Unlike most police departments, which regularly pad their budgets with money and property garnered from drug busts under a new federal law giving law enforcement officials wide latitude in using resources they confiscate in drug-related cases, Sheriff Bill Masters of rural San Miguel County, Colorado, banked $10,000 from a local crack house to get addicts into treatment. The funds are turned over directly to the treatment center, and applicants must repay the loan, reports Mother Jones (July/Aug. 2002).
