ANCHORAGE - A drug bust this week in Anchorage underscores a major area drug problem, authorities say.
Officer Mark Laport with the Anchorage Police Department’s Special Assignment Unit says heroin abuse is on the rise. The $400,000 worth of cocaine and heroin intercepted by police on Wednesday would’ve fueled that demand, Laport said.
Addiction specialists at Anchorage’s only methadone clinic, The Narcotic Drug Treatment Center for Drug Problems, say while it may only take one hit of heroin to get addicted, it takes up to five years of treatment to undo the damage of that one hit.
One woman currently receiving treatment at the clinic says if it weren’t for her doses of the pink liquid form of methadone, she’d still be a slave to her heroin addiction.
“I would not be anywhere near where I am today if it were not for the methadone clinic,” Olivia Ortiz said.
Ortiz was lucky. Because she was pregnant, she was able to skip the methadone treatment wait list.
“There are currently nine people on the wait list,” said Jennifer Stukey, nursing supervisor at the Center for Drug Problems. “The person that’s number one on that list has been on that list for 270 days.”
Stukey says that’s because the demand for opiate treatment is growing.
“The supply is there,” Stukey said. “It’s on the street and they’re using it.”
APD’s Special Assignment Unit has been working to curb the availability of heroin in Anchorage. Their efforts were made apparent in a major drug bust this week.
“There was a kilo of cocaine, which is a thousand grams, and there was a half a kilo, just under a half kilo of heroin,” Laport said.
Laport says the $400,000 worth of drugs that were intercepted by police was made possible by new training his unit is offering to hotel workers.
“I’ve been working with members of different national chain hotels educating them on what to look for,” Laport said. “A lot of drug dealers use hotels to distribute and or transport drugs.”
Laport says drugs are either shipped in or physically carried into Anchorage by “mules,” people who physically carry the drugs themselves and fly into areas on commercial airlines.
He says this week’s bust will impact Anchorage’s drug scene, but much more needs to be done.
“In realistic terms, it puts a small dent in it,” Laport said. “Imagine, he’s been up here a couple of weeks and he’s had three packages delivered and we got one off. We took one of those packages.”
Laport was referring to 27-year-old Markee Allen of California, who was the recipient of the package containing the drugs that were seized at a local motel. According to a press release from APD, Allen was charged in a federal complaint with attempting to possess cocaine and heroin with intent to distribute it to others.
Officer Laport encourages any area hotel to reach out to him.
He says he’d be more than happy to educate hotel staff as to what they need to look out to keep drugs trafficked into Anchorage from ending up on our streets.