Conference tackles how police enforce drug laws

Parents and law enforcement officials could learn a thing or two about illegal drugs by searching YouTube.

The Internet site is one of the best places for information about how light bulbs can be transformed into a vaporizer or how over-the-counter cough syrup can be used as a hallucinogen.

The purpose of surfing the Web isn't to give drug addicts new ways to get high, said Sgt. Tom Lorenz, a 25-year veteran of the Glendale, Calif., Police Department. The videos can show parents what symptoms to look for in their children and give police advice on how to look for suspicious suspects. Lorenz spoke to an audience of educators and law enforcement officials Wednesday afternoon at the Midwest Security and Police Conference and Expo in Rosemont.

Lorenz, who has specialized in narcotics for the past 12 years, spent Tuesday working with officers from the Chicago Police Department, sharing with them signs of drug abuse.

"Frankly, you would expect us to know it all, but we don't," he said.

The sign might be something subtle like an altered cigarette lighter. It might be an almost barren kitchen, except for baking powder, club soda and flour - all ingredients for cutting rock cocaine, which gives dealers more product to sell by diluting the drug while making it weigh more.

Lorenz even demonstrated the technique in a scene that was reminiscent of a bizarre cooking show on television. He mixed the substance over a burner in a foil pie tin until it thickened to the texture of pancake batter.

He also showed police how to properly estimate the weight of a banned substance without using a scale and how drug dealers store narcotics without plastic bags.

"It's origami 101," he said.

Lorenz also addressed why police arrest suspects based only upon finding only a small amount of a banned substance. He compared it to a number stored in a cell phone that is never used. It's a sign of past abuse and the temptation to start again.

"Why do you have it?" Lorenz said. "Why do you possess it?"

Lorenz stressed that officers need more education on the abuse of over-the-counter drugs.

The conference was copresented by the Illinois Associations of Chiefs of Police with ROC Exhibitions. State police troopers, local officers and security guards from places like the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago attended the event.