Ohio Highway Patrol achieves increase in amount of drugs it seizes

The Ohio Highway Patrol has taken more drugs off of the state’s highways for the first half of 2017 than what it seized in the comparable period of 2016.

“The OHP has stepped up enforcement, there’s no doubt about that,” said OHP Lt. Robert Sellers.

He attributed the increased numbers to a higher demand for the drugs and to the fact that OHP has gotten better at detecting and seizing drugs.

In 2011, OHP started going beyond it’s core focus of highway safety and began focusing efforts on the criminal elements.

“Stop the cars, look at the safety, and then look beyond the plates,” he said.

Troopers are no longer just writing tickets. They are making sure there is nothing criminal going on at the same time.

According to Sellers, the OHP has achieved tremendous success in its efforts to remove drugs and criminal elements from Ohio’s roadways.

“We haven’t won the war on drugs yet, but we are making progress,” he said. “That is evident by the amount of drugs taken off the roads.”

According to statistics from the OHP, troopers have seized $198,486,784 worth of drugs from the highways since 2012.

From January through mid-July in 2016, the OHP removed 99 grams of cocaine from Lorain County roadways. During the same time period in 2017, they removed 8,361 grams, for an 8,365 percent increase.

For the same time period in 2016 in Lake County, they seized 4 grams of cocaine. In 2017, the numbers soared to 1,004 grams, resulting in a 24,696 percent increase.

In Cuyahoga County for January through mid-July 2016, troopers confiscated 804 grams of cocaine compared with 952 grams in 2017, for an increase of 18 percent.

In 2016 in Geauga County, troopers seized 1 gram of cocaine, compared with none in 2017 for a 100 percent decrease.

Statewide, troopers seized 38,440 grams of cocaine during the first half of 2016 and 67,563 grams during the same time period in 2017, for an increase of 76 percent over the previous year.

These numbers reflect only the percentage of what has been seized by OHP and do not include what had been confiscated by federal agents, narcotic units, sheriff’s offices or local police departments.

Sellers can’t say that all of the drugs that were confiscated were heading to communities in Ohio, but they were targeted for communities somewhere.

“The drugs are getting into our communities and to get here, they have to travel across our roads,” he said. “We are the frontline of fighting drugs, stopping it before it gets to the communities.”

According to Sellers, by intercepting those drugs before they get into the communities — and into the hands of dealers and users — there’s no telling how many lives will be saved.

Like anything else when it comes to drug interdiction, law enforcement officers have to be aware of changing trends.

According to Sellers, OHP studies those trends — such as methods of transporting drugs — to stop narcotics from coming into communities. Looking at seizure reports is another way to tell what is trending. On a local level, OHP commanders look at those trends so they can be aware of what the problems are in their area and to know how to attack these issues.

Sellers said one thing that stands out is often cocaine distribution and use tends to increase at the same time as heroin. According to Sellers, that can be attributed to drug dealers having made it in the heroin market and starting to traffic other drugs to increase their sales.

Sellers equates the battle against drugs to a threelegged stool, and in Ohio, all three legs need to work together for it to be successful.

Drug interdiction is just one leg of that stool.

Prevention, reducing the demand and the ability to help those addicted through recovery represents another leg.

Finally, “One leg of the stool is that our law enforcement partners also do an outstanding job. We have great law enforcement partners,” Sellers said. “There isn’t any one agency that can do it all by themselves and without the support of your partners, you can’t have this kind of success.”

“The drugs are getting into our communities and to get here, they have to travel across our roads.” — OHP Lt. Robert Sellers