Applauding police for getting drugs off street
We find it almost hard to imagine 145 pounds of marijuana.
It’s often been called grass, or weed (though technically it’s a flower) and, like other leafy vegetable matter, tends not to weigh a lot.
So when Hartford police recently raided what they termed a mini shopping mall for illegal drugs masquerading as a restaurant, and allegedly collected 145 pounds of marijuana, it also qualified as the biggest such seizure to date this year in the city. That’s a lot of marijuana.
But we also need to mention the 160 bags of fentanyl, “14 grams of cocaine, hundreds of THC edibles and candy bars, 2 pounds of hallucinogenic mushrooms, 100 bottles of liquid THC and 50 Bottles of ‘Lean,’ ” $30,000 in cash and four guns police said they found at that location.
And the total street value of that lineup? Some $500,000, according to police.
The massive haul of drugs — some of them are potentially very deadly, we know from often quoted state statistics about overdoses — is the result of months of investigation.
To this we say: well done.
The Hartford Police Vice and Narcotics Division, with assistance from the C4 Division, FBI Task Force, South Street Crimes Unit, area Community Service Officers, Connecticut State Police Task Force and the Department of Revenue Services joined to serve the search and seizure warrant at the site: 451 Franklin Ave.
Eight people were arrested as a result, and police have said more arrests are expected. Four of the suspects in this case to date are from Connecticut, the others from Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.
We know the charges imposed are simply allegations; it will be up to a jury to decide guilt.
But the photos authorities provided following this haul are chilling in that they allegedly show what police said were the weapons found there and the illegal drugs “kind of spread out as if it was a market or shopping mall.”
Police Lt. Aaron Boisvert said the site “was posing as a restaurant. From what I understand, they were charging a cover fee to get in, and then they had a little shopping center set up.”
The alleged ruse included the name of the operation:
“Hot Mammas,” listed online as Mama’s Hot Delicious Food & Restaurant LLC.
Now the wares of this alleged operation are thankfully in the hands of authorities and, as importantly, that means they are off the street. Off the street in a state where more than 1,300 people died from opioid overdoses in 2021 and off the street in a city where a 13-year-old died this year after ingesting fentanyl.
It is no longer illegal for an adult to possess up to 1.5 ounces of cannabis in Connecticut, and retail sales of it could come later this year.
It’s not hard to picture that there could be places that will eventually legally spread cannabis out in a market-style way.
That’s not yet legal while the state continues its licensing procedures.
But dealing fentanyl to the public will never be legal. We applaud police and other authorities for working together to get this and other substances off the street and out of a potentially deadly supply chain.