Downtown residents speaking at a public forum Wednesday evening about drug trafficking in their neighbourhoods introduced themselves by the streets on which they live.

Introductions of "I live on Wheeler Street", "I used to live at Eighth and Alexander", "I'm near Cook and Sixth" or "I have three drug houses nearby" drew murmurs and sympathetic nods.

One mother spoke about a house where drugs are sold, complete with heavy bars on the windows and doors, close by her children's bus stop. She lamented that her seven-year-old knows what a drug house is and where they're located.

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Whitehorse's drug trade hasn't grown over the last decade, though it's gone through highs and lows, according to a study due out this fall.

"It didn't appear to have grown," RCMP Cpl. Pete Greenlaw said about Whitehorse's illegal drug market. "It appears to be fairly stable. You have peaks and valleys, but there's no dramatic increase."

Greenlaw, the Yukon RCMP's drug awareness officer and a career drug cop, is part of the SASSY committee (Substance Abuse Strategy and Solutions for Yukon) conducting a study of the city's drug scene. It's set for completion by November.

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A downtown resident's concern about traffic coming to and from a nearby drug trafficker's home base has prompted the constituency's MLA to call a public meeting to see what the community can do.

Todd Hardy, territorial representative for the downtown riding, as well as the Yukon NDP leader, is in the planning stages for a July 28 open discussion at the Whitehorse Public Library.

A woman who lives in the downtown area said she approached Hardy a couple of weeks ago because she's fed up with incessant noise 24 hours a day after two houses where drugs are sold cropped up in her area recently.

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One Yukon candidate in the upcoming federal election wants to bring a higher profile to his lesser-known party.

Sean Davey, 22, will enter the federal election as a the candidate in the Yukon riding for the Marijuana Party of Canada. It's the first time the pro-pot party has sparked up a candidate in the Yukon.

Davey is running to get the word out in the Yukon about the Marijuana Party, which will be entering its second federal election.

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WHITEHORSE (CP) -- A riot in the Yukon jail was apparently sparked by inmates angry about a search for drugs, according to corrections officials. "As close as we can determine, the inmates were annoyed that there was a search done," said Sharon Hickey, director of community and correctional services.

Guards at the Whitehorse Correctional Centre smelled marijuana coming from one of the dormitories at about 10:30 p.m. on Jan. 24.

While the damage done to the jail after eight inmates barricaded themselves into their dorm was readily apparent, the investigation into why the riot began in the first place took longer to compile. The riot damage cost approximately $52,000 to repair.

[end]

Though F.H. Collins Secondary School principal Darren Hayes doesn't believe drugs are a big problem at the facility, the school is looking at having the RCMP bring in a drug dog.

"Some of this is to be a deterrent," he said in an interview this morning.

School council officials, parents and students turned out to a meeting at the school Thursday evening to discuss a potential policy that would permit the drug dog into the Riverdale high school.

"Members of the RCMP M division with the cooperation of the principal or designate may conduct random patrols of Yukon schools," reads the draft policy. Hayes noted there was a wide variety of views represented at the meeting. While some parents support the policy, others had questions about the wording. Still others queried how far the school would go in its searches.

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Cocaine, ecstasy, pot, heroin, mushrooms - they're all to be found on Whitehorse streets.

But just how accessible drugs are, their prevalence and their overall effect on Yukoners isn't known.

By next June, a local researcher will have reviewed existing data and spoken with coroners, cops, doctors and people who treat addicts in order to find out just how bad Whitehorse's drug scene is.

Whitehorse is one of six Canadian communities doing the drug studies starting in December. A further nine towns and cities will conduct the studies in the two following years.

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The Yukon's premier admits his past conviction for dealing heroin is an embarrassment.

In a press conference Monday afternoon, Dennis Fentie addressed the issue of his 1976 conviction of being part of a heroin trafficking ring in Edmonton.

Fentie told the Star during the 2002 election campaign about his conviction for narcotics trafficking. However, the Yukon Party leader refused to say, at the time, what drug he had been pushing.

It was revealed recently that Fentie had spent 17 months of a four-year sentence in prison for peddling smack, also known as heroin.

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Two veteran federal political strategists feel Premier Dennis Fentie made a big mistake by not telling Yukoners what drug he went to prison for selling. "My advice would've been you come clean," Tim Powers said today in an interview from Ottawa.

Powers used to work for federal Tories John Crosbie and Joe Clark, and most recently worked for the Canadian Alliance during the 2000 federal election. "If you hide something that is a part of the public record somewhere out there, come clean or you will pay the price," Powers added.

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While the Department of Education and the RCMP have hammered out an agreement allowing a police dog to search high schools for drugs and weapons, not all principals plan to take up the offer.

At a news conference yesterday afternoon, Porter Creek Secondary School principal Kerry Huff said he plans to ask the RCMP to bring one of their drug-sniffing dogs into the building after school hours to conduct "random sweeps" of the building in an effort to root out contraband.

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The lethal amount of cocaine in a Whitehorse man's body likely killed him as he ran from the RCMP officer trying to arrest him in late September.

Clark Edward Whitehouse had more than 10 mg of cocaine in his system, Sharon Hanley, the Yukon's chief coroner, said this week.

Anything over 10 mg is considered lethal. Exactly how much he'd ingested won't be made public until a yet-unscheduled coroner's inquest.

Coroner's inquests are standard practice when someone dies in police custody.

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A Yukon RCMP officer and police dog are behind an Alberta drug bust worth millions of dollars, the RCMP said this afternoon.

This morning, four people were arrested in Lethbridge, Alta. and charged with possession of controlled substances for the purpose of trafficking.

Lethbridge Police Service officers seized 235 kilograms (524 pounds) of marijuana, as well as cash, cell phones and other items related to a vehicle Yukon Const. Wayne Smyth and police service dog Luke came across early yesterday morning.

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Judge Gail Maltby has ruled that the Yukon has no jurisdiction to try a youth accused of possession of drugs for the purposes of trafficking.

The case was scheduled to go to trial in Whitehorse this morning, but defence counsel Malcolm Campbell argued the Yukon does not have the jurisdiction for the case.

"The offence was not committed here," Campbell told the court.

The alleged offence stems from an incident at a Kelowna, B.C. bus station. Kelowna RCMP arrested the youth after being informed by Whitehorse RCMP that he was believed to be bringing cocaine into the territory for the purposes of trafficking.

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The president of the Yukon Medical Association (YMA) won't soon prescribe medicinal marijuana, even if federal courts have guaranteed that Health Canada will be a willing supplier.

Advocates for the ready access to medicinal marijuana aren't pleased either with the last-minute decision made on July 9.

Dr. Wayne MacNicol is the president of the YMA and an obstetrician-gynecologist at Whitehorse General Hospital. He has been provided with information from Health Canada on how he should go about prescribing marijuana to his patients.

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Three months in custody is needed for a 15-year-old girl convicted of selling one marijuana cigarette to her cousin on the walk to school, a Crown prosecutor argued in court this week.

Territorial court Judge John Faulkner rejected that suggestion for the girl, who had no criminal record until Wednesday afternoon. He instead handed her eight months' probation for the trafficking conviction.

Fourteen at the time, the girl was convicted after a 20-minute trial in early February for selling the joint on the way to school last September as they neared Selkirk Elementary School on the way to F.H. Collins Secondary.

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Security: Team Will Watch For Smuggling Of Drugs And Guns.

WHITEHORSE (AP)-- While RVers, campers and outdoor enthusiasts pour across the Yukon-Alaska border this summer, a special unit of Royal Canadian Mounted Police will be searching among them for drug dealers, gun smugglers and border runners.

Last August, the Yukon became one of the Mounties' jurisdictions to be assigned an Integrated Border Enforcement Team, one of 19 created after 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon.

After the attacks, the Canadian government put more than half a billion dollars into the Mounties to improve national security.

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This is the last in a four-part series looking at various aspects of police work to mark national police week.

Pete Greenlaw flaps his fingers, pantomiming a pair of lips talking -- "Drugs are bad. Don't do drugs."

"This doesn't work," the RCMP corporal said.

When the RCMP first hired drug awareness officers as their part in implementing Canada's drug strategy in 1988, those police officers were often labelled the "pin and poster guys."

They handed out pins and posters and stood at the front of the classroom telling kids to stay away from drugs, Greenlaw said. There wasn't a lot of interaction, and students didn't take a hands-on role in the learning process.

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For a month and a half, Anne Aram has been trying to improve her pool skills and come up with some fun activities for the young people who hang out at the Whitehorse Youth Centre.

The centre's new executive director said in a recent interview she wants to offer the city's youth an alternative to drugs and alcohol.

One of the latest initiatives was the Beat the Heat pool tournament between the Whitehorse RCMP and youth at the centre. Aram proudly pointed out that the youth beat the police in the tournament. It's something she hopes to do every month in an attempt to alleviate some of the differences between the youth and police.

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The Yukon government will wait until Ottawa makes an official decision before it gets off the pot on the issue of decriminalizing marijuana.

Recently, a committee of federal MPs released a report recommending that anybody caught with up to 30 grams of marijuana receive a fine instead of being charged and left with a criminal record.

According to the report, fines would be paid without a court appearance and people would not receive a criminal conviction, much like a speeding ticket.

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"Hi. My Name Is Dennis And I Smoke Marijuana."

The admissions were as thick as the pot smoke in a Cheech and Chong flick at last night's debate on the decriminalization of marijuana, though the agreement on what should happen with the plant's legal status wasn't as strong.

Some disagreed about whether marijuana is even a drug as a couple argued it's simply an herb. Others disagreed about it being labelled a "gateway drug" while others said they thought it leads to harder drug use.

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