Lincoln County Sheriff, Shane Johnson, spoke with SVI about various issues this week, one of which was the state of the battle against drugs in the county.

“The most common drug which is alcohol accounted for a huge part of our call volume and jail population,” he noted. “But in terms of illicit drugs, marijuana is an ongoing issue. The fact that it’s readily available in some surrounding states exacerbates that problem.”

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However, cocaine is a drug that has been making bigger inroads into the area in recent years.

“One of the biggest trends lately has been cocaine,” Johnson said.  “It wasn’t that long ago that we never saw cocaine in the valley. In the last year and a half we’ve recovered 10-11 pounds in Lincoln county which is troubling. The good news is, that’s off the street. The bad news is that it was here and there was a market for it.”

Of course Lincoln County and Star Valley are just parts of a national market.

“I believe the border which has not been secure and the rise of cocaine coming out of Mexico has played a role,” Johnson continued. “We will see over time how that is addressed.”

Johnson also explained that there are full time employees with the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office who work full time on drug cases.

“We have a DCI [Department of Criminal Investigation] agent that their primary responsibilities are in the drug activity we have,” he continued. “We also have a full-time deputy who is a Task Force Officer. They work together so we have two great detectives who work on that full time. It’s still concerning that the fact that the amount was found here.”

Cases turning up illicit drugs have come from traffic stops and also citizen tips.

“In a lot of those cases it was working with other law enforcement out on the road that turns into a bigger case,” Johnson said. “Others come from citizen tips. Those cases take sometimes over a year to resolve and then they sometimes become part of larger cases. If you do see something or have a concern, let us know and let us look into that. We have some great people who work primarily getting that off the street.”