Heroin in the High Country

If you live in the High Country, you’re at the crossroads of the heroin highways, say regional law enforcement leaders.

Interstate 70 and U.S. Highway 24 are two of the country’s busiest drug trafficking arteries, and Colorado’s Central Rockies resorts are at the crossroads – or crosshairs if you’re a cop trying to stop it.

Jim Schrant is DEA Resident Agent in Charge for Western Colorado.

Not so long ago they’d see one heroin death per year in most of Western Colorado. Now we’re seeing more and more, Schrant said ...

“We’re seeing an increase in the availability of heroin, especially in small Colorado ski towns, and a corresponding increase in heroin overdoses, deaths and hospitalizations,” Schrant said ...

Cartels smuggle heroin for the same reason anyone is in any business.

“There’s a big profit in it,” said Joe Hoy, Eagle County Sheriff.

“It’s easier to get into the country than other drugs..."

The U.S. supply line starts in Mexico, Hoy said.

“Interstate 70 is a major drug thoroughfare, as is Highway 24 because it runs all the way up from the Mexican border,” Hoy said. “To the credit of the DEA and border patrol, they stop a great deal of it, but in my view we don’t have enough people on the border to stop it all” ...

CAIRCO Comment

Our President says our borders are more secure than ever before, enough so for a full amnesty now, so how is it that heroin smuggled in from Mexico is finding its way into our country in ever-increasing amounts?