At the risk of mauling a pun, we must point out that the divers convicted and sentenced late last month after they were detected attaching canisters with marijuana to ships at Port Bustamante are literally and figuratively small fish in the illicit drug trade.

So while Acting Commissioner Owen Ellington is justified in rejoicing in the apprehension and sentencing through the due process of the law, he, too, concedes that they are but a link in an extensive chain - an important one, but merely a link nonetheless.

He was reported in yesterday's STAR as saying: "Every time the police are able to disrupt the movement of drugs, we win a small battle in our attempts to limit the number of guns coming into the island and the amount of money available to criminals for use in their criminal enterprises. In addition, when we catch divers, we disrupt the trafficking operations of several criminal syndicates because divers are crucial to their operations as they often work for several criminal groups."

There is absolutely no mention, though, of the backtracking of the operations from the divers to the movers and shakers in the criminal gangs.

However, that is the only way that the trade in illicit drugs and the attendant inflow of guns will be stemmed. The two divers who pleaded guilty and have been packed off to serve their sentences are simply a point of contact, which will be replaced soon enough, and it will be business as usual.

Therefore, even as we congratulate the police on winning this 'small battle', we remind them and ourselves that there is still a war to be won.