BISBEE - The Bisbee Police Department is trailing several other Cochise County municipal police forces in terms of methamphetamine/dangerous drug cases presented for prosecution in 2007, statistics show.

According to data from the Cochise County Attorney's Office, Bisbee police have sent prosecutors four cases since Jan. 1 in which defendants were accused of violating A.R.S. 13-3407, the state's dangerous drug statute.

The statute makes it a felony offense to possess, possess for sale, manufacture or transport methamphetamine. It also applies to certain other drugs, but local offenses primarily involve meth, Cochise County Attorney Ed Rheinheimer said.

One of the Bisbee cases, however, was dropped, while the other three resulted in indictments.

During the same time period, the Sierra Vista Police Department has sent the county attorney 34 dangerous drug cases. When the figure is adjusted for population differences, Sierra Vista police have presented 50 percent more cases than Bisbee.

Meanwhile, Benson police have turned over 11 meth cases for prosecution in 2007, four times the adjusted rate for Bisbee.

Sgt. Taron Maddux, spokesman for the Bisbee Police Department, said the numbers do not necessarily reflect the number of meth users and dealers that Bisbee cops are helping to prosecute.

"We might arrest someone on a burglary charge, and while they may not have any meth on them, the reason that they're doing the burglary is still meth-related," he said. "Some of these people who are incarcerated or doing prison time (for other crimes) would have been your sellers, purchasers or carriers of the drug."

The relatively low numbers also could represent a temporary lull in Bisbee's meth activity, or reflect the effects of local meth awareness programs, Maddux said.

Or, he added, perhaps meth users in Bisbee are more transitory than in other communities.

"It could be that Sierra Vista or other areas have the same habitual people that keep getting arrested for the same thing," he said. "In Bisbee, we'll see a group of people who come into town and get arrested once or twice, and then we don't see them again because they move around from place to place."

Some city residents, however, say Bisbee police are simply not confronting the problem with the necessary vigor.

"Anyone who lives or works in this part of town would agree that meth has a negative and daily impact on our lives, whether it be property damage, theft, nightly noise and aggressive behavior," said Jill Thomas, a resident of the Brewery Gulch neighborhood who would like to see more police foot patrols in problem areas like City Park.

"Here in the Gulch, a lot of people feel like their way of life is under assault," Thomas said. "We need the police to back up the community in saying that this is not OK."