DOGS HAVE THE DOPE

Seize More Than $40K In Drugs

Drug-sniffing dogs and their handlers at the Stony Mountain and
Rockwood Institutions have seized marijuana and cocaine worth more
than $40,000 behind prison walls in recent weeks, proving they were
likely paying attention at a recent conference on drug detection.

The two federal prisons, located side-by-side about 13 kilometres
north of Winnipeg, hosted a conference for institutional drug search
teams last month, and in the weeks following the confab the local
teams have made five separate seizures and turned two suspects over
to the RCMP.

"It was a particularly busy time," said Christer McLauchlan, who
teams up with a black Lab named Samson to search for drugs at Stony
Mountain. "We were able to take the skills we learned at that
conference and apply them to real life. It definitely had an impact."

BUSTED VISITORS

Together with Rockwood's team, McLauchlan and Samson have busted two
visitors trying to smuggle drugs into the prison, as well as finding
more than 300 grams of pot and 24 grams of cocaine on prison grounds,
likely the results of "drug throws" that hadn't been picked up yet.

Stonewall RCMP have charged a 20-year-old man with two counts of drug
trafficking as a direct result of the team's activities.

A spokeswoman for the Correctional Service of Canada said about 80%
of federal inmates come to prison with some kind of substance abuse
problem, and prison officials recognize that drugs do make it inside,
although efforts are made to stop both supply and demand.

McLauchlan said drugs inside a prison are worth about 10 times what
they fetch on the street.