This is a letter to the editor I published at the Daily Advance. Posted here for posterity, since they have no online archive:
Prayer vigils and marches through Sawyertown are all well and good for combating Elizabeth City’s plague of drug abuse, but without providing real alternatives to this self-destructive lifestyle they are no more than symbolic gestures. People deal drugs because this town doesn’t offer gainful employment within walking distance of the area’s downtrodden neighborhoods, or even public transportation to take some of the burden off these people.
Being a drug dealer isn’t fun or profitable. I’ve watched drug dealers stand outside in the cold by my house until three in the morning, trying to hustle enough money to pay their rent or utilities. If you do the math, the meager profits drug dealers pull in, divided by the number of hours they must work selling their product comes out to well below minimum wage, and the workplace hazards, prison and violent crime, are appalling.
These aren’t bad people, but simply people living in a community without options. I hope Elizabeth City’s religious community will take a “love the sinner, hate the sin” approach to confronting our worst areas and not villanize the people they find there. I hope they will look for practical real-world solutions to Sawyertown and other areas. “You shall know them by their fruits,” is another good principle, we’ll be watching to see what fruits the religious community bares as they work with the police on this matter.