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Bayfield experiences an influx of heroin

Marshal talks reality of drug use, sales

Bayfield isn’t the quiet little town it was about 20 or 30 years ago. Hard drugs and an increased crime rate are now part of today’s reality, Bayfield Marshal Joe McIntyre told members of the Pine River Centennial Rotary Club recently.

McIntyre was raised in Colorado Springs and has been in law enforcement for 20 years, mostly on the Front Range. He said he wanted to move to a place that felt like home, and Bayfield is it.

But, he said, “In the four years I’ve been here, I’ve seen a lot of changes. Within the last six months, we’ve had an influx of heroin. We had our first overdose in Bayfield since I’ve been here.”

That overdose occurred Oct. 17, 2015, and without the help of a neighbor, the victim could have died or suffered brain damage.

The Marshal’s Office helped intercept a shipment of meth and heroin last October that tied in with a drug bust in January, McIntyre said.

In the January bust in Durango, the Southwest Drug Task Force arrested three people from Casa Grande, Arizona. McIntyre’s office is part of that task force.

“Bayfield isn’t the small quiet town that people think it is,” he said. “I want to talk about awareness. Addiction is a disease. There are programs to help. Being a heroin or meth addict, you do a lot of things that hurt your family or community to try to obtain the drug.”

He said, according to a report from the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program, that Colorado now ranks No. 1 among states for marijuana use in all age categories: 12-17, 18-25 and 26 and older.

“Legalization (of marijuana in Colorado) is having an effect,” he said.

Recreational use is legal only for people 21 and older, but he said he’s seen marijuana use increase at Bayfield High School, along with prescription painkiller abuse. Those drugs can be stolen from a family member who has the drug legally.

“Marijuana is considered a gateway to harder stuff. When I have to pick up a dirty needle from a parking lot in Bayfield, it saddens me,” McIntyre said.

Because of marijuana legalization in Colorado, Mexican drug cartels are moving in to grow marijuana in the state. That has freed up fields in Mexico to grow poppies for heroin, he said.

The priority of local law enforcement is the mid- and upper-level people in the drug supply chain, he said.

A local drug bust in 2014 was one of several national cases that helped lead to the recent capture of Mexican cartel leader El Chapo Guzman, he said.

“The organization here was tied to his cartel,” McIntyre said.

Meth production is mostly in Mexico now, and it’s not hard to get meth or heroin into the U.S. through a maze of back roads and trails, McIntyre said.

Heroin has become cheaper and easier to get than addictive prescription opioid drugs, causing people to switch, he said.

“The problem isn’t necessarily the addictive quality (of heroin),” he said. “You don’t know what you’re getting, how toxic it will be, especially someone trying it for the first time. The first time could be an overdose.”

A drug called Narcan is used to resuscitate overdose victims, including the Bayfield victim in October.

“The users know the fire department has Narcan, so they feel more comfortable continuing to use, or doing a higher dose,” McIntyre said. “It’s not a sure lifesaver. You still have to get (the overdose victim) to the hospital.”



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