CAUSE FOR HOPE, AND CONCERN

Last week, a month-long probe by the Beaufort County Sheriff's Office
yielded the county's largest drug bust of 2005. Beaufort County
investigators, working with their Pitt County counterparts,
confiscated 6 kilograms of cocaine -- street value: $1.2 million --
on Wednesday and Thursday. They arrested a total of seven people,
most of them apparently illegal aliens living in Pitt County. The
arrests resulted in seven-figure bonds and felony drug trafficking
charges for each of the suspects.

Last week's sting marked the second time in recent months that
sheriff's deputies have busted up what were allegedly high-level drug
organizations. In October, another partnership with Pitt County
deputies yielded a smaller haul -- 12 ounces -- but was still a
considerable success.

These arrests and confiscations are a testament to the hard work of
local law enforcement and the county's commitment to controlling the
sale of illicit drugs. One Beaufort County investigator involved in
the probe credited the expansion of the county's drug enforcement
unit with making the sting possible. More manpower turned what was
once the one-or two-person surveillance of a single structure into a
network of lawmen capable of following the complicated web of what
appears to have been a sizable drug ring.

There's plenty of silver lining in this week's drug bust, not the
least of which is the pulling of 6 kilograms of cocaine from the
county's streets. But backing that silver lining is a massive black
cloud. The fact that $1.2 million worth of cocaine could be found
around Beaufort County is grim evidence of the seriousness of our
area's drug problems. As Capt. Tim McLawhorn of the sheriff's drug
enforcement unit noted, cocaine in such large amounts was once
available only in big cities central to the U.S. drug trade.

"Now they can just ride around the corner and within five miles, they
can get all the cocaine they want," McLawhorn told the Daily News.

That's a frightening thought. It will take multiple reprises of this
week's solid police work to eliminate cocaine and other harmful drugs
from the area. Heartening as this week's drug busts were, they're
also sobering evidence of how much work is still to be done.