CUTTING OFF DRUG SUPPLY

Law officials are promising a crackdown at Bonnaroo festival.

It's expected that the fourth annual Bonnaroo music festival that runs
Friday through Sunday will bring in more than 90,000-plus attendees.
That will provide an economic boost to Coffee County, where the
concerts take place, but it also presents a challenge to its local law
enforcement officials.

At Bonnaroo III last summer, two people died from drug overdoses.
Authorities arrested 27 people and cited 132 others for offenses.
Almost all of those were drug-related.

Coffee County Sheriff Steve Graves told Gannett New Service that his
office will aim to make more arrests this year. They will be
concentrating more specifically on dangerous drugs such as cocaine,
methamphetamine, psychedelic mushrooms, prescription painkillers,
heroin and LSD.

They also will go after the drug dealers themselves at Bonnaroo. If
the suppliers are cut off, the festival-goers obviously won't be able
to obtain more drugs once they are there.

The music festival promoters say that a private security team will be
assigned to drug enforcement within the festival's perimeters. They
also say on-site medical procedures have been updated, not only to
deal with possible drug overdoses but also other medical emergencies
in a more effective way than in the past.

No one is naive. It's well known that one of the attractions of these
kinds of multiple-day, popular music festivals is the flow and use of
drugs throughout the proceedings.

But law enforcement cannot turn a blind eye to illegal conduct,
especially when it can lead to death, as it did at last year's festival.

If those who attend Bonnaroo want to get "high," let it be on
listening to the musical performances, rather than in using illegal
substances.