What drugs are on Highlands County streets?

What is Highlands County drug abusers' poison of choice?

According to Capt. Randy LaBelle, with the Highlands County Sheriff's Office's Special Investigations Unit (SIU), it's prescription medications.

"I see a whole lot of oxycodone, hydrocodone and Xanax," he said.

A lot of those prescription drugs are probably coming out of Broward County, which is gaining national infamy for its number of pill mills. People can walk in to these establishments, often set up in strip malls and office parks, and buy many different pain medications.

LaBelle said that area is supplying 80 percent of the prescription drugs used illegally in the United States.

Just this past weekend, the SIU arrested Darshan Chris Bahadur, 19, of 216 NW Jet Way, Lake Placid, and Jamie Charles Bexley, 18, of 1146 Wintergreen St., Lake Placid, and charged them both with trafficking in oxycodone, a first-degree felony.

Bahadur allegedly delivered 111 30mg oxycodone pills to Bexley, who then sold 100 of them, according to the arrest report.

Meth and Xanax

LaBelle said there are plenty of people in Highlands County who abuse Xanax, a medication used to combat anxiety disorders.

Methamphetamine users, however, are also quite prone to taking it.

"The meth users, they use the Xanax to come down from their meth binges," LaBelle said.

Meth users can stay up anywhere from three to 12 days without any sleep, according to LaBelle. They then take the Xanax and sleep for a couple of days.

"(Then) they get up and do it all over again," LaBelle said.

Grow houses? Not as much as before

Over a two-year span, deputies dismantled around 90 grow houses in Highlands County.

Lately, those numbers have been on the decline, according to LaBelle.

Deputies have also not had a big problem with heroin, a drug LaBelle said is more common in bigger Florida cities like Orlando and Miami.

"It's too expensive," he said.

And while some in Highlands County are arrested on charges of cocaine possession, that number has not been on the rise either.

"The big thing we're seeing right now is the prescription drug abuse," LaBelle said.