Pubdate: Fri, 20 Aug 2010
Source: Victoria Times-Colonist (CN BC)
Copyright: 2010 Times Colonist
Contact: http://www2.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/letters.html
Website: http://www.timescolonist.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/481
Author: Douglas Quan, Postmedia News
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada)

POT GROWERS GO TO GREAT LENGTHS TO PROTECT THEIR ILLICIT PRODUCT

The recent discovery of several wild bears near a marijuana 
grow-operation in British Columbia is just one of many examples of 
the extraordinary lengths people will sometimes go to protect their 
pot, police across the country say.

While no one yesterday could recall another instance involving bears, 
there was a case several years ago involving a crocodile. In 2003, 
drug officers raided a home in Scarborough, Ont., and found 164 
plants growing around a concrete-lined oval pond in the basement.

It turned out a two-metre-long croc was swimming in the pond's murky water.

Police discovered tanks of fish and six cages of rats -- apparently 
food for the scaly reptile.

Pot-farm caretakers not inclined to use wild animals or armed guards 
have been known to devise elaborate booby traps designed to thwart 
police and ward off pot-plant thieves.

"Some of these setups are done to a professional level," said Sgt. 
Chan Dara, national co-ordinator of the RCMP's marijuana-enforcement program.

Investigators, he said, have come across trip wires rigged to fire 
rifles or shotguns, even door knobs designed to give intruders an 
electric jolt.

Det. Sgt. Mark Dennis of the Ontario Provincial Police 
drug-enforcement unit said some outdoor grow-operations are 
surrounded by fishing lines with sharp hooks designed to catch you in 
the face or wooden boards on the ground with nails protruding from them.

Just last year, an officer got caught in a bear trap. While he wasn't 
seriously hurt, he had to be carried away by fellow officers, Dennis said.

Criminals will also go to great lengths to conceal their grow-ops.

Dennis said investigators once discovered a grow-op located 
underneath the detached garage of a residence. The entrance to the 
basement was concealed by a fake staircase that lifted up 
hydraulically with the flip of a toggle switch.

In Chilliwack last year, RCMP discovered an underground bunker with 
more than 11,000 pot plants. A Quonset hut was built atop the bunker 
to give "the illusion of a legitimate out building on the property," 
police said.

The bunker was also equipped with booby traps rigged to shoot bear spray.

And in Surrey last year, police discovered a residential basement 
grow-op located behind an industrial-quality door. The door was 
hidden behind a bookshelf that opened partially on a hinge "much like 
one typically associated with an old English manor house," police said.

But none of these cases has garnered as much attention as the case of 
the pot-protecting bears.

RCMP announced this week that officers dismantling an outdoor grow-op 
in the Christina Lake area were confronted by 10 docile black bears.

Police said it appeared to them that residents had fed the bears to 
encourage them to keep coming back to the property to essentially 
serve as guards for the plants.

"Absurd and surreal," RCMP Cpl. Dan Moskaluk said yesterday.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom