Pubdate: Sat, 12 Mar 2005
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright: 2005 The Vancouver Sun
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)

TOUGHER LAWS AND STRICTER ENFORCEMENT NEEDED TO STOP GROW-OPS

There has been remarkable agreement this week among law enforcement 
officers and law-makers in the provincial and federal governments about the 
gravity of the problem of marijuana-growing operations in Canada.

Federal Public Safety Minister Anne McLellan called grow-ops "one of the 
single biggest problems we face in our communities ... a serious threat to 
public safety."

British Columbia Solicitor General Rich Coleman, who is responsible for 
policing in the province, demanded that the feds "wake up" and enact 
stiffer penalties for marijuana growers.

RCMP Commissioner Guiliano Zaccardelli said they are "major, serious 
threats to our society."

But a report obtained by The Vancouver Sun this week shows that their 
actions over the past several years have not matched the strong words 
issued in the wake of the tragic death of four RCMP officers in Alberta.

Despite a tripling of growing operations discovered by or reported to 
police between 1997 and 2003, fewer suspects are being apprehended, fewer 
charges are being laid, fewer yet are approved by prosecutors and growers 
who do get hauled off to court can expect more lenient sentences.

In some jurisdictions, according to the report's author, Darryl Plecas, a 
criminologist at University College of the Fraser Valley, police have all 
but given up on trying to put marijuana growers behind bars.

Our editorials have argued over the past several days for a new approach to 
the regulation of marijuana. But anything short of legalization, which 
could be years away, leaves us with the necessity of tackling what 
everybody recognizes as the scourge of the criminal cultivation and 
trafficking of marijuana.

It now seems clear that the deaths of the RCMP officers in Alberta were 
only minimally connected to the growing of marijuana. But they are a 
reminder that marijuana cultivation is carried out in a criminal context. 
The report obtained by The Sun, which looked at every report of marijuana 
cultivation handled by police in B.C., found that 41 per cent of suspects 
identified in connection with grow-ops had a previous conviction for a 
violent offence.

We must get serious about treating these operations as the menace that they 
are.

That means first getting all of the actors -- the police, the courts and 
the politicians -- on the same page instead of squabbling about who is to 
blame for the current crisis.

The statistics show that police, despite the way they describe grow-ops, 
are not putting as much effort into shutting them down and punishing 
operators as they used to. This might be in part because of the way courts 
have dealt with the cases brought before them.

The number of cases resulting in prison sentences fell from 19 per cent to 
10 per cent between 1997 and 2003, while the number of conditional 
sentences increased threefold.

Carol Baird Ellan, the chief judge of the B.C. Provincial Court, said 
earlier this week that if police and politicians are unhappy with the 
sentences being handed down, they should change the law. Changes made to 
the Criminal Code in 1996 and later rulings by the Supreme Court of Canada 
dictate that imprisonment should be a last resort.

Her arguments put the ball back in Ottawa's court on the issue of whether 
the courts are too lenient. McLellan has said the feds are willing to 
consider stiffer sentences and there is little doubt there would be strong 
public support for such a move.
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MAP posted-by: Beth