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Wilkes-Barre, Pa., Times Leader, Casey Jones Column: Dealers: You Make the Call, I?Ll Try to Help

Posted on: Sunday, 15 January 2006, 15:00 CST

By Casey Jones, Wilkes-Barre, Pa., Times Leader

Jan. 15--ear Drug Dealers:

Do you feel hounded by the police?

Are you suspicious of your customers?

Do you worry obsessively about being shot?

Does the paranoid lifestyle of drug dealing get you down?

Why not clean yourself up, lay off the drugs and get a job?

Yes, you too can be a contributing member of society.

Just ditch the dope, sell your scales and call 829-7215.

It won't be easy.

You'll have to bathe, comb your hair and dress respectably.

You'll have to get up in the morning and go to bed at night.

And chances are somebody will be bossing you around.

Worse, you'll feel the pain of paying taxes.

You'll miss the easy money.

Some days you'll come home and your back will hurt and your head will ache.

But you can do it. And you'll feel better about yourself. It's nice to be a giver instead of a taker.

And before you know it, you'll be joining the PTA and complaining about those damn drug dealers.

Of course, you have one other option.

You can keep doing what you're doing.

But you're gonna get caught or you're gonna get shot, just you wait and see.

A good idea deserves repetition

I stole the "Dear drug dealers" idea from a columnist at the Baltimore Sun who, after a particularly bloody day on the police beat, wrote an open letter to drug dealers last June.

To make a long column short, he challenged them to get a job, and even offered to help them find one.

Most folks thought the columnist was wasting his time. Drug dealers are too lazy to work, they said.

But the response to the column surprised the cynics. The writer has received more than 600 calls in the past six months. He spends much of his time serving as an employment referral service.

It seems that some drug dealers, at least in Baltimore, are caught in a vicious cycle where criminal records prohibit meaningful employment, forcing them back to drug dealing.

And while I'm not on speaking terms with local drug dealers, I suppose it's possible that some in our area have encountered similar employment problems.

So, due to the recent spate of stabbings, shootings and drug arrests, it seems like an appropriate time to copy a good idea and extend a similar offer to drug dealers here.

Now would be an excellent time for local dealers to quit and go legit.

In the wake of major drug busts, and with a manhunt just ended for a suspect in the killing of a police informant last week, area drug dealers should be very, very nervous. Every customer could be a narc.

So if you're a drug dealer and you want out, call me at 829-7215 and I'll try to help.

And if you want to take a drug dealer off the street by giving him job, call 829-7215 and we'll make arrangements.

It's a savvy public relations move on my part. It makes me look like a nice guy, and it shouldn't take a lot of my time. I don't expect to receive many calls.

Most of our drug dealers, I suspect, don't really want to quit.

And most of our employers, I'm afraid, are too closed-minded to hire them.

Go ahead. Pick up the phone. Prove me wrong.

Call Casey Jones at 829-7215 or e-mail cjones@leader.net [mailto:cjones@leader.net] Call Casey Jones at 829-7215 or e-mail cjones@leader.net [mailto:cjones@leader.net]

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Copyright (c) 2006, Wilkes-Barre, Pa., Times Leader

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Source: The Times Leader (Wilkes-Barre, Pa.)

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