Contributed by By R.E. Kamm

When the Office of National Drug Control Policy announced in late February that 26 additional counties across the nation would be designated as High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA), astute observers might have noticed that almost a third were located in Georgia.

Eight counties-Barrow, Bartow, Cherokee, Clayton, Douglas, Fayette and Forsyth counties, all part of suburban Atlanta-were added to Georgia's existing HIDTAs: DeKalb and Fulton counties, Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport and the city of Atlanta itself, which have been designated HIDTA since 1995.

"The Atlanta metropolitan area has become the hub of East Coast drug distribution," says Jack Killorin, director of the Atlanta HIDTA program. "If you were going to make the television show, 'Miami Vice,' today, it would appropriately be called 'Metro Atlanta Vice,'" he says.   

Atlanta has overtaken Miami because the bulk of illegal drugs are no longer flown or floated into Miami from Colombia. The Colombians now sell directly to Mexican cartels, who then move the drugs across the U.S./Mexican border.
    
Killorin points out that this change in the narcotics business can be traced to the effects of the bloody drug war waged by the U.S. and Colombian governments in the 1980s and 90s, a war that demoralized the Colombian cartels. The Columbians started selling to the Mexican cartels, letting them shoulder the risks of bringing narcotics into the U.S.

Most of the narcotics that arrive in Atlanta do not stay here. The city's accessibility to major interstates and highways, such as I-95 and Interstate Highway 20, make it an ideal distribution point for Miami, Washington D.C./Baltimore and New York City. Many of the drugs arrive in bulk and are then cut and shipped out. The money gets packed and sent back to Mexico.
   
According to the Atlanta DEA's Rod Benson, Special Agent in Charge, the goal of law enforcement isn't just to stanch the flow of drugs into the U.S.

"Ultimately, our goal is to disrupt and dismantle those criminal organizations," he says.
   
HIDTA designation may be one of the most potent tools law enforcement officials have for doing that. A HIDTA isn't just an area-it's an area that gets special attention from what is, in Killorin's words, "a collaborative partnership among agencies at all levels of government," including the DEA, the ATF, state and local police, U.S. Postal inspectors and even the Georgia National Guard. That partnership relies to some extent on SAINT, the Statewide Analytical Interdiction and Narcotics Team, which works with the Georgia State Patrol to monitor trafficking on Georgia highways.

The takedown of an ecstasy ring in Atlanta last November that resulted in the confiscation of 65,000 MDMA (methylenedioxymethamphetamine) pills shipped in from Canada was a HIDTA operation. In that case, local law enforcement worked with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The following month, the special attention paid to designated HIDTAs again paid off when several million dollars in cash, along with 17 pounds of crystal meth and 111 kilograms of cocaine, were seized during a bust of two Mexican drug rings. An investigator for the Atlanta Police Department and a DEA agent directed that effort, though other agencies were involved as well.
    
The HIDTA program was begun in 1995 by the Office of National Drug Control Policy, which itself came into existence through the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988. The office's directorship is a presidential cabinet position known as the "drug czar." The czar's office determines which areas can be designated HIDTA and funds anti-drug efforts in those areas.
    
When asked why the new HIDTAs were added in Georgia, Killorin replies, "Because we asked for them."

With the eight new counties in Georgia, Killorin's office will be given more funding. He explains that unlike some government agencies, HIDTA is not allocated an annual budget; it gets a grant, which does not have to be spent in one fiscal year. The idea is to stretch the funding as much as possible, so HIDTA grants usually last between two and five years.

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