 Lakeland Public Television presents Currents with host Ray Gildow, sponsored by Niswa Tax Service, offering tax preparation for individuals and businesses across from the City Hall in Niswa and on the web at niswatax.com. Hello, guys, everyone, and welcome to Lakeland Currents. Today, we're gonna be talking about an issue that affects all of us, whether or not we are thinking about it. If we're driving down the highway, if you're in a grocery store, if you're in a neighborhood, it's something that can happen, can affect you, and that is the world of drugs. And today, we're gonna be getting a regional perspective from my guest, who are both from Wadena County, by the way, but they have worked in a larger area and they have a fair amount of background in this area. To my right, immediate right, is Melissa Burkholz, who is the Chief of Police for the Staples Police Department. And to her right in the white is Mike Carr, who is the Sheriff for Wadena County. Welcome, both of you, to Lakeland Currents. Thank you. Maybe you could just, we could start out by getting a little background about you, folks. Melissa, what's your background? I do know you're a Staples graduate. I am a Staples grad. I grew up in the area and stayed there, and I started out as a part-time officer with the Staples Police Department and worked up to a full-time position. And then I was appointed as a Sergeant, and then the Chief. And where did you actually go to your law enforcement training? To Central Lakes College in Brainerd. And then also to Hibbing for my skills, so. Sure, and Mike, I know you're a second-generation law enforcement. Mike Carr, senior, you're your father. What's your background? I graduated from Wadena High School and went to CLC, got my two-year degree there, and then Bemidji State University, and then the Hibbing's where I did my skills. I've been fortunate to have a pretty, start my 22nd year in law enforcement here in Wadena County, but I've been able to work in a lot of various different areas. Crowing County, Baxter Police Department, and pretty much every police department in Wadena County at one time or another. And Melissa, how long did you say you've been in the business now? 16 years. 16 years, wow. You've seen a lot of changes in your short careers. I mean, I look at it short as being under 40 years. A lot of changes in this whole area of drugs. And I think one of the debates that's occurring in most states right now is the medical marijuana debate, whether that's a good thing or not. Some states, like Colorado, I think, and I'm not sure if it's Washington, but there's a few states that have legalized marijuana. And I see there is a definite uptick now in car crashes related to some of these things. So that's a little bit scary. You also are involved with a drug task force. And you've been doing, you've been, who's on this drug task force? Is this a county level or is it a regional level task force? Wadena County is part of the West Central Drug Task Force. And then with that, I have a deputy sheriff who is a special agent that is on the West Central Drug Task Force signed to that area. And basically it's made up of various counties in our region. And then he also works mainly the Wadena County area. So is this something that one would find statewide a drug task force in most counties? Absolutely, yeah, a lot of counties are, there's various different drug task forces and stuff. BCA also has their, you got your DEA and stuff like that. But yeah, most counties are connected to some type of drug task force. In Wadena County, we're West Central and Todd County is Central Minnesota. And they're mostly multi-jurisdictional task forces where several counties will assign an agent or a deputy to the task force to work together. And they kind of know their area but they are fluid enough to work the other areas within the task force. I had Neil Dickinson out here a week ago who was the information officer for the Minnesota State Patrol. And I said, one of the things that you folks as law enforcement are doing now that is a little confusing to me and that is when you pull someone over in the old days, we were told to get out. But now you're asking people to stay in their vehicles. And he said, well, the most important thing for people is yes, stay in your vehicles and also have your identification and your license information for your insurance available but have your hands where we can see them. And my thought is that it must be petrifying when you pull up on a vehicle, you never really know if that person is normal or if that person's high on drugs. That's pretty frightening first few moments, isn't it? Yes. It is, and I know with our new hires and people going through schooling and things, it's an area that we cover a lot in officer safety techniques and things to watch for. And over time, there gets to be new trends in places to hide things or things that people do. And so you got to kind of stand top of that to make sure that your officers are safe and also still doing their job pretty soon. I had something happen to me that sort of was frightening too. It'd be a couple years ago now, I was driving on Highway 200 east of Walker and there was an old station wagon driving down the road in front of me. And all of a sudden it looked and there were like three patrol cars, lights blaring behind me. So I pulled over, I thought maybe they were checking me out for something and they pulled right around me and pulled this guy over and two more patrol cars came from the other direction and they all surrounded him and jumped out with their guns. And I'm thinking, this is my last day here. I mean, you just don't really know. But I read in the paper the next day that he was a drug lord. He was someone who they had information on and they were tracking him down and they caught him. Boy, you think about all the people and all the incidents that we've had this past year with law enforcement, I don't think people realize how frightening your job has become. It's not, a DWI is one thing when somebody gets out of the car and they're falling on the ground and they can't even talk to you, but when they're delusional and having these kinds of issues, that's really making your job tougher, isn't it? Yeah, it is. So for a long time, give us a little history of the drug issue in our area. Well, you know, I can remember, I remember our first lab in Wydena County was back in probably about the mid 90s. When you say lab? Lab, methamphetamine labs. You know, before that, I mean, we'd just, we'd never seen it. And that's when we really started taking notice on what was going on. Anyways, this lab was, there was an active lab that we took down in Blueberry Township in the northern part of our county. And, you know, not a lot of people were real familiar in our area about methamphetamine labs. You know what I mean? Back in those days. And when we, you know, as time went on, those labs just started to increase and more and more our SWAT teams were being activated a lot more because they are high-risk search warrants and stuff like that, that you're dealing with people that are using and cooking and stuff. But as time went on, we end up, I think on average, we combined with the Wydena Hubbard County SWAT team or combined together. I think we were taking at least two high-risk search warrants a month. And then, of course, legislation passed the law about pseudofedermin behind the counters. And, you know, statewide, and that just didn't help, you know, that was through our region statewide, but also United States-wide is, it's, you start seeing a decrease in methamphetamine labs. You know, the best way I can explain pseudofedermin Ray is that it's kind of like baking a cake. If you don't have flour, you can't bake a cake. And that's really what helped law enforcement in general of when they put pseudofedermin behind the counters, where you have to produce your driver's license, you know, and they allow you only so many packets. And it takes, you know, back in the day, it was usually about 1,000 pills of pseudofedermin to make a batch of meth. So that really, we've seen a huge decrease, and then we started seeing that meth kind of going down around our area. And then, unfortunately, it started to come back up again. Coming from, a lot of it was coming from Mexico. Some of the stuff we were getting on them, the Canadian area, but a lot of the stuff, about 90% of the stuff we're seeing right now is coming from Mexico. How are they getting through the borders? You know, it's coming in. I know that was one person, I know that tunnels actually went under our borders. Yeah, yeah. You know, it's just, it's one of those things that they have to tighten up our borders, obviously. But it's a drug that just seems to filter in through our borders. I know one of our biggest busts that we just took down here in the last year in the Wedding area was a box that came out from FedEx, you know, and they really teched the dog hit on it there, but they were trying to wrap it in spices and trying to, you know, so the dog wouldn't hit on it. But that was a, came out of the Mesa, Arizona, so a lot of our drugs now are not from local production, but they're coming from other places, Canada or Mexico. There's very few methamphetamine labs still occurring and the ones that are the real small kind of one pot method of cooking meth, it's not the big methamphetamine labs of the late 90s, early 2000s, and it's just easier and cheaper to haul it in large quantities from Mexico and get it that way. So how much do you see of the other drugs, the marijuana and the cocaine in the region? You know, we still, you know, I've seen marijuana still probably one of the more popular drugs around our area through all the region, the state and stuff like that. You know, heroin's on the rise. That's something that we're starting to see. We have two highway corridors that come through our county and though it hasn't, you know, it's coming here. It's kind of like that storm that you see moving, you know, really heavy out in the East Coast area and stuff, the bikers out in that area, but we're starting to see the heroin coming in. And these people, it's its business for them, so they look at ways to get into the field and so what they'll do is they'll flood the market with cheap, high quality heroin to get the people hooked on it and then increase the price and decrease the product as time goes on. And it's around, it's coming. There's certain areas around our immediate area that are severely affected by it and it's definitely, I think, one of the more devastating drugs because of the potential for overdose and the fact that a lot of the heroin coming into the area now is laced with fentanyl and other drugs that in small doses that somebody might have used 10 times before could kill them because of the toxic mixture of what they're mixing in with the heroin. I was telling you on the radio, coming in this morning, I heard them saying that the average methadone user, methane is a methane or methadone, are they two different things? Methamphetamines, anyway. Their lifespan is about five years and that's young people and I've seen these photos of people who are using it regularly. They lose their teeth and they lose their hair. They just wonder how do people get started and you made the comment earlier, Mike, before we went on air that you get this extreme high the first time they do this. It probably will never be that high again. They're just always trying to reach that high again and that's why they use more and more of it. We've seen, I think everybody is affected or you know somebody throughout your lifetime that's probably seen them addicted to methamphetamine but the one thing that's so noticeable and meth just eats you from the inside out. We've seen those pictures of, I remember, a gal over a 20 year span or a 15 year span of using methamphetamine and just to see how her appearance was towards the end. I mean it looked like it just aged her incredibly. So it does, it's a drug that just seems to really suck the life out of you and obviously it starts affecting your hygiene, your teeth and everything else and of course on the expensive end for the taxpayers, these people land themselves in jail of course. Their teeth, they need to go to the dentist and stuff like that because the pain that's caused by it and you know you get a lot of times too though you see the meth bites, you know or you'll start seeing them scratch and they feel like they've got bugs underneath their skin and they'll scratch it to the point where it starts bleeding and stuff but pretty noticeable. Obviously you can tell the difference when they're at all time highs, when they're tweaking, you know and what do you mean when they're tweaking? It's basically when they're at the all time high of meth is when they're basically uncontrollable, their gestures and stuff like that. Noticeable, law enforcement we deal with a lot more so we see it but you know it's pretty common if you, I've seen people when you're in a store or something you can just tell. So you have trained yourselves to be able to recognize users just by their physical characteristics? A lot of drugs and specifically methamphetamine it's pretty easy to spot people and sometimes it might take a little while but eventually the ticks or the scratching or the extreme paranoia and things like that they come out, they can't be hidden permanently and there's some people that can function somewhat for a short period of time once they become an addict and eventually they can't hold down a job, they can't pay their bills, they're homeless so now they're stealing, they're prostituting, they're doing things to make money, to buy the drugs. Were they paid some of them, had children? Absolutely and that's a whole other aspect of it is that the extreme cost to society and to counties and governments to pay for the human services side of it not only that, most of these homes that have children end up having the children put into placement, foster care, things like that at a huge taxpayer expense but also the treatment and the mental health aspects that go into the addict themselves trying to send these addicts who don't have jobs or sources of income through treatments and medical treatments, things like that, chemical dependency treatment and they have no way to pay for it themselves so it's a constant drain to the taxpayer and it costs everyone because when these people are addicts and they need the money, they're doing burglaries and they're doing these things so now it's costing everybody and that's why there's some argument about enforcement but you look at it and you see that for instance having Wadena County have an active drug task force agent and the amount of crime that has dropped just in Wadena County as an example because you're clamping down on the drug problem, mostly methamphetamine but other drugs as well and so you're seeing a reduction in burglaries and you're seeing a reduction in property crimes things like that that you can directly correlate to the fact that you're taking the drugs away from these people and enforcing that stuff so it affects everybody in some manner even if you don't directly know somebody you're affected as a taxpayer everybody is affected by it. Well your task force started in 2015 I believe is what you have here tell us what the task force does. Well obviously we have an agent that's on there Deputy Sheriff from Wadena County. So do you have one agent from one county? For yeah we have one deputy but he works with because we're the west central we pull from other agencies just like vice versa if there's a case in Becker County that our drug task force needs to go work with he will go over and assist them too so I think the numbers are right around between six to eight agents in a given time that are active in the west central drug task force but you know since we started our drug task force team we've seen a huge, we've made 63 felony arrests in the last year and a half. 63? 63. Some of the things that we've seized over 2,800 grams of methamphetamine which is close to about a pound of meth which is a street value about $282,000. That's huge and the thing is like the chief was saying these people one of the things is these people are stealing the burglarizing stuff like that and that's how they get their fix because they're not capable of having jobs they're holding down jobs so that's how basically where we end up I mean we end up in the course not only do we see a decrease in our burglars and thefts in Whitingi County but we've also seen a decrease in the number of salts that we have so we're seeing the one thing that is up is the number of drug cases we're doing. Also we have a higher number of child protection cases. So when your task force finds someone who's selling drugs, you take them to court, prosecute them, typically what are the first offense sentences, what happens to them usually the first time? Well they basically they plead guilty or not guilty they come up in their first appearance in court then of course the judge will set down whether it's a bail or not it just depends, every case is different it depends on the volume of it but usually they will set a bail amount for it. So some of them still do get back out on the streets but some of them end up going to jail? Yeah, yeah. When you said that you've got some size samples that are broke, so do you share that really with us because I think a lot of people have a hard time understanding what a grant is. And just so we know this is sugar in here that we have in here, you're not carrying on the stuff but this is kind of what Ray, what a gram of meth is. That's a gram. Yeah, this is a gram, like a sugar packet that you would see in a, yep, yep. And that's... There's not very much in there. And if you took that as a person who never has taken it before, how long would some effects of this last? Do you have any idea? Well it depends, there's times when some of these people they don't sleep for days on end. From that much? Yeah, they can keep going. For days without sleep? Yeah, yeah. Wow. And that's when you get a lot of the extreme behavior that is kind of the stereotypical meth addict behavior. They're extreme paranoia, agitation, extreme aggression. You can get a lot of your assaults and robberies and things like that occur once these people have been up for days. Just so we, I was gonna tell you too Ray, but something like this in our area, in our region goes for about $50. $50? $50, wow. And so I just wanna point out those prices to you, but the next one here is 3.5 grams, also commonly known on the street as an eight ball. But this is a $350. $350, how does that term eight ball come about? Do you have any idea? It's just a street term. Just a street term? It's been around for many years. Wow, 350 grams. And what if someone were a user regularly, how long would something like this last? You know, everybody's different. I mean, that's the whole thing. I mean, everybody's just different in how they adjust to use a meth. And of course obviously somebody that uses it quite often could last them a day, it could last them three days. You know what I mean? It could last them a couple weeks, you know? It'd be pretty easy to hide this stuff, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the other one here is this is a ounce, which is 28 grams. And this has a street value of $1,800. Wow. So. And that, you know, as things like this come into our area, we also have to make sure that our officers are aware of different new ways of hiding things. So we always have to stay on top of concealment methods. You know, they made pop cans that unscrew, shaving can creams. You know, you can fill spare tires. There's all kinds of methods that they use to conceal this because they don't want to get caught. It's a lot of innovative ways that these people hide their drugs. A lot of money at stake. Yeah, yep, yep. You know, and the thing is, is that, you know, there's some of the times, some of the best, you know, the hardest drug dealers that we've ever taken don't use methamphetamine. You know, and they're tougher to get caught and they only deal with just certain people. So they're just the dealers, but they don't know enough to stay away from it? Yep. Interesting. Let's talk a little bit about how they ingest this into their bodies. Yeah, so there's a couple, a few different ways that they can do it. They can obviously ingest it through their mouth. But the most common one is smoking it. They use a glass pipe, real similar to this one here. But that's the glass pipe that they would use to smoke methamphetamine. They heat it up. And then, of course, they use, it's true needle use as well. Snorting? Yep, and they, I think the needle use is another common way they call it as banging. And that's probably one of the, when you get to that point, that's a pretty heavy user. And you've got another product that's pretty common in most of the varieties. This is like your marijuana type pipes and stuff. And this is just for blowing up tires. Blowing up tires, yep, yep. It's a tire gauge, a Rval rather. So they would put it in there and then they would smoke it, light it up, yep. Wow. So. And does that stuff smolder when it's lit? Yep, yep. You know, and the thing is, is that, you know, it's amazing some of the things we've seen over the years. I can tell you back when the days when we had, we seized 80 acres up in Huntersville State Forest in our county. And I remember the guy, he was a cooker, a meth cooker up there. And you know, we had those, a lot of times we'd have tanks that were stolen from various co-ops and stuff. And this guy had stolen it, and Hyder's tank was part of their mixture in it, but he had stolen this tank and he buried it partially in the ground and camouflaged it and basically just so the planes wouldn't catch it and stuff up in the air. But he had a pretty elaborate lab system set up. So, I mean, we've seen a lot of things back in the days when there was the labs were at an all-time high. Very dangerous though, you know, they're very explosive, very volatile and stuff. But, you know, things have changed where we're not seeing those labs, but now we're seeing, I mean, the meth is still here, it's, I wouldn't, I don't know, I don't know necessarily if I'd say it's in an all-time high, but it's still pretty active. It's pretty active, you know. And obviously this has a big impact in families, big impact with kids. And typically if one parent is doing it, are they both doing it or is that just case by case? Well, I think it's case by case and a lot of these are broken homes already, so maybe the mother or father who has the children are with different people at different times, but typically if you're in a household where it's being used, it's being used by the adults in the household. And even if it's not, if it's just the one, it's still extreme concern for the child protection side of things. And, you know, we see it, the vast majority of the child protection cases we do are directly related to methamphetamine. And, or at least drugs, but specifically for, at least for my city, it's methamphetamine. And so these kids aren't getting properly cared for, they're not getting fed, they're not getting bathed, they're not getting to school. And, you know, there's certain checks along the way that allow us to make contact with them and get them into the services that they need, but they're still exposed to this and they're exposed to the smoke and the behaviors of their parents or the adults they're with when they're using. And that, of course, trickles down the road when these kids are growing up and what they don't know to be normal is not what they should have been subject to. How much of this are you seeing in the high schools? In the high schools, at least for our schools, the meth, it's there, but it's not a prevalent thing. Marijuana is so, kids are, society as a general, I think, is so desensitized to marijuana now. And I think that that's, it's pretty common to find that or find that kids have used that in high schools. I would say that marijuana and prescription drugs are the most prevalent drugs in the school. We haven't seen, we've had a little bit of heroin and a little bit of meth coming out of the high schools, but for the most part, I would say it's marijuana and prescription pills in the high schools. So looking at your statistics, your burglaries are down 13%, your theft is down 5%, your domestic abuse is down 11%, child welfare is up 25%, which means you're taking those kids out of those environments. Assaults are down 11% and the narcotic investigation is up by 52 cases. It would seem that you're making some progress. Yeah, I think, you know, I, you know, yeah, I want to give a lot of credit to our drug task force agent. I think that the stats have changed. He does a bang up job and what he's doing out here, but obviously we're a team out here and everything from the boots on the ground, the guys that are doing the patrol work, they're getting that information because without their information, our drug task force agent can do his. And that's how a lot of you get your informants and stuff like that through just your basic traffic stops. And that's what the chief was talking about earlier. Proactive traffic stops are the way to go with law enforcement, how we do business. And that's a small amount of marijuana. And I used to, I worked the drug world back in the day when I was a deputy and did child protection. But the things I seen when I was doing those cases back in the day were you get a small amount of marijuana and next thing you know, you're getting, making four or five arrests out of that. And it's pretty incredible. The child protection cases I did for 10 years before I became sheriff. And it was always real disheartening when you get to a house and you know, basically you'd see a bowl of cereal, or basically a box of cereal. Some milk in the fridge, always a pizza box. And you know, a liter of pop, you know what I mean? That was kind of the- I'm out of time. Thank you for taking the time to come here. And good luck with this task force. I think it's really important work that you're doing. And we'll keep in touch maybe have you back again a little later on and see how it's going. Thank you. Thanks a lot. Thank you. You've been watching Lakeland Currents where we're talking about what you're talking about. I'm Ray Gildow, so long until next time.