A doctor who removes a patient's cancerous tumor doesn't ignore cancer that exists beyond the tumor.

Based on such a scenario, the Butler County law enforcement community shouldn't pooh-pooh the county's illegal-drug "cancer" outside the realm of heroin use and addiction.

It's troubling that such a negative mind-set seems to have evolved, however.

The Oct. 11 Butler Eagle story reporting that District Attorney Tim McCune had scaled back his $25,000 request for overtime pay for county drug task force work represents a decreased emphasis in fighting other illegal drugs, such as crack cocaine and marijuana, because of what officials view as a declining heroin problem.

County law-enforcement officials should be stepping up the fight against the overall illegal-drug problem if there is money left over from targeting heroin, not taking a step backward, if they truly wish to brag that Butler County is winning the drug war and that the county doesn't tolerate the presence of illegal drugs.

Meanwhile, officials' newest claim, that heroin use has leveled off and might now be on the decline, even merits skepticism. There have been four heroin deaths this year in the county; there were none in 2003.

In addition, Bill Ainsworth, coordinator of Butler Memorial Hospital's Drug and Alcohol Services and director of the Butler Regional Recovery Program, says rehabilitation programs continue to treat a steady number of county residents who are addicted to opiate-based drugs such as heroin.

"It's the same as it has been," he says.

Addiction to illegal drugs such as heroin isn't a seasonal matter; it doesn't become less of a problem at the same time that cold weather results in decreased consumption of popsicles.

In some sections of the city, law-abiding residents talk openly of the drug activity on their streets, but that information hasn't spawned any major drug busts over the past four years.

Now, with the law enforcement community desiring fewer financial resources with which to continue the battle, residents are justified in asking whether those in charge of the anti-drug fight have simply lost interest in their mission.

McCune and county Detective Pat Cannon, who heads the drug task force, said the number of new heroin adicts in the community seems to be decreasing.

"We are not seeing new faces on a daily basis like we did at the height of the problem," said Butler police Chief Tim Fennell. "All we are seeing is repeats. It's a welcome change."

But that's no reason to relax the battle.

There still is a transportation pipeline bringing heroin - and other illegal drugs - into the county to serve those "old" faces. Attacking that pipeline becomes no less of a priority because of a debatable decrease in new heroin addicts.

The exuberance exhibited over the heroin problem smacks of a public-relations exercise on the county's and city's behalf; officials should instead be acknowledging that Butler County still has a major drug problem and that officials are determined to attack it relentlessly.

McCune should be seeking as much - or more - money as in the past, and those who purportedly are in charge of drug investigations should put that money to good use - good use that produces significant, visible results in the courts.

The lack of major drug busts for so long sends a message to those responsible for this county's drug cancer - that Butler County's drug fight is, in fact, weak.

Hopefully, those officials who control the county's purse strings will be skeptical about McCune's request for less money and seek statistical data about what the drug task force has been doing - such as the number of people who have been investigated or are being investigated, and how many arrests have resulted from the task force's work.

Such statistical information should be reported to the public also to help county residents make judgments regarding the task force's success - and to help residents form opinions about whether changes in task force personnel should be in order.

There also must be ongoing concern on all fronts about whether methamphetamines will be this county's next drug scourge, as some envision, and how the request for fewer dollars will impact efforts against them.

Fennell admitted that the crack cocaine problem had not been attacked as aggressively as it should have been "because we were so overwhelmed with the heroin problems."

Yet McCune's decision to seek fewer dollars for the drug battle ignores the Butler chief's presumably informed observation.

It should be of deep concern to all that Butler County's anti-illegal-drug "doctors," having made some progress on the "tumor," seem less alarmed about the other "cancer" that continues to ruin lives and families and which continues to erode the well-being of the entire community.

- J.R.K.