POT SEEN IN NEW LIGHT

The shocking deaths of four young Mounties in the line of duty
Thursday prompted both a quiet sadness and the din of debate.

Five men are dead and countless families' lives have been forever
changed over the investigation of a marijuana grow operation, maybe
one of 50,000 in Canada (an estimate from one enforcement official in
southern Ontario). Their numbers are growing, their industry
flourishing.

Before this week, grow ops had become something of a joke in Canada.
Many newspapers long ago stopped giving coverage to grow-op busts
because they were too numerous and too mundane. Every-day folk are
supplementing their incomes or just growing their own recreational
stash, and as long as they aren't stealing electricity (in other
words, asking the rest of us to subsidize their "hobby"), most of us
didn't care.

But now blood has been spilled. And we're forced to ask how much our
ambivalence or active participation and deafness to law enforcement
officials' warnings contributed to this tragedy.

Others, too, will suggest legalization of marijuana as a solution to
preventing future tragedies. Take the crime out of the industry, and
prices will go down, organized crime will move on to bigger payoffs
and police can get back to more serious issues.

That's a rosy view. Grow ops have flourished here not because of
domestic demand. The big money is found south of the border, where
grow operations face harsher sentences.

Without legalization in the U.S., something that is not going to
happen in the current political climate, marijuana will continue to be
an illicit drug with all the ugliness that goes part in parcel.

And it is ugly. Right here in our peaceful city, grow operations are
doing their business, complete with the weapons necessary to protect
their cash crops. Of the 45 grow operations busted by Lethbridge
police between 1999 and 2001, all but two had guns on hand.

Under the Criminal Code, production of marijuana carries a maximum
sentence of seven years, but there is no minimum. Cases recently
handled in Lethbridge have not resulted in jail time. In one case
where a northside home's entire basement had been converted to growing
pot, the perpetrator pleaded guilty and was given just an 18-month
conditional sentence for his first offence. Based on the size and
sophistication of the operation, this wasn't a case of a guy growing
for his own use. But off he went, back to his family, his job and life
in the community.

Given the number of plants found at the home, had that same case been
tried under U.S. federal law, the first offence would have carried a
sentence of not less than five years (not more than 40) and
potentially millions in fines. There are even stiffer penalties, at
least 10 years on first offence, for larger grow ops of 1,000 plants
or more. Second offence penalties are even harsher.

The federal Liberals, who have been accused of being too soft on pot
with their plans to reduce penalties for possession of small amounts,
had always said they would also look at getting tougher on producers
and traffickers. Thursday's events should spur that movement on.

But even if possession of small amounts is decriminalized, users
shouldn't think that absolves them of their part in the criminal
world. That pot is being grown by someone who may well have ties to
the organizations that will stop at nothing to get their crop to a
waiting American market. Along the way, people will be hurt and, as we
witnessed Thursday, killed. Please don't fool yourself into believing
marijuana's harmless. In the world of illicit drugs, there simply is
no such thing.