NO POT AT THE END OF THE RAINBOW

Up-Country Growers Learn They're Not Beyond The Law

Off the grid, underground, but not above the law.

Residents of tiny Seymour Arm, 160 kilometres northeast of Kamloops on
a gut-wrenching logging road around Shuswap Lake, thought they were
beyond the reach of police.

A sign at Daniel's Store and Marina summed up the local Wild West
attitude: "We shoot every third smoker. The second just left."

With few jobs around, and fewer bears and moose left to hunt, a new
generation of homesteaders and neo-hippies, some from Alberta, grew
one of B.C.'s leading cash crops -- marijuana -- which they claim
fuels the economy of small communities across Canada.

In A-frames and log cabins often kilometres apart, they had plenty of
cheap land to grow cannabis outside. But they grew it indoors, using
lights and diesel generators -- in some cases large enough to power an
apartment building -- to grow "B.C. bud" that police say is 10 times
more potent than grass smoked in the 1960s.

While one operation, known as "the Big House" allegedly had 170 lights
and 4,000 square feet of growing space, other growers claimed to be
"mom-and-pop ops" cultivating it for medicinal purposes or their own
use.

At 7 a.m. on Oct. 5, with green-and-gold mountainsides reflecting on a
glassy lake, many growers were just waking up when a combined force of
about 150 police officers, including 30 from the Lower Mainland,
swooped down on Seymour Arm, population 70.

A police helicopter landed on a lawn. Unmarked squad cars stormed up
the logging road. SWAT teams fanned out in a four-kilometre radius and
executed 28 search warrants, handcuffing suspects and ripping apart
growing operations.

Al Sterling and Chris Dirks say they and 14 other suspects were taken
by van and jailed in Kamloops until 3 a.m. Oct. 6, charged with drug
and weapons offences. They accused police of overkill, disturbing the
peace, and ruining their pioneering lives.

Residents were stunned to see police based in a houseboat. Near the
town's only pub, a man in an FBI shirt cleaned six portable toilets.
Near a pristine beach, crews hauled away equipment and about 20,000
plants in rental trucks ironically bearing an ad saying "We got 'em."
With no hotels around, some police stayed with an alleged grower.

Even some retirees who don't smoke pot said the growers were harmless,
and the raid would ruin the town's reputation among tourists in
houseboats. Others said they were afraid to talk or leave their homes,
fearing arrest or retribution. Some said the growers had gone too far.

Police Supt. Marianne Ryan said the raid would send a message to other
remote areas that "no one is immune to our combined law enforcement.
The crime is moving out. But we haven't stopped at the Lower Mainland
boundaries."