Sheriff's Office works to keep drugs out of local schools

When a mother pleaded with Lt. Ben Baker to shut down the drug marketplace in Union County Schools, the narcotics officer took the woman's concerns to work.

"I had a mother in the community where I live come to me, and bring her son to me," Baker told Channel 9. "He ended up in the emergency room after taking an unknown pill from someone at school."

"He's a good student, a star athlete," Baker said. "He just made a bad decision at school."

Baker wanted officers to get more involved in drug enforcement on school campuses, so he coordinated with the school district to start a Safe School Initiative.

"The narcotics eradication team starts their day at a school," Baker said. "The primary focus was to be more proactive, be there more regularly."

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According to Baker, a drug dog sniffs around the parking lots at local schools almost daily. He believes the efforts have made a difference.

"They've seen a steady decline in the amount of narcotics found at the schools," Baker said.

Many of the illegal drugs making their way into teens' backpacks and bedrooms are discreetly packaged to look like legal products, according to narcotics officers.

Sheriff Eddie Cathey said parents should be educated on recent drug trends.

"You need to know what to look for when you walk through their room," Cathey said.

As part of the school initiative, the Sheriff's Office hosts events for parents to learn about drug use among young people. But Cathey said many parents don't like to believe their children may use illegal substances.

"We've got schools with 1,400 kids in them, and we'll have 100 people or 150 people at the seminars," Cathey said. "News reports like this help us educate parents and educate the public as to what's out there."

The officers invited Channel 9 to record video of some of the drugs that are popular among teenagers.

"If you're caught with this, it's a felony charge," one undercover officer said, holding up an e-cigarette cartridge filled with THC, the compound in marijuana that gets a smoker high.

The cartridges are potent, but the smoke is disguised to smell like the fruity vape from a legal e-cigarette, Baker said.

"They look just like any other cartridge you would buy at the smoke shop," Baker said.

Baker and the other officers in the narcotics unit search the streets every day and see the latest tactics drug dealers use to disguise their illegal products.

They showed Channel 9 examples of marijuana mixed with colorful cereal to look like a breakfast bar, a colorful sheet of LSD that one officer said could be mistaken for a book of stamps and pills that look like harmless prescription drugs, but are laced with fentanyl that's lethal to the touch.

Baker said that while they may not be able to stop illegal drug use altogether, they hope to keep the deadly substances away from young people.

"The more we're there, the more the kids see them there," Baker said. "That's a deterrent to bring things to school."

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