PRACTICE AND POLICY LECTURE SERIES, JUNE 2013 - DRUG RECOGNITION, PART 2

Captain David Huff: Before we get started again I'm just going to do a real quick, gratuitous, plug and make an offer to all of you. I forgot to do it the last time I was here so I'm going to do this now. Among all my other many duties I have at the police department, I'm also the coordinator or commandant or whatever you want to call it over the Midwest City Police Citizen's Academy. 

And basically it's a 14 week course and it's every Thursday night from 6:00pm to 9:00pm and you are all, everyone here, whether you live in Midwest City or not, you're all welcome to attend this course. I've had several folks from state government, from DHS that have gone through and really enjoyed it. 

Basically, what the class consists of, well one night is this course, you probably want to skip it. But, you get to do things like hear from our police officers and detectives about doing child crime investigations. You get to go out and ride in police cars on the track doing pursuits and doing the pit maneuver and get spun around in a car, like the police are chasing you. You get to shoot fully automatic machine guns, under the supervision of a SWAT team. You get to shoot shotguns and pistols. You get to watch us blow stuff up, our bomb squad. You can even push the button to blow up bombs if you would like. You get a tour of the police department, the jail, the complete EOC department. You get training in self-defense. You can be tazed if you would like.

(laughter)

Captain Huff (continues): The class I have going on now, 9 of the 25 students got tazed. It's all voluntary, that stuff. So I don't want to turn you away. That's all voluntary. You get to watch our canine dogs in action. You get to put on the bite suit and get attacked if you would like. It's a great course, you learn a lot of stuff, we teach a lot of stuff. 

If you're interested, you're more than welcome. My next class is going to be starting in September. It's going to be the first Thursday in September; I don't remember the exact date off the top of my head. Every Thursday night from 6:00pm to 9:00pm. It's in Midwest City, all of our classes. Except for one - we'll be out of the Oklahoma County Sherriff's track doing the crazy driving. But if you're interested, I'm going to go ahead and give you my desk number. It's 739-1307 and I'll also give you my email address. And I can email you an application. Application is just a formality. The only requirements we have, you can't have outstanding warrants, so we're pretty easy-going. And it's dhuff@midwestcityok.org. And I'll send you an application and get you in the class. 

Audience member: (inaudible)

Captain Huff: dhuff@midwestcityok.org.

Audience member: (inaudible)

Captain Huff: I'm sorry. 

Audience member: Did you say there was a fee?

Captain Huff: No, there's no fee. It's absolutely free. In fact you get a free police polo shirt with a badge on it and your name. I can already see it, "I'm going to give out some tickets!" No. You get a free shirt. Everything is absolutely free. You don't pay...

Audience member: (inaudible)

Captain Huff: Thank you. Yes. 

Audience member: And what's the name of the class?

Captain Huff: Midwest City police Citizen's Academy. And I usually try to limit the class to 25 people. We have different instructors and every police facet you can imagine and I usually have an overwhelming... they... one of my bosses, I'm not going to say his name - Assistant Chief Sid Porter - decided to put it out in the newspaper and I got like 450 application requests. Now, I mean that's a good thing. I don't want to have a program where I can't get people to come, but here's the thing. I'm just going to be honest with you. Folks like you guys and the job that you do, if I have my rathers, that's who I would rather have. 

But anybody is allowed. If you want to bring a family member with you, that's okay, too. So just send me an email, tell me that you were in this class here, in the training and I'll know and we'll get you in it. Okay? Alright, that's my gratuitous plug for our Citizen's Academy. 

Audience member: How long did you say it lasted?

Captain Huff (continues): Fourteen weeks. Fourteen weeks. And here's the other thing. I realize that with people's jobs and people have to miss some classes and stuff so you'll still get a... you're going to get a diploma. You're going to get a DVD. We take a DVD during the whole course of the class. You're going to get a DVD of the class. A class picture. 

If you get tazed, you're going to get a certificate that says, "I was tazed by the Midwest City Police Department." And you're going to have a video of it. So... 

(laughter)

Captain Huff (continues): Hey videos of being tazed are more valuable than gold. My wife works for the U.S. Marshals and she is 5'2" and she thinks she is the toughest woman on the face of the earth. And she pretty much is. I do what she tells me, but she had to get tazed. They shot her with, they actually shoot you with the tazer. In this class you just have little alligator clips and they, not up here I mean like right here and right here, but they have little alligator clips they put on and you get tazed. 

Well the U.S. Marshalls, to carry them, they have to get shot with it, where the prongs come out. Little fish hook deals and stick in you. So the Marshals video-taped it and my wifeÆs getting shot. She has two guys holding her and she told me before it happened - because I had already been tazed before her - and she said, "I'm not going to scream like you did." 

(laughter)

Captain Huff (continues): And I said, "Okay." Well she gets shot on the video, she lasts about three seconds and as she is going down to the ground, she said a really, really naughty word and then screamed like a little girl. So every time we get in an argument now I stick that DVD in and I just hit replay, replay, replay. Now I can't find the DVD. But anyway. 

Alright enough of that. We'll get back to the drug stuff here. Now we're going to start talking about the drug categories and their observable effects. Central nervous system depressants. This is one of the drug categories and it's on your sheet there. The biggest, most abused central nervous system depressant is alcohol. I know some of you are thinking, ôDepressant? I don't get depressed when I drink alcohol. I get happy when I drink alcohol.ö The way the alcohol works is, the first few drinks actually kind of stimulates you a little bit, but eventually as that starts going through your blood stream it becomes a depressant. 

Barbiturates, they're not prescribed as much as they used to be, but that's definitely in the category and we're going to talk about some of those. Anti-anxiety tranquilizers, and there's like 18 pages of central nervous system depressants that are in tablet form. And I'm just going to go over today ones that you most commonly see. And if you have a question about one or something that you think might be and you have a question and I don't show it on this slide, please just bring it up and we'll talk about it. 

Xanax, first one on here. Very, very widely used. And I'm just going to tell you right now, Xanax is a fantastic drug. It's something that they came out with that has a great purpose. It serves that purpose well. And when people take it, like their doctor's tell them to take it, it can help change people's lives. It really can. I go to a lot of pharmaceutical companies and we discuss this stuff, and effects, and new drugs that are coming out. 

Doctors like to prescribe it because if it's taken in a therapeutic dose, and when I say "therapeutic" that means the way the doctor prescribed it on the bottle for you to take it, it's great. It doesn't impair you that much, if any, in a therapeutic dose. Here's where the problem comes in when you're talking about drugs like Xanax: people take it and say, "Well this makes me feel better, I don't have the anxiety," or "I don't have panic attacks anymore," or "It's helped with my depression. So if one is good, two must be a lot better. So that doctor doesn't know what he's talking about. I'm going to take two. Well, no, I'm going to take three." 

That's where Xanax can be a problem and have someone actually under the influence of it. Here's one of the other problems and the drug companies are going to start getting this fixed. And Upjohn...These right here, it's what they call on the street, especially teenagers, they call them Xanny Bars. And what the deal is, see how these tablets are scored with the little perforations? Well that's... each one of these perforations is a dose. It was made so you could break it off, take a dose. 

And if you look, this one is two milligrams. Okay. This one is .25 milligrams. This is a very common dosage that doctors prescribe. Half a milligram. So if you take one of these that's just like taking eight of these. So when teenagers get a hold of them and say, "Oh someone just gave me a Xanax Bar. I'm going to take one." Well they just took eight doses in one tablet. And that can create serious problems. That can create overdose problems. 

Someone says, "Well I know my mom takes three Xanax tablets and she's fine. We don't even know. I'll just take three of these. So Upjohn has made it where they've went way down on prescribing it, well they don't prescribe it, but on producing it this way and doctors have got to where they stop prescribing this way and eventually that's going to go away. 

And luckily, you know, believe me I've got a lot of bad things to say about pharmaceutical companies, and I'm sure you all do too, but they are doing a lot of good things, too. We're going to talk about some of those. They actually are listening to law enforcement a little bit and listening to doctors about the problems they're having and trying to fix it. But Xanax is definitely a depressant and if it's used like it's supposed to be, like the doctors prescribe it, it is a fantastic drug. 

Valium. Valium is not prescribed as much anymore because of drugs like Xanax, but it is still prescribed. I had some a while back on a medical procedure. They can give it to you intravenously or by tablet and it's still in use, but not quite as much. One thing we're going to talk about the way this is packaged. See how it's packaged in the blister pack? Instead of in a prescription bottle? That's because it didn't come from the United States and it's not legal. This has been bought in Mexico. 

Someone went into a pharmacy where they have a doctor/tire repair guy/... that writes you a prescription. "You have a headache? Well we have morphine." And if they bring it back over so it's not been approved by the FDA to be in the United States and they don't have that much quality control and there could be problems. So if it's not in a prescription bottle and it's like this as law enforcement officers it's an immediate red flag, okay? Here's some more Valium. This is a prescription form of what the tablets look like. It comes, looks many different ways depending on the... Now the, it's in the form of generic that comes in all different types. 

Rohypnol. Anybody know what Rohypnol is referred to on the street? Date rape drug. Yep, absolutely. Referred to as Roofies. When I worked sex crimes and child abuse I worked, we had a rave club in Midwest City. It's long since been closed down. But I worked at least three cases that were confirmed where Rohypnol had been dissolved into young ladies' water bottles and then the perpetrator would act like they're walking their drunk girlfriend - who they had never met before - out to the car, and these young ladies were waking up somewhere they shouldn't have been and they had been raped. 

And then when we did blood tests on these young ladies and they did rape exams find out that they had Rohypnol in their body. So it's been named that correctly. It's not just a wives' tale or a rumor. I have personally seen it. The really super-dangerous thing about it, besides that horrible event that happened to these young ladies is, it is very, very easy to overdose on Rohypnol because it is a very potent depressant. 

It can depress your vital signs, your pulse, your blood pressure to the point where your heart just stops beating. Where you basically go to sleep and don't wake up. And they weren't being dosed by a doctor. They were being dosed by some pervert who deserves to be in prison for the rest of their natural life. So you think that person cares if they overdose them? 

So the good thing about Rohypnol is, it is very, very rarely prescribed in the United States by a doctor because there are so many other things to use. It still is purchased in Mexico and brought back to the United States. So, if someone has Rohypnol, I would say there is a 95% chance that it's illegal. They weren't prescribed. Yes ma'am?

Audience member: What's it normally used for?

Captain Huff (continues): It is used for someone who has some serious psychological problems, severe insomnia, that type of thing. And it's... when doctors do prescribe it, they start it out in very, very low doses and work their way up. But the stuff that's coming over from Mexico, like a one milligram, if one of us in this room took a one milligram, I'll see you Friday because that's probably about when you'll wake up. I mean it's that strong. It's some strong stuff. 

And what it does and we're going to talk about it more, but a CNS depressant, you saw that alcohol was in that category, so the effects it has on you is like you're drunk on alcohol. So that's why it's popular to use that way. "Oh I'm just walking my drunk girlfriend out to the car. She's had too much to drink." So it mimics those characteristics and that's why it's easy to use that way. 

Here's some Rohypnol again in blister packs. Like I said that came from over the border. A doctor did not prescribe that. So if you all are out and about and see something like that, just know that it wasn't prescribed by a doctor. Doctors don't give samples of scheduled drugs. Okay? If they say, "Well, you know, I got this Percocet as a sample from my doctor." No you didn't. It didn't happen that way. The DEA regulates that and doctors don't want, well most doctors don't want to lose their license that way. 

Here's the general indicators that you see. Same as if you... I know everybody in this room has seen someone drunk on alcohol. I'm sure none of you have ever been drunk on alcohol. I know I never have been. But I'm sure that you've seen someone, at least on TV. And that's what you would expect to see. 

Drowsiness, thick, slurred speech. I had to describe thick, slurred speech in a Federal trial one time and those things are, you know, they're like, "Detective can you describe thick, slurred speech? You said the defendant had thick, slurred speech." And the best way I can describe it was they were mixing their consonants and their vowels together in such a way I couldn't understand what they were saying. So that's the best way I can describe it. And it flew because the defense attorney just went, "okay." 

Uncoordinated, you know, not walking very well, not able to do normal tasks easily. Fumbling, We see this a lot on traffic stops if someone is drunk, you know, we make a traffic stop and we say we need to see your driver's license and insurance verification and they're fumbling around with their purse or their wallet and they drop four things and they have to lean over and pick it up. Slow, sluggish reactions. Not moving very quick. Pupil size...

Audience member: That's me kind of in the morning, though. 

Captain Huff: Yeah, that's why you have to use your drug. I think your drug is soda-based.

Audience member: It's ice water. 

Captain Huff: Sure, whatever. No I'm just kidding. I believe you. I go, I go to Whataburger to get my ice water every morning.

Audience member: Well no, (inaudible)

Captain Huff: Oh. Now the truth comes out. 

Audience member: I keep the soda cups my husband buys and put my ice water in there because they don't sweat. 

Captain Huff: Oh, well that's a great idea. I need that size for my coffee. 

Audience member: And it doesn't sweat in my truck so it doesn't get my cup holder all icky. 

Captain Huff: Wow you think ahead. I like that. I like that. The next thing we're going to talk about is....

Audience member: Honest officer. 

Captain Huff: I believe you and you only had two beers and I understand. Pupil size. I'm going to tell you on each one of these drugs since I showed you about the pupils, with the depressant, pupil size should be normal. It's not going to constrict it and make it smaller. And it's not going to make it bigger or dilated. 

I've had to go testify as an expert a few times on some trials and it still bothers me. We're trying to teach these officers, but even the police officers will put "their eyes were bloodshot and watery and dilated" as part of their probable cause for them being drunk. Well there's some really super-smart defense attorneys, I know that's an oxymoron, there's some really super-smart defense attorneys out there that do their research and talk to doctors and try to sneak into classes like this. 

Yeah I had to, I literally had to escort a defense attorney out of a class for police officers. I went through like 30 minutes of it and a detective from another city came up to me and said, "We don't know this guy. We've never met him before. And we don't think he's a cop." I went up and said, "Sir what agency are you with?" "Smith Cone and so and so". And I go, "I've never heard of that police department." I go, "We're going to have to ask you to leave now." 

Whenever the officers testify that way and say, "their pupils were dilated and they had bloodshot, watery eyes." They actually just described three things that central nervous system depressants - alcohol - does not cause. Okay? So if that's a smart defense attorney that officer is in some trouble because alcohol does not cause bloodshot, watery eyes. I could sit at this table right now and drink a whole bottle of tequila and unless I poured some in my eyes, they're not going to be bloodshot and watery. 

Somebody tell me why someone that's drunk may have bloodshot, watery eyes. Smoke pot with it. That would do it. Where are they... on a Friday night where are most people drinking? 

Audience members: (collectively) Bars.

Captain Huff (continues): The bar. So where the bloodshot, watery comes in is usually all the cigarette smoke in the bar. So smart defense attorneys have picked up on this. So we teach our officers do not put "I know he was drunk because he had bloodshot, watery eyes and his pupils were dilated." It doesn't cause dilated pupils and a smart defense attorney is going to say, "Officer Smith, does alcohol cause bloodshot, watery eyes?" "Well, yes sir it does." 

"Really? Because my next witness is a doctor or ophthalmologist and we'll see what he has to say about that." And guess what? The jury is going to go, "That officer doesn't know what he's talking about." And they're going to be right. So just, just to let you know. 

Next thing we're going to talk about is nystagmus. What nystagmus is, it's an involuntary jerking of the eyes. And I'm sure a lot of you have never had this done to you, but I'm sure you've seen it on TV where an officer is on the roadside with a pen and they're doing this. Most people think that the officer is just trying to see if they can follow that pen with their eye. Well that's not true. What we're looking for is something called nystagmus. 

And I'm going to show you a video of it here real quick so you can get an idea of what it looks like. But basically, it's involuntary jerking of the eye and the eye bounces from side to side when it goes out to the maximum. And you can see it, it's very pronounced. Only about one half of 1% of the population has natural nystagmus that's distinct and visible. 

There's some neurological disorders that can cause it. Someone brought up to me, when I taught down at the History museum, Albinism is something that people have natural nystagmus that you can see. Head trauma, brain surgery, there's some other things like that. But it's less than one half of 1%. So when we see nystagmus there's a lot of drug categories that it falls into. 

And let me get out of here real quick and I'm going to show you what it looks like on video. You know, I have way too many little programs on my... Because some of this stuff that I'm going to show you, this nystagmus, you don't have to have a pen or a flashlight to see it. You can look straight at someone looking straight ahead and you can see what I'm fixing to show you. 

No Audio: Video of nystagmus shown off-screen.

Let me show it to you again. This lady that we dosed up... we do, when we do our clinicals for the DREs, we dose people up on just alcohol. We don't dose people up on cocaine and all that stuff. We go to the county jail and wait for people to come in on that. But we do dose people up on alcohol and, believe it or not, we go down to the OU campus and we find 21-year-olds and we go, "Would you be willing to come in and drink and eat for free? And have cops run tests on you? And then give you a ride back to your place in a cop car?" And there's like lines forming around the... 

This young lady was only dosed up to a .08% and that's the equivalent for her, that would be the equivalent of about five beers, about five, one and half ounce mixed drinks and this is what the nystagmus looked like. That's all the college students in the background that we're dosing. 

Audience member: (inaudible) ...is involuntary?

Captain Huff: It is involuntary. They don't realize they're doing it. It doesn't necessarily affect their vision. Without going into a whole lot, but to give you the nut shell version, everyone in here right now has nystagmus. If an ophthalmologist hooked you up to a machine that you can look at it, and it does it in slow motion and looking at your eyes, everyone in here, their eyes are going like 1,000 ticks per second. It's just really freaky looking when you look in this machine and see it. 

But what we're looking for is called distinct nystagmus and that is where it becomes so pronounced you can see it with the naked eye. You don't have to hook them up to a machine to see it. And some of these drugs we're going to talk about, they induce it, this nystagmus to the point where you can see it with the naked eye. Does that make sense to you? The drugs cause it, you can't control it. 

You can't... the person can't stay there and go "I am not going to have nystagmus. I am going to hold my eyes still." They don't know they're doing it. And they can't stop it. And that's why, going back to the eyes are the window to the soul, whenever it's something that's involuntary where someone can't control... As DREs we love that because we're never going to make a decision based on one thing that we see. 

"They have nystagmus so they're under the influence of drugs." Oh, no. We base it on the totality of everything we see. What our whole evaluation is. It's based on that. You never, ever on one thing. Never. Even if they said, "I just smoked a bowl of methamphetamine two minutes ago." We do not base our decision on just one thing. 

Audience member: So since we're not officers, if we want to determine if someone was under that, usually we are looking at them straight ahead. You know we need to get them to you know look to the left, to the right. What would you do?

Captain Huff: Well that's a very good question and here's the thing that I would tell you, obviously there's going to be situations where you're not going to be able to do that. And I would suggest that you just look the best you can and see what you can see. But I will tell you, if it's a family member... my poor kids. You know I got a 26-year-old son, still in college. College is going to be like the best 12 years of his life. 

(laughter)

Captain Huff (continues): But I got a 26-year-old in college, a 26-year-old son and a 22-year-old daughter that's in college, and those poor kids. I was scared that when they got off and went to college that they were just going to go, you know, kind of like the preacher's kids scenario. Because okay their mom is a U.S. Marshal and their dad is a police officer that's a Drug Recognition Expert, that worked undercover. You think they had any chance of coming home high? 

(laughter)

Captain Huff (continues): Yeah so I... my kids could do a full DRE evaluation on anyone in here because they just repeat what dad made them do when they came home on Friday night. I wasn't that bad, but depending on the circumstances you can have them do it. I've done this before because people have refused to cooperate, I have literally done this. I've been standing there talking to someone and you don't even have to say a word, just go (speaker turns head away) and when they look, I'm looking at them. It's a cop trick. 

But if you look at someone long enough or talk to them, their eyes are going to move around and some of these drugs you're going to be able to see it straight on without them having to move from side to side. You're going to be able to see it straight on. 

But someone that's a low dose of alcohol, like this young lady, I consider it a low dose because she wasn't just really drunk, you're going to have to get out to what they call maximum deviation where the eyeball is all the way over where you can't see the white of the eye in the corner, probably to see it well. 

Audience member: (inaudible)

Captain Huff: You're talking to someone they're saying, "I'm not going to do your tests." "Okay," and I'll just look. I'll just turn my head and look and then they're... what does someone do when you turn and look? They turn and look and then I'm, as soon as they do that I'm looking at their eyes. Because they're like, "What is he looking at?" Then I'm going, "Oh I see nystagmus." 

Audience member: Right and sometimes when you're talking to them, they don't even want to look at you in the eyes so they're looking off anyway. 

Captain Huff: You're exactly right. And I, you're exactly right. And I find that a lot with teenagers. The schools will call our DREs out to do stuff and they know it's a cop and they just did something wrong, if they were just in the alley smoking some weed or whatever they were doing. Now weed is not actually going to apply to nystagmus, but believe me they're not looking them in the eye. They're looking somewhere else. It's a very good point. Any questions about nystagmus because we're going to talk about it some more with other drugs. Okay. 

Now we're going to talk about central nervous system stimulants. We've already talked about one of them, it's the coffee or the soda that you're drinking. The main ones we're going to talk about today, because it's the most common, is cocaine, amphetamines and methamphetamines. When I talk about cocaine it can be in powdered form, which is cocaine hydrochloride, or crack cocaine. Amphetamines, the reason there's amphetamines and methamphetamines - amphetamines are actually still prescribed today by doctors. Amphetamines are used for things like narcolepsy. Does anybody know what narcolepsy is? 

Audience member: When you fall asleep (inaudible)

Captain Huff: I see some of you in here have narcolepsy because while I've been talking (speaker nods head). But for narcolepsy they'll give low doses of amphetamines and some other neurological things, but it's rare and it's in very low doses. So that is something is made by pharmacies and can be prescribed. 

In fact... I mean I remember this, I know my mom, if she was still alive, she wouldn't mind me telling this story. You know, back 30 years ago they sold amphetamines, well or not "sold," that sounds bad. "My mom went to..." no. Doctors prescribed amphetamines as diet pills. And my mom was never really overweight per se, but she went to the doctor and got those diet pills. 

And I'll tell you this, our house was spotless after mom got her diet pills. The vacuuming, the sweeping I mean I had this discussion with her after I got out of school and she's like, "Oh my gosh! No wonder I was so hyper and..." I said, you know, I never had to clean my room. I mean it was awesome. But they prescribed those diet pills and I promise you, get on methamphetamine, yeah you're going to lose some weight and your teeth and your hair and your mind. 

And methamphetamine, there is absolutely no medical use for it. It's not prescribed, it's not made in a pharmacy. It's made in someone's garage, their trailer. We're going to talk about that. The back seat of a car. Wal-Mart, yep, at Wal-Mart. Yep, not the Wal-Mart in Midwest City. There is no drug usage or, no, I'm just kidding. 

Here's some pictures. Cocaine hydrochloride, the powder, we don't see it very often anymore. The main reason is they don't get as much bang for their buck. They take the powder cocaine and they get a lot more money by mixing it with some baking soda and putting it in a pan and put it in the microwave and making some crack. They get a lot more for their money. So we see powder very rarely. If we do see it, it's on its way to be cooked for crack cocaine. 

Audience member: What is (inaudible). Where do they get it?

Captain Huff: I'm sorry?

Audience member: Where do they get that stuff?

Captain Huff: The cocaine? 

Audience member: Yeah.

Captain Huff: The, well, it comes from a bunch of different places. Most of it comes from Mexico. South America. That's where most of it comes from. It comes from the coca plant. They do a bunch of crazy stuff to it with chemicals. They stomp on coca leaves with acid in it with in bare feet. I mean, I could show you some pictures from Columbia of these people with their feet almost down to the bare bone from doing it. 

But then it's shipped over here. It's not really done in a lab. It's some chemicals added and some coca leaves and just a process. 

Audience member: And there's no medical reason for that?

Captain Huff: They actually, that's a good question. They do use cocaine, but it is for super-super-rare things. Right now it's basically limited to nasal surgeries. And here's the reason for that. They have cocaine in a liquid form that they put on a big Q-tip and they rub it on the inside of the nose where they're going to have nasal surgeries because in your nasal cavity and sinuses when they do a surgery there's a big propensity for severe bleeding. 

Cocaine does two things. Cocaine is an anesthetic - so it deadens - and the other thing that it does is it constricts the blood vessels so it can help control the bleeding. Now it's very rare and it's very controlled. And it, I've seen it before in liquid form. It's in a bottle and it's red and it's almost like syrup. And they still use it for that. But that's about the only thing it's used for now. 

And they used to use it for some procedures at dentist's office. There have been some horror stories. In Tampa, Florida, a dentist had it to use for procedures, where they put it on the Q-tip and rub it to keep from bleeding and stuff for people that are free bleeders. And they also had, in the same cabinet, liquid Tylenol for kids and lost a young child that way and so it's been stopped in dentist's offices as far as I know from what I've been told by the pharmaceutical companies, but they still use it for nasal surgeries. 

Audience member: (inaudible)

Captain Huff: Mm-hmm. These bags this is kind of hard to see, but here's some bags of crack cocaine that we've taken. I'm going to show you some more pictures of crack. There's some powder cocaine. Like I said you see this very rarely and I've actually talked to the users and I say, you know, "What's the difference in powder and crack?" 

"Oh crack, crack's, crack's, crack's, crack's, crack's, crack's, crack's better." Quicker high, you know they, to them there's no comparison. Powder cocaine, from talking to the DEA guys, they still find it in some, you know the ritzy neighborhoods and stuff, they still want to do the snorting thing, but it's just very rare. Because you, they get, you quadruple their money by making it into crack. 

Audience member: What is the difference between crack and cocaine?

Captain Huff: Crack is the base form of cocaine. Basically that powder that I showed you? It's cocaine hydrochloride, it's in the powder form. They take that crack cocaine and I'm not going to give you the formula so you can go on make this at home, but there's... yeah I guarantee you it is. You mix baking soda and some water and I'm sure they use distilled water. I mean because they want to be clean, but, and you cook it in the microwave. That's, by the way, that what the name crack came from because it makes a cracking noise when you cook it. And they cook it at a certain temperature, a certain time, and it turns that hydrochloride into the chemical base form of cocaine. 

Now, if the cops are coming up and someone has a bag full of cocaine hydrochloride, the powder, and they swallow it, they can overdose and die. If you swallow a decent size bag of crack cocaine they're probably not even going to get that high and it's certainly not going to kill them. Because when it's changed to the base form, it takes being heated up into a vapor to get it back into the hydrochloride form. So if you eat crack cocaine that's a huge waste.

When you heat it up, it turns it back into that hydrochloride form that you can get high on and the quickest way to the brain and through your blood system is in the lungs. You have all those capillaries that goes straight to your lungs, straight to your brain and you get high instantaneously. That's why they love it so much. As soon as that's heated up, they breathe in the vapors, they exhale, they're high. You eat some crack cocaine or whatever, you're not going to get high. So it's turning it into that base form, that's the difference. 

This little vial, I want to show it to you for a couple reasons. They don't use this much anymore, because they don't use powdered cocaine much anymore, but this vial is used big time by people who sell PCP. And they fill these little brown vials. In this picture it looks big, it's tiny. It's tiny, maybe an inch tall, maybe a quarter inch in diameter, and they'll put a clear liquid in it  and that clear liquid is PCP. 

And they dip marijuana joints in it and we're going to talk about PCP and stuff here a little more. But if you see a vial like that with a liquid in it, do not touch it. Do not handle it, call the police. Our guys, we double glove with latex gloves and we had one of our officers get exposed to it that way. Just like my Lucky Charms commercial, PCP is much worse and it will absorb through your skin and you will get the full effect. 

Here's a cocaine inhaler. Of course if you go to Ziggy's or any of the head shops, they're going to say, "No, no, no, it's an herbal separator." But, for the conscientious cocaine users, this will give you a measured dose so you can have it therapeutically. 

You put the powder - or the methamphetamine is what, they use it now, it's mainly methamphetamine - they put the powder in the little base there, you tip it over, and it fills up that little cylinder and you've got one dose. And then you stick it in your nose and like a Vick's inhaler and you snort it. You can buy those at any head shop. I've got one at home, I actually use it for rosemary for my spaghetti and it works pretty good. No, I'm just kidding. I don't know. 

This is what crack cocaine pretty much looks like, here's a bag of crack cocaine. If you could picture taking an off-white colored candle and cutting it up in pieces, it kind of looks that way. This drug dealer we busted they took pride in their work. I mean, that's pretty good little squares. We don't normally see it cut up that good but, you know, if you're going to do something, do it well. I guess. 

That's how we normally see it. This guy takes no pride in his work. He keeps his gun and money right next to the dope, which we love because we get to keep all that stuff when they do that, but that's what it looks like normally. It'll be like jagged little pieces. Like if you take peanut brittle that you've made at home and you break it up, you know, it usually doesn't do in nice little pieces. Looks kind of like that. Yes sir? Or ma'am?

Audience member: (inaudible)

Captain Huff: I'm sorry, I'm sorry ma'am I couldn't hear you. 

Audience member: (inaudible) meth sores that you see on people?

Captain Huff: Oh! Meth sores! Oh! No. 

Audience member: Do you see that with crack?

Captain Huff: No. And here's why: there's not as many impurities. You know the methamphetamine you know it has the Red Devil lye, the carburetor cleaner. Okay? Now cocaine has some acidic stuff. They put some acids in the coca leaves to break it down and step on it and mash it up into a paste and all that stuff, but there's not as many impurities to come out through the skin and the pores as there is with methamphetamine. 

What I've noticed is, if we've arrested someone that's smoking crack and they have the sores and stuff it's either they don't take care of themselves because when they're on the pipe, they're not taking baths and doing personal hygiene like they should and also you're not going to find someone that smokes crack will go, "Well the only drug I do is crack. I don't get into that other stuff." If they're using crack, they're probably using meth, they're probably doing PCP, they're, you know what I mean? So that's to answer your question on the long deal. 

Cocaine or crack cocaine itself, won't cause that. One thing we do see a lot of with someone that uses crack a lot is they'll have sores on their mouth, but that's from smoking it in the light bulb and using the butane and that's vapor heats up to a super-heated deal and they'll have blisters on their lips that get infected and so you will see that. 

Here's some methamphetamine and paraphernalia. Methamphetamine, we're showing some here white, comes in all different colors of powder. We have the peanut butter crank where they mix different things in it. They'll put food coloring in it. We were dealing with some pink crank here a while back and we found out they were using Pepto-Bismol in it because you don't, I mean you don't want to get an upset stomach when you're doing that. I mean... but they, and that made it pink so they could kind of identify their product. So you don't necessarily just see it white. You see it many different colors. Yes ma'am?

Audience member: What's ôiceö?

Captain Huff: We're going to talk about that, but ôiceö is methamphetamine. We're going to, I'm going to show you that next. Before you do that, let's take our ten minute break.

(End Part 2)