Major drug busts shed light on trafficking in North Carolina

NASHVILLE, North Carolina (WTVD) -- Three major drug busts in less than a week put into sharp focus the problem of drugs passing through and filtering into North Carolina.

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Special task forces with the Nash County Sheriff's Office and Iredell County Sheriff's Office took more than $5 million in methamphetamine off the street on November 15; just two days earlier, Nash deputies confiscated 6 pounds of marijuana in Rocky Mount; and the day before that, the Nash Sheriff's Tar River Regional Drug Task Force made an arrest resulting in $165,000 in heroin being taken in.

"This is a considerable seizure," said Chief Brandon Medina with the Nash County Sheriff's Office. "But what happens is, people are going to start going somewhere else to get it and then more people are going to come through our county. That's when we get the Highway Intervention Unit to get this stuff off the street."

"The only time really drugs are able to get caught a whole lot easier is when they're transporting it," said Nash County Sheriff Keith Stone.

Stone is just back from a terrorism and drug-training seminar in California. He said what surprised him most was the number of drug cartels amassed along the border: more than 200. Still, Stone said most of the drugs coming into the state are coming from the north.

"Most of our heroin trade is coming out of the northeast; New Jersey, New York, and things like that. But originally it comes across that Mexican border down there, it's transported up, then it's disseminated back down here. So, we really have two shots at them when it's up and down the roads."

Stone says it's hard to put a number on it and quantify how many drugs are pouring into the state but he said he thinks the good guys are winning.

"I think we're doing a good job with it. The way that we can tell is because the price of drugs is going up. And as the price goes up, that means we're cutting into it. And every day that we cut into one, we're saving it out of one home."

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