Drug Dealer Busted With Heroin Packets Stamped With Trump’s Face
Tampa Bay Times reported earlier that an individual has been arrested for several drug trafficking charges, including selling packets of the schedule one drug heroin stamped with President Donald Trump’s face and name. The heroin was initially seized in 2017, but recently the individual responsible has been sentenced to 30 years.
Spring Hill man, Kevin Johnson, was originally arrested in 2017. His arrest was the largest drug bust in Hernando County history, cites Tampa Bay Times. It was announced this week that Johnson is looking at 35 years in prison as of his sentencing in court on November 15.
According to Hernando County deputies, Johnson first caught the eye of authorities in May 2016. Apparently postal inspectors in New Jersey at that time seized a heavy, 13 pound package. Inside the package were individually wrapped heroin doses.
Heroin, also known by its other name, diamorphine, is an opioid that is most commonly used as a recreational drug that produces a euphoric effect by being typically injected into a vein; however, the drug can be smoke, snorted, or inhaled. The onset effects are rapid and long lasting; lasting for at least a few hours. The National Institute On Drug Abuse and Advancing Addiction Science (NIH) states that, while the United States does not track death rates for every drug, it does collect information on many of the more commonly used drugs, such as heroin and fentanyl. It is reported that last year, more than 72,000 Americans died from drug overdoses. Those figures also should be noted that they included prescription opioids as well, which has seen a two-fold increase in only a decade.
Heroin alone accounts for 15,958 of those deaths, as is shown on a bar graph on the NIH website. The figures have drastically and steadily increased since 2002, which then ranked at around 2,000.
The 28 year old man, Kevin Johnson, in Hernando County, is stated by authorities to have traveled to New Jersey and back in 2017 in only a 48 hour time span. They state that during that time, three other packages were shipped from New Jersey to an address in Spring Hill. One of those packages was said to contain 5,000 doses of heroin and 27 grams of cocaine. Only some of the heroin packages were stamped with Donald Trump’s face, while others apparently had the name of drug lords such as Pablo Escobar and El Chapo stamped across them.
Florida’s Attorney General, Pam Bondi, took much ire in this, and called this Trump branding a “big mistake” during the time of Johnson’s arrest. Bondi asserted that she would relay the message to the president.
“I’m going to make sure (Trump) gets one of these packages when the case is all over to put in the Oval Office to remind him of all the good he’s doing.”
