Pubdate: Fri, 24 Jul 2009
Source: DrugSense Weekly (DSW)
Website: http://www.drugsense.org

LETTER OF THE WEEK

LARGE RANGE OF ERROR WITH GROW-OP INSPECTIONS

By Kirk Tousaw

Editor:

Your article on the Richmond grow-op bylaw program contained some 
interesting facts and assertions.  I found it particularly telling 
that 89 per cent of the grow-op inspections in 2008 revealed no 
evidence of grow-ops.  That's a pretty large range of error if the 
point of the inspections is to find grows.

Of 54 houses searched, 48 homeowners were totally innocent of 
wrongdoing yet suffered the indignity, hassle and stigmatization 
associated with a search of their private residences. And this is a 
program the city wants to revive?

The assertion that I found most interesting was that the city 
considered this program a success. The evidence of success appears to 
be a decline in the number of high-power-using homes which is assumed 
to mean a decline in the number of grows. The alternative 
explanation, and the more likely one, is that growers have gone back 
to stealing power to avoid detection. Stealing power, by the way, is 
the most dangerous part of indoor growing. I find it ironic that the 
city's "safety oriented" program is actually driving people into less 
safe practices.

The bottom line is that getting rid of residential grow-ops is only 
going to happen when we come to our senses, legalize and regulate the 
marijuana industry and put the growing into the hands of farmers and 
legitimate businesses rather than black-market cultivators.

Kirk Tousaw

Vancouver

Pubdate: Sat, 18 Jul 2009

Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n714/a06.html

Source: Richmond Review, The (CN BC) 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake