A drug and alcohol treatment centre in Sagkeeng First Nation that provides counselling for entire families has a waiting list of over a year. Executive director Susan Thomas says that shows the centre is on the right track. "I think we're fast becoming pretty well known," said Thomas. She's hoping the centre, which has a budget of just over $1 million, can get more funding. The Sagkeeng Mino Pimatiziwin Family Treatment Centre has been open since November 2004. It operates out of the same building that used to house the scandal-ridden Virginia Fontaine Addictions Foundation, which shut in 2000. According to police, millions of federal dollars were used to buy condos, expensive cars and exotic trips. Between 1994 and 2000, VFAF received more than $60 million in federal funding. Paul Cochrane, a former assistant deputy minister for Health Canada, admitted to pocketing $200,000 in bribes and was given a one-year jail sentence. [continues 282 words]
Hemp is already used widely in China, but if the U.S. would sow just 10% of their farmland as industrial hemp, they could meet Kyoto, supply all of their energy needs, kick their addiction to oil, and stop fighting oil-securing wars abroad. Yes, it really is that simple, but the criminal oil barons running the governments of this world don't want people growing cheap, clean, endlessly renewable fuel, because that takes control away from them, and gives it back to the people. Russell Barth Federal Medical Marijuana Licence Holder Ottawa (What have you been smokin'?) [end]
Cops Furious Accused Shooter Released Defence Lawyer Worries For Client's Safety WINNIPEG police officers who publicly vented their frustration with the justice system now face an internal investigation and possible sanctions for their angry outbursts in court, the Free Press has learned. The primary focus is an unidentified officer who interrupted Court of Queen's Bench Justice Karen Simonsen by yelling: "Why didn't you just kill him?" only seconds after she granted bail to a man charged with shooting and wounding two police officers last December. [continues 783 words]
I am a U.S. citizen who feels the extradition of Marc Emery would be a large mistake for the Canadian government to allow. How can Canada consider itself an independent country of free peoples if they allow the American World Police to extend our laws onto your people? If his actions are punishable under Canadian law, then let him be punished under Canadian law. I feel his extradition would prove nothing more than Canadian submission to the United States. (Thanks for the advice.) [end]
Re: Local energy-drink maker pitches to pot-heads (Sun, June 26). The irony here is that these "energy" drinks are actually harder on the human body, more addictive, and more potentially dangerous than marijuana. Beyond that, people only taste real bong water once, because it tastes just the way it looks. Have your wacky drinks -- I'll keep my pot, thanks. Russell Barth Federal Medical Marijuana License Holder Ottawa (Don't lose your sense of humour.) [end]
CITY police believe they took out a major drug-dealing operation last week when officers seized 15 kilograms of cocaine worth up to $1.8 million on the street, $525,000 in cash and 14 firearms, including two fully automatic sub-machine guns, an officer said Wednesday. The stash was found on Tuesday last week in three suites in a Donald Street apartment block, what police allege was a centre for crack cocaine production and money collection. "Cumulatively, this is the largest seizure (in Winnipeg) from one source that I'm aware of," organized crime unit Sgt. Rob Harding said, adding that officers had never seen so much money, drugs and guns in one place. [continues 335 words]
Marijuana For Medicinal Use, Lawyer Argues A retired Winnipeg police officer who recently came under scrutiny for his role in the wrongful conviction of James Driskell has been charged with running a marijuana grow operation in his home. Bill VanderGraaf, 56, was arrested in April after police received a tip that he was allegedly manufacturing drugs in the basement of his East Kildonan home. Investigators found a total of 21 plants along with growing equipment such as two bulbs, three fans, four timers, a thermometer and a dehumidifier, according to court documents. [continues 458 words]
Munchies aren't included with a caffeinated drink a Winnipeg-based company is now distributing. Clarus Canadian Springs is carrying Bong Water Energized Sports Drinks, a line of beverages where references to marijuana and the drug subculture abound. Bong Water is the brainchild of Growth Capital Group. The drinks are made with Clarus's own spring water. Bong Water comes in four versions -- the Original Bong Water 420 Chronic Tonic, Purple Haze, Green Dreams and Rasta Cherry. The drinks are available at stores in Canada and the U.S. [continues 130 words]
How A Hells Angels Associate Took Wings, Met Disaster A few days ago, RCMP divers pulled the wreckage of C-GKGY out of the cold water of West Hawk Lake, closing the book on the life of Joel Maguet. The fuselage and wings of the small plane were ripped apart when rookie pilot Maguet and passenger Dan Atkinson hit a power line and crashed into the lake around the dinner hour June 11. Maguet, 33, and Atkinson, 42, were killed instantly. They were longtime friends, bonding more than a decade ago when they were members of the long-gone Spartans motorcycle gang. With them died any answers as to why they were flying so low over the Whiteshell and the Lake of the Woods. [continues 2816 words]
'THE one great principle of the... law," wrote Charles Dickens in Bleak House, "is to make business for itself." That's a thought worth worrying if you are trying, as I am, to understand federal government's position on the medical and recreational use of marijuana. Not that I have any particular personal interest in the issue -- those days are gone -- but it is something that profoundly affects the lives of a lot of people. As is well known, marijuana, the killer weed, causes "reefer madness" in those who have any contact with it. Bureaucrats and politicians appear to be particularly prone to this malady and if they had any sense they would stay away from the weed, but they don't and so they don't. The reason seems obvious -- they are simply mad. It is pretty hard, in fact, to reasonably account for Canada's marijuana laws and the way they are enforced without this explanation of reefer madness. [continues 786 words]
Lac Du Bonnet RCMP Targeting Drugs If you're dealing in drugs, the RCMP want to shut you down. "I think we've had four (drug busts) now in the last couple of months," LdB RCMP staff sgt. Glen Reitlo said recently. "We're hoping that's just the start. We're not immune to it. There's definitely drugs out here." The LdB detachment recently released a performance plan aimed at making the detachment more effective in a couple of areas. [continues 255 words]
A key Crown witness in a first-degree murder trial admits he withheld pivotal information from police because he was scared of retaliation from the accused killer. "I was scared to death," said Aaron Shellrude, who was called to testify Monday against his former drug-dealing partner and roommate, Clayton Korski. Korski, 25, admitted he planned to set up the victim, Wilson Martinez, for a drug deal in the playground of a Winnipeg elementary school and then confront him at gunpoint, according to Shellrude. [continues 356 words]
MOST of a shattered plane carrying two former Manitoba biker associates has been fished out of West Hawk Lake, but RCMP say they've found no drugs or large amounts of money that could be drug proceeds. The plane was flying low over West Hawk Lake around 6 p.m. last Monday when cottagers on Jackfish Bay said they saw it crash into the water, hitting a hydro line and toppling a hydro tower. The 33-year-old pilot, Joel Maguet, and 42-year-old passenger Dan Atkinson died in the crash. [continues 242 words]
Close Friend of Pilot Reveals Cross-Country Drug Scheme A small plane which crashed in West Hawk Lake on Monday -- killing two former Manitoba bikers -- was being used for cross-country drug trafficking, a source told the Free Press on Thursday. Joel Maguet, 33, and Dan Atkinson, 42, had been known to take to the skies to buy and sell drugs, primarily marijuana in Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia, the source said. "That's why they didn't file an itinerary," said the close friend of both men, who agreed to speak with the Free Press on the condition his name not be published. [continues 507 words]
It Died With Plane Crash In Lake WHETHER it was a plane, a train or an automobile, Joel Maguet wasn't very picky when it came to dreaming up innovative schemes on how to peddle drugs across Canada. But it would be his desire to sink to new depths -- or rise to rare heights -- that would ultimately cost him his freedom and then his life. Maguet, 33, first came on the criminal radar in 2001 when RCMP in western Manitoba raided a drug operation the likes of which they'd never seen. It was in eight railway boxcars buried three metres underground on a rural property near Dauphin. [continues 481 words]
A Winnipeg gang member took the witness stand in a high-profile murder trial Thursday and admitted to starting a chain of events that ended with the tragic shooting death of an innocent bystander. The 15-year-old witness -- who can't be named because he has a record of criminal convictions -- admits he repeatedly targeted several drug-dealing rivals with bear mace, bricks, gas bombs and guns in the fall of 2005. He was called as a Crown witness to testify against a 17-year-old who is on trial for the killing of Phil Haiart, 17, who was struck down by a stray bullet as he walked in the area of Sargent Avenue and Maryland Street. [continues 296 words]
Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean met with Grades 5 and 6 students from Norquay School at the Graffiti Gallery last Tuesday, where two girls in Room 16 read her a letter asking for help to make their neighbourhood safe. Dear Governor General WE are writing as a concerned group of grades 5 and 6 students from Norquay School in Point Douglas. We are experiencing numerous problems in our neighbourhood that are making us feel very unsafe. As a class, we were discussing personal safety issues with our teacher. From this discussion, a lot of our feelings and our concerns were heard. With the help of our principal and our teacher we discovered that we have the voice and the power to speak about issues that are very important to us and our community. We hope you will listen to our concerns and help us in any way possible to make our community a safer place to live. [continues 1052 words]
Four Arrested in City Apartment CITY police believe they eliminated one of the main crack cocaine rings in Winnipeg that allegedly were responsible for putting multiple kilos of the addictive drug on the street each week. Police seized almost four kilos of the drug on May 4 when they raided an apartment at Webb Place to find the suspects in the middle of a "cook," Winnipeg police organized crime unit Sgt. Rick Guyader said Friday. Police arrested four people and are looking for a fifth in connection to the seizure. [continues 305 words]
CITY police fear it's only a matter of time before chocolate- and strawberry-flavoured methamphetamine hits city streets. Similar warnings have been made by law enforcement officials throughout the United States as the always-changing illegal drug market appears to be now targeting young kids. Winnipeg police spokesperson Const. Jacqueline Chaput said local drug investigators attended a recent conference in the U.S. where the flavoured methamphetamine was discussed. "We haven't seen it in Winnipeg yet," she said. "But like everything, unfortunately it's only a matter of time before it will make itself up here." [continues 285 words]
A Winnipeg senior convicted of selling crack cocaine out of his North End apartment suite will spend the next two years confined to his residence. Provincial court Judge Sid Lerner told Mervyn Yule, 68, that only his age and ill health spared him from spending his sentence in jail. The man has suffered heart attacks, back surgeries, and has Type 2 diabetes. But Lerner sternly warned Yule -- who throughout the sentencing was hunched over holding his back -- that if he breached one of his conditions he could serve the rest of his time in jail. [continues 148 words]
Inside Manitoba
