FOR OUR CHILDREN, WE MUST FIGHT BACK

The person who called Glenn Mueller criticizing the businessman for helping
organize a community meeting to discuss drug use in Long Beach really
missed the mark.

"Why are you having the meeting?" the caller asked. "You're making Long
Beach look bad."

Actually, just the opposite is true. Mueller and 650 fellow citizens made
Long Beach look extremely good when they showed up to search for solutions
to one of the biggest problems confronting all of us. Other efforts across
the region in recent months have been designed to raise awareness and seek
solutions, but none has struck quite the community response as this one.

Drugs, including alcohol, are not just a Long Beach problem, or a South
Mississippi problem, they are perhaps the greatest threat to all Americans,
affecting virtually every aspect of our lives.

The overflow crowd that gathered at USM-Gulf Coast's auditorium was an
impressive showing of care and concern for the young people of the
community, and the meeting served as a rallying moment for our region to
wake up and do something about this scourge that destroys the lives and
hopes of thousands of individuals and families each year in South Mississippi.

We owe a debt of appreciation to those who led the Long Beach rally and to
those who attended for reminding us that we can fight back, indeed, that we
must fight back.

A special appreciation goes to those parents who offered their testimony to
the awful price that drugs extract from our community. We are humbled by
their courage in the face of grief. The witness these families bear should
spur others to fight with even more determination to defeat those who deal
their deadly wares to our children. As was noted by many of the speakers,
burying heads in the sand will not work. It has not worked.

Few issues make the point so well about our dependence on each other along
the Coast and in South Mississippi. We are all in this together. What would
it avail us if the good citizens drove all of the drugs and their dealers
out of Long Beach . . . and they just moved over to Pass Christian or Gulfport?

This is just the beginning of a long conversation and a comprehensive
effort to accomplish this important task. We all have work to do - parents,
students, neighbors, even this newspaper.

As a community, all that we might hope for starts with the health and
security of our young. We call on all of our communities to band together
and to follow the good example set Monday night in Long Beach. Losing is
not an option in this fight, and only through unity can victory be
achieved. It is time for all of us to enlist in this effort.

Thumbs Up

The Sun Herald salutes the organizers of Monday's community meeting in Long
Beach.

They include Mayor Robert Bass, Chief Randy Cook, Mike Pruitt of the Long
Beach Chamber of Commerce, School Superintendent Charles Lyle, task force
chairman Glenn Mueller, and task force vice chairman Fred Walker.