DRUG CASES KEEP PELHAM, HOOVER POLICE SWAMPED

In a back office of the Pelham Police Department, two detectives start each
day with a stack of cases that never seems to end.

The illegal sale and use of pharmaceutical drugs hit town about three years
ago and has not let up since, said Bobby Smith, one of two detectives
assigned to the city's drug unit.

This year has been especially busy for the city, possibly a record when the
final numbers are calculated, he said.

The drug unit has signed 114 felony warrants and 125 misdemeanor warrants,
and has worked 11 trafficking cases, said Mike Roberts, the second
detective in the unit.

To add to the mix, a Pelham pharmacy was burglarized last month, putting
5,000 pills such as the pain medicine oxycodone on the street, Smith said.

That's in a city of 16,000 residents, according to the latest figures from
the U.S. Census Bureau. The number of drug cases is nearing that of
neighboring Hoover, a city of about 65,000 residents.

In 2002, Pelham surpassed the number of felony drug warrants signed in
Hoover, thanks to three nights of concerts by Widespread Panic at Oak
Mountain Amphitheatre that sent hundreds to jail.

Even subtracting arrests linked to the concert, Pelham signed 137 felony
drug warrants compared to Hoover's 207. Both cities expect those numbers to
increase this year.

"It's not that there is more out there," Smith said. "We are starting to
catch them. Nobody gets caught their first time. One guy did 40
prescriptions before we caught him."

Pelham's and Hoover's drug problems have brought the two narcotics units
together on many major investigations. Often they have no choice, Smith said.

Neither city has the manpower to conduct a single undercover buy without
the help of the other, he said, and many of the investigations overlap city
borders.

"We work together 30 percent of the time on big cases. If they are getting
it in Hoover they are selling it in Pelham, or vice versa," said Sgt. C.D.
McKay, supervisor of Hoover's narcotic unit, comprising three men. "Our
goal is to have every narcotics unit working together and sharing information."

Same problems:

Demographics create the same problems for the cities, McKay said.

"Pelham and Hoover have money," he said. "Drugs follow the money. Take
North Birmingham, for example, where there is no money. You may have a
little crack and a little weed. You are not going to see the same problem
as Pelham and Hoover. We have kids who get $100 a weekend from their parents."

Those kids have expensive tastes.

Smith and McKay keep a growing list of pharmaceutical drugs that are being
illegally sold and abused. Many households have them sitting in the
medicine cabinet, with parents unaware their children are taking them, the
drug officers said.

"We've seen kids steal from their grandparents who have cancer," said
Hoover Detective Doug Crawford.

The drugs are so obtainable through various means that an "ungodly" amount
remains on the streets, McKay said.

Pharmacies get hit all the time with fake prescriptions and burglaries,
Smith said. This year, burglars have hit about seven pharmacies in the
Birmingham area, putting more than 20,000 pills on the street, he said.

Pelham, a growing family community outside of Birmingham, creates the
perfect culture for pharmaceutical drug abuse, Smith said.

"It is a white-collar problem," McKay said. "Your hard-core druggies are on
meth or something. But this type of drug opens it up to everybody. We see
it from the lowest income to the highest."

Pelham and Hoover detectives hope the reorganization of a Shelby County
Drug Task Force will help control the growing pile of cases.

Until then, all five drug detectives in the two cities have stacks of files
of active cases on their desks.

"Dozens? I would say we have hundreds," Crawford said.