CORNERING DRUG DEALERS

EFFECTIVE DRUG enforcement requires a three-pronged approach: Stop the drug
suppliers and distributors, clear the corner drug dealers off the streets
and provide education and treatment to cut demand.

Chatham County's Counter Narcotics Team, with its countywide approach, has
generally zeroed in on the suppliers -- much to the chagrin, in some cases,
of law-abiding people who simply want their neighborhood dealers off the
corner.

Enter the Savannah Police Department. In cooperation with CNT, it is
narrowing the focus by concentrating on the dealers with its Narcotics
Eradication Team. Working in tandem, the two agencies can potentially hit
drug trafficking at the wholesale and retail levels.

It's a strategy that makes sense.

The CNT primarily concentrates on the money-men, the suppliers who provide
the drugs to street dealers. That supply line has to be cut if there's ever
to be an effective impact on drugs in the community. But these
investigations take time and money to be successful.

Meanwhile, the street dealers are hanging out on the corners hawking their
illicit wares. Their presence in neighborhoods scares many law-abiding
residents, who are forced to seek security behind locked doors. Savannah's
NET targets those dealers.

In its three weeks of operation, the NET has established a presence in the
Cuyler-Brownsville area, already making about 20 arrests. The neighborhood
has welcomed the officers, who help return the streets to the residents.

In addition to the police, the NET marshals other city employees, such as
sanitation workers, to deal with blighted areas and abandoned housing where
addicts might gather.

To prevent any overlapping so that one agency doesn't inadvertently spoil
an investigation being done by the other, a CNT agent will work with the
NET. This arrangement also will help prevent turf-guarding.

This new relationship should temper frustrations. Residents would read and
hear about the arrests of major drug suppliers and the confiscation of
their wares. Then they would look out their windows and see dealers selling
drugs on the corner. That disconnect should be less of a problem if the two
units do their jobs.

Community leaders, such as Olivia Swanson, president of the
Cuyler-Brownsville Neighborhood Association, are glad to have the NET
working there. She says residents are working with the officers to run the
drug dealers off: "They want to get out and walk and be visible so these
people will not take over the community."

Indeed, if anyone should take a hike, it's the dealers and their customers.
This new partnership has the potential to take good neighborliness to a new
level.