ADDICTION STAFF UPSET AT STORE'S ITEMS

Alouette Addictions staff members are alleging that a Maple Ridge
convenience store is profiting off drug addiction by selling products
specifically geared toward crack cocaine and pot usage.

On Friday Alouette Addictions staff had set up a table at the office
with a wide array of products that a staff member had purchased at the
convenience store. The table included a wide array of plastic baggies
and glass vials, glass tubes with a decorative rose inside, small
chunks of Brillo pads and a variety of glass pipes and bongs,
colourful rolling papers and flavoured bong water.

Practicum student Tom Batkin purchased all the products at a downtown
convenience store.

"I'm just choked, absolutely outraged," said Ron Lawrance, executive
director of Alouette Addictions. "The police can't do anything about
this because it's all legal but I think the community can. We need to
stand up as a community and say, 'Enough.'"

Batkin said he was able to purchase 25 cents worth of brillo pad,
which he said can be used to smoke crack cocaine. Batkin also
purchased glass tubes with decorative roses inside. He said when he
and Lawrance left the store after a second visit they noticed tiny
roses from the glass tubes on the ground and said he believes that
crack addicts pull the rose out of the glass tube and use them as
crack pipes.

Nicole Kiniski, counsellor at Alouette Addictions, said, "When you're
selling chunks of brillo for 25 cents you know exactly what you're
doing...To be so blatant about it is an insult to our community."
Batkin said he's noticed that every welfare day the store is "really
busy."

"There's always somebody in there buying something to do with drugs,"
he said.

Kiniski said she's disturbed by the rolling papers being sold because
they are colourful, making them attractive to youth. But the rolling
papers look like a pack of gum so parents could be fooled as to their
true usage.

"It's deliberately targeting younger kids," said Lawrance.

Tammy, an addiction prevention counsellor in the school district, who
asked that her last name not be used said she's offended a business is
making money off drug addiction.

"It doesn't matter if people are suffering from addiction and losing
everything because of it," she said.

Lawrance said he showed the table of products to a parents' group and
they were "livid" that the products were readily available to anyone
who walked into the store.

"I think it's allowed to happen because the community doesn't know,"
said Lawrance.

The TIMES was unable to reach the owner of the store for comment by
press time.