In yesterday's edition of the Star-News, we reported that the Drug Task Force has, in its brief existence, racked up an amazing 100 percent conviction rate stemming from the drug arrests it has made. We cannot let that pass without comment

– well done!

The government is consistent in one thing and one thing only, and that is procreation - creating one government entity after another, and another, and another - most of them redundant, many unproductive, and all of them expensive.

The Drug Task Force is a shining example of a good idea "gone right."

There is no greater threat to the safety and well-being of the average American today than drug abuse.

Those who are addicted will steal and murder to get the money. Those who make the drugs do so in highly toxic "laboratories" that can blow up or emit fatal gases.

Those who are victims of drug-related thefts are forced to raise their prices –

insurance companies are forced to raise their premiums… it goes on and on and not one person in Covington County is unaffected by this problem. The greatest victims, of course, are the children, the ones who go hungry because their meth-addicted parents forget to feed them, the ones who are orphaned because of a crack-house shout out; the ones who live in poverty because drugs will not allow their parents to climb out of the lifestyle they are in - and the ones doomed to repeat the cycle.

Every arrest made, every conviction upheld, every drug dealer stopped is another step in taking our lives back from the drug culture. And every step made in that direction poses a direct threat to the lives of the task force agents and their families.

Besides the obvious dangers of flying bullets and drug-crazed attackers, the detectives must enter meth lab houses that are heavy with toxic fumes.

They huddle in the dark in dangerous neighborhoods, exposing themselves to illness and attack. They work long hours and there is no pay high enough.

Why? Because they are as much soldiers for the American dream as any guardsman in Afghanistan, and soldier in Pakistan.

To the officers, the prosecutors, the juries and judges who have done their best to stem the ever-growing flow of drugs into Covington County - we say "Thank you."