ANCHORAGE — Alaska State Troopers are letting the public know the amount of drugs and alcohol being seized by the statewide drug enforcement unit each month through a website.
Troopers hope the online drug seizure dashboard connects with communities and encourages residents to start having conversations, KTUU-TV reported last week.
“It’s not just an issue in your home — it’s not just a personal use issue that happens at home,” said Capt. Michael Duxbury of the drug enforcement unit. “It’s spilling onto the roads, creating gun violence. It’s having an impact on how many vehicles are being stolen. It’s burglaries — those kinds of things that it translates to.”
Much of the state was designated earlier this year as a high intensity drug trafficking area, a classification allowing access to new federal grant funding. The state then rolled out the online resource that tracks alcohol and drug seizures.
In April, more than 2,300 grams of heroin, 29 grams of cocaine and 841 grams of methamphetamine were confiscated.
In May, the unit seized more than 1,700 grams of heroin, more than 1,300 grams of methamphetamine and about 13 grams of cocaine.
While cocaine production is a growing problem, Duxbury said heroin and meth are already widely abused in the state.
“We had enough seized heroin alone last year to dose everyone one and a half times in the entire state using the 2016 census,” Duxbury said.
New numbers will be added to the dashboard around the 20th of each month, troopers said.
