Pubdate: Thu, 23 Jun 2005
Source: Montreal Gazette (CN QU)
Copyright: 2005 The Gazette, a division of Southam Inc.
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/montreal/montrealgazette/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/274
Author: Russell Barth
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada)

OVERBLOWN POLICE WORK

Re: Gazette, July 21, "Pot plants worth $600,000 seized," which concerned a 
police raid of a home on Beaconsfield Blvd.

Police usually exaggerate about so-called grow-ops. They do this so that it 
will appear to the media - and the public - that they are actually 
accomplishing something, which we know isn't true.

Police say that each pot plant is worth $1,000, even if it was only 4 
inches tall. If police were to answer the question "How many plants were 
mature enough to have produced half a pound of dried bud?" (to make them 
worth $1,000) or "How many plants were under a foot tall?" the bust 
wouldn't seem so impressive.

A single cannabis plant needs 12 to 16 weeks of tender loving care under 
bright lights to produce 200 grams ($1,000) of dried bud.

To say that a little seedling is worth $1,000 is like saying that a pile of 
car parts is a $20,000 car. It is exaggeration bordering on fabrication.

Much like someone trying to bail out a sinking ship with a thimble, police 
aren't making any progress fighting the black market and they know it.

They refuse to admit their obvious and humiliating defeat. So instead of 
asking the government to plug the leak - by regulating cannabis - they just 
keep asking for more elaborate and expensive thimbles.

Russell Barth

Federal Medical Marijuana

Licence Holder

Educators For Sensible

Drug Policy

Ottawa
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D