CAUGHT ON TAPE

Nine Police Cars Stealthily Move Into Position, 10 Officers, A Police
Dog And A Helicopter Circling Overhead.

It must have been a real buzz killer.

"We had to show them that we mean business," said RCMP Cpl. Al
Affleck, of a drug bust Friday around 12:30 p.m near Northumberland
Regional High School where 13 teens were charged with drug activity.

For two weeks, two police officers conducted undercover surveillance
of a store parking lot, situated less than a kilometre from
Northumberland Regional High School. What they saw, day after day,
was groups of students brazenly smoking marijuana, some of them drinking.

And what police also found disturbing was they didn't seem to be
going out of their way to hide it.

"They were flaunting it," Affleck said. "You'd have a group of three
or four smoking a bong, maybe another group drinking (in another area
of the parking lot). They seemed to be very comfortable being in a mass group."

At one point during the surveillance, investigators had a police
cruiser drive by to see what kind of reaction that would get from the
pot-smokers, but it didn't seem to have any effect on them.

"We never realized how big of a problem it was until we started doing
surveillance," Affleck said.

He also said that three or four of the teenagers were being
especially targeted because police believed they were dealing drugs,
based on their videotape evidence.

With the videotape, police also identified 30 other students,
notified them and their parents, and brought them in to give them a
"formal caution," which means that they won't be charged. But, if
they're busted in the near future for drug use, the option of
receiving a formal caution and not facing charges might not be there
the next time.

Affleck was in the helicopter when the bust took place, and said the
craft kept an eye on the area for several minutes, watching the
teenagers, who either didn't see the 'copter or didn't seem to worry about it.

It took hundreds of man hours to conduct the investigation, but "many
more man hours are being put into cleaning it all up."

RCMP hope to work with the school administration, parents and
students to use the incident for "educational" purposes, Affleck said.

"These are not major criminals, these are students smoking dope (and)
they had become very comfortable in their environment," at the store
property, Affleck said, adding that neither the store owners or the
school had prior knowledge that the investigation was being carried out.

"The less people that knew, the better."

New Glasgow Police Services chief Lorne Smith said he's unaware of
any rampant problems at North Nova Education Centre similar to what
prompted the RCMP operation near NRHS.

"But I wouldn't be so naive as to think there there wouldn't be some
drug activity going around the school," he said.

In the spring of 2004, police arrested between 10-12 people -- some
of them for drug trafficking -- after an undercover operation carried
out near North Nova, where pot smokers had been congregating behind a
commercial shopping plaza on East River Road.

Smith said that after one area is cleaned up by police, what usually
happens is that those in the pot culture find other areas to gather.

"It's an issue that's going to be continuous," he said.