Pubdate: Sun, 23 Oct 2005
Source: Ottawa Sun (CN ON)
Copyright: 2005 Canoe Limited Partnership
Contact:  http://www.ottawasun.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/329
Author: Lisa Lisle
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?241 (Methamphetamine - Canada)

NEW STAGING GROUND

Meth Producers Home In On Festival City, Leading To Sharp Rise In
Addicts

Stephanie and Robert were living their dream.

The couple put thousands of dollars and their heart and soul into
their Edwardian home, transforming it into one of this city's many bed
and breakfasts.

Eight years into it, their dream was turning into a money-making
venture. But in early 2004, Todd Ross moved next door, turning their
dream into a 16-month nightmare.

By March 2004, Ross had moved into the detached garage. With the
stench of rotten eggs wafting through cracks in the walls, Ross'
driveway became a drivethrough. But the rotten eggs Robert thought he
smelled were something much more sinister and much more profitable.
Ross was cooking and dealing methamphetamine.

About 150 km southwest of Toronto, this city is famous for its
Stratford Festival Theatre. It's where the wealthy come to retire or
retreat at their weekend homes. But hiding in the shadows of the
heritage homes and modern mansions is a problem that just keeps
getting worse.

It's believed meth arrived in Perth County, where Stratford is the
biggest municipality, with Dan McCool, who was deported to Canada
after being convicted in the U.S. of meth possession in 2001.

McCool was arrested in November 2002 after two meth labs were busted
in nearby Milverton and Monkton. He pleaded guilty in December 2002 to
several charges, including production and possession for the purpose
of trafficking.

By then McCool had already taught his trade, and in 2003 the city
dismantled six labs. That same year, city police made 10 arrests for
possession of meth.

In the first half of this year, police dismantled four labs and made
24 arrests for possession.

Catherine Hardman, director of Choices for Change, the local addiction
treatment centre, saw a sharp jump in the number of people seeking
treatment for meth addiction in 2002. With just six cases of
amphetamine/methamphetamine in 2000/01, Choices for Change had 27 in
2001/02. Hardman says she currently has 68 open files, making up about
18% of her caseload, compared to just 1% five years ago.

Around that same time, Dr. Heather Keizer, head of psychiatry at the
Stratford General Hospital, started dealing with suicidal and
homicidal patients coming in with police escorts.

"I was getting easily two and three admissions a week with psychosis
secondary to substance abuse," Keizer says. "And they're young guys
who aren't getting better real quick."

Trying to figure out what was happening in their community, Keizer and
Hardman went looking for help. Both women say it was a long time
before anyone listened.

"Until it's impacting your life in some way, you're not going to do
anything about it," Hardman says.

Stephanie and Robert, who asked that their last names not be used, ran
into the same problem. They called police, first anonymously and then
out of frustration, giving detailed reports.

Fear and traffic kept them up at night. Unsatisfied with the response
they were getting from the cops, they took matters into their own hands.

They followed Ross' customers, taking down their licence-plate numbers
and tracking where they lived. While they worried at first what might
happen if they were spotted, they were eventually more open about it.

"If we could just scare some of these people, it would deter them from
coming back," Robert says, noting their main goal was to report back
to police.

Even with their log books, they say no action was taken.

"All you ever heard was 'I'm the only person. You can only do so
much.'" Stephanie says. "That's why they have the problem they have --
the police department can't handle it."

Police Chief Jerry McEwin knows there's a problem with staffing and
hopes the province will come through with at least one new officer for
the city.

"And it's our hope that one of those officers will be put directly
into our drug unit," McEwin says.

But the city's not alone in their fight -- Stratford police have the
OPP and RCMP backing them up. While they seem to be co-operating,
they're not necessarily communicating.

Local defence lawyer David Barenberg had a client arrested for meth
production and held in custody for five or six weeks. It turns out
that when the OPP arrested him, he was a paid informant of the RCMP
and city police.

"They didn't bother to tell the OPP," Barenberg laughs, adding his
client was discharged after a preliminary hearing.

However, it's not just the lab busts and possession charges that have
police working around the clock -- they're now dealing with peripheral
crimes.

Both McEwin and Barenberg have seen an increase in their caseload for
crimes related to meth addiction.

Described as responsible, hard-working and a good parent before her
drug addiction took hold, Claudine Lundrigan was put behind bars for a
string of offences that started with an assault and ended with a
police chase in a stolen vehicle.

"Her antisocial behaviours were motivated by a dependence on that
drug," Barenberg says.

Violent crime is also on the rise.

"Their behaviour changes and the violence is escalating," McEwin says,
noting officer safety is becoming a big concern.

"We just don't know what you're going to come into," he adds,
recalling one incident in which three officers were needed to keep one
guy down.

While police chase down the criminals, their budget is taking a hit in
other ways. This summer, police evacuated an apartment building after
two propane tanks filled with anhydrous ammonia, a key ingredient in
one type of meth, were found. In addition to the manpower, police had
to cough up $4,200 to take it away.

"That adds up to a fair bit of money -- money we don't budget for,"
McEwin says.

The fire department is also hoping to beef up its budget. Without a
Hazmat suit in the department, firefighters are lucky to walk out of
labs without chemical burns.

"If it gets on your skin, it's going to burn you," Fire Chief Richard
Young says of some of the vapours found in meth labs. "If you breathe
it in, it's going to attack your lungs."

He's also hoping for funding for Hazmat training.

While the community seems to have become the meth capital of Ontario,
the problem isn't anything like it is in rural communities in the U.S.
And local officials are trying to reverse the problem before it gets
worse.

In addition to asking for another cop, Stratford police have created a
position for a community resource officer.

Const. Ken Reilly, a 25-year veteran cop, began patrolling the city's
three high schools and six senior public schools this fall.

"What we are hoping is that with my mere presence that they'll get the
hint that it's unacceptable behaviour," Reilly says of the drug
dealing on and around school property.

Reilly has made several arrests. In just the first week of school, he
made eight.

Hoping to bring more and better paying jobs to the area, Mayor Dan
Mathieson will be part of the premier's trade mission to China next
month. While the city is ahead of the national average in terms of
income, Mathieson says the divide between the rich and poor is
growing, as more affluent people move to the area and drive up housing
prices.

"If you're someone who's just scraping by and on the fringe of the
drug trade, you might consider dealing," he says.

Mathieson, McEwin and Young, as well as three others from Perth
County, are all on the province's task force. By being vocal about the
problem, Mathieson is hoping his city might become the site of a pilot
project for the province.

"The only way you can get rid of that moniker is to do something that
supersedes it or is above that," Mathieson says of the city's
reputation for being the province's meth capital. "So for us it's
going to have a first-class community program where people are going
to say, 'Stratford, they're the ones with the innovative drug
solution.' Because if you don't do that, they're only going to
remember the headlines that said we have a drug problem."

The headlines have helped get the ball rolling.

"People are starting to pay attention now and realize that the police
are the people and the people are the police," McEwin says. "We need
their help because we can't be everywhere."

Even with Stephanie and Robert's tireless efforts to put an end to the
cooking and the dealing going on next door, Ross was never arrested.
Their nightmare finally came to an end when the 31-year-old man was
murdered in May. Nikolas Darcy Kerr, 26, is charged with first-degree
murder.

"It's not nice to say, but I thank God," Stephanie says. "We feel to
this day that we would still have this problem if there wasn't a murder."

- - Location: 150 km southwest of Toronto

- - Population: 31,271

- - Visible minority population: 1,200

- - Median household income: $47,938

- - Education of 20+ population: 72.2% high school or more, 13.48%
bachelor's degree or higher

- - Top employers: FAG Bearings and Aerospace (1,101) and Stratford
General Hospital (1,100)
- ---
MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin