The oil portraits at Collingwood School stare out over a mostly empty lecture hall. They number 13 -- depicting former board directors or heads of school -- some seated in the garden, one with a hand on the hip, one holding a basketball. As many people, maybe 15 if you count the two guidance counsellors, pepper the 200-seat auditorium. Mark McLaughlin stands at the podium. He is lean, serious, intent. The Victoria man points to a display of rat poison, cat litter, drain cleaner, cough syrup -- some common ingredients for cooking crystal meth. The corrosive toxic stew is one of the most addictive street drugs and years ago was flagged as a Vancouver area epidemic. Police say the home-cooked psychostimulant is now nation-wide. [continues 904 words]
West Van police say they dismantled a grow-op last night, one that was squatting - unbeknownst to the owners - in a vacant British Properties home. Const. Jeff Palmer said the owner, who hadn't been to the Glenross Road home in a few months, called police Sunday (Oct. 25) evening when he visited the house to find the locks were changed and the windows lined with condensation. Police found a marijuana grow operation inside and spent the night dismantling electrical systems and carting out several hundred marijuana plants. [continues 159 words]
Last month North Van RCMP revealed they had discovered a local ring of "pimps and drug traffickers" recruiting high school girls into sex work. Police alleged that four pimps, some of them former alternative school students, had preyed upon their classmates, many of those girls underage. Cpl. Marlene Morton said that investigators discovered at least 11 young female sex workers after staff at a local high school brought the issue to police last November. She said the young men used gifts - cell phones, booze, drugs - and initiated relationships that started out as "boyfriend girlfriend," but became violent and exploitive. [continues 1022 words]
South Asian Parents Urged to Spend More Time With Children At the Grand Taj banquet hall, in front of a rapt South Asian crowd, Karen Sekhon places a lunch box on a table. She pulls out a bong, used for smoking marijuana, and a "third lung" - a pop bottle fixed to a plastic bag, also used for inhaling pot. She also displays cans of shaving cream designed to conceal illegal drugs, and highlighter pens that hide pipes. People are intrigued. "Can I see?" asks one young boy, leaning in with a group of his friends. [continues 552 words]
