PUTTING POT IN PERSPECTIVE

The last two weeks have seen the issue of marijuana grow ops rear its
ugly head in Nanton.

The grow op in question involved nine plants.

Last month, Calgary Police Service Sergeant Roger Morrison told
landowners at the MD of Ranchland that grow operations are generally
the precursor to much worse things, namely funding the devlopment of
methaphetamine labs.

Here's some reality for you. Morrison says there's about a six-year
window of opportunity for meth abusers. That's how long they're going
to live.

We've got the problem, right in little ol' Nanton. It's booming in
popularity.

It's an ugly drug, methamphetamine. The abusers will show the classic
signs of extreme weight loss, tooth and hair loss, teeth grinding,
dark circles under the eyes from not sleeping for days on end, and red
noses. They get ulcers and sores on the skin from the itchy sensation
of bugs crawling out and from constantly picking at the skin. They
also have body odor from not only forgetting to wash, but from the
urine-smelling chemical that has to come out of their bodies somehow,
so it comes out their pores. The drug also causes obsessive compulsive
behavior, paranoia and other mental disorders.

The drug is cheap and extremely addictive. You can become addicted to
it in three tries. Recovery rates aren't good either. Where a regular
recovery program is 12 to 16 weeks, meth abusers have been put in
secure custody of up to a year, with only a 12% success rate.

Maybe it can be looked at as a type of gene-pool control.

But it's not that easy. The nature of the brings with it a crime rate
we just don't want to see.

Nine plants don't fund a meth lab. It wasn't worth hundreds of
thousands of dollars. It was really more an act of stupidity.

Let's put the focus on the meth. Do you want your child facing this
drug? Do you want those risks out there for future
generations?

Pot grow ops may be used to fund meth labs in other places, but it
would be great to focus on eliminating the very real problem of meth
sellers and abusers in this area.