Billboard asks dealers to report their competition to police

Residents may have noticed new messages from the Poplar Bluff Police Department — “Attention drug dealers report your competition anonymously …” and “Know a drug dealer? Report them anonymously …” on the north facing billboard on Westwood Boulevard at Vine Street in recent weeks.

The Poplar Bluff Police Department is using federal grant money to raise public awareness about the heroin epidemic in the area by sponsoring messages on an electronic billboard.

Public awareness, according to Poplar Bluff Police Chief Danny Whiteley, is one of the “main tools” in fighting the “heroin epidemic we have in Southeast Missouri.

“You have to admit you have a problem before you start finding a solution. We’ve been talking about the problem for a number of years.”

With the increasing number of overdose deaths in the past couple of years due to opioids, in particular heroin and Fentanyl, “we wanted to get the problem forefront as much as possible with the public to ask for their help,” Whiteley said. “As the old saying goes, if you see something, say something.”

“If you suspect your loved one or friend has an addiction problem, he or she needs help, both medically and mentally,” Whiteley continued, adding they need emotional and family support to fight this disease.

Otherwise, the result will be one of two likely outcomes, Whiteley said.

“You will be caught and put in prison or you’ll end up dying, and we, in law enforcement, would prefer neither of those scenarios happen,” Whiteley said.

The department worked with the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Midwest High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program to obtain the grant.

“They had funding for public awareness campaigns,” Whiteley explained. “We submitted our statistics as criteria, and it was accepted.”

AdWorks Outdoor is running two separate billboards, which are “variations of the same thing,” said police Capt. Mike McClain.

The messages rotate, and each is visible for about six seconds every minute, McClain said.

Both messages include the department’s narcotics hot line — 573-686-8675.

McClain said the $9,800 cost for the billboard is being paid for through the Office of National Drug Control Policy and the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas program.

McClain said the cost is “100% funded for one year at no cost to the city,” and the funding passed through the Southeast Missouri Drug Task Force.

“The funding is for the calendar year of 2019, but because of the government shutdown” it was delayed, said McClain, who indicated the billboard went live March 25. “The owner of AdWorks is going to run it for a year.”