DRUGS AREN'T JUST SOMEBODY ELSE'S PROBLEM

That our community has a drug problem is something we've known for a long time.

That it's being talked about more is something we've needed -- also
for a long time.

Thanks to a recent story by reporter Nancy Dooling, we've come to
realize what many of us have long suspected: that our community is a
lucrative market for New York City dealers looking to get rich off
the cravings of upstaters with cash to burn.

So here they come.

And here they prosper.

Some of their customers -- I suppose you could call them the lucky
ones -- manage to get high without ever getting into serious trouble.

But some of them stumble into trouble that can quickly escalate --
from petty theft to support a habit, to violence, to prison time. Or worse.

Who will get away with it? Who will end up in jail? Or institutionalized?

Or dead?

And what of those whose lives are being turned upside down by the
growth of the drug trade here: people who live in fear for their
safety, families torn apart by addiction?

Call them collateral damage: They might not be targeted by the drug
trade, but they're being hurt by it anyway.

Some people think they know where the pockets of "drug trouble" in
our community are: It's this neighborhood, or that school. But that
kind of thinking can blind us to reality.

And the reality is that our community's drug problem is pervasive.

If you think this or that neighborhood -- or this or that school --
is immune to drugs, think again. Pretending that drugs have not
become part of the fabric of this community's life is an invitation
to dealers to continue messing with us.

I don't pretend to have the answer to this community's drug problem.
I doubt there is a single answer.

But we have to stop thinking of big-city dealers as the only source
of that problem.

Those who say users are as much a part of the problem as dealers are
on the right track. Which means we, as a community, as families and
as individuals, have some soul-searching to do.

We have some homework to do, too. For starters, we could look for
models of what has worked in other communities. Surely ours is not
the first to confront a drug problem.

And we need to keep talking to each other. Silence will get us nowhere.

We can deny the problem and let the creeps take our community away
from us. Or we can resolve, today, to get smart, get moving and take
our community back.

They say admitting you have a problem is the first step toward
recovery. I hope we're ready to take that step.