Darrell Greer
Northern News Services

Arviat (Aug 23/00) - Arviat RCMP served notice this past month on pushers that the war on drugs is not over in Kivalliq.

The Arviat detachment, working with the Churchill, Man., RCMP, seized 3.1 kilograms of marijuana on July 25 in Churchill.

The marijuana, with an estimated street value of $300,000, was bound for Arviat.

Gary King, 31, of Arviat was sentenced to one year in jail on Aug. 2. King will serve his time in The Pas, Man. Charges against another man were stayed.

Cpl. Gary Hodges of the RCMP detachment in Arviat says the drug situation is a problem for both kids and adults in the Kivalliq Region.

"The biggest factor is the economic issue," says Hodges.

"When you look at $300,000 worth of dope at the street level in Arviat, that's a significant amount of money."

Hodges says a "joint" sells for $10 in Arviat and is no bigger than the refill inside of a Bic pen.

"We're talking a pin. A user takes about three hits (puffs or inhales) from it and it's gone."

Police officers are often frustrated by the number of people willing to risk a jail sentence for what they think is easy money, even after a large bust goes down.

Supply and demand

Hodges says the $300,000 bust put a dent in the amount of dope coming into Arviat, but the slack was quickly tightened up by other dealers.

"There's other players in Arviat who are dealing as well, but it did cut the supply in half for a period of time.

"But we're fairly confident that supply has since caught up and has been absorbed by somebody else."

Based on the estimated amount of marijuana in the average joint, a large number can be rolled out of a 28-gram bag.

At $10 each, the economics alone make the battle to keep drugs out of the region that much tougher.

Hodges says regardless of what some people would have you believe, drugs like marijuana do have a negative impact upon a community, including addiction and even death.

"We deal with individuals who are suicidal and the reason they give us when we talk to them is that they have no money for food and nothing in their lives because they've spent it all on their 10-year drug addiction to marijuana.

"That's actually a recent example of an incident I attended at 4 a.m. a few weeks ago.

"So, as you can see, the damage is all too real."

Hodges says marijuana use can make a situation seem worse than it really is when someone is depressed.

He says it's also a fair statement to say youth who use the drug frequently often see their school work slip.

What some may find surprising is that they would expect the drug trade to tighten up after a major bust, but the exact opposite can occur.

"In this case, we had individuals within a day or two of the bust who had never been seen in this town before -- and who we know were from Churchill -- up in Arviat selling dope at a cheaper price.

"They were trying to cut in on the local market, but they were quickly chased out of town."

Hodges says it's not necessarily a police presence or surveillance that chases new dealers away. In fact, local police are usually the last to know new dealers are in town.

"Other dealers in town didn't appreciate these guys rolling in and trying to take a piece of the pie, so to speak.

"They were chased out by the local dealers. There were threats made against them and they left."

Hodges says there are many harmful spinoffs from the drug trade: confrontations between friends, turf wars and domestic violence resulting from lack of money and basic living necessities.

"To someone who has a 10-year addiction, three hits off of a joint isn't going to do much for them.

"Tolerance levels increase so much with the levels of use. Soon, everything is gone to feed an addiction and families suffer.

"And it all starts with 'recreational' use."