Synthetic drugs keep officers challenged

Editor's Note:

This story is one in a series Behind the Badge: Yuma Police Department that looks behind the scenes at issues facing the YPD.

Sgt. Marty Raebel is a realist. Drugs will always be around, even with police officers like himself specifically assigned to go after them.

Some of what's out there, like heroin, has been used for generations. But newer designer, synthetic drugs like Spice and other products that mimic marijuana, or bath salts and the similar glass cleaner, which are stimulants keep police officers, especially drug interdiction specialists like Raebel, on a steeper learning curve.

Raebel heads up the Narcotics Street Crimes Unit for the Yuma Police Department. Along with four detectives and an analyst, the crew keeps tabs on day-to-day drug activity within the city.

It's hard to put a number on how many criminal cases have a drug connection, Raebel said. Statistics don't really tell the story because they're not collected on drugs as an aggravating factor for example, in an assault carried out by somebody high on meth, or in a burglary committed by somebody who wanted to fence the loot for crack. And ultimately, a burglary is prosecuted the same whether the perpetrator was fueled or motivated by drugs or not, he said.

That said, Raebel estimated that 75 to 80 percent of burglaries and thefts alone fall back to the dope nexus: users stealing to support their habit.

Meth, marijuana and heroin (typically of the black tar variety) are Yuma's most common drugs, and cocaine seizures have been going up over the past few years as distributors have shifted that product to the Yuma corridor, he said.

But if there's a benefit to those drugs, it's that they're familiar. Their effects are well known. Even meth, a toxic brew that can include cold medicine, lye and brake fluid, is consistent in a way that newer synthetic drugs are not.

Users of the new drugs can fall into psychosis or summon super-human strength. The lasting effects of these drugs on the human body aren't yet known, either.

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Synthetic drugs keep officers challenged