POT CHARGES HAVE LITTLE POLITICAL IMPACT

'Cancerous' Drug Conspiracy Doesn't Have Much To Do With Government

Police backed up their dire warnings about the pervasive nature of the
organized crime ring they have been investigating for three years with some
charges on Wednesday.

They described it last year as an operation where B.C. marijuana was being
dealt for cocaine. And the immediate linkage to the senior levels of B.C.
Liberal government, with the search of former aide David Basi's office,
developed interest in the case to a fever pitch.

But charging Basi with growing and selling pot has a curiously deflating
impact. It's the first in what was expected to be a series of grand
climaxes for "Project Everywhichway" and as far as political impact goes,
it's minimal.

Maybe it's just a function of being constantly immersed in news of pot
busts and grow ops and the open sale of dope in Vancouver cafes. Maybe
living in a society where marijuana is slowly and steadily becoming a
mainstream fact of life, to the point where Parliament tried to
decriminalize it last year, has inured us all to the horrors of reefer madness.

Whatever the case, I am remarkably underwhelmed at the news that the drug
issue -- potentially the juiciest, most scandalous mystery in the whole
tale that led to the police raid on the legislature last year, is a rather
mundane marijuana bust.

There's a cocaine element as well, so you can't underestimate the
seriousness of the charges. But Basi is charged only with two pot counts
that wouldn't make Page D12 if it weren't for the fact he was a
wheeling-dealing political operative who once worked as Finance Minister
Gary Collins's right-hand man.

It's that aspect that kept the curiosity building about what authorities
were up to when they stormed the gates. And police did their level best to
keep the interest level high when they sat down a few days after the raid
to explain themselves.

The RCMP said they were working an organized crime network that sold B.C.
marijuana in the U.S. in exchange for cocaine, which was in turn being
distributed in Canada.

"Organized crime has stretched into every corner of B.C. and onto most city
streets," a police spokesman said right after the raids. "It is not an
exaggeration to say that organized crime is a cancer eating away at the
social and moral fabric of B.C.

"And it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better."

I don't dispute that general overview. It was one of the factors that
prompted the Times Colonist and Vancouver Sun to take a hard look at
organized crime in a continuing series of articles.

But at least on the political front, there's a sense of anticlimax in the
news that the result of the big investigation that prompted the police to
issue such a dire warning about the pervasiveness of organized crime is a
relatively routine marijuana bust.

Basi and two Victoria associates -- Mandeep Sandhu and Jas Bains -- are
obviously the most interesting names of the eight people charged. The other
five face cocaine charges, as does Bains.

There are no amounts mentioned by the police, but the ratty Shawnigan Lake
rental property listed in Basi's name that figures in this story doesn't
look like a large-scale production plant.

This drug investigation led to a money-laundering investigation by
commercial crime investigators. Maybe there's more to come on that front
that would justify all the police effort that has gone into this case.

And that aspect of Everywhichway led to the influence-peddling suspicions
against Basi and former ministerial aide Bob Virk.

It will take another few months to learn if that amounts to anything in the
way of criminal charges.

But the revelation last week that -- horror of horrors -- resume padding
was among the suspicions prompting the search warrants had the effect of
downgrading expectations on that front as well.

Whether this is a case of criminality or a case of people running their
mouths off on government telephones that they should have been more
discreet in using is still up in the air.

But it's looking like the big organized crime drug and money-laundering
conspiracy police have been pursuing doesn't have a great deal to do with
the government.

Organized crime is an acknowledged evil in B.C. But it's a bit of a relief
that when police went looking for it right inside the legislature, they
didn't appear to find much.

People are continually advised to suspend judgment on the accused until the
case has been tried.

I'm trying to keep that advice in mind when it comes to the question of
whether police made an overblown deal over something that, so far, hasn't
amounted to much.