Pubdate: Sat, 02 Jul 2011
Source: Winnipeg Free Press (CN MB)
Copyright: 2011 Winnipeg Free Press
Contact: http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/send_a_letter
Website: http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/502
Author: Dean Beeby, Canadian Press

DRUG COPS CUT TEETH ON OTTAWA 'GROW-OP'

OTTAWA -- An upscale neighbourhood on Ottawa's east side -- home to 
prime ministers, high-tech titans and diplomats -- is also the 
location of Canada's most-raided marijuana grow-op.

The seedy operation in a two-storey brick duplex, nestled among the 
broad lawns and tony homes of Rockcliffe Park and Manor Park, is 
well-known to drug cops across the country.

That's because many of them have trained here, at the RCMP-run 
Canadian Police College, which uses a fake residence to teach 
officers how to safely raid grow-ops and clandestine drug labs while 
making arrests and preserving evidence.

This so-called "scenario house," also known as "Building G" on the 
college campus, is crawling with police on a summer morning. Many are 
shrouded head-to-toe in white suits, respirators and masks for 
protection against unpronounceable chemicals and toxic gases.

"Make sure you carry the (chemical) barrels away from your body," a 
Health Canada chemist warns a pair of suited-up officers, who are 
being trained to remove hazardous chemicals from an illegal crystal-meth lab.

"You can get abrasions on your suit and acids or strong bases can get through."

The female chemist-trainer, like almost all the participants in this 
exercise, insist their names and pictures be withheld because they 
often participate in undercover drug stings.

There's little danger of injury in this strange classroom. No real 
chemicals are stored in the kitchen-like lab, although all of the 
equipment -- from cookers and distilling tubes to mixers and 
pill-pressers -- are genuine, seized from actual labs as evidence and 
no longer required in court.

Next door, an elaborate grow-op also features a full set of genuine 
equipment, from hot lamps and carbon-dioxide emitters to ozone machines.

But the small marijuana cuttings in one room and the mature plants 
under the lights in two other rooms are quite unsmokable: they're 
plastic look-alikes, supplied by an American firm.

RCMP Sgt. Norm Leger, who's in charge of the college's three-week 
drug course, points out some hazards raiding officers face inside 
grow-ops. Hot lamps can drive indoor temperatures to above 40 C, but 
it's dangerous to open windows because condensation from cool outside 
air can make the bulbs explode.

Carbon-dioxide producing devices can malfunction and fill a room with 
deadly carbon-monoxide, Leger says. And dangerous electrical charges 
can linger in devices up to 30 minutes after the power supply has been cut.

And then there are the booby traps -- tripwire guns, fish hooks 
embedded in railings or electrified doors. "We still encounter them 
quite a bit," he says.

The two-week "clan-lab" course is advanced training, after the basic 
drug course has exposed students to the full investigative process, 
which includes how to safely raid grow-ops.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom