‘Children’s Superfund’ to Attack Drug Use Urged by State Panel

Creation of a $600-million “Children’s Superfund” drug prevention program by tripling California’s cigarette and alcohol taxes was recommended Tuesday by a state advisory commission.

The 26-member Commission on the Prevention of Alcohol and Drug Abuse, appointed by California Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp, called for a statewide ballot proposal to authorize the ambitious program and tax hikes.

Van de Kamp, who declined to endorse the proposal pending further study, said in Sacramento that a task force would be formed to study drafting such an initiative.

In Los Angeles, meanwhile, Police Chief Daryl F. Gates announced Tuesday that felony arrest warrants for 231 alleged drug dealers--201 of them teen-age students--have been issued in the Police Department’s latest undercover investigation of narcotics sales in Los Angeles city high schools.

Gates said that eight young officers posed as students at nine randomly selected high schools with the cooperation of the Los Angeles Unified School District.

A total of 393 drug purchases, mostly involving small quantities of marijuana and cocaine, were made during the 13-week operation at Canoga Park, Cleveland, Gardena, Hollywood, Monroe, San Fernando, San Pedro, Taft and Verdugo Hills high schools.

Officers began rounding up suspects in the investigation April 2. The Police Department has been conducting undercover drug probes in city schools for 12 years.

“We are there to ferret out the little capitalists, the little entrepreneurs, the sellers of drugs--not these kids who are using drugs,” Gates said at a press conference. “There are too many kids using drugs for us to do anything about that.”

Gates stressed his desire to continue funding the Police Department’s 3-year-old Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program, in which unarmed uniformed officers enter elementary and junior high schools to counsel children against narcotics. During the 1986-87 school year, DARE officers hope to visit all 405 elementary and junior high schools in the city.

Similar educational efforts might be made statewide under the recommendations included Tuesday in a 147-page report issued by Van de Kamp’s drug abuse advisory commission.

The panel’s report said the “Children’s Superfund” program would be a “massive new drug and alcohol prevention effort . . . totally self-financed by taxes on alcohol and cigarettes.”

Those taxes have not been raised in 18 years, largely because of intense and well-financed opposition from the alcohol and tobacco industries.

Currently, California levies a 10-cents-per-pack tax on cigarettes, 4 cents a gallon on beer, a penny a gallon on dry wines, 30 cents on sparkling wines, 2 cents on sweet wines, $2 on hard liquor 100 proof or less, and $4 per gallon for liquor greater than 100 proof.

California authorized $117 million last year for alcohol and drug-related programs, but only $27 million was designated for prevention efforts.