TOUGHER TERMS FOR TRAPS IS WELCOME LEGISLATION

A new bill introduced last Friday in the House of Commons seeks to toughen
the penalties for drug dealers who set deadly traps in their labs or grow
operations.

It would increase the term to 14 years if someone is injured by a trap, and
calls for a life sentence if anybody is killed by one. That's a welcome
development and one that has been a long time in coming.

The change in the legislation seeks to discourage the sort of
life-threatening obstacles set up by criminals who want to discourage other
crooks from stealing their drugs. What sometimes happens, however, is that
firefighters, police officers or ambulance workers called to the scene find
themselves in great danger.

Marijuana grow operations are dangerous enough. They present dangers to
firefighters who respond when a grow-op building catches fire. The blazes
are most often caused by the large number of electric lamps used to create
a 24-hour growth environment for the plants. In order to avoid creating
large hydro bills, criminals get their electricity by illegally tapping
power lines.

When the unsafe electrical set-up overheats or causes a fire in what is
usually an empty building, firefighters show up on the scene. Before they
enter the building with their water hoses, the regular power supply to the
house is shut off. But illegal hydro lines still bring unregulated
electrical power into the building -- which can be deadly.

It's not yet clear whether the new bill would cover this danger, since the
illegal hydro lines are not being used as a deterrent or trap. But it might
discourage grow operators from some of their other dangerous set-ups.

Firefighters have been complaining for the past few years of grow ops or
drug labs with false floors that give way beneath them, explosives and even
trip-wired firearms used to discourage unwelcome intruders. A grow
operation found recently in New Brunswick was set with 30 spring-loaded
animal traps. In Nova Scotia, a boy who wandered into a field of marijuana
was shot in the leg after he tripped a wire connected to a shotgun.

According to Jim Lee, a Toronto spokesman for the International Association
of Firefighters, Canadian firefighters responding to fires in grow ops have
been injured by traps. Although so far no one has been killed, at one site
they were confronted by a loaded cross bow wired to shoot anyone who came
through the front door.

This sort of thing is reprehensible, and we're glad to see Ottawa is
finally clamping down. Our emergency workers have enough challenges to deal
with on the job. They shouldn't have to worry about booby traps as well.