DRUG RAID: TYPICAL REPONSE TO DRUGS: INDIFFERENCE

Armed Compound A Wake-Up Call

A year-long investigation netted one of the biggest drug dealers in the
state last week when local, state and federal officials raided a communal
compound in rural Neshoba County where the suspects were armed to the hilt
with automatic rifles, handguns and cash, more than $8,000 worth.

Law enforcement officials should be commended for their diligence, bravery
and integrity and be encouraged to take other tough stances in a county
long infested with illegal drug use that permeates to the highest levels of
society.

The typical response in Neshoba County to drug users and dealers is denial
or at best a muted indifference.

Let any poor fool get arrested on drug charges and everyone - his
great-grandmother and her friends, too - steps forward to attest to the
individual's integrity, some invoking their social status and roots here
that pre-date dirt.

So what, we maintain, and wholeheartedly back the efforts of law
enforcement at a time when many complain that felony drug charges are
frequently remanded to lower courts and cases simply disappear - perhaps
for lack of evidence, some have said, though.

These enablers pressure and otherwise harass law enforcement, prosecutors,
judges and the newspaper, and they sometimes win - in the courts.

When law enforcement takes a tough stance and is given the tools to
operate, much good can be accomplished for society.

Granted, for the casual and not so casual drug user, there are other
options to incarceration that should be considered, such as treatment.

However, one user or dealer behind bars is one less user or dealer who will
influence our children.

The world is a lot less innocent than it was even 20 years ago, and our
young people, even the ones from the better families, face enormous
challenges that previous generations did not.

Tough, no-nonsense law enforcement that has the backing of the public and
the elected officials who fund them is one key to rooting out the evil of
drugs, along with a judicial system that has no tolerance for any kind of
wrongdoing.

Bootleggers in the late 1960s and 70s strode the red clay hills of this
county spinning their evil, and eventually the good and decent people
rejected them, hands down.

The evil of our age is the illicit drug use, a more sophisticated and
subtle culture that is not always easily cracked, as Friday's pre-dawn raid
indicates.

This raid should be a wake-up call: Drug dealers won't be tolerated in
Neshoba County.