DOG SNIFFS OUT POT AT BUS STATION

A police dog found nearly 25 kilograms of marijuana at the Greyhound bus
station in Thunder Bay on Monday.

The street value of the drugs is estimated at $432,000, Thunder Bay Police
said. The bags of pot were discovered by police dog Alley at the Fort
William Road facility.

"As far as seizures go, it's probably one of the larger ones to occur in
Thunder Bay," Thunder Bay Police spokesman Chris Adams said in an interview.

A male passenger was questioned by police after the marijuana was found at
about 8:30 a.m. No charges were laid. Police believe he was from British
Columbia.

"He was sent on his way," Adams said.

The dried cannabis was vacuum-packed in plastic bags and held in two
suitcases. The drugs were put on display at police headquarters for the media.

Police believe the shipment was en route to southern Ontario, most likely
to Toronto, Adams said. The bus was travelling from Vancouver to Toronto.

More drugs were found at the Greyhound bus station on Fort William Road
earlier this month.

On Nov. 3, about 4 1/2 kilograms of heroin was found in a black nylon bag.
The street value of the drugs is about $1.8 million, police said.

Two men, one from Vancouver and the other from Burnaby, B.C., were charged
with conspiracy to traffick heroin.

On Nov. 4, police arrested a man after they found 10,000 tablets believed
to be Quaaludes. The drug methaqualone, the medical name for Quaalude, is
classified as a sedative-hypnotic.

The drugs had a street value between $50,000 and $100,000, police said.

Adams said police aren't trying to single out the Greyhound station, noting
officers have also done searches at railway stations, the airport and
border crossings.

Mel Levandoski, an assistant general manager with Greyhound, said detecting
drugs on buses would be difficult because the company doesn't use X-ray
machines.

However, employees do ask people a lot of questions, such as what's in
their packages, before they're put on buses.

Greyhound ships countless packages across Canada each year, Levandoski
said. "It would be very, very difficult to find out what is in every
package," he said.

The company will continue to co-operate with police if they want to use
drug-detecting dogs at the Thunder Bay bus station, he said.