TIME TO GET SERIOUS ABOUT MARIJUANA LAW

High-profit, low-risk. It's a formula for rapid expansion in any line
of business. And "rapid expansion" barely covers the vast,
well-planned marijuana "grow-op" police discovered last week inside a
disused brewery, in Barrie, Ont.

Astonished police found more than 1,000 growing lamps and more than
30,000 marijuana plants, plus hydroponic trays and millions of dollars
worth of equipment.

The well-organized and efficient factory farm, staffed around the
clock, took up roughly 5,000 square meters - that's more than an acre.
It had absolutely everything necessary to mass-produce what's already
being called Barrie Bud. There was even a dormitory.

But what about the distribution end? The project's owners, still not
identified, aren't saying, but the police think they know. "There
aren't enough people in Ontario to consume all the marijuana we
produce," Deputy Commissioner Vaughn Collins of the Ontario Provincial
Police told a Toronto newspaper. The dope was going to the U.S.

We're all for the export trade, but not all of Canada's farm products
are equally welcome at the U.S. border. The apparent rapid expansion
of marijuana production across Canada leaves little doubt that a lot
of it is going south.

We first heard the phrase "grow op" - as in "self-contained, secret
marijuana-growing operation" - about a decade ago, from British
Columbia. A lot of that marijuana was being shipped south - and still
is - and the same is true, apparently, of Ontario production.

Aside from the risk of another gang with guns, the only really
dangerous part of a big marijuana export operation is getting the
stuff across the border. Getting caught inside Canada doesn't seem to
deter enough people, largely no doubt because Canadian courts have so
far taken grow-ops rather lightly. In the U.S., medium-to-large-scale
production will generally get a grower sent to jail; in Canada the
same offence may bring only a fine. High-profit, low-risk.

The Gazette has long supported an end to criminal penalties for simple
possession of small amounts of marijuana. That amendment to the law
would be fully consistent with continued measures, both legal and
administrative and in the nature of public education, to discourage
use of this drug. It makes sense, then, to enforce with more rigour
the law against production, sale, and large-scale possession -- and
against exporting.

Legislative intentions unfulfilled, along with pressure by advocacy
groups, have severed the sinews of Canada's marijuana law. We saw one
cost of that ambiguity last week at Kanesatake. All that is bad
enough, but it will be worse if the dope-export issue complicates our
already tricky border management issues with the U.S.

The core of Canadian policy should be clear, and consistently applied,
everywhere in Canada: Marijuana is undesirable and illegal and producing or
selling it remains a crime which will bring real punishment. However,
possession of a small amount for personal use should not leave a criminal
stain on anyone's record.

It's the federal cabinet, and Parliament, that must clarify and
deliver this message to Canadians.