Drugs, money seized in four-day crackdown on I-85

ANDERSON The smell of bagged marijuana was inescapable in the air of a conference room at the Hilton Garden Inn on Friday, a day known as a "holiday" for pot smokers.

Several law enforcement officers walked in and out of the room, which had a buffet line and another 14-foot table covered with a collection of drugs, including 15 pounds of pot sealed in various ways, a quarter-kilogram of cocaine, and methamphetamine and prescription pills.

The officers, troopers, deputies and dispatchers were there to celebrate a four-day operation that had been set up to catch drug traffickers and other offenders.

"As everybody knows, April 20, 4/20, is a known drug holiday," said Anderson County sheriff's Sgt. Jamie Crawford, who led the operation. "That's why this operation was called Operation 420, to try to interrupt that tradition, I guess you could call it."

The origins of "420" are not known but the slang for marijuana dates back to the 1960s, gaining traction in the Grateful Dead tour circuit and seeing wider use in recent years, according to the Associated Press.

Tens of thousands of marijuana users and advocates participate in events public and private on April 20, including about 10,000 people who gathered at the University of Colorado-Boulder in 2011.

In Anderson, authorities fanned out on Interstate 85 from Monday to Thursday, 24 hours a day, and made 31 arrests from the 952 cars that were pulled over. Many others were cited or ticketed but not arrested.

Beyond seizing drugs, two handguns and $6,000 in suspected drug money, officials were able to put suspects and a fugitive behind bars.

One car was stopped with two people who were wanted, one on four counts of attempted murder and the other on a weapons charge, Crawford said. Another man identified after being pulled over was a fugitive who had been sought by U.S. marshals, he said.

The operation also led to a two-county chase that ended Tuesday in a Greenville apartment complex when an Anderson police officer fired his handgun at a car that was accelerating toward him, according to arrest warrants that charge three people with attempted murder.

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Drugs, money seized in four-day crackdown on I-85