DRUG TIP LINE ON INTERNET INNOVATIVE

We're not quite sure just how workable a city of Alexandria Web site
for anonymous reporting of illegal drug activities may turn out to
be, but if it does pass muster we're all for it.

Some information via the Internet is completely unchecked, but the
same can be true for telephone tips, for example.

To be sure, illegal drug trafficking is among the city's biggest
problems and fighting it is imperative.

And if a Web site by which people can report via cyberspace their
observances of illegal activities in their neighborhoods and do so
from the relative comfort of their homes will help in the fight
against illegal drugs, then by all means that method should be
utilized.

We certainly hope Sgt. Newmon Bobb, the Alexandria police officer who
heads the Narcotics Division, is correct in his assessment that
cyberreporting of crime is the wave of the future.

We also hope he is correct in determining that reporting of illegal
drug activities via the Web is a way of reaching a large number of
people who otherwise wouldn't be reached.

Much of Bobb's enthusiasm comes from the fact that the Alexandria
Police Department's Web page was already drawing a large number of
e-mails which needed to be directed to Bobb's attention.

So now there is not only a site to which illegal activities involving
drugs can be reported, but there is also provision of information on
drug-arrest statistics and descriptions of various street drugs.

That means that the site, www.alexpolice.com/narcotics not only
serves a law enforcement purpose, but it also serves an educational
service.

Such use of technology for the protection of public safety is
innovative and of good service to the public.