NEW TWIST ON PRISON DRUG SMUGGLING - AIR MAIL

Smuggling drugs into prisons takes all manner of complicated routes,
from body cavities to birthday cakes, but someone is taking a more
direct route at Kent prison - tossing the contraband over the fence.

Last week, prison officials got a tip that drugs would be tossed over
the fence, and sure enough a package of 124 grams of marijuana was
duly found by staff in the prison's exercise yard.

On Tuesday night this week, "we actually observed a person approach
the fence and throw over" what turned out to be five grams of hash,
says Brenda Lamm, Kent's assistant warden of management services.

The maximum-security prison has armed guards stationed in towers,
regular perimeter patrols "and still these people are managing to get
these things thrown over the fence," she says.

Inmates at the prison were locked in their cells after both incidents
while searches for contraband were conducted.

Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon MP Chuck Strahl says the novel drug smuggling
method may seem funny at first, but in fact it's deadly serious.

"If they can get away with that, the next time it won't be drugs," he
says, but something more serious like weapons tossed over the fence.

Ms. Lamm says prison security has been beefed up, but she would not
reveal the new measures for obvious reasons.