DRUGHEADS

West Virginia Dilemma

SENSIBLE people can't understand why part of the population craves
illicit drugs -- even risking jail, health damage or job loss. Perhaps
dope users are dissatisfied with their lives, and want to flee into
narcotic dreamland. Some addicts may be like alcoholics, with body
chemistry that makes them susceptible.

West Virginia has acquired a high ratio of drug abusers, according to
a long report in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The paper quoted Joe
Ciccarelli, former FBI chief for the southern half of the state:

"You see what 15 or 20 years ago was a nice community and now it's not
so nice. It's the end of the supply line. ... You see the human toll
it takes."

The Post-Gazette summarized:

"Crack dealers are flooding the state from all sides, especially from
Columbus and Detroit, where many people trace their roots to
Appalachia, but also from Atlanta, Charlotte, Washington and other
cities. Homegrown cocaine rings have killed federal informants.
Methamphetamine labs dot the backwoods. An epidemic of prescription
pill abuse rages in the impoverished southern coalfields. ...
Out-of-state crack dealers take advantage of the wide-open gun culture
to buy weapons cheap and resell them back home, setting up lucrative
import-export enterprises."

The paper noted that Charleston area police raided 171 meth labs last
year. The Office of National Drug Control Policy has designated part
of West Virginia, along with Tennessee and Kentucky, as a
"High-Intensity Drug-Trafficking Area." The office estimates that 40
percent of the nation's marijuana crop is grown in Appalachia.

Drug violence and killing of federal witnesses has worsened West
Virginia crime. The Pittsburgh paper noted: "According to the FBI, the
violent crime rate in the state rose 16.4 percent between 2002 and
2004 while dropping 5.7 percent nationwide. ... Charleston's rate of
1,555 violent crimes per 100,000 people was higher than Pittsburgh's
1,118 in 2004. And in Huntington, where the Detroit influence is
strongest, there were 13 murders last year compared with the usual
four or five."

The drug-for-guns trade is dubbed the "Iron Pipeline." Pistols are
easy to buy in West Virginia, so out-of-state dope dealers use their
profits to purchase trunkloads of them for resale to big-city street
gangs at high markup. But the right-to-bear-arms mentality is so
strong in West Virginia that authorities won't curb the pistol
trafficking. The paper recounted:

"When Charleston enacted an ordinance limiting purchases to one a
month, a restriction that several states have imposed, the Legislature
passed a law that said cities couldn't regulate gun sales."

West Virginia's drug headache keeps changing. An upsurge in crack
cocaine was followed by an upsurge in OxyContin, which was followed by
an upsurge in meth labs. New state laws curbing meth ingredients have
lessened the latter.

Amid the waves of hard drugs, mild marijuana seems rather harmless, no
worse than beer. We often argue that pot should be legalized, to save
police, prosecutors, courts and puffers the hassle. Maybe some of the
harder substances could be treated as a medical problem, instead of a
crime problem.

As we said, it's hard to understand why abusers wreck their lives with
narcotics. But some do, and society must deal intelligently with this
reality. The Prohibition-style approach -- police raids, prosecutions
and prison terms -- hasn't crimped drug use. It's time for a wiser
plan against dope.