Toronto Mayor Rob Ford takes leave as second drug video is alleged

TORONTO – Toronto Mayor Rob Ford will take a leave of absence to seek help for alcohol, he said, as a report surfaced about a second video of the mayor smoking what appears to be crack cocaine.

Ford, who is seeking re-election in the Oct. 27 vote, said Wednesday he will take an immediate leave from his job and his campaign.

“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 statement late Wednesday.

The Globe and Mail newspaper said it has viewed a second video of Ford smoking what appears to be crack cocaine in his sister’s basement. The national newspaper said two Globe reporters viewed the video from a self-professed drug dealer showing Ford taking a drag from a pipe early Saturday morning.

The video is part “of a package of three videos the dealer said was surreptitiously filmed around 1:15 a.m., and which he says he is now selling for ‘at least six figures,’ ” the paper reported.

News reports of the existence of an earlier video of Ford apparently smoking crack first surfaced last May, igniting a media firestorm around Ford.

Ford’s lawyer, Dennis Morris, said he spoke to Ford earlier Wednesday and said Ford has accepted that he has a problem.

Ford, who launched his campaign for re-election earlier this year, acknowledged last year after months of denials that he smoked crack in a “drunken stupor” after police said they obtained a video that appears to show him smoking crack. The video has never been released to the public.

Ford has refused to resign, despite mounting pressure after a string of incidents, from public drunkenness to an appearance in another video that showed him threatening “murder” in an incoherent rant. Toronto’s city council has stripped him of most of his powers.