MEDICINAL POT GROW OP BUSTED

A Langley man with a Health Canada licence to grow marijuana was
busted by the RCMP's green team for stealing hydro and for growing
more plants than he was allowed to.

This is the fourth such bust Langley police have come across, where
the grower is licensed to grow. This has Langley RCMP's Supt. Janice
Armstrong asking Health Canada to require higher standards both of
the growers and the buildings they use.

On May 27, the drug section executed two search warrants for stealing hydro.

The first was in the 20400 block of 67B Avenue where one woman was
arrested and 800 pot plants seized from the basement.

The second warrant was for a grow op in the garage of a Brookswood
home. One man was arrested inside the house and 200 plants were seized.

However, the man had a legal right to grow the pot, just not as much
as he was growing.

He has a medicinal marijuana licence which permits him to legally
grow 30 plants.

Medicinal marijuana is proving to have a lot of benefits for people
suffering from many painful diseases like MS. It also can help fight
nausea and increase appetite of cancer patients going through chemotherapy.

In Canada, there are more than 2,000 people who have medicinal
marijuana licences, said Amstrong.

"Currently, there is no procedure in place to ensure that those
individuals with licences are obtaining building permits in order to
ensure the grow operation is done safely and conforms to local safety
standards," said Langley RCMP Supt. Janice Armstrong.

"Growing marijuana indoors - legally or not - tends to result in
health, fire and safety hazards related to electrical
reconfiguration, structural changes and excessive moisture. Also,
there is no procedure in place to inform local governments of the
licences issued in our communities."

Criminologist Dr. Daryl Plecas remarked at a recent Langley Rotary
meeting that licenced growers may become the new headache for police,
as illegal grow ops become fewer and fewer but legal ones increase,
he predicts.

"I believe Health Canada needs to require electrical, fire and
building inspections as part of the medicinal marijuana licencing
approval process," said Armstrong.