Imagine if the evidence in 1,000 pending or already adjudicated rape cases had been found tampered with, fabricated or mishandled?

Every woman in Massachusetts would go into hiding at sunset.

Now think of the very real advent of up to 34,000 of the state's drug cases being completely compromised. One incarcerated man who was allegedly caught in an undercover cocaine sting on Cape Cod has already been released from prison. Case closed. I'm sorry, but innocent until proven guilty is a hard pill to swallow when someone's been videotaped making about 50 "Coke" deals to an undercover policeman.

The Massachusetts version of the War on Drugs just imploded and, ladies and gentlemen, the floodgates are about to burst open.

If you were worried even a tad about the epidemic of Oxycontin and a wide variety of other opiates decimating our youth at every turn, then prepare yourself; with every drug dealer let go due to the William A. Hinton Laboratory debaucle in Jamaica Plain, it's more than possible that drugs will soon be returning to our streets with a venegeance. You should be gravely concerned if it's not in the realm of your consciousness to use, take, sell, ingest or "party" with illegal drugs. 

And for every undercover police officer who risked life, limb and happiness by having to immerse him or herself into the seedy underbelly of our society, for every street cop who took a risk and every detective who spent month after month trying to and eventually nabbing some of the very worst of all criminals, I feel a combined sense of sympathy and sadness. All of that work for nothing. A whole new corps of police will now have to be groomed and trained to re-attack what will likely be a veritable Mardi Gras of pills, weed and lord knows what else.

Oh, I'm sure some bozo out there who is as high as a kite right now, reading this, attempting to assimilate the "words" in front of him on his laptop will turn up the volume on his Bob Marley box set and practice typing in the form of a response and email it in. I'm certain that some half-wit with his or her mind numbed out and reverberating with echoes of illiteracy will demand "foul" on my part.

Too bad.

I'm sorry, but I've grown tired of a society that enables a great many of these George Jung wannabe's, these creepy, pseudo-educated buffoons who wouldn't know the difference between Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cucko's Nest and Spongebob Squarepants. We are already immersed in the midst of a drug-addled substrate of a world barely reflective of the one we all "grew up with" while our police departments are teeming with drug- and substance-related offenses to be prosecuted. Now we are about to unleash upon them a virtual Pandora's Box of Who's Who in the drug trade.

And we all know what comes with the illegal drug trade, right? Guns, crime, violence, betrayal, decimated families. Weren't things bad enough with an economy teetering on the brink of complete collapse?

I'm scared to death of the effect 34,000 compromised drug cases will have on each and every community in the state of Massachusetts, nevermind the "thousands" of drug cases in Barnstable County alone that may very soon be dumped into Cape Cod Bay like chum. I have every right to be scared.

Letting loose drug dealers awaiting trail will make this summer's flock of Great White sharks to our shores look like a St. Patrick's Day Parade. 

I have every right to want to live in an America that has no tolerance for people stoned out of their wits, or who are seeking to sell their sister's Christmas gifts for their next hit of crystal meth. I have an inalienable right with absolute impunity to judge people who leave their children half-starved, unbathed and in the full chokehold of abuse because they simply cannot get that monkey off their back. I do not feel in the slightest bit sanctimonious about it. It enrages me that we continue to coddle these soul-stealers and peddlers of lies in the form of hallucinogens and toxic powders and that our jails are about to unleash an entire army of them.

I've seen firsthand what drugs can do to a human being. I saw it in the hallways of my junior high school. I saw it in the hallways and parking lots of my high school. I saw it in the dorms at college. I witnessed it, shockingly, even in the Marine Corps. I saw it on the streets of Manhattan when I lived there. I've seen it as a coach in the town of Barnstable and I've experienced, sadly, losing young athletes to a world of addiction, lies, poverty and shame. Young men whom I cared about sucked down the black abyss of nothingness no matter how I tried to help. I've seen it in my extended family and folks, if you have not experienced it count yourself lucky. You can smash a drug addict over the head with his own bong and he'll just keep on Truckin' right out the door with your wallet in his hand.

There is no escape from it with one sole exception: do not do it.

If you thought that the issue of drugs in schools has been solved in any sort of a reasonable and comforting way, think again. I'm sorry but one resource police officer stationed in a high school of thousands would be fortunate if he or she could keep one or two would-be thugs from dealing in the hallways of our education system. That police officer's job just became ten times more difficult and all I can think to say is "May God be with you."

The floodgates are about to open. 

Sean Walsh is a columnist and a resident of Barnstable.