Madison’s police chief has come out in favor of marijuana legalization, but for now, Madison and University of Wisconsin’s police departments continue to work in cooperation to find and remove the sources of marijuana in the city.
UW graduate and The Badger Herald alum Sean Kirkby wrote a story for Wisconsin Watch discussing the use of undercover student informants for drug investigations at University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.
In Wisconsin, any amount of marijuana distribution is a felony with a $10,000 maximum fine. Students at UW-Whitewater who were caught with serious drug violations are coerced by police to trade information in exchange for dropped charges, essentially allowing the offenses to disappear, Kirkby reported.
However, UW-Madison police spokesperson Marc Lovicott said, while enforcement authorities have the power to do the same in Madison, they choose not to.
“We actually don’t use drug informants at all,” Lovicott said. “We have some language in our policy that enables us to use informants, but we have decided not to, so we don’t partake.”
In Madison, serious drug investigations go through the Dane County Narcotics Task Force, which consists of the Madison Police Department, Dane County Sheriff Office and UW-Madison Police Department.
The task force strives to minimize drug trafficking in the county, working to find the source through the cooperation of different drug enforcement department. MPD has supervisors, detectives and officers assigned to the task force.
On campus and in residence halls, UW-Madison’s Police Department maintains jurisdiction. Lovicott said most of the work the department does goes toward drug prevention, education and reaching out to students about substance abuse.
Most of the serious drug investigations, Lovicott said, go through the Dane County Narcotics Task Force.
“What we deal with on campus is most often recreational marijuana use,” Lovicott said. “We get calls all the time for drug issues, [like] the occasional smell of marijuana from a residence hall. That’s when we get involved, it gets down to an enforcement issue. What Whitewater has done is go beyond casual marijuana users, going into drug dealers.”
Lovicott said when it comes to talking about dealers and finding the sources of the drugs, the task force comes into play. He said the whole idea of using an informant is to track down who is bringing drugs into the community and removing that source. Using UWPD and MPD officers and detectives, Lovicott said, they are the lead agency that takes down major sources of drugs into the city. UWPD also partners with the task force on prevention, as well as investigations.
Madison Police Department, like UWPD, focuses on enforcement aside from their detective involvement in the task force.
According to an annual report from MPD, there were 446 drug arrests in 2013.
“We look into lower-level drug activity. For instance, we might arrest someone for disorderly conduct at a bar; they might have heroine or cocaine in their pocket and can be cited for possessing or intent to deliver, depending on the quantity,” Joel DeSpain, MPD spokesperson, said. “Task force looks at investigating drug trafficking.”
