Hall County drug arrests didn’t make as many headlines in 2008 as they did two years ago.

After a period in the middle of this decade marked by record seizures of cocaine and methamphetamine, agents of the Gainesville-Hall County Multi-Agency Narcotics Squad returned to a more business-as-usual routine last year, locking up street-level dealers in neighborhood roundups and conducting routine undercover “buy-busts” that net little publicity.

A marijuana “grow house” raided in March 2008 was the last big bust for local officials.

According to numbers provided Friday by MANS, a collaborative unit comprised of Hall County Sheriff’s deputies and Gainesville police officers, the value of drugs taken off the streets in 2008 was $134,000 less than the previous year, and $3.5 million less than in 2006.

Arrests were down, too.

MANS and the Gainesville-Hall County Gang Task Force made 661 arrests last year, compared with 751 in 2007 and 716 in 2006. The two units, which work closely together as a 20-officer vice operation, served 45 search warrants compared with 53 in 2007 and 71 in 2006.

Cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana have traditionally been the most common drugs on the street, said MANS Commander Lt. Scott Ware, an 18-year veteran of law enforcement. But the rise in the illegal use of prescription
narcotics among young people is what troubles officials.

“In the last few years, pharmaceuticals has jumped way up,” Ware said.

While MANS arrests some pill sellers and prescription forgers, the source most difficult to get to may be the medicine cabinets that teens raid at home.

Authorities say the decline in arrests and the drop in large-scale drug seizures could be tied to new policies within the Hall County Sheriff’s office. The advent of 287(g), a local-federal program which allows jail officials to begin deportation proceedings against arrestees who are in the country illegally, may have contributed to a decline in large trafficking cases that routinely originate in Mexico, Hall County Sheriff Steve Cronic said.

“We’ve seen a significant drop in the amount of illegal drugs brought into our community,” Cronic said, adding that in the past year, there has been a 40 percent drop in the number of active, documented gang members who often deal drugs in Hall County.

“The economy and the loss of jobs has played a role,” Cronic said. “But I think also the (illegal aliens) we still have here understand how to avoid being subject to the 287(g) program.”

Ware said confidential informants who work for MANS have indicated Hall County has gained an unfriendly reputation among traffickers.

“We have been told they don’t want to come into Hall County,” Ware said. “We’ve heard that more and more over the past few years.”

It was a different story in 2006, when agents seized a state-record 341 pounds of methamphetamine and 41 kilograms of cocaine in Hall County. The drugs were bound for distribution across the East Coast.

The decline in search warrants is due in part to the methods used by today’s drug dealers, Ware said. More dealers are meeting undercover agents for drug exchanges in parking lots as opposed to selling drugs out of their homes.

“There’s been a lot more buy-busts than search warrants,” Ware said. “It used to be the other way around.”

The numbers may be down, but MANS still has plenty to keep its agents busy.

“I don’t think we’ll every work ourselves out of a job,” Ware said.