THE DRUG DEAL

Drug Dealers And Organized Crime

I once asked a Grade 3 student what dope was. He replied,
"that's what you are if you use drugs!"

This exemplifies the simple wisdom of youth. In my service I have
targeted and arrested drug dealers involved in trafficking a range of
drugs, from a gram of weed to millions of dollars worth of
cocaine/marijuana in offload investigations. These investigations
have spanned from the local community to huge international cartels.

I have written wiretaps, worked agent and undercover files and have
seen a number of individuals and a variety of drugs cross my path;
however, one common denominator has prevailed in the motivation of
traffickers, that of greed.

Drug traffickers want money and will stop at nothing to make their
profit, sometimes using violence to protect their product and trade.
They are not necessarily dressed in black cloaks and lurking in
alleyways; sometimes they are school students and often they are
adults who would rather make an easy buck than work for a living.
Many of them don't use drugs on a regular basis.

Once I had an individual ask me join the "dark side" and make
some real money doing what they did. I replied by asking that person
if they ever got tired looking up their driveway for a police car and
a drug squad ready to bust them with a search warrant. Federal time
in a penitentiary is not pleasant.

The answer to the drug problem is simple. It is a combination of four
pillars: enforcement, prevention, education and harm reduction. Drugs
will always be available, as there will always be a demand.
Traffickers need to face the law and adequate deterrents imposed by
the courts in the form of sentencing to discourage drug use and trafficking.

How can we as a society function effectively with these individuals
eroding the morals and health of our youth? Anyone with common sense
agrees we cannot live in a world in which drug abuse is acceptable.
But where do the drugs come from? How do they get to Labrador?

Traffickers bring the drugs in by vehicle, aircraft, mail or vessel.
Criminals in far away lands like Venezuela, Columbia, Afghanistan,
etc. along with those closer to home ensure there is an adequate
supply of every type of drug including cocaine, marijuana, ecstasy,
methamphetamine, and many others.

These groups include but are not limited to, Italian mafia, outlaw
bikers, Asian groups and every type of "wannabe" that enterprise
together to make the greatest profit. Many pill form drugs are
mass-produced in clandestine laboratories or in smaller operations
run by these groups.

Canada is known as a source country for the production of well-known
"BC bud" marijuana, grown with notoriously high THC content. Our
10,000 miles of coastline and huge land mass is an inviting place for
the offload of huge quantities of these drugs which inevitably are
moved to central Canada, a portion of which are eventually shipped
back to Labrador for sale once they have been broken down into
smaller quantities.

Police response and success hinges on public information and
community help, whether it is anonymous or not. Together we can take
the toys from those who don't earn it or pay taxes like the rest
of us. Organized crime legislation helps us to do this as police can
investigate and seize these proceeds of crime once we have proven the
substantive offence. Believe me; they don't care about you or your
family, only themselves.

Be a leader, say no to drugs.