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

OTTAWA'S COPS 'VERY CONCERNED'

Spreading like cancer across Canada, meth is here in Ottawa.

The Ottawa police drug section has warned for three years that meth 
was on its way to the capital and this spring, investigators began 
seizing small amounts.

"We don't have a whole bunch of cases lined up for meth right now," 
says drug section Staff Sgt. Mark Pinault. "We're just seeing proof 
that it is in fact in town."

Considering that ecstasy was very limited in the capital seven or 
eight years ago and now it's a mainstream drug, Pinault is "very 
concerned" about what's going to happen with meth.

"It's coming and when it comes in, we won't be able to stop it," 
Pinault says. "And now are we prepared to deal with it on a day-to-day basis?"

Deputy Chief Sue O'Sullivan says they are -- or at least they're 
trying to. Part of a local working group, O'Sullivan says police are 
working with other emergency services -- fire, paramedics and ER 
staff -- to minimize the fallout.

Labs Dangerous

But Pinault isn't 100% convinced his unit is prepared to deal with 
the labs and the dangers that come with them.

While the rise in drug use has put a strain on the police force, 
amalgamation didn't help either.

Before amalgamation, there were 26 officers fighting drugs for a city 
of 350,000. Now there are 16 for 800,000.

"We want to cut the head of the dragon off but a lot of people want 
the tail cut off too because they don't want it in their 
neighbourhoods. And I don't blame them," he says. "But with 16 
investigators in a city of almost 900,000 people, you tell me what 
the priority is. It's pretty frustrating and now we're getting a new 
drug in it."

O'Sullivan is hoping the province will fund another 90 officers for 
the service, some of whom will go to the drug unit.

Sgt. Doug Culver, the RCMP's national co-ordinator for synthetic drug 
operations, has been dealing with that same headache, but on a 
national level, for six years after police started finding meth labs in B.C.

"The trend initially started, of course, on the west coast and then 
we started to see some of it spread into Alberta," Culver says. "And 
we thought we were going to see a very similar trend in clandestine 
labs as they saw in the U.S. and then we started to get spikes in 
Ontario and Quebec."

Of 60 labs dismantled across the country last year, Culver said the 
majority were in B.C. and 14 were in Ontario. "For meth alone, 
Ontario is certainly No. 2," Culver says, noting most of the labs 
were in the Stratford area.

Unlike the U.S., Canadian police aren't hearing a lot of reports of 
importation of the drug.

"But the bad news to that is that all the methamphetamine we're 
finding is obviously in domestic-based labs," Culver says.

Costing just a few dollars to manufacture a gram and selling for 
$80-$100, domestic biker gangs have found a new way to make money.

"There are huge profits involved in this and they don't have to worry 
about getting caught at the border or smuggling something in from a 
foreign country," Culver says.

Even with these super labs manufacturing 5 kg of meth at a time, 
Canada hasn't seen the exponential growth like the U.S.

"And we're certainly hoping we can get a handle on it before it gets 
that far," Culver says.

Culver and Pinault agree the situation will only get worse.

"We expect the number of labs we dismantle to keep going up just from 
the sheer number of synthetic drugs we're finding on the street and 
the popularity of the synthetic drugs once again," Culver says.

"Once it's here, we're going to have some difficulty removing it 
until that particular trend or that particular drug becomes either 
not profitable or just isn't used by people," Pinault agrees.

"We've just gone through the five or six years of ecstasy, GHB and 
ketamine. Drugs you never heard about 10 years ago, you can get on 
the streets here."

But this time, Pinault predicts things might be worse.

"There's just nothing good about this drug."
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