Dukakis Vows to Accelerate Drug War, Double the Number of Agents

Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis promised today to double the number of drug enforcement agents and vowed, “There will be no safe haven for dope peddlers and drug profits anywhere on this Earth.”

The Massachusetts governor delivered a tough anti-crime speech during an appearance at the Los Angeles Police Academy, where he observed a training exercise on a simulated city street called Hogan’s Alley.

While Dukakis stood a few feet away, Officer Jerry Mulford demonstrated “cover and concealment” tactics, ducking behind wooden boxes and a brick wall, and fired at various moving and pop-up targets.

Trainees usually use live ammunition in such exercises, but the Secret Service vetoed the practice during Dukakis’ visit.

In his speech, Dukakis told police recruits that the Reagan Administration was trying to “nickel and dime you to death” by cutting funds for drug enforcement.

“We’re going to give the state and local law-enforcement officers the money they need to fight this war,” he said.

“You’re the ones who take the risks, you’re the ones who make the busts, you’re the ones who bear the costs of this war and you deserve the best equipment and the best communications and the best training we can give you.

‘Going to Take Them Back’

“The streets of America don’t belong to drug peddlers and gangs. They belong to us, and we’re going to take them back,” Dukakis said.

Dukakis said he would double the number of Drug Enforcement Administration efforts over the next five years and added, “We’re going to send the first 100 of those new agents here to Southern California.”

He said the cost of the new agents would be more than covered by the increased revenue in seized drug profits.

Dukakis aides quoted DEA estimates that each agent seized an average of $259,000 in drug profits in 1987, more than double what it cost to keep them in the field.

Dukakis also pledged to hire 800 more federal prosecutors and to “wage an all-out effort to hunt down, to freeze and to seize drug profits wherever we can find them.”

“We’re going to send a message to drug kingpins,” he said. “As far as Mike Dukakis is concerned, there’s nowhere you can run, there’s nowhere you can sail, there’s nowhere you can hide. There will be no safe haven for dope peddlers and drug profits anywhere on this Earth.”

Bush Remarks Taunted

Dukakis ridiculed remarks by Vice President George Bush two days ago in San Francisco, quoting Bush as saying he is “almost haunted” by severe drug problems in inner cities.

Dukakis said, “American children do not need our pity. They need strong leaders and first-rate law-enforcement officers. . . . They don’t need a change of heart in Washington. They need a change of leadership.”

The governor went on to attend Mexican Independence Day festivities in the afternoon at Roosevelt High School and was to depart for an evening fund-raiser in San Diego. He is scheduled to go to Orange County on Saturday for further campaigning.