COPS TEAM UP ON POT

A new police team dedicated to cracking down on pot farms in Coquitlam
and Port Coquitlam will start this summer or early fall, a crowd heard
this week at a forum on marijuana grow-ops.

Sgt. Steve LeClair, who is in charge of Coquitlam RCMP's street
enforcement, said the six-member unit will be responsible for taking
tips about grow-ops, identifying the ones that have the greatest
potential for successful prosecution, getting search warrants and
dismantling pot farms.

Of the six Mounties added this year in Coquitlam and PoCo, which
contract the RCMP to police their cities, four will be deployed to the
new Marijuana Enforcement Team and two will go into traffic services,
said Coquitlam detachment Supt. Ric Hall.

Hall admitted the dedicated "green team" is long overdue "but it's
only now that we've been given the resources to do it," he said.

Hall told the crowd at Coquitlam city hall Tuesday he receives a call
a day on a traffic issue or a possible grow-op.

But the 179-member detachment "is stretched pretty thin on occasion"
and can't get to all of the complaints, he said. "There has to be a
realization on the public's part that the RCMP can do so much," he
said. "It's time and people."

LeClair said the current four-member drug squad often trains general
duty officers to help dismantle grow-ops but, because of the large
turnover, the training can be for naught.

In the last two years, Coquitlam RCMP has shut down more than 420
grow-ops and is now investigating more than 200 tips on marijuana
farms, drug labs and other drug operations, said Coquitlam-Maillardville
MLA Richard Stewart, who hosted the forum.

BC Hydro's Tom Brown said the Crown corporation has three full-time
staff to investigate theft of power and "99.9999 per cent of the time,
it's a grow op when we find a theft."

The company can then pass on information to the RCMP about a grow-op,
which gives officers the grounds to obtain a search warrant, Brown
said.

Hydro investigators confirmed 106 diversions of power at Lower
Mainland homes in the first two months of this year alone, Brown said.

B.C. Solicitor-General Rich Coleman said grow-ops are run by organized
crime and marijuana is trading "kilo for kilo" for cocaine in the
United States. He also said half of all pot on the streets is laced
with cocaine or speed to get the user hooked on harder drugs.

In the Fraser Valley, which Coleman represents as an MLA, there will
be about 4,000 grow-ops this year, he said, versus about 10 across the
border in Whatcom County, Washington.

"Similar-sized jurisdictions -what's the difference?" he asked. "The
difference is that in Whatcom County and Washington State, they have
punitive penalties and they seize assets.

"That's what we should be doing because we shouldn't let people profit
from crime," he said. "I expect to have this legislation no later than
the fall."

Marijuana cultivators, Coleman said, will find the easiest place to
grow "so I don't want to [have] the easiest jurisdiction in the
business. I would like to see us get a lot tougher.

"That means we need help, particularly from the federal government."