DRUG DEALERS: LAW ENFORCEMENT COOPERATION ENCOURAGING, BUT IS THAT ENOUGH?

The message to drug traffickers ought to be clear: don't deal in Neshoba
County.

But will that message soak through the thick skulls of the worst offenders,
those whose senses are already numbed by their chemical addiction - or their
addiction to the green stuff?

The cooperation among law enforcement agencies in a year-long sting that led
to the sentencing last week of a confessed drug lord is highly encouraging
and should be a strong deterrent to others who are trafficking.

More than ever, it appears that law enforcement is serious about the drug
problem that has existed here for decades, a problem that transcends race
and economics, impacting the poor as well as the affluent.

What we need most here are public officials, law enforcement and judges who
are tough on crime, along with more of the strong language Circuit Judge
Vernon Cotten used as he admonished the confessed dealer last week for what
the judge called a lifetime of silent violence, peddling drugs as a primary
business.

What we don't need are circuit judges who are soft on crime, those who, for
example, allow potentially dangerous parole violators to roam free. What's
more, committing even more resources to fighting crime should be considered.

Philadelphia is not as safe as it used to be and it's time we acknowledge
that reality instead of whisper about it. The case of the confessed
trafficker and the armed communal compound that law enforcement authorities
raided should be a wake-up call to the deeper evil.

Doyle Callahan, 38, confessed in effect that he headed one of the largest
illegal prescription drug rings in Mississippi. He was arrested in a
pre-dawn raid last March at the heavily-armed compound in rural Neshoba
County.

The only problem, there are plenty more Callahans out there and far more
users whom the dealers supply. That could not have been more painfully
evident with the arrest of three teen-agers last month on cocaine charges,
two of them nabbed a second time within a week.

And perhaps an even clearer commentary on the pathetic state of society: the
complaints that poured in to this newspaper office one Wednesday morning
because the names of the accused cocaine users were put on the front page.

Well, too bad. Folks shouldn't be doing drugs or violating their parole,
else their names will end up in this newspaper as they have for a long time
- - no exceptions. Drug addiction is a terrible thing and the sooner friends
and relatives vacate the role of enabler, the better off the users will be.

The fight against drugs is larger than building prison cells, it's about
rehabilitation and, more specifically, changed hearts. City and county
officials have wisely backed the regional drug task force that led the
Callahan sting.

Don Bartlett, a leader in the task force, sent a message to drug
traffickers: "They have two options. They can either quit selling drugs or
move away from Neshoba County and Philadelphia." Now, this community - the
citizens - must resolve to forge the same attitude.

First, we acknowledge the problem, then identify solutions such as more
police or stepped-up interdiction and education, and thirdly, implement a
plan.

As the bootleggers threatened to undermine society in recent decades, so the
drug dealers are the plague of this age. Encouraging this case is, but
there's far, far more to be done.