CRACK COCAINE A SHARED PROBLEM IN THE REGION

CAIRO, Ill. -- If illegal drug sales abound in Cairo, the bane is shared by towns such as Charleston, Sikeston and Cape Girardeau in Missouri.

Lester Murray, special agent for the Cairo Drug Task Force, said most crack cocaine dealers in Cairo are just as at home selling their wares in surrounding towns' drug markets.

"When you're talking about a small area, they're just going from one town to the other," Murray said. "Charleston, Sikeston, and Cape all are within about an hour's driving distance.

"It's not hard for me to get in a car and drive to any of those towns to buy or sell drugs."

That means the various law enforcement agencies must cooperate to battle the problem, sharing resources and using like tactics.

The Cairo Drug Task Force operates with a grant from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development under the direction of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

It's mission: "to attack any drug activity at all," Murray said. "Our biggest problem is crack cocaine, and that is our primary focus."

Law enforcement in Charleston and Sikeston also is preoccupied with crack.

Patrolman Michael Maness of the Charleston Police Department said that city is home to a couple of open-air markets for crack, where the drug is bought and sold like apples at the corner fruit stand.

"I'd like to get it off the street," Maness said. "You're never going to do away with it completely, but if you can drive it back into the homes, then take some of these big dealers out, you can get a handle on the problem."

Open-air crack markets also persist in Sikeston, said Lt. Bob Gee, a detective with the Sikeston Department of Public Safety. "It's a big problem here," he said.

Murray said he isn't surprised that crack cocaine continues to plague the region. He said dealers require tremendous sales volume, which can best be accomplished by operating throughout the region.

But he said drug task forces and other agencies are making headway in the battle.

"You hope that you can make enough of an impression that not only are you driving dealers out of business, but you're making cases that can put them in jail," Murray said.

He said the situation in Cairo is improving, with less crack available at fewer locations in the city.

"It's a lot different from what it was a year ago," Murray said. "When we first started the task force, you could pretty much go out there and buy what you wanted, when you wanted, on the street."

But several arrests, indictments and federal convictions later, the task force has made a significant dent in the drug trade. Murray hopes to enlarge that dent.

"You don't solve a problem as big as Cairo's overnight," he said. "We've made an impact.

"The drug dealers start to change tactics, so we change tactics. It's a never-ending game with no real rules. You have to kind of make them up as you go along."

Unfortunately, Cairo's success has been other cities' demise.

Murray said many of the drug dealers have been pushed to Charleston. "We hope that Southeast Missouri's Drug Task Force is picking up the slack," he said.

It's trying.

Maness said: "I'd like to see more education, stiffer laws, and maybe we can lick this thing -- at least get it back inside, in the back rooms and not out on the street."

The Southeast Missouri Drug Task Force's new SLASH (Southeast Missouri Law enforcement Against Street Hoodlums) unit has made some high-profile arrests in targeted drug areas.

The hope is that through high-profile arrests, such as those staged by the SLASH unit, Charleston will be able to affect the market for crack cocaine.

"We want to go after people who use it a little more," Maness said. "The less people you have out there who use it, the demand for it is gone. We're trying to work it from both ends."

Gee said Sikeston authorities are taking a similar approach.

"Our presence down there is a deterrent," he said. "We do make frequent unannounced drive-bys and we place marked units there, which naturally curbs some of the activity.

"But when we leave, they just come back."

Gee, Maness and Murray said community support of police efforts is the key to gaining the upper hand on drug dealers.

By providing information on suspicious activity, citizens can be a big help in the war against drugs, said Gee.

"A lot of times we know it is taking place, but we don't know where," he said. "Unless we can target these areas where it's taking place, our efforts won't be very effective."

Maness said he wishes there was more support from Charleston citizens.

"Right now a lot of people want something done," he said. "They see the drug deals daily, but they're afraid to say anything."

Maness added: "You can't let up. The minute you do they're back, and the problem's growing.

"It's amazing to me that a lot of these dealers don't use drugs," he said. "They're just in it for the money, and they don't care that they're committing genocide on their own people."