimore exceeds $2.5 billion yearly 
in crime and law enforcement costs, lost wages, health care, etc. The cost 
to the entire state of Baltimore's drug addiction is more than $5 billion 
annually. A 1995 study by the Center of Substance Abuse Research at the 
University Of Maryland showed two-thirds of men and three-quarters of women 
arrested by the Baltimore Police Department tested positive for at least 
one drug, not including alcohol. In July 2000, the Drug Enforcement 
Administration identified Baltimore as the nation's most heroin-plagued 
area and the one with the most severe crack cocaine problem. In 1999, the 
state's chief medical examiner recorded 324 drug overdose deaths in 
Baltimore, 63 percent of all such deaths in Maryland. There have been 300 
shooting deaths a year in Baltimore for a decade, almost all drug-related, 
including that of a police hero last week. Drugs are involved in 85 percent 
of all Baltimore felonies.

Career Sens. Mikulski and Sarbanes have yet to push through a single 
successful initiative to interdict the flow of drugs into Baltimore. Had 
they done so, money wasted on illegal drugs would have been available a 
decade ago to build 10 I-70/Md.355 and I-70/I-270 interchanges.

Robin Ficker, Boyds
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