Gov. Ricketts honors Nebraska State Patrol for seizing record amount of drugs in 2018

The Nebraska State Patrol seized more than 10,000 pounds of drugs in 2018.

Governor Pete Ricketts honored the Patrol for their efforts at the State Capitol Thursday morning.

Ricketts said more than 8,000 pounds of marijuana has been taken off the streets this year. The last time they saw numbers like that was in 2006. 

Nebraska State Patrol Colonel John Bolduc said they’ve also seized more methamphetamine, THC products and fentanyl than ever before. 

Ricketts said these efforts are vital to the safety of the state.

“”When the Nebraska State Patrol is taking these dangerous drugs off the streets they are keeping our people here safe, and people in other states safe as well,” Ricketts said. 

Trooper Greg Goltz has seen this first hand, he said.

“We made an arrest of an individual with 54 pounds of meth,” Goltz said. “He wasn’t driving through the state but driving headed to a destination of Central Nebraska. That made a big impact there.”

Bolduc said meth is on the rise throughout the Midwest and Nebraska, impacting Nebraskans in many ways.

“Impacting communities, jails social services, out of home placements of children because parents are creating unsafe environments for their kids,” Bolduc said. 

Troopers have also made a record number of felony arrests in 2018. Bolduc said they broke 1,000 arrests last week, which usually doesn’t happen in a only a year.

“It goes way beyond the county where the people are arrested,” Goltz said. “Sometimes there’s children involved, sometimes people get their lives turned around based on an arrest. We see benefits in many ways the public would never know.”

The amount, and types of marijuana products has increased too, Bolduc said. In part because more states have legalized recreational use. 

“We’re seeing manufactured products that are legal in some states being diverted to the black market to go through the state or to Nebraska,” Bolduc said. “We’re also seeing high grade marijuana that’s made in Mexico, California, Colorado, Washington and other states where it’s legal and being diverted from the legitimate market to the black market.”

When asked if putting medicinal marijuana on the Nebraska ballot would impact the drug trafficking in the state, Bolduc said it’d be bad public policy.