Drug seizures in Phoenix hit historic milestone amid COVID-19 pandemic
Apr 1, 2021, 4:25 AM
(Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)
(Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)
PHOENIX – Not even a global pandemic could slow the drug trade, and in the Valley, things seem to have gotten worse.
“In a COVID environment, we didn’t notice any decline in drug activity,” Phoenix Police Department Commander Jim Gallagher with the Drug Enforcement Bureau told KTAR News 92.3 FM on Monday.
While many things in day-to-day life slowed down because of the coronavirus pandemic, drugs making their way into Phoenix did not. In fact, the Phoenix Police Department in 2020 saw some of the largest individual drug seizures in the department’s history.
Over the past year, Gallagher reports seeing more organized groups engaging in large-scale drug dealing alongside local dealers.
Despite that, the mass quantities of drugs uncovered in Phoenix is not the only concern. Rather, it’s the fact that there is no quality control.
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“Drugs that we are seeing entering into Phoenix are coming from super labs in other places where they are created in mass quantities, and you don’t know what you’re going to get,” Gallagher said.
Many of the drugs created in super labs include unknown ingredients. Drugs on the street can be sold as one type of drug, but in reality, there is no clear understanding of what’s actually inside it and what it can do to a person’s health.
As a result, Gallagher says many first-time drug users can experience extreme side effects and even death.
Law enforcement seizures of illegal drugs throughout the United States showed a rise in methamphetamine and marijuana confiscations during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to analysis from the National Institutes of Health.
While investigators found that trends in heroin, cocaine and fentanyl seizures were not affected by the pandemic, provisional overdose death data shows that the increased drug mortality seen in 2019 continued through the first half of 2020.
Gallagher described drugs as being “literally everywhere in Phoenix” and encouraged parents to talk to their children about the dangerous consequences of drug use.
