White House designates Westmoreland County as a High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area
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Westmoreland County now is officially designated a “High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area” by the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy.
The label makes the county eligible for increased federal funding, sharing of intelligence, analytical support and enhanced training opportunities.
Westmoreland joins Allegheny, Beaver and Washington counties in the region with the designation, which brings federal resources to coordinate the fight against drug trafficking and abuse, said U.S. Attorney Scott W. Brady in Pittsburgh.
“Westmoreland County will be able now to access critical funding to decrease the availability of illicit drugs, to investigate and prosecute the leaders of drug trafficking organizations, and to significantly reduce the violence that results from illegal drug trafficking,” Brady said.
According to Brady, drug trafficking organizations from multiple cities, including New York and Chicago, use the county and its throughways to facilitate illegal drug trafficking. Those throughways include the Pennsylvania Turnpike and Interstate 70, as well as U.S. Routes 22, 119, 66, and 30, along with numerous state routes, which serve as connectors between Westmoreland and other local and out of state source areas for heroin, fentanyl, cocaine and methamphetamine.
“This is wonderful news. We missed out on the initial designation about one or two years ago, but we’ve been providing information here to the U.S. Attorney’s office hoping to get this designation,” said Tim Phillips, director of the county drug overdose task force. “It should certainly enable us to ramp up our interdiction and prevention efforts.”
District Attorney John Peck also was pleased with the news.
“With the presence of major highways in Westmoreland County, drug traffickers from outside our county have easy access to our communities,” Peck said.
U.S. Rep. Guy Reschenthaler, representing the 14th District, said “too many southwestern Pennsylvania families continue to be impacted by the opioid epidemic” and he’s hopeful the funding will save lives.
“The Pennsylvania State Police is a strong partner with all of the law enforcement agencies who are working daily to combat drug trafficking, and this HIDTA designation will help expand our efforts,” added state police Major Stephen Eberle.
While drug overdose deaths dropped for the second straight year last year with 115 deaths recorded in 2019 compared to the 193 deaths in 2017, according to OverdoseFreePa, Phillips said overdoses remain a public health problem impacting every community.
Westmoreland is the second largest county in the western district of Pennsylvania, covering more than 1,027 square miles with a population of 350,611. The county joins the program’s Ohio HIDTA region, which includes Ohio, Western Pennsylvania and Northern Kentucky, Brady said.