A WARNING FROM PRISON THAT WE ALL MUST HEED

The story of "Mike," the convicted drug dealer from the Hazleton area
profiled in this week's Standard-Speaker Sunday, made for some disturbing
reading.

As reported by our Shawn M. Kelly, Mike told a sordid story of an area that
is easy pickings for drug dealers. Distributors from New York, Ohio, New
Jersey and Philadelphia know the Hazleton area well as a haven for drugs,
Mike says. With too few police to try to put a lid on the trade, dealers and
junkies thrive on the small-town setting Hazleton provides.

Mike told this newspaper that many of the inmates he has met in the State
Correctional Institution at Rockview know our region well. They know towns
like Drums, Freeland, White Haven and McAdoo. They know them as places where
the populations are small but the demand for drugs is high. They know these
towns as fertile breeding grounds for easily corrupted young minds. For
anyone who thinks Hazleton is insulated from such big-city troubles, Mike's
words provide a rude wake-up. Drugs don't just survive in these parts, they
thrive.

To some, Mike's words may be easy to dispel. After all, he's just a con
serving out a lengthy jail sentence. What credibility could his words have?

Those might be valid concerns, except Mike is not alone with his warning of
the dangers lurking in our area. Ed Pane of the Serento Gardens treatment
center has been voicing the same kinds of concerns for years. Pane tells us
of how drug problems usually associated with metropolitan areas have hit our
area. Many times, his words go unheeded.

We hope lots of people were paying attention to Mike's words Sunday.

In an eloquent open letter printed along with the interview with Kelly, Mike
spoke bluntly about the looming perils for the Hazleton area regarding drug
dealers.

"Parents, listen up," Mike admonished, "they know where you live and they're
coming for your kids. They don't want to steal your kid's money and they
don't want to take the lives of your children, they want something much more
valuable, your kid's future." An unhappy sentiment and not a pretty picture,
to be sure, but one parents would do well to remember.

Drugs are a fact of life in the area, and probably always will be. They have
invaded every aspect of our culture, and do not discriminate between small
towns and large, young people or old. We can only stop them from destroying
us through education and community activism.

The job is left to all of us.

Make sure your children aren't like Mike.

A second installment from the interview with Mike will appear in next week's
Standard-Speaker Sunday.