MINE PAYOUT BRINGS FLOOD OF POT, BOOZE

"People will buy drugs instead of supplying their children with
diapers or food."

Kangiqsujuaq is swamped with drugs and alcohol, police warn, because
residents are flush with cash following the distribution of
profit-sharing cheques from Xstrata's Raglin mine earlier this summer.

The municipality and landholding organization has invested some of the
money, but members of the Kativik Regional Police Force say many
residents have used the payout, which amounts to several thousands of
dollars per family, to travel to Montreal and return with beer, wine
and spirits.

"People will buy drugs instead of supplying their children with
diapers or food. I picked up a three-year-old a few months ago in the
middle of the night and brought him home. The kids don't want to be in
the house when the parents are drunk even at that age. It's sad," said
Const. Shawn McDonald.

Police have intervened with a number of drug seizures and arrests in
the community, which has a population of about 480.

Last Friday in Kangiqsujuaq, police with the KRPF seized 1.8 kilos of
marijuana from a man returning home from a visit to Montreal.

Armed with a search warrant, Const. McDonald and Const. Jeffrey
Marcoux went to the Kangiqsujuaq airport to meet the man after his
plane landed. They searched his luggage and body, and in a backpack,
stashed inside one of his bags, they found neatly packaged pot, with
an estimated street value of up to $85,000.

McDonald said charges are pending against the man, and the
investigation into the drug trafficker who supplied him with the drugs
continues.

Before the man's arrival back in Kangiqsujuaq, the Montreal-based
Aboriginal Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit had confirmed the
man was on the plane, enabling McDonald to seek a warrant from a judge.

Also on July 27, McDonald and Marcoux had a warrant to search a
residence, where they seized $790 in cash and 10 grams of pot packaged
in individually-wrapped bags for sale.

McDonald said over the past month he has carried out two other drug
seizures. One netted 55 grams of pot. The other led to the seizure of
48 grams of pot, two 60-ounce and two ten-ounce bottles of hard
liquor, and a bottle of wine.

McDonald, who is originally from the Mohawk community Kanestake, has
been in policing for 16 years. He said the potent combination of
alcohol and drugs causes most of the problems in the Kangiqsujuaq,
which is, in his opinion, the most beautiful place in the North.

Even if the ready supply of cash and clients means Kangiqsujuaq has
become a haven for drug dealers and bootleggers, McDonald said he's
still working to stop them from doing business.

"If we don't have the ability to bust them on that day, we're going to
get them on another day. It's a cat and mouse game for us," McDonald
said. "I want more of them."