CHARLESTON DRUG DEALERS, BEWARE

Tuesday's "Operation Dragnet" sweep reaffirms an important message: Drug
dealers can no longer assume that any neighborhood within the city of
Charleston offers a safe haven from police disruption of their insidious
business. That's bad news for lawbreakers, good news for the law-abiding.

That doesn't mean there's any instant solution to the long-term problem of
drug-infested neighborhoods, here or anywhere else in America. Tuesday's
raids, aimed at 37 suspects, won't permanently shut down the illicit drug
trade in Charleston. After last year's "Operation Mayday," new dope
peddlers eventually replaced the suspects rounded up in that massive,
coordinated operation by federal and local authorities. The pattern is
likely to be repeated in the wake of "Operation Dragnet."

Yet theoretical debates over drug-war tactics can't mask the grim reality
of neighborhoods virtually held hostage by dope dealers who dominate their
streets and fight turf wars for high profits, at times killing innocent
bystanders in the bloody process. The expectation that the drug trade will
make a comeback in the neighborhoods that police raided Tuesday must be
matched by the expectation that the long arm of the law will make a
comeback of its own.

Those drug dealers don't just have to worry about the police. They have to
worry about a united community front against them.

Residents of Charleston's East Side have courageously resisted the bullying
criminals who once ruled their streets. A group of concerned neighbors gave
the mayor's office a map of dope-traffic zones, videotaped and alerted
authorities of illegal activity, confronted dealers and even copied down
license plates. The authorities, who long have been asking for more
community cooperation in the difficult task of cleaning up crime-ridden
neighborhoods, responded with "Operation Mayday."

The city police responded to community needs again Tuesday with "Operation
Dragnet." That response serves notice that in every corner of this city,
the risks of illegal drug trafficking include vigilant law enforcement.

No silver bullet exists for permanently ridding our communities of the
debilitating drug-traffic social plague. But Charleston is demonstrating an
encouraging resolve to stay the course in this protracted struggle.