OVERBLOWN POLICE WORK

Re: Gazette, July 21, "Pot plants worth $600,000 seized," which concerned a
police raid of a home on Beaconsfield Blvd.

Police usually exaggerate about so-called grow-ops. They do this so that it
will appear to the media - and the public - that they are actually
accomplishing something, which we know isn't true.

Police say that each pot plant is worth $1,000, even if it was only 4
inches tall. If police were to answer the question "How many plants were
mature enough to have produced half a pound of dried bud?" (to make them
worth $1,000) or "How many plants were under a foot tall?" the bust
wouldn't seem so impressive.

A single cannabis plant needs 12 to 16 weeks of tender loving care under
bright lights to produce 200 grams ($1,000) of dried bud.

To say that a little seedling is worth $1,000 is like saying that a pile of
car parts is a $20,000 car. It is exaggeration bordering on fabrication.

Much like someone trying to bail out a sinking ship with a thimble, police
aren't making any progress fighting the black market and they know it.

They refuse to admit their obvious and humiliating defeat. So instead of
asking the government to plug the leak - by regulating cannabis - they just
keep asking for more elaborate and expensive thimbles.

Russell Barth

Federal Medical Marijuana

Licence Holder

Educators For Sensible

Drug Policy

Ottawa