Pubdate: Sun, 01 Apr 2007
Source: San Bernardino Sun (CA)
Copyright: 2007 Los Angeles Newspaper Group
Contact: http://www.sbsun.com/writealetter
Website: http://www.sbsun.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1417

NPR SERIES EXAMINES WAR ON DRUGS

The title sounds familiar - "The Forgotten War." So does the focus of 
the NPR special that will premiere this week on the network's "All 
Things Considered."

Scheduled to run Monday through Friday at 3 p.m. on KVCR-FM (91.9), 
the miniseries consist of five features. Each is approximately 10 
minutes in length, covering aspects of this country's largely 
ineffective battle against drug use.

And, NPR reporter/producer Laura Sullivan agrees, that is hardly a 
new topic for radio or television. However, she points out, "This is 
a war that has been going on since the '80s and it seemed a good time 
to go back and look at what is happening."

Sullivan's involvement in that project can be heard Thursday when the 
former San Bernardino Sun intern (1994) is featured in a broadcast 
dealing with prisoners returning home after serving lengthy sentences 
for drug violations.

Monday's opening program will be hosted by veteran NPR newsman John 
Burnett. It studies American efforts to reduce foreign drug 
operations - efforts that have resulted in huge costs in dollars and lives.

Juan Forero takes over Tuesday with a report on a six-year 
multi-billion dollar plan to slash Colombia's coca crop.

Burnett returns Wednesday in a broadcast that deals with efforts to 
cut off drug supplies from foreign countries and to highlight a 
successful anti-narcotics program in San Antonio. And Friday he will 
be back to profile John P. Wilson, described as "the man behind the 
Bush administration's war on drugs."

Sullivan says Burnett started working on the special "about six 
months ago." Her assignment required less time, although it had its 
dramatic moments.

"My story took a look at people incarcerated in the '90s," she 
explains. "They are all coming home now. There are thousands of these 
people and they are returning to communities that are collapsing 
under the explosion of our drug laws."

Most of her activity centered upon East Oakland where she found 3,000 
to 4,000 people coming back each year.

"There are so many they are overwhelming a system that just can't 
handle them," Sullivan says. "They are getting no access to 
counseling, rehabilitative programs or job training, so the crime 
rate is rising. The number of murders increased and many of these 
people are going back into prison."

Sullivan says she compiled a large file of interviews with police and 
released prisoners for her report and admits to some tense 
situations, "especially when you're standing on a corner with drug 
activity going on around you while you're talking to someone."

But the really difficult process came after the talking stopped.

"We ended up with 23 hours of tape," Sullivan says. "We started 
taking things out and ended up with three hours and finally cut 
everything down to 10 minutes."

On the other hand, she claims, that assignment was easier than an 
earlier one involving a three-part study of solitary confinement 
procedures in California prisons.

That report resulted in a Gracie Award from the American Women in 
Radio and Television, an award that will be presented on June 18.

"I went into prison with a producer to interview subjects," Sullivan 
says. "That was very difficult. To the prisoners, it looked like I 
had an entourage and many were reluctant to talk to me. The drug 
story was different. I was interviewing people who had come out of 
prison. They felt fewer restraints and were more willing to speak."

Such projects seem almost standard for Sullivan who covered law 
enforcement stories for the Baltimore Sun before coming to NPR, has a 
report on illegal weapons on a tentative list of upcoming assignments 
and once followed a New Orleans police homicide unit on a raid into a 
neighborhood ravaged by crime and Hurricane Katrina.

"That was a little tense," she admits. "The police were going in 
there with helmets and vests and with their guns drawn. And I was 
just going in there. Finally, one of the detectives said, 'Stand 
behind me.' I thought that was a very good idea and I did, hoping all 
the while that the witnesses they were after were NPR listeners."
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