TESTS CONFIRM COCAINE IN TWO-YEAR-OLD GIRL

Just before midnight Sunday, Mounties answered a call from medical
staff at G.R. Baker Memorial Hospital.

Arriving at the emergency room, RCMP officers found a mother and her
young daughter, just two years old, suffering from symptoms of cocaine use.

A negative-positive drug test confirmed cocaine in their blood, but
medical officials and RCMP did not know how much cocaine was found in
either the mother's or child's system by Thursday.

But RCMP said medical staff initiated the tests and called police
when the mother alleged sexual assault was committed and her daughter
was given cocaine.

With a parallel investigation unfolding where RCMP are working with
Children and Family Development Ministry investigators, police are
not releasing the identity of the child or the mother -- but do say
the girl's parents are known to police.

"We're in the early stages of an investigation," Quesnel RCMP Sgt.
Gary Clark-Marlow said Wednesday.

"We're determining where the drug came from and how it ended up in
the child. Until that happens, we're going to go step-by-step.
There's a lot of unknowns and until there's more information, we
can't predict what kind of charges could be laid."

Police could place charges from trafficking to possession of an
illegal substance or even negligence.

Officials with Children and Family Development Ministry said the
child was not seized. Instead the child remained in the hospital
receiving medical attention.

Wednesday, ministry spokesperson Kelly Gleeson couldn't confirm
whether or not the child was released, but did say there was a social
worker in the hospital.

"[Seizing a child is] not always the case. If in fact the child
remains in the hospital, it would be in the care of the ministry, not
physically removed," he said.

With 30,000 cases province-wide, Gleeson said the ministry doesn't
track the ones where children are found with illegal drugs in their
bloodstream.

"Every case is assessed individually," he said.

"Once we're alerted to a child needing protection we respond
immediately, like we do with all cases."

Now, social workers will figure out what steps to take next. Gleeson
said each situation requires a different course of action depending
on what the child needs.