MLA DEMANDS ANSWERS

Writes Letter To Solicitor General About Study Of Stoned Addicts

An Edmonton MLA wants answers from the Solicitor General over police
experiments that recruited drug users to be studied while high on
illicit substances.

"I hope Fred Lindsay listens to my message or he'll have a mess on his
hands," Edmonton-McClung MLA Mo Elsalhy told the Sun yesterday.

Elsalhy said he's had two calls from constituents upset at the way the
experiment has come across to the public.

Elsalhy, the Liberal Solicitor General critic, sent Lindsay a letter
yesterday asking for answers on several fronts after the Sun reported
Edmonton police were using clients of the Metis Child and Family
Services Society that were high on drugs in a training exercise.

The two-week Edmonton course, attended by more than 20 city police and
RCMP officers in December, was intended to educate cops on how to spot
drugged-up motorists.

They were joined by about 10 volunteers - about three men, the rest
women, some of them prostitutes - who were clients of the Metis
society and were high on drugs, mostly crack cocaine and marijuana.

Police said the volunteers were already high when they arrived and did
not do drugs in front of the cops.

Among other queries, Elsalhy wants to know whether Lindsay was aware
of the training program, "and the fact that it targeted aboriginal
people and drug addicts as subjects."

Solicitor General spokesman Andy Weiler said "our department and the
minister's office will look at (the letter) and respond to all these
inquiries."