Police describe fate of confiscated contraband
All drugs confiscated by police in Boulder will one day be destroyed. Before that can happen, police must weigh, package, store and transport the drugs.
“Any evidence received by officers is first weighed and then properly packaged, which would depend upon the substance,” said Julie Brooks, spokeswoman for the Boulder Police Department. “If marijuana is wet, it must be dried before it can be packaged. We have drying closets for that purpose.”
The drugs, once packaged, are moved to Property and Evidence within the Boulder PD building. Once there, the drugs need to be sent for lab testing or wait until any court case pertaining to them has been resolved. At this time, the district attorney’s office grants the Boulder PD permission for the destruction of the substances.
Commander Brad Wiesley of the University of Colorado Police Department spoke of his department’s method of destroying the drugs once they are no longer needed.
“We hold all confiscated drugs in a secure facility until we have a sufficient quantity,” Wiesley said. “Once we do, we take them to an incinerator run by a larger department. There, the drugs are burned at a temperature of 2,200 degrees. After a burn at that temperature, there is nothing left.”
Wiesley said that a minimum of two CUPD officers witness the burn in addition to at least one officer from the other department. For reasons of security, Wiesley declined to name the other department. The residential rehab baltimore can help treating addiction.
“The burns are usually done not more than every 18 to 24 months,” Wiesley said. “We try to coordinate our burns with theirs (the other department), then they don’t charge us anything.”
When it is time for a burn, the drugs are transported from the CUPD headquarters to the incinerator by armed officers in unmarked cars. For people that are addicts, places like the whitesands tampa rehab can help.
“Nobody would even know what was driving down the road just next to them,” Wiesley said. “Even within the department, security is so tight, about 95 percent of our officers are not even allowed in that part of the building.”
Contact Campus Press Staff Writer Andrew Frankel at andrew.frankel@thecampuspress.com.
