Kirsten Larsen
Northern News Services

NNSL (Jan 22/99) - Cocaine is a common drug in Yellowknife. In fact it's so common up here that it is considered an accepted party drug in many different social circles.

Dr. Ross Wheeler, who treats drug and alcohol rehabilitation patients in Yellowknife on a daily basis, said cocaine is the third most common drug of choice in Yellowknife behind alcohol and marijuana.

RCMP Cpl. Dan Nolan, who is part of the three-person drug section of the Yellowknife RCMP, said the section has a lot on its hands handling the cocaine situation in Yellowknife.

"It's in the bars, the parties, it's everywhere," said Nolan. "The availability (of cocaine) is there 95 per cent of the time. There's no shortage of it. This is a money town and with all that money floating around it increases the demand."

Widespread cocaine use in Yellowknife isn't associated with any particular age group or social circle. Like Cpl. Nolan said, it is everywhere.

"We deal with people of all ages and types. We see the really young in their mid-20s who are over their heads with it and also those in their 50s who are over their heads with it. It's the 25 to 35 year olds that it's most popular with."

The number of street dealers and users in Yellowknife are so abundant, Cpl. Nolan couldn't put a number to it. Plain clothes officers deal mostly with the drug trade at the street level, but what the RCMP ultimately focuses its interest on is the larger dealers and getting the drugs off the street.

"We know the people who are dealing," said Staff Sgt. Dave Grundy, district commander of the North RCMP. "It's no secret, people phone us up and tell us. We have plain clothes officers that deal with the street level, but what we in the office are targeting, we try to target the heavier drug dealers."

Making a move on a drug operation is a lengthy process and there has to be an airtight, by-the-book procedure to get a conviction.

"We have to be able to make an arrest, a charge and a conviction," said Cpl. Nolan. "Getting five ounces of cocaine seized is not hard, but five ounces is nothing to them. To get it off the street we have to get at it and get convictions." The drug trade in Yellowknife acts as the supplier for Northern communities. Although Cpl. Nolan said it is not as organized as the southern provinces or the United States, it does have quite an interlinking structure which is supplying a growing demand.

"You could say the more cocaine that is available the more users there are and more that get addicted," said Cpl. Nolan. "You have individual rings and organized groups that aren't going to be as sophisticated as down south."

The level of sophistication of the dealers in Yellowknife can be judged partly by the high level of purity that much of the street level cocaine is sold at.

"It's about 80 per cent (pure cocaine) and over when it arrives here," said Cpl. Nolan. "It's pretty much left that way because every time they touch it is a risk. They have to have a place to do it. They just want to get it on the street and sell it. They normally would want to cut it and some do. There are no rules, it depends on the guy. Some cut it half and some won't."

Dealers cut cocaine with just about anything that is on hand, which could be powdered medication from any kind of pill capsules that are around or with some of the more sophisticated chemicals that are harder to come across. The powdered form of sugar called Lactose, a complex sugar called Mannitol and the powdered form of Lidocane, an anaesthetic used for freezing the gums in dental procedures, are chemicals commonly cut into cocaine.

The chemicals are likely only attainable through pharmaceutical companies and medical warehouses, but it's likely that the dealers in Yellowknife don't go through the trouble of acquiring and keeping those chemicals on hand.

"They are just out to make money, and they make a lot of it," said Cpl. Nolan. "When they sell it here, the majority of the time you won't get a rounded-off gram (of cocaine). They will take something like .02 grams out of each gram they sell and if they have 100 grams they make a profit.

"A gram up here sells for $120 to $140. It's about $80 for a gram down south."

One of the most involved aspects of an investigation into the drug trade is tracing the money made from the sale of the drugs.

"Proceeds of crime trace where these guys put their money," said Cpl. Nolan. "Sky's the limit in tracing the cash in proceeds of crime. Some of these (dealers) are quite creative. They might get a loan for a business and pay it off (with drug money) and say they are doing better than it is. Some are really lazy and keep (the money) in the house or the bank."