Around the world, narcotics agents fight the war against drugs.
All of those agents have bosses they report to, ranging from police chiefs to heads of federal agencies.
But sitting in an office in the Du Page County Sheriff’s Department is the newly elected president of the International Narcotics Enforcement Officers Association, an organization designed to bolster the anti-drug efforts of police.
This fall, the 40,000 members of the international narcotics association elected Deputy Chief John Zaruba president of the 30-year-old organization.
“We are an organization of police, designed for police, and we deal with police issues,” Zaruba said. “But the first thing we realize is that if the police were the only ones involved with the war on drugs, the battle would be lost.”
The group is made up of local, state and federal law enforcement officials from throughout the nation. Locally, it includes police from the sheriff’s office and municipal police departments in Du Page County and members of DuMeg, the regional undercover police drug agency.
“Everyone is involved on a different level, and INEOA is there to promote discussion and education among those police,” Zaruba said.
The group also is a major law enforcement lobbying force in Washington and recently successfully opposed the dismantling of the Drug Enforcement Administration.
“There was talk of merging the DEA into the FBI,” Zaruba said, “which some politicians and police thought would have some benefits, but the organization believes that drugs have such a destructive effect on society that we need a federal agency that specializes in drugs.
“The nature of drug dealers is so mobile today that a drug dealer can be in France one day, Colombia the next and then in Du Page County on another day.”
Last week, Zaruba represented the association members in a Chicago meeting with Lee Brown, whom President Clinton recently appointed to head his administration’s war on drugs.
“Brown is a career police officer, formerly head of the New York Police Department,” Zaruba said. “Our members on the East Coast say they really like him, that he is a good cop who will work with us to help solve the problem.
“We know that we can never really solve the problem, because only drug users can totally stop drugs, but we have to keep up.”
Zaruba gets plenty of support from his boss, Du Page Sheriff Richard Doria, who was president of the association in 1986. Zaruba and Doria are the only presidents of the group who have come from the same agency.
Also serving on the group’s 38-member board of directors are James O’Brien, from Elmhurst, and Rick Musil, from Westmont.
The group has an annual conference, slated next year for Albany, N.Y., and has a monthly newsletter with information about the war on drugs.
Zaruba said the group is not designed to deal with public education, “but obviously we are 100 percent behind those efforts.”
The 20-year veteran of the Sheriff’s Department said he opposes decriminalizing the use of some drugs, predicting a negative impact on American business and social agencies that would have to deal with the problems of addiction.
Safe and secure: Anticipating the heavy volumne of shoppers before the holidays, Park Smart, an anti-car-theft group, will have a series of demonstrations from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday and from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday at Yorktown Shopping Center, Butterfield Road and Highland Avenue, Lombard.
The programs are designed to make motorists aware of increased car thefts during the holiday season and to give protection tips. The program will take place on the lower level, near Carson’s.
An honor: Lombard’s Fire Station No. 1, 50 E. St. Charles Rd., will be dedicated at a ceremony at 3 p.m. Thursday to recently retired Deputy Chief John H. Jones, who left the department last month after 36 years.
Eventually a plaque honoring Jones will be placed on the station.
