Ohio

While cash remains the preferred currency, dealers will exchange electronic benefit cards, gift cards or stolen merchandise for drugs.

Identification is not required to use an electronic benefits cards, and it is legal to use another person's card with permission.

So far in 2014, the department sent letters to 5,478 cardholders who requested four or more replacement cards and notified departments about 91 people seeking 10 reissued cards.

A public assistance service that feeds Ohio's hungry families can double as currency for drug dealers who will trade almost anything for their product.

Dubious businesses and drug dealers will buy electronic benefits cards for about half the amount loaded onto the card. From there, people use the cash to buy drugs, said Eric Wolf, agent in charge with the Ohio Investigative Unit, which investigates food stamp fraud and liquor license violations.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps, cannot be used to buy items such as tobacco, alcohol or drugs. The penalties can be stiff for offending businesses and their owners because food stamp fraud is a felony offense, Wolf said.

In the past five years, the food stamp program has permanently disqualified 142 stores in Ohio for food stamp fraud — nearly all were in Ohio's largest cities. However, the U.S. Department of Agriculture does not track how many of those were related to drugs.

MORE COVERAGE: Check out our High in Ohio page





Cellphones a key tool for drug dealers

Sex and drugs: A dangerous combination

Drug dealers know laws, work around them

Drugs big business for Ohio dealers

While cash remains the preferred currency, dealers will exchange electronic benefit cards, gift cards or stolen merchandise for drugs, said Lt. Paul Cortwright, commander of the Central Ohio Drug Enforcement Task Force.

"Some drug dealers are like a pawn shop. They'll take almost anything for drugs," said Mansfield police Chief Ken Coontz, who oversees the METRICH Enforcement Unit, which covers nine counties north of Columbus.

Eleven states require drug testing for food stamp recipients, and most of those have passed laws within the past three years, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Ohio isn't one of them.

Ohio allows convicted drug offenders to obtain food assistance, and recent efforts to require drug testing in welfare benefits have not passed. In fact, they prompted efforts to require that Ohio General Assembly members take drug tests.

Some thought moving to the electronic cards would stem the problem. However, a buyer will give their PIN number and card to the dealer as payment for drugs, and the dealer might use the card to buy groceries, Coontz said.

Identification is not required to use an electronic benefits cards, and it is legal to use another person's card with permission.

Ohio Auditor Dave Yost pointed out the problem of monitoring food stamp fraud when he started office in 2011. At the time, Ohio reissued nearly 340,000 electronic benefit cards in a year. Between 2006 and 2011, 17,000 people received 10 or more replacement cards. There is no fee to replace cards.

He called on the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services to improve how they track fraud by sending letters to families that request more than four replacement cards in a year and producing regular reports of families that receive more than 10 reissued cards.

So far in 2014, the department sent letters to 5,478 cardholders who requested four or more replacement cards and notified departments about 91 people seeking 10 reissued cards. The numbers represent less than 1 percent of the 1.73 million Ohioans receiving food stamps and a significant drop since Yost audited food stamp fraud in 2011.

The department also set up a website to report suspected fraud, including food stamp misuse, on April 5, 2014. Since then, 658 food assistance complaints have been reported — more than 2.5 times the number of Medicaid fraud reports, according to Ohio Department of Job and Family Services records.

"These are steps forward on the journey of integrity, but that journey is never over," Yost said in a statement about the changes.

Gannett Ohio's Kristina Smith contributed to this report.

jbalmert@gannett.com

740-328-8548

Twitter: @jbalmert

Report food stamp fraud

Ohio Department of Job and Family Services launched a website earlier this year to collect reports of fraud in assistance programs. An online form is available at jfs.ohio.gov/fraud.

The Ohio Investigative Unit looks into businesses that illegally use food stamp benefits. Report fraud by dialing 677.