MAYORS MOBILIZE AGAINST METH

Municipal Officials Call for Feds to Track Speed-Making
Chemicals

Alberta's mayors are cooking up a way to track the makers of
methamphetamines and say it's high time Ottawa stepped in to help.

In a unanimous vote Friday, mayors from more than 20 cities and towns
attending the Northern Alberta Mayors' caucus said the drug, also
known as crystal meth, is a serious problem in communities.

Meanwhile, Calgary's mayor said while municipalities are left holding
the bag, drug production and trade is also a provincial and federal
issue.

"I'm surprised they aren't doing something about it already," Dave
Bronconnier said, adding taxpayers in cities like Calgary can't afford
the rising cost of police manpower to properly deal with the growing
problem.

"The big concern is that organized criminals are lured here because of
our booming economy and it ends up costing Calgarians a lot of money."

Bronconnier said the call for Ottawa to step up to the plate should
include a demand for common databases to track the movement of
methamphetamines -- and the chemicals used to make the drug -- across
the country.

A recent report issued by the Criminal Intelligence Service of Alberta
says the Hells Angels' control of the crystal meth trade in the
province is law enforcement's fastest growing problem.

At the request of Drayton Valley Mayor Moe Hamdon, the mayoral group
called on Ottawa to copy American legislation, which keeps tabs on who
sells and buys large quantities of chemicals used to make the drug,
like pseudoephedrine, acetone, ether, red phosphorus and hydriodic
acid.

"We, as municipalities, pay for policing, we have the social costs, we
have the burden in our communities as a result of the crystal meth,"
he said.

"We need to let the federal government know there is an opportunity to
help us here.

"It is something they should have done 10 years ago."

At the same meeting, mayors also proposed sharing the nine-cent per
litre provincial fuel tax, as Edmonton and Calgary do, would result in
more money for transportation projects than the provincial grants that
they currently rely on.