Young women are being gang-raped in Tri-City but victims haven't been cooperating with police because they have a drug relationship with attackers, according to Port Moody police.

PoMo Police Department spokesperson Brian Soles confirmed that a shocking statement in a study on sexual exploitation of children and youth in Tri-City wasn't hyperbole.

The statement, as reported in Wednesday's Tri-City News, is: "There is one particular group of males in the Tri-Cities who are targeting young females (14-16) as victims of violent crimes - they are luring and grabbing girls, gang-raping them and then terrorizing them into submission for their sexual gratification."

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State Tampering Charges Follow Officer's Acquittal In Federal Case

A grand jury on Thursday indicted the Dallas police narcotics detective central to the 2001 fake-drug scandal on seven felony charges of tampering with physical evidence.

The indictments allege that Senior Cpl. Mark Delapaz knowingly submitted false police reports and other documents in several cases in which people were arrested on bogus drug charges.

The grand jury on Thursday also indicted a former narcotics officer, Jeff Haywood, charging him with three counts of tampering with physical evidence ­ a third-degree felony punishable by up 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

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Gov. Mark Warner signed a bill Thursday sharply restricting locations of future methadone clinics - reasoning, he said, that the measure "represents a common-sense solution to a difficult issue."

Well, perhaps - if the difficult issue he means is the General Assembly's budget impasse, a crisis that's calling all of his leadership skills into play.

After all, both houses of the General Assembly passed the ill-conceived clinic bill by hefty, veto-proof margins. Perhaps it is just common sense for the governor to go along. With legislators still twirling the cylinder on a game of budgetary Russian roulette, Warner may want to save his arm-twisting for brokering a budget deal.

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JALALABAD, Afghanistan - Some of the Afghan warlords the United States has recruited to help fight Al Qaeda and the Taliban are directing Afghanistan's flourishing opium trade and threatening the country's fragile, U.S.-backed central government.

The U.S. strategy in Afghanistan has allowed some local commanders to use profits from drug trafficking to fund their armies and amass power under the umbrella of the Bush administration's war against terrorism.

U.S.-backed interim President Hamid Karzai offers pronouncements against drugs coupled with vows to eradicate poppies that he doesn't have the strength to enforce.

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Peel police say they believe they have rounded up a group of cross-border drug runners who were at the top of the insidious residential marijuana growing operation in the GTA.

An eight-month joint forces investigation wrapped up yesterday with raids at 12 homes in Brampton and Mississauga, and four in other cities, according to the Peel police Morality Bureau. At least two of the raids were in Brampton, while the majority were in Mississauga. At least two were in the area of Derry and Mavis roads.

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Both of them were on death's doorstep - and could have cared less - until a methadone program opened in Red Deer. Ben (who wants only his first name used) and Rose Ceranowicz said they lived most or all of their lives in Red Deer.

Without the opening of the Central Alberta Methadone Program in 2002, both say they would now be dead.

"It was over a 20-year period where I found I couldn't do nothing without having (morphine) in me," said Ben, 46.

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Ecstasy and marijuana are reportedly being sold openly from a convenience store in one of Sydney's busiest streets.

The 24-hour retail outlet in Oxford Street, Darlinghurst, is a front for a major drug-dealing racket, The Sunday Telegraph reported.

Its reporters conducted a covert investigation of the store over four nights and witnessed packets of the illegal drugs being handed out to 60 customers, including teenagers, over five hours.

Marijuana was sold in $20 sachets and ecstasy pills at $40 each, the paper said.

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A legislative committee recommended yesterday that the General Assembly pass several bills designed to stiffen penalties for people who make methamphetamines.

The number of meth labs discovered by authorities, particularly in Western North Carolina, have surged in recent years. State officials, particularly Attorney General Roy Cooper, have pushed for more equipment, training and enforcement tools to root out the labs.

With Cooper in attendance, the committee signed off on four bills that would increase prison time for people who manufacture the drug or make it in the presence of children. A manufacturer also could be found guilty of second-degree murder if someone fatally overdoses on meth they made.

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In days of yore, before the federal government decided to get into the drug harvesting business, the pride of Flin Flon - a little mining town stuck in the rocky folds of the Canadian shield - was divided between Bobby Clarke and the size and quantity of their insects.

On one of the two roads into the only North American town named after a cartoon character, a billboard proudly informed visitors they were entering the birthplace of a famous hockey player. Tourist shops, on the other hand, offered T-shirts with pictures of a giant mosquito and a slogan that read: "I gave blood in Flin Flon, Manitoba."

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MANITOWANING---With acclamations of gratitude from both hosts and guests, Juan Uyunkar, the Shuar healer who came from his native Ecuador three years ago to share the indigenous healing practices of his people with the people of the North is heading home.

Mr. Uyankar's stay in this country was extended far beyond what he originally intended when a tragedy struck during a healing ceremony in South Bay two years ago, a tragedy that resulted in the unexpected death of respected Wikwemikong Elder Jean (Jane) Maiangowai.

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They skipped out of work and school early, stocked up on Doritos, Starburst, pizza, chocolate and rolling papers and gathered in small clusters at city parks, toking and talking pot.

Tuesday, or 4:20 for those "cool" enough to know, marked a celebration day of sorts for pot smokers.

"It's a freedom day, that's what it is," said Calgary's marijuana advocate, Grant Krieger, who, coincidentally, was en route to the Winnipeg provincial court house to contest a January pot trafficking charge. And, as fate would have it, Krieger's hearing was set for Courtroom 420.

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