VOMIT-DRINKING STORY SURFACES

SASKATOON -- Drug-addicted women inside Prince Albert's Pine Grove
Correctional Centre have been drinking each other's vomit in a
desperate effort to get high off a dangerous prescription drug
administered inside the jail, The StarPhoenix has learned.

The shocking story emerged after a 37-year-old inmate, Sonia Faith
Keepness, died of an apparent overdose last month.

Keepness, who had just begun serving a 19-month sentence for drug
trafficking and possession of criminal proceeds, was found dead in her
cell at about 6:50 p.m. on Feb. 19.

A source inside the institution said Keepness consumed the vomit of
another inmate -- an addict on the methadone program who had just been
given her daily dose of the drug.

"I know that's what happened," said the source, who asked not to be
identified.

Police and provincial Corrections officials are still waiting for
autopsy and toxicology results. An inquest has been ordered to
investigate the death, as is standard procedure after someone dies in
a correctional institution. No date has been set for the hearing.

Methadone is a powerful narcotic analgesic painkiller prescribed by
doctors as a replacement for illicit morphine, heroin and other
opiates, because it alleviates withdrawal symptoms.

The drug is always prescribed to addicts in a mixture with a small
amount of orange juice. Because one dose can kill an adult who has not
been weaned onto the medication by a doctor, many methadone patients
- -- including those who are in jail -- are required to drink it under a
pharmacist's supervision.

Inmates forcing other inmates to throw up their daily dose, and then
drinking or selling the liquid, sounds unbelievable but happens
frequently, the source said.

Two inmates, 30-year-old Candace Dawn Ahenakew and 24-year-old Redenah
Faith Thomas, have been accused of selling or giving drugs to Keepness
the day she died.

Ahenakew is accused of trafficking methadone, and Thomas is charged
with trafficking marijuana and Librium, a common tranquillizer. Both
appeared in Prince Albert provincial court Monday.

Prince Albert police would not confirm or deny the vomit story,
because the investigation is ongoing.