BIG BUSINESS, BIG CRIME

Crime, and the fight against it, never seems to end.

In a cause-and-effect relationship as old as the Hammurabic Code, the
RCMP created the Outdoor Marijuana Eradication Program (OMEP) to
counter the growing number of outdoor grow operations. The program
does not target people cultivating a plant or two for personal use,
but is aimed at large-scale operations established by organized crime.

Therein lies a big part of the problem.

While marijuana is far from the most dangerous drug - less so than
highly addictive cocaine or the insidious scourge of crystal meth -
its lucrative sales swell the bank accounts of organized criminals,
helping to fund other criminal activities. That's one reason why the
OMEP sends police officers and military personnel out into the bush
to hack down groves of towering pot plants.

As program spokesman Const. Darren Lagan explains, they're less
concerned with criminal convictions than preventing growers from
getting their product to customers.

To raise awareness, the RCMP invited media to witness the removal
Friday of 100 plants in the Comox Valley, part of what they
anticipate will be the destruction of 20,000 plants more than they
removed last year.

It was part of what has become an annual cull of plants in hidden
locations, although this one was just 50 feet off Hamm Road on Crown land.

Others are much more remote, and potentially more dangerous to anyone
stumbling across them.

Because there's so much money at stake, not to mention potential jail
time, illegal growers have been known to booby-trap their
agricultural ventures.

Hikers do not want to be discovered in a remote location by criminals
made ruthless by a big-time cash flow and an aversion to incarceration.

Police advise you to just back out slowly if a hiking expedition
unexpectedly lands you in an outdoor grow-op. Of course, they would
love to hear about it afterwards so they can alert the always-busy OMEP.