RCMP DRUG COP RETIRES AFTER FOUR DECADES ON THE JOB

SAINT JOHN - Quick to share a smile and a chuckle, Staff Sgt. Ed
MacEachern sits behind his desk as the clock ticks down. Near his
desk hangs a picture of his father Angus. The faded photo shows a
young man, proud and wearing his military uniform. Above the photo is
a half-hull model of one of the boats his father built. But while
MacEachern got his sense of duty from his father, the woodworker
genes missed him.

"I can't paint a flat wall," MacEachern said.

After four decades of wearing the red serge, he's retiring.

Eventually he and his wife Patty will travel to Europe, but not this
summer. His first few months as a civilian will be spent on the golf
course and on the couch.

The 58-year-old from Antigonish, N.S., has spent his whole career in
New Brunswick. His first posting was in Woodstock as a 19-year-old.
On his first day, he found himself lying in the grass and aiming his
gun at a suspect.

"I'm thinking, this is my first day on the job and this is what I'm doing?"

It was a domestic dispute and it ended without a shot fired.

For 12 years, MacEachern has been the top Mountie heading the Saint
John and Fredericton drug unit.

"We do try to look at the bigger picture. I'm not trying to make that
sound any more loftier than it really is."

While local police deal with street-level dealers and those who
supply them, MacEachern's squad goes after those who conspire to
supply local dealers on a national and international scale.

"We try to keep that focus by working with partners who also work at
the street level because you really can't separate the two in a small
province like this," he said.

In 1989, MacEachern was involved in the bust that netted two
Colombian smugglers and $250 million in cocaine that was being
brought into the province using a small plane. As the pair cooled
their heels in jail, police uncovered and foiled a jailbreak led by a
group of heavily armed Venezuelans.

"They were heavily armed - grenades and the whole nine yards."

One of the Colombians in the plane was believed to be related to the
late Pablo Escobar, one of the world's most notorious drug kingpins.

"I don't think any of us ever expected to see that in New Brunswick."

One thing MacEachern is glad he missed is methamphetamine, or meth as
it's called on the street. There has never been a sizable seizure of
the drug in Atlantic Canada, let alone this province.

Atlantic Canada is often a few years behind when it comes to trends
and the same can be said for drugs.

"There's such a hue and cry here before it even arrives here in any
consequential numbers."

Perhaps the terrifying reputation that has proceeded the drug has
held it from crossing the border into New Brunswick bay, he said.

"We're not suggesting for a moment that it isn't coming here, we're
just glad that it's not here yet and we're keeping an eye on it."

Drug use and drug dealing is a fact of life, he said.

"I don't think there's a whole lot of policemen out there who believe
that simple possession of marijuana is something that shouldn't be
decriminalized."

For MacEachern, going to work each day was a pleasure, but there's
one task he hopes ends with his retirement.

"That's the last tape recorder I hope I ever see again."