Were any of you really surprised when you read Friday’s story about sentencing guidelines for crimes tied to crack cocaine and those tied to powder cocaine?

Were any of you surprised when local law enforcement officials said that nearly every crime committed in Dallas County is tied to drugs in one way or another?

You shouldn’t be.

Despite the best efforts of our law enforcement heroes, district attorneys, prosecutors and judges, drugs remain a rampant problem in Dallas County and a problem that will continue to be an anchor on our society ever moving forward.

We can sit here and rail against the trouble with violence in our society, the need for industrial development and job creation, but until we can get a handle on the drug problem within our neighborhoods, nothing of substance can develop here.

For years — decades really — our country has been engaged in a war on drugs, spending billions upon billions of dollars to curtail the access, sale and use of illegal narcotics.

But as quickly as law enforcement can act, drug dealers and users come up with something new, some other trick to escape capture and to get their fix.

This is a problem for our society and a problem our society must fix. We must no longer let our hometowns, our neighborhoods, our streets or our homes become safe havens for those who use or sell drugs.

They have only two interests in their efforts, destroy their own lives through using drugs and destroy those around them.

That’s it.

We must stand up and say enough. We do not want these drugs in Selma any longer.

We want to be clean. We want to be strong and we want to grow.

Until we as a society put our foot down, then drugs will continue to have a foothold in our community.