AND YOUR TENTH QUARTER-OUNCE IS FREE

Why Go To A Dark Alley When You Can Page Your Drug Dealer And Have Him
Deliver?

It took "Davin" six months to get into his drug dealer's "good books."
The Montrealer had to hang around his hemp-head friends' home "a lot"
until their dealer decided he could be trusted with the much-coveted
pager number that would plug him into the cellphone network of drug
couriers who deliver: "After that I could call him whenever I wanted."

Drug deals in dark alleys are slowly becoming a thing of the past as
"dial-up drugs" sweep the nation. In Montreal, it's become "the only
way to deal," says Davin.

Det. Sgt. Bill Stewart of the Winnipeg Police Service Drug Section
says dial-up drugs have taken off in that city over the last two
years: "You page the pager number. They either recognize the phone
number or a prearranged code and then they'll contact you back. If
it's a new number, nine times out of 10 they ignore it." The trend
has become a huge hurdle for law-enforcement officers trying to crack
drug networks. "Unless you have some sort of code or a number or a
referral," says Stewart, "it's pretty tough to get into it."

"They're very discreet that way," says Det. Kurt Deugau of the
Vancouver Police Drug Squad of the courier dealers. "We get the
numbers and we make the phone calls and get deliveries and arrest
people. But it can be difficult because a lot of them establish these
codes. In Vancouver we've been dealing with this for probably the
last five or six years.

"It's just a good way for them to deal because, in a lot of cases,
they only deliver what's asked for so if they get stopped along the
way and all they have is a quarter gram of cocaine on them, that's not
a very serious charge."

A courier who gets pulled over carrying a minimal amount of drugs will
likely only be charged with personal possession. "They may have
stashes at the bus depot or in rental mailboxes," says Winnipeg's
Stewart. "The pager goes off, they return the call, then they pick up
so much. It's like a courier delivery service."

Stewart says dealers who set up shop in their home, at a place of
business or in a bar are more vulnerable because people keep coming up
to them, making them easier for the police to detect.

It's the popularity of pagers in general and the fact that there are
so many legitimate couriers on the street these days that have allowed
the drug couriers to blend in so seamlessly. The Canadian Wireless
Telecommunications Association says Canadians currently have 1.8
million pagers and 5.6 million wireless phones. Statistics Canada's
latest figure for the number of couriers is 60,500 in 1998.

A recent Toronto police investigation into dial-up drugs revealed a
customer that had his hallucinogens delivered directly to his office.
"We've had a couple of investigations where real couriers have been
involved with the actual delivery of dope," says Det. Rick Chase of
the Toronto Central Field Command Drug Squad. "They're adding to
their income by doing the drug deliveries."

These few bad apples outrage legitimate couriers. Des MacDonald, 27,
a Vancouver bike courier for six years, says that "in order to crack
them they have to crack guys like me who are just doing their job, who
are straight up with their accounts and not peddling on the side. Any
drastic measures taken end up affecting my rights in the long run."

"Everyone assumes we're carrying drugs because of the way we look,"
says a New York courier who was recently in Toronto. "The guys who
push the grass are not real messengers." He says he doesn't buy his
drugs for personal use from couriers but noted that in New York the
drug couriers are "carrying 25 years in their bags if they get caught.
And they carry everything. You name it, they got it." The New
Yorker added that "if messengers would be paid more they wouldn't have
to do extracurricular activities."

"It gives couriers a bad name," says a Toronto courier. "People think
we're all a bunch of drug heads."

According to the police, dial-up operations in Toronto for the most
part involve cannabis products rather than harder drugs. "It's not
like you're dealing with heroin," says Det. Chase, who points out,
however, that that doesn't mean harder drugs aren't being delivered.
Chase also says Toronto drug dealers are getting a lot more careful
when it comes to screening customers. "You have to have a reference.
You have to have some way of confirming who you are or where you got
the name from. A friend of a friend doesn't cut it any more."

"If they don't know who you are they won't come," says "Ben" who finds
dial-up drugs "a lot safer" than buying them on the street or in a
club. The 24-year-old Torontonian thinks crackdowns on drugs in clubs
have increased home delivery. Also, "if you get it in a club or on
the street you never know what you're getting. You establish a
relationship with your drug dealer. The certainty of delivery and the
safety is what makes it successful." For Ben, one of the downsides is
that the couriers "always want to use your phone to speak to the next
person. It's really annoying."

"Danny," another Torontonian, finds the market in Toronto very
competitive. One dial-up dealer, he notes, has a stamp card with
happy faces: "Your tenth quarter-ounce is free. There are so many
drug dealers now you have to offer something different."

But not everyone has had positive experiences with dial-up drugs.
"Joe" says his drug courier started off as a friendly fellow who just
sold marijuana. Soon the dealer started smoking Joe's cigarettes,
drinking his liquor and eventually invited himself over to share the
drugs he had just sold him. "He wasn't addicted to the drugs in the
beginning," says Joe, who became uncomfortable when his dealer started
pushing harder drugs on him.

In Vancouver, Det. Deugau's investigations have revealed that "it's
almost always hard drugs," even though out on the West Coast the
service is nicknamed "dial-a-dope." "There are people who deliver
marijuana," says Deugau, "but it's nothing considering how many people
are dealing in cocaine and heroin."

Det. Sgt. Stewart says crack and cocaine are the most popular dial-up
drugs in Winnipeg.

In other parts of the country, dial-up operations are just starting to
take off. In Moncton, Cpl. Daniel Quirion of the RCMP Moncton Drug
Section says that "the pager is the way to go now."

Police in Calgary say they haven't yet investigated any drug deals
involving pagers and couriers, but those in the know say it's only a
matter of time. "Once you've heard about it, you're behind the
times," says Toronto's Det. Chase. "If you can think of a way that
you might be able to bring stuff undetected it's already been thought
of, it's already been used and it's already been busted."