Cops make crack in California.

• Author: Stein, Bobbie
• Position: Orange County, California's reverse-sting operation - Cover Story

When Orange County went bankrupt, it made national news, but what you haven't heard about may disturb you more. For nearly two years the Orange County sheriff's department has been quietly manufacturing crack cocaine at the behest of the Santa Ana Police Department. The sheriff's department hands the publicly produced rocks over to the police, who use them in undercover operations targeting certain neighborhoods. One heavily targeted area is the largely Hispanic neighborhood surrounding an intermediate school in Santa Ana.

To date this "reverse-sting" program has yielded more than 400 arrests for possession of crack cocaine. Most of the people arrested had no prior record for drug possession.

Orange County is not the first purveyor of government-issue crack. Police departments in Florida were busy making rocks, until the Florida Supreme Court outlawed the practice. The court found that law enforcement's manufacture of crack cocaine for use in reverse sting operations "shocked the conscience," and violated the due process clause of the state constitution. "It is incredible that law enforcement's manufacture of an inherently dangerous controlled substance, like crack cocaine, can ever be for the public safety," the court ruled, as it reversed hundreds of drug convictions. But the Florida ruling didn't slow things down in Santa Ana.

Lieutenant Robert Helton says the department has carefully examined the liability issues, and deems its operation safe. One of the reasons the police decided to "rock up" cocaine themselves was "to make it as safe as they could," Helton says. Never mind that crack is perhaps the most dangerous and addictive form of cocaine: the police are ensuring that impurities have been removed from their product before it hits the street. Helton also says that although the undercover cops are selling crack one block from the Willard Intermediate School, they conduct their sales mostly in the evening or when the kids are in classes.

The district attorney has established written guidelines for the police that include selling drugs for cash only and not exchanging the drugs for property that might be stolen. Other rules prohibit selling drugs to people in cars and chasing suspects in cars. Police are also discouraged from selling drugs to minors.

Back in October of 1994, an electronic bulletin board for members of the California Association of Criminalists was all abuzz with news of Santa Ana's conversion program. Most forensic scientists on the Net were dramatically opposed to the process. "People were in an uproar," says Roger Ely, who works in the Drug Enforcement Agency...