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Regardless of where you live in this country, police say there's almost certainly a marijuana grow operation close by.
The proliferation of grow-ops, where operators grow pot that is expensive, in high demand and powerful - with high levels of tetrahydrocannibinol - brings dangers for citizens as well as for police officers. Most grow-ops are set up indoors and their creativity apparently knows no bounds, as evidenced by a huge operation found a year ago in an abandoned brewery near Barrie, Ont., and a string of huge cargo ship containers buried in the B.C. Interior.
"It's like trying to drink water out of a fire hose is what it feels like some days," RCMP Insp. Paul Nadeau of B.C.'s marijuana enforcement team said Friday of the frustration of trying to stem the tide.
"The big majority are indoors and they are in your neighbourhood."
The production of marijuana has come under greater scrutiny after four Mounties were killed during a raid on a grow-op in Alberta on Thursday.
In B.C., where grow-ops seems to reign in terms of numbers but are being challenged by Ontario and Quebec, police agencies receive about 4,500 grow-op reports a year.
"We've processed (busted) about 1,500 a year in B.C. for a number of years and we don't have the capacity to go beyond that so we bust the biggest and the best," said Nadeau. "We can't keep up."
The billions of dollars available to growers mean they can and will go to extreme lengths to produce their crops.
Most Canadians were stunned by the brashness of growers who police discovered about a year ago had taken over an abandoned brewery near Barrie and were cultivating thousands of plants.
Only a week ago, tenants of a townhouse development in the Vancouver suburb of Coquitlam were surprised after an RCMP bust uncovered as many as 28 pot-growing operations in the modest complex.
"We've had seagoing containers buried underground, basically building underground bunkers near Clearwater (B.C.), " said Nadeau.
"There were 20 of them buried and interconnected with five industrial-size ventilation systems to circulate air."
Several months ago, RCMP in the B.C. Interior conducted another raid - basically on the entire community.
"It's kind of like the wild West," said Nadeau.
There were as many as 20 grow-ops "in a town of about 50 people. It seemed as if a good portion of the town was involved in criminal activity," he said.
"We've had them go into neighbourhoods and buy multiple residences and have one person go from residence to residence to look after the crops. We get them in farms."
Staff Sgt. Birnie Smith, the Calgary RCMP drug section commander, recalled some people who built a large bunker beneath their quonset near Red Deer "and it had muffled generators."
Another grow operator near Red Deer went to the trouble of burying two semi-trailer units.
"These guys are quite ingenious in their methods of hiding them," said Smith.
He also recalled a new house that was built with cedar shakes and red bricks to look "like a nice little bungalow."
"Inside there were no interior walls and the whole upstairs and downstairs were full of marijuana plants. It was like a movie set of a house."
Darryl Plecas, a professor at the University College of Fraser Valley in Chilliwack and a co-author of a study of grow-ops, said the problem originated in B.C. but has spread across the country.
"B.C. is clearly the leader by some distance with three times as many grows in B.C. as in any other province," he said.
The average grow-op contains about 200 plants, says the study, and the reason for their abundance is pretty obvious.
"The essential thing to know about grows is that they are an outrageously profitable criminal enterprises, coupled with outrageously low sentencing," said Plecas. "There's virtually no consequence."
The biggest market is the U.S.
"You don't have to know very much about it to know that the volume produced in Canada exceeds the amount that could be used if every single Canadian was smoking every day," he added.
The study conservatively placed the price of a kilogram of pot at $3,000 but most people use the figure of $5,000 to $6,000 a kilo, said Plecas.
"We're talking billions of dollars."
Grow-ops can also be dangerous.
Criminologist Neil Boyd of Simon Fraser University said that in the extreme, "you can have people sitting armed with guns or who have booby-trapped their plantations."
"So an innocent bystander could come across the grow-op and be injured or killed."
About a year ago, some police agencies in Ontario, along with fire, insurance and government officials, convened a Green Tide Summit to discuss the growing dangers of grow-ops.
Richard Dubin, vice president of investigations for the Insurance Bureau of Canada outlined some of the dangers posed by the operations.
"Some of these places are booby-trapped," he said on Friday. "Some places have explosives set up and one we heard of had a shotgun pointed at the entrance."
The bureau has been trying to persuade police agencies to give the addresses of grow-ops to local insurance companies to avoid future problems that arise when a new homeowner unwittingly buys a former grow-op, he said.
If a potential homeowner knows that a house was once a grow-op, Dubin said a purchaser wouldn't likely buy it.
There are some companies that include exemptions in their home coverage that make home insurance null and void if a new homeowner discovers the house was once a grow-op.
Renovations to grow-op houses average about $50,000 and occur because of mould that must be removed. Some places have the plumbing completely re-arranged for the hydroponic setup.
Smith said that police in Calgary now bust grow-ops in the company of health officials.
"They are condemning almost all the houses as unfit for human habitation because of the mould."
The pot operations also require huge amounts of electricity, which can bring unexpected fires and electrocution.
"Power companies tell us that some of these grow-ops energize the ground in the area of the supply and under the right conditions someone could get electrocuted just by walking by there," said Smith.
In B.C., the major drug problems used to be heroin and cocaine and, more recently, crystal meth. But they pale in comparison to the grow-op problem.
"This is the biggest issue facing law enforcement in this province, period," said Nadeau. "Nothing comes close to this and it's likely the same for the other provinces, especially Quebec and Ontario."
Source: Yahoo! News Canada
Copyright: 2005 Canadian Press
Contact: mailto:ca-full-coverage@yahoo-inc.com?subject=Comment
Website: Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines
The proliferation of grow-ops, where operators grow pot that is expensive, in high demand and powerful - with high levels of tetrahydrocannibinol - brings dangers for citizens as well as for police officers. Most grow-ops are set up indoors and their creativity apparently knows no bounds, as evidenced by a huge operation found a year ago in an abandoned brewery near Barrie, Ont., and a string of huge cargo ship containers buried in the B.C. Interior.
"It's like trying to drink water out of a fire hose is what it feels like some days," RCMP Insp. Paul Nadeau of B.C.'s marijuana enforcement team said Friday of the frustration of trying to stem the tide.
"The big majority are indoors and they are in your neighbourhood."
The production of marijuana has come under greater scrutiny after four Mounties were killed during a raid on a grow-op in Alberta on Thursday.
In B.C., where grow-ops seems to reign in terms of numbers but are being challenged by Ontario and Quebec, police agencies receive about 4,500 grow-op reports a year.
"We've processed (busted) about 1,500 a year in B.C. for a number of years and we don't have the capacity to go beyond that so we bust the biggest and the best," said Nadeau. "We can't keep up."
The billions of dollars available to growers mean they can and will go to extreme lengths to produce their crops.
Most Canadians were stunned by the brashness of growers who police discovered about a year ago had taken over an abandoned brewery near Barrie and were cultivating thousands of plants.
Only a week ago, tenants of a townhouse development in the Vancouver suburb of Coquitlam were surprised after an RCMP bust uncovered as many as 28 pot-growing operations in the modest complex.
"We've had seagoing containers buried underground, basically building underground bunkers near Clearwater (B.C.), " said Nadeau.
"There were 20 of them buried and interconnected with five industrial-size ventilation systems to circulate air."
Several months ago, RCMP in the B.C. Interior conducted another raid - basically on the entire community.
"It's kind of like the wild West," said Nadeau.
There were as many as 20 grow-ops "in a town of about 50 people. It seemed as if a good portion of the town was involved in criminal activity," he said.
"We've had them go into neighbourhoods and buy multiple residences and have one person go from residence to residence to look after the crops. We get them in farms."
Staff Sgt. Birnie Smith, the Calgary RCMP drug section commander, recalled some people who built a large bunker beneath their quonset near Red Deer "and it had muffled generators."
Another grow operator near Red Deer went to the trouble of burying two semi-trailer units.
"These guys are quite ingenious in their methods of hiding them," said Smith.
He also recalled a new house that was built with cedar shakes and red bricks to look "like a nice little bungalow."
"Inside there were no interior walls and the whole upstairs and downstairs were full of marijuana plants. It was like a movie set of a house."
Darryl Plecas, a professor at the University College of Fraser Valley in Chilliwack and a co-author of a study of grow-ops, said the problem originated in B.C. but has spread across the country.
"B.C. is clearly the leader by some distance with three times as many grows in B.C. as in any other province," he said.
The average grow-op contains about 200 plants, says the study, and the reason for their abundance is pretty obvious.
"The essential thing to know about grows is that they are an outrageously profitable criminal enterprises, coupled with outrageously low sentencing," said Plecas. "There's virtually no consequence."
The biggest market is the U.S.
"You don't have to know very much about it to know that the volume produced in Canada exceeds the amount that could be used if every single Canadian was smoking every day," he added.
The study conservatively placed the price of a kilogram of pot at $3,000 but most people use the figure of $5,000 to $6,000 a kilo, said Plecas.
"We're talking billions of dollars."
Grow-ops can also be dangerous.
Criminologist Neil Boyd of Simon Fraser University said that in the extreme, "you can have people sitting armed with guns or who have booby-trapped their plantations."
"So an innocent bystander could come across the grow-op and be injured or killed."
About a year ago, some police agencies in Ontario, along with fire, insurance and government officials, convened a Green Tide Summit to discuss the growing dangers of grow-ops.
Richard Dubin, vice president of investigations for the Insurance Bureau of Canada outlined some of the dangers posed by the operations.
"Some of these places are booby-trapped," he said on Friday. "Some places have explosives set up and one we heard of had a shotgun pointed at the entrance."
The bureau has been trying to persuade police agencies to give the addresses of grow-ops to local insurance companies to avoid future problems that arise when a new homeowner unwittingly buys a former grow-op, he said.
If a potential homeowner knows that a house was once a grow-op, Dubin said a purchaser wouldn't likely buy it.
There are some companies that include exemptions in their home coverage that make home insurance null and void if a new homeowner discovers the house was once a grow-op.
Renovations to grow-op houses average about $50,000 and occur because of mould that must be removed. Some places have the plumbing completely re-arranged for the hydroponic setup.
Smith said that police in Calgary now bust grow-ops in the company of health officials.
"They are condemning almost all the houses as unfit for human habitation because of the mould."
The pot operations also require huge amounts of electricity, which can bring unexpected fires and electrocution.
"Power companies tell us that some of these grow-ops energize the ground in the area of the supply and under the right conditions someone could get electrocuted just by walking by there," said Smith.
In B.C., the major drug problems used to be heroin and cocaine and, more recently, crystal meth. But they pale in comparison to the grow-op problem.
"This is the biggest issue facing law enforcement in this province, period," said Nadeau. "Nothing comes close to this and it's likely the same for the other provinces, especially Quebec and Ontario."
Source: Yahoo! News Canada
Copyright: 2005 Canadian Press
Contact: mailto:ca-full-coverage@yahoo-inc.com?subject=Comment
Website: Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines
