CROOKS GET POT SMART

Grow-ops Smaller, But Operators More Stealthy

In a year that saw two record-sized marijuana grow-ops found in Calgary,
police say the illegal operations are actually getting smaller and the
people running them better at hiding their telltale signs. On Dec. 10, a
police raid found 2,600 plants with an estimated street value of $3.25
million, the largest in the city's history. It was only on May 9 that
police made their previous record, after discovering plants worth $3.05
million.

But in the roughly 100 busts that happen in a year, the operations are
getting smaller, not bigger, police say.

Sgt. Keith Hurley of the Southern Alberta Marijuana Investigative Team
said despite the high-profile busts netting thousands of plants, most
grow-ops average about 500 to 600 plants.

"There was a time when the 1,000-plant grow was pretty much the norm,"
said Hurley "They can go a bit more undetected when they're smaller. They
don't create as much moisture."

What's more, the people growing the drug are getting more adept at making
the houses fit in their neighbourhoods.

Traditionally, police have told people to be on the lookout for signs that
houses don't appear to be lived in. Once that message got out, the people
running the grow ops -- the majority of whom are tied to organized crime,
says Hurley -- have taken steps to make the houses look occupied.

"The people who are doing this have definitely refined their skill over
the years," Hurley said.

"They've made more of an attempt to try to hide their illicit activities,
shovelling snow, cutting the lawn. Regardless of what they try to do to
give the appearance that there's somebody living there, it never fails
that when you talk to people in the neighbourhood, they always say the
same thing: 'There was something suspicious about the house.' "

But determining how Calgary compares to other cities remains elusive, said
one researcher.

University of Fraser Valley criminologist Darryl Plecas, who studied
grow-ops in Alberta and British Columbia over nine years, said efforts to
continue the study have hit a roadblock. He can't find any government
money to continue studying grow-ops' locations, sizes and other
characteristics.

"We need to have accurate data to know what's going on. The single biggest
problem at the moment is we don't know what the hell is going on, and
there doesn't appear to be any political will to change that," Plecas
said.

The previous study found Alberta had about one-tenth of the grow ops
operating in British Columbia. Alberta also had higher rates of charges
being laid, he said.

Use of the drug in Alberta is above the national norm. In Statistics
Canada's most recent look at cannabis use across the country, 13 per cent
of Albertans 15 years of age and older had smoked marijuana in the last
year compared to 12 per cent nationally. The 2004 study also found a
four-percentage-point increase in Alberta from 1994 to 2002, the most
recent data available.

So far this year, the Southern Alberta Marijuana Investigative Team has
turned up roughly $60 million in drugs, on par with last year.

Their record year was in 2004 when they pulled in $101 million worth of
marijuana.

Hurley said the difference in numbers comes from a change in police focus.

"Back then it was more a matter of eradication, just getting rid of these
things. The focus has been more and more in these last few years to bring
up our arrest rate as opposed to our seizure rate," he explained.

"We're in the game to do both, but in the investigation, in order for the
police to get more arrests, it takes more time."