PULL 'GROW OP KIDS' OUT OF SHADOWS

In the past year, 155 children were found to be living in homes
investigated as marijuana grow operations. It's a startling, deeply
disturbing statistic.

Think of a marijuana grow operation, and you're likely to conjure an
image of a converted house containing pot plants and a couple of
low-level shady characters care-taking the crop.

You're not liable to think of a family, including innocent children,
living in a house featuring highly hazardous conditions created by
jury-rigged electrical wiring, and which could at any time be the
target of a extremely violent rip-off attempt.

Yet those are the facts, and they carry major implications for the
provincial children and families ministry.

The figure above reflects but a fraction of the mind-boggling actual
numbers related to this issue.

Consider that these 155 kids were only discovered by city inspectors
and firefighters investigating B.C. Hydro reports of excessive
electricity use in 353 homes. The statistic does not include grow ops
busted by police. In Surrey, RCMP recorded 386 pot production files
in 2005, and opened 486 so far this year.

There are literally hundreds of children growing up in grow op homes
in the Lower Mainland - thousands more throughout the province.

Aside from the acute personal danger and risk which these kids face,
they represent a massive draw on government social worker resources.

Each time kids are found in a grow op by police or inspection teams,
a report is filed with the Ministry of Children and Families. Each
incident must be investigated, requiring hours of a social worker's time.

The children's ministry is infamous for its refusal to provide
information or comment on its cases.

This situation is no different. Officials will not say how many of
these 155 kids were taken from their families, if any. We cannot tell
you how many cases the ministry investigated province-wide, nor the outcome.

It is an appalling lack of information on a matter of the deepest
public interest.

Every incident of grow op kids that a ministry social worker must
investigate represents time which that individual is not spending on
other cases that may be equally if not far more serious.

Kids in grow op houses may indeed be living relatively normal lives,
apart from their hazardous surroundings and the criminal pursuits of
their parents.

That's unsettling, to be sure, but nowhere near the terrible
conditions faced by other children in "ordinary" homes, including
horrific physical and sexual abuse, hunger, isolation and parental drug use.

Those are the kids that most acutely require the attention of
ministry workers. If they don't get it, their suffering is
unimaginable, and the potential of death is entirely real.

It is no secret that ministry workers are spread thin - shouldering
huge caseloads exacerbated in recent years by government funding
cutbacks and endless restructuring iniatives.

That workload cannot be anything but increasing due to the
phenomenonal proliferation of pot operations across the province, and
the fact that many involve kids.

The public absolutely must know what level of resources grow ops are
drawing from the children's ministry, and the short- and long-term effects.

It is information that must be taken into account by taxpayers, the
criminal justice system, and by federal politicians who must
deliberate on the ramifications of existing marijuana laws.

The criminalization of pot, and the money-soaked illegal industry
created as a result, clearly affects more than just law enforcement
and justice system resources.

There are deep implications for the most innocent and vulnerable of
victims - children.

This issue must be brought out of the shadows.