TIME TO GET TOUGH ON DRUGS

The slaughter of four RCMP officers in Alberta Thursday re-enforces the
need for Canada's legal system to get tough on those responsible for
marijuana grow operations.

But rather than politicians looking to judges to hand down stiffer
sentences, the law makers themselves need to bring in minimum penalties to
ensure those who are convicted actually serve jail time. It's not enough to
raise the maximum penalties when fewer than one in seven people convicted
of growing marijuana in B.C. in the past two years spent any time in jail.

Sure we can give Mounties high-tech thermal imaging cameras to help them
find grow-ops by scanning for the high-heat signatures of the hydroponic
lights, but that tool is essentially useless if the growers are not
incarcerated.

No longer are we dealing with people cultivating enough plants to keep
themselves and their buddies high, or those who are in the business for
some supplemental income. Rather they are part of the international
criminal drug trade and their presence in our communities are increasingly
hazardous. Often these large-scale operations are heavily fortified,
booby-trapped and guarded with guns and other weapons.

It's estimated there are more than 1,000 active grow-ops in Burnaby and 100
in New Westminster, and the Mounties figure they're only aware of about
one-quarter of the grow-ops in the province.

Clearly something needs to be done, especially when people are being killed.