Lately, the media have been portraying Porter Creek Secondary School as a drug-riddled school with so many problems that they have to hire a "drug dog" to patrol the grounds.

This is not the idea behind Canines for Safer Schools. Canines for Safer Schools is an education program.

It is naive to think that Porter Creek Secondary School is the only school that is concerned about drug use. Drugs are prevalent throughout the Yukon and are in our schools.

By hiring a person trained in educating students against the use of drugs, Porter Creek Secondary School is taking the initiative to stop the Yukon-wide drug problem in schools.

[continues 96 words]

Re. the Liberals' crime platform.

Well, it should be clear to everyone by now that Stephane Dion and his Liberal cronies are just as much of a bunch of charlatans as the Tories are.

Instead of calling for the legalization and regulation of all drugs, both parties promise to spend more taxpayers' dollars to finance drug prohibition.

This, as all science and history on the subject has shown, is incredibly expensive, counterproductive, dangerous, and only serves to further subsidize organized crime and spread disease.

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The fight against Whitehorse grow ops suffered a setback this week.

Cops, Crown prosecutors and others are going to be cursing territorial court Judge Karen Ruddy as some sort of liberal wank.

This week, Ruddy issued an 83-page judgment on the admissibility of evidence collected by police investigating the high-profile Copper Ridge grow-op case.

She turfed out a lot of the evidence.

So much evidence, in fact, that it's difficult to imagine how the Crown can continue prosecuting its case, in which 4,500 marijuana plants were seized.

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Crown prosecutors will need time to decide how to proceed after territorial court judge Karen Ruddy ruled there were a number of Charter violations in the arrests and search warrants used in 2005 against eight men over a number of marijuana grow operations around the city.

In an interview Tuesday afternoon, prosecutor Ludovic Gouallier said the decision certainly favours the defence counsel's arguments to leave certain evidence out because of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms breaches. However, the Crown needs time to analyze the 83-page document and consider what the implications will be, he said.

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Doug Green is clear on what he wants the Canines for Safer Schools Program to be about.

"This is education," he said in an interview this morning from his Edmonton home.

Green, a former Edmonton police officer who created a similar program there, accepted the position of handler for Porter Creek Secondary School last Friday, though the contract for the position has yet to be signed.

It's expected Green will begin his work on June 1, school principal Kerry Huff told the Star this morning.

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Despite efforts to halt the process, Porter Creek Secondary is one step closer to having a drug-detecting dog walking the halls of the school.

The school's advisory committee has hired a dog handler for the program, Canines for Safer Schools, despite a human rights complaint lodged by the family of a student attending the school.

The student has an allergy to dogs. The family, which asked for anonymity, said the initiative violates the student's right to attend a dog-free school.

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Yukon Medical Association president Rao Tadepalli says drug-hungry patients manipulating doctors is part of the prescription misuse problem in Whitehorse. In Whitehorse, a bottle of Tylenol 3s relieves a lot more than pain.

On the street, it'll fetch $30 bucks, a pouch of tobacco or a rock of crack.

And it's easy to come by.

"Whatever you want, or whatever you're on, the doctors just give them away like candy," said Sam (not his real name).

Struggling with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, the 30-year-old man dealt pills regularly for more than three years.

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Crown prosecutors have dropped drug charges against 15 people who were arrested following a two-month undercover RCMP investigation throughout the territory last fall.

Crown prosecutor Ludovic Gouallier said this morning visiting Justice Rene Foisy of Alberta sided with the entrapment argument presented in a Faro resident's case in February.

It was argued that the man, who was charged with one count of trafficking marijuana, had been entrapped in the M Division's RCMP undercover operation.

Gouallier noted that in such an undercover operation where police are participating in a criminal activity, the defence of entrapment can be raised.

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Ed. note: This statement was released this week, congratulating the RCMP for their work in seizing 4.95 kilograms of cocaine and 41 kilograms of marijuana last Saturday.

On behalf of the Yukon government, I applaud the RCMP's efforts in addressing substance abuse in our communities.

Through their efforts over the weekend, the RCMP has significantly reduced the amount of drugs - and the harm that they do - in Yukon communities.

Clearly, the seizure of this magnitude of illicit drugs demonstrates the RCMP's commitment to public safety, and this is a commitment our government shares.

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Whitehorse RCMP made what's being described as the largest cocaine seizure in the territory's history on Saturday night.

Two men are facing charges, police said today.

At around 10:20 p.m. Saturday, officers stopped a cube van headed north on the Alaska Highway, just south of Whitehorse. There, the driver and passenger were detained while officers executed the search warrant.

Inside the van, concealed among produce boxes and restaurant supplies, police found about 4.95 kilograms (11.5 lbs.) of cocaine and 41 kilograms (91.5 lbs.) of marijuana, police said in a statement.

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CUERNAVACA, Mexico - Despite the 84 degrees F., despite the delights of the swimming pool, there is trouble in Paradise.

It's hard to complain from this pleasant town of some one million, at 5,000 feet high between Mexico City (world's largest city at 26 million people) and the lush resort of Acapulco on the Pacific shore, once the retreat of all the Hollywood stars.

It's where Hernando Cortes, the Spanish explorer, selected for his palace. That's after his fleet of 11 ships crossed the Atlantic, following one Christopher Columbus who, as we know, discovered the Caribbean islands in 1492.

[continues 654 words]

Re. "School to push ahead with drug dog plan", Star, Feb. 2.

Using dogs to sniff kids in schools is obscene. It teaches kids that they are not people; they are prisoners or property.

That said, anyone stupid enough to actually bring their drugs to school deserves everything they get!

But since we are already teaching kids that they should obey The State without any questions, why not just make them all pee in a cup before school?

Or, maybe daily strip searches?

That should keep them from thinking for themselves and scare them into being good little obedient robots, which is, apparently, the whole point.

Russell Barth

Federal Medical Marijuana Licence Holder

Ottawa

[end]

It might only be a joint, but territorial prevention consultant Sandy Bowlby wants Yukoners to know there are harmful effects that come with it.

"It is a drug and it is addictive," Bowlby, a prevention consultant with the territory's prevention services department, said in an interview earlier this week.

New studies have indicated marijuana is physically addictive, heightens cancer rates and risks to mental health and impacts short-term memory, Bowlby said.

On Thursday evening, the branch will host a public meeting at the Gold Rush Inn to look at the effects of pot use.

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Porter Creek Secondary School is planning to go ahead with its Canines for Safer Schools Program with or without a canine.

"They think they need to push it forward," principal Kerry Huff said this week of the committee overseeing the project.

The program, which would see a dog and its handler come into the school daily, was promised $250,000 for a three-year pilot project from the territorial government last year.

The program was put on hold though after a complaint was filed with the Yukon Human Rights Commission by the parent of a student who has a doctor's note stating the pupil has a life-threatening allergy to dogs.

[continues 437 words]

A downtown residence was served an eviction notice Friday morning.

It was the second served last week under Yukon's recently enacted Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods Act. The territory's SCAN office has been open for six weeks.

The Yukon government, in co-operation with the property's landlord, is ousting the tenants for their alleged connection to illegal drugs.

The Justice department is not releasing the names of the tenants being evicted, or the controlled substance allegedly being produced, used or sold in the residence.

[continues 419 words]

Yukon residents clearly want action to curb the territory's growing drug problem.

But the Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods Act isn't the solution everyone had hoped for.

In fact the law, which was hastily cobbled together and passed in the spring in anticipation of October's territorial election, is proving to be a dangerous bit of work.

Here's why.

This week, the government forced the eviction of some people living in a trailer in the Kopper King neighbourhood, the first such action under the new law.

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Tenants of a Kopper King trailer who were served an eviction notice this week have no right to appeal the decision that's left them homeless.

"There isn't an appeal process for that type of eviction" apart from suing the landlord or suing the government, said Justice department spokesperson Dan Cable.

Yukon Justice department employees served the notice Tuesday morning on behalf of the property's landlord following an investigation.

It's the first action under the Yukon's Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods Act.

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WHISTLER, B.C. - The date is Feb. 12, 2010, where for 16 days this little town two hours north of Vancouver will be the centre of world television and don't you think we're proud - and a little nervous.

The Winter Olympics poobahs knew what they were doing.

The two biggest ski mountains in North America right outside your ski-in, ski-out condo, a mile of vertical drop for skiers, 8,200 acres, 200 named runs, breathtaking views and, as one ski writer put it, "more bowls than Conrad Black's china service."

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One of the highest-profile components of the territorial government's Substance Abuse Action Plan will take to the streets in April 2007.

The question: Will the RCMP Street Crime Reduction Team really make a difference in the territory's thriving drug trade, or merely drive the problem deeper underground?

Justice Minister Marian Horne announced Monday the government will commit about $485,000 per year for three years to the team, whose function is loosely based on a successful British Columbia model.

[continues 555 words]

The announcement of an RCMP street crime reduction team is good news for the Whitehorse business community says Rick Karp, president of the Whitehorse Chamber of Commerce.

The Yukon government announced on Monday of last week that it will provide the RCMP with $1.4 million over three years to establish the team.

"What it means is that these additional police officers will be exclusively dedicated to tackle crime hot spots and prolific criminal offenders on our streets," Dave Shewchuk, the RCMP's chief superintendent, said at the news conference where the announcement was made.

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