COBOURG, Ont. – Occasionally the police get additional than they cut price for at spot checks.
In Central Ontario this week, police seized nineteen baggage of what they say seems to be coke from a driver at a routine end.
Police say the accused 29-year-recent Cobourg, Ont., man was pulled over at about eleven:20 p.m. on Nov. 30. They found an open bottle of vodka, the baggies of suspected cocaine and a group of scales.
He was charged with possession of alcohol, possession of drugs for the purpose of trafficking, and driving whereas underneath suspension.
The man was released from custody on a promise to appear in court Dec. 30.
Get help on an alcohol treatment in Ontario.
Thunder Bay OPP officials say officers stopped about 6,700 vehicles through six RIDE-program checkpoints over the weekend.
Police set up the checkpoints surrounding the city from Friday to Sunday as part of the seasonal Festive RIDE program.
Police say 11 individuals were charged for drinking and driving offences. Police say they believe 8 suspects were impaired by alcohol and another 3 were impaired by narcotics.
Police also issues seven, 3-day suspensions. Officers also issued more than twenty four province offence notices for the period of the weekend RIDE programs.
Police are now using the Festive RIDE program as an opportunity to remind drivers not to drink and drive. Police ask that persons instead usage a taxi, have a designated driver, or take advantage of Operation Red Nose by calling 344-NOSE (6673).
Operation Red Nose is a program that has volunteers pick you up to transport you to your house.
The Ontario elected representatives is debating a private member’s bill designed to help closed down crack houses and brothels.
The proposed safer communities and neighborhood take action lowers the burden of proof required for the courts to take action against drug dealing or running a brothel.
Neighbors would be able to give anonymous testimony, and if a judge is persuaded that a house is most possible being used for crime, the occupants could be evicted. A judge would also be able close a house for up to 90 days.
“Innocent persons are being targeted by those who are engaged in criminal drug trade and … the sole intention behind this legislation is to ensure that we protect the at risk,” said the author of the bill, Liberal Yasir Naqvi.
The bill passed second reading in October, and is now being considered by a legislative committee.
Cheri DiNovo, the NDP member for Toronto’s Parkdale-High Park riding, is vowing to stop the bill, which she says violates tenants’ rights and unfairly targets the most at risk.
‘Criminals don’t target rich neighborhoods’
But Naqvi, who represents the Ottawa Centre riding, disagrees, saying the bill protects the disadvantaged.
“Criminals don’t target rich neighborhoods, they manage in poor neighborhoods, and those poor individuals also have the right to live in a safe and healthy community and that’s what this legislation is trying to do,” he said.
Patricia Gora lives on a street with a reputed crack house in DiNovo’s Parkdale riding.
“If there’s a supposed crack house here and those individuals are found and they’re thrown out of their homes, well, where will they go next?” she said.
Else-Marie Knudsen, a spokeswoman for the John Howard Society of Toronto, a group that advocates for the rights of those in trouble with the law, dismisses the bill as being ineffective at preventing crime.
“The crime is just displaced. It moves on to another street, another neighborhood, another community, for a person else to deal with,” she said.
Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta already have similar laws. Supporters of the bill in Manitoba have credited it with cleaning up parts of Winnipeg.
Given numbers released last week by the Center for Addiction Ontario Student Drug Usage and Health Survey, it is evident there continues to be issues with drug use among teens, not only across the province but also locally.Hugh Dennis, co-ordinator of the Rainy River District Substance Abuse Prevention Team, believes local programs, and working together with the students to educate them on the consequences of using drugs and alcohol, is the best approach} to reduce the numbers.
“The numbers are disturbing,” he admitted.“Due from the work I’ve done and some informal surveys, the provincial numbers are lower than in our area.”The provincial survey, the longest ongoing school survey of adolescents in the country being conducted every two years from the time when 1977, indicate alcohol and cannabis as the top two drug uses among Grades 7-12 students, with a total of 58.2 percent using alcohol and 25.6 using cannabis.
But it is the number of teens using opioid pain relievers (non-medical usage) that concerns Dennis the most.With a total more than 17.8 percent of students across Ontario, more than nine percent are beginning to use non-medical prescription opioid pain relievers in Grade 7.“I think it’s the most serious because of the speed of dependence and lack of understanding of the consequences of using,” Dennis remarked, explaining that students get hooked on these drugs very quickly.“It just sneaks up on them and they don’t know what to do.”Dennis indicated there are numerous professionals locally who are available to help, such as family doctors, pharmacists, public health nurses, and counselling services.He noted the average of those using OxyContin is higher in Northern Ontario than in the Toronto area.In fact, a survey conducted in 2008-09 by Dennis among Grade 10 students in Rainy River District indicated 72 out of 232 students had seen a friend use OxyContin.“And it seems a lot of them are taking it from medicine cabinets,” he remarked, saying adults need to be careful when storing opiates.“They can be as hazardous as ammunition,” he warned.Dennis said recent work done by the Substance Abuse Prevention Team, such as with the “Photo Voice” project, has created plenty of dialogue about drug and alcohol usage locally among teens and has determined to answer the questions as to why they do it.“It’s because they are bored and they think drugs are the answer,” he noted. “Their friends are using and they just want to try it, but then they turn out to be addicted.”He stressed the key is to keep teens as busy as probable.“When they find their passion, whether it be playing in a band, painting, dancing, or whatever, their perception of being bored is different,” he added, noting he has worked with various youth in the area and believes they are great people.“The future is our youth and we have a great future,” he enthused. “We just have to work with them to make sure their potential is reached.”Awareness of addictions also was at the forefront last week for the period of National Addictions Awareness Week.
If there’s something suspect in your neighborhood, Belleville Police want to hear from you.
What may at first seem to be strange activity — or inactivity — next door could indicate a marijuana growing operation.
And if that doesn’t sound harsh, police hope to convert your mind.
Unlike small-scale grows they uncover in their daily work, officers said Tuesday, major operations mean major trouble.
“This is organized crime,” said Det.-Const. Jason Marcotte of the Belleville Police drug unit.
“This isn’t someone who’s growing a few plants in their basement,” he said.
“A lot of people see it as ‘just marijuana’ and it’s not. This is bringing guns onto the streets. This is other drugs being traded for marijuana.”
The Belleville drug unit works closely with other forces, acutely the Ontario Provincial Police, as part of Project Longarm, a combined drug squad. Each year its officers seize millions of drugs from Kingston to Brighton to North Hastings and Prince Edward County.
That co-operation means cases that start in one area can be traced more without difficulty to other regions, as was the case this summer, when police allege a drug network operating in numerous municipalities was cracked because of an investigation begun in Belleville.
That case, dubbed Project Industrious, remains before the courts. Police say it was the most organized and sophisticated marijuana operation yet seen in Belleville.
Plants were begun in Belleville, officers said, then moved to rural outdoor plantations.
Investigators say such operations have widespread effects — all of them bad — on the public both locally and wherever the drugs are sold.
It has turn out to be common for illegal marijuana producers to rent or buy homes in low-crime, even affluent neighbourhoods and turn them into indoor drug farms.
Police said the growers care only about growing and selling drugs and virtually destroy houses in the procedure.
“It’s as close as you can get to a total loss,” said Marcotte.
Sgt. George Farrow of the Belleville Police intelligence unit said some homeowners have decided the repair bill will outweigh the value of the houses and simply level them. Much of that damage comes from black mold, a moisture-loving organism that can cause severe health problems.
“The plants need high moisture,” explained Marcotte. “The mold is a result of them sealing off and creating a tropical environment inside the house. It starts eroding the drywall and it gets in behind.”
In one recent case, he said, the pervasive mold was found inside a cement wall.
“That’s going for the period of vapor barrier; that’s going during your insulation, and right into the cinder block.”
Structural damage is another problem: ventilation holes may be cut at random — even during floor joists — meaning mould-contaminated air moves throughout and beyond the building.
“You can imagine living next door to that,” said Marcotte. “They’re venting that out of their attic and it’s blowing into your kid’s window.”
In a grow house, said Farrow, “quite regularly it means the removal of carpets, flooring, drywall, ceiling tile, blinds, the whole bit.
“They don’t care that they’ve got black mould all up the walls. A lot of times they’re not even in the house,” he said. “Everything runs on timers.”
And when they’re done, said Marcotte, “they’ll slap a coat of paint on that and put the house up for sale.”
“It can diminish the value of other people’s houses because individuals talk (and say), ‘Oh, that was a grow op,’” said Farrow.
High use of utilities can attract suspicion from electrical and water companies, so growers may bypass meters.
One house in Kingston had its electrical meter bypassed. The grow was discovered, said Marcotte, but not before an estimated $90,000 worth of electricity had been stolen.
Water used to cool the plants may just run down the drain — around the clock.
“You can imagine the cost of turning on your outside tap and leaving it running for a month,” Marcotte said. “The water use is in the area of $5,000 a month that they’re stealing. All of that is a loss.”
Any chemicals used in the growing are typically dumped down the drain or into the sewer, he said.
The officers said city police have encountered few local producers of pharmaceutical drugs such as ecstasy or methamphetamine.
Marcotte said he’ll soon speak to teachers at one city school to warn them, in part, about the dangers of students trying to make drugs.
Throughout an interview Tuesday he played a video from a popular Internet site displaying apparent instructions on drug making. Intercut with a music video and featuring on-screen instructions, it takes viewers through the steps needed to make a drug from household products — or so it seems.
“This is completely inaccurate,” the detective said. The method} doesn’t yield the drug, he explained, and similar misinformation found online is landing young individuals in hospitals across Ontario.
Home production can be dangerous for another reason}, Farrow noted: numerous processes usage fertilizer, lighter fluid and paint thinner that can catch fire or even explode.
“If they’re doing it in their basement or kitchen they’re putting the whole neighbourhood vulnerable,” said Farrow.
The investigators said public tips are valuable in alerting police to such major operations. They listed several usual signs of expected drug activity.
When growers search for houses, Farrow said, they may seek a instant sale or cash deposit. Homes with municipal water services may be sought, and unfinished basements mean more growing space.
Human activity surrounding the house may seem unusual as well.
“It’s kind of a standard of living that persons will notice,” Farrow said. “They usually select a place that has a garage so that with a garage door opener they drive straight in and the work can start. From time to time they even remove that garage door.”
The heat from a grow gathers in the attic, meaning that in winter, “in a neighbourhood where everybody’s house has snow on it, they’ll have no snow, or clear patches,” Farrow said.
Some other clues:
* Windows open in winter or early spring, boxed and insulated.
* Lights turning off and on without any signs of human presence, such as grass being cut.
* The distinct, strong, heavy organic smell of the plants.
* No trash left out for collection.
* Sounds of construction at strange hours.
“In one of the cases in Belleville neighbors heard construction going on at abnormal hours of the night,” Farrow said.
Police said they’re encouraged by the amount of public awareness and willingness to work with police by reporting drug activity.
“The advantage here in Belleville is it’s a strong community,” Marcotte said. “They individuals are letting the police know and not tolerating what’s going on.”
Tips can be directed to the Belleville Police at 613-966-0882 or anonymously to Crime Stoppers, which offers rewards of up to $2,000, at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477).
References: The Intelligencer
