AUTHORITIES STRIVE TO STOP DRUGS

Saratoga Springs -- Blank-faced, accused drug dealers stare up in the
mugshots on Saratoga Springs Police Lt. Edward Moore's desk.

The sheaf of arrest reports represents the recent yield from the county's
drug-enforcement tip line: 584-TIPS.

"In seven months, we've taken 18 drug dealers off the street," Moore said.
"I'm certain that there are 30 more waiting to follow in their footsteps."

Moore estimates that police seized about a pound of cocaine through those
arrests.

But Moore is hopeful that the arrests interrupt the flow of drugs into
Saratoga Springs. That includes Monday's arrest of five people on charges
of dealing cocaine and marijuana in and around the offices of First
Guarantee Mortgage on Broadway.

Rebecca Dixon, head of OASIS, a drug counseling program in Saratoga
Springs, said her program has recently gotten busier. The program has two
full-time and two part-time drug counselors.

"The counselors are supposed to do three assessments for new clients a
week," she said. "Some weeks, they are doing six or seven. Right now, we
are scheduling appointments for people in the middle of July. We usually
don't like to schedule people more than three weeks away."

OASIS will take some new patients sooner, especially teens and young
adults, Dixon said. She's seen more teens either referred by the courts or
brought in by worried parents. They report using marijuana and the "club
drug" Ecstasy, which she said causes brain damage. Among adults, cocaine is
also popular.

"We've seen a little bubble recently with heroin," Dixon said. "Especially
with people in their late teens or early 20s."

Saratoga County District James A. Murphy III can verify that trend. He said
preliminary autopsy results indicate that Mark B. Hebert, 24, of Saratoga
Springs likely died of a heroin overdose. Hebert was found dead May 20 at
the Community Court Motel on Broadway.

"There is an old adage that you can only police a community to the extent
it allows itself to be policed," Moore said. "People in Saratoga Springs
are very happy with quality of life we have here. They don't want to see it
damaged."

That might be one reason drug dealing is different in Saratoga Springs than
in neighboring cities.

"You don't have the open-air drug markets that some of the other, larger
cities have," State Police Maj. Daniel Penny said. "Albany, Troy and
Schenectady have places were you can pull up in your car, say the right
words and make a drug transaction."

Penny leads an undercover state police squad that makes buys from suspected
dealers.

"That's good for citizens because they don't have the hoods on the street,"
Penny said. "It makes it more difficult for police because we have to know
where to go. We can't go up Caroline Street knocking on every door asking
who the drug dealers are. That's where the tip line comes in."

While Saratoga Springs has escaped turf wars and shootings common to larger
cities, Moore said the drug trade here has led to home-invasion type
household robberies. Two years ago, a Skidmore student was bound with duct
tape because burglars were looking for drugs in an apartment.

Last year, a police officer caught Anthony Burnett of Waterbury Street
breaking into the home of a suspected cocaine dealer on Broadway. Burnett
pleaded guilty and charges were brought against the dealer.