POT RAIDS UNRELATED TO EMERY, POLICE SAY

VANCOUVER -- Police seized more than 13,000 marijuana plants during
numerous raids across Greater Vancouver and Vancouver Island in the month
before marijuana crusader Marc Emery was arrested late last week.

However, the aggressive crackdown on the province's illegal
marijuana-growing business was not part of the investigation that led to
the arrest of Mr. Emery, police said yesterday.

"We would certainly co-operate where we can, as well, we would want their
co-operation," said Staff Sergeant Dale Hockley of the Coquitlam RCMP
detachment.

But agents from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency did not come to Canada and
direct the RCMP to clamp down on the illegal drug trade, he said. "I do not
believe so. Not to my knowledge," Staff Sgt. Hockley said.

Mr. Emery was arrested last Friday after the U.S. government requested his
extradition to face charges of money laundering and conspiracy to produce
marijuana and distribute marijuana seeds.

The arrest followed an 18-month investigation during which Mr. Emery sold
seeds to undercover agents by mail and in person, Cannabis Culture magazine
has reported.

The DEA has offices in Ottawa and Vancouver.

"I don't know where you got my number," an unidentified agent in the Ottawa
office said before transferring the call to an answering machine to take a
request for an interview.

No one from the Ottawa office responded to the request.

According to Special Agent Jeff Eig, a spokesman for the enforcement agency
office in Seattle, agents in the U.S. war on drugs operate in Vancouver out
of an office that opened two or three years ago.

An official with the U.S. consulate in Vancouver said agents would not be
available for interviews at least until September.

Special Agent Eig confirmed that the agency would consider using undercover
operations in a foreign country. However, he would not comment on the
techniques used in the Emery investigation or any other aspect of the
agency's activities in Canada.

The enforcement agency in Vancouver has three full-time people and others
who are in and out, the on-line journal http://www.thetyee.ca reported last
fall.

U.S. government spokesmen have said the Vancouver office was to deal with
the province's booming marijuana industry and with heroin trafficking from
Southeast Asia, Tyee.com reported last year.

Earlier this week, RCMP in the Vancouver suburb of Coquitlam discovered an
indoor marijuana growing operation on Charland Avenue with 200 plants when
responding to a report of gunshots. They also found a 51-year old man who
had been shot. The man, whose identity has not yet been disclosed, died
later at the hospital.

The Charland Avenue bust came two weeks after police found about 1,900
marijuana plants at three other locations in Coquitlam.

The marijuana busts were among several raids on grow-ops in July. RCMP in
the central Vancouver Island city of Duncan seized 1,700 plants in two
raids in the Cowichan Valley. Burnaby RCMP seized 4,400 plants in three
busts. Chilliwack RCMP seized about 2,300 plants in six busts. But the
busts were unrelated to the Emery arrest, police said.

"We have not had any formal dealings with the [Drug Enforcement Agency],"
Constable Steve Hiscoe said.

RCMP began investigating the growing number of marijuana operations in the
area a few years ago. Constable Hiscoe pointed to a "Grow Watch" program,
modelled on the successful Block Watch program, as a highly effective
measure that has helped police. The program encourages neighbours to notify
police about houses that may be used for marijuana-growing operations, he said.

Chilliwack has been a busy place for marijuana grow-ops, he said. "We're
aggressively pursuing it."