BIG OPERATIONS, BIG GUNS GO TOGETHER

Police: Increasingly Common: 'It Was a Miracle We Hadn't Lost An Officer
Before This'

Inside an unassuming house on the outskirts of Hamilton, Ont.'s
downtown core, city police stumbled upon a bushy crop of marijuana
plants. At 150 shrubs, it was a modest grow operation that the family
had been sharing living space with.

While police were cutting the plants down, however, other items caught
their attention.

In the bottom drawer of a cabinet on the main floor was a .38-calibre
handgun; underneath the cabinet, inside a duffel bag, was a
.22-calibre sawn-off shotgun with plenty of ammunition.

"The guns were absolutely accessible to anyone in that house,"
Detective Sean Moore said.

Finding guns inside marijuana grow operations is increasingly common,
police say.

Thursday's shooting deaths of four RCMP officers raiding a grow
operation in Alberta has drawn the most tragic reality from scenarios
that have long worried drug officers.

"It was a miracle that we hadn't lost an officer before this," said
Inspector Paul Nadeau, head of the RCMP's Co-ordinated Marijuana
Enforcement Team in Vancouver.

"On an international scale, we've gone from being a consuming nation
of relatively small amounts of drugs of all types to being a source
country for marijuana," said Detective Staff Sergeant Rick Barnum,
manager of the Ontario Provincial Police's Drug Enforcement Section.

"And when you turn from being a consumer to a producer, then you'd
better be ready to deal with the risks that come with that. Yesterday,
unfortunately, it was a prime example of where we are going," he said.

British Columbia was the first to experience the grow-op epidemic. It
started in earnest in 1999. It still has more private pot gardens than
anywhere else, despite Ontario and Quebec now providing some
competition.

The RCMP in B.C. get an average of 4,500 grow-ops reported each year,
of which about 1,500 are raided. In 6% of those raids, guns have been
seized, and in another 5%, police found other weapons, according to a
police study of marijuana operations.

The people arrested inside are not congenial, counter-culture pot
heads, Insp. Nadeau said.

In fact, 41% of those arrested inside a B.C. grow-op have a previous
conviction for a violent offense. They have, on average, seven prior
criminal convictions and a 13-year criminal history.

The OPP have executed 1,822 search warrants on grow operations in
Ontario since 2002, according to police figures.

During those raids, officers have seized 1,985 guns.

"We are seeing and seizing everything from semi-automatic handguns,
Mac-10s, Uzi submachine guns, high-powered deer rifles and shotguns,"
Staff Sgt. Barnum said.

More guns are in grow-ops because of both the high values on the crop
and the involvement of organized crime, police said.

"We've been inundated by organized crime grow-op operations simply
because [gangsters] have recognized that they are hard to find, there
are huge profits and, if they get caught, there is virtually no
sentencing," Staff Sgt. Barnum said.

Said Insp. Littlejohn of a B.C. joint task force combatting organized
crime: "There isn't an organized crime group in this country that
isn't somehow involved in grow-ops."

Criminal organizations are often working together to get their cash
crop to market, with one group specializing in setting up the gardens
and another specializing in transportation and still others arranging
for sales.

Typically, that means moving the marijuana across the Canada-U.S.
border. A pound of pot fetches about $2,500 in Central Ontario but in
Atlantic City, N.J., that same pound commands $7,000. Underworld
economists have not ignore those numbers.

Insp. Littlejohn estimates 90% of Canada's marijuana is shipped to the
United States. There it is sold or, increasingly, swapped for cocaine.

That kind of profit and criminal stakes gives everyone involved
incentive to protect their illicit garden from rival criminals if not
police, officers said.

Not everyone, however, is convinced by the police position.

"The majority of grow operations are being run by recent immigrants to
the country who, frankly, are not resisting their arrest and generally
are not repeat offenders," said Joseph Neuberger, a Toronto criminal
lawyer who has defended many people charged in grow-op raids.

"There are many cases where there are no weapons found whatsoever. And
more importantly, when arrested, there's absolutely no resistance," he
said.

The Alberta slayings, however, should not be seen as a deviant case
but a symptom of widespread problems, officers said.

"It usually follows that it takes a tragedy before changes come,"
Staff Sgt. Barnum said. "If there is one good thing that comes out of
this mess, hopefully it is some resources we can put in the right
places, changes in legislation, and actually have politicians and
judges pay attention.

"That would be nice."