DRUG BUSTS JUST TIP OF ICEBERG

A system of "common-sense policing" is netting big rewards for RCMP in
Broadview and Moosomin, who are currently heading the country in their
efforts to stem the flow of illegal drugs along provincial highways.

"These are drugs that don't make it to the streets. ... The only scary part
is the more we're finding, the more we know we're only scratching the
surface," said Sgt. Rob Ruiters, national co-ordinator for the RCMP's
Pipeline/Convoy/Jetway program, which targets the movement of criminal
activity through the country's transportation systems.

In the past four years, Moosomin RCMP have discovered millions of dollars
worth of drugs, drug money and stolen property after routine traffic stops,
seizing more than 3,800 pounds of marijuana, 13 pounds of cocaine, 118,000
ecstasy pills, 1,000 hits of LSD. Officers have also recovered $10,000 in
counterfeit currency and $32,000 worth of stolen jewellery.

Officers in Broadview have been equally busy in the past couple years,
seizing more than 1,600 pounds of marijuana, $28,000 in cash and large
amounts of cocaine, including a 25 pound seizure last April-- the single
largest cocaine bust in Saskatchewan history.

The policing approach is based on the idea that no matter where criminals
come from, they will, at some time, use the country's transportation
systems, including airplanes, trains, highways.

Nationally the program has seized half a billion dollars worth of
contraband and apprehended people involved in homicides, missing children,
stolen property and people of national security interest.

"It's really a numbers game. We're out there stopping vehicles anyway . so
we've taken that situation and said if we heighten or hone your
observational skills, your conversational skills, your investigative
skills, if we get you to focus a lot more, you may in fact, during your
normal traffic duties, be able to detect a traveling criminal," he said.

But Doug Andrews, a prominant Regina defense attourney, says the busts also
raise some concerns, including that police are "stopping and searching
anything they feel like."

"They appear to be stopping anything that drives,walks or crawls, and
searching for a variety of reasons, some of which seem highly dubious," he
said, adding that the explanations for some searches "sound somewhat hollow."

"What isn't stated in the press releases that the RCMP provide you is the
number of people they have stopped, searched and sent on their way because
they can't charge them with anything because they didn't find anything
after their search, legal or illegal."

Ruiters denies any system of racial profiling and won't reveal any tricks
of the trade, but says its anomalies and "the totality of circumstances
that don't make sense" that lead officers to look further into a routine
traffic stop.

Ruiters says Broadview and Moosomin detachments are currently among the
most active in the country, in part because of the concerted effort of
those dertachments and a hectic drug pipeline running along the
Trans-Canada Highway between drug centres like Vancouver and Toronto.

He says the busts are just a small indication of how many people involved
in criminal activities are passing through Saskatchewan.

"I think if we ever knew how many, we'd be staggered," he says.