RCMP PUT SPIN ON GROW OP BUSTS

If the first casualty of war is truth, then what are you supposed to
believe about the war on drugs? The Kelowna RCMP would have you
believe their version.

Drug squad head Sgt. Tim Shields of the Kelowna RCMP spent a
considerable part of a media briefing yesterday trying to convince
reporters of a stand the force has taken often in the past: The
majority of marijuana grow operations are connected to organized
crime and that the dope they grow is smuggled into the U.S. and comes
back as cocaine.

During Green Team raids on 23 large grow houses, Shields said police
seized 10,500 plants, enough by their calculations to provide every
teenaged kid in the Central Okanagan school district with a joint a
day for 429 days.

But what about the obvious disparity? If the pot is all going south
for cocaine, how is it that the same dope can also supply our kids
for over a year?

The sergeant painted grow ops as hazardous health risks, staffed by
desperate criminals with guns who may also have their young children
living in a house filled with the exposed wires and overloaded circuits.

Yet police seized no guns and not one child was found inside any of
the 23 grow houses.

When pressed for specifics, RCMP will often cite confidentiality rules.

Now we're sure that most of what the RCMP tell us is true, at least
in a composite way, where things they've found at grow houses are put
together to paint a worst-case scenario picture.

No one wants a gang-related grow op in their neighbourhood.

Trouble is they don't spend much time talking about the other half of
the picture: The mom-and-pop grow ops in basements and attics where
the product is either for medical use or the personal use the
majority of Canadians say they would tolerate.

A hidden agenda?

You decide.