Pubdate: Sat, 02 Nov 2002
Source: Recorder & Times, The (CN ON)
Copyright: 2002 Recorder and Times
Contact:  http://www.recorder.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2216
Author: Megan Gillis
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada)

GROW HOUSE OPERATORS DESERVE SERIOUS JAIL TIME: RUNCIMAN

Unless Canada wants to stay in the ranks of Colombia and Mexico, people who 
grow pot to sell should get prison time - not a slap on the wrist, Minister 
of Public Safety and Security Bob Runciman will tell the feds next week.

"The profits are so high and the penalties are so low there's no risk," he 
said Friday during a visit to the Leeds County OPP detachment. "The police 
use fishing terminology - catch and release.

"Police dedicate all those resources to shutting these people down, then 
they're right back in business. We're looking for penalties that will deter 
this activity - stiff, minimum penalties."

Runciman will press the federal government, after consulting with his 
counterparts from across Canada, at a meeting of federal and provincial 
justice ministers in Calgary next week.

At minimum people who grow marijuana for the purpose of trafficking should 
get prison time - which means at least a two-year sentence - and a 
significant fine, he argues.

This country has become the third largest supplier of marijuana to the 
United States.

If the federal government doesn't take action Canada will face increasing 
pressure from the Americans to stop the flow of marijuana, potentially 
disrupting the movement of legitimate travellers and commerce across the 
border, Runciman said.

Police estimate that there are 700 grow houses - indoor hydroponic pot labs 
- - operating in Ontario, most linked to organized crime, and that marijuana 
is now the province's third biggest cash crop at $1 billion a year.

In this area, grow houses have been busted in Mallorytown, near Maynard, 
and in Hillcrest Park west of Brockville in the past year. The value of 
drugs seized at the three houses was more than $1 million.

The Ministry of Public Safety and Security reports a small indoor grow of 
50 plants can yield a grower $55,000 a year, but no jail time. A 
conditional sentence - house arrest - is typical or a short, 60- to 90-day 
jail term.

An average grow of 300 plants yields $350,000 a year and sentences ranging 
from house arrest to nine months in jail. Large-scale growers, up to 20,000 
plants and profits of $30 million a year, typically face 18-month sentences.

Brockville Police Chief Barry King heads the Canadian Centre for Substance 
Abuse. Police in British Columbia tell him they have so many grow houses 
they shut them down without charging anyone. The problem is growing here, too.

"The reason is in court people were getting conditional sentences and 
probation," King said.

"These are traffickers and they're getting probation. If judges don't get 
the message - we're not talking about sending someone with three joints to 
jail but give these people some deterrents - we as police can't talk to 
judges."

But the federal government can, in the form of minimum sentences, King said.

The Kingston-based OPP drug enforcement unit destroyed more than 4,100 
plants - worth as much as $4 million - in two days flying above Leeds and 
Grenville with a helicopter this summer. And that's just the pot police 
don't have enough evidence to tie to a suspect and simply want to get off 
the street. There were also several major busts and arrests, including at a 
Prescott-area farm and near Junetown,

"Overall we're down and the reason for that is that the growers are 
catching on," said Detective-Constable Glenn Holland of the drug 
enforcement unit. "The larger their plots the more obvious they are for us 
to find. They're still out there."

Police didn't find booby traps at pot grows across the province this year. 
But they did encounter spiked boards hidden between plants, picked up a 
crossbow dropped by a suspect and found razor blades embedded in plant stems.

In one case, a man was hurt in a shoot-out in Killaloe between pot growers 
and people trying to steal their plants.

"We have a guy shot through the throat protecting a pot stand," Holland 
said. "This certainly isn't the peace-loving hippie. This is violence and 
drugs - organized crime.

"Drugs are a big part of their financial empire. They'll protect $100,000 
worth of pot as quickly as they'll protect $100,000 worth of coke."

Holland didn't want to tell the courts how to do their jobs. But he 
acknowledged that police officers feel tougher sentences would be more of a 
deterrent.

"(The courts) don't see it as a violent crime," he said. "Drugs do invite a 
great deal of violence."
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jo-D