GOING TO POT

THE senseless killing nine days ago of four RCMP officers by a cop-hating
loner in northern Alberta sparked a largely misleading debate about the
need to crack down on marijuana grow-operations, on the one hand, and the
merits of legalizing marijuana so that grow-ops could be taken out of the
hands of criminals, on the other.

The debate initially grew out of mistaken reports that the RCMP were
investigating a grow op on the farm of killer James Roszko. More recent
news reports, however, show that regardless of what happened in Alberta,
the issue of grow ops is one that Canadians must address.

A study released this week found that while grow ops are an increasingly
common source of vast quantities of increasingly high grade marijuana,
prosecution of growers is in decline. The study, conducted in British
Columbia, the hotbed of marijuana production in Canada, examined every
reported case of grow operations in the province between 1997 and 2003.

It found that full investigations of complaints -- meaning a search warrant
had been issued -- have fallen to 52 per cent of complaints from 91 per
cent over the study period. Conversely, the percentage of initial
investigations -- meaning the police might drive past the suspected grow op
- -- had jumped to 26 per cent from two per cent, while the percentage of
cases where police took no action had grown to 22 per cent from seven per
cent. The rate at which charges were laid on ever diminishing
investigations fell from 96 per cent to 76 per cent and the percentage of
convicted growers who were sent to jail dropped from 19 per cent to 10 per
cent.

In other words, the study found that the justice system -- from police, to
Crown prosecutors to judges -- is less likely to investigate, prosecute or
punish marijuana growers today than it was eight years ago. The head of
RCMP marijuana enforcement in B.C. said the results underline what he
called "grow op fatigue." He said: "Police are tired, as everyone else is,
of dealing with these things."

What all this tells Canadians is that they should make a decision, either
to put all the resources and effort necessary to investigate, prosecute and
incarcerate marijuana growers, a strategy that has demonstrably failed, or
Canadians must investigate how best to legalize and regulate the production
of marijuana. No other means has yet been found to take the trade out of
the hands of criminals.