OFFICIALS BRING DRUG PROBLEM OFF STREETS -- ONTO FAIRGROUNDS

ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY has its own drug problem. It doesn't need more drug
problems imported from elsewhere -- with the unwitting help of the
organization that runs the county fairgrounds.

Of course, Anne Arundel County Fair Inc. didn't realize beforehand what it
had gotten involved in. The nonprofit corporation merely decided to allow an
event called the East Coast Electronic Dance Music Festival to use the
Crownsville facility last Saturday.

The name didn't alarm fair corporation officials, volunteers whose chief job
is putting on the county fair. They said they had never even heard of raves
- -- marathon dance parties that have become a prime setting for the use of
recreational drugs, especially the newly popular "party drug" Ecstasy.

This would mean those officials haven't been paying much attention to the
news media for the last few years, and weren't listening last year when the
lieutenant governor launched the nation's first anti-drug campaign aimed
specifically at Ecstasy.

Police weren't as naive. They knew a rave when they heard it advertised --
as this one was, up and down the East Coast and on the Internet.

The 12-hour event got blanket coverage from 75 county police officers and 25
state troopers, some undercover. Sure enough, there were 47 drug arrests --
almost all of them of juveniles and young adults from outside the county.
Police seized Ecstasy pills by the hundreds, as well as an assortment of
other drugs.

Purely as a law enforcement exercise, it was a success. No one overdosed, no
one was hurt, and the fairgrounds weren't damaged. But that doesn't change
the fact that fairground officials allowed, in essence, a drug party on
public land. And keeping it under control required a huge investment of law
enforcement manpower that could have been used on home-grown problems.

County Executive Janet Owens now plans to meet with the fair corporation
officials. Technically, the county government isn't directly involved -- the
fairgrounds are leased to the fair corporation by the state Department of
Natural Resources. But Ms. Owens, speaking for county residents, has an
obvious interest in preventing the fair corporation from making any similar
disastrous mistakes.

By now, fairground officials ought to know what a rave is -- they just
hosted one. If they still have any doubts, there are plenty of law
enforcement and government officials who can tell them what to look out for
when the promoters come calling. There should never be a repeat of
Saturday's chemically driven festivities at the fairgrounds.