BOTCHED GROW-OP RAID ILLUSTRATES NEED TO WIND DOWN 'NUTTY WAR' DRUGS

A raid on an East Side home mistakenly identified as a marijuana grow-op
last week is an example of the "collateral damage" from the failed war on
drugs, says the president of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association.

John Dixon said police are bound to make mistakes, and given the magnitude
of the marijuana industry in the city, should put down their guns and stop
busting grow-ops.

"Since it appears more and more clear that the police have entered the forum
as players-they have public relations flaks and policy people-they should be
standing in line with us at the Supreme Court of Canada in November
intervening to urge the court to find that the possession of marijuana
should not be a criminal offense," said Dixon, who called last week's raid
on 86-year-old Yat Wah Pang's home "terrible" and "distressing."

"The war [on drugs] is nuts, ill-conceived and is now clearly producing more
social harm than anyone could possibly imagine."

Pang, who walks with a cane, and his daughter Rowena Liu had just returned
home from lunch last Wednesday when members of the police's Grow Busters
team showed up at the door with guns drawn.

Police pointed a gun at Liu's face and put her in handcuffs while Pang was
told to sit in a chair until police finished searching the two-level
well-kept home, located near East 15th and Rupert. Police didn't find any
marijuana and later apologized for the incident.

However, police have not said the family is innocent, saying they had
reasonable grounds to believe a grow-op existed in the house and that it
could have been dismantled before police arrived.

The family denies the allegations and has since contacted the internal
affairs section of the police department and is filing a complaint with the
Office of Police Complaints Commissioner.

Pang's granddaughter Elsa said Monday the family wants to know what grounds
police had for the raid and is considering hiring a lawyer.

Chief Constable Jamie Graham told the Courier Friday that the department was
sorry for the raid and planned to personally call Liu and apologize. Graham
said policing is not an "exact science," and police make mistakes. Before he
could discuss the grounds for the raid, however, he had to stop the
interview to return to an in-camera police board meeting.

The Courier cannot access the written reasons for obtaining a search warrant
until police file a "report to justice" with the court-a form indicating
what police seized from the house, if anything.

Police have given no indication of when the report to justice will be filed.
Messages left for Sgt. Tom Cork, who is in charge of Grow Busters, were not
returned before deadline.

In the last two years, Grow Busters has executed 800 search warrants for
grow-ops, only three of which turned up no marijuana.

But Dixon said taking an aggressive approach to busting grow-ops only
increases the sophistication of the operations and attracts organized crime,
leading to assaults and murders.