Investigators find alleged ‘spice’ lab
Published 12:00 am Friday, March 25, 2016
GREENVILLE — The Meriwether County Sheriff’s Office announced Friday morning they assisted the Drug Enforcement Administration in recovering contraband and equipment used to make the synthetic drug “spice.”
Sheriff Chuck Smith said his narcotic agents, patrol deputies, K-9 unit and DEA agents executed a search warrant on a storage unit at the Alvaton Self Storage at 24574 Highway 85 in Gay on March 15.
“The search warrant execution revealed the presence of several ounces of ‘spice,’ dry chemicals, roasting pans with approximately 1 pound of treated plant material, five pounds of unused ‘damiana’ leaf, multiple empty ‘damiana’ leaf bags used as packaging material … a scale, 28 empty 1-gallon acetone containers and five 1-gallon containers with acetone,” stated Smith. “Agents seized the contraband, the manufacturing components and decontaminated the storage unit.”
Smith said later that morning, federal agents arrested Denisha Leshay Blandenburg, 30, of Hampton, when she made an unrelated state court appearance in Montgomery, Alabama.
According to Smith, this investigation originated in Alabama.
Federal charges are pending and were not released as of press time.