(WXMI) — The DEA’s office tells us drugs have several routes to get here, both starting from our neighbors to the north and south.
“Of course, we've got the main arteries all through the country. That makes it pretty easy once it's on this side of the border,” DEA Assistant Special Agent Derek Ress said.
More than a thousand miles separates Mexico from Michigan. Local law enforcement still sees the impact of drugs crossing the border, but not to the extent of our neighbors to the south.
“We're not seeing the violence that they see down there, the arrests, the big massive seizures that you would sometimes equivalate to some of the Southern cities down there,” Ress added.
Our Canadian neighbors, though, are much closer by a few hundred miles.
“The Canadians are starting to see some problems with with both Mexican and Asian precursors coming on over into their country and then funneling its way down into America as well,” Ress said.
The DEA explains drug traffickers are using methods other than typical interstate roads to get drugs into our area.
“We’ve seen a lot of stuff through the mail, through FedEx, UPS postal,” Ress said. “We recently saw out of one of our airports here in Michigan, over 300,000 fentanyl pills coming in on four suitcases. So, it's also been a popular method.”
The Kent County Sheriff’s Office explains they’re seeing an increase in drug activity here. The sheriff’s office explains its detectives are seeing a rise in meth, cocaine and fentanyl cases. They add the number of gun seizures related to drug investigations has doubled and the number of search warrants tied to drug activity has increased.
The Kent County Sheriff’s Office explains the primary source of overdose deaths were from fentanyl, cocaine and meth. They add there was a large decrease in heroin deaths. They credit that to the availability of Narcan.
“One thing we've noticed in this area is that the prices of cocaine, of fentanyl, of methamphetamine have gone up a bit since the new administration has come in,” Ress said.
The local agent explains a couple of reasons why that’s the case.
“That usually equivalates to it being harder to come across the border or the cartels anticipating it becoming a little bit more difficult to get their drug shipments across,” Ress said.
What we know about the recent deal to ward off tariffs is more border security from our neighboring countries. Ress adds they’re going to keep a watchful eye and get drugs off the streets.
“We're always trying to adapt to the times; the cartels are always trying to get innovative in their ways to get the drugs across. And we'll continue to fight that and monitor that,” Ress said.
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