A man who broke into a home in Lodgepole and then led RCMP on a high-speed chase broke down in tears last week as he asked a provincial court judge for help to fight his drug addiction. "I'm not afraid of going to jail," said Jason Holtz. "Jail is more of a home to me than out here. But I need help. I want help. I've never asked for it before but I'm asking for it now. I'm done." [continues 407 words]
After close to a year of crisscrossing the province and meeting with community leaders, law enforcement, health care providers and drug users, the Premier's Task Force on Crystal Meth released its final report last week. The task force was chaired by Colleen Klein, the wife of Premier Ralph Klein, and Dr. Bob Westbury. Among the task force's 11 other members was Drayton Valley Mayor Diana McQueen. The report contains a total of 83 recommendations covering a wide range of issues, all targetted to fight the spread of the drug in Alberta. [continues 325 words]
RCMP were kept busy in 2004 dealing with close to 6,000 complaints within the limits of Drayton Valley. The numbers reflect a slight increase over 2003. Altogether Drayton Valley RCMP handled 5,942 complaints in 2004, up from 5,716 in 2003. The number of people who enjoyed the dubious pleasure of a night in the cells also increased slightly, to 848 compared to 825 a year earlier. Dividing the town into four quadrants with the intersection of 50 Street and 50 Avenue at the centre, the northwest quadrant had consistently higher rates of reported crime than the other three. The only exception was for vandalism, which was most common in the southwest quadrant. [continues 110 words]
Drayton Valley Western Review - Drayton Valley had its 15 minutes of fame last week as the CBC aired a documentary looking at how the town is dealing with its methamphetamine problem. The documentary, which ran on Tuesday evening as part of CBC's The National, looked at the growing meth problem throughout this part of Alberta. However, the main focus was on Drayton Valley. "I loved it," says community mobilzer Norma Block. "I wish they could have focused more on the specifics of what we're doing here but in 20 minutes they can only focus on so much." [continues 283 words]
Cops are crediting good old-fashioned luck for one of the biggest drug busts the Drayton Valley area has seen in years. Members of the Drayton Valley RCMP visited a house east of Berrymoor Sunday morning looking for information on a man found semi-conscious in a nearby field. What they discovered was a marijuana growing operation with more than $600,000 of assets and product on site. "Finding the drugs was totally unexpected. We were going through procedure after the young man was found out here and came across this. It's the biggest operation we've uncovered in recent years," said Staff Sgt. Steve Harrington. [continues 552 words]
It starts so slowly and seems so harmless. You take a cigarette lighter, a piece of broken light bulb, a bic pen with the inside removed and a small plastic bag with a little white powder in the bottom. You pour the powder into the light bulb, heat it with the lighter and suck up the smoke through the pen. Claire (her name has been changed for reasons that will become obvious) was at a party when she first tried methamphetamine, a drug she'd never heard of until she moved to Drayton Valley. [continues 1422 words]
There's a new man in charge of the Drayton Valley RCMP detachment. Steve Harrington is a 28-year RCMP veteran. Most recently he served as a sergeant with the Evansburg detachment. He was promoted to staff sergeant and took over command of the Drayton Valley detachment last week. "I really enjoyed my time in Evansburg," he says. "I had two stints there. First as a recruit right out of training and I've just come from there now. (But) I like to treat life as an adventure and I'm looking forward to being in Drayton Valley." [continues 326 words]
