Alaska officials continue seizing record-setting volumes of illegal drugs, much of it through ramped-up efforts at the state’s main airport complex in Anchorage, though in lower quantities than 2024.
On Thursday, the Alaska Department of Public Safety released its annual drug report for 2025, a compilation of data and trends from law enforcement agencies. While the total amount of hard drugs seized was down about 10% from what law enforcement officials intercepted in 2024, the confiscations still dwarf similar figures from recent years.
A decade ago, for example, police reported seizing 4,249 grams of methamphetamine in Alaska during 2016. By 2020, the volume of meth seized was up more than sevenfold to 30,187 grams. In 2025, they turned up 125,300 grams of meth, roughly 15% less than the amount seized in 2024, according to the new report.
Seizures were slightly down last year for other street drugs, including fentanyl and heroin. Only confiscations of cocaine were greater last year than in 2024, rising 67% from 30,819 to 51,328 grams, according to the state’s data.
Most of the illegal drugs seized — 82%, according to the new report — were discovered at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport, either carried by passengers or sent in through the mail and cargo freight streams. In the case of fentanyl, which is largely blamed for Alaska’s persistently high rate of fatal overdoses, 90% of what was seized last year was at the airport complex.
According to Department of Public Safety Commissioner James Cockrell, the modest decline in drug busts is a sign that ongoing coordination between law enforcement agencies on interdiction is working.
“We’re seeing a reduction in drugs coming into Alaska,” Cockrell said at a media briefing held in the airport’s North Terminal the same day the drug report was released.
Hard drugs tend to come into Alaska by air or maritime routes from larger metro areas like Phoenix, Los Angeles and Seattle, Cockrell said. From Anchorage, the shipments are either broken down for sale within the municipality and along the road system, or moved farther along to hub communities and villages in rural Alaska via air carriers, where the prices paid per dose can climb drastically.
“There is a strong correlation between distance from a regional hub and price — the farther a drug or alcohol is trafficked from a regional hub, the greater the retail price,” the DPS report states. A pressed blue fentanyl pill that sells for $4 to $10 on the streets of Anchorage, for example, can be sold for around $100 in Nome, Bethel or Dillingham, according to data from the department.
Cockrell said it was a “game changer” when Alaska law enforcement began a closer working relationship with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service in 2024, which helped enable and expedite more investigations into suspected drug parcels. Seizure volumes shot up, almost entirely at the airport.
State Attorney General Stephen Cox said at Thursday’s briefing that more conversations are beginning about policy changes to further curb drug traffic into Alaska.
He pointed to the Dunleavy administration’s recent collaboration with Anchorage Mayor Suzanne LaFrance’s administration to prosecute more shoplifting crimes, and a forthcoming expansion of enforcement over “quality of life” problems like “open air drug offenses.”
“Lower-level crimes, they matter, because they shape whether people feel safe in their own communities,” Cox said.
The event was short on detailed policy changes or new resources being added to enforcement efforts.
“Not every new initiative needs money,” Gov. Mike Dunleavy said. “It’s about approaching things differently … I think you’re going to see some great things, even without money.”
The governor emphasized the need to break down jurisdictional silos between state, federal, local and tribal entities to improve drug interdiction and prosecution. He also repeatedly cited all the ways the Trump administration has supported the cause over the last year since returning to office.
“If you don’t think the Trump administration is serious about crime, just watch those videos off the coast of Venezuela, or off the coast of the eastern Pacific,” Dunleavy said, referring to controversial military strikes on small boats alleged to be transporting drugs. “The president is pretty clear that he wants this country to improve greatly and quickly.”
Dunleavy was joined at the event by national “drug czar” Sara Carter, confirmed last month as head of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.
Carter spoke in general terms about federal efforts to combat cartels and other organized criminal networks trafficking drugs.
“We will hunt them in the mail. We will hunt them at the border. And we will hunt them in the labs abroad where this poison is made,” she said.
Dunleavy, whose second term as governor will end in December and is barred from running again, said Thursday’s discussion of ongoing drug interdiction efforts was “just the beginning of the process.”
“It’s not a photo op, it’s not a press conference just for press conference sake,” Dunleavy said, flanked by law enforcement officials from state, federal and local agencies. “We’re gonna have to engage the courts sooner or later, we’re gonna have to engage the Legislature as we run into things.”
Credit: Source link
