DRUG CRIME NOURISHED IN SLEEPY COMMUNITIES

Freedom From Nosy Neighbours A Plus

Toronto And Whitecourt, Alta. -- By all accounts, Canada is in the midst of
a marijuana grow-op boom. In just about every urban community, police are
pulling pot out of dirt-filled basements underneath ordinary houses.

But the real action often lies hidden in the suburbs and the boonies. Large
farmhouses have concealed huge growing operations. Rows of boxcars have
been buried in fields to create makeshift subterranean bunkers filled with
marijuana.

For criminals, the wide-open spaces of rural areas can be alluring. Nosy
neighbours are few and far between. Easier access to transportation routes
are enticing. And police forces tend to be small outfits, with fewer
resources and dedicated drug squads.

"Big-city crime is moving into the rural areas," David Bray, spokesman for
Alberta Attorney-General Harvey Cenaiko, said yesterday.

He said the province has long been seeking federal help to increase drug
policing.

"It's happening more and more in the rural areas," he said. "I'm
speculating that farmhouses and sheds are harder to find [for police]. It's
cheaper, and its hidden away from prying eyes."

The area and highways surrounding Mayerthorpe have been singled out as a
drug-trafficking concern by police and politicians. Grow-ops are "in rural
places and can quickly transport to British Columbia and then south," said
one police officer, who asked not to be named.

Dan Bryant is a 26-year-old oil-patch worker in nearby Whitecourt who says
this part of Northern Alberta is perfect for marijuana grow-ops.

"It's rural, people leave you alone," he said yesterday as he dropped off
four yellow daffodils at the Whitecourt RCMP detachment in memory of the
four slain Mounties.

But according to local police, the bigger problem in the area is crystal
methamphetamine and crack cocaine.

Police in Whitecourt are busy busting crystal-meth and crack operations in
this booming oil and gas town. There are a lot of young people with a lot
of disposable income, RCMP Constable Jeff Feist said, but the police
haven't zeroed in on why the drug problem is escalating.

But police across Canada for years have made what is called a "gateway"
argument concerning drug operations -- that groups that cut their teeth on
marijuana cultivation eventually like to try their hand at more profitable
chemical drugs.

And there is an ever-increasing amount of sophistication. Police said Asian
groups have created a whole division of labour around marijuana
cultivation: Some people specialize in buying houses, some electricians
rewire houses, sitters mind the plants and others chop them up and
distribute the product.

Even the Mounties marvelled at the ingenuity of a scheme involving an
underground bunker discovered in Manitoba in 2001.

"Eight railroad cars had been transported by truck on to a private property
and buried side by side in a field a short distance from the landowners,"
an RCMP marijuana-cultivation report said.

A man paid to grow the plants lived in one car, complete with bathroom and
shower facilities. The second car held a generator. The remaining six cars
contained a total of 1,400 marijuana plants watered by a reverse-osmosis
filtering system.

Similar bunkers have been recently found in Red Deer, Alta.

Suburbs and small towns also hold a certain appeal: Houses are cheaper and
larger, electricity can be easy to steal, and neighbours in new
subdivisions don't know one another.