Permits Required, Agricultural Location Needed People in Surrey who use or grow medical marijuana will soon have to obtain municipal permits and growers will have to relocate to an agricultural area. Surrey council endorsed a plan that would place restrictions on how and where medical marijuana is grown and stored in this city. Since 2003, people with certain medical conditions - such as glaucoma, spinal cord injury, pain or nausea from cancer or HIV and epileptic seizures - have been allowed to use marijuana for medicinal purposes. [continues 458 words]
It's round two for the federal Conservatives' goal of getting tough on pot growers. After having the Senate gut an earlier attempt at setting minimum sentences for growing marijuana, the Harper government will now try to push through Bill S-10, which features a mandatory six-month jail term for growing six pot plants. The Liberals, meanwhile, vow to block the bill, which critics say is heading in the opposite direction Canada has taken on the issue of marijuana over the past several years. [continues 215 words]
Surrey is watching closely as the District of Mission faces a class action lawsuit against the city for its grow-op fighting program. The Electrical Fire Safety Initiative (EFSI) was started in Surrey about five years ago and has been initiated in other municipalities including Mission, where it's called the Public Safety Inspection Team (PSIT). Surrey Fire Chief Len Garis is the architect of the program and said he's intrigued to see what happens when a group in Mission asks council to dismantle the program today (Monday). [continues 484 words]
The sample of home-made alcohol was warm and it burned with a blue flame when Jas Sandhu's father used a lighter to test it for purity. Back in the Punjab region of India, where Sandhu's father came from, the home-distilled booze called desi-sharab was also called daru, or medicine, by hard-working farmhands and labourers who used home-made or store-bought liquor to numb the aches and pains of hard physical work. The idea of drinking something you can light with a match was not appealing to the younger Sandhu, who never developed a taste for desi- sharab or any other liquor, for that matter. [continues 535 words]
Re: "Zapping grow-ops," Oct.15 Frank Bucholtz sings the praises of the Surrey fire chief thus: "His single-minded focus on the public safety aspect of grow-ops is a boon to law-abiding Surrey citizens, far too many of whom have been forced to put up with one or more grow-ops near their homes." Unfortunately, Mr Bucholtz neglected to mention that, as the well-intentioned crusade pushes the small-time, amateur growers out of the market, organized crime is handed an increased share of said market. [continues 57 words]
Almost six years after he was arrested for trying to smuggle 50 kilograms of cocaine into Canada through the Aldergrove border crossing, Ajitpal Singh Sekhon has been convicted. On Thursday afternoon, Surrey Provincial Court Judge Paul Dohm convicted the 34-year-old Sekhon on one count of importing a controlled substance and one count of possession for the purpose of trafficking. The guilty verdict marked an end to a drawn-out legal battle that began when another Surrey judge threw out the charges against Sekhon in a controversial 2007 ruling that would have required Canadian border guards to get a warrant before they searched any vehicles. [continues 200 words]
Crime is down in Surrey, and that's no anomaly. It's part of an ongoing trend in the community. This trend is particularly encouraging as the city continues to grow steadily. Surrey RCMP say the city's crime rate is at a 10-year low, and has been decreasing every year since 2003. Why is crime falling in Surrey? The answer is complex. One reason is the rapid pace of redevelopment. Older homes, which are often held for speculative purposes and rented to sketchy individuals, are being torn down at a faster rate and replaced by new subdivisions or townhouse developments. [continues 449 words]
Len Garis is no friend of marijuana growers. In fact, Surrey's fire chief has been a big thorn in their sides, with his aggressive initiative to shut down grow-ops through monitoring power usage. Now he's going to get a new tool in his arsenal - smart meters. BC Hydro is bringing in smart meters across the province, which will allow Hydro and homeowners to monitor power usage on a day-to-day basis. Municipalities will also have access to that information, and Garis plans to use it to give the Electrical Fire Safety Institute, a team of firefighters, police officers, inspectors and bylaw officers, even more up-to-date information on where marijuana is being grown in Surrey. [continues 401 words]
New BC Hydro technology will enable cities to shut down every illegal pot grow-op within their borders, according to Surrey's fire chief. The province has ordered the installation of "smart meters" in every home throughout B.C. The devices will show homeowners - and BC Hydro - - their power usage in real time. Under Bill 25, municipalities will also have access to that data. Surrey Fire Chief Len Garis says that will mean an end to grow-ops in this city and any other that chooses to use the data. [continues 305 words]
The rules are about to get a lot more stringent for people repairing their homes after a marijuana grow-op has been found. The city is strengthening its Controlled Substance Property Bylaw, placing more restrictions on how the homes are repaired. Often, houses with grow operations have unsafe wiring and suffer extensive moisture damage. Currently, when a home is identified as a former marijuana grow operation, a consultant is hired to decide if the building is safe. If not, the city takes away occupancy permits until it is made safe. [continues 177 words]
Surrey is watching closely as the City of Pitt Meadows prepares to ban people from growing medical marijuana in that municipality. Health Canada allows the medicinal use of marijuana for several conditions, including severe pain or muscle spasms from multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injury or disease, pain or nausea from cancer or HIV and seizures from epilepsy. Tonight (Tuesday), Pitt Meadows will hold a public hearing on a bylaw amendment that would ban the growing of marijuana for medical purposes. It would become the first city in Canada to disallow the federally sanctioned activity. [continues 267 words]
Surrey's crackdown on marijuana grow-ops hasn't slowed down a bit since the courts ruled that warrants are required before searches are conducted. Since its inception in 2004, Surrey's Electrical Fire and Safety Initiative (EFSI) has reduced the number of marijuana grow operations in this city from thousands to about 200. Under the system, municipal teams - including fire, bylaw officers and police - visit homes where BC Hydro reports higher-than-normal power consumption. The occupants get a warning notice that they have 72 hours to allow an inspection. Most of the time, grow operators have packed up and left by the time inspectors arrive. [continues 220 words]
Re: Driving stoned is not like being drunk (Letters, June 11). Dear Mr. Barth, while the first part of your argument has some validity, in that testing lacks a degree of equality, and that "positive" is a blanket result. Tests for blood alcohol is measured as percentage, and most other drugs are being measured in "trace" amounts. The fact remains that most of the drugs being tested for are illegal, therefore should not be in your system while in a position of responsibility, ie. driving, on the job, group representation. [continues 146 words]
Re: "Driving-while-stoned suspension unfair: Lawsuit," The Leader, May 28 The thing about this egregious law is that anyone who caught a whiff of second hand pot smoke three weeks or even two months ago could still show "positive" on a police test, just as poppy-seed bagel enthusiasts often test positive for opiates. Imagine getting popped for drunk driving five days after a sip of beer, and you see the kind of legal "stacked deck" that Canadian pot users are up against. [continues 194 words]
Surrey's fire chief has been named adjunct professor to the University of the Fraser Valley (UFV). Len Garis has worked closely with the university in the past on several studies, including marijuana grow operations in Surrey, and how likely homes are to burn. UFV criminology professor Darryl Plecas said that Garis is a great pick for adjunct professor. "We are thrilled to have Chief Garis join the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice as an adjunct professor," Plecas wrote. "The guy is a genius, his approach is consistently scientific and evidence-based, his initiatives are cutting edge, he is constantly coming up with fundamentally better ways of doing things, he's an outstanding teacher, our students love him, and he is a highly respected leader in the field of public safety. Needless to say, his contributions to public safety in Canada have been significant." [continues 83 words]
A 24-hour driving suspension for being impaired by marijuana is inherently unfair because there is no "dispute mechanism" to determine whether a driver actually is high, a lawyer for a Surrey man is arguing. A lawsuit filed in B.C. Supreme Court on behalf of Sukhpal Singh Johal says a Surrey RCMP officer was wrong to suspend Johal's licence after Johal rolled his car on March 22 on 64 Avenue near 168 Street. Around 3:45 a.m. Johal flipped his vehicle onto its roof when he clipped a stationary flatbed truck. [continues 179 words]
Would you like to know how to end all of the problems associated with indoor marijuana grow operations, both legal and illegal? End pot prohibition. Most folks would grow their cannabis outdoors during the summer months because it would cost next to nothing - no lights, fans, etc. There would be no risk of electrical fires, and no mold issues. This should please the fire chiefs. And because anyone can grow it, you would put the lucrative drug trade out of business. Less violence with competing organized crime groups will mean that our streets would be safer. This should please the police. [continues 56 words]
B.C.'s highest court has struck down Surrey's grow op program, saying that it infringes the right to unreasonable search and seizure. Surrey' Fire Chief Len Garis said it will add some time to the process in order to obtain an administrative warrant, but the program will continue. Surrey embarked on the Electrical Fire and Safety Initiative in 2004, and has dramatically decreased the number of marijuana grow operations in this city. Under the system, municipal teams - including fire, bylaws and police - - visit homes where BC Hydro reports higher-than-normal power consumption. [continues 320 words]
The federal government is currently reviewing its options regarding access to medical marijuana. At least one of the items the government is examining is public safety, which is welcome news to local officials. Health Canada allows the medicinal use of marijuana for several conditions, including severe pain or muscle spasms from multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injury or disease, pain or nausea from cancer or HIV and seizures from epilepsy. Federally licensed medical marijuana grows have been a problem, according to Surrey Chief Len Garis, who takes issue with the fact many of them are electrically unsafe. [continues 408 words]
Re: "Surrey grow-op tactics not for us," The Leader, May 7. Criminologist Daryl Plecas has been a paid shill for the RCMP. Any "study" he conducts should be taken with a grain of salt. That aside, of course any decrease in cannabis production in Surrey is compensated for elsewhere - that is basic supply and demand. Our only real choice about cannabis is whether we want it grown and sold by licensed farmers and storekeeper or whether we want to leave it as is. I choose regulation over black markets. Kirk Tousaw, Executive Director Beyond Prohibition Foundation [end]
Among the stated goals are making Delta a "drug-free community" through a combination of public education and get-tough policing. But that "drug-free community" won't include drugs like Red Bull, booze, smokes, and all the other things that kill many times more Canadians each year than all illegal drugs combined. "Drug free" means the drugs that have been arbitrarily criminalized. Ending prohibition is the only way to reduce the hassles caused by prohibition. Your town is ruled by nincompoops. Take it back from them. Russell Barth, Nepean,Ontario Federally Licensed Medical Marijuana User, Drug Reform Analyst and Consultant, Educators for Sensible Drug Policy [end]
Surrey's use of firefighters and municipal bylaw department officers to fight marijuana grow operations has been given a thumbs-down review by a senior member of the Delta Police Department. Deputy Police Chief Rich Drinovz said the municipality looked at the Surrey approach and decided against adopting it because it doesn't solve the problem, but only "displaces" it to other communities. Drinovz told the Delta Police Board's regular Wednesday meeting that placing warning notices on the doors of suspected pot grow-ops, as Surrey does, doesn't result in arrests. [continues 270 words]
They call themselves the Empire Gang, and they are the next up-and-coming criminal gang in the Lower Mainland, one that is expanding from its base in Langley into Aldergrove, Surrey, Abbotsford, Vancouver, White Rock and Delta. Supt. Dan Malo, head of B.C.'s Integrated Gang Task Force, called the new group "the next Red Scorpions" during a speech to the Greater Langley Chamber of Commerce. Members identify themselves through tattoos, including the word Empire, scrawled across the insides of their wrists, Malo said. [continues 228 words]
Re: "How many legal pot grow-ops are in Surrey?", The Leader, March 19. The police, fire officials, government and even now the "impartial" media are all portraying medical marijuana growers as criminals who are getting away with something evil and dangerous, when the actual fact of the matter is, it is just a bunch of sick people trying to get by. And as a medical user who is married to one, I am getting tired of this grow-opaganda. But it seems the Gladys Kravitzes of the world cannot stop persecuting medical marijuana people, and go so far as to make broad and unfounded accusations. [continues 103 words]
How would anyone like their personal medical records along with drugs prescribed to be public information? Health Canada encourages medical marijuana for many conditions where it performs often better than prescription pharmacuticals. U.S. President Barack Obama, when visiting his dying grandmother in Hawaii, stated that he observed elderly patientss using both marijuana and opiate painkillers and he couldn't tell the difference. Locally, if fires are a real risk, why doesn't the city offer free inspections without judgement to rectify electrical problems and prevent possible fires? [continues 83 words]
Re: "How many legal pot grow-ops are in Surrey?" According to Surrey Fire Chief Len Garis, "They're not regulated, they're not permitted, there's no safety inspections - there's no difference (in the structure) between a legal and illegal grow. That's the bottom line." As a legal producer and user of medicinal cannabis, I am completely outraged by the statements made by Mr. Garis. There is a difference between a legal and illegal cannabis production. We, who are legal, are fighting to save our lives with this precious medicine. [continues 155 words]
A beating death in Seattle, a grow rip in Chilliwack, and at least nine homes in Surrey 24 times more likely to catch fire are putting the heat on federally licensed growers of marijuana. Surrey Fire Chief Len Garis first raised the alarm with city council last year, telling local elected officials the federal government won't release the locations of what he believes are dangerous dwellings. Surrey's Electrical Fire Safety Initiative (EFSI), the city's grow-op detection team, has found nine medically licensed marijuana home plantations in the city. Four had to be shut down permanently because of serious electrical safety problems and the remainder were temporarily closed while electrical issues were fixed. [continues 319 words]
Dear pot grow-op owners: Venting your grows while I'm out running stinks and pollutes the air I breathe. This is an epidemic of which the provincial and municipal governments are being negligent in the fight against organized crime. I'm a runner and I run in my community 30-50 kilometres a week, and during most runs I come across five or more grow-ops venting. This interferes with my right to breath in fresh air and compromises my health and well-being. [continues 113 words]
Re: Rahim Jaffer. The Conservatives preach a zero-tolerance policy to drug use and plan to impose mandatory jail time for people who grow even one marijuana plant in a rented dwelling, but when the husband of an MP gets caught drunk driving and in possession of cocaine, he gets to plead down to "reckless driving." One can only assume that Jaffer got some help from his friends in very high places. One law for them, another law for the "little people." Maybe now more Canadians will realize what a bunch of brazen hypocrites these so-called "conservatives" really are. Russell Barth, Educators for Sensible Drug Policy [end]
A 70-year-old Surrey man learned this week he will spend two years in a U.S. prison for his role in trying to smuggle ecstasy pills through the Pacific Highway border. Judge Thomas Zilly told Amar Kumar Dutt the sentence for his conspiracy to distribute ecstasy charge was light only because of the senior's advanced age and health problems. "If you were 25 years old this is not the sentence I would give you," Zilly said in a Jan. 14 statement from the U.S. attorney's office in Seattle. [continues 201 words]
Have you seen the new not4me anti-marijuana ads from the Harper government (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NZGPVBCrjY)? A kid of about 13 wanders through a house party. He goes outside where there is a quartet of pot smokers who offer him a joint. He thinks for a moment, then there are all these quick flashes of him with pills, hiding stuff under his bed, getting into fights with his family, falling asleep in class, and getting busted at school. [continues 187 words]
A house that concealed an indoor marijuana growing operation has been seized by the Surrey RCMP. The $615,000 home in the 16000 block of 85B Avenue belonged to Trong Hieu Vu, who was convicted of production of a controlled substance, possession of same for the purpose of trafficking, and fraudulently consuming electricity. Police raided the house on November 16, 2008 and found what was described as a sizeable marijuana grow operation in the basement. A judge ordered the full full forfeiture of the residence last Friday. [continues 73 words]
Re: UBCM rejects tighter leash on medical marijuana users Kudos to the UBCM for rejecting Surrey's privacy-invading and unnecessary request that Health Canada provide them with lists of licensed medical cannabis users. Surrey, long a leader in cannabis hysteria, has no business snooping into the private health data of its residents. And its justification for that invasion doesn't pass muster. How on earth does having a list of legal medicinal growers help a city chase out illegal growers? It makes no sense at all. [continues 205 words]
Newton residents are readying for battle as a huge recovery home project heads to public hearing on Monday. Liz Walker, and many others, were handing out pamphlets on Wednesday, encouraging locals to appear at city hall's regular council meeting Oct. 5. At issue is Welcome Home, a 72-unit private facility for drug and alcohol recovery, planned for 6925 King George Highway. The first phase, being considered Monday, is a 36-unit facility, which is expected to eventually double in size. [continues 281 words]
The City of Surrey and RCMP lined a Whalley social service building with chicken dung to keep homeless and vagrants away, The Leader has learned. On Aug. 14, witnesses saw City of Surrey staff pull up to the Front Room Drop In Centre in the 10600-block of 135A Street and line the building with putrid poultry manure. The desired effect was to create a smell so repugnant that it would repel vagrants who were hanging out around the building. Keith Smith was touring the drop in centre and surrounding services on Thursday as part of his schooling in drug and alcohol rehabilitation. [continues 512 words]
Re: Delta Police shutting down grow-ops. The people happiest about this bust are the 90-95 per cent of growers who will never be caught. Think about that: If the police busted twice as many grows every year, they would still only get about 20 per cent of them. Probably less. And every time they bust one grow - indoor, outdoor, small, or big - all they do is make the ones they don't catch that much more valuable. Not only is the illegality of pot the very thing that makes growing it so lucrative, the police are subsidizing the entire industry by busting a minority of them. [continues 136 words]
A new report has confirmed what local officials have said for some time: Surrey's novel approach to battling marijuana grow operations is working. In 2004, Surrey started the Electrical Fire Safety Initiative (EFSI), where municipal teams including fire, bylaws and police attend homes that BC Hydro has reported as showing high power consumption - which is a signature of a grow operation. The owners are given 72 hours to allow inspection, however, most of the time, grow operators have packed up and left by the time inspectors arrive. [continues 100 words]
A Surrey home seized for being a grow operation will remain in court hands even though a similar landmark case in North Vancouver has been overturned. In 2003, Surrey police raided the home of 51-year-old Kien Tam Nguyen and 45-year-old Nga Thuy Nguyen and found a marijuana grow operation. While only their daughter was living there and there was no connection to organized crime, the home (worth about $375,000 at the time) was seized through civil forfeiture. [continues 161 words]
There is a middle ground between drug prohibition and blanket legalization. Switzerland's heroin maintenance program has been shown to reduce disease, death and crime among chronic users. The success of the Swiss program has inspired heroin maintenance pilot projects in Canada, Germany, Spain, Denmark and the Netherlands. If expanded, prescription heroin maintenance would deprive organized crime of a core client base. This would render illegal heroin trafficking unprofitable and spare future generations from addiction. Marijuana should be taxed and regulated like alcohol, only without the ubiquitous advertising. Separating the hard and soft drug markets is critical. As long as marijuana distribution is controlled by organized crime, consumers of the most popular illicit drug will continue to come into contact with sellers of addictive drugs. [continues 113 words]
Kurt Langmann (The Leader, May 20) has some good ideas about the need for enhanced community involvement and mentoring of young people. But he's wrong that legalizing marijuana in Canada won't take the profit out of the marijuana industry in B.C. And he's wrong to suggest that the U.S. is highly unlikely to legalize marijuana. In fact, I suspect that marijuana will be legalized in various U.S. states before we have the courage to do it here. It is already legal to possess marijuana (and grow it) in your home in Alaska. Legalization is being debated in California and Massachusetts at the state government level and enjoys majority public support in both states. Legalization barely missed becoming law in Nevada in the last two election cycles. [continues 173 words]
If you were wondering just how out of touch with the electorate and reality Mr. Harper and the Conservatives are just look at what they plan to do with the drug laws: less harm reduction and harsher sentences for marijuana users. It looks like half the people I know will be in jail and not providing for their families. I don't even smoke it myself and I know that many. Mr. Harper and his band of elitists' crackdown on marijuana users is, according to justice minister Rob Nicholson, despite being unable to supply evidence that similar policies in other countries reduced drug crimes. [continues 140 words]
A recent opinion poll shows that the Metro Vancouver public is generally supportive of a series of proposed justice reforms to curb gang activity and that "nearly two-thirds also back the legalization of marijuana" as a means of taking the profit out of the drug trade that fuels much of the recent gangland shootings. While there is a good argument in favour of these measures it should be noted that none of them are a panacea to the crime wave that's plaguing the region. [continues 604 words]
Re: Surrey fire chief saying that medical pot poses a fire risk. Out of the thousands of illegal grow ops in the country, how many have actually caught fire in the past year? Two? Three? Out of the hundreds of legal medical grows in the country, how many have actually caught fire over the past 10 years? One? Zero? I would guess zero, because if even one of these federally licensed grows had caught fire, it would have been front page news across the country as the police and firefighters shouted it from the rooftops. [continues 54 words]
Give cities and police the tools and legislation they need to hammer down the growing marijuana trade, Mayor Dianne Watts was expected to tell a powerful federal justice committee Thursday night. A team of five were to appear before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights in Vancouver in order to address this region's problem with pot grow operations. Watts was joined by City of Langley Mayor Peter Fassbender, Surrey Fire Chief Len Garis, RCMP Supt. Janice Armstrong and criminologist Dr. Darryl Plecas. [continues 388 words]
Federally authorized marijuana grow operations are posing a substantial increase of fire risk, according to Surrey's fire chief. Over the past three years, Surrey's new Electrical Fire Safety Initiative has shut down power to hundreds of grow operations in this city. Among the grow operations found, there were eight that were federally sanctioned for medical purposes. Four had to be shut down immediately due to increased risk of fire. The other four had to undergo significant electrical upgrades to keep operating. [continues 350 words]
The decriminalization of marijuana is a no-brainer. There is no question that the war on drugs has been a total failure and a total waste of taxpayer money. We have wasted trillions of dollars trying to enforce a flawed ideal. We see the end results in the papers and on the news every day, gangsters shooting each other to get control of the outrageous profits from illegal drugs, we are also ruining other countries with our irrational behaviour. The champions of continuing this insanity will tell you that the policy isn't bad, we just haven't enforced it severely enough. [continues 103 words]
Arrests in the Surrey Six slayings are a high-profile coup for police but may do little to slow ongoing Lower Mainland gang violence or the underlying drug trade. That's the forecast from SFU gangs expert Rob Gordon. "If people think that this is in some way going to affect organized crime operations in this province then they're sadly mistaken," he said. "It is by no means over." Gordon, director of the university's school of criminology, said there's still "colossal demand" for illicit drugs that fuel gangs. [continues 307 words]
The weather-beaten one-storey house with the faded blue siding and security cameras was located near two Surrey schools - a few blocks from Sullivan Heights Secondary and right beside Cambridge Elementary. Some students were suspicious. In early March, they told school authorities, who alerted the school liaison officer, who called in the drug squad. During their very first day of surveillance, drug squad officers could see the windows and door of the ramshackle house at 14953 60 Ave. had been reinforced. [continues 321 words]
Re: "Surrey says no to drug paraphernalia." Since the "drug paraphernalia" can also be medical assistance devices for medical marijuana users, Surrey council is basically banning medical assistance devices. They should prepare for some human rights complaints. Russell Barth Federally licensed medical marijuana user Patients Against Ignorance and Discrimination on Cannabis (PAIDOC) - www.paidoc.org [end]
Drug paraphernalia will be banned from display or sale in all Surrey stores. Responding from a number of public complaints, Surrey council voted Monday to restrict the sale of all items related to illicit drug use. Some of those would include pipes used for crack cocaine, roach clips for marijuana joints, and even aerosol spray containers with false bottoms to hide drugs. "It's unfortunate that stores that sell candy to young people have openly displayed drug paraphernalia," said Coun. Barinder Rasode. "So we're upping the ante." She describes the proposed legislation as incomplete, but notes the city wanted something on the books right away. Final reading on the law is expected in the coming weeks. [end]
