TRAVERSE CITY -- Local drug enforcement teams are seeing a rise in the trafficking of heroin.

Detective Lieutenant Kip Belcher with the Traverse Narcotics Team tells 7&4 News that heroin busts have doubled in the last year. Heroin is a fast-acting opiate that is very addictive and sometimes deadly. Hunting down heroin users and traffickers is like finding a needled in a haystack because the average amount sold at a time is a half of a tenth of a gram, that’s the size of a tip of a pencil.

Detective Lieutenant Kip Belcher says, “It's typically packaged in small rectangular shaped bindles which are then concealed in a cigarette package box. If you're not paying attention, as an officer, you can miss things like that."

The TNT and the Grand Traverse County Sheriff’s Office have been focused on finding these drugs. Jess Probert and Joel Kirkbride are two of their latest arrests, both for possession of heroin.

Detective Lieutenant Kip Belcher says, "It's shocking and it's concerning because that's not something you would associate to the Traverse City area."

Detective Belcher says the majority of these drug cases have been in Traverse City, close to the heart of town.