VALDOSTA, Ga. — Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), the 2024 Republican vice presidential candidate, received a law enforcement briefing from officials with the Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office Thursday afternoon about an increasing number of cases of drug traffickers disguising dangerous narcotics as children’s candy.
“Most of the drug dealers are trying to get to kids, so they’re trying to make it look more and more like candy,” a Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office official said Thursday as he laid out drugs seized in recent weeks on a table in front of Vance and gathered media, including Breitbart News.
“Is this real candy or drugs?” Vance asked, pointing to one of the confiscated paraphernalia.
“No, this is actually THC,” the officer told Vance.
The agent then showed Vance a synthetic drug that looked like peanut brittle from Georgia. “If a kid opened this, there’s a good chance he would mistake peanut brittle for a drug,” the other officer told Vance. “Of course, it’s all coming on the interstate. We just worked a case recently, partnering with Columbia County, Florida, where we seized 30 kilos of cocaine coming from Texas. Of course, it was coming from the border across there. He’d already dropped 20 kilos. We seized 30 kilos in Columbia County. So, they’re using the interstate as a mode of transportation.”
Columbia County, Florida, is home to Lake City, Florida, where I-10 meets I-75. Lowndes County, with its county seat Valdosta, is in southern Georgia, just off Interstate 75, on the Florida border. Just south of the Florida border, less than 30 minutes away, is Interstate 10, which runs from Jacksonville, Florida on the East Coast to Los Angeles, California on the West Coast. I-75 runs from Tampa in South Florida through Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, and Michigan to the Upper Peninsula and the Canadian border. In other words, the intersection of these two major highways, right near Valdosta, is a pathway to most of the United States, where drug traffickers with ties to gangs and cartels use it to move their products to American communities across the country.
Vance asked law enforcement officials if they had seen “examples of kids getting hooked on this kind of thing.”
“Do you think if you were 7 years old and you opened this you would have no idea what it was?” Vance asked.
“It looks like something that came out of a store,” one Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office deputy told Vance.
“This seems to be the nerds, gushers, airheads and crawlers that most of the kids are drinking,” another official told him.
Vance asked who is producing this packaging to make the drugs look like children’s candy, and if this is happening in Mexico or other countries. “Yes, it’s done overseas and then it’s shipped across the border, and in many cases it’s shipped through California or thereabouts, and then it’s shipped up I-10 or another route to Atlanta, and then it comes up I-75 and comes to us,” the official replied.
Officials later explained to Vance that traffickers often use children in their vehicles as part of a “story” to hide the fact that they are trafficking. In one case, they made it look like they were going on vacation with kids carrying fishing poles, and in another, they made it look like a family vacationing to nearby Disney World.
“When you think about what it takes to manufacture hard-core drugs that look like kid’s candy, something’s wrong,” Vance said.
Both sheriff’s office officials told Vance that the situation has gotten worse since President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris took office in 2021, and that drug cartels have become more sophisticated.
Vance, who was former President Donald Trump’s running mate, spoke to the crowd and reporters after the press conference and slammed Harris for allowing it to happen.
🚨 Senator JD Vance: “Think about how crazy you have to be to manufacture drugs like children’s candy. Think about how crazy Kamala Harris has to be to let these people do business in our country instead of kicking them out of the country. This is… pic.twitter.com/V73ytU71G2
— Proud Elephant 🇺🇸 (@ProudElephantUS) August 22, 2024
“Just think how crazy it is to think that you can make medicine that looks like children’s candy,” Vance said. “Just think how crazy it is for Kamala Harris to let these people do business in our country instead of kicking them out of our country, which is exactly what we should be doing. This is a disgrace, folks. This is a disgrace born of our own failed leadership, and we can do better.”
