A GROWING PROBLEM IN THE FRASER VALLEY

News that Abbotsford might be the Lower Mainland's most grow-op
infested city broke this week.

It's completely incongruous with our status as a Bible Belt community,
but Abbotsford is apparently belting back a suspicious amount of
energy used to power these operations. Langley Township and Chilliwack
are not far behind.

What's interesting is that these Valley communities apparently offer
fertile soil for pot producers. On a per capita basis they have
roughly three times the number of grow-ops that Vancouver does and
twice the number of oft-maligned Surrey.

Agricultural communities indeed.

The data comes from BC Hydro records which show homes using abnormally
high volumes of electricity. Under new legislation municipalities can
ask for a list of addresses using suspiciously high amounts of
electricity. So far only six municipalities have done so -- the five
mentioned above and Pitt Meadows.

With Abbotsford city hall taking this issue seriously, it is no
surprise that ours is one of the few municipalities to request the
information. The addresses will no doubt be useful to the Public
Safety Inspection Team, which can shut off the water and issue
non-occupancy orders on properties where there are dangerously high
temperatures, as are found in grow-ops.

The public should encourage the city and the Abbotsford Police to
continue making grow-ops an enforcement priority. While drug-addled
marijuana legalization boosters argue that harmless hemp can be no
worse than alcohol, we point out that this large-scale illegal trade
in pot is the domain oforganized crime, is behind many murders,
shootings, kidnappings and other violence -- and it is bad for our
communities.

Abbotsford may have looked bad, but we have not yet heard from
Burnaby, Richmond, Langley, Coquitlam and numerous other
municipalities.