In Our View: It's Better to Be Prepared for What's Ahead

It's reassuring to know that the Fredericton Police Force is keeping an eye on drug trends in the city -- especially when it comes to the highly addictive crystal meth.

Although crystal meth has yet to establish a toe-hold in Fredericton, the force says it's ready for its arrival.

Fredericton Police Chief Barry MacKnight, who chairs the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police drug abuse committee, said the force has the framework of a strategy in place to deal with crystal meth.

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Crystal meth has yet to establish a toe-hold in Fredericton, says Fredericton police Chief Barry MacKnight.

But the force is ready just in case.

"Crystal meth -- we're not seeing it," MacKnight said. "Crystal meth seems to have crested to a large degree in Ontario and, I think, they see some in Quebec. We have the odd little pockets here and there."

The bitter-tasting, synthetically produced crystalline powder, or "meth," can be taken through the nose, injected, smoked or dissolved in a glass of water. It's designed to stimulate the heart, increase breathing and keep the user awake.

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Greetings from Ottawa. Canada's government is committed to giving police the tools they need to crack down on crime. This is why we have recently introduced three new pieces of legislation that will respond to the problems posed by youth crime, introduce mandatory minimum sentences for serious drug crimes and combat the complex and serious problem of identity theft.

Bill C-25 will amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA) to allow courts to consider deterrence and denunciation as objectives of youth sentences. This change will give judges the flexibility to impose appropriate punishments with the objective of preventing serious offences committed by youth. Bill C-25 will also change the current pre-trial detention provisions in the YCJA by making it easier to detain youth in custody prior to their trials if they pose a risk to public safety.

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To the Editor,

MP Moore is correct that a longer sentence for drug dealing will punish the dealer more. However, based on 18 years of experience as police officer in Michigan, I know that each drug dealer arrested will be replaced within days. They accept as a condition of employment death; a long prison term is a puppy compared to death. The war on drugs, war on people strategy the USA has pursued for a trillion dollars has resulted in drugs being cheaper, stronger and much easier to find. Why or why does MP Moore want to jump off the same cliff?

Retired Police Detective Howard Wooldridge

Washington, DC

(via canadaeast.com)

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To the Editor,

MP Rob Moore and law enforcement unions will benefit from mandatory minimum sentences (Cracking Down On Crime With New Legislation, Dec. 8, 2007) but Canada will suffer, just like the United States has. Rational people are working hard to change those ill-conceived laws in America because they are harmful on every facet. While Canada's 2002 Senate Committee on Illegal Drugs unanimously recommended to regulate cannabis (marijuana) the same way as alcohol, mandatory minimums will do the exact opposite. Mandatory minimum sentences will please prison industry unions, too, but at the cost of making Canada less safe, not more, and statistics in America prove it.

Stan White

Dillon, Colorado (via canadaeast.com)



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Police have been forced to drop charges against a man caught with a cache of 28,000 pills because the drug -- which has the same effect as LSD and Ecstasy -- is not illegal.

RCMP and Canada Border Service Agency officers raided a Moncton home two months ago and seized a shipment of pills worth $1-million that they thought were LSD and Ecstasy.

But the people who made the pills altered the drugs' chemistry just enough to beat the law -- the drug they found no longer matches any on the list of restricted drugs under the Controlled Drug and Substances Act. So charges were dropped against a 41-year-old man for possession of illegal drugs.

The pills contain a "designer drug" is known as Piperazine, a chemical used to make industrial cleaners, made in clandestine labs in Europe by black-market chemists, police say.

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Canada's Government is committed to giving police the tools they need to crack down on crime.

This is why we have recently introduced three new pieces of legislation that will respond to the problems posed by youth crime, introduce mandatory minimum sentences for serious drug crimes and combat the complex and serious problem of identity theft.

Bill C-25 will amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA) to allow courts to consider deterrence and denunciation as objectives of youth sentences.

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Substance abuse is a growing problem in New Brunswick communities, according to the RCMP.

Police say more youth are exposed to drugs every day, and more people become addicts.

But some area residents say they don't plan on letting drugs take hold of their community.

"We're going to be proactive and arm ourselves with knowledge and strategies in the fight against substance abuse," said New Maryland Mayor Frank Dunn.

"There's a high risk of substance abuse among teens and adults in the province of New Brunswick. It's not much of a problem in New Maryland right now, but we want to make sure it never becomes a problem in our community."

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"There are facts in two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance." Hippocrates, Law

Whether Nobel Laureate or first year university student, any scientist worth their salt knows that objectivity is the foundation of their work. With that in mind, I read this week's article on the Insite facility in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside with great concern.

In a nutshell, Insite operates under an exemption from the Criminal Code that allows them to deliver a safe-injection and needle exchange service without fear of prosecution or police intervention. It is consistent with the Government of British Columbia's "Four Pillar Approach" to combating the scourge of drug addiction through prevention, treatment, harm-reduction, and enforcement. Furthermore, it is entirely funded by the Portland Health Authority of British Columbia.

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Few people would recognize 9-tetrahydrocannabinol without its abbreviation as THC. Even as THC, for many it remains an esoteric chemical substance - in fact it is the active molecule in marijuana and it is this week's featured drug in University's Used and Abused.

Of the three drugs covered so far, caffeine, alcohol, and marijuana, marijuana is by far the least common. Nonetheless, a full 16 percent of the population between ages of 15 and 64 has used marijuana this year. If you break that demographic down, the population between 15 and 24 has marijuana usage approach 30 percent annually. Of that group, four percent use it daily. Despite the fact that it's illegal, marijuana must have a lot going for it; no other illicit drug comes even close to rivalling weed as the world's favourite flower.

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Rocky Paul has been using medical marijuana to control pain and other discomforts for the last seven years.

The St. Mary's First Nation resident would like to see the rules eased up a bit so that those who need the drug can get it more easily.

Paul said as many as 30 pages of documents have to be filled out once a year by patients and their doctors in order to continue to qualify for the licence.

"What marijuana does is it helps me through the day," he said. "I smoke maybe a couple of joints a day; I really need it."

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Marijuana with an estimated street value of more than $50 million has been seized by RCMP in the province over the last several weeks.

Although final figures are still being tallied, RCMP said Wednesday that as many as 20,000 plants have been ripped from the ground by the police force during its annual marijuana-eradication program.

That adds up to 10 million joints, said Sgt. Luc Breton of RCMP J Division's drug-awareness section.

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A lawyer for a Fredericton woman who robbed a gas station and had to be stopped at gunpoint after a high-speed chase says his client fell victim to drug dealers lurking around the city's methadone clinic.

Victoria Janis Robichaud, 36, was sentenced to five years in prison Friday. She pleaded guilty after threatening to use a syringe while robbing a local gas station, and for leading police on a chase that went through a school zone and reached speeds of up to 160 kilometres an hour.

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People are looking over their shoulders after large seizures of marijuana plants from their neighbourhoods.

Brian Myshrall of Hawkins Corner, near Millville, one of the areas impacted by RCMP raids last week, said marijuana grow operations are troublesome to many in the community.

"I have a couple of small kids and they play in the woods and stuff," he said. "It is not good."

On Aug. 13, District 7 RCMP based in Woodstock, along with the force's marijuana enforcement team, seized 492 marijuana plants during a series of raids. Locations involved were in Dumfries, Springfield, Hawkins Corner, Hartley Settlement, Lower Knoxford, East Centerville and Fielding.

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At least a quarter of the marijuana grown in New Brunswick finds its way into the hands of organized crime, Staff Sgt. Robert Power of the RCMP's drug enforcement section said Monday.

Power said that while 75 per cent of provincial grow operations are "mom-and-pop" productions, the remainder goes to marijuana brokers.

"Anything that's 100 plants or more is significant and, eventually, the marijuana finds its way to marijuana brokers, or individuals known in the drug milieu to be purchasers of the production of these grows-ops."

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ST. STEPHEN - Another 800 marijuana plants, or 400,000 potential joints, were destroyed on Thursday as the RCMP continued Operation Sabot.

Sgt. Greg MacAvoy of the RCMP said there were about six rural areas targeted by officers Thursday, including Oak Haven and Rollingdam.

"Nothing too close to town today," MacAvoy said, referring to St. Stephen. "They were the more out-of-the-way areas."

MacAvoy said RCMP flew by helicopter Thursday over areas it suspected would have marijuana plants.

There were no arrests made. The police are continuing their investigation.

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OROMOCTO, N.B. -- A Canadian soldier accused of trafficking marijuana while serving at a New Brunswick army base sold a small quantity of pot to an undercover officer last year, a court-martial was told yesterday.

Bombardier Garry Kettle of the 4 Air Defence Regiment at Canadian Forces Base Gagetown was charged in April, 2006, during a military investigation into drug activity on the sprawling army base near Fredericton.

Sergeant Cameron Hillier, a member of the military's national drug-enforcement team, told the hearing that military police had been receiving information about drug use on the Brunswick base since May, 2005.

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OROMOCTO, N.B. - A soldier who sold a small quantity of marijuana to an undercover officer was convicted Wednesday of drug trafficking, prompting his lawyer to introduce a motion claiming abuse of process.

The motion, introduced during the second day of a court martial for Bombardier Garry Kettle, alleges the soldier at Canadian Forces Base Gagetown, N.B., was entrapped and seeks a stay of proceedings.

Navy Lt. Christa MacKinnon, the prosecution lawyer, said the guilty verdict issued by a military judge would be erased if the motion is granted.

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New Variety Of Marijuana More Beneficial To Growers, Harder For Police To Find

A new import from British Columbia is taking root in New Brunswick forests and the RCMP aren't too happy about it.

"It's a new type of marijuana plant called B.C. Bud and we're finding it in New Brunswick," says Kent RCMP Sgt. David Mazerolle.

This particular species of plant is harder for police to see from the sky because it's only a couple of feet high. It's also more efficient for those who grow it because it produces as many buds as a plant more than triple its size.

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MONCTON (CP) -- A new import from British Columbia is taking root in New Brunswick forests and the RCMP aren't too happy about it.

"It's a new type of marijuana plant called B.C. Bud and we're finding it in New Brunswick," said Kent, N.B., RCMP Sergeant David Mazerolle.

This particular species of plant is harder for police to see from the sky because it's quite short. It's also more efficient for those who grow it because it produces as many buds as a plant more than triple its size.

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