The Pennsylvania State Police announced Monday that troopers seized more than $5.7 million worth of cocaine, heroin, fentanyl and other illicit drugs in the past three months from across the state.

The news made an impression on Butler County District Attorney Richard Goldinger.

“That's a tremendous amount of illegal substances to have that number,” he said. “I'm glad to see that the police are working hard to remove drugs from our streets.”

However, the number is down considerably from the first quarter of the year, when state police reported confiscating more than $11 million of illegal drugs. Of that amount, 70 percent, or nearly $8 million, was from processed marijuana seized between Jan. 1 and March 31.

Ryan Tarkowski, state police spokesman in Harrisburg, noted the amount of drugs intercepted by police fluctuates from quarter to quarter for different reasons, including should a particularly large bust happened to occur in a particular three-month period.

However, the disparity in the amount of drugs seized from the first to second quarters this year, he said, was mostly due to the affects of the coronavirus pandemic.

“All of our criminal activity, even DUIs, other calls, speeding tickets, everything was down in the second quarter because the COVID-19 was keeping people at home,” Tarkowski said. “I think it's fair to say that affected drug traffic as well.”

Taking a closer look at the most recent seizures, from April 1 through June 30, police report confiscating nearly 47 combined pounds of heroin and fentanyl — with a street value in excess of $1 million. Additionally, police removed almost 32 pounds of cocaine and crack cocaine from communities statewide. Those drugs would have netted $624,700 on the street.

The drugs seized by authorities were not broken down by troop or region, said Tarkowski.

Some of the other notable seizures during the second quarter of the year included:

964.2 pounds of processed marijuana, with a street value of nearly $2.9 million.

17.3 pounds of methamphetamines, worth $173,200.

3,089 MDMA pills (ecstacy, with a value of $46,335.

64 doses of LSD, worth $1,280.

Police noted that during the past three months, they also collected 211 pounds of prescription and other medications as part of their drug take-back program.

There are 65 drug take-back boxes at state police stations throughout the state, providing a safe way to dispose of unused or unwanted medication 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Goldinger expressed his gratitude to the police for their drug interdiction effort.