Recent deaths in Benzie County from drug overdoses have left the community stunned.
The sheriff has been trying to track down the sources of those drugs. A suspect was arraigned just this week on charges related to an overdose back in February. But the drug community is notoriously tight-lipped and getting at the biggest pushers is a real challenge for law enforcement – especially under the tight budget constraints of Benzie County.
Even In Beulah
On an unusually warm April day, Deputy Kyle Rosa drives his patrol car slowly through the narrow streets of downtown Beulah, on the shores of Crystal Lake. People are fishing. A man wears shorts to walk his dog, anticipating warmer weather.
“Tourists come up for the summer and fancy, this, fancy that. And a block away there’s drug activity that leads to an overdose,” says Rosa. “Even in Beulah.”
The name Beulah is a reference from the Bible meaning something like favored or blessed – the promised land.
Rosa says drugs are toward the top of his list of concerns in Benzie County. He’s weary after a slue of recent deaths and he also says drugs are often the root cause of theft and other crimes here.
But county Sheriff Ted Schendel says budget constraints hamper both enforcement and drug-abuse prevention. Benzie has no school liaison officer, for example, hasn’t in years.
“Not only does it put a police officer in the schools to supply or teach drug-resistance programs, it opens up a dialogue with the kids of this community,” he says.
The sheriff thinks education could curb demand for drugs.
“The more you tell somebody, ‘Hey, this is bad. It’s bad. It’s bad,’ you’re just hoping that somebody’s going to understand that and realize that it is,” he says.
Schendel not only has no school liaison officer, Benzie County has even pulled back from drug enforcement in a key way. At the start of the year it pulled out of a multi-county drug task force.
The reason? Money.
Schendel says he doesn’t have enough deputies to cover the basics, let alone to dedicate a full-time officer to a narcotics detail.
“You know, when you look at areas such as Benzie County, the average – the average – is two officers for every thousand people,” he says. “We don’t even have one officer for every thousand. That means I would have 18 deputies. I have 10.”
Schendel says at least now there’s never a time when one officer is on duty alone with no backup. But he sees a real irony in his decision to pull out of the Traverse Narcotics Team.
“I’m hoping it's a temporary situation where I can convince the Board of Commissioners that we need more deputies,” he says. “That way, we can return back to TNT and put an individual back in there so that we have their help.”
Regional Enforcement
No one from TNT gives any indication to IPR that they’ll stop work in Benzie County because of the move. But losing a member makes the team that much weaker at a time when drugs are becoming a bigger and bigger problem across the region. Several area sheriffs say they understand Schendel’s decision given his budget constraints.
But Leelanau County Sheriff Mike Borkovich also says TNT is the region’s best chance at getting at the bigger players in the drug trade.
“It’s sort of a two-edged sword,” he says. “You need the guys on the road to deal with the street problem and to react to calls. You also need the people who are entrenched in the [drug] community to stop the flow.”
Prescription Drugs As Gateway
Borkovich agrees with Schendel that educating the community is more important than ever, as prescription drug abuse has risen among young people.
“It can start of out with something as simple as a knee surgery that your uncle had and he only took two pills and got a bottle of 50,” he says. “Now there’s 48 pills sitting in there with, basically, an opiate in them.”
Prescription narcotics can be a gateway to the street drug heroin. Also an opiate, heroin gives a similar high and it’s cheaper. In the past, heroin was rarely associated with anyone but the hardest of street addicts. Borkovich says that’s not true today. He wants old prescriptions out of medicine cabinets before they’re misused.
Borkovich thinks a relatively inexpensive drug take back programcan be effective. In 15 months, Leelanau County has disposed of 100s of pounds of unwanted drugs.
“At 1,000 pills per pound, think about the math on that,” he says. “This is stuff that’s not in these kids’ systems and it’s not being abused. So we’re pretty happy with that program.”
Back in Benzie County, Sheriff Ted Schendel can’t dedicate an officer to the schools but he is hoping to start up some kind of drug-prevention efforts with the schools. He senses his community is growing more impatient for solutions.
But last fall his voters also decided against spending more money on law enforcement.