DIAL-A-DOPERS DELIVER COCAINE TO YOUR DOOR

City's Burgeoning Drug Trade Uses Teenaged 'Dialers' To Keep The Drugs
Flowing And Evade Police While Running Pizza Delivery-Type Operations

EDMONTON - You phone, they deliver to your door. But the goods from
dial-a-dopers don't come with toppings or garlic bread.

Cocaine use is on the rise in Edmonton as supply from Vancouver and
elsewhere hikes up demand, and traffickers are increasingly sending
teenagers as young as 16 to do the trafficking.

These "dialers," often doing the bidding of crime gangs, can earn $300
to $800 a night if they're selling a lot, said Det. Darcy Strang of
the Edmonton police force's drug unit.

"There's lots of them out there. But by lots, I don't know how to
quantify that," he said.

"We get numbers all the time from sources that buy drugs from them,
and it's nonstop. Literally, we just can't get to them all."

Strang and other undercover officers have bought drugs from the
dial-a-dopers and have taken rides in the delivery cars, many of which
are stolen.

What they have found is a fearless, reckless-driving class of
criminal, constantly checking their cellular phones or pagers, waiting
to make the next delivery.

Strang laid out the dial-a-doper situation Wednesday for more than 200
social workers, government officials, community workers and fellow
police officers at a full day of workshops to help hammer out the
city's strategy to tackle its drug problems.

It's a system that resembles a pizza delivery, he said.

At the top of the chain is the supply house, which stores kilograms of
a substance commonly sold in grams or ounces.

The cocaine is cut into smaller quantities, waiting for customers.
They call, and the supervisors dispatch the dialers, who drop off the
cocaine on the street or at the buyer's front door.

The organizers prefer to hire teens, especially minors, because they
will receive lighter sentences if caught.

"They say, 'Keep your wits about you and don't get caught,'" Strang
said.

" 'If you do get caught, don't worry, I'll supply you with a
lawyer."

The dialers zoom through red lights and often know how to evade police
chases, based on what they've learned about the pursuit policy, Strang
added.

"Sometimes, they know a lot more about the way we handle them than I
think we know about them."

Dialers have been around since the 1990s, but their numbers have risen
in recent years as cocaine supply has gone up. An estimated two per
cent of Edmontonians use it, and Strang said it's the top hard drug in
the city, still bigger than crystal meth, a notorious synthetic upper
that has grown in popularity.

Cocaine is snorted or smoked in "crack" form, but Edmonton drug users
also commonly inject it into their arms. According to 1999 data,
nearly two-thirds of the injection-drug use is cocaine among the
city's estimated 5,000 needle users, making it far more popular than
heroin or other opiates, said Cameron Wild, a University of Alberta
professor who collects data on the city drug use and abuse.

Larry Brown, an addictions counsellor at the Salvation Army, said many
addicts will use it any way they can.

"If there's lots of it around, there's lots of it around," he
said.

"And it's getting younger. You're probably talking 15, 16 on up, and
maybe even younger."

Andrea Figueora of the city's youth council was one of the only high
school students who attended the conference.

The Grade 12 student at Eastglen school said she can tell who many of
the drug dealers and users at school are, but never suspected
dial-a-dopers among them.

But after Strang's talk, Figueora began to see some connections in her
schoolyard.

"They're moving all around, and stressed out, and always, like, 'Get
into the car. Get into the car. Get into the car,'" she said.

A CALL TO ACTION

Edmonton will have ready by early next year a concrete action plan to
attempt to curb drug use among young people, the co-chairman of the
city's anti-drug committee said Wednesday.

Bob Ritter vowed the plan will include specific actions and approaches
different levels of government and community groups must take to stop
what is seen as a growing threat to young people and the city as a
whole.

"This isn't about producing a report in a nice, shiny binder with
gold-leaf lettering that sits on a shelf," he said. "This is a call to
action."

Ritter spoke at the end of a full-day workshop involving more than 200
social workers, addiction counsellors, government officials and others
who try to combat the spread of illegal drugs in Edmonton.

They spent the day discussing where the current patchwork of anti-drug
efforts are struggling in enforcement, prevention, treatment and harm
reduction.

The most common complaint was lack of money. Many said that federal,
provincial and municipal governments either don't adequately fund a
project, or only support it for a year, resulting in what many group
leaders call "death by pilot project."

The workshop also found that co-ordination needs to improve the dozens
of groups and government levels, so there isn't overlap or in-fighting
for a restricted number of government dollars.