CARSON CITY'S DRUG WAR WILL BE LONG AND DEADLY

The recent shooting of Carson City Sheriff's Deputy Joshua Stagliano
offers up an entree of reminders that our local law enforcement has a
plate piled high with drug-related crime.

Remember, as I have often mentioned, Carson City is a small city of
residency.

Throw a sturgeon into a swimming pool and you can get an analogical
idea of how illegal drugs thrust their scaly ugliness and bulky
dominance in Carson City. But this particular big fish in a shallow
pool flaps and splashes only to gain the attention of its ill-fated
clientele - not to give our law enforcers a better chance of netting
it.

The shooting incident also resonates with ringing sounds through the
empty corridors of hollow morality.

To dealers, addicts are just abhorrent substance whores from whom they
can pimp the diabolical exchange of money for mind and body sludge.
Law enforcers? They're invaders - intruders - who are crossing the
territorial lines of drug prostitution business. That's how the
dealers see it. So killing whoever is standing in the way of their
street hustle is not an act worthy of a second guess. It's that serious.

Whether drugs deaden the mind and then kill the body of its user and
abuser, or give cause for its users, makers, and sellers to kill
others who intend to thwart or ward off the "high" speed traffic of
this omega vehicle for big lifts and major falls, a death chant serves
as its soundtrack.

At this week's joint anti-drug session at the Legislature in Carson
City, Chairwoman Sheila Leslie, D-Reno, said what I believe to be the
most succinct message for everyone to remember when she warned that
our city and state drug problems are "... not restricted to meth."
Give the lady a cigar! Well, better make it a box of chocolates.

In our fight against drugs, the enemy should be regarded with extreme
prejudice. The enemy here are the soldiers of illegal drugs - ALL
illegal drugs. This war is much larger than the war our country has
stumbled into in Iraq. Much larger. Its death count is greater; its
battles are much longer; and it is taking place here. Here! On
American soil. Not Iraq. Here! And yet our country's leaders, led by
President Bush who plays grand puppeteer to our American youth while
sitting on the White House floor with his playmate, Dick Cheney, would
prefer to spend money this country doesn't even have on a war that
should have ended with one big sky-scraping mushroom mountain of smoke.

As with any war, you judge the existence and extermination of the
enemy not by the type of weapon they carry, but by the potential
danger of that weapon and the intent to use it. In this case, suffice
to say that all illegal drugs have the potential to harm and kill.

Meth stands tall on the hierarchy of deadliness because it is so damn
easy to make, which makes it vastly more obtainable. A pinch of this,
and a punch of that, and you have Mom's apple pie for the Last Supper
of our youth. The finishing culinary touch of dessert to lives yet
started. Aperitif to a full-course serving of health detonation.

Though I credit our city and state with their recent series of
ant-drug awareness programs and campaigns, I still believe that - as
is the case with most wars - we waited too long to make our presence
known to the enemy. I know - I'm driving from the back seat. But think
about it: Drug abuse is not a new problem, and it is certainly not a
new habit. Everything on our country's historical track of progression
has led to the invention of things bigger and better. Technology,
medicine, travel (Did I say travel?!), surgery. Illegal drugs? In this
case, better means stronger and deadlier. The kids of today have more
money to buy these illegal drugs that are now so abundant. More people
have the diabolic creative ingenuity to produce those drugs themselves
to sell in such abundance. So, during life's constant progressive
cycle, why didn't we think about the eminent advancement of illegal
drug production and use decades ago when marijuana - now the St.
Joseph's Aspirin of illegal drugs - was the alleged precursor of a
drug age that raised the "high" bar to achieve the self-destructive
trophies of heroin, cocaine, crack, and now meth. A lesson in world
history teaches us - or should have taught us - that we are always
searching for something greater and better.

Bet on it, 10 years from now, illegal drugs will be greater - make
that worse - than what they are now. And we need to continue to fight
on. But again, a historical lesson in war is that the fight cannot
fully stop, this side of mass destruction. No war should end at the
first sign that the coast may be clear.

John DiMambro is publisher of the Nevada Appeal.