opinion

With feds' help, Martin County is arresting more dealers, seizing more drugs | Gil Smart

For years, Martin County Sheriff William Snyder told federal officials that illegal drugs can't get out of south Florida without moving through Martin County.

"We know Miami-Dade is a huge port of entry for drugs coming in from the Carribbean and South America," Snyder said. "It moves out of the ports up to distribution points. And unless you go west of Lake Okeechobee, those drugs are coming up our roads."

Finally last year, the feds agreed. And the result is more busts on those roads, more drugs seized, more arrests — and, Snyder hopes, more lives saved.

MORE: 49 arrested, 'eye-opening' array of drugs seized in Martin County drug interdiction

In September, Acting Director of National Drug Control Policy Richard Baum designated Martin County (and Collier County) as part of the South Florida "High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area." There are 28 of these regional "HIDTAs" around the country, encompassing some 66 percent of the nation's population.

The idea: make funding and, if necessary, manpower and advice available to local law enforcement agencies to run more drug details.

Twice this year, the Martin County Sheriff's Office set up highway drug interdictions, funded in part with HIDTA money, that seized huge quantities of drugs and resulted in a record number of arrests:

On Jan. 31, Feb. 1 and 4, the Sheriff's Office and its federal and regional law enforcement personnel staged interdictions along Interstate 95, State Route 714 and Florida's Turnpike.

The result: 102 arrests including 92 felony charges and five undocumented immigrants taken into custody by Border Patrol; 280 grams of heroin recovered, along with 5,311 grams of cocaine, 5,643 grams of marijuana, 900 Oxycodone pills and plenty more.

Law enforcement also seized more than $16,000 in currency, three firearms (including one that had been stolen) and two vehicles.

Then, in early March, a second HIDTA interdiction was held along Roue 710 near Indiantown.

The results this time: 49 arrests, including 36 felony charges; 70 doses of LSD, 34 Alprazolam pills, 26 doses of MDMA (known as ecstasy); 20.8 grams of psilocybin mushrooms and more.

This interdiction coincided, consciously, with the Okeechobee Music Festival.

"We knew it would be a huge draw for drug traffickers," Snyder said.

And users. I criticized local law enforcement last year for essentially laying in wait for unsuspecting concert-goers who had substances for their own personal use and no more.

Still, given the extent of south Florida's problem with drugs — opiods in particular — it's hard to argue with Snyder when he says the goal isn't merely to bust people:

"If you look at this as just a bunch of cops in the interstate hassling dopers, that misses the target," he said. "The real goal is to get this stuff off the streets."

The HIDTA program no doubt helps remove more of it from our streets.

The Sheriff's Office gets $162,500 in federal funding per year, money Snyder said is used to pay overtime for the deputies who staff the interdictions.

"We generally do three to four interdictions a year, but it's labor intensive and time-consuming," Snyder said. The HIDTA money "is an enhancement; I can do additional interdictions, and put more troops in the groups" working the detail.

The program also helps pay for a criminal intelligence analyst, and provides the sheriff's office access to federal intelligence via national databases.

"When we stop somebody during a HIDTA interdiction and run the name, maybe we find out they're a target in El Paso," Snyder said. "It makes us part of a national team."

The feds demand strict accounting for the money, he said. But Snyder's office calls the shots on where and when the interdictions are staged.

Not everyone thinks this is so great. In the Florida forum on the popular Reddit social media site, the late January/early February interdictions were slammed as "police state" tactics.

And if you're dubious whether the "War on Drugs" can be "won" by ratcheting up the same old tactics, all this might give you pause.

I've been in that camp for a while. But the older I get — and the more I see the ravages of opioids in particular — the more I think we need hardcore enforcement.

Even if it doesn't win the war, it might actually result in fewer casualties, as Snyder insists.

"In 2017 we had an average of 13 overdoses per month," he said. "This year it's 15 monthly, and we're having 2.3 deaths per month from overdoses.

"My only reason for going after this drug trade is the deaths and the harm it does to families affected by chronic drug abuse."

Gil Smart is a TCPalm columnist and a member of the Editorial Board. His columns reflect his opinion. Readers may reach him at gil.smart@tcpalm.com, by phone at 772-223-4741 or via Twitter at @TCPalmGilSmart.