DRUG WAR OFTEN NEGLECTED FOR LIGHTER CONCERNS

North Carolina legislators have created a perfect storm of
dysfunction with persisting lip service to our state's hard drug
problems. By gutting the mental health system, underfunding a
dysfunctional judicial system and chasing social symptoms versus core
harms, they have secured an embedded drug culture that touches us
all. A drug kingpin with the power to design a system of corruption
could do no better.

Across our porous borders, Mexican drug cartels are killing the heart
of their culture and have begun to bribe and intimidate their way
into ours. The horrific number of drug murders in that country and
the brutal killing of a UNC Chapel Hill student originate from the
same drug-thug cultural model funded by addicts, lawlessness and
indifference. Open-air drug markets are recruiting stations for new
dealers, users and supporters and should not be tolerated in
Asheville or anywhere else. Few meetings of our City Council do not
provide opportunity to vote against government-funded butterfly
exhibits, regulation of pumpkin sales and other such nonsense taking
time and money away from the real fight -- protecting our children,
neighborhoods and culture from social poison that goes for the heart
of everything.

Carl Mumpower, Asheville City Council