LET'S ALL GANG UP ON DRUGS

If anybody thinks the drug problem we have in B.C. is something we
have to tolerate as part of living in a modern, liberal society, he or
she should read two stories in yesterday's Province that show why this
is not -- and must not be -- the case.

One story by reporter Kate Mercer focuses on Lower Mainland resident
Salim Khaki found murdered last week on the side of a road in Merritt.

It turns out Khaki had just completed a one-year conditional sentence
after pleading guilty to possession of cocaine for the purpose of
trafficking.

In 2005, he and three others had been arrested in a downtown Vancouver
condo, where police found more than 11 grams of the drug, packaged in
various sizes -- along with a scale and baggies.

In 1998, Khaki had been sentenced by a U.S. court to six years for
conspiracy to possess cocaine. But he was clearly not just a low-life
criminal going nowhere.

Aged 40, he was well educated and, by all accounts, well respected in
the Ismaili community.

He had coached a men's hockey team. He had worked as a mortgage
broker. And he was obviously well loved.

"We don't have anything to say except that he was the best guy, a
great guy," a family friend said.

Our immediate reaction is why someone who had studied for three years
at SFU, had a business diploma from Douglas College and had completed
a real-estate licence exam from UBC's Sauder School of Business needed
to get caught up in drug dealing.

Was it the lure of easy money and the glamour associated with driving
around in a Porsche?

Or was it that -- as the judge at his trial last year was told -- that
Khaki had got back into the drug-selling business to help a friend who
owed some money to some "bad people?"

We may never know the real answer. But we do know that he was to be
married next month, and was obviously hoping to settle down.

The other Province story, by reporter Glenda Luymes, talks about how
the organizers of a memorial golf tournament in Surrey are hoping to
draw public attention to the way gang violence affects us all.

The tournament is being organized by associates of Abbotsford gas
fitter Ed Schellenberg and Chris Mohan -- innocent victims of last
year's notorious Whalley apartment shootout, which also claimed the
lives of four men linked to the drug trade.

As Luymes noted, the Ed Schellenberg/Chris Mohan Memorial Golf
Tournament is to take place Sept. 26 at the Hazelmere Golf and Country
Club. And the proceeds will go to support the victims' families and
various anti-crime initiatives.

Needless to say, we heartily support this kind of community-based
action and the important message it sends.

It says to the drug dealers and the gang-bangers -- who are often one
and the same -- that most law-abiding British Columbians are fed up
with the spread of drug gangs and drug violence and will do everything
in their power to prevent it.

As tournament co-organizer Kevin Ford says: "It's time to take back
our lives from the criminals."

It's time indeed.

The tragedy is that so many good and potentially good lives have been
wasted in the meantime.