The Cost of Drugs: Officers worry about downsides of drug-dealing

LIMA — Drug dealers don’t retire.

At least, Sgt. Brian Leary and Sgt. Matt Treglia have never seen it happen.

Leary and Treglia jointly head the West Central Ohio Crime Task Force, a multi-agency team fighting mostly drug crime.

What Leary, of the Lima Police Department, and Treglia, of the Allen County Sheriff’s Office, see is not the glorified bad boy, rolling lifestyle portrayed in music videos and movies.

“Truly in the end, you end up in prison for the rest of your life, or dead, broke, no one around,” Treglia said. “You don’t hear about that.”

Dressed in blue jeans, the men work odd and many hours out of a tiny office. Since the mid-1990s, they’ve both worked the proactive, rather than reactive, road patrol side of crime fighting. They deal only with felonies and constantly change their tactics because every time they make a bust, they also educate a drug dealer. They now see second- and even third-generation family members in the area dealing.

Costly business

Dealers and crack come from Chicago, Detroit and Fort Wayne, Ind. to Lima. A $20 rock of cocaine about the size of a pencil eraser provides a high for 15 to 20 minutes. People don’t “try” crack once; they become addicts.

The marijuana comes from Texas and Arizona. If a dealer here is willing to go there, they can buy large quantities cheap. A pound of marijuana that costs $1,200 or more in Ohio costs only $300 near the Mexican border. It’s only $100 if someone is willing to cross the border and bring it back then sell ounces for $10 and $5.

In a way, the police drive up the price of drugs by making it more risky to sell.

Treglia says the task force measures success in the limiting of sales.

“Right now you may have two dealers on a corner somewhere,” he said.

“If we did not exist, and the threat of us possibly purchasing drugs from them didn’t exist, where there’s two there’d be twenty. Where there’s ten crack houses, there’d be 50. It’d be so open and blantant if they knew we did not exist.”

The smaller, more rural areas may be poorly served by drug supply lines. In those areas, methamphetamine and marijuana are more popular because they can be produced locally.

The risks involved in producing meth lend themselves to rural, open areas. Those risks aren’t worth it in more populated places.

“We’ve got plenty of cocaine here,” Leary said. “There’s no need to make meth.”

Source of crime

Treglia and Leary believe nearly all the crime in the county — shootings between rival dealers, women selling themselves for their next hits, addicts breaking into cars and homes — can be tied in some way to drugs.

“It’s a horrible thing, drug addiction. I’ve met people who held very esteemed jobs, six figures a year,” Leary said. “Then they find cocaine and have lost families, careers, living day-to-day for their next fix. They’re selling themselves, their souls.”

Dealers cause escalating and sometimes violent crime. They can be victims of home invasions, as people know they are dealing and believe they’ll find drugs, cash and things they can sell in homes. Dealers won’t report that to police.

“And, if you’re not going to, what are you going to do? You need to defend yourself and let people know you’re not going to let that happen. So you’re going to do the same thing to someone else and get yourself caught or killed,” Leary said.

In the late 1980s and ’90s, before the crackdown, dealing was more regimented and someone in Detroit might determine what comes into Lima. Not any more.

“I don’t see one guy pulling the strings,” Treglia said. “I see guys here that have direct connections to Mexico, Chicago, Tucson, places like that. They know where to get the products they need and know what they need to sell.”

The stereotypical turf wars are gone as well. Dealers get supplied by whoever has the stuff and aren’t afraid to send customers to a rival.

“It’s not uncommon for a drug dealer to send us, as undercover guys, to another drug dealer that he knows that has it when he don’t,” Treglia said. “There’s plenty of clientele out there.”

Tempting offer

A young man finds the lure of easy money too tempting, especially when no adult is there through deed and word to show and explain why he should stay in school or work a minimum-wage job, the officers said.

Kids turn to dealing in the absence of someone talking to them about a future or when the people in their lives who should be doing that are selling. Kids aren’t looking any further than the next day and at their friends who have “wads of cash,” Leary said.

“I’ve talked to these kids about what they want to do. None of ’em have a plan. None of ’em,” Treglia said. “It makes you appreciate what some kids have overcome just by doing that and not selling drugs. Those kids, given the guidance they need, they can achieve some great things.”

Reporter J.D. Bruewer contributed to this story.