'REEFER MADNESS' NO REASON TO SEIZE MORE CHILDREN

Why is the B.C. Association of Social Workers beating the bushes to
have more children taken into care?

Association spokesman Paul Jenkinson has been stumping the provincial
media urging that the government start seizing children found in homes
with marijuana-growing operations. There's "a crisis" out there, in
his opinion, and fast action by Victoria is required.

The impetus for this sudden concern supposedly is a gap in provincial
law that leaves kids at risk. It could be filled, apparently, if we
adopted new legislation like Alberta's Drug Endangerment Act or
regulatory protocols directing social workers to grab more kids. But
the evidence is not there to support this fear or the need for a
legislative response.

I first heard Jenkinson on radio late last year, but he has also been
in other media. And it's easy to understand why.

Children across B.C., according to him, are in danger of
electrocution, fiery death, poisoning or violence because mom and dad
grow pot. He suggests it would be "conservative" to say there could be
1,000 or more children in such situations, just in the Lower Mainland.

Oh, he likes to say it's not the small producer he's talking about,
only commercial-sized operations. But in the same breath, he says,
"you'll often find anywhere from 400 to a thousand plants in a typical
home-based grow-op."

Jenkinson insists we need new and special "protocols" to deal with the
specific problem presented by growing operations.

"You'll have the children in their bedroom," he explained to one
interviewer, "you'll have, say, some of the fertilizer being stored in
a closet. There'll be electrical running through their room, venting
running through their room. So they're exposed on a regular basis to
the dangers."

He raises the spectre of grow-rips -- incidents where criminals target
a home and often violently steal the illicit crop of marijuana -- and
children witnessing mom and dad being beaten.

Jenkinson is peddling reefer madness. His suggestion that we begin
seizing more children and putting them in provincial care would only
exacerbate what is already a bad situation.

The current prohibition against marijuana is a public policy disaster
that saps resources, benefits gangsters, undermines faith in the legal
system and has failed miserably to stem the use of illicit drugs.

But more to the point, the current law already provides all the power
the ministry needs to take into care any child at risk, be it from
parents who are endangering them by growing dope or any other
inappropriate behaviour.

I don't think there is any justification for Jenkinson's rhetoric of
emergency. Neither does Tom Christensen, the minister of children and
families. He has emphasized when pressed that the ministry already
steps in when children are found inside a growing operation or any
other dangerous situation.

If Jenkinson knows of situations where that hasn't occurred, let him
name them. If he knows of children at risk, he should similarly step
up to the plate and name names.

Raising the foggy prospect of children being hurt to make political
points or to win a few more jobs for social workers strikes me as
irresponsible.

When you consider the outcomes for children who are taken into foster
care, the damage that could be done by seizing more children is obvious.

Jenkinson seems to be scaremongering. If the social workers'
association is serious about getting involved in the debate about
marijuana policy, great, but this is not the way to go about it.