Drugs across the Flathead

Drug enforcement is a never-ending, constantly evolving job tied to the cyclic patterns of dealers’ and users’ activity, but it’s a pursuit law enforcement officers in Flathead County know well.

The cycle those officers are seeing now is being led by an increase in heroin traffic, new growth in methamphetamine traffic and a slackening in marijuana traffic.

Those trends have been identified mainly through work done by the Northwest Drug Task Force, an anti-narcotics team that includes participants from several local, state and federal agencies.

The task force commander, who asked not to be identified by name, said his agents previously had been seeing many drug users, who would otherwise be shooting heroin, instead using oxycodone and other opiate-based narcotics.

“But now some of the manufacturers have put into the medication something that stops it from being changed from its solid state, which makes it very hard for somebody to inject. I think the whole industry is also getting tighter as far as being aware of the problems and everyone trying to fill those gaps,” the task force commander said.

“When that happens and the supply of medication goes down, then people who are addicted go back to the original source, and that’s heroin.”

The type of heroin being found by agents is the amber-like black tar heroin coming out of Mexico, the same source of the cocaine and methamphetamine being seen in the Flathead Valley. The commander said those two drugs are also on the rise.

One drug that has not been growing in the area, so to speak, is marijuana. The commander said part of that is because the weather right now is not conducive for outdoor marijuana grows, so those numbers are declining, at least for the moment.

Flathead County Sheriff Chuck Curry shared other positive news — that despite meth being on the rise, the price of meth to users has skyrocketed, making it more difficult to obtain.

“The [prices have] gone up probably for a number of reasons, not the least of which is enforcement,” Curry said. “We have taken just this calendar year so far, over five pounds of methamphetamine off our streets.”

Curry said that figure needs a point of reference, and explained that meth is now selling for close to $2,500 per ounce. With 16 ounces to a pound, that means the five pounds confiscated thus far has a street value of roughly $200,000.

“With control of the precursors — the ingredients used to make meth — you can’t just go shoplift enough Sudafed now to make a batch of meth, and the price went up because the availability dropped,” Curry said. “Now what we have seen is there has been an increase in the availability of imported meth.”

The task force commander pointed out another effect of the state’s crackdown on precursors.

“It reduced the number of meth labs to what we’re seeing today — absolutely nil,” he said.

He explained that such shifts are regular occurrences in the drug world.

“Narcotics is just like any other business,” the task force commander said. “Let’s say you’re a shipper, and you’re shipping furniture from New York City to Los Angeles. If part of your transportation hub fails, you’ll find a way to get around that to get that load where it’s going. The narcotics trade is not a whole lot different, only with the exception that it’s totally illegal.”

It is with that in mind that the task force goes about its duties, uncovering small-time players in the local drug scene and tracing a path up the ranks to the movers and shakers of the drug business — a $53 billion business in the U.S. last year, according to the task force commander.

“That’s our ultimate goal, to go as high up that ladder as we can and eventually, if we can, take out the supplier and destroy their transportation,” he said.

As for how task-force agents complete that mission, indeed how they complete just their day-to-day work, that’s a topic kept under tight wraps.

“For the betterment of the community, the less the bad guys know about how agents conduct their investigations, what they do and what their secrets are, the more successful we’ll be,” the task force commander said.

But no matter how successful the task force, Curry, and other law enforcement agents are, it is likely a job that will never be done.

“Unfortunately there is that segment of society that’s going to be chemically dependent and it doesn’t matter how expensive we make it or how difficult we make it to get,” Curry said. “We may drive them from one drug to another, and it’s not until they’re either in jail or in treatment that they’re going to quit using drugs, though I’m not saying that’s every drug user.”

Still, the task force commander sees possibilities, and focuses on where the biggest difference can be made — individual people.

“We can put people in jail, but I think we have a limited amount of success. Some people just have to go to jail because of circumstances. But giving them information that will perhaps make them make a better choice is the real key,” he said.

Reporter Jesse Davis may be reached at 758-4441 or by email at jdavis@dailyinterlake.com.