Pubdate: Tue,  5 Feb 2002
Source: Associated Press (Wire)
Copyright: 2002 Associated Press
Author: Jesse J. Holland

SEN. QUESTIONS DRUG SEIZURE COUNTINGS

WASHINGTON - The Coast Guard and the Customs Service may be counting the 
same cocaine seizures in their separate congressional reports, making it 
difficult to tell how the war on drugs is going, a senator says.

The agencies don't see any problem with this, since they both participated 
in the seizures, according to a General Accounting Office report released 
Monday.

"Agency officials we spoke with told us that they believe it is appropriate 
for each agency to get credit for its involvement in seizing cocaine, since 
without the participation of any one agency, the seizure might not 
occurred," the report said.

However, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., who requested the GAO investigation, 
said he has long questioned whether multiple agencies are counting the same 
drug busts and inflating their numbers.

"We need to re-examine the ways we collect drug interdiction data, and then 
use that information to accurately evaluate federal efforts to stop drug 
smuggling into the United States," Sessions said.

Customs and the Coast Guard are the main U.S. agencies intercepting or 
deterring shipments of illegal drugs from foreign countries, primarily at 
the borders.

Sessions said he sent a copy of the report to the heads of the Justice 
Department, Customs Service and Coast Guard, in addition to Defense 
Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and White 
House drug policy director John Walters.

The GAO report found that of cocaine seizures described in federal press 
releases during fiscal years 1998, 1999 and 2000, 16 were reported by both 
the Coast Guard and Customs in the numbers used to track their 
effectiveness. Both agencies did participate in some way in those busts, 
the GAO said.

The agencies concurred with the results of the GAO report, congressional 
investigators said.

The Customs Service said in a statement that it reports drug seizures in 
which it was involved to a national database called the Federal-wide Drug 
Seizure System. "This national database has controls, such as unique 
identification numbers for each seizure, to prevent the multiple counting 
of seizures when determining the total amount of drugs seized by all 
federal agencies," the agency said in a statement.

The GAO said although the FDSS "has controls to prevent the same seizures 
from being counting more than once, FDSS was not designed to prevent 
individual agencies from reporting the same seizures in their own databases."
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