DRUG AGENT SAYS WAR IS BEING WON

JACKSON -- Jim Stepp, special agent in charge of the Cape Girardeau office of the Drug Enforcement Administration, said Wednesday the "war on drugs" is far from over, but law enforcement in the area is "winning a lot of battles."

Stepp was the instructor for about 50 area law enforcement officers participating in a current-drug-trends-training session at the Cape Girardeau County Sheriff's Department.

Officers from Cape Girardeau city and county and Bollinger and Perry counties participated in the session, along with coroners from Cape and Bollinger counties.

During a break in the three-hour session, Stepp spoke with reporters about trends in illegal drug activity in the area.

"We've made some significant seizures and arrested some people, and we want to go forward and make some additional cases," he said. "I think we'll definitely put a dent in the trade and disrupt things make it more difficult for the dealers.

"But winning the war is not the objective; the objective is to battle this thing with the resources we have. There are a lot of battles and we win some and lose some. Lately, we've been winning a lot more than we've been losing."

The drugs most encountered in the area are crack cocaine and marijuana. Stepp said marijuana has made a comeback of sorts, with law enforcement discovering indoor and outdoor growing facilities.

"There are a lot of people that think it should be legal, so that's something we're confronting as we find a tremendous amount of indoor grows and outdoor grows in some of the rural areas," he said.

Often, the local DEA office will coordinate investigations of indoor-grow facilities, while the county sheriff's department maintains continual monitoring of rural grow operations.

Last week the DEA and several other area law enforcement agencies investigated a large marijuana operation in Cape Girardeau, which netted six arrests and the seizure of more than 1,000 pounds of the drug and $80,000 in cash.

The DEA and U.S. attorney's office in Cape Girardeau also have investigated and prosecuted several federal cocaine cases over the past several months.

Stepp said it will be impossible for the federal agencies, without additional staff, to continue fighting drugs at the current level.

"I don't think we can keep up with it," he said. "If we keep going like we have been, at some point we have to stop and do the paperwork.

"We're getting to the point now where we'll need to slow down some, because we just haven't got the manpower."

Stepp said talk of federal cutbacks and recession likely will dash any hopes of an expanded staff in Cape Girardeau.

The federal agent said much of the drug enforcement efforts in the past year have focused on illegal crack cocaine sales a trade that's difficult to curb.

"As soon as you put the heat on in one area, it moves into another," Stepp said. "It's a revolving door: they'll go where the drugs are and where it's cheaper.

He said that any cocaine crackdown has to focus on three communities in the area Cape Girardeau, Sikeston and Cairo, Ill. or dealers simply will move from one community to another, always a step ahead of law enforcement.

But that's starting to change as law enforcement agencies in the region cooperate through the work of the Southeast Missouri Drug Task Force.

"With a joint effort of the state, federal and local agencies, we are realizing maximum results," Stepp said. "There's excellent cooperation between SEMO, the sheriff's department, and the city of Cape."