LOCAL : L.A. to Ask ‘Drug Czar’ for Help

The City Council voted today to ask federal “drug czar” William J. Bennett to include Los Angeles in a far-reaching pilot program he has announced to eliminate drug crime in the nation’s capital.

The council voted 13 to 0 to ask Bennett, the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, to designate Los Angeles as the site of “an all-out attack on the drug problem.” Bennett last week designated the nation’s capital as a “high-intensity drug trafficking area,” which gives him emergency powers to use federal money and agents to combat the drug trade there.