MONTPELIER, Vt. – A state Senate committee is considering setting up a new unit within the Vermont State Police drug task force specifically geared to fighting gang-related activity.

State police officials told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Friday that Vermont has become increasingly attractive for gangs from metropolitan areas in the Northeast for two main reasons: The state has a growing number of consumers of illicit drugs. And, its gun laws make it a relatively easy place to buy or trade drugs for weapons.

Col. Thomas L’Esperance, the state police director, said outside the hearing room that the problem was “organizations that are here that can set up and continue to sell (drugs) regardless of arrests being made or not because others come up under the same direction.” He called them “ongoing criminal enterprises.”

Vermont historically has seen much less gang activity than neighboring states, but there is concern that is starting to change, said state Sen. Richard Sears, a Democrat from Bennington. He said his concern about gang activity stemmed in part from a meeting he had in August with police officials from his area. He said there also was growing concern about gangs taking hold in Vermont’s prisons.

Many gang members coming from outside Vermont are members of offshoots of the Bloods, a street gang that started in Los Angeles in the 1970s and has spread around the country, Sears said. But Vermont-based gangs appeared to be rising up and emulating the out-of-state organizations, he said. And some Vermonters appeared to have joined the Hell’s Angels, he added.

“We’re seeing an increased level of gang activity, some of it homegrown and some of it from other areas of the Northeast. The first increase was really identified in our correctional population as the Corrections Department began to see more and more people who were affiliated with various gangs,” Sears said.

Out-of-state gang members appeared to be coming mainly from Brooklyn, Albany and Troy, N.Y., as well as from the Springfield-Holyoke area in Massachusetts, he said.

They have gravitated toward Rutland and Bennington, the two Vermont population centers closest to Albany and New York City, and to a lesser degree elsewhere.

The bill, which calls for $150,000 to be earmarked for the anti-gang unit, also contains provisions broadening and toughening Vermont’s law against conspiracy. But after the committee heard Friday from Defender General Matthew Valero that the changes would likely make the law so broad as to be unconstitutional, committee members said they likely would make more changes in the draft legislation.

Sears said the panel may consider a new vehicle to give police and prosecutors authority to go after people based on their gang affiliations. The federal government and some other states use versions of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act to prosecute people for involvement in organized crime. Vermont currently does not have a RICO statute; Sears said the committee would examine whether the state needs one.