Orlando candidate arrested on drug trafficking charges

Agents with the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation (MBI) Narcotics Section arrested a prominant Orlando businessman and candidate for City Council, Ezell Harris.  Harris was taken into custody on Thursday and bond was set at $100,400.

He bonded out of the Orange County Jail after 11 p.m. Friday night.

MBI Narcotics agents initiated this investigation after receiving tips from multiple sources that Harris was selling prescription drugs from his Pine Hills home. During the course of the 4-month long investigation Harris sold MBI agents Hydrocodone, Oxycodone, Methadone, and Xanax.

The narcotics are known to be highly addictive and can only be dispensed by prescription. The 2008 report from the Medical Examiner's Office of Drugs Identified in Deceased Persons summarizes the drugs that caused the most deaths in Florida in 2008, were Oxycodone (941), all Benzodiazepines (929-includes 705 deaths caused by Alprazolam (Xanax), Methadone (693), Cocaine (648), Ethyl Alcohol (489), Morphine (300), and Hydrocodone (270).

When abused these drugs are deadly by themselves but it is a common practice among drug users to take a combination of drugs a cocktail to intensify or prolong the effects of the drugs. More than 80 percent of deceased persons where drugs were a contributing factor had a combination of drugs in their system at the time of death.

Harris, who ran a campaign to unseat incumbent Commissioner Daisy Lynum earlier this year, faces charges of trafficking in hydrocodone, dispensing illegal drugs without a license, unlawful use of a two-way radio, and possession of drug paraphernalia. The investigation is on-going, according to the MBI.