TORIES WAGE WAR ON PRISON DRUG TRADE

Anti-Smuggling Plan to Cost $120 Million

Organized crime may lose its grip on one of its most profitable
markets as the Harper government moves to cripple drug smuggling into
penitentiaries.

In this war on drugs -- including marijuana -- the federal government
will spend $120 million over the next four years to hire 80 teams of
drug-sniffing dogs and 165 security intelligence officers.

It has also replaced or installed 30 X-ray machines and scanners at
federal prisons. The government also plans to put extra staff on
towers to stop drugs that are being thrown over fences and walls into
Canada's prisons, according to Public Safety Canada spokeswoman
Jacinthe Perras, citing one example of the ways illegal drugs get
inside prison walls.

The illicit drug trade in Canada's prisons is rarely heard about on
the outside, but an internal security report provides a glimpse into
its workings.

In addition to the more direct route of throwing a ball stuffed with
drugs over a fence, some inmates are used as drug mules. On the day of
their sentencing, some convicted criminals place the drugs inside
their bodies.

The drugs, in 90 per cent of all deals, are pre-measured and placed in
specific coloured balloons or condoms. Inside the prison, the dealers
retrieve, check and weigh the drug packages. If a mule is believed to
have tampered with a drug package, the punishment can literally be
deadly, the report notes.

The drugs, everything from marijuana and hashish to pills and cocaine,
are then repackaged for sale. The mules almost never distribute the
drugs, and in many cases, the drugs they smuggle are owned by another
inmate.

Other inmates are hired to distribute the drugs.

In the prison drug trade, credit is rare; drugs are almost always paid
for at the point of sale. The sellers are accountable for any
shortages of product or money, according to one longtime prison
intelligence officer. Punishment for skimming is swift and vicious,
the officer explains in the security report.

Drugs can be paid for in cigarettes, cash or funds deposited in bank
accounts held by the dealer's associates on the street. The dealer
assigns a specific amount to each customer so he knows when the sale
is completed. For example, one inmate will be told to have an
associate deposit $100.04 into the account. Another would be assigned
a different price.

There are other ways to get drugs into prison: some inmates insert
pills and hash into the soles of specialized soles ordered by
prisoners with foot problems.

Other times, tennis balls are sliced open and filled with hash. In
this less sophisticated operation, younger criminal associates are
hired to throw the balls into prison yards without attracting the
attention of guards. Then, the "outside gang" -- prisoners who work on
the prison grounds -- retrieve the product and smuggle it inside for
money or drugs.

Since federal penitentiaries banned smoking in April 2008, the demand
for drugs has increased dramatically. The cost for a gram of marijuana
or hash inside prison is at least five times the price outside.