Pubdate: Tue, 13 Mar 2007
Source: Amarillo Globe-News (TX)
Copyright: 2007 Amarillo Globe-News
Contact:  http://amarillonet.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/13

JUST SAY YES TO ROADBLOCK ON ILLEGAL DRUG TRAFFICKING

Department of Public Safety troopers have been at it again, recently 
busting motorists and nabbing significant amounts of cash and about 
100 pounds of marijuana along Interstate 40.

Yes, drug-legalization advocates keep harping that this effort is 
counterproductive and that, by golly, we just shouldn't be making 
criminals out of those who like to blow a little grass or snort a 
little coke now and again.

This is an old-fashioned view, but the DPS effort in the Panhandle 
should continue for as long as the possession and transporting of 
these substances remain crimes in the eyes of the law.

The Panhandle DPS corps has been the state leader in these arrests 
along I-40. So far this year, DPS has seized $2.2 million worth of 
cocaine. It nabbed more than $20 million in illegal drugs in 2006.

That's not a bad haul.

No one should make any apologies for the work that DPS and other 
police agencies are doing to arrest those who travel through the 
Panhandle with their "controlled substances." These arrests are 
coming because of extensive cooperation among agencies in surrounding states.

Will they stop drug trafficking forever? Hardly. Will they only send 
the traffickers scurrying for other routes away from here? Probably.

But as long as this activity remains a crime in Texas, the work of 
arresting and prosecuting the perpetrators should continue full throttle.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman