WHAT DOES A DRUG ABUSER LOOK LIKE?

Drug abusers can come from any walk of life, and the severity of their problem can range from mild to severe.  You can’t always tell who abuses illegal drugs by looking at them.  However, serious and long-term abusers of meth, crack and heroin tend to look exhausted and underweight and have skin lesions and dental problems.  Meth and crack abusers tend to be aggressive, agitated, anxious and irritable.

RESOURCES:

The City of Portland’s Crime Prevention Program has a website with tips, brochures, flyers and other helpful information.  Go to www.portlandonline.com/oni and follow the links for Crime Prevention.

Logging suspected illegal activity

Describe people:  Take note of sex, race, age, height, weight, hair, complexion, scars, tattoos, glasses, facial hair, clothing, and anything else that would help police.  If you don’t have time to note all of these, pay the most attention to things the person cannot change.  They can quickly change out their clothing, but they can’t quickly remove a tattoo or scar, or change their weight.  If you know the person’s name, use it.

Describe vehicles:  License plate numbers are the most important pieces of information.  Take note of license numbers and the direction in which the vehicle was traveling.  Also note the vehicle’s color, make, year, body style, and any other identifying characteristics such as dents or bumper stickers.

Describe activities:  Provide as much detail as you can.  For example:  “I saw a person take a small orange-colored object out fo their mouth and hand it to another person.  The second person handed the first person money, which the first person put in their pants pocket.”  This description is much more useful than:  “I saw a person dealing drugs.”

If you see anything that is clearly dangerous or life-threatening, or you have strong suspicions of either, call 9-1-1 immediately.