EDITORIAL EXAGGERATES DANGER OF GROW HOUSES: READER

I think you are grossly exaggerating the danger posed by cannabis grow
operations. (the Post, Jan. 21).

Linking the production of cannabis with organized crime and a "litany of
other societal problems including drug trafficking, guns, assaults and
murder" is awfully specious.

No doubt, the huge profits are attractive to organized criminals, but the
claim that they are responsible for the establishment and maintenance of a
significant number of the hundreds-of-thousands of grow operations across
the country is very dubious. It certainly isn't the situation reported by
Forbes magazine in its recent profile of the Canadian cannabis industry.

Furthermore, if grow houses really were sites of frequent episodes of
assault and murder, then the sheer number of them would mean that the
newspapers and television news would be filled every day with the grisly
reports. The reality is that firearms are found at roughly 15 per cent of
grow houses that are busted, which is about half the rate at which firearms
are kept in Canadian homes in general.

According to the late Gil Puder, a Vancouver city cop, part of what makes
the war against cannabis attractive for police officers is the relative
safety for them. As for the accusation that grow operations are related to
drug trafficking, well, this rather obvious claim shows how desperate you
are to bolster your arguments supporting prohibition.

I'm certainly not going to defend the practice of stealing electricity.
However, it should be pointed out that this, like most of the problems
mentioned in the editorial, are the result of prohibition, not the drug
itself. Most growers could and would buy their electricity honestly, but
are encouraged to steal for the sake of increased security. This theft does
hurt everyone indirectly, but it could be stopped almost entirely, simply
by legalizing the production of cannabis. And, again, the danger posed by
this theft is exaggerated.

If the danger was as extreme as that described by the police, then the huge
numbers of grow-operations would guarantee that most urban communities
would resemble war zones. Unless, that is, the estimation of grow house
numbers itself is also a huge exaggeration. I agree with the lawyer
representing six of the people charged in connection with that massive grow
factory in Barrie. Considering the "harm" posed to society by these men and
the cannabis they grew, they don't belong in jail, and, as distasteful as
it may be to reactionaries across the country, there is a huge segment of
the public that finds the whole matter amusing.

Brad Dietrich, Port Alberni, B.C.

(By e-mail)