VAPD Arrests Narcotics Suspect

Mary Jane Farmer | August 14, 2023 | Reply

Shown here is a mixture of Fentanyl and Ecstasy, seized during a recent drug bust made by Van Alstyne Police.

Article by Mary Jane Farmer, Van Alstyne News. Photo courtesy of Van Alstyne PD.

Van Alstyne Police took more than 400 grams of illegal and dangerous narcotics out of circulation Saturday (Aug. 12) with the arrest of a Tulsa, Okla., man.

Police Lt. Steven Hayslip reported that officers who were on routine patrol that evening stopped a vehicle going north on U.S. Highway 75 because they saw defective equipment on it.

The driver pulled over and the officers approached the stopped vehicle. Once at the window, they smelled the distinctive odor of marijuana, which the suspect tried to explain by saying that a friend of his had smoked marijuana in the vehicle earlier.

With this odor, the officers had cause to and did conduct a probable cause search of the vehicle.

They found a large, clear (zipper) plastic baggie in the front-seat passenger compartment. Inside it were numerous multi-colored and multi-shaped pills, weighing more than one pound, Hayslip said.

“Based on the officers’ training and experience,” Hayslip explained, “they believed the pills to be Ecstasy.” They next conducted a field test of the bagged ingredients, which tested positive for MDMA/Ecstasy, and that field test also tested positive for Fentanyl.

They placed the suspect under arrest on a charge of Possession of Controlled Substance PG 1B greater than 400 grams.

Hayslip added that the street value of the seized narcotics is approximately $40,000.

Hayslip explained earlier that “Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid approximately 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times more potent than morphine. Because of this potency, overdoses are increasing in an alarming fashion. As a matter of fact, Fentanyl is now the leading cause of death for adults under the age of 45.

“What makes Fentanyl even more deadly is that drug traffickers are cutting different substances with Fentanyl; for example, with methamphetamine, cocaine, and heroine. This means that users are buying certain narcotics only to be exposed to a drug more more potent than anticipated.”

This is not the first time that Van Alstyne PD has arrested people/suspects in possession of Fentanyl.

The Tulsa suspect paid his $30,000 bail in a surety bond with conditions applied to it, and was released from Grayson County Jail Sunday.

(More on Fentanyl in another article)