TEXANA RESIDENTS SEARCH FOR WAYS TO COUNTER RAMPANT DRUG USE, SALE

Authorities Need Help Of Communities To Educate Kids About Dangers Of
Drugs

Texana - The realities of drug use and trafficking in Texana and
communities throughout Cherokee County have mobilized a group of
residents who want to take youths out of the vortex of their
neighborhoods' drug culture and place them in more promising settings.

"I can't even take my kids outside to play anymore," one group member
said. "Right there in broad daylight, on the sidewalks, people are
selling drugs. It's sickening."

The citizens who assembled on Monday spoke on the condition of
anonymity, fearful of the potential retaliation on their families from
the interests who perpetuate the drug trade.

The group was joined by Cherokee County Sheriff's Office Chief Deputy
Tom Frye and Multiple Agency Narcotics Unit Officer Derrick Palmer.

"It's domestic terrorism at its best," Frye said of the county's drug
element. "And it's a violent business ... but the problem cannot be
solved by law enforcement. We can't lock everybody up; we can't build
enough jails."

Frye said authorities need the participation of communities to
successfully educate youths about the peril of drug involvement and
maintain effective treatment prevention. He recognizes the dangers
inherent to such a commitment, citing previous cases in which people
who testified against drug dealers were murdered.

"It's not an easy thing, but we're going to have to change the mindset
of young people," Frye said. "This thing is broken from top to bottom,
and there isn't going to be any quick fix."

Members from the group said the situation in Texana has deteriorated
to the point that the town's community center has become "a facility
where people gather to get high" and that an area church's parking lot
is a venue for similar activities.

"We need help," one resident said. "But we don't know how to go about
getting it."

Frye and Palmer agreed that regaining the confidence of residents in
Texana and the county's other drug-addled communities is vital to the
group's cause. Palmer said help would come in the form of establishing
a productive dialogue and honest relationship with people who've
recoiled from law enforcement's presence in the past that are now
willing to enact change in their communities in hopes of preserving a
future for their children.

"We can't come in as law enforcement and just clean house," Palmer
said.

"Without communities stepping up and saying, 'I've had enough,'
nothing will be resolved. But if we get that attitude, that's when we
can get together and come up with realistic solutions."

The group who met on Monday is planning to reconvene with law
enforcement officials and continue to discuss how to improve the
quality of life in their communities and deter the sale and
consumption of illicit drugs.

"We're never going to remove drugs altogether from our communities; it
just isn't possible," Palmer said. "But we can make it where drugs are
not openly distributed and used on our sidewalks, at our community
centers or in our churches parking lots."