FOR COPS, IT'S POT HARVESTING TIME

Drugs RCMP Officers Expect To Get Usual Flurry Of Calls From People
Who Stumble On Grow Ops In Woods

HAMPTON - Police expect to spend a lot of time in the woods ripping
pot plants from the ground, says the head of the RCMP's District 3
plain-clothes section.

"The next few weeks is when we start to get a lot of calls," Cpl.
Roger Gillies said. "This is the time of year when people are in the
woods and come across marijuana plants, usually planted on wood lots,
Crown land or Irving land."

Moose hunters staking out the deep woods for their best lookout spot
for their September hunt, or people enjoying nature for fishing and
hiking are among the most likely to stumble across a grow operation,
sometimes an elaborate one.

Gillies said while there is sometimes no way of knowing who the
plants belong to, their owners are no doubt seriously disappointed
when they arrive to check on their crop and find it pulled from the ground.

While not everyone is familiar with how the leafy green marijuana
plant looks, Gillies said a cluster of plants is obvious by the
skunky smell filling the air around it. Many of them are fenced in,
he added, to keep deer out.

They can be in some of the most unlikely remote places, the officer
said, often well off the beaten path, which makes finding them
difficult without calls from citizens who discover them.

"People are out there and finding these (plantations)," he said. "We
are asking them to call their local detachment of the RCMP or Crime
Stoppers" so the crop can be destroyed before it is harvested and marketed.

Gillies confirmed that unit, with help from uniformed members of the
Hampton RCMP, discovered a grow operation that was less hidden. He
said around 3:15 p.m. Tuesday police executed a search warrant under
the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and raided a property in Upperton.

About 400 plants, most of them only about 30 centimetres high and
others at various stages of growth, were scattered around the
dooryard of the rural home. There were some plants inside the house
and police seized two unsecured rifles inside.

A 41-year-old man was arrested and will face drug and firearm-related
charges on Sept. 22 in Hampton provincial court.

Gillies said a much less rural location was the scene of a bust
within Sussex town limits last week. In the small backyard of a Park
Street home, officers seized four large plants "the size of trees."

It is "very odd" to find plants of that size growing with such
prominence in a residential area, Gillies said.

While legitimate farmers are concerned about the complications the
over abundance of rain is causing their crops, Gillies said marijuana
growers are facing similar challenges with their plants. Marijuana
plants rely on a healthy balance of sun and rain to grow.

"With all the rain and so little sun, this hasn't been a great season
for growing anything," the officer said.