WAR ON DRUGS?

The world would certainly be a better place for the families and friends of
five teen-agers killed in a car crash several days if drug agents had
arrested a drug dealer when they had the chance.

The teens were killed when their car plunged over a cliff after an all-night
party in the Angeles National Forest weekend before last. A college student
arrested late last week bragged of selling LSD-laced snow cones to the
teens. He said, "It was beautiful."

There is nothing beautiful about killing people, and that remark may come
back to haunt the 21-year-old drug dealerollege student. Toxicology tests
are being performed on the teens' bodies. If LSD is found, and the drug can
be connected to the young man making the claim that he sold drugs to the
victims and he's convicted of the crime, he faces a mandatory 20 years to
life in prison.

Perhaps of equal concern to law-abiding citizens is why the drug dealer
wasn't arrested sooner. According to U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency records,
undercover agents first made an LSD purchase from the student more than six
months ago, and he apparently was part of a larger, on-going investigation
into drug sales at the University of Southern California. Another undercover
buy from that suspected dealer was made July 19 -- and still he was not
arrested.

We won't pretend to know how best to conduct an investigation into illegal
drug sales; authorities may have hoped to catch a bigger dealer. But we do
know how wrong it is to allow a criminal to go about his business, one that
has the potential for killing people -- which, sadly, is precisely what
happened in this case.