DRUG SCENE SPOOKS DAD

Parents Fear for Kids' Safety Outside Orillia Apartment Buildings

Corey DeBenedictis, a resident of the Fellowship Towers for eight
years, said he has seen needles and crack pipes in the playground and
in the underground parking lot.

"In the last two years, it's gotten a lot worse," he said of the
Barrie Road apartment buildings.

"I won't let my kids play in the park and, even if they're playing on
the grass (outside his ground-floor apartment), I'll sit outside there
with them."

Others who live in the buildings agree the drug problem is getting
worse.

Carey Vivian said she won't allow her two teenage daughters to deliver
newspapers in the buildings alone.

"It's hard to explain, but it just makes me uncomfortable," she
said.

In April, OPP officers were searching for a suspect involved in an
attempted robbery. Dogs from the canine unit led them to the
Fellowship Towers and, while they were on the property, officers found
two syringes in the playground area.

"Finding needles there was not a surprise," said OPP Sgt. Dave Lee,
who was on the scene that April afternoon. "(It was) unfortunate, but
we've found evidence of drug use in that area in the past."

Lee said this is not the only residential area in the city with known
drug dealers and users.

"There's several areas in the city we recognize as (having) heightened
drug activity, and that's one of them," he said.

Residents say police patrol the area and are often inside the building
a few times each weekend. DeBenedictis said it wasn't always this way.

"When I first came here, I liked the building. Everyone was
neighbourly. Now, everyone's just peeking out their curtains all high
and stuff," he said.

Police say marijuana, hash and crack cocaine are the most common drugs
found there.

Pop cans with holes carved into the bent body, typically used to smoke
crack cocaine, were also found in one of the two playgrounds behind
the buildings.

The drug can also be converted to a liquid for injection with a
needle, similar to methamphetamine and heroin.

Injecting the drug can intensify the effect, but smoking it causes the
most intense and addictive high.

Det. Sgt. James Ciotka of the Huronia combined forces drug unit said
crack is becoming a big issue in Orillia.

"You'll see this year the marijuana incidents will go down and the
crack incidents will be well over the numbers for 2005," he said.
"We're already there."

Across the city last year, there were 48 incidents involving cocaine
and 120 with marijuana.

The force also keeps statistics on criminal acts that can be directly
related back to drugs, Ciotka said. From 2004 to early 2006, there
were four armed robberies with guns involved, 11 with knives and 17
with other weapons.

During that time, he added, there were four sudden deaths in the city
attributed to drugs.