First, we need to give a big congratulations to the Mesa County Sheriff's Officer for doing a great job to make sure drugs aren't just passing through Mesa County. We got news from 9 News, that while a Mesa County Sheriff has a vehicle pulled over for a stop he found a whole lot of drugs in the vehicle.

We aren't just talking about a little marijuana here. Beau Aaron Howarth was the driver of the minivan that was pulled over driving Eastbound on I-70 and is now facing between 10 years and life in prison. Yeah, he was traveling with a whole lot of drugs in his vehicle.

Deputies found 11.75 kilograms of heroin and more than two grams of fentanyl in the van that the 24-year-old was driving. It didn't take long for a police canine who is trained to detect cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine to alert on the drugs that were located near a rear passenger door in the minivan.

Throughout the search, the Mesa County deputies found 13 packages of heroin and a collection of pills containing fentanyl.

Howarth has been charged with possession with intent to distribute more than one kilogram of heroin. When looking up Howarth in the Mesa County Inmate Locator it says that he is still currently in custody and either has a hold against him (which means he isn't allowed bail), or a bail amount hasn't been set for him yet.

It's great that our law enforcement officers caught these drugs as they were traveling through our county, but it's too bad that another person just decided to throw their life away due to drugs.

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