A 17 year old Kimberley youth has been arrested, with recommended charges of Possession for the Purpose of Trafficking.
Cpl. Chris Newel of the Kimberley RCMP says police were notified that the young man had been attempting to sell ecstasy to high school students. He was arrested on Friday, November 2, 2012 and seven tablets of ecstasy were seized.
Newel says charges of trafficking were recommended given information gained during their investigation rather than quantity of drugs.
"There isn't a threshold amount of ecstasy per se that leads to a trafficking charge," Newel said. "It depends on the evidence you gain. If someone was arrested for an offence and seven tablets of ecstasy turned up, that would likely be possession. But in this particular case, we gained evidence that he was trying to sell it."
The youth has bee released pending a court date on December 3. He will be tried as a young offender, Newel said. As a condition of his release he must not go to Selkirk Secondary School (he is not a student at the school) and he must not possess a cell phone/Blackberry or other electronic communication device.
This is the third drug-related arrest in the Kimberley area in the past ten days.
While the Kimberley/Cranbrook detachment may not have a special drug project, they do have resources targeted specifically at drug investigations.
"We all identify targets and receive information," Newel said. "But we do have dedicated resources to focus on drugs, particularly trafficking. That is our concern. That's why we're seeing these arrests."
Names of the two other Kimberley men arrested have now been released. Jason Dimma, who was arrested on October 31, was held in custody and pled to several offences in court on November 5. He was sentenced to nine months in jail. The other man, Murray Simonson, who was arrested on October 24, had his case adjourned to November 19, 2012.