BAD INFLUENCES BEAT ARRIVAL OF ALL-SEASON ROAD

Hairspray Drug Of Choice On Isolated Reserves

STEPHENS ISLAND -- RCMP Const. Ben Sewell was telling me about the ready
availability of drugs and alcohol on the "dry" reserves at Island Lake when
he suddenly jumped up, walked into another room and came back with a
photograph.

It showed rows and rows of hairspray containers lined up on a floor -- 254
blue plastic bottles in all.

The bottles, which are purchased for less than $3 in Winnipeg, fetch as
much as $60 at Island Lake, where hairspray is the drug of choice.

One bottle, they say, is sufficient to get two people high, making it far
more cost effective than, say, whisky, which also is available at $10 an
ounce -- $400 for a 40-ounce bottle .

The hairspray had been discovered in sealed freight sent by air to Island
Lake. Each bottle had been opened and the air had been sucked out to
prevent tell-tale sloshing.

Sewell said the shipment represents a drop in the bucket of contraband
intoxicants and drugs that flow onto the reserves year round despite bans
on booze and anti-drug laws. "There are a million ways to bring it in," he
said. "This is the third busiest airport in Manitoba. The amount of air
traffic is unbelievable."

The main objection to the construction of an all-season road is that a year
round link to the outside will allow "bad influences" into the isolated
First Nations communities on the east side of Manitoba.

But those bad influences -- which usually translate into drugs and alcohol
- -- arrived long ago and continue to pour in daily.

Anything available in Winnipeg is available at Island Lake, even crack
cocaine, Sewell said.

"Marijuana, for sure. I'd even say it's common. Hash oil is common, too,
and there is cocaine."

There also is no shortage of "moose juice" -- home brew, usually made in
pails out of potatoes, yeast and sugar. The intoxicant that is least common
is over-the-counter spirits.

The economics of bootlegging brand name booze are not good. The product is
expensive to begin with -- about $22 a bottle compared to $3 for hairspray
- -- it is bulky but does not pack as much wallop per round as hair spray or
drugs.

A bootlegger, for example, expects to get $60 for a bottle of hairspray,
but can afford to accept less given that his initial investment is small.
The same is not true for brand-name alcohol.

On the day I met with Sewell, the five-man detachment that serves
Wasagamack, Garden Hill and St. Theresa Point from a headquarters on
Stephens Island in Island Lake, had responded to five calls, all alcohol
related, including complaints of assault and drunk driving.

It is not a criminal act to consume alcohol on reserves, but rather it is a
violation of local bylaws. Drunks can be placed in a drunk tank for eight
hours under the bylaw and persons violating alcohol bans can be ordered out
of the community. Employees of the band risk their jobs if they drink.
Criminal acts committed while intoxicated -- most commonly assaults -- are
dealt with according to the usual criminal processes.

Crime rates at Island Lake communities are typical of rates found
throughout the province, Sewell said, with the exception of traffic
violations -- reflecting the small number of vehicles in the region and the
absence of roads on which to drive them.

Two aboriginal gangs -- the Renegades and the Krazies -- have formed in
Garden Hill despite the absence of roads, and the Internet means smut is as
available here as anywhere else.

A youth was recently beaten to death at Garden Hill, but murders are no
more common at Island Lake than elsewhere, Sewell said.

An addictions counsellor who asked not to be named said it is time for
northern communities to end the hypocrisy around alcohol use, if for no
other reason than to bring down exorbitant cost of getting high, money that
should be used for the necessities of life. She said fears of outside
influences are daily contradicted by the fact that the influences have
already arrived.

She said the Island Lake communities should embrace calls for an
all-weather road as means of ending the isolation and the mental health
problems that come with it.

The reduction in the costs of living created by the absence of road access,
the potential to "get out" on a regular basis and the potential for jobs
that all-season transportation promises should trump all else, the
counsellor said.

"There has always been this attitude that if you don't talk about problems
they won't happen. Well, obviously, that hasn't worked. The problems are here.

"I think there is a revolution coming. Young people are going to take a
stand and say enough. You (old) guys had your chance. The old beliefs
didn't work. Change is going to happen. It has to happen."