Guns, baggies of heroin, cash, scales, pills and needles filled a display table in Roseville City Hall Friday.

From a podium City Council chambers, Roseville Police Chief James Berlin on Friday announced the results of a three-day, 22-agency, 100-officer-plus sweep targeting mostly heroin and opioid users and dealers in Wayne and Macomb counties.

Berlin said many of the arrested dealers were part of "dial-a-dope" operations, in which calls are made to a drug house and then a "runner" meets the buyer on the corner to make the transaction.

"It's become a national epidemic and we're trying to do everything we can to try and control what's taking place inside our communities," Berlin said.

It was named Operation Smack Down, the fourth such effort organized Macomb County law enforcement. The last was conducted three years ago.

Berlin said police made 187 arrests, including 125 for felonies, 62 for misdemeanors and 16 ordinance violations. There were five firearms and 53 vehicles seized. Police hadn't tabulated the total amount of drugs removed from the streets.

He described the several thousand seized black market pills -- many of them addictive pain killers -- as an "ungodly" amount.

"This operation was to disrupt the heroin flow as much as possible, the suppliers, the transports, et cetera," Berlin said.

They also targeted users, not with the intent to punish them, but in order to offer treatment and drug counseling. Every suspected user arrested on possession was offered drug treatment counseling, Berlin said.

"Our hope is that at least some of these folks will take advantage to get clean," the chief said.

Macomb 41B District Court Judge Linda Davis, who runs the county drug court and heads Families Against Narcotics, a community organization combating addiction, says the prescription drug problems is "really what's fueled the heroin problem.

"Until we get prescribing habits curbed ... then we're going to continue to see surges in heroin use," Davis said. "the number of (prescriptions) have tripled, quadrupled (over the last five years) ...

"So we've become a pill-popping nation. I think we're going to see it grow over the next five years, and our death toll will probably double each year."

Davis says, as doctors clamp down on prescribing practices in response to public pressure, addicts turn to black market alternatives for their fix, usually heroin.