Muzelak, the program’s coordinator, said 28,000 law enforcement officers have been through its resident program at the Florida Counterdrug Training Academy at the Camp Blanding Joint Training Center, and almost 800,000 have been trained by its mobile training teams or in the Multijurisdictional Counterdrug Task Training Program at St. Pete College.

“The bad guy is smart and evolves” his tactics techniques and procedures, such as using submersibles to smuggle drugs into the country or using illegal immigrants to live in “grow houses,” where marijuana is grown hydroponically.

But it is not all about catching bad guys and taking drugs off the street, he said.

Adding, “We try to tie into national goals as well as state goals” of stopping drug use before it starts through education and community programs such as the “Stay on Track” curriculum, youth leader training and youth camps, and intervening and healing users.

“We’re a force multiplier,” Command Sgt. Maj. Rick Mendez said. Muzelak said the Florida National Guard helps reduce the supply of drugs through reconnaissance in the air in twin-engine turbo props and specially modified OH-58s, on the ground and under water.

“Aerial reconnaissance can be short fused” and operate at heights “where people on the ground don’t see we’re following them,” Mendez noted.

“We’re also able to provide intelligence analysts,” Mendez said, and that can play a valuable role in supply reduction.

Among the service the program brings into play secure communications among agencies and linguist and transcription support, as well as diver support.

“Call us the point man. The local, state and federal will send the request. We share freely the measures of success,” Mendez said.

“We’re here to gather info for them,” Muzelak said.

There are 117 Florida guardsmen in the program, and there’s a need for 205, Muzelak said. “We’re structure like a task force and most of the people are out on the street.”

Maj. George Gispard, director of the academy at Camp Blanding that opened in 1999, said last year there were 27 classes for 721 law enforcement students.

There are structured classes in patrolling, land navigation, tracking and counter-tracking, maritime and rural operations. “But we can tailor the classes to what a locality needs,” Gispard said.

Adding, “There is no charge for state and local law enforcement agencies coming to the academy or community antidrug groups. Last year 300 members of community antidrug groups came to the academy for workshops.”

“What is really good is when a sheriff or a former student writes back to tell us [a staff of 11] how they used something they learned here” on their job, he said.