SEIZED POT WORTH $14-MILLION

Police officers raided a rural farm north of Havelock on Tuesday and
seized someone's field of dreams -- more than 14,000 marijuana plants
with a street value of $14-million.

Detective Sergeant Dean Steinke of the Kawartha Combined Forces Drug
Unit said it is the largest seizure this year for the unit , which is
made up of members from the Drug Enforcement Section of the OPP, Rural
Agricultural Crime Team (OPP), Peterborough OPP, Peterborough/Lakefield
Police and the Port Hope Police Service.

The property had been used exclusively for farming marijuana.

"We're looking at 10 to 20 acres of marijuana; a trenched-out
irrigation system, very rugged, very rough terrain," Det. Sgt. Steinke
said. "This land hasn't been farmed in years."

The farmhouse is located approximately 10 minutes north of Havelock
off County Road 46 on the dead-end Anderson Road.

The fields were accessible with all-terrain vehicles. A trailer was
used to bring the plants out of the field for loading on to a large truck.

Apart from this find, Det. Sgt. Steinke said growers in the province
seem to be moving farther north.

"Our partners between North Bay and Timmins are inundated with drug
grows," he said. "We hit them so hard here in the last three years,
the KCFDU and all the police agencies have been hammering down on
these grows -- coupled with community input."

He also said he is frustrated that Canada's legal system isn't more
effective at curtailing growers' activities.

"Compared to the United States, there is very little deterrent," he
said."The maximum (sentence) for marijuana production is seven years
and we have yet to see anyone get seven years."

Because of the light penalties and huge profits, Det. Sgt. Steinke
said, there is no way growers are going to stop.

"We know that our marijuana in Ontario and Canada is mostly for export
to the United States, and what comes back is cocaine," he said. "And
that's a real problem we have with young people. If you take all the
marijuana that we have traced that has gone south, and all the cocaine
that has come north, and you look at the violence and the gang wars
that are going on in and around the province -- the shootings, the
killings, the deaths: it all has to do with one thing and that's drugs."

Another startling statistic is the number of weapons found when police
seize drugs like marijuana.

"Our seizures of weapons, especially firearms, has gone up over 100
per cent," Det. Sgt. Steinke said.

He believes more guns are used because there is so much competition in
the market.

"Growers are actually protecting themselves from other people ripping
them off," he said.

In Bancroft, where police seized 40,000 plants, the suspects were
living in foxholes, he added.

Although no arrests were made on Tuesday, police say they do know who
the suspects are.