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By DAVE JANOSKI; Times Leader Staff Writer
Friday, October 18, 1996     Page: 3A

WILKES-BARRE — Mike Fisher pledged Thursday to reorganize Pennsylvania’s
war on drugs if he’s elected state Attorney General.
   
The excessive overtime the state has paid to local drug task forces
illustrates the confusion among the various drug enforcement agencies
operating in the state, Fisher told The Times Leader editorial board.
    The Allegheny County Republican said he would call a “drug enforcement
summit” of local, federal and state officials to set priorities and areas of
responsibility.
   
“There is a terrible overlap. This task is too big for duplication.”
   
The state should concentrate on high-volume dealers and leave “street-level
dealers” to local police, Fisher said. “For too long, the focus has been on
street-level drug dealers.
   
“You get this kid off the street, there’s just going to be another kid
taking his place.”
   
Fisher said current Attorney General Thomas Corbett, appointed to replace
Ernie Preate in 1995, was right to reduce the number of local drug task forces
funded by the state. Corbett, a Republican who decided not to run for the
post, said some task forces, including some in Luzerne County, charged
excessive overtime to the state.
   
But Fisher said the task forces, which cost the state $4.5 million
annually, still have a role, albeit a reduced one, in the state’s drug fight.
   
Fisher said if elected he would call for more anti-drug education programs
and “border policing” that would include drunken-driving checkpoints at the
state’s borders.
   
“We need to make these people think `If we go through Pennsylvania, we
could get caught.’ ”
   
Fisher said his 16 years in the state Senate and four years as a county
prosecutor prepared him to restore the reputation of an office tarred by
Preate’s guilty plea to mail fraud.
   
“I think it is that broad experience that makes a difference in this race
and gives me the qualifications.”
   
His Democratic opponent, 39-year-old Joe Kohn of Chester County, who has
never held public office, “doesn’t have the experience necessary to do what is
a tough job in state government.”
   
Fisher would write a stricter code of ethics for employees of the Attorney
General’s Office and set up a process for naming an independent prosecutor to
pursue employee wrongdoing. He would place the office under the review of the
state inspector general’s office, which is responsible for finding and
correcting fraud and waste in cabinet-level offices.
   
He would ask for the immediate resignation of all middle- and senior-level
staffers in the office if elected.
   
“Those who have been doing the job, I’m going to ask them to stay on. Those
who have not done the job are going to be replaced.”
   
Fisher, who will leave the state Senate at the end of the year, expects to
spend $3 million on his campaign, little of it his own money. He criticized
the personal loans Kohn and Kohn’s relatives made to the Democrat’s
unsuccessful campaign for attorney general in 1992. The $2.7 million in
personal loans has yet to be repaid, according to campaign expense reports.
   
“If he gets elected, he’s going to raise money that’s going to go in his
own pocket.”
   
In the latest expense reports, Fisher had $1.3 million on hand and Kohn
reported $147,000 available.
   
Libertarian Party candidate Timothy William Collins is also a candidate for
a four-year term as attorney general.