BIG-CITY DRUGS PLAGUE NORTHERN CAPITAL

Growing Affluence Attracting Problems

YELLOWKNIFE, N.W.T. -- A decade after Brian Chilton quit free-basing
cocaine, he walked down Yellowknife's 50th Street and ran headlong into his
old nemesis.

"There are dealers all over, up and down that street, people walking up and
asking you if you're looking," he said.

"I was just walking by a downtown bar, and because I'd never actually
smoked crack per se, I was curious and I bought a little bit. I had one
blast of crack on the pipe and that was really all it took. I was right
back where I left off."

Chilton is not alone. The street where he bought his first hit has earned
the dubious title of "Little Hastings" in some quarters, after the infamous
street in Vancouver's downtown east side.

Drug busts -- like a seizure of 183 grams of cocaine, worth $44,000 in the
town of Hay River in February -- have served as wake-up calls that even the
isolated Northwest Territories is not immune to the scourge of hard drugs.

"It's become quite a plague in this town," said Chilton.

In Yellowknife, relief agencies have been quick to step in with assistance.
Posters around the northern capital advertise for support groups such as
Cocaine Anonymous and Crackbusters, a program set up by the local Salvation
Army. When Chilton saw the signs for Crackbusters, he signed up, and now
attends two of the four sessions a week.

Chilton has been drug-free for nearly five months.

Thirty people regularly attend the Crackbusters meetings. Dave Harder, who
organized the group last September, estimates that's only three per cent of
the users in town.

"There's a huge number out there that are actively using and dealing," said
Harder. "People that typically had problems with other drugs, like
marijuana or alcohol, once they discover crack that becomes the drug of
choice."

Harder says cocaine started becoming a serious presence in Yellowknife just
two years ago.

Now police deal with the drug on a regular basis and say drugs, such as
ecstasy and methamphetamine, are also making inroads into the North.

"It cuts across all demographics," said RCMP Cpl. Larry O'Brien, who works
on the city's drug awareness team. "It goes right from the down-and-outers
all the way to businessmen and professionals."

In the early 1990s, a City of Yellowknife study estimated that $1 million
worth of drugs changed hands on city streets every week. Since then,
Yellowknife has grown and so has its drug problem.

The city's RCMP drug squad employs three full-time members. One raid in
2000 netted 63 drug-related arrests and $300,000 in cash.

The reasons are many. Yellowknife's population is growing and new people
bring new habits. The city is also no longer as isolated as it once was:
both TV and regular jet flights connect the North to the south and its
problems.

Money also has played a role: the Northwest Territories has single-handedly
launched Canada into third place among the world's largest diamond
producers, and with the diamonds have come lots of disposable income.

"You have people here that are making $100,000 a year in the mines, and
that money just attracts the people that are going to sell it. And there's
not a lot to do, so people are easily sucked into drugs," said Harder.

The city's problems are no worse than those of other boom towns. But for
those who grew up in Yellowknife, the growing presence of hard drugs has
brought home the shocking realization that the northern capital is no
longer the small town it once was.

For more than a decade, Yellowknife has sought the glories of the global
stage through its pursuit of arctic diamonds and international tourists.
Now it's found itself no longer immune to the world's problems.

Yellowknife had been a hard-drinking party town. Pat McMahon, who served as
Yellowknife's mayor from 1986 to '94, watched as the town lost its
innocence, first due to the Giant Mine murders, when a striking miner
killed nine men during a bitter and violent strike in 1992, then to drugs.

Townspeople began locking their doors, especially after a rash of
drug-related break and enters.

"On a scale of one to 10, maybe 20 years ago we were at about nine and now
we're probably at about six in our sense of security," McMahon said.

"You don't feel as safe as you used to feel and it makes you angry."