RAID KILLS MOM, POP'S GROW-OP

Police Confiscation Just 'theft' To Neo-hippie Farming Parents

SEYMOUR ARM - It's going to be a hard winter, say a marijuana mom and dad
with three toddlers who were hit by a major police raid this week on
growing operations in this tiny community.

Chris and Wilma Dirks, two idealistic 29-year-olds who left white-collar
jobs in Edmonton five years ago to become "neo-farmers" in "liberal" B.C.,
say they lost their livelihood when police confiscated $150,000 in pot
plants and equipment in Tuesday's raid.

Chris Dirks was among the 16 males arrested and released when about 150
officers, including 30 from the Lower Mainland, descended on the community
and seized 50 weapons and more than 20,000 plants.

Police said they believe about half of the community of 70 was involved in
growing marijuana, and that the raid followed complaints of harassment and
violence by citizens who oppose the growing operations.

The Dirks consider Tuesday's police actions "theft" and say it's not the
first time they've been robbed. Two years ago, police dropped charges
against them but took $30,000 worth of crop.

Four years ago, just after they bought 17 hectares for $28,000 and began a
pioneering life of clearing the bush and building their own home, a buyer
from Edmonton whom they had trusted ran off with half a year's crop worth
$40,000. They say police should target thieves like that, not poor
defenceless farmers.

"Do you think we can ask the police for help?" asks Wilma, a former nurse,
holding a 13-month-old baby at their secluded homestead. "We're powerless
against people who rip us off. It's parallel to reporting a theft of your
stolen car."

The Dirks see themselves as among thousands of young, humble neo-hippy
farmers who consume healthy homegrown food and earn a peaceful living by
working 16-hour days growing B.C.'s most famous export crop.

Farming is in Chris's blood. His family farmed chickens, pigs, wheat and
other legal crops for generations until they sold the family homestead in
Saskatchewan in the 1950s and moved to cities.

Finding the nine-to-five life in Edmonton not for them, the young Dirks
decided to raise their kids in the bush. They looked around B.C. until they
found Seymour Arm, which they call a "marijuana-friendly" community.

"We were looking for a place off the grid without a lot of cost getting off
the ground," said Chris.

Seymour Arm was also what Wilma calls "Calgary's retirement fun town."

Other residents say frequent visitors include six RCMP officers plus some
city police officers from Alberta who have homes here.

Even with so many fellow Albertans around, the Dirks felt ostracized at first.

Wilma was Seymour Arm's only "marijuana mom," as she called herself. She
said she enjoyed her 20s, but farm life was more stressful than she imagined.

At one point she moved to Kamloops with the kids for eight months before
gaining the courage to move back and make the best of it.

The neighbours -- who live more than a kilometre away -- began to
appreciate the family's contribution to the community.

Lloyd Porteous, a long-time resident, says of Chris: "He's nice. He's got a
young family and he kept his business hush-hush."

Both Dirks work for the regional government operating the town dump. They
also pay six to eight locals $22.50 an hour cash to prune their 800 pot plants.

"In small-town B.C., this is the economy," says Chris. "We're not ashamed
of what we do, we're all pacifists. Hells Angels and the Viet Cong are not
here. It's unorganized people trying to make extra money. The profit is in
the indoor grows. That's what people want."

He and other residents say the only violent incident in town was a dispute
involving a non-pot smoker.

Two years ago, someone broke into a man's home, tied up his 16-year-old
son, stole the stereo and truck, then smashed it and abandoned it on the
logging road toward Kamloops, 160 kilometres from Seymour Arm. That man
moved out and no one was ever charged, says Chris.

"I challenge the police to show us the report number of the complaints that
growers were harassing their neighbours."

Residents said things got out of hand when larger growers moved in.
Especially notable was one home known locally as "the big house," with 170
lights and 372 square metres (4,000 square feet) of growing space.

Some growers openly flaunted their business, leaving plants and soil
outside, which alarmed retirees from a generation not open to "the new B.C.
economy."

On Tuesday, Wilma was at home breast-feeding when half a dozen officers
came in and handcuffed Chris in front of their kids, and tore out all the
work he had done to wire an indoor growing operation in two trailer homes.

"It was depressing watching all our work being taken away," says Wilma. But
she says the children seemed unfazed by SWAT teams because "we tell our
kids to go to police if they need help."

She says the police were professionals, nice guys who hugged them when they
left.

Wilma says she hopes B.C. social services won't take away her three
children, who are schooled at home.

But Chris says they took about 800 full-grown plants. Now the Dirks worry
about how they are going to survive without one of their generators, which
they used to power their fridge, laundry machines and phone.

"If we were violent criminals why aren't we still in jail?" said Chris. "We
wanted to develop a life of our own. It will really sting if they take it away."