But Police Rep Agrees Student Drug Use Is Prevalent Political opponents may doubt Mayor Bob Chiarelli's claims that a majority of city students are smoking marijuana each day but one drug unit officer said he's probably not too far off the mark. Acting Staff-Sgt. Peter Gauthier of Ottawa Police's Drug Unit said yesterday that cannabis marijuana is becoming a severe problem in Ottawa's high schools. "We get a lot of complaints from parents whose kids are using marijuana," Gauthier said, a day after Chiarelli suggested up to 60 per cent of high school students are smoking dope on a daily basis. [continues 222 words]
Police would be directed to crack down on crystal meth producers if Alex Munter becomes mayor, the candidate said yesterday in unveiling his crime and safety plan for Ottawa. Munter has spoken with city police who advise him the drug is making its way from out west to Ottawa and is becoming a problem. The mayoral candidate's plan calls for "get tough" measures that include raids on suspected meth labs, similar to those executed against marijuana grow-ops. "This drug is destroying the lives of youth across Canada," Munter said yesterday in presenting his sixpoint plan. [continues 116 words]
Proposed Bill Would Ease Ability To Label Criminals As Dangerous The federal government is preparing three-strikes legislation that would make it easier to label criminals as dangerous offenders after a third serious conviction. Unlike California's famous three-strikes-you're-out law, the proposed federal bill will not trigger an automatic life sentence for repeat offenders. What it will do is reverse the burden of proof in dangerous-offender hearings for people already found guilty of three violent crimes. [continues 176 words]
Police investigating where girl, 15, acquired candy-like ecstasy A 15-year-old Durham Region girl has died after taking the street drug ecstasy. Teresa Brewer, of Ajax, collapsed in a local Zellers while shopping with friends on July 15. Emergency personnel rushed her to Ajax hospital and then to the Hospital for Sick Children where she never emerged from a coma. With her family at her side, she died last Wednesday. Durham Region police Det. Tom Andrews said an investigation is underway to find out where the girl acquired the pills also known as the "love drug." [continues 122 words]
City Creating Strategy To Tackle Drug Problems A new strategy coming to Ottawa in June aims to address the growing problems of drugs and addiction in the city. Mayor Bob Chiarelli said the Integrated Drugs and Addictions Strategy would tackle Ottawa's epidemic rates of hepatitis C and HIV among intravenous drug users. "This shows there is in fact a need for community action. We are going to do anything we can to make it happen," Chiarelli said yesterday at city hall, where 40 community figureheads, police and city councillors were briefed on the strategy. [continues 157 words]
Crack users will be given pipes and the city will study whether to set up sites where addicts can use drugs under a wide-ranging drug strategy approved by city council yesterday. The drug policy -- which also aims to reduce the concentration of bars in certain areas of the city -- passed by a 24-15 vote. It urges the province to set up more treatment centres, especially for young people with drug and mental health problems, and says addicts should be eligible for provincial disability benefits. And it says possession of small amounts of marijuana shouldn't be a criminal offence. [continues 78 words]
Proposals to hand out crack cocaine kits to drug users, and to study whether to set up safe drug consumption sites, drew fire from a senior Toronto police officer as council considered a drug strategy for the city. "Distribution of crack kits is not necessarily harm reduction; it is in fact going down a road of harm facilitation," said Staff Insp. Dan Hayes yesterday. "It is just giving another tool to commit a criminal act." Hayes said police also don't favour the proposed safe use sites. "There's absolutely nothing safe about consuming or injecting an unknown substance into your body," he said. [end]
Ottawa Police expect an invasion of chemical drugs here, and they spent yesterday training "first responders" on what to expect when they flood in. The National Integrated Training on Chemical Drugs for First Responders sessions hosted by city police yesterday is a response to increased local use of chemical drugs that have brought clandestine labs and a new criminal element to Ottawa with them, said Staff-Sgt. Marc Pinault. Drugs like crystal methamphetamine have become more common in Ottawa, said Pinault. And as demand increases, so does the threat of harm to the "first responders" -- police, paramedics, firefighters -- who bust chem labs, treat overdose victims or respond to fires at houses where drugs are produced. [continues 157 words]
B.C. Marijuana Party president Marc Emery, who faces extradition to the U.S. on drug and money-laundering charges, has been granted bail, CBC News Online reports. A B.C. Supreme Court judge set bail at $50,000 for the man described as Canada's "Prince of Pot." Emery, Marijuana Party vice-president Michelle Rainey-Fenkarek and Gregory Williams are all charged with conspiring to sell pot seeds to U.S. residents, conspiracy to grow marijuana and money laundering. Rainey-Fenkarek and Williams have also been granted bail of $25,000 each. [continues 148 words]
The premier of the Northwest Territories says it is "unbelievable" that RCMP officers stand by while drug dealers openly sell crack cocaine in public in the territorial capital city. For anyone in Yellowknife, N.W.T. who wants to buy crack cocaine, it can be had day or night as dealers ply their wares, often under the scrutiny of RCMP drug squad officers. "I just find it unbelievable that I can go down the street and tell you who the dealers are and have nothing done about it, and see the RCMP drive right past them," Premier Joe Handley says. [continues 203 words]
Canadian Trio Violate U.S. Law With Seeds Sales Canada should be ashamed for arresting a prominent Canadian marijuana rights activist on charges of violating American drug laws, marijuana advocates said in Toronto yesterday after demonstrating against the arrest. B.C. Marijuana Party leader Marc Emery, who sells marijuana seeds over the Internet from his Vancouver base, was arrested by RCMP in Nova Scotia on a warrant issued by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Although selling marijuana seeds is legal in Canada, it's a violation of U.S. law. [continues 163 words]
A surge of high-potency marijuana illegally smuggled into the United States from Canada is fuelling a rise in drug dependency among young Americans, the Bush administration says. A frustrated John Walters, the director of the U.S. National Drug Control office, yesterday signalled Washington's ongoing irritation with what it sees as a lax attitude toward drug crimes north of the border, something which has forced it to redeploy drug patrols from the Mexican border to its northern flank. Walters conceded yesterday American authorities are making no dent in the flow of Canadian pot and said Canadian police and prosecutors have told him lenient Canadian courts are a root of the problem. [continues 120 words]
Toronto police want to establish a new green squad to deal with the proliferation of marijuana grow operations in the city -- similar to the Vancouver Police Department's Growbusters. Citing concerns about safety, environmental hazards and organized crime, police are asking the Toronto Police Services Board to consider their request to establish a 15-member team including two detectives, 12 detective constables and one civilian. The team's mandate would be to dismantle grow operations that require "immediate police intervention, such as those discovered due to floods, fires or during other investigations," says the report prepared by the police service, dated Feb. 22 and signed by former chief Julian Fantino. In 2004, the Toronto Drug Squad "attended, assessed, and assisted with the investigation and dismantling of 320 grow operations," the report said. It's a dramatic increase compared to the 81 investigations conducted in 2002. TORSTAR NEWS SERVICE [end]
Suspect In Shootout Also Found Dead In Alberta Drug Raid An RCMP officer holds back tears after learning that four officers had been killed during an investigation into a marijuana grow operation near Mayerthorpe, located 140 km northwest of Edmonton. Four Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers were shot and killed during a raid on a marijuana-growing operation in rural Alberta yesterday, in one of the bloodiest days in the history of the national police force, a senior official said. A suspect in the shootout that erupted inside a large farm building that police were investigating also died when he turned his rifle on himself, said Bill Sweeney, commanding officer of the RCMP in Alberta. [continues 203 words]
Union Vows to Challenge Move Police officers in "high-risk jobs"-- from the chief on down -- will have to submit to drug testing, psychological evaluations and probes of their bank accounts starting March 1. Announced yesterday, the controversial measures would be the last of the recommendations put into action from a report on how to repair public confidence in the scandal wracked Toronto Police Service. In a news release, Chief Julian Fantino acknowledged that drug testing is a "highly contentious matter," opposed by rank-and-file and many senior officers alike. [continues 196 words]
Coun. Michael Del Grande (Ward 39, Scarborough-Agincourt) has 28 former marijuana grow houses in his Scarborough ward and he wants everyone to know. Del Grande started a campaign in his ward to point out to prospective renters and buyers which houses were used to grow pot and are likely to be riddled with mould and structural defects that result from such operations. On Friday, he got the city's municipal licensing and standards department to put work order signs on the lawns of two former grow houses that have been raided and shut down by Toronto police. [continues 118 words]
Province Moves To Toughen Hydro Legislation Within hours of police dismantling another indoor marijuana grow operation in Scarborough, Community Safety Minister Monte Kwinter announced steps to "control" their proliferation. Kwinter said the proposed legislation would allow electrical distributors to cut hydro to homes suspected of growing pot without notice, "in accordance with a court order or for emergency, safety or system-reliability reasons." Police officials applauded the move to stem what Toronto police Chief Julian Fantino yesterday called an "epidemic" of grow-ops. Toronto police have dismantled 248 indoor grow operations this year. [continues 209 words]
Local utilities will have the power to shut off the electricity to homes suspected of growing marijuana under a proposed new law, Community Safety Minister Monte Kwinter said yesterday. The tough new measure will be included in legislation this fall aimed at ridding Ontario of the "scourge" of these so-called grow-ops. Kwinter backed away from earlier comments that the proposed law would give hydro, building and other inspector special powers to enter a home they suspects was being used to grow marijuana. [end]
Jamal Lewis To Serve 4 Months For Drug Charge Baltimore Ravens star Jamal Lewis pleaded guilty yesterday to using a cellphone to try to broker a cocaine deal, avoiding more serious federal drug charges that could have sent him to prison for life. Lewis, a running back who came within 40 yards of the NFL single-season rushing record last season, will serve four months in prison after the end of the football season as part of a plea bargain with prosecutors. [continues 282 words]
A 20-month OPP investigation of the Durham Region police drug squad has resulted in no criminal charges but has still left a cloud hanging over the force, union officials say. The investigation began in January, 2003, after a former drug squad officer wrote a letter to police Chief Kevin McAlpine alleging shoddy police work and heavy-handed tactics among the then 18 members of the drug squad. McAlpine told a news conference yesterday he considered the accusations serious enough that they should be investigated by an outside police agency. [continues 143 words]
Police busted what they called a major drug-trafficking ring in raids across southwestern Ontario yesterday that included four arrests in Toronto. After a 10-month investigation, a joint force of Waterloo, Hamilton, Stratford, Toronto and Guelph police arrested 30 people throughout the day. Most of the accused appeared briefly in a Kitchener courtroom yesterday afternoon, some handcuffed together in pairs or in threes to face charges ranging from drug trafficking to conspiracy, money laundering, kidnapping, extortion, assault and proceeds of crime. Some appeared dazed by the charges, with one young woman crying. They were to return to court today. [continues 121 words]
There is no scientific proof that cannabis use induces schizophrenia, Dutch scientists say, questioning recent research and an argument the Dutch government uses to crack down on marijuana selling "coffee shops." In an article in this week's Magazine for Psychiatry, the three authors say that on the basis of currently available data "there is no justification for the proposed closure of coffee shops." Subsequent Dutch governments have tightened rules on the sale of marijuana in government-regulated coffee shops, resulting in a significant reduction in the number of cannabis cafes. [end]
Chilliwack, B.C., is poised to bring in a bylaw that would fine landlords $10,000 if they don't notice tenants have set up marijuana growing operations, CBC.ca reports. Landlords say the bylaw would unfairly penalize them for being duped by unscrupulous renters. By contrast, most marijuana growers are fined just $1,200 when they're caught -- and police say many consider that just a cost of doing business. [end]
VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) - The number of Canadians who admit they have used marijuana or hashish has nearly doubled over 13 years, according to a government study released on Wednesday. About 12.2 percent of Canadians over the age of 15 surveyed said they used pot at least once in a 12-month period in 2002, up from 6.5 percent in a 1989 study, and 7.4 percent in a 1994 survey, Statistics Canada said. Prime Minister Paul Martin told reporters in Ottawa that, despite the report's findings, he still planned to introduce legislation to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana. [continues 179 words]
