MULTIPRONGED ATTACK ON DRUGS IN PUBLIC HOUSING IS A SOUND APPROACH

Start spreading the news: Buy or sell drugs in Asheville's public housing
projects and you're going to jail, straight to jail.

Police Chief Bill Hogan's drug-suppression plan began Aug. 1. During that
first month, 48 people were arrested, 185 rocks of crack cocaine and 65.6
grams of marijuana were seized, $3,349 was confiscated and four handguns
were taken off the street.

Consider a typical scenario in Deaverview Apartments. Drivers slow down and
inspect a group of people standing nearby. Cautiously they approach.
Quickly they exchange their cash for what they assume are rocks of crack.
When they turn to leave, they suddenly are surrounded by police. They are
taken to a nearby vacant apartment for processing, then to jail. The rocks,
by the way, are not real crack.

This is an important initiative for at least two reasons. First, it
concentrates on drug buyers. Too many anti-drug efforts expend all their
efforts on the sellers, who usually are African-American, and none on the
buyers, who frequently are white. Without buyers there would be no sellers,
and each activity is equally illegal.

Second, it signals that Asheville's 16 public housing developments are no
longer to be considered drug supermarkets, with the residents living in the
fear that a botched drug deal will turn violent. Hogan and his officers
have pulled in the welcome mat.

No one believes that stepped-up law enforcement is the total answer to the
drug problem, and the stings of August are only the first step in the
city's campaign.

The City Council plan being implemented by Hogan also includes expanded
community policing, a summer youth program, a tutoring program and improved
infrastructure in areas that could support affordable housing.

As Hogan explained during a recent interview with the Citizen-Times
Editorial Board, drug suppression is just the first step in what is known
as a "weed and seed" program. After weeding out the drug trade, the area
must be seeded with programs to give poor young people alternatives to drug
dealing. The link between the two, Hogan explained, is community policing.

Besides providing money for five new police officers to fight drugs, three
of whom already have been hired, the City Council plan contains $50,000 to
expand community policing efforts. Nothing is more important if police are
to gain the trust of the people who live in drug-infested areas. The vast
majority of people who live in bad areas are good people, and police must
reach out to them.

Community policing means getting officers out of their squad cars, away
from what one Florida police chief referred to as "grin and wave" patrols,
and onto the streets. But that is only the start. As Hogan explained in the
interview, "I don't think it's as much a program as it is an attitude. ...
Community-oriented policing I think really is just building relationships.
That's why I say it's not a program, It's how we engage and interact with
each other."

Distrust is a fact of life in public housing projects, and it's not going
to go away quickly. "They love to fingerpoint," said Otis Edgerton, who has
family at Hillcrest Apartments. "But they need to be finding something for
these young folks to do."

Nevertheless, there is a note of cautious optimism. While she bristles at
some of the Housing Authority's many regulations, Deaverview resident
Carolyn Webber says the new enforcement plan is all right "as long as
police are fair." Hogan has pledged that they will be.

Drugs are one of the greatest scourges of our society. They destroy lives,
ravage neighborhoods and clog court calendars. Drug dealing must be stamped
out, not just in public housing projects, but wherever it occurs. "Dealers
are everywhere," said Public Housing Residents Council President Trina
Gardner. "If you move them out of one place, they'll go somewhere else."

Then the police have to keep going somewhere else, until there is nowhere
else for the dealers to go. Stepped-up law enforcement is the essential
first step.

But, it is only the first step. Without community involvement, and without
programs to give impoverished young people hope, it will be futile. In
addition to the programs authorized by the council, Hogan wants to set up
Citizen's Police Academies in the projects as another tool for bringing
residents and officers together.

Gardner cautions that, "It's not us against any neighborhoods. It's us
against drugs." Hogan understands that, and has made an excellent start
toward making it reality.

He is optimistic, while remaining realistic. "I can't say we will cure the
drug problem," he said this week. "But we will significantly suppress drug
activity so that a good quality of life will return to the neighborhoods."

That's the best news many of Asheville's most needy residents have heard in
a long time.