POT INDUSTRY PUBLIC THREAT, POLICE WARN

A report cites fires, electrocutions and deadly booby traps throughout the
Lower Mainland.

The multi-billion-dollar marijuana industry is getting increasingly
dangerous, police say, citing electrocutions, fires and deadly booby traps
throughout Lower Mainland neighbourhoods.

In one case, police found a cyanide gas bomb in the hallway of a Delta home
that, if exploded, would have meant ``certain death to persons in the
vicinity.''

The B.C. Organized Crime Agency estimates organized crime now controls
8,000 marijuana growing operations in the Lower Mainland, almost a third of
those based in Vancouver, yielding more than $2 billion a year.

A study by an OCA analyst presented in B.C. Supreme Court at the sentencing
of a convicted Vancouver marijuana grower last week emphasized the danger
of such operations to the public, the police and even to the growers
themselves.

There have been about 15 serious electrical shocks of growers, including
some fatalities, in the last five years as a result of improper wiring
installations, according to the report by Alex Tyakoff, a tactical analyst
with the OCA.

His report details how Delta police recently encountered a fused pipe bomb
near a jar containing liquid cyanide in the entrance hall of a residential
grow operation. The explosion would have released cyanide gas.

In another case, a home in Richmond was rigged with wire that could have
triggered a loaded shotgun at intruders.

Police are reporting increased competition among growers who used armed
home invasions and booby trapping of some homes in a turf war.

``These are not 50-year-old ex-hippies growing plants in their basement for
their own use,'' said Sergeant Randy Elliott with the OCA.

``This is organized crime with people growing 200-plant operations and
unloading the product.''

Almost daily, police are executing search warrants, often leaving the
raided homes with guns and even children. In the past three months, more
than 40 children, including many of Vietnamese descent, have been taken
into custody by the ministry of children and families after raids on homes
where they were living.

Last week, police in the Lower Mainland enforced 196 search warrants and
seized millions of dollars worth of pot and a number of guns, said
Coquitlam RCMP Inspector Earl Moulton, vice-chairman of the regional
operational police managers' committee.

But he said there is mounting frustration that police are unable to make
more than a dent in the problem.

In one week in Coquitlam, police executed 20 search warrants on homes
suspected of growing marijuana, but in the same period, another 25 homes
were listed as potential operations, Moulton said.

In last week's sentencing, Justice Allan Stewart handed down a sentence of
two years less a day to a marijuana grower, the harshest penalty so far in
B.C. It was the second time in four months a marijuana grower has been
handed such a sentence.

While police have applauded harsher penalties for growers, they have also
expressed frustration with what they have called judicial slaps on the
wrist for other convicted grow operators.

The OCA and police detachments throughout the Lower Mainland are attempting
to sharpen the focus on organized crime gangs behind the grow operations.

The total border value of the pot operations from the region is $2.2
billion annually, according to Elliott, with indications that outlaw
motorcycle and Asian gangs are using the profits to finance other criminal
enterprises, such as prostitution and smuggling.

Tyakoff's study was done as a community impact assessment of a
marijuana-growing operation at 5570 Argyle Street, which detailed how the
house's tenants exposed the neighbourhood to increased danger.

The study cited haphazard electrical wiring, the presence of a CO2
generator on the premise and the fact that the criminal operation was
knowingly established in a residential neighbourhood close to schools, day
cares and a church.

Elliott said the study, which was presented in court by the prosecutor, had
an impact on the harsher-than-usual sentence given to that grow operator.

``We are hoping this is a shift to a broader understanding among people and
the judicial system that there is a potential danger for loss of life with
these operations,'' he said. ``Hopefully, it won't take something horrific
to happen before people realize these are dangerous, criminal elements in
neighbourhoods.''

Police have been battling the spillover effects for two years from outraged
neighbours who have dealt with run-down homes and criminals on their
streets, said Moulton.

``Our day-to-day experience was that these matters were not being treated
seriously by the court,'' he said .

In his sentencing of a pot grower to two years less a day in January,
Justice Stewart said it's time for the courts to start ``upping the ante''
to address the increasing problem of pot-growing operations in residential
areas.

Such operations become the target for home invasions and put innocent
people at risk, Stewart concluded.

``To me, the problem that now confronts this community in early 2000, falls
into the category of something where we cannot wait for a top-down reaction
or solution,'' the judge said, in rejecting the Crown prosecutor's request
for a three-month sentence. ``Change must start here at the trial level.''