by Ian Elliot
Northern News Services

NNSL (Oct 17/97) - Cocaine addiction in Yellowknife is "almost epidemic", an RCMP member told a Yellowknife court this week.

And while the number of addicts in the city is not known, their addictions are responsible for a large amount of the street violence, break-ins, prostitution and thefts, Corporal Malcolm Eaton told territorial court Tuesday.

He was testifying as an expert witness on Yellowknife's drug trade at the sentencing of a self-confessed addict who had pleaded guilty to possessing 12 grams of cocaine.

Judge Michel Bourassa, who vowed to impose jail time on everyone convicted of possessing a gram or more of cocaine earlier this year, is concerned enough about the problem that he has requested statistics on the severity of Yellowknife's drug problem from the Mounties.

Until those statistics are compiled, he asked the police officer to testify about his experience so that the court could understand how severe the problem is.

"It's almost epidemic here in town," Eaton said under oath, adding that it was "unequivocal" that use of cocaine and the social problems associated with the drug have gotten much worse in the last five years.

"Cocaine must be a powerful, powerful drug," he mused at one point. "People will lower themselves to get the drug."

Eaton said cocaine was rarely seen in the city a few years ago but now an organized distribution ring is at work and the drug is much more available.

"A seizure of an ounce of coke five years ago would have been a great deal. Nowadays, it wouldn't be that great a deal," he said.

The drug is now shipped north in quantities of several ounces or more, he said, and each ounce is split into 28 or more gram-sized packets that sell for around $130 each. (Street weights are usually light because dealers skim off some for themselves -- a whisper of amusement ran through an engrossed courtroom when Eaton explained that quarter-ounce bags of marijuana sold here usually weigh only four or five grams instead of seven.)

The police know who is dealing, but need evidence to convict them, he said.

"We know everyone who deals coke in Yellowknife, and they all know we know," he said.

"It's a question of catching them at it."

Street-level dealers are becoming more sophisticated and often carry the drug in plastic bags in their mouths. If an officer approaches them, they swallow the bag and regurgitate it later, he said.

Hard-core addicts go on multi-day binges where they can use a gram of cocaine every two hours, and their need to buy the thousands of dollars worth of cocaine leads them to commit crimes such as theft and prostitution, he said.

"The theme is, do whatever it takes to get the money to get coke."

The drug trade also brings violence, not least between dealers and people who own them money, and he said delinquent customers are often taken for punishment beatings on the ice road to Dettah or the sand pits.

Cocaine may be the most severe cause of social ills, but he said marijuana is available 24 hours a day in Yellowknife, and other drugs, such as hallucinogenic mushrooms and PCP, are not unknown. The only drug which has not been found by police so far is heroin, he told the court.

Users are not just adults, he said, but more and more teenagers are using drugs.