$2 Million of Seized Drug Money is used to Help the Community – WHIZ

ZANESVILLE, OH – Over the last four years, $2 million was seized from drug convictions and handed over to the Muskingum County Prosecutors office where they’ve been making it work for the community.

This money is made available through a process called asset forfeiture and Muskingum County Prosecuting Attorney Ron Welch says it helps fund programs like drug diversion and childhood education.

“So we have a number of things that we do with the assets from the forfeitures. One of the things that we do, first and foremost, is provide funds for drug education. We do that by providing schools with money for various programs each year. We have an essay competition where students will submit ideas that they think will be helpful and beneficial for their schools and their students and learning the best ways to confront some of the drug problems that we have today. ”

Another benefit from Welch’s perspective, is that it saves taxpayers money on these programs and law enforcement efforts.

“The biggest benefit is allowing us to take money that is not provided by tax payers. It comes directly out of the pockets of drug dealers and individuals that are involved in the drug trade. And we’re able to use that for a number of good things that we do such as the diversion program. We can use it to fund further drug investigations along with law enforcement that allows us to target more dealers, it removes more drugs from the street and it makes our community a safer place for families and businesses to operate. ”

Of the$2 million dollars received from asset forfeiture, $1.8 million is in interest-bearing savings accounts to continue future funding for programs.