http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200660923062

Drugs invade WNC

Illegal substances coming from outside the country as laws, police efforts crack down on local labs

ASHEVILLE — North Carolina’s success in shutting down hazardous meth labs has yet to curb sales of the illegal drug, which are soaring to record levels.

Statistics from drug seizures since 2002 in Buncombe County also show growing problems with cocaine, further evidence that increased amounts of drugs are moving into this region from outside the country.

Figures compiled by the Metropolitan Enforcement Group, Buncombe County’s primary drug enforcement agency, show:

• The dollar value of methamphetamine seized through the first of this year is already more than triple the value seized in the previous three years combined.

• Seizures of cocaine have already topped $1 million for only the second time since 2002.

• The number of marijuana seizures has stayed at consistent levels since 2002. However, the drug quantities and value of those busts are at record levels. In one example, drug agents seized 600 pounds of marijuana from an Arden home.

In Asheville, the numbers indicate more work ahead for community and city efforts that have linked reducing crime to curbing illegal drug sales. As drug seizures have climbed, so have the number of robberies and burglaries combined.

Those numbers climbed 24 percent from 2002 to 2005.

“The cheaper it gets and the more available it is, the more people will get trapped by drugs. The more people trapped, the more crime we’re going to have,” said City Councilman Carl Mumpower, who championed the “dealer down” drug reward program that offers cash to people who provide information on drug dealers.

In filling the void left amid crackdowns on Western North Carolina meth labs, Mexican drug producers have created what local drug agents call “super labs,” creating and exporting a far more potent form of meth.

‘Tripping’ so bad

Two years ago, Sharon Filer smoked so much ice — highly potent meth almost always made elsewhere — that she was still “tripping” the day after she took the drug.

She treated the near-fatal overdose as a wake-up call and, with the help of the community and friends, Filer said she has been clean and sober ever since.

“I was tripping so bad all I could think of was, ‘help me,’ in my mind,” she said.

Filer’s case is not unique as increased quantities of methamphetamine, like what Filer took, make their way to WNC, according to drug enforcement officers in the region.

The transformation of the methamphetamine trade highlights what officials are seeing on the streets.

Strict state laws regulating the sale of pseudoephedrine, a common cold medicine used in the production of meth, coupled with tougher sentencing have served to decrease the number of meth labs operating in WNC, said Mike Sheron, the agent in charge of the State Bureau of Investigation’s clandestine laboratory response team.

He said they’ve shut down about 40 to 50 fewer labs this year when compared to the same period last year.

“We are seeing a decrease in what we’re used to responding to on a weekly basis,” he said.

Sheron was doubtful that labs will disappear altogether. He said most meth “cooks” prefer their own drugs to those brought in from other areas.

In coming months, Sheron said meth from the super labs could increasingly close the gap left by the crackdown on producers in WNC.

While a transformation has taken place in the meth trade, cocaine still reigns as the No. 1 drug seized by law enforcement in both Asheville and Buncombe County.

“For some reason Asheville has a huge appetite for cocaine,” Asheville Police Capt. Tim Splain said.

Where cocaine is king

Over the past two years, city police have seized more than $1 million worth of cocaine and crack cocaine.

Capt. Daryl Fisher, former head of the city’s drug suppression unit, said the drug often reaches the city in its powder form. It is later turned into crack cocaine, for which dealers can get a higher profit.

“We seem to have an influx of cocaine from across the Mexican border based on the arrests we made,” Fisher said.

According to the federal Drug Enforcement Agency, 65 percent of cocaine smuggled into the United States crosses the Mexican border.

In one WNC example, from late 2003 to April 2004, a smuggling ring based in Arizona had moved at least 440 pounds of cocaine, worth about $4.5 million, into Asheville.

The cocaine was being flown by private plane into the Asheville Regional Airport and exchanged for money in public places such as parking lots of the Home Depot on Fairview Road and McDonald’s on Long Shoals Road.

Asheville Police have connected drugs being sold here as coming from sources in Mexico based on what suspects have told them, Fisher said. Some suspects give specific information in an attempt to lessen their punishment.

“I don’t know that there’s more dealing, but there’s definitely a bigger supply, which would indicate to us that the use is up,” Fisher said.

Marijuana busts growing

Law enforcement also has seen evidence of a bigger supply of marijuana based on recent busts, which are reaching record amounts.

In August, Metropolitan Enforcement Group agents seized more than 600 pounds of marijuana from a home in Arden. It was the second-largest seizure of processed marijuana that Allen, the head agent, had been a part of during his 12 years with the group.

Allen said a smuggling ring had used the house for drug storage.

“Most marijuana is what we call commercial dope,” he said. “Most of what we get in this area comes from Mexico to Arizona.”

In Madison County, where there have been several large busts in recent months, Sheriff John Ledford said he is finding that marijuana comes from three main sources: Mexican marijuana, indoor growing operations that produce a more potent drug and marijuana brought from British Columbia in Canada.

“It used to be trafficking marijuana arrests were not a real common thing in law enforcement,” Ledford said in reaction to the Arden raid.

Ledford said there have been at least a dozen large seizures over the past two years in Madison County, the largest being two years ago when 175 pounds were found during a vehicle stop.

Community effort

Regardless of where the drug comes from, by the time it reaches the streets it brings the same problems in places such as Ducker Road in Arden, the community where Filer found support after her near death two years ago.

When Filer, the recovering addict who nearly died on a meth overdose, first came the Asheville area, she said she was trying to leave a life of drugs behind. In Greenville, S.C., she said she had been on the streets and addicted to crack cocaine.

But her addiction caught up to her. “You can’t move away from drugs,” she said.

It was her landlord, Cookie Mills, who found Filer the day after her near-fatal overdose. Mills helped her with her addiction through a newly created neighborhood organization, the Ducker Road Community Involvement Council.

While Asheville drug enforcement officers said most enforcement is concentrated on many of the city’s public housing developments, drugs had been destroying Mills’ childhood neighborhood on Ducker Road.

He said people buying and selling drugs were using the neighborhood as a marketplace. Although Mills is no longer a resident of Ducker Road, he helped start a neighborhood council to clean up his childhood community.

In the two years since the council was formed, Mills said members have seen seven loved ones die as a result of drugs.

“I feel that drug-related activity takes place in the community because the community makes the drug dealers feel comfortable there,” he said.

Mills said community members are now reaching out to drug addicts in their own neighborhood and elsewhere, and he said he’s seen a marked improvement in the neighborhood with regard to dealers.

Connie Ruff, a recovering addict from Hendersonville, attended her first meeting with the council this past week. She said her 19-year-old son recently recovered from a drug-induced coma, and a year ago, she lost her brother to drugs and alcohol.

With Mills’ help, she now has a full-time job at an Arden manufacturing company and has been clean for nearly a year. She said she’s been able to refer people she knows to Mills and his group.

“It’s getting better every day,” she said. “I don’t even take an aspirin anymore, it feels too good to be clean.”