May 17’s West Seattle Crime Prevention Council (WSCPC) meeting brought crime updates from SPD Southwest Precinct Operations Lt. Pierre Davis and 30 years of Washington state drug knowledge from Steve Freng, manager of the Northwest High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) group. Crime report for May Lt. Davis had good news to report: burglaries, car prowls and auto thefts are all down for West Seattle. He highlighted the drop in burglaries as significant in relation to the spike seen last month. Lt. Davis said by the April 10 West Seattle had 23 reported burglaries for the month. He said the SW Precinct “corralled a bunch of bad guys out there” and for May at that same time the number had dropped to five reported burglaries. “We put a significant dent in a lot of the activities that have been going on … a lot of these guys were long time offenders in which we were able to (link them) through our repeat burglar program.” Working with King County prosecutors, the SPD works to put repeat burglars away for long jail sentences as part of the program, Lt. Davis said. Lt. Davis finished his report with a thank you to the West Seattle community for keeping a keen eye out for suspicious activity and asked that we remain vigilant in calling in that activity with specific details on suspects and their vehicles. Drug activity along the I-5 corridor Steve Freng, manager of the Northwest HIDTA group, presented an information-rich slideshow on drug trafficking, use and trends for Washington counties along the I-5 corridor. While many categories of drugs were covered, he discussed the huge rise in prescription drug use and overdoses as a highlight. As background, HIDTA (High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas) is a federal grant-funded program linked to the Office of National Drug Control Policy whose “mission is to measurably reduce large scale importation and local drug trafficking by intercepting shipments, disrupting local manufacturing and trafficking operations, and to reduce demand by supporting treatment and effective demand reduction programs. The Northwest HIDTA focuses on high-value trafficking targets and financial infrastructure,” according to their website. Freng said he has 30 years of experience working against drug problems in the Pacific Northwest, spending the first part of his career in a clinical setting before moving into the law enforcement and trafficking reduction side of the issue. He said he has been busy over those 30 years because “we have an incredible appetite for drugs” in northwest Washington. To illustrate the point, Freng said Washinton ranks near the top in U.S. state drug overdoses, with 12 of every 1,000 people. Freng said northwest Washington counties along I-5 (along with Spokane County) are high traffic areas, with designer drugs and marijuana coming in from Canada to the north and just about everything coming up from Mexico, especially methamphetamine and cocaine. In addition, he said while meth labs have dropped to near non-existence in the state, marijuana grow operations are on the rise. HIDTA data suggests that much of the pot consumed in Washington is grown locally, with Mexican-based operations mostly growing outdoors and Asian-based groups mostly growing indoors. The rising problem of prescription drug abuse Freng’s data on prescription drug use for our area brought sobering statistics: -Prescription opiates (generally painkillers like Oxycontin, Vicodin and methadone) are second only to marijuana as the first drug young people try -Prescription drug use in 2009 amongst people 12 and older is, again, only second to marijuana – leaving cocaine, meth and heroin far behind -Emergency room visits and drug-caused deaths from prescription opiates are higher than any illegal drug. “Now it’s all starting to cost us a little money,” Freng said in regards to taxpayer money helping fund emergency response to overdoses. -Newborns born with a drug dependency is topped by prescription opiates -And a statistic that puts the massive and common availability of prescription opiates in perspective from Freng: 119 million prescriptions for Vicodin were doled out by doctors nationwide in 2007. With just over 300 million people living in the U.S., that is a lot of Vicodin. While most prescription drugs are still being taken from parents or grandparents’ medicine cabinets, Freng said drug traffickers have started offering prescription drugs as a sale offering, so they are becoming more readily available on the streets. He said detection of abuse is difficult because most users who pillage medicine cabinets for the “orange bottles” don’t take the whole thing, but just a few pills so as to go undetected. Freng recommended putting prescription opiates in lockboxes and diligently throwing away the medications once the patients’ need subsides. Trends for other drugs From one of Freng’s slides: -Marijuana use at a high level, availability continues to increase, treatment admissions up substantially, grow operations pervasive -Methamphetamine has rebounded in prevalence and as a regional threat, mostly imported, small scale local manufacturing continues -Heroin use and availability has increased, treatment admissions up substantially, evidence of users transition from prescription opiates to heroin, use increasing outside of Seattle-Tacoma metro area. As Freng put it, “Seattle has had a love affair with heroin since the sixties and it’s not just in the city anymore.” -Cocaine use and impacts persist (high rate of ER visits although treatment admissions have decreased), focused primarily in Seattle-Tacoma metro area The outcome of marijuana legalization in Washington Freng was asked if he thought legalization of recreational marijuana use in Washington was a good idea. His response was that the black market “won’t go anywhere if we legalize.” Freng believes that even if marijuana could be purchased at a liquor store or pharmacy for $300 an ounce, the black market would persist with street dealers offering a lower price. He also warned that while marijuana has a reputation amongst many for being the least harmful of drugs out there, it still negatively impacts peoples’ lives, illustrated by the recent surge in treatment admissions for marijuana abuse and dependency. The West Seattle Crime Prevention Council’s next meeting will be Tuesday, June 21 and the guest speaker is Sergeant Adrian Diaz with the SPD Explorer Program that aims to “bridge the gap between youth and police by educating and involving them in police operations and to interest them in law enforcement,” according to a WSCPC handout.