Several hundred pounds of narcotics were shipped from theLincoln County Sheriff’s Department to an undisclosed location fordestruction Friday.

Agents with the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics inventoried thedrugs and delivered them to a secret location to be burned in anenclosed furnace, said Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department Maj.Dustin Bairfield. Bairfield is a former MBN agent and said he isfamiliar with the procedure.

State law requires MBN to destroy all drugs, regardless of whichlaw enforcement agency actually seized them, Bairfield said.

The drugs cannot be destroyed until a case is completelyclosed.

“Even if an old case is on appeal, they can’t destroy (thedrugs) because they are evidence that has to be available uponrequest,” he said. “In some cases, we have to store them foryears.”

The seized drugs taken for destruction by MBN agents Fridayrepresented “several years worth” of old cases, said Lincoln CountySheriff Wiley Calcote.

Neither law enforcement officer could give a precise breakdownof the drugs eligible for destruction, but said there “was easilyseveral hundred pounds” of marijuana, methamphetamines, cocaine andother narcotics.