TWO ARRESTED IN CANADA'S LARGEST OPIUM BUST

CHILLIWACK, B.C. - Two men have been arrested after police in British
Columbia made the largest opium bust in Canadian history this week.

The nearly three-hectare field held as many as 60,000 plants,
Chilliwack RCMP said yesterday.

When officers arrived at the site on Monday, they found two men
tending the field. A 31-year-old man from Abbotsford, B.C., and a
24-year-old man from Mission, B.C., were arrested.

Police said the men are likely facing charges of production of a
controlled substance and possession for the purpose of
trafficking.

While opium can be used to produce heroin, police believe the plants
were grown to produce doda, a powder that is combined with tea or hot
water. The drink, which produces a quick high and a sense of
well-being, is popular in some South Asian communities.

Corporal Kurt Bosnell of the RCMP's drug section said the first
challenge police faced was to conclusively identify the plants as
opium poppies.

"There's very few instances where this has occurred in Canada before,
so it took some time in order to confirm exactly what it was.

"Once we were able to confirm there were opium poppies growing in the
field, then we took some steps to gather the evidence and the grounds

needed to get a search warrant for the field," he said.

"Some pressure was put on us because we were trying to get to the
field before the opium poppies were too mature. If we left it too
long, we were going to run the risk of thousands of seeds from each
pod capsule on the top of these opium poppies being spread not only
within this field but ... within other fields in the area."

RCMP spokeswoman Corporal Lea-Anne Dunlop said police have worked to
try to ensure the Chilliwack poppy crop is gone for good.

"What's going to be important now for this investigation is the
eradication of the plants in the field and to ensure they're not going
to come back," she said.

Staff Sergeant Dave Goddard of the RCMP federal drug-enforcement
branch said that while the importation of doda is on the rise, this
harvest may be the first of its kind in British Columbia.

"We're seeing more and more cases where doda is being imported into
the country and purchased by consumers here locally. This is probably
the first production of its kind that I have seen in British Columbia,
if not one of the first in Canada itself."

He said the scale of the operation would have required the
participation of numerous people. "This is obviously being done for
commercial resale value. The people involved in this type of a grow
have to have an organization behind them."