NEW MINAS, N.S. — While street drugs remain an ongoing concern for police, it isn’t apparent that harder drugs are infiltrating Kings County high schools.
Const. Jeff Wilson of the Kings District RCMP said it seems that cocaine, methamphetamine or “ice” pills and prescription drugs like oxycodone or hydromorphone pills are the most prevalent drugs that officers are dealing with in Kings County communities.
“Those are the three main street-level drugs that they deal with every day,” Wilson said.
Wilson, who is the media relations officer and the school resource safety officer for the Kings District RCMP, works in area schools on a daily basis.
He said the principal or vice-principal of a given school would contact him if they became aware of an issue involving harder drugs. Wilson said he has yet to encounter these illicit substances in a school context.
“It doesn’t seem to be a problem in our Valley schools,” he said.
With the new Cannabis Control Act legislation, Wilson said police have statutes to deal with various situations involving cannabis, including people having it in vehicles where it is accessible to the driver. Driving while impaired by a drug remains a Criminal Code offence.
Wilson said police are well aware of the ongoing presence of cannabis in area high schools. However, one thing that hasn’t changed since legalization is zero-tolerance for the substance in a school setting, even if students are of legal age.
He said it’s been a few months since the Cannabis Control Act has taken effect. The legislation is new enough that police are still encountering new situations and scenarios. Wilson has been proactive on this front, meeting with school principals to discuss ways to deal with hypothetical situations that haven’t yet occurred.
He said the fact that there is the odd 19 or 20-year-old in area high schools could potentially present some interesting scenarios and police are still feeling their way through this. There would be legal consequences if a student of legal age was found to be supplying cannabis to underage students.
Wilson said MDMA, or “Molly”, is one of the drugs that street-level officers in Kings County deal with occasionally. Police don’t see a lot of it but it has a presence in our communities. Wilson hasn’t heard anything that would indicate that the prevalence of the drug is increasing in Kings County or that it has infiltrated area schools.
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