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Rob Ford Caught Allegedly Smoking Crack on Video Again, 'Taking a Break'

Rob Ford just pulled a Rob Ford. The troubled crack smoking Toronto mayor appears to have been caught doing what he does best on video. Again. 

By Sara Morrison and Brian Feldman
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Rob Ford just pulled a Rob Ford. The troubled crack smoking Toronto mayor appears to have been caught doing what he does best on video. Again.

The Globe and Mail just published its account of a video viewed by two of its reporters that shows Ford "taking a drag from a long copper-colored pipe, exhaling a cloud of smoke, his right arm convulsing." There's a screenshot of that moment on the paper's website.

The video itself is being sold by a "self-professed drug dealer" for "at least six figures." It was reportedly filmed early Saturday morning in the Ford's sister's basement.

Shortly after the Globe and Mail contacted Ford for comment (he declined), his lawyer announced that Ford was going to take some time off.

"He said he feels it's time that he takes a break and addresses the substance abuse problems he has," Dennis Morris said.

"And he didn't tell me what he has," Morris added.

Before his break, Ford was in the middle of a re-election campaign.

No word on how this will affect the job opening Ford posted today on his Twitter account for a "new junior staff person."

Update, 10:05 p.m.: The Toronto Sun has a Rob Ford tape of its own! In a recording from Monday night, Ford allegedly makes lewd comments about wanting to have sex with his campaign opponent Karen Stinz, though he declares his intentions in less delicate terms.

The Sun claims that Ford's decision to take a break was made in response to questions about its tape.

Update, 10:33 p.m.: We have reached peak Canada:

Update, 11:10 p.m.: Rob Ford has released a statement admitting to "a problem with alcohol, and the choices I have made while under the influence." Now that he has been caught, he is "100 percent committed to getting myself right" with professional help, and will be taking a "leave" from his campaign and whatever mayoral duties weren't stripped from him the last time a video of him smoking crack surfaced.

There is no indication that he is going to step down and he signs the statement "Mayor Rob Ford."

Update, 12:49 a.m.:  Here's more on that Rob Ford-Justin Bieber anecdote. The Toronto Star has traced reports of Ford's continued partying, claiming that he's had at least two wild nights in the past month or so.

On March 15, Ford "took four men he had met outside city hall back to his house, ordered a party bus, took them down to Muzik nightclub and proceeded to drink to excess." At the club, he ran into Justin Bieber, who jokingly asked the mayor if he had brought any crack to smoke. Ford was "enraged" at the question.

Later, Ford apparently went into a bathroom and didn't emerge for 45 minutes. He reportedly said, "My wife and children hate me. I am in over my head," after exiting, and a janitor had to go in and clean vomit from the bathroom. Ford continued drinking at the club until 5 a.m.

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.