Rhino's Ramblings - Welcome To Meth Jaw

“Moose Jaw is not like it use to be and it is down right dangerous,” someone told me at coffee this past week before they started to tell me their recent crime experience.

They had come out of their house after a recent snowfall to see tracks in the freshly fallen snow of someone who had walked down the alley and up to their garage door and tried to get in. 

The attempt was unsuccessful but it did not end there as the sleuthing senior walked down the alley following the tracks as the obvious would-be thief tried door after door for two blocks until they hit a main street and disappeared. 

The senior told me with confidence he knew why this individual was out trying to steal and it had to be the poor economy. It seems the Christmas spirit was with the senior as he was willing to give the would-be thief a pass.

I did not know how to break the news to him other than tell him the obvious truth. 

Now is my opinion making a lot of assumptions in regards to this would-be thief? Yes of course it is but it is also driven by facts of what is happening in the City.

The most obvious reason why that individual was out trying to break into garages, vehicles and sheds wasn’t for money for food but in all likelihood it was to feed a habit, an addiction, and that habit in all likelihood was Meth.

The stark reality is much of the petty and up to larger crimes in Moose Jaw is being fueled by the drug trade and the drug of choice is more often then not Crystal Methamphetamine or Meth. 

While the entire city seems focused on the fate of one certain drug dealer and his sentencing as the be all and end all in the Meth epidemic you are in all likelihood not even close to seeing an end to it all. 

There is a growing addiction out there and with one dealer off of the streets the supply may have been temporarily cut but the thing many forgot is the supply is much more than one source. And removing that particular source usually means two or more will rise up to fill the demand. 

Removing a former home owner from your affluent  neighbourhood is likely not going to solve the problems of your children accessing it. It is just not going to be so readily and publicly available down the block is the true reality. 

With that said there are plenty of cries out there from the community about the court system and how it’s a revolving door and the same people just keep coming and going with no real punishment. But are those cries truly warranted? 

In some ways they are but in other ways there are things such as due process, rule of law and of course everyone’s right to face their accuser and mount a vigilant defence. 

It’s led to a court system where cases are tied up for months as seemingly slam dunk convictions disappear as witnesses either become reluctant or they simply vanish. A major reason behind it all might shock you.

Believe it or not one of the greatest indicators of what is going on is right there in the Moose Jaw Police Services (MJPS) statistics when it comes to assault. It is no secret many of the more vicious assaults in the community are perpetrated against witnesses of crime who are themselves no choir boys or girls. 

Witnesses seemingly, or is it conveniently, disappear when it is time to go to court and the Crown invariably is forced to cut a deal. It is that simple. 

I recently received an email which tipped me off to this occurring as someone accused with assault posted the statements of the victims on his Facebook account. I have no idea where the accused got the statements given to the MJPS but nevertheless they are still there for anyone to publicly see. 

For people unfamiliar with the criminal justice system much of what happens is not played out in the court room but rather it is a series of letters, phone calls and discussions where criminal defence lawyers and the Crown cut deals. If the deals were not cut what you would have in the end is a court system tied up much more than it is now.

It is simply impossible for the Courts to take every matter to trial and let’s face it there are not the resources out there for Legal Aid – who represent most criminally accused – to proceed to trial on every matter anyhow. Deals seemingly need to be cut for the system to function. 

So in the end what you have is a legal system which is nothing more than a system of trading and bartering with outcomes more than likely agreed to in advance. Harsh punishments are in no way coming. 

Certainly judges can apply stiffer punishments than agreed to by the lawyers but they regularly don’t because they know the entire system would collapse. 

Now I will admit there is a study done where harsh sentences were shown to have negative effects and are not deterring crime. 

But one thing those studies don’t show is by taking people involved in gang activity off of the streets for lengthy periods you basically remove them from where they fit in with their peer group in those all important bar hopping years. 

They come back years later when quite truthfully they are older and the now younger crowd in reality have nothing to do with or laugh at them. 

Now despite what the daily police report is telling you crimes are growing in key areas with Meth being a major contributor to those statistics. Key areas which should be setting off alarm bells. 

In the Meth trade one of the best ways to determine exactly what is going on locally is to look at some bell weather indicators of its growth and proliferation. For myself I look at the precursors used in its manufacture as a great indicator as to exactly what is occurring.

Meth is not some natural organic product. It is not grown in some hidden garden. It is a manufactured product with some very toxic chemicals used in its production. 

One of the main ingredients in its production is acid and the major source of the acid is automotive batteries. In the world of Meth production these things everyone has in our vehicles are worth gold. 

In the past three months I have learnt about four major automotive battery thefts in the city. 

In two cases batteries brought in for exchange on new batteries were stolen. Almost entire pallets of used batteries simply vanished. Both were stored outside in fenced compounds making them easier targets ti are off with. 

In another case a local contractor had all of the batteries stolen from his equipment. The thieves came prepared to make a quick getaway as they cut the battery cables and did not take the time to use wrenches to remove the battery clamps.

In this theft all that was stolen were the batteries and nothing more despite there being some expensive and non-traceable tools they could have taken. 

And the final theft of batteries I heard of I won’t be revealing because it would readily identify the victim and give would-be battery thieves another idea how to ply their trade. But it was another large amount. 

None of these cases have resulted in charges and perhaps the thief or more than likely thieves will never be identified. 

But what it does point to is the likelihood someplace nearby Meth is being manufactured.

Now I’m not going to go into great detail about what is necessary in setting up a Meth lab. All I can say is I had a major primer on the subject from the police at a news conference this past November in Odessa, Ukraine. But I will say with some ingenuity it’s not all that difficult to do. 

So how does this all tie into Moose Jaw and this intrepid Sherlock Holmes senior I ran into at coffee?

Well whether we like it or not there is a major Meth problem out there and it is fueling a whole laundry list of crimes. From there petty stuff like breaking into garages or rifling through cars looking for spare change and other valuables right up to carrying handguns. It is now undeniable there are gangs operating in the city and Meth is fueling a lot of their activities.

In his budget presentation to Council even the Chief of Police Rick Bourassa alluded to it when he stated the MJPS was dealing with many other police departments due to the transient and intercity nature of crime. 

Mayor Frasier Tolmie has also mentioned the need to do something about Meth and how bad it has and is becoming. 

It has gotten so bad some are starting to call the city Meth Jaw. 

The big question out there now is how do you stop it? And as I told my senior friend the true story all he could tell me is how sickening it had become. 

There is another darker side to the Friendly City and whether we like to hear about it or not it is growing.