Published April 5, 2007 in issue 0614 of the HooK.

The Hook's stance in 4Better or Worse poking fun at the cost of drug enforcement only getting $600 worth of cocaine off the street ["Best reason to reevaluate drug enforcement costs," March 29], is short-sighted and irresponsible. People have been shot over much less than six grams of coke. 

Perhaps if you looked a little deeper, you'd realize that cocaine has ruined many, many lives, and the cost of investigating, prosecuting, and incarcerating even one murderer (from a drug deal gone bad) is more than the city's entire annual drug enforcement budget. Drugs are a serious problem in Charlottesville, and anyone who denies it needs only to talk with a police officer, high school teacher, or ER nurse to hear otherwise. 

When the drugs left Bogota, Colombia they were escorted by guns and people who were not afraid to use them. The question is: at what point did the guns leave the equation? Florida? New York? Water Street?

 
Mitch Carr
Scottsville

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