GETTING RID OF UNWANTED WEED

Toxicologist Suggests Incineration Is Best Route

Now that police have broken up the biggest pot growing operation in
Canadian history, they face a second problem: how to dispose of 30,000
marijuana plants.

"Something this large, there is no normal practice," said Barrie
Police Sergeant George Cabral. "That may present some difficulty in
itself."

The plants will either be burned or buried. But there's so much stock,
the police aren't exactly sure how they should proceed with the process.

And since the plants are in various stages of growth, many of them
still in potting soil, police won't know exactly how much volume
they're dealing with for several days.

"We're not talking pounds and pounds," Cabral said. "We're talking
tons and tons."

Authorities are considering the dilemma in the wake of a massive
weekend bust. Police uncovered a sprawling marijuana grow operation
hidden in plain sight in the former Molson brewery on Highway 400 near
Barrie. The site held eating and sleeping quarters for up to 50 men,
police said, and was capable of generating hundreds of millions of
dollars. Nine men face charges in connection with the bust.

More charges are expected as the investigation continues.

Right now, police aren't even sure who will make the final decision on
what's to be done with the piles of pot.

"We'll just have to wait to see what's going to be done," said Cabral.
"They will have to be destroyed."

Keith Solomon, director of the Centre for Toxicology at the University
of Guelph, has some suggestions.

"The easiest thing would be to have it incinerated," Solomon
said.

Police are also considering shredding the plants, mixing it with other
garbage and burying it.

"If it were buried, they have to make sure it's deep enough so that it
wouldn't germinate," Solomon said. "If it's mixed with other garbage,
it would be a lot of work to dig it up, but some people ... might
attempt to do that. So I suspect they'll incinerate it and won't tell
anybody where they're doing it."

Police have confirmed that whatever happens to the plants will happen
at a secret location.

But even if certain enthusiasts are able to attend an outdoor bonfire,
they aren't likely to get much for their trouble, according to Solomon.

"The joke would be that people should stand downwind," Solomon said.
"But the concentrations wouldn't be effective. All you'd get is a lung
full of smoke, but it would be diluted because it mixes with the air
and wouldn't be effective."

For now, police are busy getting a handle on the enormous size of
their bust and cataloguing the evidence.

"They're in doing photographs and video and cataloguing the various
pieces," said OPP superintendent Bill Crate. Samples are being taken
in order to forensically determine that the plants are marijuana.
Those few samples will then be presented as evidence.

"We're not going to take 30,000 plants into court with us," Crate
said.