DRUG INVESTMENTS CLIMBING

There's one area of B.C. business investment that's seen a boom in rural
areas. Unfortunately, it's organized crime.

You may have heard the saga of Likely, a tiny community east of Williams
Lake. Last fall RCMP confirmed results of a two-year investigation that
found eight properties with buildings fitted for large-scale marijuana
growing. At least one of those has been seized under civil forfeiture
legislation, a powerful new tool in targeting proceeds of crime. Nine
Lower Mainland residents, all with Asian names, were charged.

Are there more Likelys out there? No doubt the gangs learned about the
hazards of creating a cluster in one place.

Just before New Year's Day, police used snowmobiles to raid a property
near Clearwater, north of Kamloops. They described it as a machine shed
with industrial-style wiring that appeared to have been built for a
grow-op.

Further north, Houston RCMP resorted to using their holding cells to store
masses of seized hydroponic equipment. That's according to deputy RCMP
commissioner Gary Bass, who spoke to a conference on the hazards of
grow-ops in Surrey last May.

The problem goes beyond marijuana, a relatively benign drug. Bass noted
that the popularity of "B.C. bud" has led to many new players in the
cocaine trade. Even small local groups tend to have ties to bikers in
southern B.C. who have developed lucrative bud-for-blow arrangements
reaching down to South America.

And when bullets fly in B.C. communities, there are generally hard drugs,
often cocaine, involved.

Surrey Fire Chief Len Garis spearheaded a new approach that targets safety
hazards of bad wiring and high electricity consumption. In 2006 the B.C.
government passed legislation allowing municipalities to obtain hydro
records showing high-consumption properties, then inspect those
properties.

Piloted in Surrey and Abbotsford, the approach has since been adopted in
Coquitlam, Langley Township, Mission, Pitt Meadows, Port Coquitlam,
Richmond, Surrey and Vancouver.

Recent hydro records show a 20 per cent drop in high-consumption
properties around the Lower Mainland. Now Garis fears the problem has
simply been displaced to more remote sites.

Gangs adapt quickly, buying power instead of stealing it, or going off the
grid with generators in remote places. Small towns have few police
resources, and can't afford electrical inspection teams on their own.

Garis points to a recent survey of hydroponic equipment stores that found
more than 80 in all regions of B.C., compared to 13 in Alberta and nine in
Washington state. Police, firefighters and business groups supported a
resolution at a recent municipal convention, calling on the B.C.
government to require an electrical permit for buyers of high-powered
lights and hydroponic gear. So far the government is non-commital.

I asked Solicitor General John van Dongen why. He said his priority lately
has been finding ways to regulate another illicit trade, metal theft. (A
court decision two years ago said municipalities can't require pawn shops
or scrap dealers to record sellers' identities.) He's also concerned about
restricting legitimate hydroponic farming.

"I'm going to take a bit more time to look at the hydroponic issue," he said.

Garis says other provinces are acting. In 2006 Manitoba agreed to pay for
electrical inspections, instead of leaving it to communities that can't
afford it, as B.C. is doing.

"We're a world crime superpower predicated on marijuana," a frustrated
Garis told me. "Eighty per cent of what we're growing here is being
distributed corporately to other provinces, the United States and
elsewhere.

"We've made a booming business out of it because we're resting on our
laurels, saying, oh, we don't want to regulate, and yet this thing just
spirals out of control. It's ridiculous."

Prohibition Doesn't Work

Before you start e-mailing me about the ultimate futility of prohibiting
marijuana, let me say I agree.

Former prime minister Paul Martin's government came close to
decriminalizing possession of small amounts of pot, which could have begun
to replace violent gangs with small-scale, benign growers.

Needless to say, Stephen Harper's Conservatives aren't keen. They prefer
mandatory minimum sentences for offenders, which sounds great until you
look at the state of our court and prison system.

If we could somehow solve drug gang violence, our courts would soon be
quiet. Last week an Abbotsford man was sentenced to 12 years for attempted
murder. He shot another man four times over a $140 drug debt.