GROW OPS A BASE FOR ORGANIZED CRIME - COLEMAN

Lax laws are putting out the welcome mat for marijuana growers, and, kilo
for kilo, their harvest is linked directly to the cocaine trade, Solicitor
General Rich Coleman says.

"The police are doing their job. They are pursuing the grow ops. The
problem is that after they take the grow ops down, the system is letting
them down," he said in a phone interview from Victoria Thursday.

Drug infractions in B.C. are a federal offence, and cases are decided by
federally-appointed judges, Coleman noted. "So the challenge is that if you
look at the two jurisdictions, 82% of people who are charged and convicted
of a grow operation offence do not receive a high enough fine or a jail term."

On Washington's Whatcom County, he said, the sentence for a first offence
is a minimum of three months in jail.

"You can be charged up to seven times for a grow op before the court system
will send someone to jail in B.C.," he said. "So right now we are the
softest jurisdiction in Canada and probably North America, not just for
marijuana, but for all drugs. That is not acceptable."

While Whatcom County has few grow ops, the Fraser Valley likely has a
couple of thousand.

"It doesn't take anybody with any level of intelligence to figure what is
wrong. Our jurisdiction hasn't been serious and we want them to become
serious. The push from my office to the Federal Solicitor General's office
has been very strong," Coleman said.

Federal Solicitor General Wayne Easter recently viewed Surrey's illicit
drug problem.

"He has seen firsthand what the problem is and he is saying that the courts
have to back up the police and give stiffer sentences," Coleman said.

The link with serious crime cannot be discounted, he said. "We should be
very clear what grow-ops are. They are the base of organized crime in B.C."

Easter has appointed Kevin Begg, head of police services in B.C., to chair
a committee to make recommendations on more severe punishment and more
extensive measures to seize the assets of pot growers.