BY WESLEY P. HESTER

In a letter to the director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, U.S. Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., asks that 13 Southwest Virginia counties be added to a program targeting drug traffickers.

If granted, the counties would become part of the Appalachia High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program, which helps federal, state and local law enforcement organizations confront drug- traffickers.

“The resources of local law enforcement in these counties have been severely depleted as police and sheriffs deputies combat the escalating amount of drug trafficking and related crime in the region,” Webb wrote in the letter to R. Gil Kerlikowske, Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Webb said major interstates and byways traversing Southwest Virginia makes the region and ideal distribution and trafficking area and said there has been an “upsurge in drug trafficking organizations moving into the area.”

“Galax is one of three Virginia communities which the Department of Justice has recognized as having a verified presence of Mexican drug cartels,” a release from Webb said. “In addition, these localities are seeing a marked upsurge in the production and interstate trafficking of methamphetamines and the diversion of pharmaceuticals such as OxyContin, Vicodin, and Xanax.”

The counties in Kentucky, West Virginia and Tennessee that border Southwest Virginia are already a part of the area covered by the program.

Webb’s request would expand the area to include the following counties: Bland County, Buchanon County, Carroll County, Dickenson County, Grayson County, Lee County, Russell County, Scott County, Smyth County, Tazewell County, Washington County, Wise County and Wythe County.