MARIJUANA A GROWING CONCERN FOR POLICE

Peddlers who push pot are just as poisonous as crack and heroin
dealers and it's time citizens realize those criminals need to be
taken off the streets, says a Calgary Police drug expert.

Police busted a sophisticated grow operation, seizing close to
$140,000 worth of plants in the city's northwest last week.

"If this was $100,000 of Ecstasy it would hit the front pages across
Western Canada. If it was cocaine or heroin it would have a lot of
people upset," said Det. Pat Tetley.

"But when you see $100,000 worth of marijuana, the same stigma is not
attached."

Tetley says it should be.

Today's pot is 10 times more potent than it was when "baby boomers
were passing around marijuana cigarettes in the '60s or '70s," he said.

Ninety percent of home invasions in Calgary are motivated by a search
for grow operations.

Tetley said the operation bust last week had links with a B.C. dealer,
showing organized crime in its truest sense.

The operation was nestled in an upscale community, at Arbour Ridge
Close N.W.

In 1998 and 1999, the drug unit executed 400 search warrants on grow
operations.