STUDIES SHOW GROWERS CAN EXPECT LITTLE OR NO JAIL TIME

TORONTO - It was the gunshots heard from the basement that first
brought police in York Region, just north of Toronto, to the home of a
Vietnamese-born restaurant worker three years ago.

But it was the covered windows, extra ventilation ducts and melted
snow surrounding the building that persuaded them to stay.

When the man who would later be convicted of "producing a controlled
substance" answered his door, police could smell the odour of
marijuana and spotted small plants in his hallway.

His marijuana grow operation, installed in the home's basement,
consisted of 481 plants fed with 46 light sockets plugged into an
electrical bypass that had milked Markham Hydro of $4,039.

The man, who escaped Vietnam as a refugee at the age of 25 before
arriving in Toronto, pleaded guilty to operating a grow-op and
stealing electricity.

The judge described him during sentencing as "being in the same
category of offenders that we often see on these drug related charges:
Asian, male, little or no criminal record, pleading guilty at an early
opportunity ... "

And she handed down a conditional sentence (just under two years of
house arrest) putting him in another category of Ontario grow-op
offender: the two-thirds who are convicted but never see the inside of
a jail.

According to a report produced in 2003 by the Ontario Association of
Chiefs of Police, only one-third of all Ontario grow-op convictions
between January 2000 and June 2003 -- 777 people -- went to jail, with
the rest receiving conditional sentences, probation or fines.

Those who were incarcerated were free after an average of 145
days.

That's compared to sentences in the U.S., which are typically between
33 and 87 months in a federal institution, the report adds.

It's Canada's low sentences that police and criminologists say drive
the proliferation of grow-ops like that at the centre of Thursday's
fatal shootout in Alberta, which left four RCMP officers dead.

"There is virtually no sentencing and organized crime groups have
realized that and said, 'Let's take advantage of this,' " said Det.
Staff Sgt. Rick Barnum of the Ontario Provincial Police's drug
enforcement section.

In British Columbia, grow-op convictions bring an average 18 weeks in
jail, said Darryl Plecas, a criminologist at the University College of
the Fraser Valley, in Abbotsford, B.C.

That's if they go to jail at all.

A Vancouver Sun report examining grow-op sentencing in B.C. over the
past two years recently found that one in seven escaped jail time. In
Vancouver, only one in 13 people convicted of cultivating marijuana
went to jail.

Canada's Controlled Drug and Substances Act stipulates no minimum
sentence for running a grow-op and sets a maximum of seven years.

Sentences are based on a cocktail of factors, including number of
plants, level of sophistication, an established link to organized
crime and whether the operation's location poses a risk to the
surrounding community.

But missing from the equation, Mr. Plecas argues, is
deterrence.

"It's basic psychology," said Mr. Plecas, who has just completed a
seven-year study of the grow-op phenomenon.

He complains it's the fear among judges of having their decisions
appealed that produces low sentences.

But lawyer Joseph Neuberger, whose Toronto firm, Neuberger Rose,
defends many accused of drug offences, says stiffer sentences aren't
the solution.

"I don't think people who are criminal are deterred by criminal
penalties," he said.

Mr. Neuberger also said increased sentences may enhance the
danger.

"If somebody is facing a life sentence on an offence, they are more
likely to act desperate and pull a gun and try and kill somebody," he
said.