CASUALTIES OF THE DRUG WAR

Anyone who still wonders about the need for the St. Lawrence County and
Ogdensburg's drug task force should look no farther than the recent events
that have shaken this community. The alleged murder of 16 year old Andrew
O'Marah is being described by those close to the case as directly connected
with drugs. The Grand Jury has alleged that Mr. O'Marah was shoved into
the river when he was intoxicated on drugs.

Wade Creighton, the 19 year old accused of the murder allegedly was on
drugs at the time. While he must be considered innocent until proven
guilty, there are still lessons to be drawn from this tragedy. OFA and
Ogdensburg does have a drug problem.

The Ogdensburg Police Department deserves a great deal of credit for its
hard work in this case. Investigators had a difficult time sifting through
conflicting stories and interviewing uncooperative witnesses.

St. Lawrence County District Attorney Jerome Richards was recently
criticized by several members of the pro drug lobby for suggesting that the
county needs to continue its was on drugs.

Many of them suggest that making drugs legal and freely available to adults
will some how miraculously solve the nation's problems.

It doesn't take a genius to realize that legalizing drugs and making them
freely available to adults would have an even more devastating effect on
our community. Creating a larger number of addicts and mental, physical
and emotional cripples would not make our communities a better place to live.

Even worse, it would send a strong message to our young people that they
can find refuge from their problems and reality through artificial chemicals.

Pro legalization champions can claim that by legalizing drugs it would be
easier to control their use and prevent access to young people.

But anyone who has bothered to look at our society's experience with
alcohol and tobacco realizes that making such substances widely available
and legal for adults is simply an invitation to teens to follow the already
poor example set by adults.

Research has shown the kind of devastating effects that drugs can have on
young bodies during their growing years. Law enforcement officers, social
workers and addiction counselors can describe the equally chilling effect
that chronic addiction can have emotionally on children who spend those
formative years zoned out from normal life.

DA Richards says that during the investigation, even hardened detectives
were chilled by their interviews with some who just couldn't bring
themselves to care about what had happened to a fellow human being.

We would like to commend city police and Mr. Richards for their efforts in
solving the mystery of what happened to young Andrew O'Marah.

But the sad conclusion of this affair should be to send a wake up call to
the entire community that we must redouble our efforts to prevent the drug
plague from making further inroads into our most precious resource, out
young people.

There will be those who will claim that if we legalized drugs and took away
the stigma against their use and abuse that all of our society's problems
would magically disappear.

They may even suggest that it was because drugs were illegal that this
tragedy happened. The reality is far different.

Drug use helped deaden those involved to a callous disregard for the
consequences of their actions. It's a lesson that should not be lost lest
this tragedy be repeated.