DRUG ARRESTS PROMPT WAKE-UP CALL

It is being called the biggest drug bust in Wellington County history
- - 737 pounds of marijuana, marijuana products, cocaine, psilocybin and
cash discovered at a Wellington North address. The drugs seized are
valued at almost $6 million. Two Arthur Township people face several
charges.

This should be a wake-up call for anyone who thinks illegal drugs are
a big city problem. The fact is, they have always been part of the
rural scene.

Those picturesque fields and homes that sit on a couple of acres of
forested land attract more than Toronto retirees wanting to escape the
hustle and bustle. They also attract people who prefer to do what they
do, away from prying eyes.

A massive marijuana grow operation requires a lot of fertilizer and
pesticides, items that might raise a few eyebrows in the city but are
commonly found in a rural area.

And there is space. Abandoned breweries to use as marijuana factories
are few and far between. Unused barns and huge houses, on the other
hand, make an excellent substitute.

Drug operations tend to produce some odd odours, for example, the
tell-tale cat urine stink from making methamphetamine. Out in the
country, no one is going to notice with all the barnyard smells.

Wellington County is in a unique position of being largely rural but
well-served by excellent roads and close to the city - less than two
hours to most of Ontario's large cities, and less than an hour to some
of them. It makes this area ideal for industrial and business
development, although a $6 million marijuana operation was probably
not the sort of development local municipalities had in mind.

The fact is, drugs are here and they are not going away anytime soon.
People in this part of the country can choose to stick their
collective heads in the sand and allow marijuana grow ops and meth
labs to proliferate, or we can wake up.

First of all, our kids and our neighbours' kids have access to just
about any illegal drug. They will hopefully choose not to take them,
but they are not naive. It is their parents who are naive. We owe it
to our kids to learn as much as we can about the local drug scene, and
to keep the lines of communication open. If we blanche at the mere
mention of the Evil Weed, and tell them one puff will rot their brains
and turn them into demented junkies, they are going to laugh at us.
They know better, and there is a good chance it is from personal experience.

Listening is a more effective tactic than spouting drivel at them. And
if we have a serious comment to make about drugs, we cannot make it
with any credibility when our words are slurred from the evening's
fourth beer.

We can also keep our eyes and ears open. People in a rural area
respect the privacy of our neighbours, but we know when something
weird is going on. It is not alarming when people move into an
isolated old farm house and keep to themselves; we take notice when
they buy truckloads of fertilizer but do not appear to be growing any
crops. We also notice if they seem to be putting out a lot of trash
but are rarely at the house, if people seem to be visiting at all
hours of the day and night, if they cover all the windows with
aluminum foil, or if their roof is the only one with no snow on it -
an indoor marijuana grow op produces a lot of heat.

What we do after we notice something odd depends on how much we want
to have criminal activity in our neighbourhood, keeping in mind there
is big money in illegal drugs and people often protect their
operations with firearms or by booby-trapping the premises. Calling
the police or Crime Stoppers seems a valid response.