Toronto Mayor Rob Ford issued a statement late Wednesday night that explained he was taking a break from both his duties as mayor and his re-election campaign after a new video surfaced that allegedly shows him smoking crack cocaine.
“I have a problem with alcohol and the choices I have made while under the influence. I have struggled with this for some time,” Ford said in the statement, as quoted by Canada’s CBC. “Today, after taking some time to think about my own well-being, how to best serve the people of Toronto and what is in the best interests of my family, I have decided to take a leave from campaigning and from my duties as mayor to seek immediate help.”
The Toronto press reported Wednesday evening on several new audio and video recordings that show Ford acting erratically. The Toronto Sun obtained audio recorded Monday of Ford making lewd comments about another mayoral candidate while drunk at a bar, while the Globe and Mail reported on a video recorded Saturday that allegedly shows Ford smoking crack cocaine out of a metal pipe in his sister’s basement.
“I have tried to deal with these issues by myself over the past year,” Ford’s statement continued. “I know that I need professional help, and I am now 100 per cent committed to getting myself right. I love the people of Toronto, I love being your mayor and I hope you will continue to stand by me.”
The Globe and Mail didn’t purchase the video that allegedly shows Ford smoking crack cocaine from the drug dealer who was shopping the tape around, but it did post screenshots here. The newspaper couldn’t verify that the substance in the pipe was crack cocaine and Ford’s criminal lawyer disputed the authenticity of the tape.
“If these guys are drug dealers and there’s money involved, they can say whatever they want to get more money, to extract more money from the people who are paying,” Dennis Morris told the Globe and Mail.
This post has been updated.
Good luck to you Rob Ford. Thank you for giving the city a well deserved break.
Let us hope he signs up for a very loooooong stint in rehab. He’s really pitiful and the people of Toronto deserve better.
I dunno. This kinds reminds me of Anthony Weiner; you want to give him a chance because everybody makes mistakes and they say they are sorry and have changed but then find out they are engaged in the same action that got them in trouble in the first place…?
This may be the straw that broke the camel’s back for Ford.
But the more serious question remains: Was Magic in on the secret taping? Was it a set up; perhaps someone placed the pipe in his mouth and made him smoke it?
Prediction: He leaves rehab before his mandated time is up, insists he’s “licked the problem”, and now people can trust him (and re-elect him). It’s the Baldwin Method of Rehab: Go in to avoid jail, take off when you’re tired of people telling you what you need to do. Narcissists don’t respond well to that sort of thing.
Somehow, there’s something particularly pathetic about the phrase “caught smoking crack in his sister’s basement”. Man, you’re the mayor of one of the largest cities on the continent - couldn’t you go to an expensive hotel or a snazzy nightclub?