Countywide drug bust nabs 49 high schoolers

Steve Earley / Copy Editor

Forty-nine Alamance County high school students and nine others of high school age were arrested on drug charges Feb. 4 as the result of a six-month undercover operation by local law enforcement.

The bust was the largest ever conducted in Alamance County schools and the first to involve all six high schools, said Randy Jones, director of public information for the county’s sheriff’s department.

Burlington and Graham police departments also took part in operation, in which undercover officers enrolled at the high schools and posed as students.

Charges included selling or intending to sell and various prescription drugs, marijuana, and cocaine.

“Our hearts go out to the young people and their families who have been caught in the web of the drug culture,” Superintendent Jim Merrill said in a statement released the day of the bust. “We wish it were not so in our schools and in our community, but we will take whatever steps necessary to assure the safety and well being of our students and staff.”

Merrill requested the assistance of law enforcement in combating the system’s drug problem after administrative reports and parent and staff surveys suggested drug and alcohol use in schools was an increasing concern.

Students were arrested at every high school except Western, where, Jones said, word got passed around that there was an officer posing as a student.

“That’s one of the risks you take,” Jones said, adding that all eight undercover officers involved were accused of being an officer at one time or another.

Among those arrested was Eastern Alamance High School basketball star and UNC-Chapel Hill recruit JamesOn Curry. Curry, the state’s all-time leading scorer, was arrested on two counts of possession with intent to sell and deliver marijuana and two counts of possession, sale and delivery of a controlled substance on school property.

Each charge carries a maximum sentence of eight to 10 months in the Department of Corrections.

Indicted Feb. 16, Curry has already been kicked off Eastern’s basketball team and jeopardized his future at Carolina.

“We are not at a point yet where we can make a decision,” said Steve Kirchner, director of communications for UNC athletics. “We got to let it go through the legal process first.”

Kirchner said the school has no timeline for when a decision might be made, and that a decision would involve officials from the university as well as the athletic department.

Eastern athletic director and men’s basketball coach John Moon, who had two players in addition to Curry kicked of his team because of drug arrests, said he was prohibited from commenting on the matter, although he would not say by whom.