POLICE ADAPT TO CHANGING WORLD OF DRUG USE

The combined 19 arrests made this week in Larimer County show how law
enforcement agencies are dealing with the changing world of
methamphetamine and marijuana distribution, a police drug investigator
said this week.

The Larimer County Drug Task Force made 18 arrests Tuesday in the
county following months of investigating methamphetamine dealers. On
Wednesday, the Larimer County Sheriff's Office made its biggest
marijuana bust at a single location, confiscating 1,307 plants and 47
pounds of finished pot at a LaPorte home.

Cracking down on methamphetamine distribution and use is the top
priority of the drug task force, Drug Task Force Commander and Fort
Collins police Lt. Jerry Schiager said. He also said investigations
into methamphetamine distribution have adapted as local
methamphetamine labs have become less common.

"It is much rarer to find people manufacturing their own
methamphetamine and more common to find it going through distribution
networks from Mexico," Schiager said. "The demand is still there, but
it's being met in different ways."

Mike Turner, a spokesman for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration
in Denver, said locally produced methamphetamine is drastically declining.

"We've seen small toxic labs in our area going from maybe a couple
hundred a year to less than 20, maybe even less than 10 per year,"
Turner said.

Schiager said Tuesday's raids were the result of an investigation into
lower-level, local dealers who were moving the product but not
producing it.

As for Wednesday's marijuana bust, which halted a multimillion-dollar
operation, Schiager said large-scale, sophisticated grow sites are
what the task force usually focuses on.

"We probably don't know about most of the personal-use grows,"
Schiager said. "We do what we can to keep the small grows under
control, but we're not really out there pursuing small grows. If we
receive info about one, we look into it." He also said marijuana users
with permission to grow the drug for medicinal purposes have
complicated investigations into growth and distribution.

"We don't know that in advance," Schiager said about medical-marijuana
grows. "We serve a search warrant and then find out they have the
proper paper work. There's no way to find that out ahead of time."

By the numbers Sheriff Jim Alderden said the following logic was used
to determine the value of the marijuana seized during Wednesday's raid:

The 47 pounds of finished product marijuana is worth $300,800 on the
street. That's $400 per ounce.

The estimated street value of the 47 pounds of marijuana and the 1,307
plants, taking into account their current maturity levels, is $1.15
million. The plants were valued at about $849,200.

At $400 per ounce, the 1,307 plants, over a 90-day period, would
produce anywhere from $3,136,800 to $4,182,400. Alderden said each
plant produces 6 to 8 ounces of finished product marijuana.