COUNTY NARCOTICS TASK FORCE HAS RECORD YEAR

While the country is absorbed in the possibility of going to war against
Iraq, Tuscaloosa has been fighting its own war lately - a war on drugs.

Drug trafficking has increased more each year in Tuscaloosa - but so has the
power of the law enforcement that fights against it. The West Alabama
Narcotics Task Force, the main vehicle for policing drugs in Tuscaloosa
County, has had a record year in productivity. The force made 1,254
drug-related arrests and dispensed 1,507 drug charges from those arrests in
2002.

The task force is housed at the Tuscaloosa Police Department facility on
Mill Creek Avenue and is a specialized unit composed of officers not only
from the TPD, but also from the Northport Police Department, the Tuscaloosa
County Sheriff's Department and the University of Alabama Department of
Public Safety.

Capt. Jeff Snyder, who has spent 23 years as an officer and 12 years
specializing in narcotics, directs the force.

"People [in the area] are dealing in much greater quantities than they used
to, and they are taking bigger risks," Snyder said.

Tuscaloosa's drugs of choice

Snyder said the most prevalent drugs in the city, by far, are cocaine and
marijuana. However, Snyder noted that there has been a very sharp increase
in the number of methamphetamine cases in the city. The drug goes by the
street name, "crank."

"We have seen a tremendous increase in the number of meth and meth
lab-related arrests in the past two to three years," Snyder said.

Snyder said since one can learn to make methamphetamine himself rather than
having to risk trafficking it into the area, it has quickly risen in
popularity. He said several dealers have their own methamphetamine labs in
their homes and basements.

"You can make it yourself in a lab - that's very popular right now," he
said.

But the cocaine and marijuana problems in the city still exist. While the
University was virtually dead over the winter break, the task force arrested
three people and seized 160 pounds of marijuana, worth over $300,000 in
street value, from them.

Overall, the task force made a record 42 arrests related to trafficking,
which constitutes moving drugs in large quantities, last year.

In addition to the usual drugs, Snyder also acknowledged a growing problem
in the abuse of prescription drugs in the area. He said many people try to
forge prescriptions for painkillers, such as OxyContin. To combat
prescription fraud, the task force has implemented Script Watch, a new
system that links pharmacies and law enforcement by fax.

"It's only been around for three or four months now," Snyder said. "Once we
get all the pharmacies involved, which may take about a year, it is going to
be an extremely effective system to combat forgeries."

University students and drugs

Despite the University's supposed "party school" status, University students
play a very small role in the overall drug scene, Snyder said. He said the
task force mainly focuses on catching people who deal drugs for a living,
and when the police do arrest students, it is usually for a simpler
possession charge.

"Students at the University are nowhere near the majority of arrests we
make," Snyder said.

However, Snyder noted that when the University is in session, the task force
sees a considerable increase in the number of "designer" drugs, such as
ecstasy, LSD and GHB.

By "designer" drugs, Snyder meant drugs that are mainly popular among high
school and college students who are experimenting with drug use. These drugs
are like fads; they are not as consistently abused as marijuana and cocaine.

How the task force works

The task force gets its information mainly in two ways: complaints from
citizens who witness drug dealing and confidential informants who agree to
cooperate with the police for leniency in their own prosecution.

Snyder acknowledged that the force does use undercover agents, but he
declined to disclose any details of their operation to the public.

"We are an aggressive agency. Unlike other departments, we have to initiate
all of our investigations," Snyder said.

The task force works closely with several important agencies, including the
Drug Enforcement Administration, FBI and U.S. Customs. The force has
traveled as far as North Carolina on drug-related cases.

The officers in the task force must go through a great deal of drug-related
training before joining the force, but they also continue to learn new
things and receive new information about narcotics once on the force.

"You have to know what you're doing. It's always a training issue since the
industry changes so rapidly," Snyder said. "I've been here [on the force]
longer than anybody, and I'm still learning something new about narcotics
every day."