POT STILL ILLEGAL -- AND POLICE STEP UP BUSTS

The Vancouver Police Department has no truck with those calling for
decriminalizing dope.

Far from turning a blind eye to simple possession of marijuana, the force
has been hauling in more and more people with too little pot to warrant a
trafficking charge.

Figures released last week by the force show that possession charges
numbered 71 in 1979, 76 in 1998 and 155 in 1999 -- then 562 in 2000.

Charges of possession in the opening 80 days of this year number 85,
showing a slight lessening in the vigour of the campaign.

The rate at which possession charges have climbed is matched by an increase
in the number of grow-ops raided.

In 1997 Vancouver police busted four home-grows, in 1998 three. Twelve
grow-ops were investigated in 1999 and the count leaped to 145 in 2000.

The VPD, whose public safety building on Main Street is only a block from a
24-hour street market for hard drugs outside the Carnegie Centre, makes no
sustained effort to curb this activity. Where the force is unbendingly
vigilant is in suppressing the sale of marijuana seeds.

Marc Emery, president of the B.C. Marijuana Party, is upset that police
raided the Vancouver office off Urban Organix Seed Co., seizing $114,000 in
cash and seeds. Owner Joseph Slykerman, 34, has been charged with
trafficking in marijuana.

"Seeds are a valuable foreign-exchange earner for Canada," said Emery, who
makes $1 million a year selling seeds.

"We have a spineless provincial government that is allowing the police to
devote more resources to tracking down marijuana than to anything else they
do."

Emery was the first person busted anywhere in Canada for selling marijuana
seeds.

He said pot-busting police will get their "comeuppance."

"They're going to be called before a court of inquiry, once marijuana is
legalized, to explain 30 years of state-sponsored terrorism."