A three-year-old Lethbridge girl is now in the care of a family member after police found the child in a vehicle that was involved in a roadside drug deal.
ALERT arrested two Lethbridge women on Monday in connection to a police operation that targeted street-level fentanyl sales in southern Alberta.
Police say they terminated the operation after they saw the accused complete a roadside deal with the child in the backseat of the vehicle.
“When we conducted the investigation we noticed a young child in the backseat of the vehicle that we purchased fentanyl from, which caused us to end our investigation at that point,” said LRPS S/Sgt. Rod Klassen.
The two women, aged 25 and 26, are facing drug trafficking charges as well as charges under Alberta’s Drug-endangered Children’s Act and cannot be named in order to protect the identity of the child.
Investigators say they believed the safety of the girl was in jeopardy and decided to end the operation to protect the welfare of the child.
ALERT says the presence of fentanyl around children is particularly concerning and that the child is now in the care of a family member.
“We’re here to make sure the community is safe and when a three-year-old who has no choice in being there is involved in this, obviously very concerning to us and the reason we took our file down when we did,” said Klassen. “Any drug deal has an inherent danger to it. The dealers don’t know who they’re meeting, they don’t know what’s going to happen, there’s rip-offs that occur, so anytime a child is involved in any type of drug deal it’s concerning to us.”
Police searched the vehicle and seized 27 fentanyl pills and a small quantity of crack cocaine.
Fentanyl is highly addictive and has been linked to a number of overdoses throughout the province.
“Fentanyl is becoming more and more the drug of choice around the city, it’s seen everywhere, it’s combined with different drugs as well so it’s very concerning to us,” said S/Sgt Klassen. “I think education and communication to the public is key, something we definitely try to do, the dangers of these fentanyl pills, even getting it out to the users and the dealers of what the dangers are so those strategies are out there and we’re doing this on a continual basis.”
The Drug-endangered Children’s Act states that children exposed to an adult's involvement in serious drug activity, such as manufacturing and trafficking, are victims of abuse and need protection.
Alberta adopted the legislation on November 1, 2006 and was the first jurisdiction in Canada to so.
