DRUG DEALERS' GOODS GOING UP FOR BIDS

Looking For A Used Car? A 12-gallon Shop Vac? A Jack Daniel's
Barrel Bar With Three Stools?

Come On Down To The Burke County Fairgrounds On Saturday Morning And
Place Your Bids. Everything Must Go.

(Morganton) -- N.C. revenue officers hope the first drug tax seizure
auction in Western North Carolina in 16 months will bring crowds of people
looking for deals on everything from a six-person hot tub to Dale
Earnhardt commemorative pocket knives.

Seventy-five percent of the money raised goes back to the sheriff's
office or police department that made each drug bust, said Ralph
Johnson, the former Burke County sheriff who supervises the revenue
department's unauthorized substances division in Western North
Carolina. The revenue department gets the other 25 percent to run the
division.

Many departments depend on the drug money, which pays for new
equipment, special narcotics officers or technology improvements.
Plus, officers say, the tax hits drug dealers where it hurts: their
wallets.

The drug tax program was placed in jeopardy a year ago when the U.S.
Supreme Court called the tax unconstitutional double punishment.

But on Oct. 31, a new drug-tax law went into effect, and revenue
agents began taxing drug dealers and seizing property again. The new
law lowered the tax levied on cocaine, from $200 per gram to $50 per
gram.

The first auction of seized goods under the new law was in Eastern
North Carolina a couple of weeks ago, Johnson said. Saturday's auction
will be the first in the west since the new law took effect.

Every time a law enforcement agency in Western North Carolina makes a
drug bust, it alerts Johnson's office. The revenue man shows up to
make a tax assessment.

Johnson looks for cars, electronics, antiques or collectibles. He can
usually estimate the value of collectable items through experience and
by their place of prominence in the home.

At B&W Towing in Morganton, the company with a state contract to haul
and store the items, James Buchanan and Alvin Webb have been busy
tagging and cleaning the auction items for sale.

They've been checking the cars, making sure the motorcycle has gas in
it and consulting with an expert in NASCAR paraphernalia to find out
how much the framed, signed posters, clocks and collector cars might
be worth.

They played Randy Travis' hit, "Digging Up Bones," on the fully
stocked Wurlitzer jukebox to demonstrate its sound quality. Johnson
picked up a small brass figure shaped like a toilet and flipped the
lid to reveal it was actually a lighter.

And they joked about the bachelor-pad lifestyle at the most outrageous
home Johnson ever assessed. He seized the six-person hot tub, a pool
table and a tanning bed from that house.