March 2, 2005 BY Mark Sherman WASHINGTON -- President Bush's proposed cuts in money for drug control programs would badly hurt state and local drug enforcement, lawmakers said Tuesday. The 2006 budget targets several sources of dollars that lawmakers and law enforcement officials say enable them to battle the drug trade. The Bush administration argues the programs are ineffective and must be cut in an era of large budget deficits. A total of $1.3 billion would be cut from programs to help local and state authorities. Much of that involves money used for collaborative efforts to battle drug sales and for drug-prevention programs. Rep. Bud Cramer (D-Ala.) said Alabama police chiefs and sheriffs have told him that the cuts would ''devastate narcotics enforcement'' in the state, where methamphetamine is a fast-growing program. ''Crystal meth is sweeping through the state,'' Cramer told Attorney General Alberto Gonzales at a hearing on the Justice Department's budget proposal. ''It's going to eat us alive.'' Overall, the president would spend $12.4 billion on drug control, 2.2 percent more than is currently spent. But the additional money mainly would go for international programs and efforts to stop drugs at the border. ''The president is very concerned about the deficit,'' Gonzales said. ''Some very difficult decisions were made.'' The proposed budget would eliminate a $600 million grant program for local police forces, cut $126 million -- more than half -- from the administration's High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program and reduce by 60 percent to $20 million the Justice Department's methamphetamine initiative. Sgt. Jim Winn, a Hunstville, Ala., police officer who heads a regional drug task force, said his $430,000 budget for 2005 would be wiped out if the cuts became law. ''The task force would shut down,'' Winn said. Source: Associated Press Link to article: http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-enforce02.html