DRUG PROBLEM HAS BEEN FESTERING FOR DECADES

Jamaica is paying a painfully high price to learn the elementary
lesson that no government can afford to ignore or tolerate drug
trafficking.

At last count, with gunshots still echoing across the capital Tuesday,
at least 30 people had died in the slums of Kingston as police and
soldiers fought to regain control of crime-ridden neighborhoods that
drug kingpins and their armed gangs have long considered personal fiefdoms.

The mayhem involves reputed underworld boss Christopher "Dudus"
Coke. His various nicknames include "Mister President," an
indication of his power and status in Jamaica. It began after Prime
Minister Bruce Golding dropped his nine-month refusal to extradite
Coke to the United States to face federal drug charges in New York.
Coke's ties to Mr. Golding and his Jamaica Labour Party were said to
be behind the government's initial unwillingness to agree to the
extradition.

This fight is about much more than a dangerous individual, however.
Jamaica's drug problem has been festering for a long time, predating
Coke's rise to power.

Gangs Gained Power

The violence has its roots in the period leading up to the 1980
general elections, when political factions formed alliances with local
gangs to intimidate opponents ahead of the voting. Eventually, and
predictably, the gangs become a law unto themselves in Kingston's
poorest neighborhoods, brooking no government interference on their
turf.

Other countries in the region have been through this travail. When
Pablo Escobar was able to bribe and bully his way into becoming
Colombia's most ruthless cocaine trafficker, he and others like him
eventually became powerful enough to demand that they be allowed to
operate with impunity -- or else.

Colombia paid a huge price in blood and treasure, including the
assassination of government leaders and presidential candidates,
before Escobar and other cocaine kingpins of the era were finally defeated.

Now it's Jamaica's turn. Mr. Golding's government is waging this fight
because it has to -- pressured by the United States -- not because it
wants to. Sooner or later, however, Jamaicans would have had to face
up to this day of reckoning. Either the country's duly elected
civilian authorities rule the country -- all of it, including the
slums -- or they don't.

Thanks to public indifference, even public support, drug gangs have
become a fixture in Kingston and other parts of the country,
celebrated in song lyrics touting the joys of "ganja" and those who
get rich on its illicit bounty. Getting rid of these gangs and their
influence on the government will not be as simple as overpowering
"Mister President" and his army of supporters.

Reassert Rule Of Law

At a minimum, it will require the government to devote more resources
to cleaning up Jamaica's worst slums by reasserting the rule of law
and making them more habitable. Ultimately, it may have to undertake a
generation-long public campaign to educate Jamaicans about the dangers
of drug abuse and the gangsters who make their living from trafficking
in dope.

The only worthwhile policy in dealing with drug traffickers is zero
tolerance. Jamaica's current generation of political leaders should
never be allowed to forget that. Their predecessors should have known
it before making a pact with the devil decades ago.