PUT A LID ON IT

Pot Industry

Marijuana is illegal, but to criminals who profit from growing,
marketing and selling it the drug is a business.

As with any commercial enterprise, operators are always searching for
more efficient technology and new opportunities to "grow the business."

The result, as local OPP drug enforcement officers told Examiner
reporter Sarah Deeth, is that more marijuana operations are springing
up in Peterborough every year.

Good soil, close proximity to Toronto and large rural areas where few
people are likely to wander by an illegal drug field make this area
attractive. And the Asian gangs that now dominate the large-scale,
organized production and sale of marijuana across Canada and into the
U. S. have taken notice.

Those gangs are likely to be running the really big operations, like
a 10,000-plant farm near Apsley the OPP raided last fall.

They also often have a hand in smaller, home grow-ops where anywhere
from 100 to 300 plants are raised under artificial lights in
neighbourhood homes.

In the past four months, police have laid charges against the
operators of at least four grow-ops in Peterborough, Donwood, Curve
Lake and Campbellford.

Police are trying to keep up with the bad guys, but it's a struggle.

During the fall harvest season an OPP helicopter is normally
available here for a few days to scout out fields from the air.
Renting helicopters in the short-term would provide even better enforcement.

Police can also rely on help from Hydro One, the provincially-owned
utility that runs the electricity transmission network.

Hydro One's review of a discrepancy in the amount of power that was
being pulled into that grow-op in Donwood and the amount being billed
through its meter was a key factor in hunting out the operation.

Hydro One told police the meter had been bypassed and more than
$1,000 worth of electricity a year was being stolen. A raid on the
home on a quiet street just east of Peterborough found 300 plants.
Three people of Vietnamese nationality who were living there were charged.

Ontario has also given police some new weapons in the marijuana war.
Three years ago, legislation was introduced that upped the maximum
penalties for cultivation, allowed for the seizure of drug houses,
and required municipalities to do safety inspections on any building
used as a grow-up. If long-term use as an indoor farm has damaged the
structure or created serious mould problems -often the case -the
houses can be torn down.

There are people who say the answer is not to devote more resources
to controlling marijuana use, but to legalize it. That would take the
criminal element out of the equation, generate revenue from taxes on
legal marijuana, and reduce police and court costs.

However, it would also be a signal that smoking marijuana is
acceptable. Given the health costs, the increase in impaired driving
that would result and the impact on teenagers and young adults who
are already the heaviest users of marijuana, that would be the wrong
message to send.

The most recent Ontario studies have found marijuana use is already
at a 30-year peak among adults and very close to that mark for teens.
Adult use has climbed steadily from a low of eight per cent to a 2005
level of 14 per cent -and more than 38 per cent among the 18-29 age
group. Among students in Grades 7 to 12, the number who smoked at
least once in the previous year was 25.6 per cent in 2007, up from
9.9 per cent in 1991.

Society's response shouldn't be a collective shoulder shrug -or
simply legalization. Better police enforcement against organized
crime and ug awareness campaigns in high schools should be able to
get those numbers back down to the low point they hit 20 years ago.