Pubdate: Sat, 05 Mar 2005
Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)
Copyright: 2005, The Globe and Mail Company
Contact:  http://www.globeandmail.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/168
Author: Colin Freeze and Dawn Walton, With reports from Joe Friesen and 
Petti Fong
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

DRUG CRIME NOURISHED IN SLEEPY COMMUNITIES

Freedom From Nosy Neighbours A Plus

Toronto And Whitecourt, Alta. -- By all accounts, Canada is in the midst of 
a marijuana grow-op boom. In just about every urban community, police are 
pulling pot out of dirt-filled basements underneath ordinary houses.

But the real action often lies hidden in the suburbs and the boonies. Large 
farmhouses have concealed huge growing operations. Rows of boxcars have 
been buried in fields to create makeshift subterranean bunkers filled with 
marijuana.

For criminals, the wide-open spaces of rural areas can be alluring. Nosy 
neighbours are few and far between. Easier access to transportation routes 
are enticing. And police forces tend to be small outfits, with fewer 
resources and dedicated drug squads.

"Big-city crime is moving into the rural areas," David Bray, spokesman for 
Alberta Attorney-General Harvey Cenaiko, said yesterday.

He said the province has long been seeking federal help to increase drug 
policing.

"It's happening more and more in the rural areas," he said. "I'm 
speculating that farmhouses and sheds are harder to find [for police]. It's 
cheaper, and its hidden away from prying eyes."

The area and highways surrounding Mayerthorpe have been singled out as a 
drug-trafficking concern by police and politicians. Grow-ops are "in rural 
places and can quickly transport to British Columbia and then south," said 
one police officer, who asked not to be named.

Dan Bryant is a 26-year-old oil-patch worker in nearby Whitecourt who says 
this part of Northern Alberta is perfect for marijuana grow-ops.

"It's rural, people leave you alone," he said yesterday as he dropped off 
four yellow daffodils at the Whitecourt RCMP detachment in memory of the 
four slain Mounties.

But according to local police, the bigger problem in the area is crystal 
methamphetamine and crack cocaine.

Police in Whitecourt are busy busting crystal-meth and crack operations in 
this booming oil and gas town. There are a lot of young people with a lot 
of disposable income, RCMP Constable Jeff Feist said, but the police 
haven't zeroed in on why the drug problem is escalating.

But police across Canada for years have made what is called a "gateway" 
argument concerning drug operations -- that groups that cut their teeth on 
marijuana cultivation eventually like to try their hand at more profitable 
chemical drugs.

And there is an ever-increasing amount of sophistication. Police said Asian 
groups have created a whole division of labour around marijuana 
cultivation: Some people specialize in buying houses, some electricians 
rewire houses, sitters mind the plants and others chop them up and 
distribute the product.

Even the Mounties marvelled at the ingenuity of a scheme involving an 
underground bunker discovered in Manitoba in 2001.

"Eight railroad cars had been transported by truck on to a private property 
and buried side by side in a field a short distance from the landowners," 
an RCMP marijuana-cultivation report said.

A man paid to grow the plants lived in one car, complete with bathroom and 
shower facilities. The second car held a generator. The remaining six cars 
contained a total of 1,400 marijuana plants watered by a reverse-osmosis 
filtering system.

Similar bunkers have been recently found in Red Deer, Alta.

Suburbs and small towns also hold a certain appeal: Houses are cheaper and 
larger, electricity can be easy to steal, and neighbours in new 
subdivisions don't know one another.
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MAP posted-by: Beth