HIGH PROFILE MARIJUANA FORCE EXPECTS FUNDING RENEWAL

VANCOUVER - A police task force in Vancouver that targets marijuana growing
operations is likely to get its funding renewed by the city, but some
activists say that isn't enough.

Formed in 1999 to battle the spread of high intensity pot growing
operations, Growbusters has shut down more than 700 growing operations in
Vancouver houses.

Police in Vancouver say there are as many as 5,000 hydroponics labs in the
city.

"It's a major crisis," said Chris Taulu, co-ordinator of a community police
office in the Vancouver neighbourhood of Collingwood.

She says often no one is arrested in a grow-op raid, because no one is in
the house at the time. Charges are laid about one-third of the time.

Taulu did track 26 people charged, and said most were given probation or a
conditional sentence. None went to jail.

Many, she says, simply start up a new operation within weeks of getting
busted.

"In Vancouver, there's open season. The message is out there that come to
Vancouver, you could do whatever drug you want. It's no big deal," she said.
"So the judges react to what society wants."

Vancouver city council is expected to extend funding for Growbusters for
another three years.

Taulu wants the courts to start discouraging people from starting up.