DRUGS' EFFECTS

The Aug. 13 story on suburban teens trekking to Chicago to buy heroin
underscores one of the major difficulties in dealing with the billion-
dollar street drug markets that ruin our neighborhoods and terrorize our
residents: Most of the customers are not from the communities that suffer
the effects of street-gang drug dealing and the violence associated with it.

Let's take an innovative approach and impose on those drug buyers caught in
our continuing sweeps a mandatory sentence of community service on the
corner where they purchased the drugs. The sight of a clean-up crew
identified for all to see as the main financial backers of drug crime in
the neighborhood is bound to draw attention and derision--and almost
guarantee that the offenders and their friends won't be back.

Thomas B. Kirkpatrick, President

Chicago Crime Commission