FORT WAYNE, Ind. (AP) A panel of the nation's mayors called on the
federal government to give local authorities a bigger role in the war on
drugs.

The 42 mayors who attended a U.S. Conference of Mayors leadership meeting
over the weekend agreed to form a coalition with police chiefs,
prosecutors, governors and others to work with Congress on a plan to
control drugs.

Fort Wayne Mayor Paul Helmke, the conference's president, said the mayors
also endorsed a plan to evaluate federal antidrug spending and share
information on the most effective local antidrug measures.

``The federal government can learn a lot from the local level,'' Denver
Mayor Wellington E. Webb said Saturday. ``We're the practitioners.''

The overall goal is to redirect federal dollars to municipalities, which
handle most of the nation's drug prosecutions, Helmke said.

Of the $16 billion that federal agencies spend annually fighting crime and
drugs, only about $4 billion of that filters down to the local agencies, he
said.