GROW-OPS A 'PLAGUE' ON SOCIETY

RCMP Chief: 'Four of Our Own Paid the Highest Price to Fight This
Fight'

OTTAWA - As RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli paid tribute late
yesterday to the four Mounties slain during a raid on an Alberta
marijuana grow operation, he rededicated the force to the fight
against drugs and warned that grow-ops are a "plague" on Canadian society.

"Today, we recognize with gratitude and respect that four of our own
paid the highest price to fight this fight," said a sombre Mr.
Zaccardelli.

The officers, he said, "went to work not knowing on this day they
would be asked to make the ultimate sacrifice."

He offered his condolences to the families of the officers, saying the
force stood with them in their tragedy.

"But policing and these major operations are never without risk. This
is the tragedy of what happened here."

But the officer took a moment to warn about the risk of
grow-ops.

"The issue of grow-ops is not a ma and pa industry as we have been
saying for a number of years," he said. "These are major, serious
threats to our society, and they are major serious threats to the men
and women on the frontline who have to deal with them. They are booby-
trapped. They are high-risk issues and major organized crime, in many
cases, is involved."

He added: "This is a plague on our society now.

"Today, the RCMP continued its vigilant effort to detect and dismantle
illegal drug manufacturing and to, without stint, respond to the calls
for a drug-free Canada."

Some sentences regarding grow-ops, he said, seem "disproportionate to
the seriousness of the crime."

Alberta Solicitor-General, Harvey Cenaiko, also warned about the
dangers of grow-ops.

"It's a tragic loss. A tragic loss to the RCMP is always a tragic loss
to the communities," he said. "The officers were well respected in
their communities, were all involved in their communities and this is
a tragic loss for the communities surrounding Mayerthorpe.

"This issue was senseless and the fact that four officers were killed
with regard to a grow-operation goes to the seriousness of the fact
that organized crime, illegal cultivation of marijuana or the illegal
production of crystal meth is all around us, including in a small town
like Mayerthorpe."

B.C. Attorney-General Geoff Plant said the murders should dispel any
doubts people might have about the dangerous nature of marijuana
grow-operations.

"I think there is an attitude that is part of our culture in British
Columbia that thinks that a grow-op is just your neighbour making a
couple of bags of marijuana for some of his friends," Mr. Plant said
in an interview at the legislature, shortly after learning of the
deaths. "Whether that was ever true -- 20 or 30 years ago -- it's sure
not true today.

"We're talking about the commercial manufacture of marijuana for the
purpose of participating in an international organized crime activity.
That's very serious business."

Victoria police chief Paul Battershill, whose partner was killed in a
police raid in Vancouver in 1987, said investigators increasingly find
grow-operations that are either fortified, booby-trapped, or guarded
by people with weapons.

"I think, in some respects, people think of grows as 'Mom and Pop'
operations," he said. "Certainly, when I was on an ERT [emergency
response] team, we were encountering grows that were protected by
people with weapons. Obviously that trend is increasing."

Neil Boyd, a criminology professor at Simon Fraser University in
Burnaby, B.C., who specializes in drugs and violence, said, "Most
people involved in the marijuana grow-op would never contemplate
killing four police officers or shooting at them. "It doesn't advance
their interests. This is an abnormality."

However, he admitted that the larger the clandestine operation and the
greater the profit at risk the higher the likelihood of violence. It's
also not unheard of to have people armed with knives, guns and
baseball bats on site to keep their illegal and lucrative product safe.