TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Toronto mayor denies he smokes crack cocaine
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford denied Friday that he smokes crack cocaine and said he is not an addict after a video purported to show him using the drug
Change Size
T
oronto Mayor Rob Ford denied Friday that he smokes crack cocaine and said he is not an addict after a video purported to show him using the drug. The mayor of Canada's largest city did not say whether he has ever used crack.
Ford did not take questions from reporters at a news conference at City Hall held after a week of silence and after close allies released a letter urging him to address the video. The video apparently shows Ford smoking crack.
"I do not use crack cocaine, nor am I an addict of crack cocaine," Ford said. "As for a video, I cannot comment on a video that I have never seen, or does not exist."
Ford had been ducking the media and his only comments before Friday on the scandal came a week ago, a day after the story broke, when he called the crack smoking allegations "ridiculous" and said the Toronto Star newspaper was out to get him.
Ford said he had kept quiet because his lawyer advised him "not to say a word."
The video has not been released publicly and its authenticity has not been verified. Reports on gossip website Gawker and in the Toronto Star claimed it was taken by men who said they had sold the drug to Ford. The Associated Press hasn't seen the video.
The Star reported that two journalists had watched a video that appears to show Ford, sitting in a chair, inhaling from what appears to be a glass crack pipe. The Star said it did not obtain the video or pay to watch it. Gawker and the Star said the video was shown to them by a drug dealer who had been trying to sell it for a six-figure sum.
The Star also reported that Ford allegedly made a racist remark about the high school football students he coached.
Ford criticized the media for judging him.
"It is most unfortunate, very unfortunate, that my colleagues and the great people of this city have been exposed to the fact that I've been judged by the media without any evidence," Ford said.
