Observations all along the line - Kimball & the Southern Panhandle First

Slight uptick in drug use seen over a year after Colorado pot laws go into effect

Kimball County Sheriff Harry Gillway said the biggest problem with marijuana is that it is a segue drug, and he knows first-hand the sorrows that can come from its use.

Gillway’s nephew used marijuana and eventually tried methamphetamines. He died from a methamphetamine overdose.

“My older half brother, he grew up in the ‘60s, the late ‘60s, the countercultural revolution, and he smoked marijuana. He tried LSD, he used speed,” Gillway said. “And he grew up, and he was older, he was married, had children. He told his children that marijuana is not a problem. And he smoked marijuana, never around me, but with his oldest son.”

Gillway was on his way back to Iraq one year just after Christmas when he got the devastating news. He received an email from his wife asking him to immediately call his brother.

“I said, ‘Wayne, I got this cryptic email from my wife to give you a call. What’s wrong,” Gillway asked. “He’s all upset. He said, little Wayne died. I said, ‘Oh my God, what happened?’ And he says, he died from a methamphetamine overdose.”

Gillway’s nephew, Little Wayne, began drug use by using marijuana. That eventually led to his use of methamphetamines.

“What happened was, Little Wayne, my nephew, he smoked meth once, and you can be hooked, addicted for life,” Gillway said. “It’s the most addicting drug out there, moreso than heroine.”

“So, is it a segue drug? Absolutely,” he added. “If they’re going to party, they’re going to party, and that drug quickly becomes the drug of choice because they’re always trying to recapture that first high. Am I opposed to it? Absolutely.”

Marijuana has been more easily available in the last 14 months after its recreational use became legal in neighboring Colorado. Its medicinal use has been legal in that state after a vote in 2000.

“I can’t say that it’s a huge issue. We have seen an increase in the amount of arrests coming off the interstate for marijuana, people who claim they bought it in Colorado and think it’s legal to bring it into another state as they go home. And it’s not. It’s unlawful to possess,” Gillway said. “We generally get one call per month of someone with a 71 county car at one of these dispensaries in Colorado, that somebody is being suspected of buying marijuana there and bringing it back to Kimball County.

“We investigate it. We’re not going to violate anyone’s constitutional rights. We have to prove our own case. But there have been several people who have gone down there, purchased marijuana, suspected that they purchased marijuana there and brought it back for recreational use.”

Although use is not up much, Gillway said there are additional problems from the easier accessibility. One problem is a higher grade of marijuana being used.

“The people who use this now recreationally, and we’ve seen this increase, people again going to Colorado, purchasing it and then bringing it back here,” Gillway said. “We haven’t seen an increase in dealing it. We have seen an increase in the users and the grade of marijuana that people have. What was perhaps ditchweed, and every year we go out and eradicate a lot of ditchweed, particularly around pivot systems. We’re seeing the users, the people being cited for small amounts of marijuana, actually have a higher grade of marijuana.”

Another associated problem with marijuana becoming legal in Colorado is the increased use of hasheesh or hash oil. Hasheesh is a more potent drug made from marijuana.

“You take marijuana stems, plants, cook it down into a product that is a liquid at hash oil,” Gillway said. “It is dried out, concentrated into something more powerful. It can be smoked, ingested such as cookies, candies, those kinds of things. The potency is very high, very quick.”

Gillway said there were no arrests for its use during his first six years as sheriff, but there have been at least three arrests for its use in the last year.

“It’s considerably of more strength…but it’s clearly a drug that started as marijuana, but now its potency is so great that people are thinking that it’s the same as marijuana, and it’s not. This is a drug that is still considered to be dangerous, and it is not marijuana,” he said.

While Gillway said methamphetamines are still the biggest drug problem in the area, he said that marijuana use is still a problem.

“Do I think marijuana is dangerous? Yes,” he said. “It is a segue drug. Not everyone uses it as a segue drug, but it is a segue drug.”

“I think it’s a mistake when people tell their kids that marijuana is OK. You may not get addicted to marijuana, you may enjoy that recreational drug. However, is your child going to see you smoking marijuana and think it’s OK because mom and dad does it? And then they’ll be at a party some night and not making really good choices because you already have a high on marijuana, and decide I can try (methamphetamines), it won’t hurt, and they’re hooked.”

Just as in the case of Gillway’s nephew, sometimes things appear to be going OK that really are not.

“My brother went on to say, he says, ‘Harry, you were right and I was wrong,’” Gillway recalled. “He said, ‘You stayed straight, don’t use drugs, are adamantly opposed to marijuana, and I wish I would’ve never told my son that it was OK to use marijuana. I’ve used all sorts of drugs, played with it, and I had never gotten addicted to any of those drugs, but I did like to smoke marijuana. I didn’t know how bad this was going to be for my child,’ and he says, ‘He’s dead today because I said it was OK to smoke marijuana.’ He thought everything was OK.”

 
 
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