PRACTICE AND POLICY LECTURE SERIES, FEBRUARY 2013 - DRUG RECOGNITION

Captain David Huff: Basically what I've condensed down for you today, is normally a eight hour course for police officers. So I've condensed it way down but I want to get in every single drug category and I want to talk about it and show you. 

So that's why I'm going to be talking fast and why I'm also going to ask, since there's such a large group, I'm certain that you'll have questions, but if you'll just bear with me... if I get through this quick, cause I know I've got an hour. I'll be glad to answer any questions you have. 

If we don't have time during the presentation, I've got the rest of the day. The Chief gave me the rest of the day off. Right, Chief? 

Audience: (laughter) 

Capt. Huff (continues): I can hang around here and I will be glad to answer any questions you have. Also at the end I'm going to give you my desk phone number - not my cell number, I did that once and that was a mistake. 

Audience: (laughter) 

Capt. Huff (continues): But my desk number at work and my email and feel free to contact me any time. For a while as a detective I worked sex crimes and child abuse and I got into a lot of close relationships with DHS workers, working cases that are still friends today. And they call me and ask me about this type of stuff and I will be glad to do it for you folks also. You guys that are in here from DHS, especially you case workers, you've gotten us out of a bind at Midwest City so many times, I can't tell you, and we would be glad to do the same for you. 

Kind of the purpose of what we're going to do today and I'm going to try... I'm a walker and a mover, so if I get in people's way... What I want to do today is just improve your ability to identify people that you may come into contact with or see and I'm going to give you some general indicators that we as drug recognition experts look for to see if someone's under the influence of drugs without having to go into like a full-blown examination of someone, just general indicators that you can pick up on and get an idea. 

I'm also going to show you some drug paraphernalia. I'm going to show you the drugs that I talk about. I'm going to show you pictures of them. I want to do a little caveat, all these pictures that I'm going to show you of piles of illegal drugs and stuff they did not come from Midwest City as far as you know. 

Audience: (laughter) 

Capt. Huff (continues): Okay? So I just want to get that out there. But we're going to show you a little bit of everything. And I'm going to go over each drug category. Before I do that I want to tell you one thing: what it takes to be a drug recognition expert. It's what I am. I'm also an instructor, I teach it. 

I've been doing it since 1995, when the program first started in Oklahoma. Drug recognition experts basically go through a total of 350 hours of classroom, and clinical, and testing to become an expert. It is the toughest school I think I've ever been in. 

Just to give you an example, the final test was 12 questions. I started at 8 o'clock in the morning. I got done at 1 o'clock the next morning and my answers were 69 hand-written pages on a spiral notebook. So the course is taken very seriously. You really have to study and know what you're doing. When you do your clinicals and you... we evaluate someone which takes about 45 minutes to do a full evaluation. 

It includes taking their blood pressure, their body temperature, pulse, and doing some stuff I'm going to talk to you about here looking for. We have to be 90% accurate with the blood or urine tests. So if a DRE says, "This person is under the influence of marijuana and cocaine" and they check the blood when you are going through the class, they check the blood, 90% of the time you have to be right on the money. 

Not just that they are under the influence, you have to be 100%, but actually picking out the drug category they're under the influence of. I just want to tell you that because I know when I go to classes or schools, if somebody's talking about something, I want to know what makes you think that you know about this stuff? 

So I just want to let you know that it comes from all this training. And Oklahoma City, Oklahoma County Sheriff's Office, Edmond, Norman, Del City, Choctaw, a lot of the surrounding agencies, OHP - they all have drug recognition experts. So if you guys ever need one to talk to there's a bunch of them out there, okay? 

We're going to talk about "What is a drug?" When we're talking about drugs for purposes of police officers, it's a little bit definition than what you're going to find in Wikipedia, okay? 

For police officers and for drug recognition experts it's going to be any substance which, when taken into the human body, can effect or impair that person's ability to do simple or routine tasks. So in order for someone to be under the influence by our definition, they have to be at a point where they're not themselves. 

They're not able to complete tasks that they would normally be able to. Obviously they shouldn't be out driving, operating heavy equipment, they shouldn't be out at the archery range. You know there's a lot of different things they shouldn't be doing. But that's what, when we're talking about under the influence for purposes of police officers, this is our definition. 

Before I go into the drug categories, I'm going to tell you part of our DRE motto is, and you've all heard it before, the drugs, - they eyes, the eyes are the window to the soul. And it's really true as far as DRE's are concerned, because there's things that you can fake, okay?
 
If you're under the influence of something and you're a gymnast, you still may be able to do the walk and turn, you know like you see them do, you know, your balance may be so great that you can still do it or you can fake it. 

The things that we look for in the eyes, they can't be faked. It's going to happen regardless if they want it to or not. People can't control their eyes and say, "Do not dilate. Do not dilate." So it gives us a real good picture and it tells us this is something that's really important. And we're going to talk about it and I'm going to show you what I'm talking about. 

I don't know how well you can see it, I hope you can see it well. But if you can see here, this is what a normal pupil size would be, okay? This is what we would call a dilated pupil. That's where the pupil, the black part of the inside of the eye is larger than normal. The normal range is somewhere between 3.5 millimeters and 7.5 millimeters. We have a little instrument we measure it with, it's basically a little card with a bunch of circles and it says what millimeter it is. 

But this would be a dilated pupil. That's something that we're going to look for. That's something you can look at someone and say, "Wow. Their pupils look a lot bigger than normal, or bigger than mine." This picture down here is someone with a light-colored eye. 

It's harder to see with people with a dark-colored eye, but light-colored eye... That would be dilated. This is definitely dilated. The picture of this young man, the reason it's so extremely dilated, just so happens this young man had done about seven hits of LSD, so his pupils are way out there. 

Now we're going to talk about constricted pupils. And I'm going to tell you which drug categories cause which here in a minute, but I want to you to get an idea of what it looks like. This would be constricted, when they're screwed down really small, they're tiny. And this is caused by narcotic analgesics. 

There's only one drug category, and I'm going to go over it, that causes constriction and that is narcotic analgesics. And I'm going to tell you what all those are, but you can see how small they are. This is what I was telling you - it's called a pupilometer and it's basically a card that we hold up next to the person's eyes and it's measured out in millimeters and then we find the corresponding measurement to what their pupil size is and that gives us an idea. 

I'm going to talk to you real quick about methods of ingestion. Different ways that drugs are taken into the body. These are the main ways. Orally, obviously you're taking pills or tablets. Nasal, if you're snorting cocaine, you're snorting methamphetamine, you're snorting oxycontin, you're snorting a drug like that. Going up through your nose. 

It's not the fastest way but it's one of the fastest ways into the bloodstream, because it gets right straight up into your nasal cavity into those capillaries and into your system and to your brain. The fastest way to the brain is smoking. There is... your lungs are just filled with capillaries and when that smoke goes into the lungs, it's just instantly pumped into your bloodstream and gets to your brain. 

That's why the drugs like... we're going to talk about crack cocaine and methamphetamine... the preferred way is smoking because they basically get an instantaneous high and that's by inhaling. Then injecting, injecting is still done. 

It's not as popular as it used to be, thank goodness. Part of it is because of diseases, part of it's because of HIV and Hepatitis - people worried about that. They still do it, but the preferred method, at least in Oklahoma is for methamphetamine, no longer is injecting it's smoking or snorting. 

But it's still done and we're going to talk about that. And then we're going to talk about transdermal. Transdermal is where you get some type of a substance or a drug on your skin, and it is absorbed through your skin, and it gets into your blood stream. Has anybody ever taken like vitamin B12 tablets and you put under your tongue and it absorbs in your system? 

You know that would be transdermal. There are some nausea medications that you put under tongue and it just dissolves. That would be transdermal. I'm going to tell you a cool little story about transdermal, too. Some are snorted: cocaine is one, methamphetamine, ice, heroin can be snorted. Most of the time heroin is not snorted, because the users say it doesnÆt give them the type of effects they want. 

Smoking, look at what this personÆs smoking that in... If you name an item, I've seen it where people smoke out of it. A used light bulb, a Mountain Dew bottle, a socket from a wrench set - it doesn't matter. If they can put it in it, light it, inhale the vapors, they'll do it. 

Injecting - people will inject anywhere. Methamphetamine users will inject anywhere. They will inject in their neck, they will inject in their genitals, between their toes. When I worked undercover narcotics, the main thing that we would look for, for a meth user we would look at their arms. We would try to see their arms. 

Cause we would see the sores, we would see the injection marks and we would go, "Hey, that's a drug user." Like on Miami Vice you pull up their arm look, at the deal, "You're a drug user." Well, you know they caught onto it. Drug users are like, "I don't want to walk up to a cop and have all these injection marks on my arm." 

So they do it anywhere: their neck, between their toes, it's popular to do it into tattoos. If you have a tattoo somewhere, you can use that spot to do the injection and it won't be as obvious. 

No Audio: ôSuppositories. DonÆt even go there.ö

Oh! That was just for the police officer one, I apologize. 

Audience: (laughter) 

Capt. Huff (continues): Wow. No actually suppositories is another one. It is another way to get into your blood stream. In fact it's the quickest way. They had some deaths in Oklahoma City, where people were actually using enema bottles with everclear, and because it absorbs in your system, because they thought, "If I do it there, if I get caught driving, they won't be able to smell it on my breath." 

But the fact of the matter is that's not true. And you will blow in the breathalyzer because that's coming from your blood, from your lungs not from it being in your mouth but anyway. 

While we're on transdermal absorption, I'm just going to tell my one story I got to tell real quick. And I tell this as a public safety deal, it's kind of funny, but it's a public safety for you guys in case you ever run across it. 

When I was undercover narcotics, it was back in '95, '96, we were doing a search warrant on a house. And we split the house up into quadrants like we always do and our team would pick a room and this was your room to search. So I picked the kitchen, I always pick the kitchen. And no, it is not so I could eat their cookies, I know what you guys are thinking.

Audience: (laughter)

Capt. Huff (continues): But I always picked the kitchen because people love to hide their dope in the refrigerator. And when you do a search warrant, I'm just going to tell you right now it's kind of like a Easter egg hunt, you know "Who found the dope?" "I found the dope! I found the money! I found the guns!" 

So I picked the kitchen, I wish I hadn't this time. But I go straight to the refrigerator. No gloves on. It's actually a marijuana search warrant, by the way. I look in the refrigerator and I see a square item in the refrigerator wrapped in aluminum foil. And I know that people take bricks of marijuana and put it in the fridge cause they think it keeps it fresh. And I've seen it before so I'm thinking, "I already found it. Great." 

I pick up this block wrapped in aluminum foil. I start opening it up and I'm looking and my fingers get wet. I went, "Well this is wet. This isnÆt marijuana, this is stacks of paper." I'm like, "Why is there wet stacks of paper wrapped in aluminum foil?" And it took me a second and I went, "It's LSD." They're soaking blotter paper in LSD in the refrigerator. Transdermal absorption. 

Audience: (laughter)

Capt. Huff (continues): I got it on my fingers. And I just went to DRE school and I knew "Uh Oh!" So I went, "Guys this is LSD. Take my gun... you take my gun. I don't know, call an ambulance, I don't know." Well a little while later, I thought I was in a lucky charms commercial. 

Audience: (laughter) 

Capt. Huff (continues): I was seeing pink clovers, blue stars... Now luckily I didn't get enough absorbed into my system, you know, where I was, you know, seeing Satan chase me down the street and I strip all my clothes off. And I would have hoped my partners would have prevented me from doing that. But it was enough that I did see that kind of stuff, I did see different colors and a little synthesisia that we're going to talk about. 

They took me to the hospital, and my pulse was like 180. And I don't know if it was from the LSD or cause it was scaring the crap out of me. But they said, "All we can do is watch you, laugh, and wait for it to get out of your system." 

Audience: (laughter)

Capt. Huff (continues): "There's no antidote so we're just going to watch you. We'll strap you down if we need to." So now having said that, if any of you in your works run across any incidents where you find like little brown vials, and I'm going to show you a picture of it, or little containers with clear liquid or something that just looks out of place that's a liquid, please, please, please do not touch it. 

We had a citizen a while back bring in a vial, bare-handed and it ended up being PCP, okay? So if you see that, don't touch it. I'm going to show you what some LSD and blotter paper looks like. Don't touch it, because if it gets on your skin it can get you, okay? 

Now we're going to start talking about the drug categories and observable effects. The first drug category I'm going to talk about is central nervous system depressants. That includes alcohol. Alcohol is a central nervous system depressant. Barbituates, anti-anxiety tranquilizers, and many, many, many others. I could go through probably twenty pages but we're not going to do that for time purposes. 

But I'm going to give you the most common ones and show you what they are and what they look like. Xanax, fantastic drug, really is. It's a fantastic drug. I'm going to tell you why: because if it's taken in therapeutic doses like the doctor prescribes you, it can do wonders for people with anxiety and other disorders. 

Probably one of the best drugs that has been invented in a long time. If it's taken properly, like the doctor tells you to take it. Obviously the problem that we run into is, "If one works great, I wonder what two will do." "Two works good. I wonder what three will do." "Now let's go drive." That's where we have the problems. 

Just to look here these are some of the tablets, different forms, different milligrams. This is what we've had a problem with in some schools and stuff throughout Oklahoma. They call them "xanie bars," and basically what it is, is a bar of Xanax. And where this one is a one milligram tablet, this is four milligrams. But you break it. See where it's scored? And you break them and it's supposed to be for convenience so you can break it. 

But you know what are teenagers doing? They're taking the whole thing. So that creates a problem, that creates an overdose situation, so this is something to look for. And if you hear anyone talking about xanie bars, that's probably what they're talking about. 

Some Valium, these are some Valium that comes over from Mexico. In Mexico you can pretty much go up to a pharmacy and say, "I have a headache. I need some Lortab." And you can get it, pretty much, if you pay the cash or whatever. So a lot of these drugs get brought over into the United States. 

This is what that looks like and it's in blister packs. Here is some prescription Valium, something that you would get in the United States. They also have a form that's the brand name that's got a V actually cut out of it where you can see all the way through the tablet. I don't have a picture. 

Rohipnol, anybody know what that is? Date-rape drug. Anybody watch the movie Hangover? "Roofies?" It's an extremely, extremely strong central nervous system depressant. Someone can have a dose of that and be out, be unconscious, and not tell you what happened. When I worked sex crimes, I worked a couple sexual assaults where someone had put this drug in their drink and we found out through blood tests later and they woke up the next morning and didn't know what happened, only knew that they had been assaulted. 

It is a serious deal and the really big problem with Rohipnol is, it's so strong that a dose... if you take one tablet of Rohipnol, it would be like taking five Valium. So if you got, especially some young person that said, "I've taken five Valium before. I can take five Rohipnol." That's a fatal dose so... 

These are the things that you're going to look for someone under the influence of a cns depressant. And the easiest way I think for you to remember this is what I tell the officers I teach, is you will see the same signs and symptoms that you would see of someone that's under the influence of alcohol. And I'm sure we've all seen that, everyone in this room. 

So even if you don't smell the odor of alcohol, if you see that theyÆre drowsy, and they have thick, slurred speech - you know what I'm talking about. Someone who's talking and they're mixing their consonants and vowels. Uncoordinated, they can't walk, theyÆre clumsy, fumbling. Slow sluggish reactions is what we look for. 

Pupil size... and I've heard this said many times by people and even lawyers in court, "Well they weren't drunk, their pupils werenÆt dilated." Well alcohol and cns depressants, the pupil size is going to be normal. So it doesn't dilate and it doesn't constrict. 

And then the other thing that we look for as DREs and police officers is something called nystagmus. And I hope I don't screw this up, but I want to show you a quick video. I want to show you what nystagmus looks like. Maybe I'm wrong. 

How do we get to my computer on here or my E drive? I'm sorry, I should have told you I was going to do that. Alright thank you. 

Okay this is what nystagmus looks like. You see how the eye is bouncing? And this is something that is involuntary, they can't control. When the eye moves from side to side, it does that jerking motion. That's called nystagmus and several drug categories cause this. If you see this with someone, there's a good chance that they're under the influence of something. 

And I'll say that with a caveat. There is medical conditions that cause it but it's rare and if they have it they're going to know. If someone has certain neurological disorders, a severe head injury, that type of thing, then they may have nystagmus. But most of the time it's going to be from drugs, okay? 

It's not going to be from a neurological condition, cause they're going to know, they're going to know they had it. It's not going to be a surprise to them. Sorry. Oops. I'm a computer genius in case you guys haven't figured it out yet. Oh, there it is. It's on the wrong slide. No, I'm just kidding, I'm kidding, I'm kidding ma'am. 

But you are going to see nystagmus with that. And if you guys have ever seen police officers, or maybe some of you have had police officers do this to you but... 

Audience: (laughter)

Capt. Huff (continues): Well I don't know, it's okay if you have. But where they're having them follow the pen, it is not just to see if they can follow it. We're looking for that nystagmus we just showed you. Cause thatÆs a real important clue and, like I said, it's something that you can't control.
 
Now we're going to talk about central nervous system stimulants. When we talk about stimulants, we're going to be talking about drugs like cocaine, amphetamines, methamphetamines. Here's what powdered cocaine looks like, that's the real stuff. If you looked at it up really close, I donÆt have any real close pictures. 

Instead of looking like sand, where it's like round granules, if you look at it up close it's almost like flakes, it's almost like snowflakes. Because it's cocaine hydrochloride. Here is just some show off pictures bags of crack cocaine, snorting lines. We don't see powdered cocaine a whole lot anymore because they get a lot more bang for their buck and make a lot more profit off turning it into crack cocaine. 

To make crack cocaine all you need is a microwave, some baking soda, and some powdered cocaine and you're on your way to making you a crack pie. Here's a little container that we got that's got powdered cocaine and a little spoon attached to it but the main reason I have this picture in here: Remember when I said if you see a little vial that's got liquid in it? This is what people are putting PCP in now. It's real popular. 

The last four or five times we've seized it, it's has been in one of these type vials, and it's tiny. It's maybe an inch and quarter tall. If you ever see one of these and it's got liquid in it, don't touch it. Call the police department where ever city you're in, have them come get it, okay? Don't mess with it. 

Here is a cocaine inhaler that you can buy at head shops. People put the cocaine... cause you want a measured dose. Cause when you do your cocaine...

Audience: (laughter) 

Capt. Huff (continues): ...you want to make sure that you're doing it properly so the head shops are nice enough to sell it to you where you can put your little portion in there. And then you can stick it up to your nose and snort it. 

Crack cocaine, the best way I can describe it to someone who's actually never seen it: This is a crack maker that has pride in their work. Those are almost perfect squares and I got to hand it to them - they did pretty darn good. But it's probably cause they want them to weigh out right. 

But it almost looks like if you took a candle, like a beige candle, and cut it up into pieces, that's kind of what it looks like. Here's some more, that's the way we usually see it cause they're usually breaking it up in like a pie pan and breaking it up into little pieces, that's what it looks like. There's a closer up picture. That kind of looks like my wife's gravy.

Audience: (laughter)

Capt. Huff (continues): That's a little softer looking than my wife's gravy. No I'm just kidding.

Audience Member: Captain Huff?

Capt. Huff: Yes ma'am? 

Audience Member: It can be different colors.  It's not always going to be that color.

Capt. Huff: Very, very, good point. Very good point. And I was going to go over that with meth but you're exactly right in cocaine. All they have to do is add food coloring. All they have to do is change stuff up a little bit. They can do something as simple as using a dirty pan and it will change the color, so you're exactly right. 

I've seen crack cocaine that's almost coffee color, like coffee with cream in it color. I've seen, people were putting Pepto Bismol in it and there was some pink. And I'm going to show you some meth, I think I've got a picture of meth that's pink. But it can be different colors. Thank you for bringing that up. 

Here's just some more paraphernalia, and powder. Somebody tell me, if you walked in... forget the number signs being there that's kind of a giveaway but... if you walked in and saw that on someone's kitchen counter, any of you case workers that walk into a house, what does that look like to you? 

Audience member: (inaudible)

Capt. Huff: Making Jam?

Audience member: (inaudible)

Capt. Huff: Okay, that's a meth lab. Now they can do what is called a "cold cook" or a "Nazi cook" and they can do it in just about like that. Used to when I was undercover there was big beakers and they had ether and all kinds of stuff and tubes and you could say, "That's a meth lab." Anybody would look and go, "That's some big chemical lab." 

Folks that's a meth lab. So if you see containers with liquid separating, white in the bottom, clear at the top. Filters, coffee filters with clips like that something dripping down in it. Don't touch it. Get away from it. Call us. Because it's a good chance that's a meth lab. 

Also, right now they're doing a method in vehicles where they're driving around and cooking the meth. They can do it in a Mountain Dew bottle with some tubes. So if you see a Mountain Dew bottle, or a Coke bottle, or whatever, that's got tubes sticking out of it or just doesn't look right, don't touch it. Call us. If you go into someone's home and see it, don't touch it, don't talk to them about it, call us. 

Here are some of the chemicals that they used. This is what they put in their veins. Isopropyl alcohol, gas line antifreeze -that's what you want in your system - carburetor cleaner, hydrogen peroxide, pseudoephedrine. 

No Audio: Coffee table covered in packages of pseudoephedrine.

Okay, if someone's got a cold that bad, they need to be in the hospital.

Audience: (laughter)

Capt. Huff (continues): Okay? I had a pretty bad cold, but when we see that we know there's one thing that they're doing. They got that much pseudoephedrine, theyÆre making methamphetamine. And if you see that, that's probably whatÆs going on. 

Matchsticks, they scrape the ends off of the matches, and they use that in the process. If you see a bunch of match boxes or someone has been scraping the ends off of them, that's a good sign that they've been making meth. Here's some more stuff. 

No Audio: Propane tank with the nozzle covered in a greenish-blue coating.

This is a public safety announcement and I do this to all the citizen's academies I teach. There are still some folks that make methamphetamine in a process that uses anhydrous gas. And anhydrous gas can be found on farms, okay, that used as a fertilizer and they come in big containers. 

Well these meth manufacturers will go and grab it and fill up one of these propane tanks that you can get at the 7-11 or where ever, and they'll fill it with anhydrous and make their meth, and this is what is does. It turns it a bluish-green. And if you see that, do not use that tank because there's deadly chemicals in it. Turn it back in, call the police. We've let all the people know. 

This is someone... this is ten years, '79 to '89, using meth. I don't know if anyone has seen these pictures before, but that's what it will do to you, that is what it will do to your body. 

No Audio: Picture of Charlie Sheen with the caption ôCharlie Sheen before banging 7 gram rocks.ö

That's Charlie before "banging seven gram rocks" like he says.

No Audio: ôCharlie Sheen æAfter banging 7 gram rocksÆ.ö There is a photo that is obviously not Charlie Sheen.
 
Audience: (laughter)

Capt. Huff (continues): That's what he looks like after banging... No I'm just kidding. Here's some needles, stuff you want to be aware of. I'm going to have to go a little quicker. Here is some methamphetamine, I'm going to start showing you different pictures of it, with the syringes. 

This is a little propane torch they use to light it up and heat it. This is where officers get stuck. They put them in cigarette packages with syringes with the lids off. Here is crystal meth or "ice" it looks just like what you say in little shards or it can be in packages all crumbled up. But thatÆs really big and a big problem. 

Ritalin, people say, "Well how can you have Ritalin in cns stimulants? That's used for giving to children who have ADHD and that should have the opposite effect to calm you down." Well it actually does in children. But past puberty, past that age, and when you're an adult Ritalin is a serious, serious stimulant. It will get you jacked up like amphetamine. And we have parents that get Ritalin for their kids and they sell it on the street for $15 or $20 a tablet. 

So if an adult has a bag full of Ritalin and no kids, okay they got a problem, without a prescription. Here's what you're going to see: restlessness, they are going to be moving around, jumpy, I'm sure a lot of you have seen it. Have anxiety. Euphoria, that is usually right after they first did it. 

They're going to be feeling no pain, they're going to be happy, the world is going to be great. Talkativeness, they're going to be talking like crazy. Someone that's on methamphetamine, crack cocaine, right after they've done it, they are going to be talking 90 miles an hour. 

Irritability, especially when they're coming down, nothing's going to make them happy. Bruxism, that's grinding your teeth. I hate that, too. I do evaluation on someone using meth and they're grinding their teeth, I just want to slap them. 

Eyelid and leg tremors - when someone is just standing there you can actually see their leg shake, their belly shake. Dilated pupils, we showed you what dilated was, that's what you will see with a stimulant. If they snort it, you're going to see a runny nose, redness to the nasal area. 

These are the way it's used: smoked, crack cocaine, meth; snorting it, injecting it and orally. Orally would be like Ritalin or something that's in a tablet form.

No Audio: Hallucination: A hallucination is a sensory experience of something that does not exist outside of the mind.
 
Hallucinogens, I'm going to go through these quickly. Synthesthisia, when I was telling you about me touching the LSD and... it will actually cross-wire your brain and make you substitute sounds for smells, sights for hearing, it's really a wild deal. Where you've heard the term, "that's a loud shirt you're wearing"? That's what it came from - the sixties, people were on LSD and seeing a bright color they could actually hear it and it's because it wired the brain to where it cross-wired your senses. 

Here's different types of hallucinogens: peyote, psilocybin, that's a mushroom, LSD, MDMA. Anybody know what that is? Don't say, "Madonna's new album," cause it is, that's what she called it. 

It's ecstasy. I'm going to show you, I'm sorry. Here's psilocybin mushrooms. This is what they look like, like just pulled out of the garden. Here's what they look like all dried up. This is the way you will normally see it. It looks like old dried up mushrooms, almost like a cow patty. Here's some where someone was growing, the really bad thing about it is what they have to grow it in is feces. They were actually growing it in their own feces. So, this the way you do it is you boil it, that sappy stuff rises to the top and you drink it like a tea. I bet that stuff with that human feces, I bet that tasted great. 

Blotter paper I was telling you about, where you tear it into sections. This is what they were soaking in that aluminum foil that got me high. This is what it looks like, and they tear it into pieces and that is a dose you stick under your tongue. Here's some more, this is what we found and they do it to appeal to kids. 

When my kids were younger, they thought... Cause when my kids were really young I was undercover and I would tell them... My kids would freak out. I told them so many things not to look at, touch... 

Audience: (laughter) 

Capt. Huff (continues): You know, they're like, "Dad, I can't even eat lunch all this stuff you said I can't touch." But here's some wrapped in foil. Here are some microdots, basically all that is, is just like a sugar pill, but they put a drop of LSD liquid in it. 

Ecstasy, we are not going to go through that. I'm going to have to go through... This is a ecstasy lab. Now that would be hard to hide, okay? Here are some things you are going to see: divided attention, relaxed inhibitions, empathy for others, loss of appetite, no need to eat or drink. When you're on LSD and you have got lions and tigers and spiders chasing you, you're not worried about eating. 

Enhanced sense of pleasure, this is for ecstasy cause it's in that category. Increases awareness of senses, especially touching. That's with ecstasy. Feeling of comfort, mild hallucinations, confusion, paranoia, memory loss, bruxism, that grinding of teeth, panic attacks, sweating, body tremors, rapid eye movement, great self-confidence, faintness, chills, extreme relaxation. 

You remember that kid I showed you the very first slides with the big pupil? That was from LSD. 
So that was a hallucinogen. You saw how big the pupils are so that's a dead giveaway. 

No Audio: Methods of Ingestion. Almost always taken orally. Effects will begin to take effect in 20-40 minutes. Effects usually last 4-6 hours.

These are the methods of ingestion. I'm just going to go through these quickly. There is no medical use for ecstasy, so these pills are made at home or in a garage. Look at these pills, they put "DEA" on it. And guess who busted them? The DEA. I thought that was pretty cool. McDonalds, Burger King, isn't that cool? There's my lucky charms deal, right there. These are all ecstasy tablets that's been seized. One thing to note, if you see... They're made in a pill press. You can buy a pill press on the internet to make herb pills or whatever. Notice how the jagged edges and they are not perfectly conformed. That is a dead giveaway to us that it is probably ecstasy. 

Okay, peyote someone was asking. This is peyote. It is from a cactus. ItÆs a basically a bud from a cactus. It is boiled and you can make a tea out of it and drink it. If anybody ever watched the movie Young Guns, where they boiled it and drank it and then they all started throwing up everywhere while they were hallucinating. That's what they do, cause I had a kid that was on it and he threw up all over me and I was not happy. While I was doing the evaluation. 

This was going on in San Francisco, they actually outlawed these frogs but these frogs... (laughs) I'm serious, I know it sounds crazy. These frogs excrete a venom to get rid of predators, and that venom is an hallucinogen and if you lick the frog or you dry it out and smoke the venom, you will hallucinate. And for a while in San Francisco people were walking along licking these frogs, they actually had to do an ordinance. We didn't do that in Midwest City yet but...

Audience: (laughter)

Capt. Huff (continues): In Oklahoma we eat frogs, we don't you know... Jimsonweed, this is a big deal. It is an hallucinogen, you boil it down make a tea. I'm going to show you the pods here in a minute. We have had some kids get seriously injured, some die from overdosing. It grows all over Oklahoma, it grows wild. 

Kids that know it... See these seeds in this pod? They boil it, it rises to the top, they make a tea out of it and drink it and it's really bad. Here's what you expect to see: dazed appearance, body tremors, perspiring, paranoia, disoriented, nausea, piloerection. That is goose bumps, goose flesh. Statements suggesting hallucinations, that's a big giveaway. "Did you see that pink elephant?" I mean that's a dead giveaway. 

When I've done evaluations, people under the influence of LSD, we keep a distance. We always have another officer in there. Some of the stuff they have come up with, I try not to laugh cause it's really not funny, but it kind of is. This is the way that it's done; orally, smoked, transdermal, injected, and snorted. 

PCP - basically PCP first came out it was an anesthetic used during surgeries. Put people out, they stopped using it because people kept waking up during surgery, getting off the table and their guts falling out...

Audience: (laughter) 

Capt. Huff (continues): ...and so they said, "You know what? Let's use a different one." They still use ketamine, for pediatric, for children, for pain, serious pain. Like one of our officers, his daughter fell off the monkey bars and had a double compound fracture and when she went to Children's, they actually gave her ketamine. Cause, bless her heart she was in agony. 

But it works for kids, but... Now it's just used in vets offices for large animals, okay? You absolutely feel no pain with it, it's like PCP. That's why people can do superhuman stuff, is because we have had incidents of people cutting their own limbs off who are under the influence of it. 

Ketaset - vets offices get broke into and it's stolen. We mainly see it in a liquid form. They'll pour it on a marijuana joint or cigarettes, they really like to use menthol cigarettes. If you see a cigarette with like a brown coating on it, like a crystalized coating on it, don't touch it. I've been told by the users they like to use menthol cigarettes because the PCP burns really hot and that menthol cools their throat off. 
So it's something to be aware of. 

Here's what you'll see, a blank stare... and I mean blank stare like just looking through you, like you're not even in the room. That's a real dead giveaway. Perspiring heavily, warm to the touch, incomplete, slurred verbal responses, cyclic behavior. They'll go from being just nice and calm and talking to you to coming after you to kill you just like that for absolutely no reason. 

They can get agitated, their muscle tone will be just super rigid. If you were to touch their arms or legs or somewhere where there's a large muscle mass, it is just going to be completely tight and rigid. One thing we should say about PCP, it makes your body temperature go up really high and the people want to shed their clothes. When I was a night shift patrol officer, if we would hear a call go out and they would say, you know, it's twenty degrees outside, and they would say, "Naked man running through neighborhood." We would go, "It's one of two things, either someone's husband came home to soon or someone's on PCP" because it was a dead giveaway for us what was going on. 

Here's some other signs, general indicators: They'll be disoriented, they can be non-responsive, they'll emit a chemical odor through their sweat and through their breath. Can't really describe it other than, maybe like the closest thing that I can think of is like a mild paint thinner smell, that's what you will smell. Moonwalking, no not the Michael Jackson moonwalking. I mean... whoa, hey... I mean moonwalking like Neil Armstrong, you know where they're...

No Audio: Capt. Huff walks very slowly and deliberately, mimicking the movements on the moon.
 
Because what the deal is they're so impaired, that they literally... their perception of time and distance is so off they're actually going, "Where's the floor? Where's the floor? Where's the floor? There's the floor. Okay I can lift my next foot." But they will moonwalk, okay? 

Pupil size will be normal with PCP, it doesn't affect the pupil size. And they will have nystagmus. I showed you the video of nystagmus. Multiply that times 10 where the eye is just going pbtpbtpbt, that's PCP. And it is so distinct that they don't even have to move their eye from side to side. Just looking straight ahead at you, you will be able to see the nystagmus, the quivering and it's kind of a weird deal. 

I wish I'd... I forgot to put a video on it to show you but if you look at someone and their eyes are doing that, back away. Slowly back away, call 911, let us know. Smoked, inhaled, snorted, orally, injected, and transdermal, it can absolutely be absorbed through the skin. Now narcotic analgesics, here I'm just going to go through these quickly cause I'm going to show you each one of these different types. Heroin, opium, morphine, codeine, dilaudid, demerol, methodone, darvon. 

Here are some various types of heroin, we have some dark brown, it's a tannish. You know we have the black tar heroin that looks just like it sounds, it looks like black tar. Sometimes they'll have it in balls, like little round black balls. Look almost like a Milk Dud. But amount of black tar heroin the size of a Milk Dud, that's about $1,500 worth of black tar heroin. Here's how it's packaged. 

A lot of times, it's in balloons cause they don't want to lose any of it. They want to be able to swallow it if law enforcement... Here's some pictures of poppy. How this stuff is made, what they do is these poppy plants up there in Afghanistan or where ever, they score the poppy, the sap drips out, they have workers that come by with knives, scrape that sap off and that's where they get their opiate. They let it dry out and go through the process, but that's how they get it. 

Lortab, if you ever been at the dentist, had dental work, have ever been to the doctor with a broken arm... Lortab and it's unbelievably popular in Oklahoma, as I'm sure a lot of you in here know and it's seriously abused. 

Tylox... Demerol that's usually done in the hospital or emergency room setting, they do have tablets for people who are cancer patients or who had a serious surgery. Tylenol three with codeine... 

Oxycontin. Here's the deal with Oxycontin: it's a serious, seriously strong pain medication. It was developed with a time release.... I'm going over, gosh, I'm sorry... Well let's go past some of these cause I want get, I definitely got to get to the weed. Opana is one of them. 

Here's what you will see with narcotics: track marks, on the nod, slowed reflexes, facial itching, that's really big, scratching their face all the time. Dry mouth, euphoria and remember we said the pupils would be constricted, they are going to be small. 

Okay, inhalants, just about any volatile chemical you can think of - gasoline, paint thinner - people will inhale that and get high. The reason they get high is because they're cutting off the oxygen supply to their brain. So they get that floating euphoric sensation. You would get the same thing if you choked yourself out, and you wouldn't have to spend three bucks on a gallon of gas. Alright well, four bucks on a gallon of gas. 

Anesthetic gases, that's stuff like, anesthetic gas is like if you go to the dentist and you get nitrous oxide. Ahhh I love that stuff. If they could give that to me to go, I would take it. You can get that out of these whip cream deals. We go to the stores all the time and they're empty cause the stock boys are high back in the back. Out of Rediwhip... Don't you guys go home and do this... Spray paint. ThatÆs a clue as a DRE...

No Audio: Picture of a man with gold spray paint all over his nose and mouth.

Audience: (laughter)

Capt. Huff (continues): I'm 90% sure he's under the influence of an inhalant. Here's the stuff that you'll see: odor of the substance, dizziness, numbness, confused, light-headed, flushed face, blood-shot, watery eyes. Blood-shot, watery eyes with inhalants that is a strong chemical, it's around their face so it's going to make their eyes... Intense headaches, nausea, floating sensation. 

The pupil size depends on the inhalant. If it's an anesthetic gas like you get at the dentist's office, it will dilate. Gasoline, that type of stuff will not. 

Okay now we are going to talk about marijuana, this is the last one. But I want... This is the one that you guys will probably see a lot. Marijuana, hashish, hashish oil, marinol. Marinol is basically... 
I've heard people say, "Well Oklahoma you can't get prescription marijuana. We need to legalize it so people that are cancer patients can have it, and people terminally ill." 

And I understand that reasoning, even being a cop, I'm reasonable. I mean personally, I'll give you my personal opinion. I don't think it should be legal, mainly for the kids reason. But if you say it's because it's for medical uses, I just don't buy it. Because that has been available for 35 years and a doctor can prescribe that even in Oklahoma. And it's a liquid form and it's got THC, itÆs the active ingredient in marijuana. It increases your appetite, it helps you with pain, your feeling, your well-being but it's in liquid form you just donÆt get as high... So anyway, that's what marinol is. 

Here's a plant, that's a nice plant. That's what the leaves look like. This was not in Midwest City, it was like somewhere in Texas or something. There's some package, this is just show off pictures here. I'm going to get through these. That's what joints look like, this is seeds. This is a pipe seized from a kid at a school. It's a magic marker pipe, is that not sweet? If they would just use that talent for something other than making pipes that would be... This guy told me it was for personal use.

No Audio: Car with the entire hood covered in bagged marijuana.
 
Audience: (laughter)

Capt. Huff (continues): I said, "Okay Cheech where is your brother Chong? Cause we need to talk." I took this picture this morning, this is one of our detectives. He didn't know I was going to do it. I said, "I need a picture for my slide show." "No, no, no." I said, "Do you have something in your eye?" He goes, "No." I said, "Pull your eye down." He did and I took that picture. 

What I want to show you is if you're looking for general indicators of marijuana, this is a great one to use. All these things right here you can pick up on it. I guarantee it everybody in this room can tell if someone used marijuana or not. 

The odor of marijuana is obvious. Impaired perception of time and distance. Marked reddening of the lower conjunctiva, luckily this detective wasn't smoking marijuana. But - I hope everybody can see this - but this part of the white area that meets up with the bottom eyelid, that part right there. If someone is smoking marijuana that will be blood red. I'm not talking about red like this, I'm talking about blood red, like this lady's jacket. That is a dead giveaway that someone's been smoking marijuana if they pull their eyelid down and you see that. 

Body tremors where their body is shaking, disoriented, impairs attention, relaxed inhibitions. Raised taste buds. If you have them stick their tongue out, in the back of their tongue it'll look like little mushrooms popped up. The first time I saw it I thought, "Let's get this guy to the hospital, this is crazy." But it will be right back here in the back and I think it's hard for y'all to see. But it will actually look like little mushrooms. And the marijuana is what causes those to pop up like that. 

Then they'll have a green coating on their tongue. You think where you're smoking marijuana the smoke's brown. No it's actually a green coating from that chlorophyll will coat their tongue. I go to high schools, they will call me out and say, "I think Johnny has been smoking weed." It takes me like five minutes, just walking up. "Stick your tongue out. Tilt your head back. Let me see your eyes. Dude you've been smoking marijuana, you probably smoked it about forty minutes ago." And they will go, "Okay I did." 

But you can tell my kids didn't have a chance. If they smoked weed, they were in another country cause dad would have known. And then green, leafy substance in their teeth. It sounds crazy but they're smoking it. I haven't seen any filtered marijuana deal. Well maybe a bong, but they'll get the little pieces in their teeth and you can see it. Smoking and orally. 

No Audio: What to Do If You Suspect Illicit Drug Activity: make sure you are safe. If you suspect a clandestine lab, LEAVE and notify police immediately. If you suspect other drug activity, notify police... remember what you have seen. Your details will be very helpful. If you donÆt know what it is, donÆt touch it!!

This is the main thing. If you suspect something is going on, if guys go into a house or something, please donÆt confront people about it. Because if you do see something that looks like a meth lab and you confront them, the next thing that may come out's a gun. Please, please just back out and call us. Act like you don't see it. Give us a call. 

And if you deal with someone and it's some item you don't know what it is, don't touch it, okay? Here's my desk number, you can call me anytime. Here's my email, you can email me anytime with any questions or anything that you might want to know. Thank you folks. Sorry that took the whole time. If anybody has any questions, I will hang around. Come up to me and I will be glad to answer them. 

No Audio: Captain David Huff. Midwest City Police Department. Office: 405-739-1307. E-Mail: dhuff@midwestcityok.org