MEDICINE HAT, AB — The Medicine Hat Police Service is grappling with an increase in the amount of drugs seized in our city.
In 2015, 365 grams of methamphetamine was seized by police and jumped to nearly 1.5 kilograms last year.
Already this year, 845 grams of meth has been taken off city streets.
Heroin use has spiked as well.
In 2015, only eight grams was seized by police.
In 2016, that number jumped to 53 grams.
So far in 2017, 30 grams has been seized.
Sergeant Stacey Kesler said meth and heroin seem to be the two drugs of choice for users here, many now even choosing to inject it rather than smoking it.
Kesler said fentanyl has also been found in the community, sometimes even being disguised as something else.
“Meth and heroin are really our drivers of our crime rate, I believe, in Medicine Hat,” he said. “We’re not seeing the fentanyl seizures, however, we are seeing positive testing of fentanyl from Health Canada in drugs that we’ve seized.”
2015 2016 2017
Methamphetamine 365g 1400g 845g
Heroin 8 g 53g 30g
Crime rates have also risen since 2015.
Break and enters were up 64 per cent in 2016 and thefts from motor vehicles and frauds were also up more than 50 per cent.
Kesler said it’s easy to see how the drug trends and patterns in crime are connected.
“People will commit property crimes, such as break and enters, frauds, for example, and thefts from motor vehicles to fund their drug habit and right now, in the city of Medicine Hat, because the enforcement efforts are so strong, it tends to drive the price of drugs up, which makes it a little bit more difficult to acquire,” he added.
Kesler said police are approaching the problem in several ways.
Strong enforcement efforts are helping to keep drugs off the streets, but police are also working on prevention and recovery strategies.
