GROW-OP IMPACT

Editor:

Re: Hyperbole not needed with crime, TIMES, June 10

I was sincerely disappointed to read your editorial regarding
marijuana grow ops in our communities. Unfortunately your writer
focused solely on the effect the Crime Reduction Unit was having in
reducing the number of these operations and not on the effect the
grow ops have on our communities. Based on your assumptions and
conclusions do you not also wonder why we waste our time and effort
taking drunk drivers off the road?

As a leader in our community, I speak to people who have grow ops in
their neighbourhoods. They tell me that their children are no longer
allowed to go out to play. They wonder if there are guns in those
houses. They tell me of cameras pointed at their house, of strange
cars coming down their street late at night and feelings that they no
longer live in a safe community. Our citizens deserve better from that.

This is about so much more than marijuana. This is about drugs of all
kinds; it's about guns, stolen vehicles, robberies, drive by
shootings and B&Es. Most of all it's about our communities, our
children and their need to not only be safe but to feel safe.

I also want to recognize the work that the RCMP's Crime Reduction
Unit is doing. As professionals they will not admit their
frustrations to me, but I can well imagine how they must feel as they
stand by the revolving door of our justice system and arrest the same
bad guys over and over and over. I also believe it speaks volumes
when the people in our neighbourhoods stand on the sidewalk and
applaud the police when they take down one of the grow ops on their
street, their appreciation is truly "profound."

Will these busts have a "profound" effect on crime? I don't know.

I do know, however, that doing nothing is no longer an option in our community.

Mayor Don MacLean City of Pitt Meadows

Editor's note: The TIMES appreciates Mayor MacLean's passion about
getting rid of grow ops. We share that passion and would love to see
nothing more than the eradication of these operations. But we would
just like to reaffirm that we do not advocate doing "nothing" about
them. If the editorial came across that way, that's our fault. The
point we were trying to make was about exaggerating the impact a
couple of busts were having and the police drawing conclusions based
more on hope than facts.