"not all of Bloomingdale has had drug crime rooted out"

From a resident of S Street NW in ANC 5C03:

I could not let this go by uncommented. From ANC 5C04 Commissioner John Salatti's exhortation to pull supercans off the street:

"Although we have rooted out most of the typical drug crime from Bloomingdale, we still have some."

I think John is the best of the best as an ANC commissioner, but this is a ridiculous statement. Making progress, staying on top of it, keeping thugs on the run, sure, all true. But "rooted out"? If he meant to say "typical drug crime" (which is what: sales? public use? robbery? assault? prostitution? burglary? or everyone's favorite, public urination?) has been "rooted out" of his district, let him be reminded that there are other parts of Boomingdale that remain yet unrooted.

Seriously unrooted.

drug supply demand management

From a resident on the unit block of W Street NW:

I see lots of email traffic about arresting drug dealers…interrupting drug supply…. and I’m fine with that, but we need to understand that drugs is like any other market, as long as demand exists there will always be someone there to respond to that demand. Once demand for drugs is curbed in our community, then the drug dealers will no longer find the place interesting for business and they’ll move on. Once the hassle of doing business in Bloomingdale exceeds the profit, they won’t care about sticking around…it’s an opportunity cost …they could be making more money elsewhere.

I think that demand inside our neighborhood is probably waning among the general population. I may be wrong, but I think there is lower demand for drugs (at least the hard core drugs) than in the past. But two sources of demand remain…one is traffic that is coming in from outside our community via North Capitol-- the users from the burbs who make quick trips into the city’s open air markets to make rapid purchases from their cars and then use North Capitol to make a quick exit. The other is the nearby Universities (Catholic, Howard, Trinity)….there will always be some low level of demand rom young people at these Universities who live in our areas that will continue to fuel the drug trade here. We need to figure out what to do about two significant sources of demand…as well as addressing the local demand among our general population. As long as there is money to be made and market to be had, there will remain drug dealers in our centrally located community to service that market. That’s just the simple economics of it.

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And let’s review what the rules are for posting comments:

1) Identify yourself. A full name would be best, but at least include a first name.

2) Identify your neighborhood.

3) Totally anonymous posts will not be allowed and be deleted, regardless of the content of the comment.

BOTH name and neighborhood name are required! Thanks for honoring the rules