Opinion:

After Galardi, After Rizzolo, Get The Meth Distributors

Political Corruption Costs Money, Speed Addiction Costs Families

by Johnny Gunn

We look at the Galardi trial and our squeams begin the ish part of the word when the name Rizzolo comes into the conversation, but with all the mire and muck that abounds in Las Vegas, the most dreadful thing going on is the proliferation of methamphetamine. All the criminal activity at the top, county commissioners falling like tin soldiers on a kid's battlefield, allegations of misdeeds in city and county government, and shocking information coming from the federal government about the Clark County $kindustry, nothing compares with the human loss from speed, crank, meth.

Just how much money actually flows through the topless joints in Nevada's largest community isn't even a drop compared to the amount of money the methamphetamine epidemic is costing. Mike Galardi boasts about spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to get his way, that is by buying politicians, but how much meth does it take to destroy a family? Rick Rizzolo is looking at a few months in a federal pen, losing his club, and paying a $15 million dollar claim, but does that compare to how many families have been shredded by speed?

The first thoughts of course are to place blame, the second thought is to get revenge, and thirdly, we want to tell ourselves what a fine job we have done. Blame for the $kindustry's abuses must be leveled at the top end of law enforcement in Clark County. If there have been local investigations of corruption nobody knows about them. There have been no grand jury investigations that are known; the district attorney won't even discuss the issue. The sheriff, either embarrassed by this lack of action or unable to get his own investigation started has given up, and the mayor thinks it's all just a big joke.

And in the meantime the several thousand members of local, national, and international criminal gangs are distributing methamphetamine by the ton. In the meantime thousands of families are being sundered, equal thousands of men, women, and children are under the forces of the chemical, living minute to minute for the next hit.

The cost to Clark County's reputation by way of Mike Galardi, Rick Rizzolo, and all their henchmen and bagmen is negligible when compared to the monetary cost of the methamphetamine scourge. Children in grammar school are addicted and will never know the pleasure of a home and family because of it. Most who attempt to treat speed addicts understand that rehab is rarely successful. Fathers beat the hell out of mothers and children. Mothers kill babies. And very young addicts hold up liquor stores. The cost is in the billions of dollars just in Clark County.

We can gloat over the fact that criminals in government have been caught and won't be spending our tax dollars again. We can gloat that Rizzolo & Company will be out of business. If there were any way to put a level to what has happened, it would indicate that a slight scratch has nicked Clark County's criminality. Send the bums to prison, but let's stand up right now and demand that the county's top law enforcement quit hiding from reality.

Corruption exists at the highest level and because of it the least of all criminals in the county feels relatively safe, particularly when we consider the distribution of methamphetamine and other substances. One goes hand in hand with the other.

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On The Lighter Side We Can Talk Weather

Memorial Day Weather And Not Playing It Safe

On Saturday morning of Memorial Day Weekend, as I sat eating breakfast a quick peek out the window showed snow falling gently into my newly planted tomatoes, and brought a flood of memories from about 20-years ago. I lived in the little mining hamlet of Manhattan, Nevada and we had had a wonderful early spring. I needed a new roof on my kitchen, and took advantage of the warm and sunny weather.

By Memorial Day the old roof was off and new two by fours were in place, ready for me to drop the new sub-roof into place. I had friends from Dayton coming up for the weekend, and you know that it snowed almost two feet Friday night and through Saturday.

We all jumped in a couple of pick ups, drove 50 miles south to Tonopah and had a wonderful holiday weekend.

I mucked out the kitchen when we got back and my friends went home. How was your Memorial Day?

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Cartoon by Thomas Nast, April 12, 1874