LSD, morphine, marijuana, crack cocaine, powdered cocaine,
Oxycontin – it’s a scary list of drugs and all of them have been
purchased in McKean County in the past year by undercover agents
with the Drug Task Force, explained District Attorney John
Pavlock.

On Tuesday, Pavlock and County Detective Jerry Okerlund, who
head the Drug Task Force from the DA’s office, and Lt. Carl Milks,
acting chief of police for the City of Bradford, spoke to The Era
about the growing illegal drug problem in McKean County.

“I’d hate to throw around the word ‘epidemic,’ but we’re getting
there,” Pavlock said.

“There’s always been a problem with marijuana. It’s readily
available almost anywhere, it’s cheaper and it’s not quite as
addictive,” Okerlund said.

“It’s prevalent among high school kids. But the big problem
right now is crack cocaine. It’s the drug of choice. It’s being
brought in from cities like Buffalo, Pittsburgh and Cleveland,” he
said.

“It’s an expensive habit – a 100-to-400-dollar-per-day habit.
They have to come up with the money to pay for it,” Okerlund said.
And many turn to a life of crime to support the drug habit, with
bad check schemes, identity theft, thefts and burglaries.

“And stealing outright from their families,” added Milks.

“They have to have it. They can’t help themselves. The families
become victims. Some of the larger dealers are using crack addicts
to push their crack for them,” Okerlund said, adding the addict
will be “paid” enough drugs in return that he can feed his own
habit.

“We’ve had cases where they’ve taken guns to Buffalo and traded
them in the street for drugs,” Okerlund said. “Buffalo is pretty
close. We’ve had some people making two to three trips up there
each day … they didn’t have enough money to buy enough crack to get
through the day the first time around.”

Once someone has started down the path of illegal drug use, a
habit can grow and expand and take over the person’s life, leading
them to do things they would not normally have done under normal
circumstances.

“People are stealing grandma’s jewelry, mom’s jewelry to sell to
get high,” Pavlock said, adding other items he’s seen stolen have
included cherry timber logs and “a lot of guns.”

And there’s been some scams to cheat stores out of merchandise
to fuel drug habits. Okerlund described one where people have
bought merchandise with bad checks, sold the items on the street
“for pennies on the dollar” just to use that cash to buy drugs.

“There’s no long-time outlook when they’re on drugs,” Pavlock
said. He explained people don’t consider that their grandmother
will be upset if they steal her family heirlooms to fuel their drug
habit – they only think about the next time they can get high.

The district attorney said it doesn’t take much once someone has
tried drugs for that person to get deeper into the lifestyle.

“It’s that step from not doing drugs to smoking marijuana to
trying something else,” Pavlock said, adding someone who “only”
smokes pot might decide to try some heroin at a party and then
becomes hooked.

And bad decisions continue.

“They’ll open up their home. They start to not take care of
themselves and their home,” he said. “We’ve had crack houses in
Bradford, in Kane, in Eldred, Port Allegany … cockroaches, rats,
filth.

“We’ve had officers searching a home and had people knocking on
the door to buy drugs,” Pavlock said.

“And the children, they are right in amongst all of it,”
Okerlund said. The addict’s bad decisions impact the children in
the household, as they are being exposed to illegal drug use, and
possibly to drug dealing and other illegal activities to support
the adult’s drug habit.

“Children are the products of their environment. To them it is
entirely normal,” Milks said.

“We’ve seen dealers coming down from Buffalo, staying with
females, exposing their kids to this,” Pavlock said. “We’ve had
babies born with drugs in their systems.

“That’s not Philadelphia. That’s McKean County,” Pavlock said,
explaining how serious the problem has become.

“I know a situation where a child, 12 years old, was hooked on
crack by her mother,” Okerlund said. “At 12.”

“These are people with good educations, who had good jobs,”
Okerlund said. “Now their main focus in life is to get that next
fix.”

Out of 779 criminal cases filed in 2006, 135 were drug cases,
Pavlock said. “But when you consider how many people had problems
(with drugs) and were stealing” or breaking the law in another way
because of drugs, that number would be much higher, he
explained.

While cases of driving under the influence still make up one of
the highest number of cases prosecuted, Okerlund said the district
attorney’s office is still seeing some changes.

“We’ve had more cases lately that aren’t alcohol … we’ve had
eight to 10 that the driver was under the influence of drugs only,”
he said.

“Some of that’s due to the increase in drugs,” Pavlock said.
“It’s more (drug) use and officers who are being more
observant.”

He added that it is common for someone to tell Okerlund during
an interview that they knew the drugs had taken over, but just
couldn’t stop.

“Defendants are telling us of the pattern – ‘I couldn’t control
this.’ They recognize it. They know they’re on (a drug) and it
takes total control over them,” Pavlock said.

And when a drug is in control, that person can be a danger to
those around them – including police officers trying to arrest
them.

“They feel no pain,” Milks said, describing someone under the
influence of drugs. “No fear, nothing. It’s extremely dangerous,
not only for the officers, but for the defendant and for the
general public who may be around them.

“When they are high on this stuff, it’s no holds barred,” Milks
said. “Nothing else matters to them.”

While illegal drugs are on the rise, so is the illegal use of
prescription medication. Okerlund said people are getting
prescription medication and then selling it on the street – usually
Oxycontin and morphine. This may come from doctor shopping, he
said, explaining a person keeps going to different doctors until
one prescribes the pain medication.

“I would hope (the doctors) would be hesitant (to prescribe pain
medication). The fact that a lot of people out there with money are
trying to get their hands on Oxy – I would hope they’d be very
hesitant,” Pavlock said.