Someday son, all this will be yours.
What? The curtains?
Posted on 10/18/2003 9:41:44 AM PDT by canuck_conservative
QUEBEC - Corrections Canada officials seized thousands of dollars worth of illicit drugs last year at the penitentiary at Donnacona, Que., but they had no idea how they were being smuggled in -- until guards discovered two crossbow arrows in the prison yard last month.
"It's a new one for us, and I've never heard of anything like it in any other [Canadian] prison," said Carl Pelletier, deputy director of the maximum-security facility near Donnacona, a suburb of Quebec City.
According to Mr. Pelletier, prison officials first heard about drugs being shot over prison fences with bows last year from an informant. However, searches in the woods that surround the prison failed to turn up any evidence.
But last month, on Sept. 13, guards found the two arrows imbedded in the ground inside the prisoners' recreational yard on the northwest side of the facility.
Two weeks later, on Oct. 3 and 4, the motorized units that patrol the perimeter road outside the prison's barbed-wire fences found four more arrows and a tennis ball that had apparently fallen short of their mark.
Those arrows had been fired from a standard bow.
The arrows and the tennis ball contained a total of 25 grams of heroin, 89 grams of marijuana, 29 grams of hash and 115 pills containing a morphine derivative.
The drugs in the arrows were packed into straws that were crammed into the hollow shaft.
No arrests have been made in the case, which is being investigated by the Surêté du Québec. However, nine of the 325 prisoners currently held in Donnacona are suspects. They could face criminal charges or transfers to other prisons.
Because drug prices inside prison are several times higher than on the street (Mr. Pelletier says heroin, for example, sells for $1,000 per gram in the prison, while a gram of hash or pot fetches $55), the estimated value of the smuggled drugs found was $40,000.
The use of tennis balls to smuggle drugs, however, is not new.
At the medium-security prison in Laval, which is located next to Autoroute 440, Mr. Pelletier said guards regularly find dope-filled tennis balls that are thrown into the prison yard from passing vehicles.
Last year, a series of intensive searches that were part of an ongoing Correctional Service of Canada strategy aimed at cracking down on drug consumption and smuggling in Canadian prisons led to the seizure of $183,000 in illicit drugs at the Donnacona facility.
Donnacona officials do not know if or how many drug-stuffed arrows landed inside prison grounds or if they were recuperated.
However, they are taking measures to thwart the smuggler.
"We'll be putting lights in the woods where the arrows were fired from, and installing infrared motion detectors in that area," Mr. Pelletier said. He said, too, that the size of the prisoners' recreational yard will also be reduced by two-thirds.
"That's part of the consequences [for the arrow shooting]," Mr. Pelletier said. "We're not running a daycare here."
© Copyright 2003 National Post
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Now that i would like to know.
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