POLICE WON'T USE SATELLITES TO FIND DRUGS

Advanced Technique Of Limited Use, As Many Marijuana Crops Hidden In
Legitimate Fields Or Grown Indoors

Canadian police are no longer high on the idea of using space satellites to
detect illicit marijuana fields.

Following a trial of the experimental method in British Columbia, the RCMP
and other law enforcement officials have yet to be persuaded the advanced
tools can easily expose illegal marijuana production.

The technique has proved to be of limited use in Canada because marijuana
crops are often disguised among legitimate fields. In addition,
increasingly large amounts of the plant are being cultivated indoors.

"In Canada, the problem that we've encountered is the mixture of cannabis
in with traditional crops such as fields of corn and things of that
nature," said Paul Kennedy, senior assistant deputy solicitor general.
"Satellite imagery is not going to really help you."

In early March 2000, the RCMP's drug enforcement branch in B.C. began
discussions with Radarsat International of Richmond, B.C., about using the
technology to zero in on crops under a cannabis eradication program known
as Operation Sabot.

The national police force had relied on sometimes spotty intelligence to
guide aircraft supplied by the Defence Department to ferret out marijuana
crops. In 1999, an eight-day eradication mission cost the RCMP about
$19,000, excluding fees for use of the aircraft.

Under the experimental approach, officials tried using high-resolution
satellite imagery, together with other data and special geographic mapping
techniques, to identify probable crop sites at an early stage.

In August 2000, the project team acquired images of four sites in the
southern interior of B.C. -- Seymour Arm, Slocan Valley, Upper Kettle and
Christina Lake -- using the Ikonos high-resolution satellite, equipped with
state-of-the art sensors capable of capturing pictures that reveal objects
as small as four metres in diameter.

However, in viewing some of the images it was difficult to identify
marijuana plants, which closely resembled surrounding wetland vegetation.

The results, although inconclusive, showed promise. A report on the project
said it was difficult to pin down the potential cost savings of using the
method, but "it is very likely to reduce the amount of flight time
required" to locate illicit crops.

A follow-up study involving Radarsat and the Canadian Space Agency was
completed last December.

But it seems the RCMP and Solicitor General's Department aren't convinced
the method is worth pursuing in heavily forested areas of Canada.

"We're still doing the traditional aerial surveillance with our helicopters
based out of Vancouver and Victoria," said Cpl. Grant Learned, a B.C.-based
RCMP spokesman. "But no one here is working on anything that deals with
satellite imaging."

Mr. Kennedy said the space-based method is more suited to the "large swaths
of land" used to cultivate plants for cocaine and heroin production in
countries like Bolivia and Colombia.

Another key consideration is that a large portion of the approximately 800
tonnes of marijuana grown annually in Canada is cultivated indoors,
escaping satellite detection.

Police aircraft outfitted with special cameras have been used in Canada to
detect indoor marijuana growing operations based on the heat emanating from
a home. In January, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that police require a
warrant to employ the technique since it amounts to conducting a search of
a residence.