Drugs smuggled aboard commercial vessels often areintermingled with legitimate goods such as fruit, vegetables, detergent, coffee,and seafood inside shipping containers or concealed within the walls of thecontainer itself. Drugs smuggled aboard coastal freighters or bulk cargo shipsare typically concealed in false compartments and fuel tanks. Several differenttypes of maritime vessels are used to smuggle a single drug shipment. Local law enforcement agencies are trying to crack down drug trafficking in Tallahassee but because meth can be made in homes, it’s not as obvious, and users often become dealers. So, agencies like the Leon County Sheriff’s office rely heavily on old methods like anonymous tips and traffic stops.
Meth is made with simple household products, which makes it one of the easiest drugs to access. According to The National Institute on Drug Abuse, meth users are more susceptible to extreme weight loss, tooth decay, anxiety and hallucinations. “A much higher percentage of the overall drugs received in the panhandle are methamphetamine,” Havener says, “where in Orlando and Fort Myers area where you’ve got those central and southwestern counties you see a much higher percentage of cocaine.” The operation also involved the Federal Bureau of Prisons, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Border Patrol, the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office and seven law-enforcement departments in Georgia, the PCSO said. Members of HSI in Atlanta and Tampa, U.S. Border Patrol and the Snellville Police Department in Georgia stood behind Judd at Thursday’s news conference.
During the investigation, detectives learned the suspected drug trafficker was 37-year-old Brian Stanton. They said he was arranging the sale and delivery of meth while incarcerated in the U.S. Meers’ arrest, according to the release, led investigations to the location of three meth conversion labs in Georgia. This in turn led to three arrests and 1,416 pounds of crystalized and meth capital of florida liquid meth being seized.
The Polk Sheriff’s Office heads the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Task Force, which includes local police agencies. The Haines City Police Department took part in the operation, Judd said, and was represented at Thursday’s news conference by Lt. Isaac Jackson. The 24 orange buckets displayed at the news conference were of the same type used by the traffickers and symbolized the amount of liquid meth seized, Judd said.
Production
The design and symbolism of flags can reflect a place’s history, culture, and values, and can also have a significant impact on national identity and international relations. Economics is the study of how societies allocate and manage resources to meet human needs and wants. This category includes metrics such as gross domestic product (GDP), inflation, unemployment, and international trade. Other factors such as income distribution, government policies, and economic growth potential are also included.
The group plans to start a recovery house for methamphetamine addicts and a new court-ordered methamphetamine class, Combee said. Meanwhile, ice, a more potent form of methamphetamine, has been mixed with Strawberry Nestle Quick to target teenagers as young as 14, Combee said. Six labs were busted in Hillsborough County this year and two and three labs were shut down this year in Orange and Pasco counties respectively. Methamphetamine makers used to be able to buy cough medicine in bulk, but the law has stopped that, Polk County sheriff’s Chief W.J. Martin said.
$53 million in drugs seized in multiagency operation including the Polk Sheriff’s Office
- Treatment data indicate that there are fewermethamphetamine-related admissions to publicly funded treatment facilities inFlorida than for cocaine, heroin, or marijuana.
- When they retrieved the narcotics from Meers’ truck, they found luggage with 16 vacuum sealed bags containing approximately 35 pounds of methamphetamine.
- Law enforcementofficials in Florida seized 5 kilograms of methamphetamine from commercial andprivate vehicles as part of Operation Pipeline in 2001, and USCS officials inFlorida seized almost 3 kilograms of methamphetamine from similar conveyancesthat year.
- Florida has 131 public airports–13 international–and over 700private airports, airstrips, heliports, and seaplane bases.
But more money has gone toward enforcement and little is spent on rehabilitation and prevention methods, Combee said. The federal Drug Enforcement Agency shut down 23 labs this year in Brevard County, which is on Florida’s east coast and has a population comparable to Polk’s. DeSantis said meth is “almost all coming across the southern border and it’s been accelerating for the last six months.” Increased flow of meth across the southern border is a problem “of our own creation,” said Sanho Tree, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and director of its Drug Policy Project. Making matters worse, this new influx is difficult to detect at the borders because it can be dissolved in containers and beverages, then converted back into crystal form for distribution.
Evansville was once described as the “meth capital of the world” although the number of methamphetamine-related incidents in 2019 has greatly decreased since 2013. We used recent data from the National Clandestine Laboratory Seizure System compiled by the Missouri State Highway Patrol to determine the top 10 meth states in the U.S. Mexico has not passed any laws regulating the sale of pseudoephedrine, so drug gangs there buy it in mass quantities, produce methamphetamine in bulk and smuggle it across the border. What drug agents are seeing a lot more of is a particularly pure form of methamphetamine, called ice, Waller said. However, the fact that there’s less methamphetamine being manufactured here doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s less meth use in Polk County, law enforcement agents and drug treatment volunteers say.
Grady Judd was elected sheriff in 2004 after many years as a top deputy to predecessor Lawrence W. Crow Jr. Since taking over, Judd has become perhaps the most recognizable and media-friendly law enforcement official in the I-4 corridor. “There’s been a dry spell, but that’s not uncommon. During that dry spell, you’ll see an increase in cocaine and other drugs, because they’ll pretty much use whatever’s out there,” Combee said. “But I still very much deal with addicts every single week. There’s still plenty of meth out there and plenty of meth addicts.”
Record Meth Bust In Polk County Tied to Mexican Cartel
“There’s certain drugs that we would look at and we would say, ‘that’s a drug that going to hit the black community, that’s a white drug.’ But you know what? It removed the taste of addiction from her,” he explains. Wallace says she told him, “I like to get high, but I don’t want no more crack – this meth is where it’s at.” Leon County Sheriffs Deputy Michael Wallace has seen the toll of meth first-hand. When he worked in Gadsden County, he befriended a known drug user, who got addicted to meth. Meth, also known as ice, crank, speed and Tina, is no longer being cooked in the stereotypical low-grade, trailer park meth kitchens.
- On March 13, Stanton had 43-year old Jennifer Meers, a woman from Stone Mountain, Georgia who is on federal probation for drug trafficking, deliver a suitcase carrying 26 pounds of meth to an undercover detective at a hotel in Lakeland.
- Meth is a highly addictive substance that is often manufactured illegally in clandestine laboratories.
- Meers’ arrest led investigators to three labs in Georgia used to convert liquid meth into crystalized form, the PCSO said.
- This category includes metrics such as flag design, symbolism, and history, and contains many groupings of flags based on their colors.
Instead, “super labs” in Mexico are making very pure and cheap meth that then gets smuggled into Florida by Mexican cartels. Detectives found luggage containing about 35 pounds of meth in Meers’ truck, the PCSO said. “We have information that she was immediately delivering and couriering meth for the Juarez cartel just as soon as she got out of prison,” the sheriff said.
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“We’ve got two different federal grants, and also, we’re working as a team with local police departments, state and federal law enforcement, focusing on the problem of the production and sale of methamphetamine.” Mexican DTOs and criminal groups, the dominant transporters ofmethamphetamine, usually smuggle the drug in commercial and private vehiclesfrom Mexico, California, and southwestern states into Florida. Law enforcementofficials in Florida seized 5 kilograms of methamphetamine from commercial andprivate vehicles as part of Operation Pipeline in 2001, and USCS officials inFlorida seized almost 3 kilograms of methamphetamine from similar conveyancesthat year. Purity levels for methamphetamine vary depending on the level ofdistribution and the production method used. According to DEA, in Floridakilogram quantities of methamphetamine produced in Mexico, California, andsouthwestern states are usually 80 percent pure before being cut with diluentssuch as MSM.
The goods often arefalsely invoiced or smuggled into Colombia to avoid taxes and tariffs. Merchantsoften resort to the BMPE to obtain dollars because it is generally moreefficient and less expensive than purchasing currency through the officialbanking system. Judd’s openness and the media’s increased hunger for breaking news raised Polk’s news profile long before the events of December and January. With Orlando and Tampa Bay media markets overlapping in Polk, the county’s crime news becomes the primary window on Polk life for thousands of people from Daytona Beach to St. Petersburg.
Polk Kicks Meth Mecca Reputation
The financial impact on Florida’s government from substanceabuse-related costs and services is significant. According to the NationalCenter on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, in 1998, themost recent year for which these data are available, Florida spent over $3.1billion on substance abuse-related costs and services. This entailed spendingacross program areas including justice, education, health, child-familyassistance, mental health-developmental disabilities, public safety, and thestate workforce. This figure amounted to almost 10 percent of the totalexpenditures for the state. When the cost of lost productivity andnongovernmental expenses by private social services are factored in, estimatesfor total substance abuse-related costs are even higher. According to the Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS), substanceabuse-related treatment admissions to publicly funded facilities in Floridaincreased from 52,997 in 1997 to 67,734 in 2001.
Health Department officials attribute thespread of hepatitis A to methamphetamine abusers with poor hygiene.Methamphetamine abusers reportedly have infected other members of theirhouseholds through poor food handling practices. Crystal methamphetamine–also known as ice, crystal, glass,Tina, shabu, batu, hiropon, vidrio, ventana, and shards–is a colorless,odorless, higher purity form of d-methamphetamine. It is produced using a”washing” technique that involves dissolving powderedd-methamphetamine in a solvent such as acetone or denatured alcohol. The processresults in crystals that resemble glass fragments or shiny blue-white”rocks” of various sizes.
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