"You stop 50 percent of the drug problem, you stop 50 percent of the crime," said Sgt. John. J. Brennan of MPD’s Major Narcotics Branch, echoing Ramsey’s sentiment. "Right now, homicides are on the rise."

The frequency of drug trafficking, the number of open-air drug markets and the rates of drug-related crime have at least remained level or gotten worse in the last few years, Brennan and other key law enforcement authorities told The Common Denominator. They cite specific drugs, their trafficking routes and the neighborhoods in which they are being sold as evidence that the District remains embattled -- though not defeated -- in a burdensome war on drugs.

Inspector Hilton Burton, who commands the narcotics branch, said "drug markets in the city are pretty much the same" as they were in the 1980s, but added, "Every police district has open-air markets."

Burton said the city’s drug problem represents "a huge array of stuff we have to look at. We do the best with what we have."

Outlining the generalities of drug trafficking, Burton -- who has commanded the narcotics branch for more than two years -- described how "high-level" suppliers smuggle kilograms of illegal drugs from foreign countries and deliver them to domestic "mid-level" suppliers, who generally are based in large cities such as Miami and New York.

From there, "mid-level" suppliers distribute substances to various open-air drug markets, run by anywhere from five to 20 people who are considered "low-level" suppliers, Burton said.

The narcotics branch -- namely, its Narcotics Strike Force, which makes daily drug arrests throughout the city -- targets mostly the "mid-level" suppliers, essentially aiming to intercept drugs at the District’s borders, he said.

Despite those efforts, Burton acknowledged that MPD "could probably do better in a lot of areas."

According to a report obtained by The Common Denominator from the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, crack cocaine is still by far the most dangerous of the drugs supplied to the District via this intricate trafficking network.

"Crack cocaine distribution and abuse continues to be cited as a major social and crime problem in most communities throughout the [D.C. metropolitan area]", the report states. The drug "is so firmly entrenched in the D.C. area, and the territorial violence associated with crack cocaine abuse so intense in cities like … Washington that [they] have some of the highest per capita homicide rates in the country," the report says.

Crack cocaine, according to the heavily redacted report, is usually purchased in New York -- or from some other "mid-level" supplier in a large city -- in the form of cocaine hydrochloride (HCI) and then converted into crack cocaine before making its way to an open market in the District. The conversion is made because there are stiffer legal penalties associated with crack cocaine possession and distribution than with cocaine HCI, the report states.

The report outlines trends in the availability, abuse and trafficking of not only crack cocaine but also heroin and cocaine HCI. Less popular in the District than in Baltimore, heroin is supplied "by and large" via Dominican and Middle Eastern drug trafficking organizations, the reports states.

Cocaine HCI is, unlike crack cocaine, "abused primarily by middle- to upper-middle income drug users," the report states. "Nightclubs and bars in the affluent Georgetown area of Washington, D.C., and in the newly renovated downtown areas are cited as being frequented by cocaine users in the white-collar, professional demographic."

The drug makes it to the District by way of Dominican or Colombian drug organizations from New York, according to the report.

Despite repeated requests from The Common Denominator, officials from MPD, the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office would not provide official, updated reports or statistics regarding the city’s illegal drug problem and their respective agency’s efforts to fight it.

Detective Mark C. Stone, a drug expert with MPD, said he believes drug activity in the city began increasing significantly in the late 1990s, when drugs such as PCP and the nightclub drug Ecstasy began moving into inner cities.

Since then, Stone said, "I think it’s basically remained the same."

Stone -- who in 19 years with MPD has worked with various other law enforcement agencies and has testified at more than 600 trials as a drug expert -- described the current drug culture as wrought with competition between heroin, cocaine and marijuana suppliers. But particularly worrisome to Stone are the increasingly potent forms of heroin being supplied.

Suppliers "increased the purity to make it more attractive to the younger user," he said, adding that other drugs have become more powerful for the same reasons.

Whereas users once purchased heroin that was only 2-7 percent pure, today these numbers are closer to 14-20 percent, increasing the likelihood of an accidental, lethal overdose, he said.

Asked if he has seen any increase in drug trafficking in the past few years, Stone said, "I think so," citing that there are now more drugs being sold in a wider area of the city. For example, he said selling ecstasy in Southeast Washington used to be "unheard of" by frequently occurs now.

Law enforcement authorities haven’t, however, claimed the monopoly on illegal-drug wisdom. Residents, too, say they have seen the city’s skirmishes with drug trafficking, sales and abuse, and affirm they are no happier -- or safer -- than they were a few years ago.

Regina James, Advisory Neighborhood Commission 5B chairman and a longtime community activist, said she lives amid open-air drug markets. She called her situation and others like hers "ridiculous."

"We have major crime in Ward 5," James said, citing drug crimes, shootings and prostitution. "Believe me, my neighborhood’s got its problems."

James also is part of Citizens Against Prostitution, an all-female, civilian organization whose members aim to rid residential neighborhoods of prostitutes by finding them as they walk the streets and immediately calling police.

"I think prostitution and drugs -- they just go hand in hand," she said. "I don’t think you can separate the two."

James recalled a time when she set her alarm clock to go off at nearly 3 a.m. so she could wake up and see what, if any, activity was happening outside on her block. She had heard that hordes of people recently gathered there at 1 or 2 a.m., presumably participating in an open-air drug market.

She said she peered outside to witness 70 or 80 people standing in the middle of the street.

"We live with this every day. Can you believe that?" she said.

Copyright 2003, The Common Denominator