DRUG DEALS

City Needs Sustained Effort Against Sellers, Buyers

The ugly monster ravaging so many Detroit neighborhoods has far more people
feeding it than trying to stop it. Sixty percent of them come from the
suburbs, according to a Free Press report this week on the city's drug
traffic.

But Detroit is hardly blameless. The report also showed that customers come
into Detroit because that's where drugs are most easily available, police
resources are most strained, and the consequences of getting busted are
likely to be less severe. It's a problem that defies simple solutions. The
suburban customers are clearly taking advantage of the city's condition, but
so are the drug dealers.

In this supply-and-demand circle, it hardly matters to law-abiding
Detroiters which came first, the sellers or the buyers. They just want both
gone.

Busting customers, which Detroit police regularly do, disrupts traffic for a
while, but it's not how this struggle is going to be won. City and Wayne
County authorities have done better in recent months by focusing more on
drug houses, cleaning them out and, in some cases, tearing them down, as
fast as the law and resources allow. Destroying abandoned houses, where
dealers can quickly set up shop, is part of that strategy, too.

Wayne County Prosecutor Michael Duggan says the efforts against drug houses
have reduced some dealers to operating out of cars, which is at least better
than a stationary enterprise that can ruin an entire neighborhood. But
Duggan acknowledges "it's going to be a grind" to take down enough houses to
effectively discourage drug customers. Even eliminating all the traffic from
the suburbs would still leave the 40 percent of buyers from Detroit, no
small number.

And the city would still have a perception problem.

Despite Duggan's efforts and the hard, dangerous work of many police
officers, Detroit has not yet succeeded in sending a consistent message that
buyers or sellers of drugs in the city risk serious consequences. Nor have
authorities gained the full confidence of law-abiding citizens, whose
cooperation is so important.

Detroit didn't get into this mess overnight. It won't get out of it anytime
soon, but taking it a house at a time in a sustained way -- finding the
resources to sustain it will be critical -- is a strategy that promises
long-term payoff for drug-scarred city neighborhoods and the children who
live in them.