EDITORIAL: WHITLEY'S WORTHY CRUSADE

The Rev. Melvin Whitley is an activist who does not set his sights low.

Quickly successful in his campaign to rid the streets of an innocent-
looking but insidious product called "love roses" in Durham, Whitley
is now broadening his campaign.

He hopes to persuade the N. C. General Assembly to curtail sales of
the product statewide. He says freshman local legislator Larry Hall
has agreed to introduce the legislation when the General Assembly
convenes next year.

Whitley, an organizer for the group A New East Durham, and fellow
activist and gadfly Bill Anderson first focused public attention on
the love roses last summer.

The love rose is a small glass tube with a paper rose inside it, sold
at convenience stores ostensibly (and perhaps this was its original
intent) as a small, impetuous romantic gift.

But crack cocaine users know that the glass vial can be quickly and
easily converted to a crack pipe, a reason the geegaws sell briskly
to customers with few if any romantic leanings.

The pipes have prompted neighborhood protests and Federal Drug
Administration seizures in other cities in recent years.

Whitley and his allies were fed up with the pipes permeating their
neighborhoods, and quickly persuaded the City Council to impose a
$500 fine on stores that sell them.

"I think while some people say it's a small step, it will send the
message that Durham is closed for business to drug users," said
councilman Thomas Stith, adding that it shows "Durham will not stand
for this."

That's a message that can't be delivered too strongly.

We applaud Whitley's effort to extend that message across the state.

Durham is too often unfairly stereotyped by our fellow North
Carolinians -- especially elsewhere in the Triangle -- as a crime-
plagued city. It is heartening to think that Whitley's crusade may
remind folks that our spirit of civic activism can model crime-
fighting moves for other communities.