Pubdate: Fri, 04 Mar 2005
Source: Chicago Sun-Times (IL)
Copyright: 2005 The Sun-Times Co.
Contact:  http://www.suntimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/81
Author: John P. Walters
Note: John P. Walters is director of the Office of National Drug Control 
Policy.

DRUG-FIGHTING NETWORK SHOWING PROGRESS IN THE CITY

Across America, drug use has declined over the last three years. The 2004 
Monitoring the Future study, an ongoing survey of eighth-, 10th-, and 
12th-graders, shows a 17 percent decrease in overall teenage drug use 
compared with 2001. This translates into 600,000 fewer teens using illegal 
drugs today than there were in 2001.

This positive trend is not the only good news. In our major cities, through 
innovative ideas of concerned citizens and determined leadership throughout 
city governments, efforts to reduce drug use and crime are starting to pay 
off. The Office of National Drug Control Policy recognizes that mobilizing 
the energy and expertise of citizens and city officials is a powerful way 
to reduce the drug problem nationwide. That is why, in 2003, my office 
embarked on an effort to engage more directly with officials and concerned 
citizens in 25 of America's largest cities.

The "25 Cities Initiative" is helping to connect people from the 
prevention, treatment, law enforcement and education communities-- groups, 
who all too often, operate independent of each other. The goal is not to 
replace citizen volunteers with bureaucrats or to simply turn the entire 
effort over to local government. On the contrary, the initiative serves to 
harness the resources and personal energies of those eager to take action. 
It aims to spark dialog, foster partnerships on all levels, and create a 
local areawide network linking the various sectors of the community. This, 
in turn, can allow the free flow of information, ideas and resources. The 
program operates on a simple principle: The more people understand a 
problem and the more they work together, the greater their ability to solve it.

Mayor Daley knows Chicago, its neighborhoods and the people who live in 
them. He knows that he cannot reduce Chicago's drug problem by himself; the 
Chicago Police Department cannot be everywhere at all times. As a result, 
actionable intelligence might be hard to come by. Chicago turned to 
technology and manpower to take back control of the streets and stop the 
havoc wrought by gangs and drugs.

Operation Disruption, started in July of 2003, sought to disrupt drug sales 
and other criminal activities through highly visible rotating cameras 
installed on light poles in high-crime areas. Chicago was the first city in 
the nation to use this technology so widely. Funded by confiscated assets 
from arrested drug dealers, the number of cameras will climb to 80, with 
gunshot detection technology installed in the original 30.

According to the city, in the first seven months after the initial 30 
cameras were installed, narcotics-related calls dropped 76 percent in the 
immediate area of the cameras. Serious crime fell 17 percent in those 
areas, and "quality of life" criminal incidents fell 46 percent.

Another part of the strategy to ensure information gets to the right person 
at the right time was to make Chicago's Emergency Management and 
Communications Center more robust. The addition of an Operations Center 
allows multiple city agencies to act faster on information reported from 
the streets of Chicago. The technology of Operation Disruption, combined 
with the response of the Operations Center, shut down nearly 50 open-air 
drug markets, making the neighborhoods one step closer to being drug-free.

Another way Chicago is working toward reducing the drug problem is in 
prevention and treatment. In primary care clinics under the jurisdiction of 
Cook County Bureau of Health Services such as John H. Stroger Hospital, 
there is in place an initiative that seeks to increase substance abuse 
treatment access. Screening, Brief Intervention, Referral, and Treatment is 
a program developed to expand the continuum of care for illicit drug use, 
problematic drinking and addiction through counselors conducting screening 
and, if needed, referral for treatment activities at a patient's initial 
consultation. The patients that are referred to treatment are coordinated 
with the Chicago Chapter of Treatment Alternatives to Safe Communities. 
Eventually, the process will become part of the primary care physician's 
routine when meeting with patients. In the first nine months, the Chicago 
program served 16,000 clients and referred 1,220 to treatment.

Chicago's strength lies in the ability to address drug use with treatment, 
prevention, and law enforcement programs. We encourage Chicago to be as 
diligent with drug use data as it is in collecting crime statistics. The 
continued study of this valuable information will allow for discoveries in 
patterns of use and then naturally lead to a formalized and even more 
developed strategy to control the drug problem in Chicago.

Through Mayor Daley and city officials' leadership, crime has steadily 
declined in the last 13 years and more treatment is available than ever 
before. Chicago is reclaiming its neighborhoods, stopping the blatant sale 
of drugs, and, in turn, loosening the destructive grip of drugs that had a 
hold on the city.
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MAP posted-by: Beth