CITY DOESN'T NEED THESE SHOPPERS

When you think of the war on drugs, you think primarily of the dealers.
Influenced by the movies and TV, you conjure images of urban characters in
flashy clothes shooting guns and chasing each other across disheveled settings.

What you don't think of is the outwardly clean-cut suburban kids and adults
who drive into the city to buy heroin. You don't think of the devastation
in city neighborhoods that they cause by supporting drug dealers before
retreating back to their sheltered communities, safe and unsound with their
dangerous goods.

But that is about to change.

Under a new crackdown announced this week, Chicago's war on drugs will put
suburban drug buyers and their contribution to inner-city devastation in
sharper focus.

If caught, they stand to have their cars seized and driver's licenses
revoked in addition to facing jail time. "We're trying to attack the
buyers," said William O'Brien, chief of the narcotics bureau for the
state's attorney's office, which will put some mustard into an infrequently
invoked state law that allows the suspension for up to a year of the
driver's licenses of people caught buying or possessing drugs while driving.

The immediate area of attack is the West Side, where an estimated 60
percent of heroin deals in the city are made, with the vast number of
buyers being suburbanites. Nabbing even a large number of them may not
amount to a major victory in the war on drugs, which may well be unwinnable
given the huge demand for drugs.

But the arrests and the deterrent effects they have stand a good chance of
reducing the inbound traffic.

So does the threat of having to pay hundreds of dollars in towing and
storage fees to get back a seized car. And with fewer such customers to
rely on, many dealers will be forced to vacate street corners in
neighborhoods where drugs have driven up violence while driving down
property values.

Plans are to expand the campaign to other parts of Cook County.

For too long a time, suburban drug buyers have been allowed to contribute
to one of the city's most pressing problems without being sufficiently
targeted for that contribution. Out of sight, they have been too much out
of mind. When some of them get nabbed under the new program and discover
the charms of Cook County Jail, you can bet that both they and their chums
back home will find the West Side a lot less agreeable as a lifestyle choice.