A FLOURISHING HARVEST OF GROW-OPS

It Costs The Government $2M A Year To Store Seized Hydroponic
Equipment.

Five years ago, "offence-related material" stored in federal
government warehouses pending a verdict meant the odd seized boat,
stolen car or swiped stereo system.

Today, up to 80 per cent of the storage space is filled with
hydroponic growing equipment.

It's all dope, all the time, a growing mountain of evidence from what
police describe as a proliferation of marijuana growing operations.
Many already exist, and more are coming soon, to a neighbourhood near
you.

The government is struggling to cope with the proceeds of rampant
hydroponic activity, which is rapidly spreading east across Canada
from its aquacultural origins in southern B.C.

The Public Works warehouse in Edmonton is so jammed with the huge
lights, fans, power generators, air conditioners, wires and tubing
needed to convert a bungalow into a cannabis factory that workers are
having trouble reaching the buried cases of evidence they've been
cleared by the courts to destroy.

The cavernous 40,000-square-foot warehouse in Chilliwack, B.C., home
base for the legendary 'B.C. Bud' marijuana harvest, is also nearing
its functional storage capacity.

The department estimates the nine warehouses cost taxpayers more than
$2 million per year in operating costs linked to storing hydroponic
apparatus.

The seized material is often held for more than a year until legal
proceedings are finished.

Before the government was overwhelmed by the volume of material, they
used to sell some equipment back to the public. It gradually occurred
to the bright lights in government that anyone loading up on
1,000-watt bulbs, trays, tubing, pots and light shields might actually
be using the stuff for .. um ... growing marijuana.

So now the glass is crushed in garbage trucks, the plastic screens are
recycled and heavy metal ballasts are sold to scrap metal dealers.

It took me four months and the tireless intervention of Public Works
communications director John Embury to secure permission for a tour of
the smallest facility, a nondescript 6,000-square-foot warehouse in
southeast Ottawa.

There was only-half-joking talk of being blindfolded for the ride
there, lest my disclosure of the location prompt a break-in by green
cannabis thumbs in need of more equipment. Suffice to say, my request
for pictures was vetoed.

The warehouse contained stacks of wooden crates rising off the floor
for five metres, each carefully labelled with case numbers and the
name of the accused. There were even a couple tractor lawnmowers,
which suggests somebody was producing a hell of a pile of grass.

But perhaps this is being too flippant about a crime surge very
clearly getting out of hand. The number of plants seized in Ontario
alone has skyrocketed to 345,000 from just 3,000 stalks in 2000.

A confidential report by the Criminal Intelligence Service of Ontario
quickly dispels the quaint notion of home-ops as mom-and-pop
operations. A $25,000 investment in equipment can grow 600 plants
twice a year, each worth $1,000 retail.

It's increasingly viewed as an organized crime racket in which upscale
homes are converted into marijuana-producing factories powered by
stolen electricity or buried generators, the harvest aimed for export
to the U.S.

The unknown confronting government as it ponders various theories on
the merits of marijuana decriminalization at a Commons committee is
the impact on consumer demand.

If the fear factor of a marijuana-possession criminal record is
eliminated, demand will rise and the hydroponic market will be go even
more hyperactive.

For the federal government, that comes with a hidden cost -- they'll
need to rent more warehouses.