DRUG DEALERS TARGETING SCHOOLS GIVES HINT OF THE LARGER PROBLEMS

The continuing drug arrests in the Brownsville area speak to
persistence -- both good and bad -- and worse.

The good is the persistence of the Escambia Sheriff's Office in
following up on the month-long Operation Brownsville. There have been
loud public voices that the Sheriff's Office and county must be
persistent in staying "on the case" in Brownsville, and the Sheriff's
Office is.

That includes the opening of a sheriff's substation in the area, and
the weekend raids that netted more than two dozen suspects and more
than $100,000 worth of a variety of illicit drugs.

The bad is the persistence of the sort of crime that made such a raid
necessary. Coming on the heels of Operation Brownsville,
investigators produced nine search warrants and more than 40 arrest
warrants, all drug-related.

The worse is that the arrests point to a potentially severe problem
- -- drug dealing aimed at children.

A middle-school student was among those arrested in the raids, a
testament to the reach of illegal drugs and their potential for
damaging a community. Students from low-income areas face enough
challenges to success in school without having to deal with drug use.

Worse, a narcotics officer said most of the warrants were for drug
sales within 100 feet of a school. Those drug sales, he said, mostly
occurred "when school was in session or just getting out."

It's no mystery who the potential customers must have been --
students. If dealers are setting up shop outside schools, the
problems run deep.

The repeated lesson of years of anti-drug efforts is that law
enforcement on its own offers no magical cure for drug problems in a
community. So while law enforcement has to be a part of the solution,
getting at the broader problems is a must.

Operation Brownsville began the assault on those problems, the kind
that contribute to the dysfunction of the wider community. Keeping
the pressure on slumlords, owners who let their property deteriorate
to the point of creating public health problems, prostitutes and
other bad elements is part of that.

And so is targeting drug dealers who target children.