DRUG BUST NETS SUBSTANCE THAT MAY BE OPIUM

Two Men Arrested In Pensacola With 126 Grams Of Black, Tar-Like
Substance And Drug Paraphernalia

Two Florida men were arrested in Pensacola after they were caught smoking
what one of them said was opium, authorities said.

Pensacola police Lt. Chip Simmons said 126 grams of the black, tar-like
substance and drug paraphernalia were confiscated Friday during the search
of a car downtown. He said the substance is being tested to determine if it
is opium or the opium derivative black tar heroin.

Simmons, who heads the department's narcotics unit, said he has been on the
force for eight years and could not recall a drug bust that netted either
opium or heroin. Finding either on the streets of Pensacola would be quite
unusual, he said.

The tests to determine what the substance is are expected to take two
months to get results, Simmons said.

"It's just an equal chance that it will be one or the other, either opium
or black-tar heroin," Simmons said.

Ronald Thomas Baden, 22, of Fort Walton Beach was charged with trafficking
a controlled substance, possession of a controlled substance, possession of
marijuana under 20 grams and possession of drug paraphernalia, Simmons said.

Peter James Sherbert, 21, of Pensacola was hit with the same charges except
trafficking, the lieutenant said.

The two men were arrested after police saw them walking across a parking
lot "passing around and smoking narcotics," Simmons said.

Baden told the officer who arrested him that the substance they were
smoking was opium, Simmons said.

Two balls similar to the ball of tar-like substance they were smoking were
found in Baden's pocket, the lieutenant said.

Special agent Allen Hancock of the Mobile Drug Enforcement Agency office
said if the substance confiscated proves to be opium, it would be unusual.
The agents stationed in Mobile cover the lower half of Alabama. Hancock has
been at the Mobile office since 1987.

"We have worked heroin cases in the past, but not strictly opium cases,"
the agent said. "We have worked black tar heroin cases, people bringing
Mexican black tar heroin into Mobile, but that was in the late'80s."

Lt. Bruce Lee, who heads Mobile County Sheriff's Department narcotics and
vice unit, said if the substance turns out to be opium, the case would be
unique for this area.

"Actually smoking opium, I have not seen it in my career, not here in
Mobile," said Lee, who has been with the Sheriff's Department for 14 years,
with eight of those spent in the narcotics unit.

He said heroin use in the Mo bile area also is very rare and he could only
recall one heroin arrest in the last three years.