BAD SIDE OF THE BOOM

Illegal drugs flood Labrador West

An increase in wealth has increased another serious problem in Labrador
West. Illegal drugs are flooding the community and the Royal
Newfoundland Constabulary has an uphill battle.

"We're into an economic boom here, so it's a lot of money flowing
around," said RNC Cons. Bill Fitzgerald. "With the boom, you get the
good and the bad, and unfortunately the drugs are a part of the
negative side of it."

Cocaine choice

He said there's a wide array of drugs out there from ecstasy to speed
to marijuana, but cocaine seems to be the drug of choice.

"It's so readily available to anyone and that includes kids," he
noted. "We're getting very young teens now that are using cocaine.
We know a couple of young people who have had heart attacks as a
result of cocaine. We see people involved in automobile accidents
resulting from them being high on drugs. We encounter a lot of
domestic disputes and the problem comes down to drugs."

Dealers seeing money

Employment is at a high and people are getting good salaries, he
continued, and drug dealers are seeing money.

"The drug dealers, the people who are moving it, have to be lucky all
the time, but we just have to be lucky once to get them," he
explained.

Drugs are a surprisingly easy habit to get into, he added, especially
cocaine which kills endorphins so people feel bad and they constantly
try to get to that original high.

"They start as recreational use and they think they can control it,
but eventually it leads to the drug controlling them," said
Fitzgerald.

Some people start using on the weekends, he noted, and it becomes a
daily habit that can cost $500-$5,000.

Prompts more crime

As people lose money, he added, some start stealing from family and
friends, and you get home invasions and vehicle thefts.

Once you're down that road, he noted, it's hard to recover, because
it's hard to avoid getting back into that lifestyle.

That's where addictions services and groups like RAFT come in, and
Fitzgerald is thankful for all the support they offer.

Automatic jail time

From the enforcement side, being caught with cocaine leads to stiffer
penalties such as automatic jail time for possession or two years jail
time for trafficking.

He said, the RNC has strategies to catch drug traffickers, and
sometimes they even get lucky on traffic stops. For example, he
continued, the RNC stopped someone carrying pounds of marijuana and
ecstasy on a simple traffic stop.

Reports wanted

However, he noted, the RNC needs the public's help to report if they
see any suspicious activity.

Most of the drugs he's seen, he said, come across the Quebec border,
and there are both new drug traffickers in town and those who have
been here for a number of years. They could even be your neighbours,
he added.

The trick is acting on tips with current information, he noted,
because the RNC needs to catch drug traffickers in the act.

He said he's aware people don't want to rat out their family and
friends, but if they know of certain activity, it's better to get rid
of the problem or seek help.

"I guess we haven't been as effective as we want to be," spoke
Fitzgerald of the RNC. "We want to be a lot more effective. It's a
problem that keeps snowballing. If you take down one drug dealer,
then someone else is there to step in to take their place. Because
you've always got profit to be made, you have someone there who's
readily available to get into that role."

He said the RNC has screening in place for its own officers, but that
doesn't mean officers won't be affected by drugs later on.

"Drug users go through all aspects of society," he noted. "I can't
say police officers never get involved with it, but we haven't had an
issue here."

Nevertheless, he said, the goal of the RNC is still the same, to
eradicate the drug problem, but he admits that this is very hard.