WHEN COPS INHALE

Did Narcs WHO Busted Pot Church Break the Law by Sparking Up?

Did the Toronto Police narcs who swooped down on the Church of the
Universe congregation in the Beaches, arresting 22 and laying 205 pot
charges, actually inhale?

That's a loaded question for those worried about lack of
accountability when it comes to officers breaking the law during
investigations.

And if some of the arrestees are right, coppers did toke on-scene in
the course of their reconnoitering.

Not that cops - or anyone else - should take a hit for indulging in
the pleasures of the bong. But did those narcs actually violate the
terms of the Criminal Code governing their behaviour while they built
their case against the reefer-worshipping Christians?

Undercover officers are granted extensive powers under the law
enforcement justification provisions of the Criminal Code as well as
the Controlled Drugs And Substances Act. These laws were passed after
the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that cops may commit crimes, with
exceptions, during undercover investigations.

But is there adequate oversight of these activities? Many say no.
Under Ontario law, police must report every instance of an officer
committing a crime in the line of duty to the Minister of Community
Safety and Correctional Services, which is obliged to make the info
public every year.

Oddly, that information has not been released for 2004 and 05.

"I don't know when they'll be ready for publication. All statute
requirements are high-priority," an exasperated ministry
spokesperson, Tony Brown, says of the two missing years.

But when these reports finally see the light of day, they won't
reveal much, including which police force used the provisions and
exactly how. "The reports are laughable," says the Canadian Civil
Liberties Association's Alexi Wood, who argued before Parliament's
Human Rights and Justice Committee that the law is overly broad,
lacks oversight and, most importantly, public accountability.

The documents, she says, mostly reveal the number of times the
"public officer designation," the code phrase allowing extra-legal
action, was granted. A vague sentence about the crime committed, such
as "conspiracy to commit an indictable offence" or "possession of an
illegal firearm" serves as explanation.

Says Wood, "The reports are not what is required in a democratic
society. We have no information whatsoever. What police force used
the designation? We just don't know how this law is being used."

And unless someone is charged, she says, we may never know about the
role of public officers.

That's what alarms Ontario NDP justice and attorney general critic
Peter Kormos. Referring to the missing documents, he says the
Criminal Code "seems to be undermined without the reporting. It says
the police are not above the law.

The balance to this is the reporting. Without it, the law is corrupted."

Kormos wrote to Corrections Minister Monte Kwinter on December 15
requesting all the reports be released but has received no response.

"An undercover officer could conceivably do some very serious things
with these laws," he says. Specifically, they could deal in forged
passports, fake art and falsely tax-stamped tobacco, possess illegal
firearms and ingest drugs, including addictive ones. The law only
stops short at allowing officers to violate someone's sexual
integrity or cause bodily harm.

In the case of the 1905 Queen East bust, Rev. William Palmer of the
church believes the narcs were the converted "brother and sister" who
hung around the cannabis-friendly enclave and partook in the
sacrament. "They had to [smoke]," says Palmer, a legal medical pot
user who was charged with trafficking, conspiracy to traffic and
production for the purpose of trafficking. It was, he says, the only
way they could maintain their cover.

At the Toronto Police Service, spokesperson Mark Pugash doesn't deny
officers may have used these laws to infiltrate the church.
"Undoubtedly, this is an issue that will come out in court," he says.

Pugash won't say if the two officers investigating the church were
given permission to inhale cannabis by Chief William Blair prior to
deployment or afterwards. "Our undercover operations focus on officer
safety and the law. There are very clear policies, but I'm not going
to discuss specifics."

The case involved 22 arrestees, including four Health Canada federal
med pot exemptees, 151 marijuana plants and pounds of cannabis,
hashish and olive oil. Police allege the Health Canada exemption
holders were well over their legal limits for possessing and growing.

The police press release states, "They hid behind the issuance of a
medicinal marijuana possession permit as a method of selling large
quantities of marijuana for monetary gain."

The arrestees say they welcomed the two whom they now believe to be
narcs, though the pair became heretics when they complained about the
absence of Christian symbols of reverence in church proceedings.
Interestingly, during the bust the cops grabbed all the grow books
and left the Torah and Bible behind.