TOO FEW GROWERS GO TO JAIL, OFFICIALS SAY

TORONTO -- It was the gunshots heard from the basement that first
brought police just north of Toronto to the home of a Vietnamese-born
restaurant worker three years ago.

But it was the covered windows, extra ventilation ducts and melted
snow surrounding the building that persuaded them to stay. When the
man answered his door, police spotted small plants in his hallway.

His marijuana grow operation consisted of 481 plants fed with lights
plugged into an electrical bypass that had milked Markham Hydro of
$4,039.

The man pleaded guilty to operating a grow-op and stealing electricity
and received a conditional sentence (just under two years of house
arrest).

According to a report produced by the Ontario Association of Chiefs of
Police, only a third of all Ontario grow-op convictions between
January 2000 and June 2003 -- 777 people -- went to jail. Those who
were incarcerated were free after an average of 145 days. That's
compared to sentences in the U.S., which are typically between 33 and
87 months in prison.

Police and criminologists say low sentences drive the proliferation of
grow-ops like that at the centre of Thursday's fatal shootout in
Alberta. "There is virtually no sentencing and organized crime groups
have realized that and said, 'Let's take advantage of this,"' said
Det. Staff Sgt. Rick Barnum of the Ontario Provincial Police's Drug
Enforcement Section.