CITY'S DRUG FIGHT MUST GO BEYOND ONE-DAY SWEEPS

Huntington's drug-dealing community got a dose of shock and awe on
Tuesday when the Huntington Police Department, the West Virginia
State Police, the FBI, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration,
the Marshall University Police Department and the Cabell County
Prosecutor's Office cooperated on a sweep that saw 80 people arrested
in the largest one-day sweep in the city this year.

About 110 law enforcement officers, troopers and agents participated.

The daylong series of raids focused on residences throughout
Huntington, where police say they confiscated large amounts of crack
cocaine, guns and other items.

Tuesday's crackdown brought Gov. Joe Manchin to town. In a news
conference at the Huntington Police Department, Manchin said
Tuesday's raid was part of a statewide crackdown already credited
with seizing more than $53 million in illegal drugs.

"We must win it," he said of the state's war on drugs. "I want to
send a strong message that West Virginia is a state where we will not
tolerate drug activity, and where strong, swift justice will be
delivered to those individuals who try to distribute illegal drugs."

Manchin said the West Virginia State Police also were looking for
drug suspects in Kanawha, Jackson and Calhoun counties on Tuesday.

It was good to see the various agencies make a one-day sweep through
the city to show that law enforcement at all levels knows what's
going on here. And it was good to see Mayor David Felinton and police
Chief Gene Bumgardner taking visible roles in the effort.

The sweep was not as big as the early accounts indicated, however.

Public documents indicate only 30 of the 80 arrests were directly
related to drug crimes.

Records show 35 of the arrests were for other charges such as
worthless checks and attempted murder. Information was not available
on the other warrants. And at least 29 of the 80 people were already
in jail or prison on other charges when they were served with warrants.

In any event, Tuesday's efforts were good for showing the public that
law enforcement agencies are cracking down on the local drug trade.
But the results of "Operation Moneyton" are yet to be seen. The 80
people who were arrested now must have their cases prosecuted in the
court system. The question is how those cases will be handled and how
many of those 80 people will spend any time in jail.

Unless, of course, something has changed in the court system since
the last time The Herald-Dispatch tracked what happens to people
arrested on felony drug charges. In many cases, charges are reduced
and the suspected drug dealers spend no time in jail.

If law enforcement officials want to show their occasional sweeps
through town are truly effective, they would do well to issue annual
reports of drug arrests. The public needs to know how many people
arrested for drug crimes, whether the charges are reduced and how
much time drug dealers spend in jail. The public needs to see the
names of people and how their cases are handled in the court system.
Numbers alone won't do, as cases can drag out for months, and
sometimes more than a year.

The real breakthrough in the drug fight will come when the demand
drops so much that Detroit crack dealers will find Huntington not
worth their time. This is the only real long-term solution to the
problem, and it's the hardest one to solve.

Until then, law enforcement and the courts will have to do their
parts to make this area unsafe for drug dealers, and they will have
to provide more than one-day sweeps to show that their efforts are effective.