North Bay Police are putting the focus on harder illegal drugs and higher level drug dealers with their investigations.

That information was reported to the city police services board this week by Deputy Chief Scott Tod.

“Under the direction of our new unit commander in Street Crime, we’re actually looking at going after those people in our community that are selling the more dangerous drugs, being Fentanyl number one and cocaine/heroin number two,” he says.

“We generally see now Fentanyl mixed in with most cocaine and heroin seizures that we have within the community, and we all know the dangers of Fentanyl as a street drug, and the danger it presents to people using the illegal drug,” Tod adds.

He says this new focus could be one reason why drug charges ere down in 2017.

Tod says another possible reason is Street Crime Unit members being in court with previous cases, instead of out on the street.

Calls for service and total criminal offences were both up about three per cent last year while police activity was down about two per cent.

City police stats to the end of December show that most crime categories saw slight increases in 2017, including assaults, break and enters, mischief charges and thefts.

There was no change in the number of sexual offences and robberies.

Just like 2016, there were no homicide investigations in 2017.

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