TPS Chief: local drug scene a ‘supply and demand game’

Posted on July 3, 2025 by Taber Times

By Cal Braid
Taber Times
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

After Alberta Law Enforcement Response Teams (ALERT) and local police agencies held a news conference in Lethbridge on June 19 to unveil the results of an organized crime investigation in southwest Alberta, Taber Police Chief Graham Abela talked about the evolution and impacts of crime in his home community.

 He confirmed that those arrested in connection with ALERT’s Project Leadline–including two Taber residents–were now in the hands of the courts. Four other Taber residents have been charged and are at warrant.

 Abela wasn’t at liberty to discuss the operational details of the file, but he was willing to expand on the community impacts of drug trafficking and abuse. And he went beyond the superficial stigma of ‘drugs are bad and bad people abuse drugs.’

 Instead he said, “Quite often with those individuals who start using those substances, I agree that they’re making a bad choice. But there comes a point in time in which, you know, the drug overtakes the individual and it becomes an addiction, for sure.”

 “Addictions are very complex things involving a lot of brain chemistry and trauma quite often in people’s lives. And I want to be empathetic and compassionate in regards to how we conduct enforcement activities associated with individuals who are abusing and using drugs,” he said.

 What begins as a poor decision in the beginning can take hold of people, “and addictions drive crime, for sure,” the chief said.

 Theft, fraud, mischief, violence, and gang activity are often directly tied to the use, abuse, or trafficking of drugs, both legal and illegal.

 Abela has been policing for 31 years and said Taber’s drug scene has changed over those decades. Early on in his career, local police dealt with a lot of cannabis, some cocaine, and some magic mushrooms or LSD here and there.

By the mid-to-late-nineties, crack cocaine was on the rise, and in the last decade, crystal meth became prevalent. Fentanyl and carfentanil also crept onto the scene. Abela called them powerfully addictive, poisonous, and deadly.

 “We can see from files that we’ve investigated that there’s some large quantities coming through our community,” he said, while clarifying that those large quantities are not necessarily for personal use within town. Rather, Taber has become more of a distribution hub for the region in recent years.

 “In the past we’ve interdicted 10 kilograms of cocaine that were destined for this region. It’s becoming a bit of a place where drugs may be stored and then, and then sent out to the rest of Canada, right from here,” he said.

 “I’m concerned about that. I’m concerned about becoming the little El Paso, Texas of the north.”

 Either way, the drug situation brings harm to the community. In the interest of public safety, prevention, and community wellness, the local police have an active role in trying to deter that. Part of that is working in partnership with other agencies to achieve those objectives.

 Abela said it’s also a community initiative. “The police can’t do it alone. The community definitely needs to be involved in assisting police and assisting each other in promoting community wellness and public safety. We’re simply the ones that are paid to do that, the rest of the community also has a part in that.”

 While the police do the hands-on dirty work, the eyes and ears of residents who report suspicious activity can help point TPS in the right direction. Additionally, the community has a range of resources that can educate, intervene, support, or offer restorative justice to those tangled in the web of addictive and criminal lifestyles.

 That said, those who are in the drug trade and profiting from it tend to keep a low profile. Operations like Project Leadline investigate and expose those groups of individuals.

 “This is a supply and demand game,” Abela said. “The culture associated with drug trafficking is usually quite clandestine. It can’t be out front and in the open because it would be too easily interdicted. So the nature of the activity, in itself, is that it has to be hidden. And it is.”