Drugs

“I’ve dealt with more drugs than most drug dealers.”

That’s a strange thing to write. But it’s true.

For someone who is about "as straight as they come,” I can honestly say that I’ve dealt with a lot of drugs. No, I didn’t sell it and neither did I take it! I’ve collected it at crime scenes and I’ve fingerprinted containers of it. Crack, marijuana, speed… you name it. I just love seeing the look on people’s faces when I tell them that. They always miss the word “with” when they hear that sentence.

The one thing I think that is common about drugs is that it’s not pretty. It doesn’t come in pretty containers… it comes in cheap plastic Ziploc bags, dirty crack pipes, dirty spoons, rolled up dollar bills, you get the picture. It’s not glamorous.

Every police crime lab I’ve ever visited seems to smell like marijuana too. Why? Because they have lots of it! And that stuff just reeks! I recall going to work one day at the Chula Vista Police Department (California) and the whole place smelled like marijuana. The drug team had made a huge bust and we collected over 800 lbs of the stuff! That’s a huge amount of drugs. After all, how much can dried weeds weigh? That place smelled like marijuana for a long time…

Crimes that occur because of drugs affect not only the victim and their family, but also the criminal’s family as well. After opening my own forensic services company, I recall being hired privately by the defense team of an accused murderer. This man had decided to burglarize his neighbor's home to steal things so he could sell them for money to support his habit. Well, he didn’t know his neighbor was home and was caught in the act. A struggle ensued and the man killed his neighbor.

Obviously the neighbor’s family was affected by this crime. But what I learned by working on the defense side of this case is that the murderer’s family was also affected. You see, he was a single father of two young girls. When he went to prison, he also lost his family at the same time.

I was hired by the defense to create a “day in the life” video of his two girls. I taped them playing on the playground and doing their other “every day” activities. The defense had hoped that by showing the tape, they might be able to get a lighter sentence for the man. I had a chance to talk to the man’s sister while doing my work. I had never spoken with the defense’s family in the past while working for the DA’s office. His sister explained to me that she was going to care for these girls now that her brother was going to prison. She told me about how her brother was such a good person but had gotten into drugs and that ruined his life. Now he was going to prison. Her tears were genuine and I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her and for his kids.

When you work on the prosecution side, sometimes you forget about the families on the other side. We sometimes get so caught up worrying about the victim and their families that we forget that another family also suffers from these crimes. It’s not that the murderer’s sister wanted this to happen or that she deserved to have this happen. In a sense, she was a victim too. Just as his kids were victims of his crime as well.

That day helped me to understand that both sides lose when it comes to drug cases.

What happened to the murderer? He got the maximum sentence. I shot a great video, but murder is murder. He got what he deserved.

Don’t take drugs… it affects everyone.