IT'S HIGH TIME THE FEDS SOBERED UP FROM THEIR SOFT-ON-POT BENDER

As a stuntman, Rob Wilton has run up against just about every obstacle in
movies as diverse as Paycheck, Rumble in the Bronx and The Sweet Hereafter.

But the Surrey dad is fighting the battle of his life against pot growers
in his supposedly upscale neighbourhood.

"It's easier getting run over by a hovercraft than dealing with the
marijuana problem," he told me Friday.

Wilton, 40, and his fellow Block Watch members say the federal Liberals'
pot decriminalization plan reads like a bad film script. "People who think
legalizing this drug is a solution to anything can't see past their habit,"
he said.

Already, there's an estimated 3,500 to 4,500 grow-ops in Surrey, racking up
$2 billion in annual sales, mostly for export to the U.S.

"As long as there is a market outside Canada, there will be criminals
evading police to supply it and fill their pockets with tax-free millions,"
Wilton said. "Legalizing it would be a law-enforcement nightmare."

Speaking of nightmares, Wilton discovered one right under his nose when he
sold his Coquitlam duplex and bought a large home in a "safe" new
subdivision in Fraser Heights.

Last November, his home started to suffer annoying -- and damaging -- power
outages. Wilton contacted B.C. Hydro. "They came down and did a load test
and they found five grow operations within 12 houses," he said.

In the last six months, there have been three suspicious house fires in the
area. A month ago, a nearby home was peppered with a shotgun blast. Another
family had their car torched in their driveway -- and the blaze spread to
their house. "And they were a family who had approached a grow-op and
confronted them," Wilton said.

To combat the marijuana-fuelled crime wave, Wilton has contacted several
federal and provincial ministers. But all he gets in return, he says, is a
lot of political hot air.

According to the RCMP, home invasions, assaults and murders are common in
the drug industry. High profits, low risks and "relatively lenient
sentences" continue to entice growers and traffickers.

Like Wilton, Canadian Alliance justice critic Chuck Cadman (Surrey North)
has had enough, and is calling for a crackdown. "I would say for somebody
who is a major trafficker . . . we should be looking at life sentences for
people like that, or at least a minimum of 25 years, because they're doing
incredible damage to our communities," he said.

Maybe life terms are a bit over the top. But I agree it's high time we got
tough on these bad actors -- and that our fashionably soft-on-pot federal
Liberals got hold of a whole new script.