n the old days, Victoria police Const. Mike Russell might have been walking a beat, talking to shopkeepers and taking the pulse of a neighborhood.

On Thursday morning, he was doing an updated version of that task, tapping into the social media networks to see what was happening in the city.

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Thats when he stumbled upon the following message posted on the social news website, Reddit:

Where/how could an aspiring pot smoker such as myself buy weed on campus/near campus? I want to try it but have no idea how to get started at UVic, despite its apparent widespread use. Thanks!

The note, in all its specificity, was from someone named uvicmj, which, we can only assume, is short for mary jane.

A bemused Russell responded with a single word: Cough.

To which someone cracked: Scram! Its the Fuzz!

The exchange unleashed a torrent of comments on the popular site, where users can vote on submissions and move them up or down in the rankings.

By early afternoon, the drug-buy-gone-wrong had rocketed onto Reddits front page.

Most of the commentators were impressed that a police officer had 1. a sense of humour, 2. a working knowledge of social networks, and 3. an interest in what they had to say.

To be fair, wrote Salacious, you guys probably do know all the places to get weed.

Valid point, Russell replied.

From there, the conversation quickly progressed through a discussion of drug policy, Taser use and downtown Victoria.

Congratulations on making this the #1 thread in /r/VictoriaBC history, wrote inkblob. Also, thanks for cleaning up View & Douglas this summer, appreciate seeing you guys [downtown]

Russell, who serves as both communications officer and social media guru, monitors multiple social networks a day, including Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Pinterest.

I love it because it shows our human side, he said. We get out a lot of public safety messaging as well with that.

He noted that once the department connects with the community, those contacts can be put to good use in an emergency. For example, when a 10-year-old boy recently went missing one night, Russell posted a photo of the boy on social media sites.

We had people calling in and tweeting and Facebooking us saying, I am out in my community right now, holding this boys picture that you put up on Facebook, and Im running into other members of my community doing the same thing. Thats so powerful.

Russell learned most of what he knows on the job and now checks the sites first thing in the morning. He checks again one last time before bed.

I can have a conversation with one person in a coffee shop, he said. But this is like getting up in Centennial Square with a blow horn. It amplifies the message, it amplifies the conversation and lets people get in on it.

-- Weed discussion on Reddit

lkines@timescolonist.com