FIRST PARENTS CHARGED UNDER NEW ALTA. LAW ON DRUG HOUSES

CALGARY -- Four Calgary parents have become the first people charged
under a new provincial law targeting those who raise their children in
drug environments.

And police say more will be charged soon, as they catch up with a
backlog of cases where young children -- a newborn baby, in at least
one case -- have been removed from homes rife with toxic marijuana
crops or known crack houses.

"These parents are choosing the drug trade versus the well-being of
their own children," said Staff Sgt. Jim Rorison of the Calgary Police
Service's child-abuse team.

"Police officers wearing full protective suits with respirators are
walking into rooms with kids playing, watching television, with no
protection at all. The moulds, the smells, the risk of electrical
explosions . . . you just shake your head." Police announced yesterday
that they laid the first two sets of charges in mid-May under the Drug
Endangered Children Act, the first law of its kind in Canada.

On May 14, charges were laid against the parents of a four-year-old
and an 18-month-old, following a major marijuana grow-op bust at a
Calgary home.

Police found 120 marijuana plants worth $90,000 at the house. Four
days before that bust, four children between the ages of seven and 16
were picked up at another urban grow-op. Two of them lived in a
bedroom beside the basement grow-op and had access to the growing room.

Their parents were charged May 15. The names have been withheld to
protect the identity of the children.

"It's one more tool we can use to protect children," said Rorison. "We
hope to see this become standard procedure." As of April, at least 30
children had been apprehended under DECA, introduced in November.

In January, a pregnant mother was arrested and her four young children
taken into custody after a Calgary drug raid. In February, two small
children were found living a marijuana grow op in Lethbridge. In May,
a one-month-old baby was found living with 780 marijuana plants in a
home in northeast Calgary.

"We do have a bit of a backlog," said Rorison.

The legislation carries a maximum fine of $25,000 or two years in
jail.