OFFICERS HAVE POT FLASHBACK

Police Recognize Items Found In Grow Operation

Equipment From Earlier Raids Bought At Auction

When York Region police officers raided a marijuana growing operation
in Whitchurch-Stouffville in August, the equipment seemed awfully familiar.

It was.

An investigation revealed that many of the household items in the
operation -- scales, fans, generators and dehumidifiers -- had been
seized by police in earlier raids and later sold at government
auctions. Some of the goods were first taken by York police in 1998;
others came from drug raids in Halton Region and London, Ont., in 2002.

York police Chief Armand LaBarge this week sent a letter to Scott
Brison, federal minister of public works and government services,
saying he was "appalled" that seized drug lab equipment is auctioned
off. In the letter LaBarge urged Brison to change the Seized Property
Management Act.

"My proposal is that rather than sell the items at public auction,
that (the federal government) destroy the items," LaBarge said
yesterday. "It's obviously falling back into the hands of the criminal
community. We don't want to be seizing the same things over and over
again. Where does it end?"

Public works spokesperson Jack Korwin said the department's policy is
to destroy items specific to the drug trade, but to auction most other
goods, even if seized from a drug operation.

"If it's an item that has a legitimate commercial use we try to sell
it for fair market value, whether that's through auction or some other
means."

Korwin said the ministry doesn't auction hydroponics equipment, such
as high-powered lamps, which have commercial uses but are often used
to grow marijuana. Instead, he said, the ministry would donate
equipment like that to a school or botanical garden with the
understanding that it not be resold.

Under the Seized Property Management Act, police store seized goods
until the court orders them turned over to the federal government. If
the case ends in acquittal, the goods are returned to the owner. But
if it ends in conviction the government sells them to a liquidator,
which auctions them off.

According to the department's website, goods worth $71 million were
seized in 2002-03; sales netted $12.8 million.

LaBarge has been hearing anecdotal reports of recycled drug equipment
for two years, but says he had no concrete evidence until the August
raid in Whitchurch-Stouffville, where many items already bore
"incident numbers" that police use to brand impounded goods. Other
equipment had stickers from auction houses.

"Some of the liquidators wipe the incident numbers off," he said. "We
may well have encountered this on a number of occasions before, but
without the incident number to actually do the tracing it's impossible
to tell."