STREET-LEVEL DRUG WAR MUST GO ON IN CAMDEN

For residents of the city, keeping suburban drug buyers out of their
neighborhoods is a quality-of-life issue.

Sadly, police in Camden could probably set up a drug sting every day
for the next six months and have no shortage of people to arrest
every one of those days. Many would likely be repeat offenders.

But while some may consider this a waste of time and effort in our
nation's war on drugs, it's important for the people of Camden that
police keep doing these stings and arresting drug buyers.

If Camden is ever to become a desirable and safe place to live, the
message must be sent to the rest of the region that if you come to
Camden to buy drugs, pick up a prostitute or engage in other criminal
activity, you will face consequences.

To the people who live in Camden's neighborhoods and try to raise
families there, it's impossible to ignore a steady stream of people
coming into neighborhoods to buy drugs. Just as criminals who live in
Camden erode the quality of life for law-abiding residents, so, too,
do criminals who flood into the city from elsewhere.

That's why police should do these stings as often as they can. Only
repeated enforcement will begin to get the message across that Camden
is not an open market for drugs.

On Monday and Tuesday, narcotics officers took over a drug dealing
operation at the corner of 5th and Grant streets. They arrested 39
people Monday and 50 Tuesday in just a few hours each day.

Of the 89 arrested over the two days, 69 were from outside the city.
Three came from Marlton. Three more came from Cherry Hill. One even
came from as far away as Flemington, Hunterdon County. Others came
from other, mostly suburban communities across South Jersey,
everywhere from Mantua to Mount Laurel to Merchantville.

All came to Camden to buy heroin or crack cocaine from street
dealers, even while a deadly form of heroin was hospitalizing others.
The names and hometowns of all those arrested were printed in the
Courier-Post's South Jersey section Tuesday and Wednesday and remain
available at courierpostonline.com.

And these are just a drop in the bucket. There are dozens of corners
in Camden where people can buy drugs every day. And they pour into
the city in droves to do so. Fifty arrested at one corner in one day
only scratches the surface.

Still, police should keep scratching. They should keep doing stings
in neighborhoods across the city to keep the dealers and buyers
nervous that they'll be caught. They should keep arresting people and
releasing their names so perhaps the embarrassment will convince them
not to come here to buy drugs anymore and to seek rehabilitation.

The good, hard-working people of Camden don't deserve to raise their
kids in neighborhoods where drugs are available, literally, by
opening the front door. Kids who grow up seeing drug deals happen
every day right in front of them certainly are more likely to either
use or sell drugs themselves some day.

For Camden to truly lift itself up and become a strong, safe
community that people want to live in, police need to keep hammering
away at the drug trade.

They need to convince drug users that Camden is not the place to come
to buy drugs.