LOCAL STUDENTS GANG FREE

Teenage gangs are a fact of life in many BC communities but, so far,
there's no evidence that any gangs are active in 100 Mile House.

Gus Busenius, Store Front School program director and teacher, said
there seems to be much more gang activity in Williams Lake so the RCMP
Aboriginal Gang Unit Task Force was invited to address students here
about the types of situations they should try to avoid.

He said Const. Jenny Collins from Quesnel and Cpl. Mike Moyer from
Prince George held a two hour information session with about 40-plus
students.

"Gangs suck you in, they're good at what they do and they know who to
target and, if you can be aware, hopefully you can avoid those kinds
of situations and we won't have the kind of problems they have
elsewhere," said Busenius.

Don Parchomchuk, RCMP staff sergeant, said neither he nor other
members of the detachment have seen any indication of gangs in 100
Mile House.

Busenius said the first indication is usually tagging, or graffiti of
some sort, using their gang name.

"Indicators around gangs would be the wearing of different clothing
that would indicate gang use or the tagging or those kind of things
that occur; we don't see any of that," said Vic Brett, Peter Skene
Ogden Secondary School principal.

Principals at both the 100 Mile Junior and Peter Skene Ogden Secondary
schools are proud of their students and don't see any evidence of gang
activity or an increased use of drugs.

Craig Munroe and Vic Brett both said there are drugs around but the
majority of students are good kids who act very appropriately for their
ages.

The schools have been proactive when it comes to teaching their
students about drug and alcohol abuse.

The Junior has staff from the health unit talk to students and the
Senior has a drug education person from the Family Enrichment Centre
coming into the schools.

Brett praised the efforts of community members who volunteer their
time for the Prevent Alcohol Related Trauma in Youth (PARTY) program,
which graphically shows what can happen in an auto accident, taking
them from the emergency room to the morgue.

Parchomchuk said the police have noticed lots of marijuana use among
students, and teens were openly doing it on the street corners
downtown a year ago.

"It seems to have been almost non-existent in the last six months but,
then, it's cold weather; springtime we'll expect to see a little
more," he said.

Parchomchuk also said there seems to be quite a bit of marijuana
around.

"We've done 31 searches since May of last year; over 42,000 marijuana
plants seized, 58 pounds of dried harvested marijuana plus a lot of
low-case seizures because of limited amounts," he said.

Parchomchuk said in discussions with some of the medical staff there
seems to be a trend of teens going back to alcohol.

When asked if kids in 100 Mile House are into crack or crystal meth he
said no, it's adults who are into those drugs.

"We know we can't teach kids who are on drugs or alcohol. First we
deal with that issue and the second issue we deal with is trying to
find some support and help for them," said Brett.

He said, as parents and educators, there are signs when teens could be
in trouble and these could be students beginning to miss a lot of
school, marks dropping a lot, their personality changing to be
slightly more aggressive or not caring, or changes of friends, which
could all be signs of problems.

Parchomchuk said the public can help by calling the RCMP when they see
something suspicious, be that people or vehicles.

"It's a small community, everybody knows basically everybody and
what's going on," he said.