HIGH TIME TO LEGALIZE IT

Yes, I live in Chestermere.

No, I don't run a marijuana grow operation out of my basement.

Neither do my neighbours (to the best of my knowledge).

There aren't glassy-eyed losers lined up at the Gas Plus looking to score a
deal on Doritos from my friend Roddy nor are there hash brownies for sale
at Coach Barth's soccer team bake sale.

But with more than $6 million worth of dope and equipment seized in 13
busts so far this year, you'd swear we've all gone to pot.

"I'd just as soon be in the headlines for busting these guys than not,"
says Mayor Dave Mikkelsen, a proud defender of our town of 3,700.

For a town with only two full-time RCMP officers and the closest back-up
more than 20 km away in Strathmore, Chestermere is catching dopers faster
than Texas fries inmates.

"There'll be a time that a message will be out there (to marijuana dealers)
that they're not welcome in Chestermere," says Mikkelsen.

"If that means we have to take down 100 houses, so be it."

The town is even going as far as inserting a sheet on how to spot a grow
operation with the next round of utility bills it mails out.

I admire the mayor's enthusiasm, but I'm far too cynical to believe these
well-meaning plans will smoke out dope dealers once and for all.

I tried to dig deep to find some moral reprehension within me to
cultivating marijuana.

Truth is, it doesn't bother me.

It's creative farming for a select clientele, as far as I'm concerned. Out
of sight, out of mind.

What is frightening is the cast of characters that take up dope growing for
a living.

And, unlike Mikkelsen's assertion that we'll eventually drive them all out
of town, I think a continuous cycle of busts will do little to curb the
problem. For every house that's busted, another three will spring up.

Dope dealers aren't going to go away and neither are potheads.

So at the very best, these are all Band-Aid solutions.

There is one highly unpopular treatment for the chronic pot problem.

Legalize it.

Once it's legal, tax it and make entrepreneurs take out a licence so their
product and business practices can be monitored.

Force all legal grow houses into industrial areas and away from
neighbourhoods where families are trying to raise children and live in peace.

From there, make the newly minted businessmen responsible for their own
legal security and have them report to police if they are getting
competition from illegal growers.

This will create a welcome set of extra eyes for our already stretched
officers. And you can bet that if you're paying high taxes to be in
business, you'll be quick to point out any competition that isn't playing
by the rules.

Federal stats show the average grower tending a 50-plant crop can harvest
three crops a year and make about $225,000.

That's easy money for the tax man which can then be turned around to fight
criminals flogging other much-deadlier drugs.

The critics will say this will be the beginning of the slippery slope, it
will send a bad message to our children and plunge our moral fibre to a new
low.

But the truth is, it would take the criminal element out of the pot
business and virtually stop the problem of grow-ops in residential areas.

So put that in your pipe and smoke it.